Whipping the Government Into Shape

ACCORDING TO THE NUMBERS, the American government, which means Congress and the President, passed fewer pieces of legislation in 2013 than in any other year in American history, going way back. That may not be entirely true, but its probably pretty close, and it highlights the fact that President Obama can't get along with the Republicans in the House of Reps, and the fact that our government, and our nation, is seriously divided, as usual. The term "do nothing congress" was invented, most likely, by President Harry Truman in the late nineteen forties. Every American president has at one time or another complained about congress; always the same "do nothing" complaint, which is code for "I can't control them and make them enact my agenda." But maybe our do nothing government aint such a bad thing. It could be argued that that government which governs least governs best, as Locke, Hume, Jefferson et al believed back in the enlightened and revolutionary late eighteenth century. Early twentieth century American comedian Will Rogers once said that the invention of air conditioning was the most harmful event in American hisotry, becuase it permitted Congress to meet year round, including in the stifling heat of an ordinary Washington D.C. summer. No more extended summer weather breaks for government. More time for congress to pass laws, spend money, and make a bigger mess, in languid, air conditioned comfort. Famed frontiersman and congressional character Davy Crockett spent three terms in Congress and never sponsored a single piece of legislation that got passed. Everything he proposed got voted down. For that reason historians have tended to lable him an ineffective politician. True, but it could also be argued that at least Crockett, unlike the rest of them, didn't do any more harm than had alredy been done. Davy was just too honest and too independent to be a consensus builder and political deal maker. He didn't play the game. Ironically, everything Davy stood for was good and honorable, like land rights for frontier folks. He just couldn't get the big money east coast people to turn loose of the land. The problem with our government today is that even though we really don't want it to do too much, we want it to at least pass a federal budget every year, and it can't even do that. If only we had President Harry Truman and Congressman Davy Crodkett to whip 'em all into shape!

Living Outside the Box

A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE is in his early sixties, and he has two young sons, about ten and twelve years of age. He and his boys are going through a period of life, the pre-adolescent phase I think its called, in child raising, which most fathers usually go through twenty or twenty five years earlier in life. By the time one is in one's early sixties one is most usually helping raise grandchildren, and is long finished raising one's own children. My friend takes both boys to soccer practice, throws batting practice for them, does all the things a man usually has stored in his memory as he reaches retirement age. He says the boys wear him to a frazzle, and he has sore muscles he didn't even know were muscles, but its all worth the pain and suffering, and humiliation. My friend simply married late in life, and started his family late in life. He may not live long enough to ever have much to do with his grandchildren, but somehow you just feel that he does not regret that, doesn't even think about it much. There are times when you admire people who do not engage in activities at an appropiate, predictable, conventional age. The elderly person hiking up a mountain, or learing a new language, or taking classes in college. The young child who is an accomplished piano player, or reads above his grade level, or is interested in art and music rather than video games. Anything inappropiate, anything outside the box, off the well traveled trail. Here's to all the good folks who refuse to follow the herd, refuse to live in the comfort zone, those who care nothing for convention, and who pursue life with a passionate anything can be done attitude. That's the true American spirit, and for that matter, the true human spirit. The spirit of adventure, of fearlessly knowing that you are right, then going ahead. To all those who live outside the box; congratulations!

Let There Always Be Christmas!

CHRISTMAS IS A LOVELY HOLIDAY. Especially the lights, the decorations, the music, and all the other aspects. And it couldn't come at a better time, just after the winter solstice. Theological scholars believe that Jesus was really born in early April, in the spring. Winterfest winter solstice Christmas is a concession to northern Europeans, and it helped spread Christianity. Throughout history, in many parts of the world, such as early America, Christmas has been ingored. We modern folks have turned it into a religious and a festival type holiday, all in one. Joshua ben Joseph, aka Jesus, never wrote anything down on paper, such as instructions for the rest of us on how to live, but instead relied on word of mouth, which really seems strange, especially since, during his lifetime, written texts were common. Jesus must have known that by leaving his message only by word of mouth, it would result in its being distorted. Wouldn't it be great if Jesus had written a gospel of his own, to go along with Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John? If he had, we wouldn't really need Mathew, Mark, Luke, nor John, would we? Who would dare write an account differing from that of the main man? To execute a man as beautiful as Jesus, on the trumped up false charges against him, was and is incredibly stupid, barbariic, and shameful. A complete miscarriage of justice. A sad commentary on the people involved. I swear, had I been standing among the Jewish mob, I woulda yelled for Jesus, not Barabbas. Barabbas had a rap sheet a mile long, as a criminal, thief, thug, and Jesus was merely a teacher, a priest, a philosopher, telling people things that seemed harmless enough, among which was "I am no threat to anyone." Why would any idiot think Barabbas was a better person to set free than Jesus? The Bible was assembled at the Council of Nicea, in 325 A.D., by a large group of high ranking church officials, amid much dissension, disagreement, and controversy. It has many different writing styles and personalities, as if it were written by many different people, each contributing a book or two. Many interesting books were left out of the Bible, in order to compromise. And the Christian religion is evolving, as always. For the sake of all the fun it is, even though many people are unfortunately unhappy during the Christmas season, most aren't, so let there always be Christmas!

How Things Turned Out in 2014

WHEN I WAS A CHILD, in the nineteen sixties, I fantasized that by the year 2014 I would have the option of living on the moon or Mars, hunger and disease would be conquered, there would be no more war, and I'd be living in a very high tech, beam me down scottie paradise. Reckon it didn't quite turn out that way. The persistence of war, and the persistence of dictatorial, tyrannical governments around the world is another thing which surprises me, and which I would've hoped would be gone by now. The very idea of someone, anyone, gaining great political power, such as complete control of a country, at a relatively young age, and keeping that power throughout life seems, somehow, primitive, appalling, and inappropiate in a world which increasingly embraces democracy and equality, at least in name. Cuba, for instance. What Cuba needs, it almost seems, is some democracy and term limits. For one man to be in complete dictatorial power for fifty five years, without ever running for reelection, in this modern world seems a bit, shall we say, "extreme", or "anachronistic", doesn't it? In 1990, when the Berlin wall came down and the Soviet Union broke up into all the countries which comprised it, there was a sense of great excitement among advocates of democracy, and hope, that the newly independent Russia would embrace democracy, and the freedom of capitalism, and maybe retain a good deal of economic and political equality. Alas, 'twas not to be. The old autocratic spirit proved too strong and deeply ingrained to be so quickly evicted. Vladimir Putin rules Russia with an iron hand which is far more remindful of previouis Russian Tsars than modern presidents of progressive democtracies. He, like Castro, has been in power way too long, with no end in sight. One of the great things about the United States of America is that, for the most part, nobody is ever in power for very long. Our heads of state come and go. Our national legislators need to come and go a bit more often, but we're working on it. It would be nice to have a greater variety to choose from in America, politically, but at least we get to choose.

Giving Thanks, at Christmas, For Socialistic Salvation

SO HERE I AM, living in a truly great semi-socialistic nation, the United States of America. Its maybe or maybe not the greatest nation, but that doesn't matter, its a great nation. And how wonderful, that our illustrious President, Barack Hussein Obama, saved our great nation, and that thus we still have it, at the advent of the 2013 yuletide. Like, hallelujah. Obama, and the people who worked with him, saved the Bank of America, AIG, Citigroup, General Motors, Chryslar, and about a trillion other giant corporations, right at the beginning of his Presidency. They all went bankrupt, all of America's giant financial services corporations, kaput, outta business, if you'll recall. Back then, in 2009, if the government doesn't step in, and lend-give billions to our fallen corporate giants-masters, corporate America goes belly up, and thus, belly up goes America. Let's make no mistake about that. Maybe we shouldn't be so dependent on our large corporations, but we are, and as they go, we all go. Its crazy the way conservative capitalistic republicans couldn't understand that back then, and apparently still don't. The conservative republicans were just too damned proud of their pure capitalistic religion, in which all government intervention in the economy, even to save it, is bad. Its too funny. The socialist President and his fellow socialist legislators using government socialism to save capitalism from its greedy self, like usual, like it did during the great dpression, with the "New Deal". The worshippers of corporate capitalism are probably claiming that our economy would be better off right now if all these companies had been allowed to go through the regular bankruptcy process. Yeah, right. Years of mass corporate bankruptcy proceedure, as the recession deepens into a never ending depression. Please bear in mind that the very concept of a "bankruptcy process" is in itself a gracious socialistic program which allows failed capitalistic enterprises, which in a fair and competitive economy should be dead, to stay alive, with socialistic (government) help and protection. Long live free entgerprise, and thank the dear lord for the socialism which makes it all possible. Hallelajuh, and Happy Holidays!

Ridiculing the Ridiculous, Politically Correctly

ITS ALMOST AN "Only in America" thing. Except, they do it in other countries too. IN fact, they do it everywhere. They distort history, grotesquely, to serve some political agenda, or to make some lame point or express some lame pet peeve. The Jews are destroying Germany. Uncle Joe Stalin was our benevolent protector. The founding fathers of America were all Christians; that sort of thing. Distortions. Lies. But the idea that African-Americans were happy before the civil rights movement, as recently put forth by a long bearded American television celebrity, is so crazy that its hilarious. Of course there's actually a kernel of truth to it. A very very small kernel. Hell, for the most part, give a human being food, clothing, and shelter, decent health, a friend or two, and something to do, and its reasonably content. People who have spent decades in prison stop wanting to be released in many cases. "Habit is our only comfort. We dislike doing without even those unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed", said the oft quoted and spot on Goethe. Folks may be reasonably content, reasonably free of misery, but that don't mean that they are "happy" with their station in life. Not by a long shot. Before civil rights, African-Americans were not happy with their station in life. Every American television star has the sacred right to tell grotesquely distorted history, and the rest of us have the sacred right to ignore the ridiculous, or ridicule the ridiculous, or to oppose and seek to correct the ridiculous. The last thing we need in America is a tyranny of political correctness, in which even the slightest perceived lack of respect in referring to a person or an ethnic group is treated as a vicious and horrible crime, and those who commit such verbal slights are treated as criminals. But neither do we want an America in which those who respond to anti-gay or anti-black or anti anybody slurs in a negative way is labeled a politically correct tyrant trying to abridge our freedom of speech. It may well be that anyone who thinks homosexuality is an evil sin or that blacks were happy before civil rights is an idiot and a liar. Maybe, maybe not. Bad history will always be, and should be, corrected. But those of us who think the those who distort history for foolish reasons are liars and fools certainly need not mind that they believe foolish things. If nothing else, its revealing, and entertaining.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet: Knowing the Difference

IT SEEMS STRANGE that a socialist like myself would choose as two of his heros Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. But maybe there is a connection, somewhere, that isn't loose. The fact is, by giving away half their respective fortunes, both men were acting like socialists. Now, of course, the conservative capitalist crowd is going to object to this assertion. They're gonna want to categorize this good behavior on the capitalistic side. Charity, generosity, philanthropy are part and parcel of capitalism, you can just hear the con-caps saying. All great financial giants practice philanthropy. Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, the whole lot. They all gave their fortunes away to the rest of us. Well, true, for the most part. Not all wealthy folks are civic minded, but a good many indeed are. And, in every instance, when they are, they are turning into socialists the very moment they do so. As the ink pen is hovering over the rectangular piece of paper, Bill Gates is a capitalist. During the few seconds during which ink is being applied to paper, a mysterious spiritual transfiguration is occuring. Upon completion of the writing, after the forty billion dollar check has been writ, Bill Gates emerges as a socialist, perhaps to soon return to the realm of capitalism, perhaps to revisit socialism later. Its that simple. There is absolutely nothing in any economic text book conjoining altruism and capitalism. According to the books and the professors, capitalism involves capital, investment, supply, demand, and many other business and economic concepts, but not generosity. In capitalism, there is no redistribution of wealth. Socialism, however, is just the opposite. IN socialism, it doesn't matter who makes what, who earns what, who deserves what. Its only concern is: who needs what? The arbitrary redistribution of wealth, through the government, or through grass roots citizen behavior, is part and parcel of socialism. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are great men because they are great capitalists, and great socialists, and they understand that there is a time and place for one, and a time and a place for the other, and that the trick is to know the difference.

A Nice Genius and a Good Hillbilly

MY TWO HEROS, Albert Einstein and Davy Crockett, actually had a great deal in common, believe it or not, and maybe the things they had in common are the reason I admire them. First and foremost, both were eccentric as hell, and that I really love. Neither one believed in following the herd, conforming to soical conventions, following in the footsteps of others. Einstein wouldn't wear socks, or neckties,and Crockett walked around Washington D.C. as a member of Congress from the state of Tennessee carrying a loaded rifle and wearing a coonskin cap. They were both saying "I'm gonna do things my way, come hell or high water." Also, both of them played the violin. Einstein played Mozart, rather well, but not great, and Davy played Turkey in the Straw, The Old Grey Mare, songs like that, hillbilly songs, fiddle style, and word was he could make the thing sound like any bird in the woods. Davy never had anybody to show him how to play the fiddle; he just picked one up, bought one in Washington, and taught himself, over time. He taught himself how to read and write, amazingly. Both Crockett and Einstein had incredibly high moral standards, and both of them were incredibly generous, and just plain nice, down to the very core. Neither of them could say no to any request. If Davy had a niekl in his pocket he bought the first round of beer, and the last. Einsteine once bought an elevator for a two story house because "the salesman was such a nice young man". Einstein spoke out against the excesses of corporate capitalism and militaristic nationalism, and neither of them ever turned down a request for an autograph, and there were many. Crockett fought for the rights of the Indians, during a time period when nobody, but nobody else did. Many of his fellow Tennessee neighbors didn't agree; the settlers hated Indians, and that hurt Crockett in his politickin' fer office, but Davy knew right from wrong. Einstein had no patience with stuffy, arrogant intellectuals who act like they know everything but really have very little original to say. Crockett did not like fancy dressing rich easterners who acted like they were better than he. Crockett was cocky but sweet and Einstein was humble and sweet. I like both styles, somehow.

Setting the Duck Dynasty Dude Straight

I SAW THE SHOW "DUCK DYNASTY' once, by accident, and I would love to see more of it. I loved it, so hilarious it was. I don't have cable or satellite TV, so my chances are slim, but you never know... however....This Mr. Robertson gentleman, one of the long bearded ones, and all those who are now staunchly defending him are off the track, and here's why.....he said, as you know, that before civil rights, blacks were generally happy. He also said that homosexual sex is bestiality. Doubtless the few blacks he has encountered briefly and randomly happened to appear happy to him when on occasion he saw them. That, of course, means nothing. All it means is that Robertson saw a tiny minute fraction of all American blacks, for tiny minute fractions of their lives. We all know that blacks were miserable under slavery, segregation, and during the civil rights era. This is a rock solid fact. They wanted freedom, and they wanted equality. They still do. I mean, duh. Who wouldn't, right? Earth to Mr. robertson... Thomas Jefferson treated his slaves well, better than anyone else, and they were fundamentally content. Did they want freedom and equality, rather than slaves at Monticello? Yes. They said so. There are several very good histories of the black situation in America, written by historical scholars who did enormous amounts of research, and Mr. Robertson would do well to read one or two, because they use direct quotes and verified events to clearly show that, guess what? Blacks in America have been treated badly for four hundred years, and they never liked it, nor were happy with it. With reagrd to homosexual sex being "bestiality", so it is, Mr. Robertson, so it is. But, guess what? So is heterosexual sex, "bestiality". Animals having animal sex. Beasts of the earth, albeit highly intelligent beasts, procreating. Folks fucking like foxes. Conservatives are defending Robertson's right to say these things; but its irrelevant, and misses the point, as conservatives usually do. Everyone knows he has the right to say these things, but guess what? Others have an equal right to find his comments false and disgusting, and his employers have the right to fire him for angering his viewing public. One crackpot right wing KKK member wannabe compared Mr. Robertson to Rosa parks. Both are courageous, he blathered; Parks fought racism, and Robertson is fighting the attack on Christian values, particularly the Christian value wherein homosexuality is a sin. Wrong again. Nobody is attacking Christian values, merely by disagreeing with them. A disagreement is not an attack. Nobody questions anyone's right to have or defend Christian values, and nobody should ever question anyone's right to disagree with them.

Making Christmas Memories

OH, THOSE HALCYON DAYS OF CHILDHOOD, during the yuletide season! It was particulalry pleasant during the post war nineteen fifties and nineteen sixites, when America was as its height of prosperity, before the Viet Nam war and the welfare state began sapping the vitality out of its roaring post war economy. My parents always put up the tree about a week before Christmas, and none of this artificial tree stuff either; we got the real thing, a fine pine smelling seven footer, usually. IN those days, trees made out of metal were popular; I never did get the hang of silver colored Christmas trees, and thankfully neither did our parents. We thought our neighbors, who put theirs up on Thanksgiving, were a bit strange. Now, we do it that way too... During the week before the big day, the brightly wrapped presents would appear beneath the tree, one by one, a few every day, my eyes growing larger as the stockpile grew at an accelerating pace. Oh, the excitement! how clever of my parents, to build the excitement slowly and steadily, culminating in a Christmas Day crescendo. And here's the thing: our family was not wealthy. Not the least bit. Far from it. We were lower middle class blue collar, all the way. But, in the nineteen sixties, even the working class had some prosperity in America. My, how times have changed. Christmas morning, starting about sun up, was an explosion of colored paper, cardboard boxes, and toys. We unwrapped 'em one a time, everybody taking turns. Each unwrapping was its own moment in the spotlight. Our parents paid for their own gifts. Every year mom started a Christmas savings account at her local bank, in our (the kid's) name. By the time Christmas rolled around, my sister and I each had twelve dollars and fifty cents to spend onour parents, straight out of their paychecks. Quite an arrangement for us the kids. At one point, the amount grew to twenty five dollars a year. Inflation. In those days, this was no insignificant amount of jack. A recent survey indicated that the American people think that its a good idea to limit gift giving to about three gifts per person, and that drawing names out of a hat is a good idea, as a way to limit materialism, and financial damage. Today's kids are making their own memories, and may they all be beautiful.

Gentrification sucks

WHAT EXACTLY IS A "college town"? Possibly it is a town whose entire nature and character is determined by the presence of a college or University. A college town may in fact be a rather large city, like Austin, Texas, but this requires the presence of a huge university. Austin, Texas, everyone agrees, is a classic college town, even though it has grown enormously. A small college in a large city doth not a college town make; the city merely swallows up the school. Austin, Texas is a true college town, even though Austin has a population of nearly two million, because the University of Texas is so enormous that it shapes the character of Austin. In particular, the presence of the University of Texas turns Austin into a progressive, liberal minded, culturally diverse oasis in the midst of an otherwise staid, conservative region. Starkville, Mississippi is a college town, because the town itself is quite small; any college at all, let alone a major university, would render Starkville a true college town, due to the lack of other cultural points of light nearby. College towns are very special places. They seem so...alive. Even with UCLA and USC, Los Angels, California can never be a college town; the city is so enormous that it swallows up everything in it , and there is no one thing which shapes the character of a huge city of several million people. Among America's most personality laden college towns are Boulder, Colorado, Madison, Wisconsin, and Fayetteville, Arkiansas. These are places which cannot even be imagined without the existence of their higher education institutions. Sometimes college towns grow so much that the local populations begins to regret the growth. "Keep Austin funky", the cry goes out. When the main drag, the street where all the bars, shops, restaurants, and book stores are, starts to gentrify, the regret begins. Old, threadbare, crumbling buildings, within which are ensconced little off beat business; these are the stuff of which college towns are made. When the corporations come along, bringing plastic and glittering glass, and chain stores, the atmosphere is damaged. Gentrification sucks.

America, the Guilty Party

ALBERT EINSTEIN, in one of the final acts of his illustrious life, issued a joint statement with renowned writer-philosopher Bertrand Russell. The statement called upon the citizens of the world to set aside their differences and strong feelings they have about many issues, and to begin to regard themselves simply as members of a biological species which has a remarkable history, and whose disappearance "none of us can desire". The choice facing the world, they said, "is stark and dreadful and inescapable"; shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war? Nearly sixty years later, the world has not renounced war. Quite the contrary, in fact. The world embraces war like never before. The primary villain in all this is, beyond question, the United States of America. The U.S.A. accords itself the right to make war at will, always on the pretext of self defense and national security. Meanwhile, with much self righteous posturing, the U.S. expects other nations to abide by international agreements, treaties, law, and rules of world order, which it consdiers itself above. What the most important and urgent issues of the day are is a matter of opinion, but the threat of nuclear war and environmental destruction must surely be on everyone's list. The greatest threat to bring about these catastrophies is the United States, which threatens other nations with violence unless they renounce atomic weapons, while maintaining the world's largest collection itself. Every international agreement on environmental protection has been signed by nearly all the world's nations - except the United States. Among the most fundamental principles of logic and morality is the concept of "universality"; that which applies to one, applies to all. Mention this to most Americans, they will either dismiss it or ignore it. But by far what makes the United States so dangerous to the rest of the world is the fact that its government ingores the opinions of its citizens. Americans generally want nuclear disarmament for all, including themselves, and they want to participate in international environmental agreements. The American people want to spend more money on social programs, and less on the military and foreign wars of aggression. But they have no power to make their wishes come true in a country in which all political power is in the hands not of the people at large, but of a few powerful elite who care nothing for popular opiniohe greatest obstacle to human progress on the planet.

Questions

I GOTTA QUICK QUESTION: what on earth, or anywhere else, is an "E" cigarette? Electronic ciggie, I got that part. But, um...where do you plug it in? Does it run on batteries? Do the batteries come included with the ciggie, or must one purchase them separately? Presumably, and this is just a guess, a person needs to only have a single E cigarette. How many do you buy? One? Twenty? Why would anyone need more than one? Are they not resuable, like all other electronic gadgets? What are they like? Do they look the same as regular accoustic cigarettes? Where does the smoke come from? Is it manufactured electronically, in side a miniature motor within the tube proper? Do they taste good? Do they somehow include nicotene? If not, do they satisfy real smokers? Or, are they nicotene free, and intended as a means of weening folks off the "real thing"? Questions, questions. All stupid sounding, but sincerely posed, by someone who has never smoked a cigarette, and thus knows nothing. And, you know what they say about questions; there aint never a supid one. Then, moving right along, what on earth is "bitcoin"? A new, internet based system of currency, it would seem. Where, and by whom, did "bitcoin" originate? Is it here to stay? Is it solvent, exchangeable with other major world currencies? Who keeps track of it? Why are the Cninese refusing to participate in the system? (or are they?) And, last but not least, will bitcoin become the new international currency, replacing the American dollar and superceding the Euro as the international unit of exchange? Anyone who can answer these questions about these two topics, and also clearly, lucidly explain exactly who the Kardashians are and why they are on television, is far more culturally literate than I . Ignorance, however, is indeed bliss.

Protesting Wars, and Opposing the World

DURING THE VIET NAM WAR, I was just a kid. But about the time that the big Viet Cong-North Vietnamese offensive in early January, 1968 was successfully turned back, I began to have my doubts. The Tet offensive was a failure...or was it? How many times could they do the same thing, over and over again? Even as a soon-to-be thirteen year old this much was clear to me; the United Stes would never win the Viet Nam ware unless its military walked into Hanoi and occupied it. If I had it all to do over again, I would not let my youth stop me from openly complaining about it, to hell with my conservative patriotic parents, and the devil take the hindmost. (that's easy to say now,aint it...) In 1990, when President Bush told Saddan Hussein that the U.S. would never interfere or meddle in inter-Arab matters, then did, I finally got my big chance to actually protest a war: flag, sign, march, the whole kit 'n kaboodle. It was exhilarating. That's where my war protesting memory comes to an end. Since 1990, the United States has been involved in so many wars that I simply haven't the time to protest further, and apparently neither does anyone else. "The world advances only because of those who oppose it" said Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a smart dude with whom we should all acquaint ourselves . The war protestors are the greatest of all patriots, because they care enough to at least attempt to keep the fatherland far away from suicidal fool's errands. President Barack Hussein Obama has thus far deported two million Mexicans, tried hard to drop bombs on Syria, as if that shambles of a nation needed any more bombs dropped upon it, and has failed to show and sign that the U.S.A. intends to ever reduce its own nuclear arsenal or military might. Incidently, if the United States had abided by all the nuclear disarmament treateis it has negotiated and signed, it would currently have no nuclear weapons, rather than the many thousand it actually has. As Casey Stengal said "you cold look it up." Without opposition, the world never makes any progress.

Making Promises Hard to Keep

FOR THE MOST PART, when the United States government hires people to work in its massive bureaucracies, civil services and such, and recruits people for military service, it faces a great deal of competition. Competition from a frequently vigorous, robust, and highly competitive private economic sector. Because of this, the government must offer a great deal to lure participants. And this is exactly what it does. Currently, one half of the military budget is targeted for services to retired veterans. Medical services and pensions, and education opportunities such as the G I bill, primarily. One half. One half of paying for the defense of our country is paid to people who no longer defend it, and quite likely never did much to defend it while on active duty, but instead spent their time in the military training....eternally training. This is not a sustainable situation, according to top military brass, and according to common sense. The ancient truth adheres; it is far easier to make promises than to keep them. All across the land of the free cities and states are confronting essentially the same problem; paying pensions to retirees is bankrupting them. The same is true at the state level. Promises are easy to make, hard to keep. Anyone who is married already realizes this, naturally. There are two obvious choices for solutions. Either we must stop making such grand promises, or, we must stop keeping them. Or both. A member of my own family, one of my siblings, enlisted in the military right out of college, and spent three years in the army. then, she transitionede smoothly into the federal civil service, from which she retired at the age of fifty fifty. No 401K for her; a full lifetime pension. Hell, she'll probaly live to be ninety, like her mother. that's forty years of full retirement pension, for thirty years of work. Its insane. At the current rate, this sibling of mine will never see gevernment money beyond her seventy fifth birthday. Neither will anybody else. All this, before even mentioning the problems associated with the solvency of social security, medicare, and medicaid. When the social security system went into effect in 1935, there were something like thirty people working and paying into the system for every person still working. Now the ratio is less than three to one, and shrinking. The United States is a nation in which millions upon millions of people will be expecting to recieve benefits simultaneously, with but few people working to generate the national wealth necessary to do this. Can we say "means testing"?