POCKET GOFER 6
Download the Pocket Gofer 6 here
ON MAKING A CONTRIBUTION
- THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM
- A BIT OF HISTORY
- THE REALITY OF GOVERNMENT IN OUR “DEMOCRACY”
- WHAT CAN I CONTRIBUTE?
- THE RIGHT KIND OF “FEEL GOOD” GOVERNMENT
- CONCLUSION
Maybe it’s not our fault. Maybe our leaders in Washington DC should have remained leaders, instead of gradually coming to behave like career politicians.
But, maybe the whole mess in Washington can be traced to human nature. If we go that route we can blame no single group of people.
Lots of maybes here. However, one thing we know for sure is that government in Washington no longer works. The nation appears to be ungovernable, as far as anything useful ever getting done.
We call it gridlock. It is not only very expensive; it is also frustrating in the extreme. We are wondering if we taxpayers are being ripped.
Well, wonder no more. We are. Friends, the government is forcibly taking our money from us (for that is the nature of taxation), skimming about 25 percent off the top to pay the bureaucracy, and devoting another 20 percent to pay interest on the stupendous national debt ($23 trillion and counting).
Then it hands some of what remains back out to some of us in the form of “entitlements.” Estimates of the number of that “some of us” range up to 95 percent.
At the very least, it would seem to be much more efficient if we kept most of this money and cut out the middleperson. If those thousands of excess politicians’ staff, lobbyists, consultants, lawyers, bureaucrats, spin doctors and other looters were to leave Washington tomorrow and start making contributions to the economy, wouldn’t all of us be better off?
Let’s dive right into the problem. We may not like it, but often the best start towards a solution of a serious problem is to force ourselves to confront reality.
THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM
As the cartoon character Pogo said, “We have meet the enemy and he is us.” Yep, much of it is on us.
Okay, politicians are surely partly responsible, but because they are professional finger-pointers we’ll get little corrective action out of them. We must seize the moment ourselves.
In a democracy we are supposed to be their bosses. But this democracy took a wrong turn somewhere.
We are being bossed and abused, and we are paying for the “privilege.” That is enough to rot our socks.
This huge problem has grown so slowly that it is difficult to pin down where it got its start. It is like a giant California redwood tree, some 300 feet tall, which started from a seed weighing about 1/8 of an ounce. We will never know which tree provided that seed, nor exactly when.
It is time to state the core of the problem in a one-liner:
Citizens’ mentality has over the generations very gradually changed from “What can I contribute?” to “What’s in it for me?”
OUCH! That smarts. But that, friends, is the reality of it.
A BIT OF HISTORY
Before and during the Revolutionary War there was in the 13 British colonies no what’s-in-it-for-me? simply because there was very little of “it.” Colonists wanted to contribute toward improving the land and their living standards, but the tyrant King George III kept taxing away any surplus they could generate.
Leaders like Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Washington became frustrated. A visiting English writer named Thomas Paine had courage of his convictions. So he took quill pen and paper to hand.
Published in February 1776, the result was and is the toughest piece of writing defending liberty in the English language. He titled the pamphlet Common Sense; he stuffed it with that valuable commodity. By the end of 1776 150,000 copies had been sold. See our essay: Common Sense II.
AJ Ayer’s book Thomas Paine: “To the question where the King of America features in his scheme, Paine replies that in his America ‘THE LAW IS KING.”’ This position underscores the importance of having good law.
Later Paine wrote a series of articles and pamphlets. His three main articles are quoted here.
“I Men are born, and always continue, free, and equal in respect of their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on public utility.
“II The end of all political associations, is, the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.
“III The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty; nor can any INDIVIDUAL, or ANY BODY OF MEN, be entitled to any authority which is not expressly derived from it.”
General Washington appreciated Paine’s contribution. While Paine was serving as his assistant the great man remarked that “Paine is more valuable than the whole army!”
Washington said this because his writing not only instilled courage in his soldiers. It also did the same for thousands of colonists, including converting many subjects loyal to the crown to the cause of liberty.
Ayer concluded: “—— his courage, integrity and eloquence. When it comes to that, there is no point in my attempting to improve upon the conclusion of Brailsford’s essay: ‘The neglected pioneer of one revolution, the honored victim of another, brave to the point of folly, and as humane as he was brave, no man in his generation preached republican virtue in better English, nor lived it with a finer disregard of self.”
We conclude with Paine’s dictum: “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” We make bold to amend his work to include women. Paine did time in an English jail and died penniless, but his courage never left him.
To get a handle on the problem we refer to Alexander Hamilton’s comment about human nature: “Man is ambitious, vindictive and rapacious.” This means he craves power, revenge, and money. Hamilton recognized and appreciated the flip side of human nature.
It also means that if someone doesn’t constantly watch a public official and take actions to prevent him from acting on his/her cravings he will do so. This applies especially when the money is big. Awareness that what he does will infringe on the rights of citizens will not stop him.
Has human nature changed a lot since the late 18th century? Human behavior has changed a lot, but not human nature.
With rare foresight, Hamilton and other colonial leaders saw this. Therefore they created a watchdog, which they called the Constitution of the United States of America. This document provided a foundation for our legal system that is aimed at discouraging and counteracting the natural human tendencies as described by Hamilton.
Note our use of English here: “aimed at discouraging —;” and “aimed at counteracting —.” The clear implication is that the Constitution, ingenious document that it is, was never intended to do the whole job for us. This is because the founding fathers recognized that it cannot, and that no document can.
The missing link? Active, concerned citizens, who will make damn sure that elected public servants remain public servants after they enter office.
Long ago someone said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Put another way, the missing link cannot be the weakest link.
Friends, this is truth. No piece of parchment can provide that vigilance. It lacks eyes and ears, and capacity for action.
We have lost much of our constitutional liberty through a slow process. Over several generations, we have listened as our illustrious politicians have promised us the moon over and over and over.
Gradually, oh, so very gradually, we have got the idea that government can actually perform near-miracles with very little money. (Officials cleverly hid the costs until very recently.)
It cannot; this is the reality that many of us don’t yet fully appreciate. But promises win votes. We fell for this baloney because we trusted our political leaders.
Human nature being what it was and is, all this started soon after our country was formed. But back then we were active participants.
We had to build a government, and this was no small task. Later we wanted to improve it, and this took dedication, time, talent, and effort.
By 1929 we had a pretty good thing going. In fact it got too good for our own good.
Blind faith in the stock market caused a crash after the bottom dropped out. Then the government made a couple of bad policy decisions and the result was the Great Depression.
By 1933 the Depression had buried our recent ancestors. The situation was desperate.
Enter President Roosevelt with his New Deal programs aimed at creating millions of jobs. Five to six years later the economy began to stir.
Then it slumped again as the New Deal failed. It was left to World War II and the “Greatest Generation” to actually pull our ancestors out of a deep, deep hole.
From the beginning of our nation up until this time citizens had maintained a healthy skepticism of their government at all levels. But long an deep suffering during the Depression had weakened people. They were vulnerable. (People in Germany were also hurting, and this gave Hitler his great opportunity.)
Politicians leaped to claim full credit for the post-war economic recovery. Our grandparents must have thought they were heroes as their previous skepticism quickly changed into an equally deep faith in government as social problem solver. This abiding faith helps to sustain Big Government today.
It also caused our ancestors to believe its promises. This meant an opportunity for a new breed of leader to evolve: the career politician (see Pocket Gofer 3).
During the past 70 years these public “servants” have betrayed our faith and trust. The negative tendencies of human nature took over. Hamilton knew what he was talking about.
Citizens permitted politicians to keep high wartime taxes on the books after the war. People believed politicians when they argued that the New Deal had pulled the economy out of the depression.
Tidal waves of money poured into Washington. Temptation proved to be too much, and politicians started deviating from public service.
They knew they could get away with it. No one was watching as we kept the faith and went about our business.
You snooze; you lose. Sometimes you lose big. See Pocket Gofer 7.
When television became widely available politicians grabbed this unique opportunity. Because TV reached so many households their empty promises could circulate much further and more quickly. As we know, they continue to use it today for the same purpose.
But there is a big kicker here. TV’s emphasis on sound bites and its total ban on dead air time mean that no issues that have meaning for citizens can be discussed. Candidates must therefore respond to questions in terms of sound bites generated instantly, and hype. But democracy is citizens discussing relevant issues in detail.
The human brain is not designed to process data like a computer, and spit out an immediate result. Some time is needed to think about the issue before a response. Therefore TV is in reality a barrier to effective expression of citizenship.
Small wonder career politicians love it. It means they can be seen as “communicating” with the riffraff while spending their time raising money and schmoozing with the glitterati.
A THOUGHT ON THINKING: Centuries ago there was no broadcast capability, either oral or written. Smoke signals, drumming, and carrier pigeons were inefficient, but people seldom strayed from home so they worked fairly well.
Thinking has always required effort. Hence our natural tendency to let others do our thinking for us. This meant trusting others, but so long as they remained close by there was no problem. Citizens kept benevolent governors benevolent.
However, as families evolved into clans, clans into tribes, and tribes into nations trust was gradually stretched. Eventually it became stretched to where it was no longer effective.
We have learned about the amazing things people will do to others when they know they will not be punished. Elitists in government today keep the rabble apart and away through use of rhetoric: “Trust us. We will act in your behalf as we have sworn to do.” Has not this always been so in our country?
ORAL COMMUNICATION: In the old days good orators could gather audiences wherever they went. But people would not just listen. They would challenge him: with no mikes a critic would shout to be heard by all.
Citizens would stick around afterward, discussing and debating his points as they pursued truth. Through this democratic process they would separate truth from baloney, content from delivery.
Later each individual citizen would think about the issues presented and draw conclusions. He/she knew that the next time he stepped out of his front door a neighbor would be there to challenge those conclusions.
Without discussion wheat and chaff would remain intermixed in the minds of citizens. They would therefore remain unable to distinguish truth from lies, so orators/politicians could go on flimflamming them indefinitely. Thinking citizens knew this, and so they gathered. See Pocket Gofer 13.
Today delivery predominates. TV viewers seek to be entertained instead of informed through reading, thinking, and discussion. These require effort; sitting in front of the tube is easier.
Unfortunately in television the content is not there. Viewers are mesmerized, and so they allow a daily blitz of thousands of messages to be always in their faces.
Their thinking time is being stolen from them. In this way public officials separate citizens from the truth, and they become sheep with government as the shepherd. Friends, this is top-down rulership, not bottom-up leadership. See PG4.
WRITTEN COMMUNICATION: In the stone tablet and quill pen eras very few people could write. Great effort was required, and without copying capability what was written did not circulate widely.
Anyone who could read grabbed anything on paper, read it over and over, thought about it, and analyzed it. Groups of readers would read the same piece and gather together to discuss and debate its content. Others hankered to join, so there was an incentive to learn to read.
Thinking people know that print has the vital capacity to elicit thinking. The disciplined reader will find a quiet place, read a passage, reflect on it, and determine if and how the resulting thoughts can integrate into his/her evolving intellect.
Friends, this is learning, as opposed to monitoring the box. In the late 18th century Thomas Paine had had practically no formal education.
He developed his intellect through thinking and discussion. In 1776 he wrote and published a pamphlet called Common Sense, which was a major factor in launching the Revolutionary War.
As in oral communication, today supply has swamped demand. Reading requires effort, so TV and social media have also robbed citizens of their reading time.
All this stealth combines with public officials’ natural tendency to concentrate political power in themselves, while the rhetoric continues with democracy, dispersion of power, and personal freedom. As if this is not enough, they discourage education because they accurately believe that education produces thinking citizens who will get active in discussions and debates leading to truth.
Once truth is revealed, people would realize that they are being bamboozled. They would then act to replace oligarchy with democracy.
Government has intruded into our personal lives ever deeper while presumably doing more and more for us. Today the grand total tax load on our backs is about 45 percent of what we earn.
When a citizen is restrained from doing for him/herself by government getting in the way he tends to expect more from government. Eventually he begins to think more about taking instead of giving.
It is human nature to want to do for ourselves. The usual outlet in the US for this desire is in the private sector of our economy. But for some of us this is a tough way to go with competitors harassing us, so they choose the public sector.
These folks have the same tendency. When they find their efforts unappreciated, that tendency can become self-service instead of public service.
In the private and volunteer sectors we can often do for ourselves through doing for others. These actions enhance the positive side of human nature. Competition helps to keep us focused on these goals. See PG2.
This doesn’t work as well in the public sector, as feedback on a job well done is not nearly as plentiful. Then there is all that money, and no competition because government is a monopoly.
This is why a public-spirited citizen (a rare breed today) has often previously performed successfully in the private or volunteer sectors before he/she chooses to represent our interests in public service. (See Pocket Gofer 3.) He has previously collected a generous supply of attaboys, and is ready to dedicate his highly developed talents to the public good.
Today’s “public-spirited” citizens aren’t interested in public service. Even if they are, the system quickly traps them and the abuse continues. Pocket Gofer 3 explains.
We may as well say it like it is, lest we be fooled once again. We find ourselves wishing furiously that we had done this some time ago, when Ronald Reagan presided over eight years of “feel good” government.
Because he and we didn’t confront reality then, or much sooner, it is all the more difficult now. But if we don’t go eyeball-to-eyeball with it now, it will be still worse later on.
So, let’s do it. It’s guts ball down at the OK corral.
THE REALITY OF GOVERNMENT IN OUR “DEMOCRACY”
The theory of democracy is just great: individual rights and responsibilities, the right to recourse when unjustly treated, freedom to pitch a bitch when we don’t like something that our government does, the precious right to turn the bums out of office when they ignore our complaints or respond poorly, majority rule with minority rights ensured, a free press, freedom of religious belief, etc.
Human nature being what it is, we tend to assume that these will always be there. We don’t need a refresher course to appreciate them.
Friends, don’t believe this for a minute. Whoever preaches this line is leading us down the primrose path (probably a politician).
We are being ripped. The thieves are the special interest groups and the politicians who help them to do the ripping.
David Stockman was a key economic analyst in the Reagan administration. In his book The Triumph of Politics he describes how finger-pointing politicians accuse everyone else of greed.
The cleverly hidden result is that the economy does not grow as fast as it would without these leeches. Our living standards thus do not rise as much as they would otherwise.
This explains why Reagan’s “rising tide lifts all boats” didn’t lift many of those of us who are less wealthy, and why Clinton’s campaign argument that “trickle-down economics didn’t trickle” had a ring of truth to it. Too much money gets siphoned off en route: Washington DC and state governments.
We saw young President Bush routing tax revenues to his super-rich friends. When will this thievery end? See Pocket Gofer 19.
In 1960 there were 365 registered Washington lobbyists buying legislation and regulations that favor the special interests that they represented. Today there are around 40,000. We have seen estimates up to 80,000.
Whose interests are really being represented by the congress? And we thought we were their bosses.
We hasten to add that there are a few interest groups who try to represent the taxpayer. But these have only petty cash and must operate in the pony league, while the big leaguers flash mega-cash.
There are dollar signs at the ends of every politician’s antennae. What’s-in-it-for-me? guides his/her every action while the rhetoric continues with What-can-I-contribute? President Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Rather ask what you can do for your country.” Good idea, but his and congress’s behavior belied the words.
The same guides the behavior of many of us, as we naturally want to improve our situation. The result is a great gulf that separates us from “our” representatives in the congress. We feel alienated from these clowns, and we resent it.
GROUPTHINK: An emphasis on group rights means a citizen contributes to some special group and its lobbyist, and not to his/her neighborhood and community. The elites in Washington and in state governments really dig this, as it helps them to implement their “divide and conquer” strategy.
They want to keep groups of us fighting among ourselves for more bennies. In this way it will be even more difficult for us to organize a coordinated campaign that will throw all of them out of office. See Peter Schweiker’s book Throw Them All Out.
Group leaders recruit members who feel put-upon, claiming that membership will enhance their self-esteem. The technique seems to work. Our society is fragmented today; our traditional cultural strength is ebbing.
The kicker here lies in the reality that self-esteem cannot be acquired by joining a group. This wonderful quality can be acquired only by individual effort and accomplishment. (Doubters can check with anyone who has been on welfare.)
We recently heard about a school for people to learn how to act to exercise their rights, “which is what we think democracy is all about.” This school is misguided, in that it teaches only one half of democracy: What’s-in-it-for-me?
The other half is equally important. It consists of responsibilities: What-can-I-contribute?
If everyone focuses only on their rights and no one on responsibilities, we cannot have a society. With everyone taking and no one giving it would be a jungle.
We recall an 18th century Scottish historian who said, “No democracy can exist indefinitely. It can exist only up until a majority discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.”
The Clinton administration played this one for all it’s worth, and more. In 1996 it was childbirth, in which BIG GOVERNMENT decreed a minimum 48-hour hospital stay. In 1997 it was breast cancer.
Charles Krauthammer in a 2/1997 column: “—- childbirth — a nice election-year gift to women between, say, 18 and 40. Then two weeks ago, the senate instructed the National Institutes of Health to essentially reverse the finding of its own scientific panel and recommend mammograms for women between 40 and 50.
“And now, the mastectomy bill would grant an extraordinary hospital privilege for an illness that particularly targets women over 50. Let’s see now: 18-40, 40-50 and 50 and over. Taken together, these three congressional mandates on medical practice offer perfect demographic coverage for the entire constituency of voting age women.”
We recall many congressional speeches that bitched about spiraling costs of medical treatment. Here we have BIG GOVERNMENT giving doctors vacations on the job through making some of their decisions for them. But when operating the Nanny State inconsistencies, waste, and fraud count for nothing when stacked against the ferocity of the hunt for votes.
For the following discussion we borrow from James Bovard’s excellent book Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty. It dramatically brings forth the distinction between individual rights, which government is taking away from us, and group rights, which government encourages in their place.
Citizens today must obey 40 times as many laws as did their counterparts in 1900. Government publishes about 200 pages of new laws and regulations each business day. But this effort to force improvement of our society has clearly failed.
Many of these laws are just plain ridiculous. A small businessman in Chicago was fined $145,000 because he did not have 8.45 Blacks on his payroll. Arizona farmers were prohibited from selling 58 percent of their fresh lemons. A study showed that this goofy law helped drive thousands of farmers out of business.
Bureaucrats can revoke the licenses of radio and TV stations that criticize government. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) in 1989 decreed that extracted baby teeth were a hazardous waste. The agency prohibited dentists from giving the teeth back to children, thus driving the tooth fairy out of business.
Did we citizens ask for these? They are two of thousands of examples of top-down government; see Pocket Gofer 4.
Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman says the private sector is now an agent of the central government. “In that very important sense, we are more than half socialist.”
IRS seizures of private property have increased by 400 percent since 1980. By 1991 grabbings under the new asset forfeiture laws (suspicions of drug activity) amounted to $644 million.
And 80 percent of the citizens involved were never formally charged with any crime. We think this is a sneaky way for central government agents and local police officers to add to their wealth.
They are paying people to inform. This means any grouch with a grudge can get even and make some bucks, and the victim has essentially no recourse. This practice violates the 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, but this fact obviously doesn’t bother the feds.
Apartment buildings are seized to punish landlords for not eradicating drugs. If the same standard were applied to public housing these landlords could seize them from the government. (There, big tough guys. See how you like that!)
The more BIG GOVERNMENT tries to control society, the more out of control we have become. Although there has been a recent dip, crime is up over the past 65 years and prisons cannot be built fast enough.
Between 1949 and 1971 Urban Renewal programs razed five times as many low-income homes as they created, and evicted around one million people in the process. We quote Bovard directly:
“One business owner affected —— urban renewal project was Kam Chin, who, with her husband, lost her art supply store, which she had spent 15 years building up. Chin had fled China in 1969 after the communist government seized her father’s art supply store.
The New York Times noted, “The couple see little difference between the tactics of the Chinese communists and the city. ’They’re doing the same thing,’ Mrs. Chin said of the city.
‘They condemn my property. They take it away like in a communist country. Not only that but they give it to the rich. The whole thing is really sick.’”
Why don’t we citizens rise up en masse and shape up our law enforcement officials and the government who orders them to do these things? The answer lies in two facts, one depending on the other.
The first is that people don’t discuss these abuses among themselves; hence the task of organizing a movement is made impractical. The second causes the first: news media cooperating with government don’t report these abuses and keep pounding on them until people do talk, coordinate plans, and act on them.
Now we can more deeply appreciate the potential value of the pocket gofer program. Friends, it is of paramount importance that we get together and discuss what the government is doing to us while the rhetoric continues to preach a timeworn sermon: what officials are doing for us.
CRY BABIES: The whole victimology movement of today is group-oriented. It has no place in a society that believes in and the Constitution supports individual initiative and effort.
Lawyers love the emotional appeal of the movement. This is because they love the financial appeal.
Courtroom law has also gone emotional. This is where some big bucks lie.
This is also a big and unnecessary drain on the economy of this nation. In any public issue where emotion wins out over logic there are unpleasant implications for society.
Bureaucrats also love victimology. They have spread their administrative wings and taken in nearly everyone except non-elderly and healthy white males. (And Trump has even these under his wing.)
A business owner wrote to a prominent news magazine. “Everybody in my employ is a member of a ‘protected minority.’ ——. It is impossible to find anyone not entitled to a group entitlement.”
Some colleges and universities entered the victimology business. This is especially regrettable, in that these institutions educate most of tomorrow’s leaders.
Colleges in this country have traditionally taken great pride in being places where open minds can pursue free inquiry aimed toward revealing truth. To lose this freedom is a tragedy. But the elites are made even happier by the movement, as they fear truth.
College student interviewed: “If you feel that the whole world is on top of you, then it is.” Agreed. We would respond: “If you acquired that perception, then it is up to you as an individual to change it. No group membership can do it for you.” Misery loves company, but it does little to fix the problem.
The current trend smacks of the same kind of “revisionist” thinking which typified publications in the Soviet Union and China up until recently. That is, let’s jack our history around so it agrees with our present group-oriented feelings concerning equality and justice.
If we keep this up for 2-3 generations, future students of history will surely go bananas. We need a firm and real foundation in history, so that we can learn from it and move forward together toward our future. See PG10.
Several recently published books promote groupthink. We at first thought they should be banned, but then we remembered that in a democracy every organized viewpoint deserves a hearing.
In We Are All Multiculturists Now, Nathan Glazer argued that the laissez-faire philosophy of the melting pot has not succeeded in integrating America’s minorities into the mainstream. But note that BIG GOVERNMENT officials encourage the formation of competitive groups in the population.
The Rights of Minority Cultures, edited by Will Kymlicka suggested that BIG GOVERNMENT intervene to preserve and promote different cultures. It should defend them against discrimination and even celebrate holidays, teach their history, etc.
This would create another Middle East right here at home. It was the melting pot that forms the bedrock of our strength as a nation. Maintaining a cultural heritage is the job of parents, not government.
On Nationality by David Miller he suggested that culture help to determine which state or area within a state citizens would live. We suppose in this case a German husband and his Chinese wife would be required to live in a house that straddles the border? And with one bedroom on each side?
Then there is a book called Ethnic Cleansing by Andrew Bell-Fialkoff. OOOIII!! We’ll pass on this one.
Journalists often generate convenient (filler?) copy by writing about the “2050 problem.” They project current ethnic growth trends to that year and find that Hispanics, Blacks, and Asian-Americans combined will make a majority and overthrow the existing cultural order.
Is this baloney supposed to generate panic among us today? Surveys of Hispanic attitudes show they are very close to those of whites, and different Hispanic national citizens say they have little in common.
Furthermore nearly all Hispanics are from either North, Central, or South America. Most consider themselves Americans, and some of these thought they were Americans even before they left home.
The reality is, they are. Are we to believe that some day they will combine with Blacks and Asians to overthrow something? Uh, what?
GENERATION GAP: This is where What’s-in-it-for-me? has got us. How close are we to that point of no return? Hard to say.
We seniors are the richest in world history. For the past five decades we have enjoyed government-supplied benefits worth more than what we and our bosses paid into Social Security during our working lives (plus accumulated interest).
We vote a lot, so career politicians have bought our votes by increasing our benefits and taxing younger people to provide them. (Youngsters don’t vote much.)
We have been living beyond our means. It takes a generous measure of chutzpah to press for no reductions in central government handouts to the old.
Old should not mean sick, but it too often does (Pocket Gofer 1). Today some seniors are complaining about the new Medicare coverage for prescription drugs.
Our belief is that us old folks should think more in terms of what we can contribute to make the struggles of the young less burdensome, rather than to forcibly take resources from young taxpayers to make our lives a bit easier yet. (We don’t mean to include those of us who are in real difficulty.)
Maybe we are ticked off. Many of us have been put out to pasture by our children.
We feel alienated from them. Visits are few and far between, if at all. Increased wealth has increased mobility, and apparently absence frequently does not make the heart grow fonder.
Therefore many of us may have the attitude that we will take our frustrations out on the younger folks in kind. We have seen nothing in print on this, so we speculate.
The AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) is considered one of the most powerful special interest lobbies in the land. Medicare needs reforming, but the current overemphasis on health benefits for oldsters will be defended with lots of clout.
Back in 1992 a bill was before congress that would insure people against catastrophes affecting their health. It required that old folks contribute a little more in premiums, thus pulling their own weight.
It was a pretty good bill even though we believe the private sector should provide this service (Pocket Gofer 1). The AARP teamed with other interest groups to torpedo it.
ENTITLEMENTS: Before we leave this theme we need to take one more shot. One half of the central government budget goes for “entitlements,” or mandatory spending for wealth transfer payments.
About half of these go to the sick and elderly. (Transfer payments are money taken by force from one pocket and put into another, with nothing done to earn the money.)
One half. A lot of seniors who receive payments are well off or better, but they collect just the same. We mean over and above what they and employers paid in to Social Security, plus accumulated interest.
Because today these people are living longer and older people get sicker, these budget items are growing twice as fast as the economy. This is enough to scare the pants off us, especially the young. The ghost of that Scottish historian lurks in the shadows.
Summarizing, the reality is that no matter who ends up with it it’s our money. It’s either extracted from us by the public sector through taxation or by excessive prices charged by businesses.
The latter need these high prices so they can afford to comply with the thousands of laws that restrict their ability to function efficiently. See Pocket Gofer 8.
Bureaucrats are hired by national and state agencies to help hand out the goodies. These folks are supposed to help people who cannot or will not help themselves. Of course, no amount of “help” can really help anyone if he/she doesn’t seriously want to help himself.
We might ask how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb. It takes just one, but only if the light bulb seriously wants to change.
It seems we must conclude that What’s-in-it-for-me? is a kind of widespread malady that has infected our culture right to the core. Because it has been around for so long, it will not be easy to cure.
Nearly everyone either loved or hated Rush Limbaugh. We believe in separation of the idea from the person who promotes it (Pocket Gofer 13), so we agree with his point here.
“I think the vast differences in compensation between victims of the September 11th casualty and those who die serving the country in uniform are profound. No one is really talking about it either, because you just don’t criticize anything having to do with September 11th.
“Well, I just can’t let the numbers pass by because it says something really disturbing about the entitlement mentality of this country. If you lost family members in the —— attack, you’re going to get an average of $1,185,000.
“If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier killed in action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct death benefit, half of which is taxable. Next, you get $1,750 for burial costs.
“—– surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry. And there’s a payment of $211 a month for each child under 18.
“We also learned —— that some of the victims from the Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization asking for the same deal that the September 11 families are getting. ——-. You see where this is going, don’t you? Folks, this is part and parcel of over 50 years of entitlement politics in this country.”
Limbaugh next aimed his artillery at the biggest What’s-in-it-for-me? outfit in the US of A. “—— our own American congress just voted themselves a raise, and many of you don’t know that they only have to be in congress one term to receive a pension that is more than $15,000 a month, ——.
“If some of the military people stay in for 20 years and get out as an E-7, you may receive a pension of $1,000 per month, and the very people who placed you in harm’s way receive a pension of $15,000+ per month.” And much more for those public “servants” who do this for a career (Pocket Gofer 3).
Rush is right on with these arguments. We citizens did not order soldiers into Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. The government did, without our permission, and spent our money in the doing.
Jefferson wrote nearly all of the Declaration of Independence “——- Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the governed, —-.” (our emphasis)
Friends, at stake is the quality of life, not just for us but also for our descendants for generations to come. We feel we must act. Our pocket gofers can play a role in this grand mission.
We whistled through a heavy one above, and some of us may have not quite drank it all in. To add muscle we’ll run it past us again: no amount of government goodies can help anyone if he/she doesn’t truly want to help himself.
This means the first initiative must come from within the person. This works well in an individualistic society such as we had before the Great Depression.
But What’s-in-it-for-me? leads us astray, for it encourages us to believe that this is not true. That is, today we tend to think that the government can do practically anything for us, including give us things that will make us wealthy and happy. The reality is that Big Government does more to us than it does for us (Pocket Gofer 15).
Whenever we think about it, we feel grateful for all the risks and sacrifices that our forefathers and mothers willingly incurred for our benefit. We recall reading “—– we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” Once these are gone there is not much left.
We salute the flag every Fourth of July and come out the other end mystified. Every year we look for a copy of the Declaration of Independence in newspapers and magazines.
Perhaps we just keep missing it. But then, there may be a plan. Pocket Gofer 19 provides insights. (Just recently we did see a part of the Declaration in print.)
Maybe we don’t feel lucky, but we are. We don’t need to risk our blood and treasure to get something done about our sorry situation. We can do an absolutely essential and colossal job without bloodshed and for next to no money from us taxpayers.
What we do need is a unity of purpose. We need a banner around which to rally.
The time is right. We should organize and act.
WHAT CAN I CONTRIBUTE?
Some years ago a friend shared a story with us. He reluctantly agreed to talk with a union organizer who wanted him to join. When they met he said, “I think we’re wasting our time, but if you want to talk I will listen.”
Twenty minutes later the organizer had finished his pitch. Our friend then uttered just one sentence, after which the man immediately rose, said “You’re right; we are wasting our time,” and walked away.
What did our friend say? He said, “I am far more concerned with what I can give to this company than I am with what I am taking from it.”
Well, now. We admit that today there aren’t many workers or job situations like this one. But is this always some else’s fault?
The point is that our friend had the mentality that we seek: What-can-I-contribute? He wasn’t just putting in his eight at the factory/office each day. He was constantly thinking about how the company’s effectiveness could be improved.
If he came up with enough good ideas the part about “taking from it” would fall into place and even improve. A manager is foolish if he/she does not bump upward the salary of such an employee, as he will lose him/her to a competitor for sure.
So much for interesting stories. What we are concerned with is the central government and our tax dollars. What can we contribute to this outfit that will do anything other than make it still worse?
Damn good question. Reminds us of the difficulties faced by each crop of rookie congresspersons every two years.
Most of these well-meaning people really want to make some badly needed changes. They swear they are going to shape the place up. They want to make a contribution, so they want to know What-can-I-contribute?
So, what happens? Each quickly learns that to make change he/she must maneuver himself into a position of personal power on some committee. This always takes time, and also to get there he must get along with the veterans.
Therefore to get along he must go along. He must get re-elected, and this means pandering to special interest lobbyists who keep thrusting money into his pockets.
In this way the system grabs even the most dedicated new congressman. By the time he/she eventually gets to that power position he owes political favors to too many colleagues and too many friends who are feeding off the present system. They will combine forces to make sure our hero doesn’t rock the boat.
In this way he/she gets pressured into becoming a What’s-in-it-for-me? type cat. Thus great effort is expended to convince the public that change is going on, while the reality remains no change allowed. And so the negative side of human nature wins out over the positive side.
TO THE POINT: Enough of this! What are we to do? What can we contribute?
First, we must accept the idea in our minds that we want to contribute instead of constantly asking What’s-in-it-for-me? This is a major change, as most of our parents brought us up asking this over and over again.
We should see that this attitude is actually juvenile. When we were babies and small children it was always What’s-in-it-for-me? simply because it had to be.
We were helpless, unable to do things for ourselves. As we matured into adulthood and acquired talents and focused energies, this mentality logically changed toward What-can-I-contribute?
That is, it would have if career politicians behaved like leaders and expected us to seize the initiative and then they would help us toward our goals.
But alas! They persist in behaving like, —– well, politicians.
Zig Ziglar was a veteran banquet speaker, and a good one. He traveled around the country entertaining gatherings of businesspeople and others with his talks.
He believed that we help ourselves by helping others. He was very convincing when he shares this belief with his audiences. It ties right in with Pocket Gofer 2.
Carl Rogers was a psychoanalyst who worked with ordinary and disturbed people for well over 50 years. He believed that people are basically good, and they want to do good for others.
These men know people, so we can believe in them (if we believe in ourselves). Let’s get specific.
Young people can contribute by finishing high school and continuing their learning afterward. While he was governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton said that high school dropouts cost more to society than they contribute.
Therefore society is well advised to provide incentives aimed at keeping young ones in school. (See Pocket Gofer 10.) Good parenting is one such.
Managers in business and other organizations can motivate their people to contribute by truly listening to them. Sincere listening communicates a lot.
It tells an employee that his/her supervisor cares about him/her, that he values his contribution to the organization, and that management needs his ideas in order to make the company more effective, more competitive.
Warning: this is not all that easy to do. In spite of the obvious fact that the good Lord gave each of us two ears and only one mouth, most of us tend to talk when we should be listening. (Talking is repeating what a citizen already knows, but then he/she listens he may learn something.)
We can write to our congresspersons and tell them that we think the government is far too large. We can say we don’t appreciate our tax dollars being siphoned off by thieves, as described above.
We can argue for a budget which is truly in surplus, and that each edition include far fewer than 200,000 accounts. If government is small, we will know much more accurately where our tax dollars are going and what they are doing (Pocket Gofer 15).
Actually, letters will accomplish little. It is too easy to ask a staff member to bang out a partly canned response and forget about it.
Also, we inferred above that our congresspersons are thieves. This will not go down well. Let’s move on.
We can show that too much power concentrated in too few hands undermines our individual freedoms. We can argue that the Constitution guaranteed to us our unalienable individual rights, and that special interest politics is group rights taking precedence over individual rights.
This is bad, and we damned well don’t like it. If our congressman cannot get re-elected through effective leadership in representing our interests, we’ll find a leader to replace each politician. See Pocket Gofer 3.
We can demand of our congressmen that we want open government. By this we mean not only no secrets, but also a government open to criticism by its bosses (us). Pocket Gofer 5 elaborates.
Friends, there have been thinking citizens among us demanding and demanding for decades. They have got nowhere because the looters in Washington love their warm nests (read $$$$) far too much to really listen.
There was something new in Washington as of Jan. 2011. It’s called the Tea Party movement, which causes us to recall our history: 1773 and a shipment of overtaxed British tea dumped into Boston harbor by British subjects who felt abused.
The current variety has generated a lot of ink (Economist 10/30/2010): “———- election of republican candidates who are ‘true’ conservatives, not the big-spending counterfeit republicans whom they blame for leading the party astray under George W Bush.
Looks like some needed organization of thinking citizens. “—-in how many other countries would a powerful populist movement demand less of government, rather than endlessly and expensively more?” WOW!! Thought we would never see this day.
Why did the tea partiers not organize into a third political party? They knew about the myriad barriers erected over decades by the democrats and republicans to kill the chances of any competition for their posh jobs.
We heartily support the movement. If it wins the day we can finally OBLITERATE WHAT’S-IN-IT-FOR-ME? and replace it with WHAT-CAN-I-CONTRIBUTE?
Michael Lewis’s book The Fifth Risk includes a story about David Friedberg. “An entrepreneur got tons of historical farm data — including 26m fields — shifted from governmment storage to the cloud. Then he traveled the country selling insurance.
“He’d show him the rainfall and temperature every day — which you might think the farmer would know, but then the farmer might be managing 20 or 30 different fields, spread over several counties. He’d show the farmer the precise stage of growth of his crop, the best moments to fertilize, the optimum eight-day window to plant his seeds, and the ideal harvest date.
“The fertilizer was a big deal to them. Friedberg ‘The biggest expense farmers have is fertilizer. They’ll spend a hundred bucks an acre on corn seed and two hundred bucks on fertilizer. And their net profit may be a hundred bucks an acre. If it rains right after you fertilize, the fertilizer drains away. So how do you decide when to plant and when to fertilize? I had guys come up to me after and say `You saved me four hundred grand last year.`’”
“Six years after venture capitalists valued David Friedberg’s new company at $6m, Monsanto bought it for $1.1 billion.” Lewis did not say; maybe we missed it. But his experience strongly suggests that he used machine learning to analyze those tons of data.
We have been following closely China’s rapid economic growth. Aware of the country’s strong top-down government, we were surprised to see a piece on entrepreneurship.
“Flower Beds of Enterprise,” Economist 5/2/20 (Chinese entrepreneurs) “—- first private business in 1980, ——. —– the notion, ———- grassroots entrepreneurs drive growth. This development is quite a leap from Mao Zedong’s 1958 Great Leap Forward: “Let a hundred flowers bloom ——-“
“By 2017 budding business owners were registering close to 6m firms a year — or more than 15,000 a day — nearly three times the figure in 2010. Private firms contribute three-fifths of GDP and four fifths of urban employment.
“And Beijing’s ongoing crackdown on informal sources of lending, ———-.
“—– more hostile to it than at any time since before Deng set up ———-(free markets). Mr. Xi favors state-led development ——.” Smacks of Mao Zedong’s “capitalist running dogs.” President Xi Jinping surely knows about Deng Xiaoping’s actions in 1978. Hard to know what will happen next (esp with Covid-19 turned loose).
VOLUNTEERISM: We can make a contribution by volunteering. In fact, we are wondering whether volunteerism has the potential to replace many of the functions now performed so poorly by government “entitlements,” and which cost over $700 billion a year of our money (Pocket Gofer 2).
A bureaucrat is more interested in a steady paycheck than in doing some real good. On the other hand, a volunteer is happy if not elated when someone whom he/she has helped gets back on his/her feet again.
He is not worried about running out of work. There is always a need for a good volunteer.
Theodore Roosevelt said “When a man stumbles he should be quickly set back on his feet. On the other hand, no man should be carried.”
Because a volunteer is there because he wants to be there, because the volunteer lives in the area and therefore knows the territory and its problems and what are the best solutions, and because he cares about those whom he is helping, the man/woman being helped will be much more likely to succeed.
And he will be far more grateful than will anyone who might be “helped” by a bureaucrat who prefers to carry him while stealing his dignity. If human nature says we are good and want to do good we prefer to be net contributors to our society, and not net subtractors.
If we happen to be well off and are somehow still unfulfilled, we might try volunteerism. There is evidence that this activity can renew people’s zest for living.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has bought into this line. He is chairman of America’s Promise – The Alliance for Youth. He and the organization are involved in teaching children that “—- we get back far more than we contribute.” We will help by publishing their web site: www.americaspromise.org.
IF THE URGE HITS: Or, we could join what may become an army of public-spirited citizens who want to serve in public office. They want this because they want to make a contribution, and not because there is lots of power and money to be grabbed.
Ben Franklin felt that high public officials should not be paid. We wonder if he anticipated today’s high officials meeting to vote themselves whopping raises in salary and pensions whenever they think they need more money for the great job they’re doing.
We need to clarify a point. A public-spirited citizen need not be wealthy. What is needed is a desire to contribute his/her time and talents in the interest of good government.
What is needed is a desire to boot corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, and thieves out of office. What is needed is a profound desire to help ourselves through helping others to maximize their destinies.
What is needed is people like us. We are weaving a banner now, around which to rally multitudes of people. Each pocket gofer is a length of yarn.
Our pajamas don’t have pockets. But during every waking hour our hip pocket or iPhone has a gofer in it. We feel like every time we whip out that booklet and start a discussion we are MAKING A CONTRIBUTION.
SOME CONTRIBUTING CITIZENS: We should give thanks to Ross Perot. Whatever we may think of this cat, during the 1992 presidential election campaign he did us the great public service of converting thieves into robbers.
Thievery is sneaky. On the other hand, robbery is right out there in the open.
Perot got on the tube and “outed” a bunch of thieves. He did this by forcing debate on how much money our government is stealing from future generations of taxpayers.
Maybe it’s more accurate to say he created robbers for some of us to notice. Others of us cannot notice, as they have not yet been born.
These good young children are depending on us to give them a good start in life. Strapping a $200,000+ debt onto the back of each baby born seems to us like that is not the best way to do it.
We lock our homes and cars against thieves. But, how can we lock our pockets against the thieves in and around Washington DC? (We are inactive accessories to the crime, altho we don’t want to admit it.)
Hang in there. Maybe we are onto something that works.
Perot showed us in 1992 that What’s-in-it-for-me? was partly responsible for our then-$8.6 trillion national debt. That’s $8,600,000,000,000. Each additional zero multiplies the debt by 10. YIKES!! $23 trillion now. YIKES AGAIN!!
Thoughts of Perot’s $3.5+ billion of wealth gets us to dreaming — er, thinking about wealthy folks and how they respond to What Can I Contribute. In 2006 Forbes magazine said there were 793 billionaires in the world, and 8.3 million millionaires.
The number of private charitable foundations was about 22,000 in the early 1980s, but over 65,000 today according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. A 2004 survey had total charitable giving in the USA at a record $249 billion, which is over 2% of GDP.
Two of those 793 big-bucks guys are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. They combined efforts to give something like $70 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, which among other good causes provides aid to areas of extreme poverty in Africa.
Just by its stupendous size it is unique among the 65,000+ foundations. In addition to this, “Billanthropy” (a term coined by a journalist) investigates in detail how the money is managed on the ground. This is tremendously important, as much of the historical billions of aid to African countries in the past were wasted or ripped off.
Our representatives in Washington have always known that we don’t like taxes, but we do like bennies. Therefore, in order to pay for them they simply put much of the bill on the cuff and thus get themselves re-elected.
They have been doing this for decades, because no one has successfully called them on it. Result: $23 trillion today and counting, and that doesn’t include all the off-budget stuff (another potentially 40 trillion dollars that our descendants may have to pay someday).
We had better get to work, because we’re going to need lots of children and grandchildren working very hard to pay back these colossal debts and give us benefits in our old age. We think we have a problem with a generation gap now …!! We ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
Every citizen in America pays $4-5.00 every day just to pay the interest on this monstrous debt. We recall that Perot called the debt and the budget deficit our “crazy aunt in the basement. Everybody knows she is there but nobody talks about her.” A lot of us didn’t know about her, but he made sure we were informed.
Central government officials created a lot of wind about a fiscal 2000 surplus. We will show in other pocket gofers that this was not real. They are deceiving us again.
Ross did this because he is not a politician. No prize for guessing how much we would have heard about his crazy aunt during the ’92 campaign, were it not for H. Ross.
When he said nobody talks about her he meant no politician. Our “trusted public servants” created this monster, but we let them do it because we were not watching. Jefferson said that any debt carried past one generation to the future is letting “———the dead rule from the grave.”
We trusted them to act in our interest and that of our children. That is how representative government is supposed to operate.
Perot donated to an organization called Lead or Leave. It focuses on fighting the central government budget deficit, and on what it calls “generational politics.” (Maybe he did not donate enough. A check on the Web shows that the organization is disbanded.)
Its founders and main ramrods were members of what was called the “twenty-something” generation or “Generation X.” They were unhappy with leadership provided by the World War II baby boomers, and they are concerned about the immense clout of the AARP.
These people are some of the future taxpayers who will be stuck with the bill down the road. We hope that similar organizations will actively help us promote the pocket gofers, as in this we are kindred spirits.
In Fall of 1994 budget director Alice Rivlin and her staff compiled a memo for the president that showed him what real choices the government had ahead of it for long-range planning purposes. They were grim.
Someone leaked it (Pocket Gofer 5). All hell broke loose as Rivlin was cussed up and down by politicians in both political parties.
Truth sits uncomfortably in Washington. Politicians want to continue the What-can-I-contribute? illusion for our benefit, while behind the scenes pursuing their usual What’s-in-it-for-me? agenda.
GROWING UP: Pocket Gofer 17 speaks to leadership. We believe this is an important subject, worth some serious thought.
Hard study, thinking, and debate must soon regain positions of prominence. Blankets, cookies, and warm milk will not cut it. This is the stuff of early youth, not of life as it really is.
In conclusion, we can do more yet. We can recruit people by the hundreds to our cause. Here is a thought.
1. Show people this gofer; ask them to read it and think about it.
2. Ask them to take a piece of paper and a pen.
3. Have them think some more, then write down in some detail three tasks that each plans to do within the next year. Write down one for the community (or county, if rural). Write a second one for the state, and a third one for the nation or world. (Voting and paying taxes don’t count.)
4. Read carefully what was just written, make any adjustments, and write today’s date in the upper corner. Sign it at the bottom.
5. Place it under the mattress. Sleep on it.
6. Make notes on a calendar to take it out and reread it frequently. Share it with others. This will deepen the commitment.
7. As a task is completed, cross it off and write in its place more of the same if liked, or something else if not enjoyed.
8. Finally, don’t cast a vote for anyone who believes in these ideas unless this commitment has been made.
There is something about human nature which requires that a commitment be in writing before it weighs much in our mind. Those of us who actually do the above will find their thinking moving toward What-can-I-contribute?
We have outlined a bunch of actions here. We note that they are poorly organized, and timing is not discussed.
This is where community leadership can accomplish much. We are not only unsure of details here, but we think local citizens need flexibility in organizing their ideas and communicating them to elected leaders.
THE RIGHT KIND OF “FEEL GOOD” GOVERNMENT
This kind is based on truth and reality, not on deception and fantasy (Pocket Gofer 19). In this section we suggest that those of us who do the thinking and make the effort to make a contribution will feel good about themselves.
Our history teacher in junior high school taught us about Ponce de Leon’s search for the fountain of youth. At age 72 famous feminist Betty Friedan has reached way beyond him, as according to her book by a similar title she has found The Fountain of Age.
Her argument is that old folks need not become grouches. They can and should figure out individually how to make a contribution to society and then do it.
We quote briefly: “The movement that flows from the Fountain of Age cannot be a special interest group. It would be a violation of our own wisdom and generativity to empower ourselves in age only for our own security and care.”
Ms. Friedan is sending a clear message to the AARP: Put that one in your pipe and puff on it. She goes on to show how she discovered new insights that led her away from “——– the no-win battles of women as a whole sex, oppressed victims ——–.”
Here’s a thought. Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, among others in the late 18th century, believed in the value of reflection.
They developed the habit of frequently sitting alone in a quiet place in order to simply allow their thoughts to range far and wide. Quite often nothing worthwhile emerged.
However there were those times when new insights into human nature were gained after reflecting on one of those random thoughts that popped into their heads. These could and should be shared among family and young friends, thus making a valuable contribution to society.
We would have geezers feeling good about themselves. Young ones would be better citizens from these interactions. These would then be win-win situations.
Geezers have accumulated wisdom and talents thruout their lives. They should make these available; they should MAKE A CONTRIBUTION. Acquiring this mentality and habit will make them free, and ready to meet their God when the time comes.
Many of us have lived for a long time curled up in our own protective shell. It has become encrusted with barnacles. Making contributions can help to pry us out, and we will live again.
Today we have increased occupational and daily mobility. People don’t spend much of their lives in one place/neighborhood, and so our loyalty weakens accordingly. Each person feels he/she has a lower stake in what happens in a community.
If it gets bad and we get discouraged, we just nip off out of town for a weekend, and return refreshed and ready again for the ratrace. No need to adjust the ratrace to suit our needs.
We can just cut out when it gets too rough on us. (Maybe that’s why it has become a ratrace. The winner is still a rat.)
In days gone by constructive democratic change involved lengthy and sometimes heated discussions. If by doing this we risk making an enemy, we’d better just cut out.
But as we see today, it is not a cut out. It’s actually a cop-out.
Hence the mess we are in. Good citizenship is a privilege, but it must be earned thru carrying out commitments. We cannot have our cake and eat it too.
Performing obligations is not a drag when we want to make a contribution. With a What-can-I-contribute? mentality we look forward to these opportunities, and whip through them with vim and vigor.
Some folks recently put together an International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 17 volumes worth. That is surely an impressive achievement. But there is nothing in it that gets into any detail regarding citizenship.
Should we be surprised? Looks like the idea needs work.
The positive human nature in us will cause us to respond if there is an ideal to guide our thoughts and actions. And we will enjoy it. At the very least, we will not knock it until we have tried it.
Take any community consisting of people of different ethnic groups and with different religions. Whatever belief systems guide them, without a common unifying purpose they will find it nearly impossible to forge a solid community, to hammer out a feeling of civic pride.
A unifying ideal will cause citizens to come together. It will create a desire to make a contribution, and then to make another and another.
Without something out there ahead to look forward to, people will look backward. This is how old folks get grouchy.
But in backward lies fragmentation. There is no cement back there that can hold us together.
We believe we can find that unifying ideal hidden somewhere in the pocket gofers. But it doesn’t hang out there for all to see and act upon. First we need to pause and reflect on it a while.
Every community and neighborhood is unique. We have faith that active and concerned members of each community will seize the initiative and use the ideas and principles contained in the pocket gofers to get many others involved and to forge a local government. This will be a great government, because people support what they help to create. See PG21.
A free individual wants to contribute after his/her own unique fashion. This fact points to a need for a leader who can coordinate diverse resources and desires into a solid joint effort.
A leader should also get as many as possible involved. If the task is painting a political landscape called democracy, put a paintbrush in every hand. If we have a hand in its design we will push the project forward.
Another insight into human nature deals with the inherent male hunting/fighting spirit. Today there are few outlets for this urge for most men besides crime or watching blood sports and other violence on the tube.
In a democracy political battles over ideas can supply this outlet. Engaging in these can strengthen a man’s family, just as fights in the old days protected it. Furthermore, he will be more likely to obey community laws that he had a hand in creating.
We can band together to accomplish something important to our community, get it done, pat ourselves on our back, and plunge into another task.
The bureaucrat is not task oriented. He/she is a time-server.
Let’s take this part of democracy home with us. Father gets ready to do a minor repair in the house. His five-year-old son notices these preparations and asks, “Daddy, can I help?”
Father confronts a choice between two alternatives. The first is “Sorry, son. You’ll just get in the way.”
The second welcomes his son as his “assistant,” and he sees that the job will take roughly three times as long as he had originally planned. He will miss the first quarter of the football game on TV.
But, the next day in school his son is everywhere, bragging, “I helped my Dad fix a faucet!” In his half-sized perception, he has made a contribution.
All concerned citizens of his community want the little guy to grow up with that mentality deep inside him. This will probably mean a few more missed first quarters, but we think Dad will figure it’s worth it.
Today’s worker in an ordinary job with limited future finds outlets for his/her creative urges in hobbies or travel. Good government in a community can be an additional outlet and a stimulating hobby.
Rich, middle, and poor work together to protect individual freedoms. Each gains new respect and appreciation of the others.
Ditto Black, Brown, Asian, Hispanic, Woman, Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Jew, etc. Good government unites people of different backgrounds. BIG GOVERNMENT and groupthink fragment us. See Pocket Gofer 15.
The above makes up our version of “feel good” government. We think it offers an interesting contrast to that which was thrust upon us for some 40 years by the Reaganites, the Clintonites and the Bushies.
CONCLUSION
We face a big task. It should have been confronted long ago, but finger-pointing doesn’t accomplish much. Our politicians today already do plenty of this, and we can readily appreciate the lack of results.
This pocket gofer and others provide us with the first real opportunity in 75 years to accomplish sweeping change in the way we are governed. They provide a guide for our united efforts. The challenge for each of us is to circulate them and to reach out to others, especially those not like us, in spirited discussion and debate.
This can and must be done without violence. Not even demonstrations, as these risk turning violent. We see that violence plays directly into the hands of the establishment, as it gives them the opportunity that they seek to set up a police state.
What’s-in-it-for-me? has dug a hole. A What-can-I-contribute? mentality will lift us out of it. Without it our efforts will not be united.
“United we stand; divided we fall.” Did Ben Franklin say this? (Actually, it was Aesop.) However, we do know that around the signing of the Declaration Of Independence he said: “We must hang together, or surely we shall hang separately.”
Through it all we remain convinced that our ancestors named this country The United States of America for a very good reason.
Sneak up behind a grouch, and put this gofer in his mobile phone.
………… PUBLIUS II
TITLES OF OTHER POCKET GOFERS THAT WE CAN DIG INTO, DISCUSS, CRITICIZE, AND ACT ON:
PG 1 – ON HEALTH AND FITNESS IN THE USA
PG 2 – ON VOLUNTEERISM
PG 3 – ON THE CAREER POLITICIAN IN A DEMOCRACY
PG 4 – ON THE BOTTOM-UP APPROACH TO GETTING THINGS DONE
PG 5 – ON THE COMING OPEN SOCIETY
PG 7 – ON CORRUPTION AND ACCOUNTABILITY
PG 8 – ON GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF BUSINESS AND THE PHANTOM
PG 9 – IT’S ALL IN THE FAMILY
PG 10 – ON EDUCATION IN THE USA
PG 11 – ON THE U.S. AS A WORLD CITIZEN
PG 12 – ON THE U.N. AND POTENTIAL CONFLICTS
PG 13 – ON PERSONAL POWER AND IDEAS
PG 14 – ON RESPECT FOR TAXPAYERS’ MONEY
PG 15 – ON BIG, SMALL, AND GOOD GOVERNMENT
PG 16 – ON DEMOCRACY AND OUR CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
PG 17 – ON LEADERSHIP IN A DEMOCRACY
PG 18 – ON WAR, WEAPONS, AND PEACE
PG 19 – ON THE GRAND DECEPTION
PG 20 – ON LIFE IN A DEMOCRATIC COMMUNITY
PG 21 – PRELIMINARY DRAFT OF A COSTITUTION