“I’m rubber, you’re glue; whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!”
Such words populated the schoolyard at recess for me nearly a quarter-century ago. Now, it seems they’re being used by every politician and Big Government advocate who would rather deflect any criticism against them – and point it back at the constituent – rather than be a big boy or girl and address it like an adult.
Just this week, Texas Governor Rick Perry is in Chicago talking to businesses about moving to his Texas. It’s for this reason that I love Rick Perry. Good for him for realizing that it’s a competitive world.
He’s making headlines from California to Connecticut wooing companies that are overtaxed, over regulated, and unappreciated by their current state and local governments.
But Chicago Mayor and meat slicer victim Rahm Emanuel doesn’t like it. He’s got some real fightin’ words for Perry. Rahm’s response to Perry’s visit: a bad, derivate joke. Rahm made fun of Perry’s gaffe in a Republican Presidential debate two years ago where he couldn’t remember the three government agencies he’d cut.
So Emanuel said he hoped Perry remembers his three reasons for coming.
I’ll let you pick yourself up from the floor.
I’m all for a little animosity between politicians. Frankly, they’re too buddy-buddy to begin with. But in addition to needing serious humor lessons, Emanuel has no interest in addressing the dire situation his city is in.
Illinois has the nation’s largest unfunded pension liability at nearly $100 million. Total obligations are hundreds of billions. They are more broke than California. They’ll likely be the first to default. In Chicago’s Loop, it costs $6.50 an hour to park your car – with no free parking at night. Income taxes in Illinois went up 75% recently. Fees are outrageous. It’s like living in a socialist utopia.
That is, if you don’t get murdered. For everyone who tells me I shouldn’t go to far-flung places seeking opportunity and adventure, at least I’m not going to some neighborhoods in Chicago.
Yet all Rahm Emanuel has to say about someone offering businesses on his turf a more pleasant alternative is childhood bullying.
Illinois’ Governor had more cheap shots for Perry. None of it accomplishes anything, of course. But these guys are used to that. They pretend they are distinguished leaders in the Land of the Free, but they’re really just hacks.
Unfortunately, most people believe they’re the ones solving our tough problems. You and I, of course, know nothing could be further from the truth.
When Adam Carolla interviewed California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom awhile back, Newsom hemmed and hawed about solving the state’s problems, blaming it on “the system”. (As Carolla pointed out, he’s the ultimate cog of the system.) But when Carolla wouldn’t let up with his questioning, Newsom flailed, then went out and called Carolla a racist.
Nice to see that play is still going strong after years of overuse. Then again, California was never a haven for ideas from government.
All around the United States, I feel like the inmates have taken over the asylum. I’m just waiting to see the government propaganda posters I’ve been missing all these years to explain why the population is willing to blame anyone who speaks out and says there may be better options than the Land of the Free. Doing so makes you a traitor. Because that’s just how the government wants it.
If I say US banks aren’t the most stable in the world, I’m told I’ll lose all my money in those Singapore banks that are teetering on the edge of solvency. (That was my attempt at Rahm Emanual-style humor.)
If I tell someone to establish a residence outside of the US, or establish an offshore company for their internet business, I’m told that’s unpatriotic. (Your being born on a plot of dirt compels you to pay owners of said dirt in perpetuity, after all.)
If I say the United States is no longer the best place for an entrepreneur, I’m scolded that the Land of the Free may have its flaws, but it’s still the best place on earth. According to whom I don’t know. And from people who’ve never been anywhere else to compare it to. But as the politicians have proven, a handle on the facts and a clear, unemotional outlook aren’t what’s really important.
It would be nice if politicians and their Big Government could be honest in dealing with the problems that they’ve created. Every time that propose a new tax or regulation or law to fix some perceived problem, they fail to realize how they’re just compounded it.
But it’s never their fault, because they’re our trustworthy elected representatives working for us. In reality, they are “the system” and everything that’s wrong with it. It’s a shame that believing that these days makes you unpatriotic, but I’m happy to take the labels from those who choose not to think or analyze the collapse of liberty around them.
