The People and the Sea
Photo of Wisconsin’s Kohler-Andrae State Park Beach by Helmut Fritz
Lake Michigan is like a 3D Claude Monet seascape with wind, waves and seagulls included. Each day has different colors beyond imagination with one day the lake being as smooth as glass, the next day Lake Michigan becomes a raging diva. If providence favors you when you take the family to the beach you may think that you are in the Caribbean. If the lake has a tantrum though, you can imagine that you are castaways from an artic shipwreck as cold wind slaps you silly.
We understand how the lake works through observation, experimentation, analysis and conclusions. The hard core lake adventurers on the beach in their artic parkas and silly smiles are not helpful on a freezing day as you carry crying children back to a heated mini-van, already crammed with filthy beach equipment. However, the hard core had observed, experimented, analyzed and concluded their success.
Tantrums aside, Lake Michigan can be a most sensuous dancer with summer night lightning storms a “must see.” The body of water is too big to see to the other side in most places so Ernest Hemingway’s “I have gone out too far the old man said to himself,” (The Old Man and the Sea,) comes to mind if you use anything to float out from land. Being foolish about a siren call of the lake can be catastrophic as every now and then, a boater, swimmer, kite surfer, etcetera, disappears. Most of us know what constitutes as fun and what is being idiotically dangerous. The human capability of ignoring received wisdom can be puzzling though as occasional Lake Michigan tragedies verify.
Mathematics can be another example of intentional human stupidity though science clearly shows better. Most of us understand that 2 – 5 = -3. Our credit card providers will be most non negotiable if we think that we can work around these arithmetic facts. Still, particularly when the government is involved, we think that we can operate according to fiction though the little equation presented above is true no matter how many zeros that you put behind the numbers.
A few years ago I volunteered considerable effort to a good cause. Among other services, we maintained an office open to the public where we discussed and educated on governmental policy and steered the public towards programs that were helpful to them in the long run. I will never forget a woman that I was trying to help plan a life away from being dependent on government assistance. In our conversation I tried to explain that every dime that the government spends, needs to be eventually paid for. Even though she was obviously an intelligent adult, for some reason 2 – 5 = -3 just didn’t make sense to her. Initially this was puzzling but then it dawned on me. She couldn’t understand because she didn’t want to understand. Though she clearly knew that growing debt could make her life unbearable, to conceive of living free of governmental intervention was frightening to her. This of course then made a discussion impossible concerning obvious history that a problem with any all providing big momma government is that someone must pay the piper eventually, usually with back breaking interest. Truth in Accounting has each taxpayer’s share of the known USA Federal debt at $993,000. https://www.truthinaccounting.org/ To argue against these numbers with tears concerning a need for compassion denies the fact that the priority of big momma/daddy has never been the wellbeing of the people despite many claims otherwise. Such a conversation was completely beyond my visitor in the office.
People suffered when the Soviet Union ran out of funny money. Pensioners in that worker’s paradise still got a “pension” but the actual value of it was a tragedy. Imagine yourself as an eighty year old, where your system had assured you iron clad guarantees throughout your hard working life, demanding that you depend on the governmental system, even discouraging most personal retirement plans. So, when Soviet naval vessels tied up at docks and everyone left because they hadn’t been paid for months, only to have the ship or submarine rust and sink right there, your state pension would as good as disappear as well. My experience in this matter is human, as reflected in the face of relatives and close friends. The thoughts that I had back then was that the same 2 – 5 = -3 that caused the Soviet Union to financially implode, is at work in the United States as well.
So, what shall we do then? I have a suggestion in Antiphon, the third book in an upcoming trilogy of which the first book, Welkyrie is available here. I propose an amendment to the United States Constitution. I plead with all legal scholars here that this is the beginning of the discussion, not a commandment carved in stone.
From Antiphon:
Let the United States Constitution receive an amendment establishing that all governments and governmental agencies within the United States, shall publish in media most convenient for immediate general public perusal, clear, understandable, financial statements completely showing each government unit’s income, expenditures and liabilities using Generally Accepted Accounting Practices. These agencies shall publish each yearly quarter and shall publish it in ledger form only. Also, the names, titles, addresses and personal salaries and itemized, additional governmentally funded benefits of all paid individuals whether salaried or contracted, of that governmental function must also be clearly listed in these quarterly reports along with a brief summary of that person’s responsibilities. Any Non-Governmental Organization receiving thirty percent of its total budget or more from any combination of tax funded sources must also fully comply with this amendment. The funding accounted for thirty percent can be from direct or indirect sources. Only the Federal Government shall have the power to redact specifically only defense related line items only for security reasons and no other reason but no government may redact the total defense budget. Those portions of a defense budget not related to security such as food stuffs, entertainment, etc., cannot be redacted. Any individual or group effort to hide or falsify information beyond defense security matters for any reason shall result in the offending individual or individuals responsible for the illegal redacting or intentionally incorrectly reported matters, receiving no less than five years imprisonment and any fines deemed appropriate after a duly conducted trial. To falsely designate a budget item as a defense security related matter shall be the same as general intentional falsification.
Hopefully, concerning the United States Federal budget, “We have not gone out too far.” Per Ernest Hemingway, horrible sharks circle out there. Though I may not agree on all of the points of the following, to read further on the matter consider: https://goldcountrymedia.com/news/298139/money-matters-the-biggest-government-in-history/
