My favorite part is at the end after the whole incident, the employee serves the next customer as if nothing at all unusual has happened.

"No!"

Little boys are twits. I was one, so were both of my little brothers and so is every little boy I've ever met. Most of them are nice most of the time, but in the heart of each little boy is the ability to be a real twit.

So it should come as no surprise that my 7-year-old nephew is also a twit.

As many young boys do, my nephew talks incessantly. He asks insightful questions, he asks stupid questions, he makes valid observations, he makes insipid observations, he misinterprets adult conversations, he interrupts adult conversations and he is just generally unhappy unless the air is abuzz with the echo of his own voice. He reminds me a lot of myself at that age.

Yes, I know what you're about to say.

Shut up.

So, anyways, as of the 4th of July, my nephew and I had been around each other for just about 2 days. As most of you know, I am not an incredibly patient man when it comes to ... well .... anything. Even when people are guilty of the same sins that I myself am (or have been) guilty of. So after two days between the incessant prattle and my nephew fighting with my niece, my patience was incredibly short.

So we all went out together to watch the fireworks: Anna, my sister-in-law, my nephew, my niece and myself. It was starting to drizzle and things started very well as my nephew proclaimed, "It's raining!"

At this point I decided that my patience was running thin enough that enduring my nephew's presence was going to result in an explosion on my part that neither of us wanted and so I wandered off. Unfortunately, he took this to mean that I had been imparted with some secret knowledge of the best spot in the area from which to watch the fireworks, so he followed.

After walking about 100 yards, I stopped and waited. Sure enough, he walked up and began making random proclamations about 5 seconds following his arrival.

"Nephew, you have two options: stand near me and stop talking or go away and talk to your heart's content."

After a 20 second pause, he resumed talking. I walked off again.

This process repeated itself 3 or 4 times as the rain picked up pace until I reached the point where I decided that I should probably go fetch an umbrella for the ladies. Sure enough, Nephew followed me to the car, chattering all along, "Why are you going into the house?" "Oh, you're getting in the car... do you think we'll be able to see the fireworks from the car?" "What's in the back of the car?" "We can't watch the fireworks from the back of your car, can we?" "That's a small umbrella, why do you have such a small umbrella?" "I thought we were watching the fireworks from the car, why are you locking the car?" "Where are you going with the umbrella?" And so on.

By the time we'd reached the ladies, I was about done. "Nephew, if you want to stand under the umbrella with us, you need to stop talking and just watch the fireworks."

"Ok"

20 seconds later. "What do they make fireworks out of?"

20 seconds after that. "I'm getting wet... HEY! Why aren't you sharing the umbrella with me?!"

"Nephew, I'll give you one more chance, and then you don't get to use the umbrella at all."

A whole minute later. "Why does the Niece get more umbrella than me?!"

This time he was watching for it and began fussing the instant the umbrella was removed. "I'm just going to stand under my blanket."

"Why won't you share the umbrella with me?!"

And then a miracle occurred: my nephew stomped away by himself.

And then he stomped back, emotion and volume building as he ranted.

"Why won't anyone share with me? You're supposed to share! Adults are terrible sharers! Everyone else is standing together under the umbrella and you won't share with me?!"

And then, at a fever pitch: "YOU'RE DEPRIVING ME OF THE FAMILY SHADE!"

At this point, I lost it. I absolutely lost it. I was laughing so hard that I was crying, the umbrella was shaking and Anna was elbowing the hell out of me.

And then the nephew stomped off again, only to shout about the abuses that he had suffered from 20 or 30 feet away.

The evening ended with a whimper rather than a bang when Nephew announced that the rain had stopped. At that point, I just set off on my own and avoided him for the rest of the evening.

Yes, I'm a terrible sharer. And I deprived my own nephew of The Family Shade.

Really fascinating notions on what motivates people.

Sadly, with few notable exceptions in China, there's no real penalty for thorough corruption, malfeasance and utter incompetence on a scale that beggars the public interest. Enron, Goldman-Sachs, Bear Stearns, Citi, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, GM, Chrysler and now BP... all of these companies ought to have had their CEOs step down at the very least and probably had most of their executive boards drug out and shot. Instead, most of the failed companies still have their failed leaders in place poised for more failure. Personally, I'm all for the notion that if your salary has more than 6 figures in it, you have to accept a "bullet to the head" clause in your employment contract. At least it would make me feel better about watching all of those birds covered in oil if I could watch BP executives getting shoved into that open oil geyser at the bottom of the ocean.

See, there are some people who you want to be loved by, but that really doesn't say as much, because the really admirable people by whom you want to be beloved are really loving people and love everyone. And respect, well, I think respect is a hard-earned commodity amongst those whose respect I would crave... but respect isn't all that powerful of a thing next to love and hate. And hate... while I certainly wouldn't encourage that sort of behavior, it does leave a lasting impact.

Think about really great people: George Washington, Mahatma Ghandi, Abraham Lincoln, John Wilberforce, Pope John Paul II ... people who did great things and lead people to greatness. Were they loved and respected by many? Certainly... but they were also hated. And really, take Abraham Lincoln for example... who hated Lincoln? White supremacists and slave owners numbered amongst many of those who hate(d) Lincoln. You could do a whole lot worse than to be hated by a bunch of bigoted Klansmen.

So, you see... that's why I'm being so careful about the people who hate me. If I can get the stupid and the enemies of education in that corner, I'll be doing well. If I can get the closed-minded and the bigoted, so much the better. And really, the end goal of this would be to get the people who are so willfully stupid and hateful that they think 9/11 happened because there are gay people in this country. After all, what does it say about you when a group whose specialty is hating good people like American Soldiers and Mr Rogers takes the time to picket your funeral? Obviously, I would be even happier if hate-filled morons would go away altogether... but failing that, I would settle for being the subject of the hate of such idiots.

And while I'm hand-picking the morons who hate me, I would take some cultists... Scientologists if I get my pick. Also Holocaust-deniers and some of those people who think the moon landing was a joke. And just so long as we're obliging my desires, if I could get the Iranian cleric who thinks that boobs are the cause of plate tectonics to hate me, I'd be down with that. I mean, I'm not sure I'm up to the level of Salman Rushdie or anything, but would a hate-filled email or two be too much to ask?

Really?! Because I keep hearing that from various self-help people and even from nurses at the hospital. Also pediatricians. Maybe I'm just a hair on the old-fashioned side, but am I the only one who thinks that may be just a bit overplayed?
I'm trying to figure out where this comes from, because I hear it everywhere.

Look, I'll be the first one to cede the point that parents do spend more time with their children than anyone else (generally) and that there is a certain level of behavioral subtext and empathy that develops with that bond, but I'm also a firm believer in the power of expert knowledge. And yes, you may know your child better than anyone else does... but does that power negate the fact that you know jack about medicine other than what you read on the internet? And you want to tell your doctor in the face of the preponderance of evidence to the contrary and the combined knowledge of two hundred years of medicinal practice that vaccines aren't good for your kid? Really?!

This comes in under the same category as "I know my body" and all manner of psychobabble nonsense. I don't completely disregard the notion that a body's sensory inputs exist for a reason, but people are willing to put WAY too much emphasis on limited personal experience and anecdote for things ranging from self-diagnosis to all manner of hokum (*cough* Holistic Medicine *cough*) and hoodoo to the point where they're willing to ignore expert practitioners of the scientific process because it doesn't "feel right." Again, I'm not saying all doctors are perfect or even that there aren't agendas in play by various organizations (drug companies, for instance), but just being moron with an internet connection and access to Wikipedia doesn't make you qualified to pretend that you have an advanced degree and expertise in quantum physics, so why would you think that WebMD can make you a medical doctor?! Or a fully qualified teacher, for that matter?

Obviously, if you want to homeschool, I think that it can be done. And God knows that I've never made it a secret that I have almost no respect for the actual science of elementary education beyond basic crowd control dynamics. But at the same time, if you're not willing to give it the devoted time and effort that professional teachers do in terms of basic education, continuing education, pedagogy and subject matter expertise, why would you think that anyone would respect the fact that you "know your kids". I can know my daughter all I want, but that doesn't make me qualified to teach her French. First, I have to also know French... and well enough to TEACH it, at that.

Wow... this got long-winded and ranty. Circling back around, knowledge of one's kid(s) cannot replace subject-area expertise. It can yield a limited subset of results as far as the basic care, feeding and maintenance of one's kids, but for truly advanced results, see an expert.

Oh, and there's one quotation that I feel is rather poignant in this case... especially with regards to the true professionals in the practice of their trade. You see, your kid is a great kid, and I'm sure you love yours. I know I love mine. But let's not go pretending that your kid is such an individual that a pediatrician/teacher/obstetrician/baby furniture vendor has never seen one like yours before. Or...

"Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else." - Tyler Durden, Fight Club

Anyways, the point is that I was looking out the window the other day and I noticed the neighbor kids were selling Koolaid. And here I thought, "man, that would be sweet!" and so I got a dollar worth of change (sometimes these kids can be real scalpers) and went to see how much Koolaid my modest fortune would buy. Lo and behold, $.50 bought me a whole Dixie Cup of standard-issue red Koolaid. And I stood there, surveying all that my riches had procured me and I sipped gratefully from my Dixie Cup...

And proceeded to spit it all over the street in front of the Koolaid Stand.

"Did you kids put sugar in this Koolaid?!"

At this point, the three fourth-graders looked askance at each other while the 7th-grade older brother of one of the kids laughed at them. Of course, not to be outdone, they all three attempted to blame the Kindergartener. And I wasn't going to let them get away with that.

"You mean to tell me that three 4th-graders can't figure out how to make Koolaid?! Maybe you SHOULD have left the Kindergartener in charge!"

Of course, at this point, I decided that this swill wasn't worth drinking without some sugar. "Alright guys, get me some sugar or I want my money back!"

"No way, man!" "Yeah, no way! All sales are FINAL!!" "Oh yeah, FINAL!"

Even the kindergartener got in on the action. "FINAL!!!"

Do I look like I'm going to get pushed over by a bunch of elementary school kids?!

"Last chance, guys... or I'm going to drive away all of your business."

"You couldn't do that!"

Just watch me. You see, I had some signs that my neighbors (the parents of these very same fraudsters) had placed in my yard to encourage people to honk at my house to celebrate my new daughter. In fact, two strips of duct tape and a cut-up box later and I had myself a little protest sign.

And so I marched back outside and picketed the Koolaid stand that had ripped me off with a sign that read "This Koolaid Sucks!" That's right, I was picketing a kids' Koolaid stand. You've met me, right?

Of course, the kids were livid. "You can't do that!" "Yeah! This is private property!" "I'm gonna go tell on you."

I reiterated my demands: "I want a proper glass of Koolaid or a refund, take your pick."

"We're not doing that!"

"Very well then, the protest continues." And so I walked up and down the street in front of their stand for about a minute while two of them ran off to tell on me. Unfortunately for them, my neighbors thought this was hilarious. Yeah, that's right, my neighbors are awesome.

When they returned defeated, they had an offer for me. "If you stop protesting, we'll give you a new glass of Koolaid."

"I believe that's what I've been offering... so let's see the glass."

At this point, one of the less ethical ones piped up, "You need to pay us another quarter."

"You little thieves, I'm pretty sure you're not even paying for the freaking Koolaid, the sugar or the water!"

"So?!"

I hefted my sign as if to return to my appointed rounds and they finally capitulated and filled me up a new Dixie Cup. And so it was with pride in my heart and Koolaid in my belly that I returned my sign to my garage, where it awaits another dishonest sales pitch in the neighboring front yard.

And to be fair, given that they're not quite bright enough to make Koolaid, I can't help but think that another unintentional scam is on the horizon. I just hope they don't try to make something tricky like lemonade.

*That said, my mom never bought us American Cheese, and I thank her for that. I mean, why would you want to eat plastic cheese?! It tastes like plastic!

First off, no matter how many good things your culture is responsible for, if there's something reprehensible attached to it, that's what you'll get remembered for.* The case of Nazi Germany is perhaps unique in this insofar as there's a clear line of demarcation as to when "Nazi Culture" began and when it ended and even a rather unique departure from "traditional" German culture as regards that, but a closer look isn't quite so black-and-white. I mean, it's not like Hitler invented antisemitism, the notion of eugenics or the concept of white supremacy... and as far as things like segregating Jews to ghettos goes, that sort of thing had been practiced in some form or another (in Germany and throughout Europe) for centuries before Hitler showed up on the scene. Hitler just took it from a nasty part of an estimable culture (much like it being a dark spot on of Martin Luther's noble character) and turned it into a defining feature of the culture.

I suppose that the same thing could be argued of Southern culture, with the pointed note that, as Wilson noted, while slavery didn't define Southern culture, it underpinned the society upon which it was based and created the very culture celebrated when people reflect upon the Antebellum South.

Now, in his long and rambling screed (and no, Spiff, looking at my original post I can't throw rocks), Mr. Camperman touches on the notion that a cultural touchstone (such as the Confederate Battle Flag) can be reclaimed and altered by future groups to mean a different thing, and I think I'm of two minds on that. On one hand, there are any number of Eastern Religions whose imagery was tainted by Hitler's co-opting of the swastika who would certainly like their imagery back and justifiably so... I mean, all of them were held in great contempt by Hitler and hold no truck with his party; why should he get to undermine a symbol of their religions. Also, some Eastern European noble families had it on their coats of arms, and they too would probably like to remove some of that ugly symbolism, unlikely though that seems. On the other hand, it's not exactly like anyone was using the Confederate Battle Flag for something inoffensive and peaceful before the Civil War. Due in no small part to the inextricable linking of slavery to the cause of the Confederacy, it seems very unlikely to me that attempts to reclaim it would be successful. Of course, this sort of thing is further complicated by the fact that those who would desire the Confederate Flag to be less controversial and more representative of some fictional idealized "Southern Culture" aren't the only party trying to utilize the flag to further an agenda and the other parties are perhaps more visible and likely to capture headlines what with their white hoods, robes and burning crosses.

Caleb touched on a point about this nagging need to revisit the Civil War that contrasts heavily with the perspective of Northerners and I think that it meshes well with Wheeler's notion that the Civil War is something of an anathema insofar as a great deal of the history written about it was dominated by the perspective of those who lost the war. In my stay in the North, the majority of those with whom I have interacted at an educational and cultural level seems to reflect a Lincolnesque mindset regarding the Civil War, that is, to the Northern mind, the Civil War needed to be fought to maintain the Union and it was a travesty that it needed to be fought at all. There was nothing grand or noble about it and certainly nothing to remain fixated upon... it was something more to be mourned than celebrated. By contrast, I think that in losing a war, I think there's a need to feel as though something was being fought for. Many have drawn parallels to Vietnam (which I cribbed shamelessly), and I think it's an apt comparison. In Vitenam, when that war is mentioned, according to the sources I've read, it's just the last in a series of repressive colonial actions that the Vietnamese felt they had to resist. This contrasts with the American account of the war where there is a memorial enshrining those same "colonial repressors" as heroes.** Now, getting back to the South, it is interesting how all of this washes with the fictionalized version of the Antebellum South and the whitewashed version of States' Rights that seems to reappear any time someone feels as though the Federal Government has gotten out of hand.

In the end I'm sure there's far more to talk about on the main notion of National Guilt, these asides notwithstanding. That said, I'm more than happy to discuss the actual details of the individual cases which could/should inspire National Guilt. And sadly, I think I've glossed over both the Inquisition and the French Revolution, but I guess we'll get to those some day.

*It's like that old joke: "I built most of the bridges in this town... spent years doing it and you never have to get your feet wet crossing a creek, but they don't call me Bjarn the Bridge-Builder. For that matter, I also placed at least half of the bricks in the city wall... never had an invasion since we finished it, but they don't call me Bjarn the Wall-Maker. I even saved a group of children from getting eaten by wolves, but they don't call me Bjarn Wolfsbane. But you get caught in flagrante delicto with one goat..."

** And I don't want to get into the "support our troops" argument, because I don't want to take anything away from the men and women who fought and died for their country, but at the same time, it's hard for me to respect something like Vietnam where American soldiers were asked to fight and die in a war whose very existence is cause for a debate of Just War Theory.

Moving to Texas was a real shock to my system. Really, for any number of reasons, but primarily due to the change in social context. You see, I'm a Yankee... and with the exception of my brief stopover in Longview (6 1/2 years in exile), I've never lived south of the Mason-Dixon Line. And, perhaps more tellingly, my education up until that point had all been carried out in states with a very clear view of who was Right and who was Wrong as regards the US Civil War. So you could imagine my surprise when I arrived in Texas and there were people running around with Confederate Battle Flags all over the freaking place.

I don't know that the shock of seeing that really ever wore off... because where I came from, that thing was about one step short of a Swastika... and I can see the justification.

Yes, yes, I know... "the Confederacy stood for a lot more than pure inbred, racist slave abuse... the North's hands were dirty also..." I'm aware of the arguments. And really, it's not an apt comparison, but it's the closest I can get.

Of course, that got me to wondering: What did the heirs of other defeated causes do? I mean, it's not like the Germans and the South were the only two groups with some rather appalling moral baggage attached to them who lost a war. What about Imperialist Japan? South Africa?

And of course, that leads to still further scratching, because it's not like people going to war in the name of absolutely morally reprehensible causes is a new thing. I mean, look at the freaking Crusades: "we're going to kill the current occupants of Israel because Jesus used to live there... never-mind that was 1000 years ago and he lived there during an occupation by a pagan empire... we want it now!" Not to mention the whole business of the Fourth Crusade where they somehow managed to sack Constantinople.

But at the same time, almost nobody is really wringing their hands about the Crusades or the Terror of the French Revolution or the injustices perpetuated by Bloody Mary. Is there a Statute of Limitations on National Guilt? And what is it that drives countries like Germany to be inhibited to such an extent to where they actually limit free speech as regards their national guilt and ban the imagery of the bygone institution, whereas in the US, certain elements celebrate it? Actually, this sounds like it would be a great deal of fun as a study in Sociology. I mean, Historiography of "Revisionism" notwithstanding, how do people overshadowed by this sort of thing react and why is it so different from place to place?

But so far as the notion of national guilt is concerned, I take no shame in cribbing these remarks of Richard von Weizsacker, President of West Germany as perhaps the most productive I've ever seen:

We need and we have the strength to look truth straight in the eye–without embellishment and without distortion. ... The greater honesty we show in commemorating this day, the freer we are to face the consequences with due responsibility. …

There is no such thing as the guilt or innocence of an entire nation. Guilt is, like innocence, not collective, but personal. … The vast majority of today's population were either children then or had not been born. They cannot profess a guilt of their own for crimes that they did not commit. No discerning person can expect them to wear a penitential robe simply because they are Germans. But their forefathers have left them a grave legacy. All of us, whether guilty or not, whether old or young, must accept the past. We are all affected by its consequences and liable for it.

I really have to agree that there is no such thing as a national guilt, but only individual guilt. And what's more, it's probably a good and honorable thing to acknowledge the sacrifices made by the grunts in the trenches in the name of God and Country, regardless of the nobility of the cause that God and Country called them to. I mean, after all, there is the alternative of something like Vietnam where, to all appearances, the cause itself wasn't particularly good or noble... and look at what a failure to honor those who suffered and died did to this country.

But at the same time, I think the Germans have a point in their banning of the symbolism and paraphernalia of Nazism... because there IS a difference between honoring the sacrifice of the men and women who tried to do their duty, between honoring those who did the best they could with what they knew and believed in their hearts at the time and with glorifying institutions like the Confederacy which, in the words of Ulysses S Grant, fought for a cause which was "one of the worst for which a people ever fought.”

And I just noticed the date that he gave them: May 8, 1985 ... the 40 year anniversary of the surrender Nazi Germany. Which, unbeknownst to me, means that I was married on the 60th anniversary of that rather auspicious day. Not sure what to make of that... but there it is. And I suppose I should note that the nutjob Governor of Virginia set this whole conflagration off, but I don't really think he deserves credit for anything other than returning these notions to the fore of my mind.

On the other hand, you have babies. I should point out at this stage that I have no doubt that there are a great number of varied inputs into my poor little daughter's brain between me and my wife and her own internal processes of "I'm hungry", "my butt is wet", "my tummy hurts because I have to fart and nobody will smack me on the back to work it out" and "that big ugly man is nice and warm and I want him to hold me to make me warm." Oops, I almost forgot, "those mean people are taking away my warm, well-padded diaper and exposing my butt to the cold air! I hate that!"

The problem is that while the inputs are many and various, her output is somewhat binary: either she's crying or she's not. Well, that's not exactly fair... she can be crying, screaming bloody murder, crying while making sucking motions with her tongue out, sitting quietly with her eyes open or sleeping. The problem is that the outputs don't map directly to the inputs... in fact, I'm beginning to suspect that even an indirect mapping would be something more happenstance than reality.

Now, I know that some of you are going to point out that as a member of the fairer sex, I shouldn't be demanding logical correlation and causal relationships between inputs and outputs ... and you'd be right. But at least, however unreasonable, grown women can send mixed signals that don't send chills up my spine (usually) and consist of more than screaming, crying and making faces.

Others will correctly point out that given the neurological and physiological development of my daughter, I would be somewhat unreasonable to demand reason and/or cogent communication... and I suppose I have to agree. The problem, gentle reader, is that though I may agree that my daughter, while an excellent specimen of 2-week-old baby should not be required to transcend her already excellent developmental accomplishments, it still doesn't do anything for my state of mind that she can't seem to correlate inputs to outputs in a manner that I can understand.

Come on Grace, write it to a log so Daddy can analyze it. Actually... when you put it in that context, I think I'm looking at this all wrong. I blame the test tools for failing to properly analyze the baby output. This is all the fault of my co-workers for not programming proper baby output analysis.

For better or worse, I'm probably not the best reflection of the upbringing and education that I had to work with. I'm lazy, disorganized to a fault and generally the only way to get me to do something to the best of my abilities is to have someone else relying on it. Of course, this makes me at least passing decent at my job, but only because there are 4-6 people reporting to me and another 2 or 3 dozen to whom my work has some sort of impact. If it's just me, myself and I, I don't do such a hot job. Really, I'm a lot like Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities - I can muster almost limitless effort on the behalf of those I care about but only marginal effort on my own behalf.

And now, it's me and Anna... and even there, I'm certainly not taking care of myself like I should in order to be around in 20 years. Not that Anna needs me to take care of her, but I have a responsibility to her and now to our daughter and I'm nowhere near likely to be able to carry it out if I don't change something. I mean, let's face facts: I'm morbidly obese, a Type 2 Diabetic who takes bad care of himself, I guzzle Coke Zero like it's my job, I haven't seen the doctor in at least 6 months... hell, I can't even take care of my teeth very well. And now there's going to be a little person relying on me to get my act together in order to provide for her.

And that's where things get interesting... because it's not just the provide for her part. I mean, while I have an intellectual grasp of personal finance, this whole inability to set my actions to the march that my rational mind dictates isn't exactly a new theme... but I can usually fake my way to better finance through stumbling along the path of career development. No, the truly scary part is that there's going to be a little person doing some significant modeling of who she's going to be based off of who I am. And I can't honestly say that I'm a huge fan of who I am a great deal of the time. I wouldn't exactly put me forward as a role model... much less a freaking parent and basis for understanding reality.

Have kids with more screwed up parents than me lived and survived? Certainly... but I'd like to hope that my kid would have parents a benefit to personality development rather than an obstacle to overcome... and I suppose that's where Anna comes in. On two fronts, really: as a far better role model than I could ever hope to be and as a mitigating factor for my own behavior.

Because, let's face it... and people who have known me before and after the initial impact of Anna on my personality (and on-going sanding off of my rougher edges) can attest that pre-Anna, I was a real piece of work. Still am, really, but nowhere near to the extent that I was prior to that. So something's going to have to give, but for now, I think I'm done with this self-flagellation... so, telling though this is, I'm going to go ahead and quote Jules from Pulp Fiction in closing with the notion that I feel it to be at least somewhat autobiographical:

Maybe it means: you're the evil man, and I'm the righteous man, and Mr. 9mm here, he's the Shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the Valley of Darkness. Or, it could mean: you're the righteous man, and I'm the Shepherd, and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that, but that shit ain't the truth. The truth is: you're the weak, and I am the tyranny of evil men. But, I'm tryin', Ringo, I'm trying real hard to be the Shepherd.

According to this ad on Facebook, Speaker Pelosi and President Obama are taking over the country and the Republican Governors' association can help stop them. Alright, I'll stop to give your brain a second to work that one through. Did it make any sense to you? Me neither.

People are just stupid over healthcare reform. Really, from what I can tell, Americans haven't been this stupid about politics en masse since the Civil Rights Movement. An no, I'm not trying to draw moral parallels (though those of you who side with Glenn Beck ought to take a minute to consider which side of that argument "Social Justice" would come out on... I'm just saying) ... all I'm saying is that the American Public in general hasn't gotten this stupid riled up on an issue being decided by politics since the Civil Rights Era. Or maybe that's just how it looks to my relatively-young self.

My point is that right now, as in most mid-term election cycles, the party in power is losing influence and the party of the opposition is gaining influence. Why? Because Americans don't vote for a candidate, they vote against a candidate.

I don't know how this works out in countries with multi-party Parliamentary systems, but in 'Murrica, people don't even know what Congress is doing most of the time. And when they vote, they don't know what they're even talking about. According to a Pew survey, 44% of Americans who claim to be "closely" following the debate on Healthcare Reform don't even know that "public option" deals with health care and only 18% know that Senator Baucus is the chair of the Senate Finance Committee that is tasked with writing health care reform legislation (at least over half of those questioned knew that they didn't know.)

So this is what puzzles me: how can the electorate claim that they vote for people with any sort of modicum of responsibility or eye to ability to govern? And what's more, when people start spouting off about the "will of the people", why should I listen to them? Really, all I know is that after one political party gains control, they will do some things dovetail with their agenda and then the other party will get into power.

And really, my problem lies less with the notion that anyone is dissatisfied with the current regime and more with the claims by the loyal opposition that the candidate that they're voting for will do a better job than the current regime.

And really, I'm looking at you Republicans. Because right now you're trying to convince me that you'll do better than the current regime. You're going to encourage fiscal responsibility and fix the economy. And, honestly, I don't believe you, and here's why:

Over 8 years with a Republican president (6 of those with a Republican majority in all of Congress) with a budget surplus, somehow the country got 3.3 trillion dollars further into the hole. Those tax cuts that were supposed to fix the economy and help cut the deficit? Yeah, 3.3 trillion dollars further into the hole AND a giant recession that erased all of those gains.

Over the 8 years of a Republican presidential budget (and yes, as President Obama explained to the morons in Congress at the State of the Union, you write a budget for the upcoming year, not the one you're in), we went from $1.9 trillion in the last Clinton budget to $3.1 trillion in the last Bush budget.

It should be noted that only one of those years, ONLY ONE (2001), did the US Government spend less than it made. And, in fairness, President Clinton was the one who submitted that budget (though, also in fairness, under a Republican Congress.)

So what I would like to know is this: Would the Republicans like us to elect them because they've demonstrated an ability to govern? Because they've established their credibility in sticking to their core principles? Because their healthcare solution isn't the same "sweep it under the rug and pretend everything's just fine like we've done for the last 30 or 40 years?" Because really, all that I'm seeing is yet another volley in the "elect us because we're not them" game of political Hot Potato that has perpetuated American Politics for the last 3 or 4 decades at least.

Conceptually, insurance is basically splitting up a risk cost into small, regular payments over a period of time. So let's say your house would cost you $120,000 to replace if it burned down and there's a 100% likelihood that it will burn down once every 10 years. Your insurance company would be justified in charging you $1000 a month in insurance, plus some sort of fee for saving you from the inconvenience of paying out $120,000 every 10 years. Also, it's hard to budget for $120,000 sometime in the next 10 years, whereas it's very easy to budget for $1000 a month.

Now, let's take it one step further and say that there's a 100% risk that one and only one $120,000 house on your block will burn down in the next 10 years and you have 9 neighbors plus yourself, all with an equal likelihood of losing a house (and nobody can move away.) Then, each of you only has to pay $100 a month plus fees because the insurance company has amortized its risk across multiple houses.

Obviously, health insurance is a good deal more complicated than this in terms of the actual numbers... but let's take mobile homes because they're a lot like individual health. Let's say instead of 10 houses, there were 10 mobile homes, each in various degrees of age and disrepair. Now, let's say that I have the newest $120,000 mobile home and it is a sweet mobile home (for $120,000 it had better be) with a state-of-the-art sprinkler system and 2 nasty dogs to run off would-be burglars. Because of that and because I own my home free and clear, I opt not to have home-owner's insurance. So, now 9 owners have to split the $120,000 ... and that makes an ugly number that is more that $100 a month.

But it gets worse... because Bob has a 25-year-old mobile home with exposed aluminum wiring and a gasoline-soaked cloth roof. His house is pretty likely to burn, so he pays $1000 a month. In fact, Bob's house is so crappy that when it burns, the insurance company refuses to pay on account that Bob claimed he had a no-gasoline-soaked-roof house on the application form when he signed up for his insurance. So he gets nothing and is still out all of his premiums or, if he's lucky, they send his premiums back.

So, Bob buys another house, and this time he complains to his Congressman that it's not fair that he pays a higher premium just because he owns a crappy house and the Congressman is up for re-election in a "mostly gas-soaked rag house" district, so he agrees. He passes legislation that makes everyone pay equally for insurance, regardless of if his or her house has a roof made of gas-soaked rags. So now all of Bob's neighbors hate Bob because the insurance company isn't going to just eat the cost of replacing Bob's house and now everyone pays $900 a month. Yeah, the cost for Bob and his ilk went down $100 a month... but all of the people in good mobile homes (and even good houses) now pay a lot more.

So now everyone on my block starts looking at my sweet mobile home and realizing that I pay $0 a month and am saving all of that money to move out of my mobile home and into a nice house. And they're thinking, "If we could get him to pay insurance, all of us would pay a WHOLE LOT LESS." And they're right... but I don't want to pay for insurance. Unfortunately, they have the Congressman on their side and the Insurance Company promises to charge them all $400 less a month if they can get every owner of a sweet mobile home like mine (or an actual house) to pay in.

But here's where it gets interesting for the benefits of buying insurance. Because Flammable House Insurance Company has a policy with every house in the state, it's in their best interest to get the cheapest rates on gasoline-soaked rag roof trailer homes. So instead of a replacement cost of $120,000 , they can get me that trailer at $80,000 brand new. So in that sense, it makes more sense for me to go to FHIC, assuming I'm forced to buy insurance.

And the best part of all of this is that I'm just scratching the surface of the notion of insurance... there's still the jerks who manage to make it so I can only buy their brand of windows for my gasoline-soaked rag roof trailer home and the people that sue the builders of gasoline-soaked rag roof trailer homes and drive the cost of a new trailer home by an unknowable amount. Oh, and then there are the builders themselves who are required to build a house for anyone, even if they can't afford it and then get the money back from the government. The list goes on.

And the problem is that the system is complicated. And everyone on all sides is convinced of his or her correctness. The one side doesn't like seeing people living on the streets and the other side is convinced that the government can't afford all of these houses and screw the people living on the street. Me? I just want people to have an honest and straightforward conversation. But these are politicians and talking heads and NONE of them wants that.