Hospitals are icky places because that's where people take their infections and diseases to dispose of them. Every nook in a hospital has hand sanitizer or anti-bacterial soap, just in case you weren't aware there were germs all over the place. A friend told me the other day that using anti-bacterial soaps leads to the development of 'super germs.' I got a mental picture of my hands serving as a petri dish* for bacterial evolution. ewwwww.And then, as often happens, the words and thoughts began to tumble.
anti-bacterial ... anti-biotic ... anti-life? ... petri dish ... evolution ... revolution? ... disease ... sickness ... resistance?
"The economy is very sick," Obama told reporters.Do you get the feeling that President Obama is throwing the bones to determine the proper course of action for curing the economy? In his February 9th campaign stop ... err, press conference, he said:
It is absolutely true that we can't depend on government alone to create jobs or economic growth. That is and must be the role of the private sector. But at this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money which leads to even more layoffs.
Did you notice him playing both sides? It "must be" the role of the private sector, but "only government" can solve the problem. That's an old witch doctor/fortune teller trick ... play both sides so you can't be wrong. He also conveniently fails to mention that the "resources" that the government will use originally belonged to individuals. That's a witch doctor trick, too. The only power he really has is what has been given to him by his victim, er, patient.
Oh no. Wait. I apologize. Please forgive me. I've just realized what a racist thing I've done ... comparing the President to a witch doctor. Let me try another analogy.
For nearly 2,000 years blood-letting was the preferred treatment for all sorts of fevers, infections and diseases. The theory was that you needed to get rid of the 'bad blood'. Sometimes they even transfused blood from a healthy sheep. George Washington was bled of an amazing five pints of blood during his final illness.
So perhaps Obama is an 18th century physician, instead of a witch doctor, convinced that blood-letting is the proper course of treatment. He's getting rid of the bad, evil, dirty money that people earned on their own, and is replacing it with nice, pure, clean money freshly laundered through the tax process. If centuries of examples about the non-efficacy of blood-letting didn't deter doctors from continuing to use it, a hundred years demonstrating the failure of socialism isn't that hard to rationalize or ignore.
It's unlikely, however, that Obama would subscribe to any of the beliefs or principles of our founding fathers. He once said:
America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page of the policies of the past.I have it now. Obama is practicing alternative medicine on our economy. It's a 'natural' medicine, more about philosophy and feelings than science. The root cause of economic woes are, perhaps, a blocked qi ( c'hi ? ) caused by greed, so all possibility of financial success must be removed to put us in balance. Maybe the infrastructure projects, since the details are still being worked out, will have pyramids and crystal arches to help direct a positive energy flow across the landscape. Maybe the new schools will have yoga classes so kids can learn chakra balancing instead of engineering.
No, that analogy is still not quite right. I realize the New Age folks are probably in Obama's demographic, I'm just thinking he's got a little too much Chicago politics in him to be truly invested in that touchy-feely stuff.
Okay. This time, I'm sure I have it.
Everyday Americans can see that the economy is sick, but they also intuitively know that organic systems have amazing healing and recuperative powers. A little sunshine (instead of doom and gloom) ... some rest (instead of constant intervention) ... add some healthy fluids (cut the corporate, capital gains and income tax rates to improve liquidity) ... plus a little physical activity (lose the labor union weight and the stress of regulation) ... and the economy would be back on it's feet in no time.
Instead, Dr. Obama has admitted us to the ICU, in the permanently germy federal government hospital. He's pumping us full of anti-biotics, determined to rid us of a nasty infection of capitalism and individual freedom that we've had since we were born. He doesn't realize it's not an infection; they are the germs we depend on to live. Fortunately, it's a resistant strain. While we still have some strength, we need to make our desire for a second opinion known.
* Dutch researchers are trying to grow pork in petri dishes and give new meaning to the phrase Mystery Meat. "We're trying to make meat without having to kill animals," Bernard Roelen, a veterinary science professor at Utrecht University, said in an interview.
