Lately I've been pondering, as is my custom, about the dreadful plight our world is in. Perhaps my last post wasn't sufficient to convey the true fragility of the dream that is America (it used to be the dream that was Rome, but then Caesar screwed it all up), but today I forgo further beration in favor of a more benign topic than I am wont to typically approach. Sadly it seems that our leaders are in a similar state of mind as myself, because they appear guilty of the same neglect. But what is being neglected, you ask? It's quite simple really: the future.
In a display of truly moronic shortsightedness that has sadly become all too typical of government, Obama and friends are only adding to the damage by spending more money and making big plans to continue that spending – health-care reforms, I'm looking at you. Of course, none of this will do anything to ease the suffering of the economy, but that's another rant for another day.
Oftentimes when I'm asked to do something, I try to ask two questions: who's going to pay for it? and who's going to clean it up if it all goes South? So let's apply these questions to our current economic situation – the answer on both accounts: our children. So imagine little Timmy says he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. Instead of feeding him the you-are-special-and-can-do-anything-you-want-to crap that we seem to be so in love with lately, why don't we tell him the truth? “Well, sorry Timmy, but I'm afraid that by the time you're old enough to be an astronaut we're going to be so in debt that the closest thing we'll have to a space program is a swing set. Besides, you'll be too busy cleaning up all of our messes and trying to restore the integrity of the dollar and the American global economic presence to worry about space.”
There are some that seem to have realized the full portent of our actions, but they are the responsible minority. Everyone else is so caught up in solving their own problems and getting back to their comfortable lifestyles that they couldn't care less what happens 30 years from now. The government is no better; instead of realizing their agenda will have to wait and putting priorities where they should be, they're attempting to ignore the real problem and are trying to get the public to do the same. As soon as someone brings up the issue of who's going to pay for it? with health-care reform, we suddenly start hearing about how we're all going to die from swine flu (backed by numbers no less), how bad Bush & co. were for torturing mass-murderers, and then Ted Kennedy dies (now that's what I call party loyalty).
Begrudged bipartisan politics have screwed our country up enough at present, so why don't we utilize this whole democracy thing to our advantage and do something about it? There's still hope that we can turn things around not just for us, but for future generations. The sad reality of the situation is that the emerging adults of today are going to be in about the same position as little Timmy, but it's still in our power to keep that from happening to those that will come after – so do it.
- Brutus