You know about your blind spot, right? Even with perfect vision and without cataracts there is is point in your vision where you are unable to detect what is really there. Try this test to prove it to yourself:
If you are a Republican close your left eye, move your face to within a hands width from the screen, and focus on the R. Now slowly back away from the screen while staying focused with your right eye on the R. You will see the D disappear.
R Liberty D
If you are a Democrat, close your Right eye, move your face to within a hands width of the screen, and focus on the D. Now slowly back away from the screen while staying focused with your left eye on the D. You will see the R disappear.
Note: Before either the R or D disappeared, Liberty went missing.
Psychologically an example of this blind spot is manifest in today's American politics by both the left and right whenever the subject of Women's Rights/Abortion and/or/all of the above are discussed or become our focus. If the issue is Liberty, the right spins until it is about protecting the unborn and they therefore have to impose their morals, and the left spins about taking away hard earned "women's" rights.
The sanctimonious tending of the evangelical right is transformed by the left leaning media into hate, the dialogue spins out of control and Americans are caught in the blind spot, once again missing the proverbial forest for the trees. We have to stop obsessing about lessor evils unless and until we get our house in order.
The focus of every voting generation of Americans alive today needs to remain with "laser" like attention on reducing our national debt and increasing our global competitiveness. Very little else matters, all the rest of the visceral appeals and rationalizations out there, are, or are close to, evasive chaff ejected by nominally well meaning but wrong minded personalities seeking gain for themselves, their party, or a special interest group.
We are perhaps more vulnerable today as a Republic than ever before, yet we don't see it because European debt problems coupled with aggressive Federal Reserve and Central Bank tactics, and China and India's lack of a better alternative for their cash, have flooded the US with currency, driving up demand for US debt and equities. American's listen to the daily ticker and say to themselves: well the stock market is strong, things must be improving.
And then we are distracted: Syria, Iran, North Korea, Mexico, "gun runner", voter ID, and a million other issues which are peripheral to the main issue of getting our fiscal house in order take up our time, money and attention,.
The President is paralyzed by the specter of losing popularity by making any choice, and so continues to vote "present". The Senate refuses to make tough choices, and has decided that voting "present" seems to work for the President and so will not pass a constitutionally mandated budget. The House is attempting to act responsibly, but getting chewed up and spit out by most of the media who sincerely want the President to succeed, and are hell bent on bending the curve in his direction, even at the cost of the experiment we call America. We have become so accustomed to our wealth and invincibility we have lost sight of the basic concepts that made us who we are.
There are no more bucks to pass. Total US debt per citizen exceeds $182,000, and remember only half of the US citizenship pays taxes. http://www.usdebtclock.org/
The need for bold solutions and actions is upon us now, up close, personal and frightening.
For America to succeed in remaining the champion of the world in Human Rights, Ecology, or any other endeavor, we must remain the leading economy, producing enough wealth to enable continued innovation in every field. Taxing more won't do it and cutting spending won't do it alone. The Prime Factor is growth.
The US and Europe now have political economies. Major investors today make bets on what will be the latest political decree, not what is the most efficient utilization of assets. We have moved from making economic policy to making political economy. This is just plain wrong.
We need: Tax Reform, Education Reform, Energy Reform, Labor Reform, Legal Reform, Judicial Reform, Environmental Reform and Legislative Reform. The answer to competitiveness is faster and flatter. The key to faster and flatter is Individual Liberty. No technocratic bureaucracy can match the speed of the market, nor the combined intelligence of 300 million individual Americans making their own decisions.
With both eyes open and focused, and knowing about our "blind spots", America can continue to improve the world, no other system in history has shown itself as capable.
Spot on!
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