Wrongful Musings

Today's the day we'll find out if America is tired of the Republicans screwing it up or afraid of the Democrats making it worse. What is "it?" This year, it includes Iraq, gay marriage, taxes, stem cell research, and border control. Here's my take. Iraq is so incredibly messed up that I'm not sure Democrats can dig us out, but we have to let them try because at this point it can't really get any worse. Gay marriage: who cares!? Homophobes and closet gays, that's who. Taxes.... what a tough issue. I say we should raise the capital gains tax and take some of the burden off of the middle class. What does the GOP call that? A tax hike. It is a raise, but only largely on wealthy Americans. Stem cell research is a ridiculous issue. I won't even address it here because the answer is so glaringly obvious to anyone with a brain. Those who don't have a brain need the research even more. Lastly, border control. Shut down the damn border by severely punishing the companies hiring the workers.

With my largely progressive views out of the way (all but the border control), I'm going to make a prediction. The GOP will retain control of the House and Senate, despite beliefs that at least the House will be controlled by Democrats. Why do I think this? Because the GOP is great at turning out their base. The people deciding the future of America today will be gay-hating, gun-toting and Bible-hugging. God Bless America.

Recently I have been thinking about the power of choices. Each day we make several choices that may or may not impact the rest of our lives. Some choices obviously have much greater importance than others. One such choice is college. What college to choose, what degree to pursue, and how much to study have profound implications. Other choices have seemingly less importance, but can have just as much impact as the larger, more obvious choices.

One choice I struggle with often is drinking. I enjoy drinking. I love having wine with dinner, whisky with poker, and beer with football. The choice to drink never seems like a problem when I choose to do so. The problem is that I also occasionally have trouble containing my drinking. Sometimes I don't stop when I should, and I do things I'd rather not do. This can consist of mouthing off to people or saying things I'd rather not say if I were making better choices. I might only do this one out of every thirty times I drink, but doing it at all is too often. I'm concerned that if I keep up my habit, one of these days I will do something that I can't explain away.

So now I'm faced with a choice. Do I quit something I enjoy doing to prevent the ramifications of poor decision making? Can I control my drinking by only having a few at a time? Does the fact that I'm concerned about it mean I should stop? If I'd rather not stop, does that mean I have a problem? Ahh, choices...

About a week or so ago, I heard a caller into the Rush Limbaugh show explain that the National Football League is based on conservative values, and how it would fall apart if it were more liberal. Rush agreed of course, being a fan of both conservative values and the NFL. Rush went on to explain that if Liberals were in charge of the NFL, then half of the players would be women, and abortions would be the half time show. Outrageous. Beyond that, he is wrong in his assumption that the NFL is based largely on conservative values. The point was that hard work is rewarded with financial gain, although they didn't bother to articulate that point. Isn't one of the greatest aspects of the NFL the salary cap? Isn't that controlled capitalism at its best? The salary cap is the reason the NFL is so popular, and why the MLB and NHL don't enjoy the same popularity. Any team can win any year because the salaries that the team can spend is controlled. Seems rather liberal to me.

Are these guys not the most disgraceful pieces of garbage in recent sports memory? Sure, there are cheaters like Barry, Lance, and recently Kenny Rogers, but I can't remember a collective group of athletes that had as much talent but played as poorly as this years' Miami Dolphins.

Labels: sports

I have a problem with illegal immigration. The problem is not the people trying to improve their lives by moving to America. The problem is the businessmen that are hiring these workers illegally and undermining the integrity of the American worker. The business owners that are hiring Mexican workers claim that they are being hired because American workers are unwilling to do the work. They are correct, but not because Americans think they are somehow above the work offered, but because the pay is too low to support a reasonable standard of living.

Imagine if instead of talking about building a wall to keep Mexicans out of our country, our politicians hold the business owners accountable for hiring illegal workers. If stiff penalties and fines were levied for hiring illegal workers, then business owners would quit hiring Mexican workers, and there would be no reason for Mexicans to venture north. But wait, we've created a problem. There's no one to pick up our trash in the park, serve us fast food, pick our produce, fix our roads, and clean our toilets. Where are the Mexicans? How will we survive?

The key to solving the problem is to raise the wage that potential employees can make. Instead of offering a farm laborer 7 bucks an hour, make it 9. Instead of offering Taco Bell employees minimum wage, offer them enough money to take a vacation once a year, or help pay for a child to go to college. This would be possible if there weren't so many willing Mexicans to work for very small wages. Without the Mexicans, business owners would be forced to take money out of their high profits and give it back to the employees that are actually doing the work. Maybe a middle class could once again re-emerge.