Everything You Need to Know About Politics … You Learned From Being a Mom.

The Deadly Fallacy of Fairness

If you’re a mom, it’s likely that you’ve fallen head first into the occasional fairness trap.  It all starts out so nice … everyone gets their fair share!  Until the minute details of the negotiation derail the process, fighting ensues and the whole thing dissolves in tantrum and tears.  

You see, Mimi doesn’t care that the cookie cake slices are EXACTLY the same size because Jack’s slice has a flower on it and she wants the flower.  And Ted could care less about the damn flower – he wanted the crust piece.  And on and on until you actually hear yourself conjuring up your mother’s favorite line:

“Life isn’t fair!  It’ll never be fair! So get over it and eat your damned cookie!”

And there it is.  A life lesson that we all learn at age four and acknowledge as truth. The world is actually a completely, unfair place.  This has been a truth throughout human history regardless of era, culture, geography or government system.  You may “even the playing field” as best you can but at the end of the day even the nature of our birth is unfair!  Some are tall, some are short.  Some are geniuses others, not so much.  Some are beautiful and others are homely.  Some born wealthy, some impoverished.  Some are friendly, others cranky. I could go on. 

Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal”.  But he never implied that the government should be empowered to force them all to have equal amounts of stuff.  Or that every man had equal talents and abilities.  That would have been absurd!  He meant that each life was equally valuable and had equal protection under the law.  

Amazingly … this kindergarten level truth seems to be incomprehensible to our modern day politicians and bureaucrats, who fancy themselves some kind of Houdini – who can magically conjure up an American Utopia where everyone ‘gets their fair share’ and has ‘complete wage equality’.  The promises are grand.  And we believe they can deliver.

But they can’t deliver. Because if it doesn’t work at my kitchen table with a cookie cake, it certainly can’t work in a country of 300 million, with the largest, most complex economy in the world.  It’s actually impossible for an elite few in Washington, DC to EVER deliver even a modicum of fairness. And while falling into the fairness trap is annoying as mom, it’s a deadly for a nation. 

Karl Marx promised a Communist Utopia to the Russians “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” and equal distribution of goods and services for the people. When his plan was implemented by Stalin it resulted in forced famines, food shortages, economic collapse, purges, forced displacements, imprisonment in labor camps and massacres. 

All told, Russia lost 40 million souls during Stalin’s Communist reign because the people were lured by the promise of false utopia and a ‘fair share”.  They surrendered liberty for perceived equality.

Socialism didn’t fare much better.  Hitler’s National Socialist Party promised the Germans the same type of ‘social and economic justice’ in the early 1930’s.  Total government control of business, major industries, healthcare, education and religion would usher Nazi Germany to the Promised Land.

Germany’s experiment with socialism cost the world 11 millions souls who perished in concentration camps.  Their highly efficient, national ‘health care system’ featured the T4 Euthanasia program responsible for the injection deaths of 200,000 disabled children and elderly.   

We are being sold these tired, failed ideals today.  Only they’re repackaged as ‘economic justice’ and  ‘income equality’. Every time we empower the government to be the arbiter of fair share we are giving up our liberty, independence and freedom to pursue happiness as we see fit. 

Isn’t it interesting that we give politicians (who rank between used car salesmen and blood sucking lawyers in terms of trustworthiness) so much power to take our hard earned money and redistribute it to others?  We trust them to control our healthcare and education?  Do we really believe they won’t simply enrich themselves, enrich their cronies and consolidate power at the expense of our liberty and prosperity? 

The thing is … Liberty might be messy. And it’s not always fair.  But that’s OK for me.  I know enough about history to know that when a politician promises fairness they are really only looking to get elected.  And with too much power and control, governments become downright dangerous.  I’d rather have income inequality than tyranny.

And, I actually don’t mind that some people are richer than I.  Because in addition to telling me that life is never fair, my Mom also told me that money can never buy happiness!

http://www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-did-joseph-stalin-kill-1111789

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005200

Am I at WAR?!

I’ve been told that there is a War Against Women.  Seriously. Beyonce and Lena Dunham told me so. When I watch Good Morning America, The View or any mainstream media venue I am informed that there is a battle raging to rid me of my reproductive rights and screw me out of fair pay.  And by the way I’d better be ‘Ready For Hillary’, cause if I’m not – I clearly hate women. 

The perpetrators of this War Against Women? Well the list is long … Society, Men, Conservatives, Christians, Republicans, The Patriarchy, Stay at Home Moms, Sarah Palin and anyone who doesn’t want to pay for my condoms. 

They tell me that if this War Against Women is lost then I will go back to being barefoot and pregnant, subjugated and unable to ‘get mine in a Man’s World’. They tell me to be outraged by studies that ‘prove’ men still make more than women for the same job. (Which they don’t)

They tell me to divide women into categories like ‘Working Women” and ‘Stay At Home Moms’ and then tell me to judge the ‘Stay At Homes’ as never working a day in their lives.  They tell me that Real Feminists must be pro choice.  Real Feminists must be Democrats.  Real Feminists must support gay marriage.  Real Feminists must support Big Daddy Government. Real Feminists must vote for Hillary Clinton.

I’m sick of being told that I hate women because I don’t fall in lockstep with the political platform of the Democrat Party.  I’m not ready for Hillary.  Not because she is a woman but because I disagree with her world view.  I don’t believe in top down, autocratic government control of any aspect of my life.  I like small government, and local control and LOTS of personal liberty. 

So I reject the tired old notion that Democrats are the only party that represents women.  Because it is simply not true.  I have plenty of criticism for Republicans but the truth is that Democrats are not talking about the issues that I care about.  All they want to talk about is birth control.  And they just assume that women will always vote for them.

The political class in Washington, DC is not addressing the concerns of women today.  Women are worried about a lot more than their ‘reproductive health’ and it is demeaning and dismissive to assume that we only vote with our ovaries.  So what are women really worried about today? 

Energy prices skyrocketing in the past 4 years.

Grocery prices continually rising with no end in sight.

Insurance rates doubling and the loss of their doctor (who they thought they could keep)

Local schools being hijacked by the federal government and massive corporations.

They are worried that the dollar just doesn’t seem to go as far as it used to.

They are worried that their kids won’t be able to afford the 300% hike in college tuition.

They are worried that college won’t even prepare their kids for the real world.

They are worried that they can’t trust the media, or the government, or big businesses.

They are worried that they can’t trust “experts” or “studies” anymore because there are so many of them and they always seem to be wrong, eventually.

They are worried that their hard earned tax dollars are being wasted on welfare.  Corporate AND Personal.

They worry that huge corporations and big government politicians seem to be in bed together.

That power is being centralized quickly and without their consent.

That Democrats and Republicans seem to be the same.

That government seems to be the only thing in America that is growing.

That government is too big, out of control and unresponsive to the American People. 

They are worried that their children will never experience the liberty and prosperity that past generations have and that the American Dream will not be a reality for their children and grandchildren.  There is a ‘War on Liberty’ and it is much bigger and more dangerous than any ‘War on Women’.

I suspect that the ‘War on Women’ is just a slick marketing tool to scare women into voting for Democrats.  I think we should stop with the labels and the scare tactics and take a fresh look at our politicians in Washington, DC.  Neither party is reforming government.  Or taking on the corruption.  But we should stop giving Democrats a pass and start holding them accountable for the problems they’ve created. 

Hillary doesn’t automatically get my vote because she’s a girl.  I want new leadership that will reform Washington, DC and bust up the corrupt power structures that have put our children’s future in jeopardy.