The Last Eight Years? (Pt 1)

This next election is really about the last eight years, or is it? Perhaps we need to go further back to understand the choices we’ve made and the choices before us? I doubt this opinion will matter much to anyone but me, but if you choose to read it consider if I am accurate or just full of excrement. Those who know me know my political positions but let me give anyone else a synopsis. First and foremost, I am a FISCAL conservative. By that, I mean spending within our means is what matters most to me, as I see unrestrained growth of debt as a nation-killer. There is a lot of history in this position as we look at the ancient world up through WW II. Socially, I’ve moved from a liberal indifference to a moderate, as the two extremes drag the respective political parties to the extremes. What I see today are two primary parties led by people who no longer understand how to govern, they simply fight for media supremacy. I see an electorate who can’t be bothered holding their politicians to moderate positions as they all clamor for the federal dollars everyone wants. I’m not sure reason and accountability have ever been a key component for a politician, but by all measures, it does not exist today.

            In 2008 this nation faced a real fiscal crisis which many viewed as equivalent to the stock market crash of 1929. The federal government under Bush and a Congress led by John Boehner (R-OH) in the House and Harry Reid (D-NV) in the Senate. The crash came because of lending practices for home mortgages by the Federal Government when home sales stopped and people and bankers speculating with short-term “balloon payment” mortgages could not make their payments and had to declare bankruptcy. There was a decent movie made in 2011 called “Margin Call” that shows the type of crash that happened. As a result of this disaster the American people who had unified in 2001 to fight a terrorist enemy, again united to remove the GOP from power and instill a Democratic Congress and our first Black President.

            That President had almost total control over running the government and chose a path to redefine the role of the government as a social institution. His party passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act. But in their arrogance, the Democratic liberals knew they had to lie to the American people about what this new “socialized medical scheme” would do. The GOP railed against the act and the costs, but with a coopted media they were simply painted as “evil men protecting the big businesses.” At the same time we were pushing into this world the government was attempting to save businesses “too big to fail.” Chrysler, GM, and others. As far as I know, Ford was alone in its choice not to take the federal dollars.  How much of GM, and how many jobs were saved by these efforts?  I know all the executive positions are still there, but how many plants employing thousands of UAW workers are left?

            In his eight years of leadership, did his choices on how to lead the nation make us a stronger and more unified people? He routinely argued against guns, and Americans went out and bought guns in record numbers. He recognized when an African American was killed by violence at the hands of a white man, but seldom when it was at the hands of another African American, or when a white was killed by a black.  Did his efforts reduce violence in the urban areas, or lessen the probability of school violence? In short, did he move us to that dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. where his children will “… one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character?” Looking around I don’t see his leadership in achieving Dr. King’s ambition.

            We can speculate as to why that was, the left would say our racism came out, but is that really the result of our institutions, or the agenda of those who would rebuild our nation to spend its time repaying others for the sins of the past? The one truth that seems obvious to me is as long as we make race the central component of every story we will never move beyond racism. It really doesn’t matter if we are speaking about white, Asian, or Brown. If we implement a race-based program of any nature we further the issue of race as a central dividing point amongst the people of our nation.

The Mindless Accumulation of Wealth.

I was presented with an opinion today as it was a fact. This is not unusual in today’s world, as almost everything we see on television, in social media, and in what is portrayed as news is now opinion, most often presented as fact, but what caught my attention was an opinion on what the phrase “Money can’t buy you happiness.” The author believes the meaning is clearly that the “mindless accumulation of excess wealth leads to diminishing returns on happiness.”  A wonderfully egalitarian view that if you have too much money it won’t improve your happiness (however that is defined).  In fairness, it goes on to say it does not mean “poor people should learn to be content without basic necessities or financial security.” An equally wise and wonderful opinion on what the phase can’t mean. But are either opinion true? 

To answer this question, I think we first should define happiness, but is there such a thing?  Is there one “Universal” standard for happiness? Going back to our founding we see in the Declaration of Independence the claim that all men have an equal claim on the rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Did they mean that all men had an equal claim on wealth? The men who wrote these words, and who endorsed them with their signatures had wealth and standing they put at risk with the declaration.  So, it seems unlikely they considered wealth as a key to the pursuit of happiness.  Rather, several scholars note a desire for the government to not control an individual’s life, without that individual having a voice in the decisions.  These three attributes, life, liberty, and the ability to attempt to be happy were, and are, considered natural rights or rights a government can’t (or shouldn’t) attempt to control.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow, a noted American Psychologist, wrote a thesis on what motivates people.  His theory stratified human needs into an escalating series beginning with the most basic of survival needs going up to self-actualization. While the hierarchy deals with human motivation, we can presume it also speaks to the pursuit of happiness, for if you are concerned with where your next meal is coming from, you cannot reasonably pursue your dream, can you?  The socialists among us would say that is absolutely true, yet we have case study after case study where those who ultimately achieved great success did precisely that. How many artists struggle to survive while painting, composing, writing, or in some way creating a masterpiece?  All without the government promising to maintain a standard of living or a minimum livable wage?

At the end of the day I, and others, come away with an understanding that happiness can only be defined by the individual.  What makes me happy is not what will make someone else happy.  The idea of happiness is an intrinsic condition to our species. Is the accumulation of wealth related to happiness? Perhaps for some, but I suspect the accumulation of wealth is a simple by-product of those driven to achieve something that others find ultimately desirable.

For example, is Bill Gates happy?  Let’s assume so.  Would he be happier if he had less wealth, or is he happy because of his wealth?  Or maybe, just maybe there some other reason? How did Gates become wealthy?  He pursued a strategy that made his software the most desired commodity in the dawning of the home computer age. In a time when the world transitioned from analog to digital, he was on the ground floor with a product that allowed that growth. Should the government demand Bill Gates forsake his wealth to pay for others who were not so driven or fortunate, or should Bill be allowed to use his wealth as he sees fit?  That is the question.

Did his pursuit of wealth lead to the loss of happiness for others, or did he bring thousands along with him?  Was his accumulation of extreme wealth mindless or was he driven by some other need?

But what about the “anti-Gates?”  Someone who lives in the inner city, someone who has dropped out of school, someone who can’t hold a job, perhaps is addicted to something, and just barely survives on the welfare of the state?  Is he happy? Should the government do more to improve his lot in life and would that make him happy?  What should the government do?  If happiness is an inner decision then how can the government with all its impersonal decision-making (where one size fits most), motivate this individual to pursue his happiness?

I come back to the basic phrase that started this “Money can’t buy you happiness.” My generation spent the entirety of its parenting years trying to buy happiness with its money.  We created trophies for everyone, we’ve told ourselves and our kids everyone is unique and worth admiration, we’ve tried to minimize the impacts of racism and discrimination while we pursued financial security for our senior years.  Our government told us “don’t worry you have social security,” so too many of us felt we should buy more than we could afford and are now looking at a bleak future.  We’ve passed those qualities on to your youngsters who now believe the government is responsible for making sure everyone achieves all the need levels of Maslow’s hierarchy, while men like Gates, Buffett, Musk, and Bezos are vilified for their extreme wealth and “white privilege.”

When does someone stop and ask, do we have too much government, and are all those supposed safety-net policies destroying the very things the poorest among us need to have the motivation to pursue their own definition of happiness and success?