Saturday, January 30, 2010

Social, Commune, ism...

I was at a meeting last night, the speaker was old, but relevant and amusing. One statement resonates with me.

"We pretended to work for them, they pretended to pay us."

It was the words of a person he met in his travels and work among the former Union of Soviet Socialist Repulics. An interesting way to describe utopian life in a socialist atmosphere isn't it?
Working toward the common good isn't something that can be forced upon a people, it is something that must be felt. If a person has faith, believes in the greater good, and acts upon it, we would call it philanthropy, which is in fact a great idea. So, rather than force "goodwill and sharing" upon us, let's strive to ingrain philanthropic ideals into our population. Church and many other community organizations live these principles everyday. The various clubs in your towns, ie. Kiwanis, Lions, Optimist, etc. have mission statements to better their respective communities. So, rather than restrict the "common good" to our government(s) perhaps we should encourage philathropic organizations within our government(s).

I'll leave you with this thought:

Milton Hershey, the late founder and prorpietor of Hershey Foods, Inc. and his wife Katy started a philathropic organization in 1909. After his death in 1945 he left the lion's share of his fortune to this organization. And now, in 2010 the Milton Hershey School still exists, has a student body of approximately 1800 students, as well as the controlling interest in the Hershey Company and more than 6 billion dollars in its coffers.

Would that have been possible under communism? socialism? You be the judge.

J-

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Congress pisses me off...

In keeping with the theme for the last week, congress pisses me off. *small c for congress is purposeful, they don't deserve a title* Did you know that there has been a bill introduced to make TV commercials less intrusive? The essence of the bill is that if you're watching a somber episode of American Idol (rolls eyes), there cannot be an "explosive" commercial immediately following that segment. I suppose conversely we may want to explore having wild, loud, annoying commercials following performances by "alternative" past american idol winners. Is this what congress is for? I don't remember this in the constitution, and I think its quite a stretch to consider invasive loud commercials a "threat foreign or domestic". So please congress, don't worry about TV, football, or baseball, worry about our economy, our safety, and our sacred constitution. Better yet, worry about nothing, let the constitution stand as law like its done for hundreds of years, and allow our country to thrive once again, and to lead this world to new heights as we've done for hundreds of years. Thank you Anna Eshoo ;-) from California of course, those pols are so out of touch.