Uncommon Nonsense

On my drive into work this morning, I was thinking about Alice. Not because there is some super duper new interpretation about to project on IMAX screens. Because… I feel sometimes as though I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole. No, I’m not jacked up on Lewis Carroll’s favorite hallucinogenic. If only that were the reason for everything seeming what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it isn’t. And what it isn’t, it is. Make sense? No. No it doesn’t.

I write this blog sometimes to try to make sense. For myself. Obviously, I hope people will read and contemplate my view for a transient second or two. I don’t expect to convert anyone. I don’t have the right to prescribe reality for you any more than anyone else… but sometimes, man, I just don’t understand the other reality.

I watched the news this morning, as I do every morning. I usually get the five minute encapsulation of ‘top’ stories. Today it was the IRS, Toyota, and something about healthcare. Nothing… new, really. Nothing new to this blog. I don’t mind paying taxes. I like my Toyota, especially as it proves its worth this week with multiple treks to Sturbridge. And I wholeheartedly believe in universal healthcare.

There aren’t any new arguments. The constant barrage of how evil our government is… how they want to take over capitalism, how we shouldn’t trust any elected official, how taxes are the death knell to all that is good about freedom… how we are ruining our world by buying into Democratic thought. 

But… see… this is where the Alice philosophy of nonsense starts to dizzy my brain. The Toyota story was how the government is stepping in to hold hearings about their failure. Maybe it isn’t enough. It is too late for people who died from these faulty cars. But the fact is… the government is attempting to regulate this big business so it doesn’t happen again. The government is doing something. Does that make it too big? Because they are trying to stop a corporation from hurting people? Does that make it bad?

At the same time, the government is making one last gasp for regulated healthcare. A government takeover, supposedly. And we somehow believe that… that is going to do more harm? Stopping insurance agencies from ripping us off when we have the lowly fortune to get sick? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds to me? That we have to ARGUE about whether or not to stop the rich and powerful from manipulating a system upon which LIVES pay the consequence? Making up random rules to maximize profits for the well to do… well that sounds… that sounds a little like a monarchy of the privileged to me.

Isn’t that why we created our government in the first place? We. I mean a bunch of angry white guys who got pissed that their hard work was filling the coffers of an insane king who was so out of touch across the ocean, he didn’t seem real. So they said enough is enough. They made their own system of laws and government to stop the rich mean people from destroying lives.

But you know, history is subjective. Ask a black person… or a woman… from that time and they probably didn’t recognize freedom from oppression. Maybe those founding fathers weren’t so… perfect. Maybe their government was flawed. But it grew. It grew to realize that nobody is 3/5 of a human, in spite of the color of his skin. It grew to accept the fact that half the population does in fact have enough of a brain to comprehend the politics that govern the world. It grew to recognize the injustice of mistreating people because they had the dumb luck to be born black, or poor, or in a part of the country where opportunity is scarce. Yes, the government grew. But not in size. It grew in a good way. It matured.

Oh, it still has a long way to go. I mean, duh, we are also arguing right now whether or not a man who is willing to risk his life for his country should be allowed to say he loves another man. That is, and this one is for you Sarah Palin, retarded. Retarded like the Caucus Race in Wonderland. Forwards. Backwards. Never going anywhere.

Just around and around, arguing about how to make things better but never doing anything to make our minds grow and mature enough to see through all the brou ha ha to realize that what we fear most is happening right now. The insurance companies are growing to behemoth size. They are taking over our country, our budget, our lives. While we debate finding a way to put them in line, they are still raising rates. And no one says a thing about how much money that is going to cost them. But if you change the word rate to tax, then the institution making the charge is an evil Jabberwocky.

I don’t know. Sometimes I wish I could find the caterpillar and just hang out on the mushroom with his hookah. Maybe then this would all make sense. And I could understand how wrong I supposedly am.