Business As Usual

Thankfully, the 2010 elections are (mostly) over, and we have a brief reprieve from political ads. If anyone is actually a fan of such nonsense, of course, they don't have to look too far into the future to see the next onslaught coming our way. Now that we've had a little shake-up in our government, it's time to get back down to business. As usual. And I mean that snidely, in case that doesn't come across very well in plain text.

The problem — and I mean the really big problem that is continually putting the future of our country at risk — is that "business as usual" means asking far too many of the wrong questions, and rarely asking the right questions. Sure, some candidates endorsed by the so-called "tea party" (not worthy of capitalization) made it into office, but, really, is that a sign of a paradigm shift in our nation? You'd have to be pretty naïve to think so, I'm afraid to say. Until people learn to start asking the right questions, any answers are going to be pretty irrelevant. And when I say irrelevant, I mean that the answers will basically support the status quo which, if you hadn't noticed, is for continued growth of government and continued reductions in personal liberty.

One of my favorite examples of "asking the wrong question" is the same-sex marriage dispute. The standard question is (in essence), "Should the government recognize same-sex marriage exactly the same way it recognizes the marriage of two people of opposite sex?" What an awful question — not because of how you or I might view same-sex marriage, but because it pre-supposes that government has some right in defining marriage at all! Far better questions would be, "Why is the government involved in defining marriage? Why would a religious and/or personal choice regarding companionship make a difference in how the government treats its citizens?" Of course there are a lot of complexities involved, but a great many of them lead back, eventually, to government saying "this is marriage, but that is not marriage."

Of course, the best question of all, which is one asked much, much less than it should be, is: "What is the proper role of government?" That's something I would recommend that people think very seriously about, delving into the ramifications and principles and.... Wait, did I just say that I recommend that people think?

Never mind.