Random Recordings of Mental Meanderings

Lately, I’ve been hearing on talk shows about issues coming up in Congress and in the Senate next term:

• Immigration reform
• English as the official language of the USA
• An amendment to the Constitution outlawing gay marriage
• Legislation making flag-burning illegal
• The line-item veto
• Repealing of the estate tax

Are these issues that the public is worried about that need to be addressed immediately, or are they election-year Republican wedge issues put up front to inflame public opinion, a smoke screen of old, tired, failed ideas because the Republicans don’t have a clue?

I think the latter rather than the former. Until a couple of days ago, I haven’t really heard about any of these for a long time, except for the immigration issue. And that is an issue that I think is a straw man, because we are all descended from immigrants. There will always be illegal immigration. That is not to say that we shouldn’t try to stop it, we should address the issue intelligently, by making the minimum wage a living wage, and working with other countries to make their economies better so that people stop coming here illegally.

English the official language? This is about as big a waste of time as I have heard in a long time, and that’s all that happens every time it comes up. English is the de facto language of choice in the USA, and in practically every case, by the time of the third generation after immigration, most people don’t know their grandparent’s native tongue. In the vast majority of cases, by the time the third generation comes around, they are of mixed heritage, and speak English only, anyway. So, what’s the point? Wasting time.

Gay marriage? A threat to the institution? Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Ronald Reagan all were divorced. Is that not a greater threat to marriage than two gay people (male or female) wanting to spend the rest of their lives in a legal relationship, with all the benefits involved? I’m not gay, and I’m not so insecure about myself that I would let someone else’s homosexuality destroy a relationship that I am in.

Oh, no! Someone might want to burn an American Flag! And the point is? I see people driving around all the time with tattered window flags on their cars, faded and peeling bumper stickers, and that kind of neglect is OK. And how does burning a flag affect you and me? The fact is, it doesn’t.

The line-item veto is a dumb issue to bring up, with a President who has yet to veto a bill brought to him for signing. Rather than veto legislation, he just made out signing statements that state how he was going to ignore that legislation. We should give him greater leniency when he is derelict in his duties as President?

Since the President has done everything he can to make sure the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class disappears, why not repeal the estate tax? Let’s give the top 0.5% of the population yet another reason to avoid paying taxes. Makes sense to me.

Instead of these issues, why don’t they talk about the things people are really worried and bothered about:

• the rising cost of living, with wages not keeping up
• the exploding deficit being left for our grandchildren to pay off
• increasing gas prices, the effect on our pocketbook and the cost of everything else
• the new hurricane season and the lack of preparation for it
• the ever-increasing cost of health care and inability of people to afford it
• the deterioration of this country’s infrastructure
• the increased isolation and decreased stature of the USA on the world stage
• an increasingly unpopular war in another country, where you hear about people, American, Iraqi or otherwise, being killed every day; it is a war with no end game

Of course, these issues aren’t going to be talked about by the Republicans. They are difficult issues with even more difficult solutions. It’s easier to complain about toilet paper than it is to climb into the sewer and clean out the drainpipe because the toilet is flooding out the house.