NB5000: Cutting Edge or Societal Antique?
I think many of us have lost our understanding about the role of government in society. We can’t see/don’t realize the sweeping changes that have taken place over the past few years, particularly during this administration. Conservatives are worried, but what can we do to make non-conservatives {noncons} see the problem?
When Obamacare passed it became clear government didn’t reflec- flect the will of the people. We’ve always been a representative type democracy with bipartisanship, pluralism, federalism and that independent spirit thing helping us tolerate the rest – Americanism!
But things aren’t right and we’re uneasy. We feel helpless to sort it and don’t know where to begin. Many are apathetic or unwilling to devote time for finding a solution. Again, we used to rely on elect- ed representatives to do this for us, but that’s not working.
Talking with independents, center-left moderates & others I mostly hear complaints about do-nothing republicans. Noncons seem to believe everything is negotiable, and the president means well but is blocked from doing what he wants. They can’t/won’t accept his lack of leadership and experience might be a factor, maybe created the gridlock in the first place?
When you stop to think how noncons are in the majority, you begin to realize the depth of the problem. Most don’t see what’s happening, don’t get why we’re deep in debt and can’t balance a bud- get. They’re angry we can’t achieve a meaningful dialogue. When will they stop blaming other guys & see the enormous rift opening between right and left? Why don’t they get how this isn’t about compromise anymore; it’s about survival.
To bring this idea home, let’s assume governments are systems with lots of parts, like machines. They can break down. To stay productive, they must obey rules. If things get skewed they slow and grind to a halt – like this government.
So, imagine government is a machine, one that’s worked extremely well for over a century. Think of it as a simple balance beam
holding all the people and their stuff. Some hop on the left, some the right, and when it all shakes down there’s going to be more of a load on one side. The center of gravity {fulcrum} must favor that side, shortening it, to balance the longer side.
Most agree America was predominantly center-right until the 30’s, when FDR enacted sweeping legislation, created social security and all the rest. Until then the beam held most of the lower class & lower-middle class on the left, public sector goods/services cluster- ed at the fulcrum, and the growing middle/upper-middle class and wealthy on the right.
In FDR’s day a robust middle-class was emerging which, arguably,trended right as it achieved status. Offsetting was a growing work- ing class with a higher birth rate & persistent immigration. In 25yrs between FDR & LBJ a change took place. Middle-classers began trending left, combined with a growing public sector, so the pile of stuff on-center flip-flopped left. As the political mass moved left it strained the right more, which had to shorten more . .
Remember, when visualizing the machine, it contains the sum total of all we are, not just our weight in numbers. We have stuff, such as bias, energy, IQ, skill, income, property, needs etc. That’s how fewer people with more stuff balance more people with less stuff.
This machine we’re describing was a nation builder – not a balance beam but a huge, construction crane. Societal mass is the variable load managed by the crane. Like the beam, the right side of the crane’s boom is shorter and counter-balanced with weights, keep- ing the center of gravity in the tower. The left/working end is lon- ger, lifting and swinging payloads up and along the boom, then gently setting them down.
Remember, we’re imagining the crane is government carrying all aspects of society, public & private, including all political ideolo- gies, ethnicities, income, property, energy, ambitions, creativity, religiosity, philanthropy, everything.
After FDR the right strained to balance the left. That load had been increased. Government around the fulcrum also increased and was trending left. Alarmingly, the middle class was now more left!
Until LBJ our machine, the Nation Builder 5000, was rigged for equilibrium, functioning efficiently, building America into the strongest country on the planet. It allowed millions to enter middle/ upper-middle class, and beckoned untold millions more to come here and partake of our tolerance, hospitality and success. The world could see with unerring clarity we were the best place to go for opportunity and reward. Bias-right worked.
Then LBJ picked up where FDR left off, adding Medicare, Medi- cal and a lot more. His anti-poverty programs would cost trillions, exploding the size & scope of government as it became more left-serving, taking more & more from the right and re-distributing it left. Johnson’s technocrats or society men had no idea the wasteful, voracious monster they’d unleashed, or how it would overtax, de-energize and drain the NB5000.
Again, we & government are the NB5000, people of every color, ethnicity and background, and for over a century it was the biggest, baddest crane on the horizon, beating all the others hands down. Best, strongest, happiest, wealthiest, you name it. We were it! But progressives felt we could be better, do more, forcing it beyond its design limits. Engineers know if a machine or system is pushed past its optimum efficiency, it breaks down.
Note that before LBJ NB5000 was bigger than the sum of its parts, getting synergistic kicks from the energy, enthusiasm, creativity & productivity derived from both left and right. To large measure we all did our bit, contributing to the mechanism, making it humm and radiate with the heat of its work.
LBJ’s people didn’t realize their good intentions and humanitarian efforts would encourage dependency and destroy ambition, or how these two would combine to suck the life and very soul from the machine. They took ever more from the right & de-incentivized the left, which became a much heavier burden.
Synergy lessened, since a smaller proportion were participating. Deadweight came from the false premise of entitlement. A net-negative load began pulling the working end down, due to less productivity/participation AND more consumption/need.
The NB5000 was now an awkward contraption struggling to work.
The right continues giving up more stuff. The operator’s cage is hidden from view amid all the burgeoning governmental edifices, and has lost sight of the task at hand. It’s now a freak of nature, not to mention technology.
Other loads not mentioned include multiculturalism, crony capital- ism, affirmative action, secularism, anti-constitutionalism, judicial activism, shrinking middle class, loss of sovereignty, national debt
The original purpose of government defined in the founding docu- ments has been subsumed and lost in a bloated self-serving bureau- cracy that insists on moving constantly, gluttonously left.
Barack Hussein Obama has never operated a crane, nor has he managed an accountable system, public or private, that was answerable to a board to justify its existence. He may not be a socialist in academic terms, but he’s close enough in my view, representing left-leaning ideas more radical than even FDR/LBJ. One thing’s sure – he’s not your daddy’s democrat!
If you support him, you are aligning yourself with the final cause of our downfall. You are backing a false horse that has left the oval and races toward Europe. You’re giving up on old America, and asking for something new. All those doing this, and we’re told it’s mostly blacks, browns, jews, media, unionists, self-congratulatory movie stars and academia, be reminded of the old cliché . . be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!
I hope everybody, not just noncons, will wake up & realize we’re in deconstructive mode. We’re losing it: faith-based culture; strong thriving middle class; 2-parent family; educational superiority; the cultural glue of our founding; the comity of a reasonable center-right or center-left ideology > but not this!
BHO will drive our crane until it stops. Then he’ll shop for one of those European models we’re hearing about that are failing left and right. Bring us back from this socialist precipice. NB5000 groans under its burden. Don’t let it topple!
The Crane is not Dead – Long Live the Crane!
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