THE CURMUDGEON CHRONICLE - #279

THE CURMUDGEON CHRONICLE ©

AN IRREVERENT VIEW


Time Line: June 11, 2010
Date Line: Chicago IL

In a society shaped by advertizing we are labeled for identification. That might be appropriate for an organized grocery shelf, but people are not cans of Campbell’s Chicken Soup. Thus, Dick Armey, a prime mover of the Tea Party “Revolution”, suddenly finds himself in the sack with (“heaven forefend”) disaffected Democrats.

Talking Heads grapple with labeling new faces on the political stage. Are they: right, left, center-right or center-left, neo-con or arch-liberal? Most of the time a label is stuck on a poor loony who must decide whether to live up to it or spend a lot of time getting relabeled.

I got a call from a dear friend and Chronicle reader who has known me for 50 years. He remarked that I was turning into a “leftie” in my dotage. Thinking about his comment I decided I had been mislabeled. I am in fact a “Recowido”, (a Retro-Conservative with Whiggish and Democratic Overtones).

Recowidos are:

1. Against taxes … (but understand that someone has to pay for the military services and things like roads, bridges, and the stuff that make our currency acceptable here and abroad).
2. Against big government… (but understand that government is necessary and its size and function depend on the size and complexity of what is being governed. We don’t expect to run a 21st century economy with an 18th century sized government)
3. Against US Government give-aways … (but they remember bidding against subsidized German and Japanese companies and wishing their government would do the same for them.)
4. Against any foreign “ism”… (but realize that the middle class can’t survive in retirement without a means of supplementing their savings. Ergo we support Social Security, Medicare and similar programs, (thus avoiding a multiplicity beggars who would clog the streets and make traffic impossible.)
5. Against government meddling in business … (but they recognize the need to control excesses of corporate greed and negligence… e.g. Lehman Bros.; AIG; BP; Enron: and WorldCom, to name a few)
6. Against foreign wars and entanglements like Viet Nam, Iraq, and Korea … ( but they believe we must maintain a strategically sized force able to meet aggression from other nations, defining aggression as a direct and pre-meditated attack on our country)
7. For entrepreneurship… (but they recognize and deplore bureaucracies that stop advancement of products and services and stifle economic growth)
8. For intelligent management of the country’s assets and capacities… (trying to keep jobs here and our manufacturing capacities strong so that we are self sufficient.)
The list goes on: we Recowidos add to the ideas we believe in because they make the US stronger, not because they are popular. We believe that, (except for a small, vociferous lunatic fringe), everyone in this country is a Recowido. There are differences of degree, depending on one’s personal circumstances, but the differences are understandable and generally capable of reconciliation.

The real question to ask a non- Recowido is:

If you are wrong, will you pay the price for all of us, or do I have to pony up a share for your mistake?

If the decision makers had to be fully responsible for their acts I doubt that we would have seen the wholesale export of our industries and jobs, or permitted the wholesale licensing of our technology.

Despite the fact that those activities were sponsored by Big Business, they were not good for bidniss. (For non-Texas based readers, “bidniss” is how you make a living, and “business” is what you mind your own of.)

Recall if you will, the General Motors Chairman’s statement that, “What is good for GM is good for America”. A century or so later, GM was saved from oblivion by America because:

“The measure of what is good for America is whether it is good for all the people, including General Motors.”

Howard Stamer