Much has been made of the now-averted “fiscal” cliff, but truthfully, we’ve gone off the selfish cliff.
From almost forgetting the horror of Sandy Hook to our resignation that it’s OK to raise taxes and spending as long as it’s not my taxes, we just don’t seem to care unless we are affected directly.
What will it take for us as a people to act? We have so much more power standing collectively than fighting as individuals.
Should someone come into your home and just grab whatever money you have in your wallet or purse each night? Would that do it? Would you feel violated? Outraged?
I know several friends and family members that are completely fine with the argument that the country’s wealthiest earners should pay more in income and payroll taxes.
“I don’t make over $400,000 a year,” said someone to me recently. “Why should it bother me? And those people should pay more.”
It should bother you, me and everyone because even though it’s not you this time, it will be next time. They’re coming for more money. And they start with the rich and work their way down the line.
See, the conversation and discussion is all wrong – this isn’t just about one economic group in this nation, it’s about all income levels. Whether you pay $150 in taxes or $1.5 million, where is every dollar going and why?
What we should be asking – no, demanding – from our elected officials is this: why is there a need to raise taxes on anyone? Why do you need more of our money? We can’t trust you with what you get from us now!
The package that was passed earlier this week to avert said “fiscal cliff” will add $4 billion in debt. How is that even possible? How do you raise taxes and over time still add that much money to the deficit? What’s worse is the deal made by Congress earlier this week was seen as a compromise – of course it was. Because they created this mess, let’s all congratulate them for averting disaster and putting off the debt ceiling conversation for three months.
Well done, guys and gals.
What if we all agreed to not vote for anyone, any incumbent, who contributes to raising the debt? We might get 100 new elected officials every year for the next four years, but we’d eventually find people who do what we want them to, right? Because as crazy as it sounds, that’s what our elected officials in Congress are there for – to do the will of the people. They represent us.
Except they don’t. They represent themselves and re-elections. And as for the “us”, well, we can’t get out of our own way and get our stuff together in terms of values, guiding principles and general decorum.
There was an article posted late Monday night about how all the staffers and members of Congress had to order out and get pizza and wings on New Year’s Eve and how depressing that was.
I laughed because I thought it was the punchline of a joke. That’s not sad. Millions of Americans eat like that every New Year’s Eve – and not by choice. Millions of Americans work late into the night on a holiday because they get triple pay for overtime. We need more because now we give more than ever before in our history.
Meanwhile, we spend less time with family, with friends, with spouses.
This vacuum is why Facebook and Twitter exist. They keep us connected to the world when we’re so wrapped up in ours. Except they dehumanize our relationships, take the emotion out and make everything instant and matter of fact.
What do we get when we spend less time with our children? Or better yet, what do they not get from us? How about our spouses? Are marriages stronger? Relationships of any kind, when less time and energy and effort go into them?
And we ask ourselves how we ended up with the massacre of elementary school students? Shootings in a movie theater? High divorce rates? Rising debt? Unmotivated masses, shrinking more each day into their own bubbles.
Wake up! We are the problem. We don’t take the time to fix it. We talk about it on Facebook and Twitter or at our holiday parties and then we move on. Next issue. On to my personal problems, right?
Wake up! Is it going to take your child’s elementary school being unspeakably shaken by tragedy before something is actually done to protect them? I mean, I’m in favor of the Second Amendment, but I’m not sure why anyone needs to be able to buy a Rambo-style machine gun and as much ammo as they can fit in their car trunk.
But Congress can’t talk about that for a few more weeks because they’re “fixing” the “fiscal cliff” they created by mismanaging our money to begin with. So what makes us think these geniuses can fix something like coming up with a logical, modernized second amendment that while protecting the rights of citizens to arm themselves, won’t allow for them to pretend they are preparing for Red Dawn, Part II?
That debate that everyone said we needed to have on gun control lasted in the media for all of 10 days – right up until Christmas and Kim Kardashian announcing she was becoming Kayne West’s baby momma.
We’re running out of time, my friends. What our ancestors and American decendants worked so hard to build in terms of values is being short-sold by our own selfishness, obsession with the material and overall failure to act. We expect others to clean up these messes, but we don’t take action – or build sustained action – ourselves.
There is great power in the people – us, the collective whole that make up our society. If we can set aside these specific arguments, say on faith, tax brackets, marriages, for a brief moment and look at the bigger picture to unite under, we’ll have a greater success at reclaiming and reestablishing our guiding principles that sustain our first world way of life and the freedoms we so take for granted.
Is this the kind of world we want to live in or leave our children with?
Case in point: a recent pollsuggests a majority of Americans don’t feel it’s necessary for Congress to force Hollywood to produce less violence in their products. Yet when every fabric of our vast knowledge suggests that violence begets violence, especially when exposed to the young, why wouldn’t we want that? What if we absolutely forbade anyone under the age of 18 from seeing an R-rated movie, even with a parent?
Our collective selfish nature says we don’t want them to take away what we, as adults, enjoy so much. Do we? Because since Sandy Hook, I can’t watch a violent movie, kudos to you who can. It’s difficult to separate reality from art now. As I said then, everything is different – and it has to be. The very essence and core of our lives is at stake.
What are we doing? What’s it going to take? What will be our breaking point?
Because we are already, quite rapidly, defining our downfall.
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