Before continuing with all of the things I actually did include, or had a mind to, in an email exchange with a narrow-minded talk-show host I thought I should define what most people generally understand to be the middle class.
Any definition of who is referred to when speaking about the middle class, must take at least two things into consideration- a social and an economic component (how much you think the former is dictated by the latter is a matter of debate):
1) Wikipedia’s social definition of the middle class- “consists of those people who have a degree of economic independence, but not a great deal of social influence or power.” I would argue the idea of “economic independence,” because it implies that they have ready money spirited up from some place other than what is earned working for someone else. It is clear that the middle class doesn't have an awful lot of social power- at least not manifest/real power. Karl Marx probably has a better definition, but it probably includes the word “bourgeoisie,” and people hate it when I use big words. Besides, quoting Marx is liable to have me pegged as a communist- funny stuff.
2) an economic definition would run something like this, from numerous clicks on the internet in search of a working definition: a household income of between $30-$90 thousand dollars a year, give or take. Unfortunately, we are taxed, so that is an ill-defined barometer, as it isn’t actually “income;” it isn’t coming INto our household. Also, as Liz Pulliam writes in a May 21, 2007 article for MSN money, (one that should be read for a further idea of what I’m talking about), $50,000 in San Francisco or Manhattan is different than it is in Iowa.
The URL: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/general/2003-09-14-middle-cover_x.htm
Here are the rest of my points sent to the talk-show host in the course of the email exchange:
*- actually included in the text of at least one of my emails
* a) the income disparity between the upper and the middle class will continue to grow because the rich can send their kids to school, to good schools. With a good school on the resume, a job seeker can get a leg up on the competition- Stanford, Arizona, even the U of M will allow one this advantage, as compared to a community or technical college, if any. An education from a more respected institution gets someone a job that pays more. People go back to college to earn master’s credits so that they can earn even more money. Hopefully, having the majority opinion of a good education equating to more lifetime earnings, by and large, isn’t a non sequitur, or something that cannot be proven. Just go with me on this one.
b) Minnesota is continually in the top 7 most taxed states in the country. What kind of overtaxation relative to the rest of the country, well, I'll have to look into that;
* c) college tuition costs keep rising; I attached five links to articles that backed up my point with quotes such as college tuition rising 6% in 2006 (my “cost of living” increase was about half that). The quotes immediately below were included in one of my emails (courtesy of a Rob Kelley cnn.com article).;
"After grant aid and tax benefits, full-time students at public four-year colleges are paying an average of $2,700 a year in net tuition and fees. But this number has increased at an even faster rate than published prices because grant aid hasn't kept pace with tuitions.” AND "Over the past decade, total student aid, including grants, loans, work-study and tax benefits, increased by 95 percent, adjusted for inflation.” AND "But loans have grown to become a bigger part of aid packages, while grant aid has shrunken.” See, this is important because loan implies something that will need to be paid back with interest; a grant is a gift.
Here is just one link: http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/24/pf/college/college_costs/index.htm?postversion=2006102716
* All of that means, in my opinion, that children born to middle class families will have to pay until middle-age on the loans they will have to take out in order to afford college. Again, I can’t prove that, and I’m bad at math, but that looks pretty bad. Yes, education will cost plenty 15 years from now. Get out your abicus and use any % increase you want, but the cost of education isn't going down and the government isn't likely to regulate the price, just like they can't regulate the price of gas . . . hahahahaha, that was funny.
* d) students must take out loans because the middle class parents don’t make enough in salaries to put the necessary money away which would prevent the middle class kids from paying so much interest on the borrowed money for college;
* e) middle class parents won’t be able to put away money because just as the rich, they would like to at some point- go on a vacation, buy a reliable vehicle; have to pay for: a daughter’s wedding, their son’s participation in a youth sports activity, their parent’s funerals, a new furnace and air conditioner when they break down after 18 years, gas in their vehicle, property taxes, state and federal income taxes, medical costs, a tree to plant in their yard, which gives back to the environment by producing oxygen and reducing carbon dioxide; we might also like to put as much money away for our kids to help them out in life, and to help ourselves in our old age by saving money for retirement. Oh, and let us not forget about a mortgage payment- for it is a good thing to own a home- I’ll get back to this one;
* f) those things in (e) above, the rich can pay outright for and have money left over for servants, extravagant eating out, multiple vacations, multiple homes, more vehicles than one can drive at a time, spoiling their children with things they may never make them work for, appreciate, or earn- like mopeds and college educations. And I’m not being unreasonable, I know that those making just over $90k a year are not going to be able to purchase outright the things in (e), but they can do more than the middle class and the poor. I am primarily talking about the richest 10% of people in the country;
* g) cost of living increases are not matching inflation; (I got an above average raise, so someone thinks I worked hard enough and didn’t just milk the system. I will net about $22 every two weeks after taxes, medical costs, charity contributions, and 401k retirement account deductions- hardly things for which I can or should avoid having deducted from my paycheck. By the way, I work the entire year for that type of raise;
* h) and I work for a company in good standing, that is perceived to be an industry leader, though I am not obliged to reveal its name;
* i) I speculated that he was short and mentioned that he was a pit bull without any teeth based on the lack of a compelling argument (and this is before the recent outbreaks of pit bull attacks)- huh, precognition- who would have thought that- I should attempt to reveal something with more political gears, something with more impact- like excessive taxation and the continual rising costs of goods and services, the future effects of constant waves of illegal immigration, the punishment of narcissistic professional athletes on capital punishment islands . . . but I digress;
* j) I conceded that I could not, in fact, prove my point because you can find numbers that completely contradict other numbers if you are partial enough to your own cause; but then I mentioned that he must be a science fiction fan, because everything I was speculating on wouldn’t be able to be proven for the next twenty years and unless time travel were an option available to him- he also could not disprove it;
* k) I mentioned that getting through to him was more difficult than getting peas into the mouth of a two-year old and that he was more stubborn than Mad Jack’s old Number 7, a mule the character escorted through the mountains on his way to meet up with Grizzly Adams (a television program from the late 70s);
* l) I stated that I was emailing in lieu of calling in because he was a talk show host and you don’t win arguments with them- because they have all day to research for a two hour show, take your call with 30 seconds left in a segment, hang up or interrupt when they disagree with you, and can then spend the next two segments stating things you would have touched on if you weren’t interrupted in the first place;
m) An income class should be measured by how much NET income is brought into the household- not because a person who has a doctorate in economics says that it should be measured by pre-tax income. You can’t spend money you don’t have- this is something the poor and responsible middle class have known for years and the rich will never know.
Next time: a summary of his responses, such as they were. Again, I must take this approach in order to reveal the short-sightedness, and the laziness of his argument, which reflects the going rate of exchange on this topic by those who aren't thinking much about the future, judging by what is happening in the present- primarily because it does not benefit them to do so.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Middle Class Part 2: Perspective and Proof; Middle Class in Session
“What is now proved was once only imagined.” - William Blake
Part 2 of the Taxation of the Middle Class and Middle Class Financing of expensive purchases- oh, and about Proof-
Trivial Pursuits: To concede- my wife and I live in a good house, in a good neighborhood, and we have good families with two good, healthy kids. We have two vehicles that are not constantly in need of repairs. My wife and I have good jobs. Life, by and large, is just fine. I’ve suspected this for a long time, but it really hit home while we were watching Will Smith race to give his son and himself a better life in the movie- “The Pursuit of Happyness”. This is the type of movie that people should watch to put their lives in perspective- to appreciate what they have. Oh, his life, as portrayed in the movie, wasn’t as terrible as the live’s of characters in Schindler’s List or The Pianist- where mass and individual suffering was completely heart-wrenching, but all three movies should be watched by everyone, including the rich- not as disconnected blobs on a couch on a Saturday night, but as fully immersed, empathetic, human beings, astounded by what they see, with the thought- “hey, people actually are put through that kind of suffering.” People should flip the switch in their conscious mind and put themselves in Smith’s character’s place and ask themselves a question I asked last time- “What are you prepared to do?”
Well: So, I’m doing pretty well; the entire middle class is doing pretty well, and I can’t make it any more clear that the lives I’m concerned about are those of successive generations, in particular- the lives of middle class kids- two of them live in my house. Again, to be honest, and not self-righteous, I give either time or money to about ten organizations every year, wanting food, money for a better education, school supplies, money to research diseases that do not have cures, and to help third graders with their reading. I’m no saint, I don’t give until it hurts, far from it in fact. But I give, I empathize with those that do not have as much as I do. And my question here is- why can’t the rich do the same? No, I’m not privy to the ledgers or pocket books of the rich and I have no idea how much they give to charity. But I’d suspect that PLENTY of them don’t give as much as they should. I could get into the irony of greed and how those who obtain more feel they NEED more, like their desire is some obsessive compulsive disorder. Perhaps, eventually, I will even bring Yertle the Turtle in as a way of illustrating my point. Yertle the Turtle, is an even more obscure Dr. Seuss story than the Sneetches, which Seymour Correctly used to illustrate a point about racism a few months ago. Can't let that bastard have all the fun. But that topic about the inherent greed of the rich lies outside of the scope of my current harangue. Lucky for you.
Other people's money: You might say- who are you to be spending other people’s money? You can't prove the rich aren't contributing vast amounts of money to the poor. The poor, like the existence of evil in the Catholic religion- are necessary. Again, that is also outside of the scope of this subject- your lucky day- hell, I'm on vacation. Someone has to tell the rich how to spend it, because obviously the government isn’t all that good at it. I'm referring to how much they're taxed in addition to how much they give to charity, both governmental and moral charity.
You can’t prove everything: . . . though life would be easier if we could. It is easy to dismiss people who don’t have all the facts, especially when we are an important radio talk-show host, but should we dismiss people who have PLENTY of facts? Should we stop talking about the following topics simply because we don’t have every single fact imaginable? Given two choices which would you choose to slow the spread of pancreatic cancer: chemotherapy or surgery? Is there life on other planets? Do ghosts exist? Why do some women put on so much perfume it could test a yak’s gag reflex? Who thought wind socks were worth mass marketing? What do you know. Do rhetorical questions require question marks. Hm . . . There is a Seinfeld scene in there somewhere. I can't believe it took me six months to make a Seinfeld reference.
Break for the reader: My intention was to produce in full the week-long email exchange I had with a local radio talk-show host, but a summer’s worth of columns in that format would bore even me (silence to you readers who think that everything I write is boring, is long-winded while still missing key pieces of information, or never should have been written in the first place). Having your own blog is free and I'm not compensated at all for this work . . . seriously! Instead, I will summarize my argument about the future plight of the middle class as succinctly as I possibly can . . . seriously. Ah, but I think a lot and a lot of things occur to me in connection with other things- I’m like Seinfeld meets Carl Jung meets a sarcastic version of Encyclopedia Britannica- a frightening combination to be sure.
Let's be conservative: I bring the conservative talk-show host into the diatribe only to show the other viewpoint, to show that he clearly lost the argument, and to assist those who are like him into being able to empathize with the middle class- because this generation of middle class citizens is doing just fine- but the next generation will be in serious financial trouble if things continue as they have been.
With a topic this big, I will try to keep as focused as possible. I'm certainly not the best person for this task, but I see few people addressing the issues of excessive taxation, the impossibility of having a normal life given the prices of necessary life objectives- vehicles so one can get to work to earn money, a home to raise children in, a well-earned vacation, paying for a parent's funeral, a child's wedding, and the excessive taxation by the government- things the rich have no problem paying for. Don't worry, I'll get to them. The poor also deserve our attention, but at least for now, that too lies a bit outside of the scope of this argument. To me, discussions on this topic are long overdue, and not only interesting and educational, but imperative if anything is going to change twenty years from now. No, I’m not holding out hope- but I am trying.
A long summary, but necessary: In the course of a week I put forth the following pieces of information in email form to Bob Davis of KSTP AM 1500. No, none of these pieces of information are proof because they aren’t holding hands with the almighty decimal ( . ), or propped up against the esteemed percentage sign (%) or respectably leaning against the fraction slash ( / ), or even standing behind the dollar sign ($20 thousand)- but the proof . . . I’ll try for that later. People will bow down to numbers and figures and think that is proof- yeah, the only figure I’m bowing down to is Jessica Alba’s. These are just the first 9 things I included in the email exchange- those that would justify me as a spokesperson for reasonable middle class financial behavior, proving that I am not complaining because I irresponsibly buy what I cannot afford so that I pay for it later- in the form of higher credit card debt. I have to put out what I contributed to the disagreement and compare that, eventually, to what he countered with. Then, you can make up your own mind- and mind you, two weeks from now, when I'm done with my side of the argument, and his, I will be astounded if you choose his side- the side of evading the topic like the Matrix skirted bullets. Ah, a lot of bullets were fired at the Matrix . . . a lot. Over the course of the week I emailed this guy essentially the following things, among others I'll have to include next time:
1) I indicated that a viewpoint he had on the air stating that the middle class had nothing to complain about was well off-base;
2) capitalism is good; competition is good. I am not Robin Hood because I think the rich should give more to the poor, and I’m not a socialist; accusing someone of either is a way to deflect the attention from the real issue;
3) if I criticize a republican president or a democratic congress does not mean that I am a democrat in the former case or a republican in the latter; I am part of that third group- the one that can’t stand either of them; I included this because one of my points approached the topic of our misguided president and it seemed to offend him as a republican because he immediately brought Bill Clinton into the argument;
4) I talk to middle class citizens all the time, the real people struggling enough with their financial situation, let alone saving for retirement and/or for college tuition for their kids. With two kids, a full-time job, a very popular blog to keep contributing to, and a book that I’m trying to write, doing research to prove this guy wrong was not my top priority; in due time;
5) I am also not justifying people who max out their credit cards and who only pay the interest on them every month; and I am not talking about people who buy extravagant gifts and who live outside their means; We know people like that- they get new vehicles, add an addition onto the house, flat screen televisions, finish basements and you wonder if they are working for the government, or lying about what they do for a living;
6) I have impeccable credit and am saving all year to be able to afford a flat screen television the rich would purchase on a whim and the irresponsible middle class would pay four years for, because they would FINANCE it; we pay off the credit card bill every month and don’t charge more than we can afford to pay for, therefore no interest accrues;
7) my wife is a nurse, and makes good money- I stated that we are still paying on a student loan courtesy of the over-priced U of M, a school she hasn’t attended in eight years and never graduated from;
8) we (the middle class) are taxed to pay for a stadium that mercenary millionaire professional athletes play in only up until such time as they become annoyed at the billionaires they’re playing for, the same billionaires you bought the stadium for in the first place. Yes, I know, only Hennepin county residents are taxed for this in Minnesota, but the stadium could have gone up in any county in the state (again, think of empathizing with people's burden). Some people call providing a stadium to billionaires- "corporate welfare"- I can’t tell you what I call it- this is a family blog- a kid might be reading this, hahahahaha- who am I kidding, small nocturnal animals scurry in horror when they see the bright light of my laptop;
9) the rich work no harder to obtain the means to provide for their families than the poor or middle class;
That is enough for now. I’ll give you the meat of the matter next time, this was just the appetizer. If I haven't tied everything together just yet, be patient- I'm working on it.
Part 2 of the Taxation of the Middle Class and Middle Class Financing of expensive purchases- oh, and about Proof-
Trivial Pursuits: To concede- my wife and I live in a good house, in a good neighborhood, and we have good families with two good, healthy kids. We have two vehicles that are not constantly in need of repairs. My wife and I have good jobs. Life, by and large, is just fine. I’ve suspected this for a long time, but it really hit home while we were watching Will Smith race to give his son and himself a better life in the movie- “The Pursuit of Happyness”. This is the type of movie that people should watch to put their lives in perspective- to appreciate what they have. Oh, his life, as portrayed in the movie, wasn’t as terrible as the live’s of characters in Schindler’s List or The Pianist- where mass and individual suffering was completely heart-wrenching, but all three movies should be watched by everyone, including the rich- not as disconnected blobs on a couch on a Saturday night, but as fully immersed, empathetic, human beings, astounded by what they see, with the thought- “hey, people actually are put through that kind of suffering.” People should flip the switch in their conscious mind and put themselves in Smith’s character’s place and ask themselves a question I asked last time- “What are you prepared to do?”
Well: So, I’m doing pretty well; the entire middle class is doing pretty well, and I can’t make it any more clear that the lives I’m concerned about are those of successive generations, in particular- the lives of middle class kids- two of them live in my house. Again, to be honest, and not self-righteous, I give either time or money to about ten organizations every year, wanting food, money for a better education, school supplies, money to research diseases that do not have cures, and to help third graders with their reading. I’m no saint, I don’t give until it hurts, far from it in fact. But I give, I empathize with those that do not have as much as I do. And my question here is- why can’t the rich do the same? No, I’m not privy to the ledgers or pocket books of the rich and I have no idea how much they give to charity. But I’d suspect that PLENTY of them don’t give as much as they should. I could get into the irony of greed and how those who obtain more feel they NEED more, like their desire is some obsessive compulsive disorder. Perhaps, eventually, I will even bring Yertle the Turtle in as a way of illustrating my point. Yertle the Turtle, is an even more obscure Dr. Seuss story than the Sneetches, which Seymour Correctly used to illustrate a point about racism a few months ago. Can't let that bastard have all the fun. But that topic about the inherent greed of the rich lies outside of the scope of my current harangue. Lucky for you.
Other people's money: You might say- who are you to be spending other people’s money? You can't prove the rich aren't contributing vast amounts of money to the poor. The poor, like the existence of evil in the Catholic religion- are necessary. Again, that is also outside of the scope of this subject- your lucky day- hell, I'm on vacation. Someone has to tell the rich how to spend it, because obviously the government isn’t all that good at it. I'm referring to how much they're taxed in addition to how much they give to charity, both governmental and moral charity.
You can’t prove everything: . . . though life would be easier if we could. It is easy to dismiss people who don’t have all the facts, especially when we are an important radio talk-show host, but should we dismiss people who have PLENTY of facts? Should we stop talking about the following topics simply because we don’t have every single fact imaginable? Given two choices which would you choose to slow the spread of pancreatic cancer: chemotherapy or surgery? Is there life on other planets? Do ghosts exist? Why do some women put on so much perfume it could test a yak’s gag reflex? Who thought wind socks were worth mass marketing? What do you know. Do rhetorical questions require question marks. Hm . . . There is a Seinfeld scene in there somewhere. I can't believe it took me six months to make a Seinfeld reference.
Break for the reader: My intention was to produce in full the week-long email exchange I had with a local radio talk-show host, but a summer’s worth of columns in that format would bore even me (silence to you readers who think that everything I write is boring, is long-winded while still missing key pieces of information, or never should have been written in the first place). Having your own blog is free and I'm not compensated at all for this work . . . seriously! Instead, I will summarize my argument about the future plight of the middle class as succinctly as I possibly can . . . seriously. Ah, but I think a lot and a lot of things occur to me in connection with other things- I’m like Seinfeld meets Carl Jung meets a sarcastic version of Encyclopedia Britannica- a frightening combination to be sure.
Let's be conservative: I bring the conservative talk-show host into the diatribe only to show the other viewpoint, to show that he clearly lost the argument, and to assist those who are like him into being able to empathize with the middle class- because this generation of middle class citizens is doing just fine- but the next generation will be in serious financial trouble if things continue as they have been.
With a topic this big, I will try to keep as focused as possible. I'm certainly not the best person for this task, but I see few people addressing the issues of excessive taxation, the impossibility of having a normal life given the prices of necessary life objectives- vehicles so one can get to work to earn money, a home to raise children in, a well-earned vacation, paying for a parent's funeral, a child's wedding, and the excessive taxation by the government- things the rich have no problem paying for. Don't worry, I'll get to them. The poor also deserve our attention, but at least for now, that too lies a bit outside of the scope of this argument. To me, discussions on this topic are long overdue, and not only interesting and educational, but imperative if anything is going to change twenty years from now. No, I’m not holding out hope- but I am trying.
A long summary, but necessary: In the course of a week I put forth the following pieces of information in email form to Bob Davis of KSTP AM 1500. No, none of these pieces of information are proof because they aren’t holding hands with the almighty decimal ( . ), or propped up against the esteemed percentage sign (%) or respectably leaning against the fraction slash ( / ), or even standing behind the dollar sign ($20 thousand)- but the proof . . . I’ll try for that later. People will bow down to numbers and figures and think that is proof- yeah, the only figure I’m bowing down to is Jessica Alba’s. These are just the first 9 things I included in the email exchange- those that would justify me as a spokesperson for reasonable middle class financial behavior, proving that I am not complaining because I irresponsibly buy what I cannot afford so that I pay for it later- in the form of higher credit card debt. I have to put out what I contributed to the disagreement and compare that, eventually, to what he countered with. Then, you can make up your own mind- and mind you, two weeks from now, when I'm done with my side of the argument, and his, I will be astounded if you choose his side- the side of evading the topic like the Matrix skirted bullets. Ah, a lot of bullets were fired at the Matrix . . . a lot. Over the course of the week I emailed this guy essentially the following things, among others I'll have to include next time:
1) I indicated that a viewpoint he had on the air stating that the middle class had nothing to complain about was well off-base;
2) capitalism is good; competition is good. I am not Robin Hood because I think the rich should give more to the poor, and I’m not a socialist; accusing someone of either is a way to deflect the attention from the real issue;
3) if I criticize a republican president or a democratic congress does not mean that I am a democrat in the former case or a republican in the latter; I am part of that third group- the one that can’t stand either of them; I included this because one of my points approached the topic of our misguided president and it seemed to offend him as a republican because he immediately brought Bill Clinton into the argument;
4) I talk to middle class citizens all the time, the real people struggling enough with their financial situation, let alone saving for retirement and/or for college tuition for their kids. With two kids, a full-time job, a very popular blog to keep contributing to, and a book that I’m trying to write, doing research to prove this guy wrong was not my top priority; in due time;
5) I am also not justifying people who max out their credit cards and who only pay the interest on them every month; and I am not talking about people who buy extravagant gifts and who live outside their means; We know people like that- they get new vehicles, add an addition onto the house, flat screen televisions, finish basements and you wonder if they are working for the government, or lying about what they do for a living;
6) I have impeccable credit and am saving all year to be able to afford a flat screen television the rich would purchase on a whim and the irresponsible middle class would pay four years for, because they would FINANCE it; we pay off the credit card bill every month and don’t charge more than we can afford to pay for, therefore no interest accrues;
7) my wife is a nurse, and makes good money- I stated that we are still paying on a student loan courtesy of the over-priced U of M, a school she hasn’t attended in eight years and never graduated from;
8) we (the middle class) are taxed to pay for a stadium that mercenary millionaire professional athletes play in only up until such time as they become annoyed at the billionaires they’re playing for, the same billionaires you bought the stadium for in the first place. Yes, I know, only Hennepin county residents are taxed for this in Minnesota, but the stadium could have gone up in any county in the state (again, think of empathizing with people's burden). Some people call providing a stadium to billionaires- "corporate welfare"- I can’t tell you what I call it- this is a family blog- a kid might be reading this, hahahahaha- who am I kidding, small nocturnal animals scurry in horror when they see the bright light of my laptop;
9) the rich work no harder to obtain the means to provide for their families than the poor or middle class;
That is enough for now. I’ll give you the meat of the matter next time, this was just the appetizer. If I haven't tied everything together just yet, be patient- I'm working on it.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Middle Class Part 1: Taxation, Proof and Talk-Show Hosts
The first step: The next half-dozen columns, that no one will read, will generally concern the topic of Taxation. No other topic in the country is more divisive, not even racism, and not immigration- and those are two monstrously divisive issues. The reason taxation is such an important issue is that people are taxed for so many things, in so many ways, by so many political, social, and municipal agencies it is difficult to track and justify how it is done, and where the tax money goes once it leaves our accounts and pocket books. Above that even, it epitomizes the class struggle I see coming in this country. And no, I haven’t just finished reading The Communist Manifesto. Some might think this is reactionary, extreme, or simply ludicrous. When you speak of things that haven’t happened yet, people have one of two reactions- they either dismiss you as a quack and think you are some kind of gypsy, someone living in a dream-world, pretending to be a prophet, or they consider your paranoia and wonder that you could be concerned with something you have so little control over.
The Next Step: There is so much apathy in this country it is disgusting. So, would I rather seek the truth, look for proof, and be passionately engaged in the events of the world, or be a slug content with hustling children off to soccer practice, allowing them dessert after a dinner they were not made to eat? Once you have found yourself to be in the former category, the next logical question is one that Malone (Sean Connery) asked Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) in The Untouchables in regards to the approach Ness might take trying to prove that Al Capone (Robert Deniro) was completely corrupt: “Now, what are you prepared to do.” I will continue to bitch about the situation and vote for third party candidates because the republicans and democrats are corrupt, incompetent, over-sexed, hypocritical, pedantic morons, and I can’t trust them to spend my money.
No Bigger Issue: Every other single political issue in this country is in some way tied to the travesty of excessive and unconscionable taxation- racism, immigration, education, gas taxes, real estate, corporate welfare (i.e. new stadiums), health care, Iraq and foreign policy, campaign finance reform, the automobile industry, and the list goes on. I may be unable to resolve or prove a darn thing, but that never stopped people from having disputes or making up their mind on one side of a topic or another. And this is where the problem resides- people require proof of facts in discussions in order to decide on who is right and who is wrong. Sometimes, proof just is not available. When you buy a new car, do you absolutely know it is the best car. It may be the best car for you based on the price, opinions of others who have the model, your comfort level with a salesman, or the dealership, how you feel it drives, how it looks, or what kind of mileage it gets. You don’t KNOW, and knowing comes from proof, which in the case of having purchased a new car may not come until 4-5 years into your experience with it, when it is no longer under warranty.
What is Proof?: Though they both retired over 30 years ago, we haven’t concluded who the better baseball player is- Mays or Mantle, and maybe neither. We have political discussions about the gas tax, abortion, global warming, and how many people’s deaths can be attributed to second hand smoke inhalation. We have arguments at home about discretionary spending- whether we should go out to dinner or save some money. Meteorologists have different forecasts one day than the next, and they have millions of dollars of equipment to tell them what is going on in the atmosphere. Researchers may dispute how much dark chocolate is enough to fulfill an anti-oxidant quota. Hell, it has been about 2000 years since someone named Jesus Christ is supposed to have perished for the sins of mankind- we haven’t exactly resolved that debate have we? There apparently was not enough evidence for a biased jury to convict O.J. Simpson- they needed even more proof. Barry Bonds is on the verge of breaking Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record and his proponents still back him because he has not failed a drug test. Well, there isn’t a way to test for HGH use, and baseball did not test for steroids until recently. So, how exactly do you prove something you are convinced is true? Sometimes you don’t. You bring as much information to the table as possible and attempt to prove something beyond a preponderance of the evidence. Most disputes aren’t murder trials, so the burden of proof never gets to the line of thinking necessary to return a guilty verdict- beyond a reasonable doubt.
Disclaimer: I will approach the massive subject of taxation incrementally, pensively, cautiously, sometimes naively, sometimes realistically, with my typical quips and with the idea that just because something is unproven, does not mean that the topic should be dismissed. Scientists conduct many trials, and sometimes even they are shocked by the results. Did you know a bee sting can help rheumatism and diabetes? Did you know sticking needles into someone’s skin (acupuncture) can cure nausea? How many beers or glasses of wine a night is considered good for the arteries? Did you know there is a bird species, I believe it was in Australia, that can mimic the beat of a rap song, the sound of a car alarm, the sound of a chain-saw? We learn these things by reading, by paying attention, by being interested in them, even if we are disgusted by what we suspect to be the proof. And what is more, and you might find this shocking- you do not need to be a radio talk-show host in order to be intelligently informed, or even to be right. Yes, that is shocking.
Speaking of Talk-Show Hosts: I am approaching my late thirties. I have heard every classic rock song several hundred times, couldn’t care for rap, or hip-hop, and generally think that there are only about ten songs recorded every year that should have been. All the rest of it is crap. So, I have been drawn the last 7 or 8 years to talk radio. I have listened to PLENTY (this word will come up later, so I’m just foreshadowing) of talk-show hosts spout off about every topic imaginable. Last week, Rush Limbaugh, with the assistance of a caller, was attempting to fold a piece of toilet paper in such a way so as to maximize its wiping potential. The demonstration was based on the Sheryl Crow idea that when we evacuate, we should use as few pieces of toilet paper as possible, so as to help the environment. Sometimes I listen to a host because of the talk-show host’s personality, or the humor, the insight, the topic, or sometimes I listen because I want the other perspective, that I know I probably won’t agree with, so that I can reinforce why I don’t agree with it. At least I give it a chance. As an English major, I have written enough papers where you must concede points in the issue where your argument is weak in order to show the opposing side that you are reasonable; you must know the other side in order to do this; with that, you will know where the other side is weak.
The Major point: Two months ago I emailed a local AM talk-show host- Bob Davis of 1500 KSTP. He, like many other talk-show hosts is a conservative- generally, this means- republican. He had made a statement that in summary amounted to- the middle class- they’re doing just fine, what could they possibly have to complain about. I’m middle class, hundreds of people I know are middle class. When I emailed him to critique his delusional statement- it set off a week-long email exchange, that eventually ended with him telling me I could be out-debated by a dumb poodle. Good stuff. I had told him that he was a pit-bull without any teeth. This was before the recent rash of pit-bull attacks mind you. My point was that the income disparity between the rich and middle class citizens is going to continue to grow because of the hefty price tags on some big ticket items, that the rich can afford to pay for and the middle class must finance- weddings, vacations, homes, vehicles, funerals, home repairs, medical bills, children’s college tuition, etc.
Cost: I concede that the middle class now is fine; I live in a good home, we have two nice vehicles and with two kids under three years old, we don’t have the time for vacations- let alone the money for them. We, by and large, live check to check, paying bills that go up every year in a manner that exceeds our “cost of living” increases. The problem is that my kids will not be able to pay off their college educations until they are nearly retirement age. We don’t make enough money to save for our own retirement or to make much of a dent in their tuition. The cost of an education 20 years from now will be PLENTY, and this will affect what they will be able to put away for retirement; a lifetime spent paying off a college loan won't allow them to put money away for retirement. Who doesn’t want something better for their children? Isn’t that why we recycle, why we give money to water activist agencies, give to the United Way, to help the poor (remember them, that third class) with Santas Anonymous donations, disaster relief contributions, etc.? How do you suppose a child, who is middle class in 2007, will get a better paying job without a college degree, a college degree the rich will not have to finance? A better job pays well and you get a better job, by and large, by having a four year degree. Need I trot out the long worshiped numbers, fractions, percentages, and decimal points to prove that? Twain wrote- “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.” Can you prove something to a talk-show host in less than one minute on the radio, while being interrupted with constant commercial breaks, and an unreasonable host who disagrees with you, who says he doesn’t finance anything anymore, and whose finger is poised on the disconnect button?
So, we live in no man’s land. Not being able to prove or disprove something- so we should stop putting forth the argument? No passionately engaged scientist, philosopher, navigator, mathemetician, police investigator, psychiatrist, parent, or dufus writing a blog would stop now- even if a talk-show host advised it.
Keep in mind- Not being able to disprove something is no more valuable a skill than not being able to prove it. More on that next time.
The Next Step: There is so much apathy in this country it is disgusting. So, would I rather seek the truth, look for proof, and be passionately engaged in the events of the world, or be a slug content with hustling children off to soccer practice, allowing them dessert after a dinner they were not made to eat? Once you have found yourself to be in the former category, the next logical question is one that Malone (Sean Connery) asked Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) in The Untouchables in regards to the approach Ness might take trying to prove that Al Capone (Robert Deniro) was completely corrupt: “Now, what are you prepared to do.” I will continue to bitch about the situation and vote for third party candidates because the republicans and democrats are corrupt, incompetent, over-sexed, hypocritical, pedantic morons, and I can’t trust them to spend my money.
No Bigger Issue: Every other single political issue in this country is in some way tied to the travesty of excessive and unconscionable taxation- racism, immigration, education, gas taxes, real estate, corporate welfare (i.e. new stadiums), health care, Iraq and foreign policy, campaign finance reform, the automobile industry, and the list goes on. I may be unable to resolve or prove a darn thing, but that never stopped people from having disputes or making up their mind on one side of a topic or another. And this is where the problem resides- people require proof of facts in discussions in order to decide on who is right and who is wrong. Sometimes, proof just is not available. When you buy a new car, do you absolutely know it is the best car. It may be the best car for you based on the price, opinions of others who have the model, your comfort level with a salesman, or the dealership, how you feel it drives, how it looks, or what kind of mileage it gets. You don’t KNOW, and knowing comes from proof, which in the case of having purchased a new car may not come until 4-5 years into your experience with it, when it is no longer under warranty.
What is Proof?: Though they both retired over 30 years ago, we haven’t concluded who the better baseball player is- Mays or Mantle, and maybe neither. We have political discussions about the gas tax, abortion, global warming, and how many people’s deaths can be attributed to second hand smoke inhalation. We have arguments at home about discretionary spending- whether we should go out to dinner or save some money. Meteorologists have different forecasts one day than the next, and they have millions of dollars of equipment to tell them what is going on in the atmosphere. Researchers may dispute how much dark chocolate is enough to fulfill an anti-oxidant quota. Hell, it has been about 2000 years since someone named Jesus Christ is supposed to have perished for the sins of mankind- we haven’t exactly resolved that debate have we? There apparently was not enough evidence for a biased jury to convict O.J. Simpson- they needed even more proof. Barry Bonds is on the verge of breaking Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record and his proponents still back him because he has not failed a drug test. Well, there isn’t a way to test for HGH use, and baseball did not test for steroids until recently. So, how exactly do you prove something you are convinced is true? Sometimes you don’t. You bring as much information to the table as possible and attempt to prove something beyond a preponderance of the evidence. Most disputes aren’t murder trials, so the burden of proof never gets to the line of thinking necessary to return a guilty verdict- beyond a reasonable doubt.
Disclaimer: I will approach the massive subject of taxation incrementally, pensively, cautiously, sometimes naively, sometimes realistically, with my typical quips and with the idea that just because something is unproven, does not mean that the topic should be dismissed. Scientists conduct many trials, and sometimes even they are shocked by the results. Did you know a bee sting can help rheumatism and diabetes? Did you know sticking needles into someone’s skin (acupuncture) can cure nausea? How many beers or glasses of wine a night is considered good for the arteries? Did you know there is a bird species, I believe it was in Australia, that can mimic the beat of a rap song, the sound of a car alarm, the sound of a chain-saw? We learn these things by reading, by paying attention, by being interested in them, even if we are disgusted by what we suspect to be the proof. And what is more, and you might find this shocking- you do not need to be a radio talk-show host in order to be intelligently informed, or even to be right. Yes, that is shocking.
Speaking of Talk-Show Hosts: I am approaching my late thirties. I have heard every classic rock song several hundred times, couldn’t care for rap, or hip-hop, and generally think that there are only about ten songs recorded every year that should have been. All the rest of it is crap. So, I have been drawn the last 7 or 8 years to talk radio. I have listened to PLENTY (this word will come up later, so I’m just foreshadowing) of talk-show hosts spout off about every topic imaginable. Last week, Rush Limbaugh, with the assistance of a caller, was attempting to fold a piece of toilet paper in such a way so as to maximize its wiping potential. The demonstration was based on the Sheryl Crow idea that when we evacuate, we should use as few pieces of toilet paper as possible, so as to help the environment. Sometimes I listen to a host because of the talk-show host’s personality, or the humor, the insight, the topic, or sometimes I listen because I want the other perspective, that I know I probably won’t agree with, so that I can reinforce why I don’t agree with it. At least I give it a chance. As an English major, I have written enough papers where you must concede points in the issue where your argument is weak in order to show the opposing side that you are reasonable; you must know the other side in order to do this; with that, you will know where the other side is weak.
The Major point: Two months ago I emailed a local AM talk-show host- Bob Davis of 1500 KSTP. He, like many other talk-show hosts is a conservative- generally, this means- republican. He had made a statement that in summary amounted to- the middle class- they’re doing just fine, what could they possibly have to complain about. I’m middle class, hundreds of people I know are middle class. When I emailed him to critique his delusional statement- it set off a week-long email exchange, that eventually ended with him telling me I could be out-debated by a dumb poodle. Good stuff. I had told him that he was a pit-bull without any teeth. This was before the recent rash of pit-bull attacks mind you. My point was that the income disparity between the rich and middle class citizens is going to continue to grow because of the hefty price tags on some big ticket items, that the rich can afford to pay for and the middle class must finance- weddings, vacations, homes, vehicles, funerals, home repairs, medical bills, children’s college tuition, etc.
Cost: I concede that the middle class now is fine; I live in a good home, we have two nice vehicles and with two kids under three years old, we don’t have the time for vacations- let alone the money for them. We, by and large, live check to check, paying bills that go up every year in a manner that exceeds our “cost of living” increases. The problem is that my kids will not be able to pay off their college educations until they are nearly retirement age. We don’t make enough money to save for our own retirement or to make much of a dent in their tuition. The cost of an education 20 years from now will be PLENTY, and this will affect what they will be able to put away for retirement; a lifetime spent paying off a college loan won't allow them to put money away for retirement. Who doesn’t want something better for their children? Isn’t that why we recycle, why we give money to water activist agencies, give to the United Way, to help the poor (remember them, that third class) with Santas Anonymous donations, disaster relief contributions, etc.? How do you suppose a child, who is middle class in 2007, will get a better paying job without a college degree, a college degree the rich will not have to finance? A better job pays well and you get a better job, by and large, by having a four year degree. Need I trot out the long worshiped numbers, fractions, percentages, and decimal points to prove that? Twain wrote- “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.” Can you prove something to a talk-show host in less than one minute on the radio, while being interrupted with constant commercial breaks, and an unreasonable host who disagrees with you, who says he doesn’t finance anything anymore, and whose finger is poised on the disconnect button?
So, we live in no man’s land. Not being able to prove or disprove something- so we should stop putting forth the argument? No passionately engaged scientist, philosopher, navigator, mathemetician, police investigator, psychiatrist, parent, or dufus writing a blog would stop now- even if a talk-show host advised it.
Keep in mind- Not being able to disprove something is no more valuable a skill than not being able to prove it. More on that next time.
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