1) According to an April 16, 2010 Associated Press report, the Republicans in the California state Assembly wanted to pass a resolution this week that honored the 100 year anniversary of the Boy Scouts. Seems simple enough, many boys have had positive experiences via their Boy Scout days. However, the Democrats killed the resolution because the Boy Scouts organization excludes homosexuals. Now remember, the Boy Scouts is a private organization that should have the right, in a free country, to exclude elements of society that they feel are inconsistent with their values, regardless of what their values are.
In rebuttal, the Democrats introduced a resolution of their own honoring the Girl Scouts, noting in the resolution that the Girl Scouts do not exclude homosexuals. Nowhere in the article does it mention that the Girl Scouts were celebrating a landmark date, e.g. 100 years of existence. This ticked off the Republicans and the sniping at each other was on, taking a simple recognition of a children's organization turning it into a full fledged debate on the Assembly floor when the resolution came out of committee. The article goes into detail of the political maneuvering and name calling that ensued which I will skip in this post. The bottom line is that the state of California is in dire, dire economic shape. Dire enough to possibly be facing bankruptcy. In the face of the economic meltdown, the political class decides to spend their valuable time, resources, and brain power on non-binding feel good resolution development. And to prove how ineffective they are, they could not even do that right. Pathetic.
2) Moving onto Federal silliness, in an April 11, 2010 Associated Press report, it was reported that U.S. Senator Charles Schumer has decided that he does not like the fact that some airlines, e.g. Spirit Airlines, are now charging customers for carry on baggage. He made an official request to the Treasury Department to rule that carry on bags are necessary for travelers which would somehow exempt them from a separate fee beyond the ticket price. He was quoted as saying: "Airline passengers have always had the right to bring a carry-on bag without having to worry about getting nickeled and dimed by an airline company." If this practice cannot be blocked by current legislation Schumer said he will introduce legislation that will make it illegal to charge for a carry-on bag.
Two problems here. With all of the major problems facing this country (failing public schools, skyrocketing deficits, high unemployment, a lost war on drugs, no national energy strategy or policy, two wars, rising health care costs which have just been made worse with the Obama care disaster, etc.), where do we think that the carry-on on luggage fee issue would land in a poll of what issues are most important to Americans? I doubt it would make the top fifty. But Schumer. like many politicians, does not know how to solve the big problems and thus, in order to prove his worth, he has to tackle these very, very minor issues.
The second problem I have with Schumer is that he has proven again that politicians never understand the whole problem or situation, either because they are not smart enough or they are too lazy to understand all of the interrelationships. I fly with Spirit Airlines and recently received an email from them explaining why they are charging for carry-on. Spirit analyzed the problem: the volume of carry-on luggage has grown considerably, resulting in longer security lines, longer boarding processes, injuries due to overhead bins getting too crowded, and delayed flights, resulting in increased passenger frustration. They obviously understand the problem. Their solution, charging for carry-on luggage include the following facts:
- Customers will be able to carry-on a piece of luggage as long as it can fit under the seat at no charge.
- Spirit will lower their fares which was backed up in the email with new promotions for some fares as low as $.01, e.g. fly from Boston to Ft. Lauderdale for a penny.
- If customers do have carry-on luggage that they pay the fee for, they will be given priority boarding preference.
As a result of this policy change, Spirit expects overall prices to be lower, security and border lines will move quicker, deplaning will be faster, and the injury rate should go down for both passengers and staff. Let's see: I pay less, I travel faster, I have less hassles, and I am less likely to be injured. Sounds like a winner to me and it also sounds like Spirit correctly analyzed the situation and came up with a fair solution. Schumer did not analyze the solution and and is about to waste more valuable time and resources fixing a problem that does not need to be fixed. Chuck, work on the big issues, let the free market and individuals work on this one. If passengers do not like the Spirit policy, there are alternatives. If enough people use those alternatives, Spirit will get the message, its call capitalism and competition.
3) Finally, one last example of the political class not knowing how to solve the real problems and major issues but trying to prove their worth on secondary issues. Another Associated Press report, this one on April 14, 2010, reviewed the effort by members of Congress to get major league baseball to ban smokeless tobacco, i.e. force adult Americans to do something that they can freely do now, now matter how stupid or health affecting it may be. Their rationale is that the ball players are role models for younger children who may start using smokeless tobacco as a result of seeing baseball players use it. They actually held a three and a half hour hearing to discuss the issue.
Number of issues wrong here, some which are discussed above. First, this is another attempt by the political class to control what Americans do and as always, more control by politicians means less freedom for Americans. These are adults who are using this stuff and if they are stupid enough to do it, then it is their lives and health and future cancer illnesses to deal with. Second, kids should not be sold smokeless tobacco, maybe if we just tightened up that facet of the market it would be more effective than hoping that kids would not follow the route of baseball players that use it. Third, there was no mention in the article of how bad the problem is. Do a hundred kids a year start using smokeless tobacco because they saw a major leagurer use it, do a thousand kids, do ten thousand kids, etc.? Here again we have politicians jumping to a conclusion with no understanding of how big the problem might actually be. And finally, how about parents stepping up, taking responsibility to guide their kids away from using smokeless tobacco?
Rather than worrying about what could be a very small addiction problem, would it not be better for Congressional members to work on the bigger war on drugs failure? I would bet a lot more Americans are negatively affected by marijuana, heroin, cocaine, opium, and the drug related violence that goes with it than smokeless tobacco usage. We have incredible drug trade related violence just south of the border with thousands of Mexicans killed each year as a result of the illegal drug market in this country. Some of that violence is spilling over the border into the U.S. Major and illegal marijuana farms are growing on U.S. parkland causing pollution problems and having a high potential for violence. Two Americans were recently killed in drug gang related violence in Mexico. Afghanistan, the country we are trying to save, is the biggest producer of illegal opium and its derivatives in the world. Why not have these Congress people work on those problems and let parents and major league baseball work on the smokeless tobacco issue?
Why not? Because the current class of politicians do not know how to solve the big problems, that is why these major issues linger with us for decades. Given they are not smart enough to solve the big issues, they dilly-dally with the lesser issues, which, it turns out, they cannot even understand those. For this type of non-service, we pay trillions of dollars a year in taxes.
There are way to many proposed solutions in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" to apply to these types of problems. However, the Step that imposes term limits has to be one of the most important. We need to break the stranglehold of incompetence and stupidity that exists within our governing politicians and the only way to do that is to dump who is in power now, regardless of party, and replace them with new people with new ideas. How much worse could it get?
Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
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