I saw a quote
today that I felt compelled to modify.
The original was credited to Edgar Allen Poe. The theme is what inspired me, but I took
some artistic license with the syntax:
Those who fight for freedom are inspired by its taste, although many will never survive to experience its glory. Those who live in freedom, experience its glory, yet know not its flavor.
This country is in its infancy. I can’t help but wonder if the politicians (both US and UN) who are trying so desperately to initiate a government of the people, for the people, are going to be able to hand them a completed package, free of the turmoil which permeates our own history so heavily.
Can civil wars, corruption, labor unions, strikes, and political bribery be avoided? I am beginning to believe that the homeostasis which all great nations enjoy, cannot be prescribed in a document.
However great our own constitution is, its words are merely an inspiration. The real recipe for freedom; a freedom understood by the people, is crafted through generations of trial and error.
My father has commented numerous times that in business, everyone steals from each other. There is an acceptable balance between what will be tolerated and what won’t. A business will pay two or three times what an individual will for the same item. The government will pay more than that. Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Home Depot and others stay in business because they price their goods based upon what the consumer can pay, not what the particular product costs to manufacture.
When they exceed the cost threshold, the sales decline. The business make necessary corrections and the balance is returned.
Our government outlaws monopolies (which I will refer to later as bullies). For a true monopoly to topple, there must be other vendors capable of delivering equal products, or the consumers will still do business with the primary resource.
As this country progresses out of infancy, there will only be lone suppliers of much needed goods. These suppliers will be such primary resources despite any anti-monopoly laws on the books.
Political balance, I fear, will follow this same course. Our own politicians are not leveraged by individual special interest groups. The financial resources of one or two such organizations are more often than not, too small to be of significant consequence in the politician’s career.
However, when multiple special interest groups pool their resources, they can pressure legislative change that can be enjoyed by all the groups’ members.
Until a generous number of special interest groups forms, this country’s congressman are not going to feel the “pressure” of the people, as they do in the states.
Amanda and I felt rather useless when we went to Capital Hill with the American Motorcycle Association. Additionally, The American Medical Association complains regularly about their own lack of power and influence, and they have one-hundred times the resources of the motorcyclists!
The list of politically
interested individuals in the
As an infant, one’s own
personality is molded by only the few and the forceful: mom and dad.
As America encourages the wealthy to start businesses, thus creating a tax base for its new government, the business owners will extract from their employees the most they can, for the least compensation.
Even if the government preemptively enacts minimum wages and maximum work weeks, I strongly believe that only when the people themselves have had enough, will those constraints be effective. Until then, I expect the Iraqi people will follow our own history quite closely.
America is here because our leaders believe we can help Iraq circumvent much of our own tribulations.
I ask you: Could a parent, however experienced they may have been with previous children, completely rear subsequent offspring without any ill encounters along the way?
I don’t credit myself for being any smarter or more omnipotent than our political leaders who are helping to nurture this new nation. I believe they are well aware of the question I raise. I also believe that their answer is “no”. I think they are just going about it a little too quickly.
We are obviously here to ease the transition to into this new adolescent government. The upcoming government however, is one of adulthood. It seems to be made up of rules and regulations that only a seasoned nation could follow; a nation of individuals who had already gotten though their teenage years scarred, yet smarter.
At the moment, I disagree that this is the correct approach. I feel this nation needs not only an interim government, but an interim constitution! It needs a set of rules that are still enforced by mom and pop, with the simple explanation of “just because” and the reassurance that “the people will understand when they are older”. That way, when the bully’s on the schoolyard don’t play fair, an established authority figure can step in and equalize the situation. Eventually, when the rest of the school children have grown up and realized their own strengths (and defenses) they will be able to fight their own battles, and assimilate the bullies into a cohesive and efficient nation ready for a final draft of their (truly) own constitution.