Autumn Weeds: Too Many Words and So Little Wisdom

http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/

The Chinese are said to have a curse: May you live in interesting times. (Background) These are interesting times indeed – especially since Americans have permitted our government to meet our needs, real and imagined. And it’s dawning on us that the service is pricey and second-rate.   Indeed, some of us wonder if government has now become our master, demanding more of our money than is prudent to pay, given the results. *

Hence, the most recent government shutdown.

Is this just a petulant backlash, or, is it a principled resistance to disastrous debt and income redistribution? Or, is it just business as usual?

Whatever it is,  it’s all confusing and upsetting, made worse by political leaders indulging intemperate language, politicized press coverage, and news of the government’s mining of private information from our electronic correspondence and conversations. It isn’t that the problems are more vitriolic than ever – see who said what about whom in the American Revolution and the Civil War -- it is that they are interminable, because of our technology, often inaccurate, and usually unchallenged or refuted.

Our leaders, on both sides of the aisle, have blown too many opportunities to reform a health care system that has done great things and could do better. How I wish we could have had an open debate on how best to serve those for who we are responsible! (Proverbs 24:11; Luke 10:25-37) But we did not. So, here we are.

The bottom line is TANSTAAFL – and offering “free” insurance to the sickliest, the neediest, and the oldest is a good thing. But insurance doesn’t mean health care. When he preached there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, I thought my father meant, beware: nobody gives you something for nothing. But to some extent, many of us have all come to believe the government can and should. It can’t – but we

can do better! (NPR: Religious Alternatives to Obamacare)

I keep listening for answers from the White House and the Congress.

You'll find wisdom on the lips of a person of insight, but the shortsighted needs a slap in the face. The wise accumulate knowledge - a true treasure; know-it-alls talk too much - a sheer waste . . . Liars secretly hoard hatred; fools openly spread slander. The more talk, the less truth; the wise measure their words. (Proverbs 10, esp. vv 13,14, 19, emphasis added)

*( See How our High School Graduates Rank internationally, and the state of our roads Decay Despite Stimulus.)

Reform THEIR Entitlements, Not Mine!