We have spoken

I probably shouldn't, but now that the election is over I can't seem to help myself - a comment is required. 

A relative of mine sent a message showing the new red and blue map, with a message saying that "now maybe things will get better."  Hum, I wonder what that might mean.  I wonder what things are bad and are going to get better.  Is health care going to get better?  Unlikely, it has actually been getting better, now that will likely regress since there seem to be no other plans or suggestions for improvements.  I agree that there are major problems - but my idea for a solution is universal healthcare paid out of tax dollars.  We now have something sitting somewhere in the middle of "on your own" and "we will help."  We tried "on your own" for many years, that doesn't work out so well. 

Will we not fight so many wars and spend so much on the military?  Hardly - it will likely increase not decrease.

Maybe now we are going to get a lot more jobs and productivity.  The last Republican leadership gave a pretty good demonstration of what they can (and will) do with that.  Providing large tax incentives to send jobs overseas was a pretty good solution.  We are slowly recovering from the previous administrations economic disaster, but it was pretty bad and is taking awhile to recover.  It is kind of funny that as the power swings back and forth between R and D so does the economy.  Up when D's are in charge, down when R's are in charge.  It is directly related to the amount of regulation, reduce the regulations and the economy goes down.  The D's have quite a difficult job always pulling the economy back up from whatever depths it was driven to.

Maybe global warming is going to get a little relief now.  Green house gas reduction seems to be about the last thing on the minds of the R's - so maybe not.  Maybe pollution of the air, land and water will be decreased.  Nope, that doesn't seem like the issues on the table.   We will undoubtedly attempt to make less expensive and easier to pollute than not - which of course will result in more pollution rather than less.

Maybe the price of fuel will decrease.  Could be, however the last six years have seen the largest decrease in fuel prices in many decades.  I don't see that as a positive thing because it leads to increases in the problems of pollution, global warming and ocean acidification.  Low oil prices don't help create jobs, and don't help us move to a sustainable energy budget.  However, they seem to make us feel better.

Maybe we will now have vastly increased secret surveillance of our phone calls and internet traffic.  I suppose that is a good thing if you trust those who are doing the watching.  I tend to not trust them so much - but I guess a more intrusive, more powerful and more secret police force might be a good thing (really???).

I guess the very high end income brackets might get a lot of tax relief.  Probably not so much at the lower end of the scale.  Is this the thing that needs to be fixed to get better?

Maybe we will go back to rapidly escalating healthcare costs, with millions of people losing the health care and instead getting assistance in the extremely expensive emergency rooms.  Sure some of the folks who thought they had coverage but didn't because of bad insurance will get to go back to their overpriced and terrible insurance.  I don't see any solutions being presented - just a desire to throw the baby out with the bathwater.


Maybe it is social values that will improve.  Maybe abortions will get harder to get and we will be back to the bad old days when I was in high school and girls either had to got to a different country, or try it on their own and die.  I remember those times quite clearly and the only thing that was different was that abortions were much more expensive, and much more dangerous.  Nobody wanted them then, and nobody wants them now - but sometimes the choices are pretty grim. Nobody is forcing anyone to have an abortion as it is - it is only a safer choice. Will that be better??  I don't see how.

Maybe we can finally bring Christianity back into our schools.  I guess it is just too bad for those that find the messages to be offensive. I suppose it is a good thing to eliminate the separation of church and State since obviously everyone SHOULD be a Christian whether they like it our not - but I don't see how this helps anything to eliminate it, and I don't see how it hurts anyone to maintain that separation.


I am pretty confused.  What, specifically, is bad and will be improved?  Are the schools going to be improved by reducing funding and letting them make do with whatever they have?  Not likely.  Are roads and the country's infrastructure likely to be improved with reduced taxes on the rich?  Not likely. 

There is an interesting little thing floating around on Facebook these days titled "THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN."  There is a drawing of a crowd of protesters holding signs reading:

"We want dirtier air and water so CEO's can make more money;" "Send our jobs overseas;" "YES on costly healthcare;" "Please tap our computer messages;" "Limit our internet freedom;" "No laws for industry;" "Give our forest to the timber companies NOW;" " Stop giving us benefits for our tax dollars;" " Give us e.coli burgers;" and "Don't tell us what is in our food." 

These are pretty silly, but point to the issue that I am wondering about.  Just what is it that the red folks are wanting to do?  What things are bad, what things could get better, and how is the best way to get there?  Most of the regulations that we currently have came about because industry was clearly unable to regulate themselves.  When they didn't have laws to prevent pollution, they polluted.  When they didn't have minimum wage laws, they paid slave wages.  When there were no safety standards in cars, we have extremely dangerous cars.  I don't think this happens because evil people want to destroy the environment or make unsafe products, it happens because of market forces that always drive the prices as low as they will go.  That means cutting out "extraneous" costs such as pollution controls, increased safety, providing a living wage, providing health care, etc.  As far as I can see, industry cannot regulate itself, just as the military can't.  When the driving force is always to get more money and more power by paying little and charging a lot, then that is what happens - a few people get more money and more power, and some don't.

I would really like to see a clear listing of what bad things will get better but weren't with the current administration.  I am not totally in love with the current administration, but I at least can articulate what I see to be a problem and have ideas of what I would like to see change.  I haven't seen that from the red side - all I see is NO.