My Cold, Dead Fingers

Here's what gets me.

Does it have to take an English major to explain the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution and put to rest this unjustifiable crutch of the right-wing, gun-toting fanatics and their conservative supporters?

For those of you who don't remember, Amendment II states "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Even for those of you who do remember, Amendment II states "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

That is what it says word for word, comma for comma, capitalization for capitalization. Notice that the subject is "Militia," the verb is "shall not be infringed," and the sentence becomes "A well regulated Militia shall not be infringed."

"What about the bits between commas?" you say? Those are two appositional phrases, and an apposition is "a grammatical construction in which a noun or pronoun is followed by another that explains it."

The subject, a noun (See how it works?), is followed by "being necessary to the security of a free State," and it is followed by "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" in order to explain "a well regulated Militia," the subject of the sentence.

The subject cannot be "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," because you cannot put a single comma between the subject and the verb of a sentence. You cannot write "The dog, ran around the yard." You can write "The dog, being frightened by the gunfire, ran around the yard," because now we have two commas separating the subject and the verb. You can also write "The dog, being frightened by the gunfire, the pet of the neighbor, ran around the yard."

That sentence is not "The pet of the neighbor, ran around the yard," because that would be ungrammatical, just as "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" is ungrammatical and therefore not the sentence of Amendment II.

"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms" is an apposition that explains the subject, "a well regulated Militia," just as the other apposition, "being necessary to the security of a free State," does. It is a "Militia" that is "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," which is necessary to the security of a free State and which shall not be infringed.

In other words, the citizens of the United States have the right to keep and bear Arms in "a well regulated Militia," not to stockpile weapons at home and to carry a gun around with them in some Old West mentality.

And what did the sheriff in the Old West do to maintain order? Do the words "Check your guns at the door" strike a familiar note? That didn't mean "Inspect your guns to ensure that they are in proper working order." That meant "Turn your guns in at the door. It's too dangerous for you to carry guns here."

Now, the possibility of everyone having a concealed weapon might deter a few criminal acts, but the probability that hotheads and teenagers carrying a weapon could use it in a moment of unbridled emotion is far greater.

Sir William Blackstone (1723-80), a British jurist and Oxford instructor who was the first at a British university to teach English law as opposed to Roman law (See how those appositions work?), wrote in his great work Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69), "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer."

I believe it is better that ten crimes be committed than one innocent victim be killed by a convenient handgun.

Luke Woodham, a teenager in Pearl, Mississippi, who is spending the rest of his life in prison for murdering his mother and two fellow students in October 1997 when he was 16, kept a map on his bedroom wall with the slogan "One Nation Under My Gun." Do we want our immature, impressionable children growing up and believing this heinous claim?

We used to see so-called Amendment II supporters brag "I'll give up my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers."

After a moment of rage, I don't want those cold, dead fingers to be mine.

I rest my case.

Trust in Santa Claus

Here's what gets me.

Trust in God is no more realistic and rewarding than trust in Santa Claus.

After all, the concept of God and believing in God's existence is merely childhood fantasy grown up, because God is nothing more than Santa Claus for adults.

Think about it. Occasionally, some very old people will be singled out on television, and many times one of them is likely to say, "I attribute my long life to clean living, good health and trust in God." If they are born-again Christians, they might say "trust in Jesus" instead, but think how substituting "Santa Claus" for either one makes absolutely no difference to the validity that the trust had anything to do with the person's longevity and absolutely nothing to the validity of the existence of any of those named individuals.

Look at the similarities: Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and all of Santa's elves live up at the North Pole, and their only reason for being is to reward good little boys and girls one night a year by giving them presents. And when does Santa do this? On Christ's birthday!

God, Jesus, the angels and every good person who has ever been rewarded with eternal life lives up in Heaven just waiting for new souls to come on up and live forever. And when does this happen? On each "saved" person's death!

Depending on the religion or denomination, people are rewarded with an all-expenses-paid, free trip to Heaven for their good deeds on earth, for "accepting Jesus Christ as their savior" or merely for believing that God exists.

Santa Claus keeps a list, checks it twice and knows who has been naughty or nice in the past year, which he uses to reward those who have been "good" with presents and to punish those who have been "bad" with either no presents or a lump of coal in some cultures. And what do we associate coal with? Hot burning fire!

Have you ever known anyone who actually did receive only a lump of coal for Christmas, or is that just an empty threat that parents use to try to keep their children in line?

Santa Claus has lots of impersonators during the Christmas season standing on corners ringing their bells and collecting money and sitting in malls in order to let little children sit on their laps and tell them what they want for Christmas.

God has lots of churches throughout the year on practically every corner collecting money every Sunday or whenever a service is held and plenty of representations of either Jesus nailed to a cross or the Virgin Mary, Christ's mother, God's concubine, to which people can pray and tell them what special favor they would like.

This is where the Santa Claus myth is lacking. Astute creators and perpetuators of the myth should have thought to have given Santa a son so that Santa Jr. and Mrs. Claus could stand on corners and sit in malls to relieve some of the burden during the holidays, which, of course, comes from "holy days."

Santa Claus uses the parents of the children to make them be good for their rewards, punish them as need be throughout the year, make empty promises about what they might get on Christmas morning and then make the actual purchases, hide them in closets, wrap them neatly and finally place them underneath the tree for the excited and eager children to find on Christmas morning.

God uses priests, preachers and other self-anointed representatives to "guide" the people, relay God's words and intentions to them throughout the year, convey special requests if need be back up to God, make empty promises about what they might expect upon their deaths and then finally perform the memorial services for those people when they do die.

Trust in Santa Claus is expedient for parents to encourage their young children, because the promise of presents for good behavior and threats of no presents or that lump of coal for bad behavior is another tool in the parents' bag of parenting tricks.

However, when children reach the age of about six, they should be clever enough to figure out on their own how all the contradictions and illogical details in the Santa Claus myth enable them to conclude that there is no Santa Claus and their parents have been misleading them all those years, even though their parents will claim that it was "for their own good."

I rest my case.

Amen.

Fear of Dying

Here's what gets me.

People who try to convert others to their religion are like those who recommend their dentist or eye doctor to people.

They have had satisfactory experiences with their dentist or eye doctor, and the more people who do likewise supports and legitimizes their own choices and beliefs. And as everyone knows who has ever attempted to persuade someone to believe what you believe, if you can demonstrate that your belief is supported in print, your position has more substantiation and more weight. In addition, if your medical recommendations have been in print for 2,000 years, then you have a lot of weight and persuasion on your side.

However, suppose that the dentist and the eye doctor receiving these recommendations are quacks. Suppose the dentist claims he has a better method of filling cavities and better suggestions for good dental hygiene than other dentists, but in fact he removes all his patients' gold fillings for his own profit and replaces them with a cheaper filling, one designed to wear out and ensure that his patients return for more dental work. And suppose that the dentist's "Ten Commandments of Doctor Gold's Good Dental Hygiene" begin with "Thou shalt go to no other dentist than Doctor Gold."

Now suppose that the eye doctor, who might even claim to be the son of Doctor Gold in order to acquire added prestige and pick up some easy patients, suppose that he, Doctor Christman, claims that all of his patients have special abilities as the result of his practice which enables them to have perfect vision without the need for eyeglasses or corrective lenses of any kind after they are dead.

That is correct. Ridiculous as it might seem, Doctor Christman, without any proof whatsoever, claims that if you patronize his practice, you will be given special powers that will enable you to continue living after you die, and you will be whisked away to some special, spiritual Haven for Doctor Christman's former patients, where everybody spends eternity with perfect eyesight and presumably continues extolling the wonders of Doctor Christman's special powers.

Now, remember those people who recommend the practices of Doctor Gold and Doctor Christman? Suppose they get a percentage, a finder's fee, a kickback for every patient who actually does go to those doctors. That would make their recommendations suspect, wouldn't it? Especially the ones who recommend that kook, Doctor Christman, who boldly claims with a straight face that if only you go to him for your eyesight needs, he will additionally reward you with life after death?

Why would any sane, intelligent person believe such nonsense?

Well, those few people who are blessed with perfect eyesight who can see clearly in all situations that require clear far vision and closeup vision don't, because they have no need to correct their eyesight and don't need an eye doctor in the first place. Nor do they need to follow the "Ten Commandments of Doctor Christman's Perfect Vision," which are suspiciously similar to Doctor Gold's Ten Commandments. They are mostly common sense and obvious suggestions, anyway.

However, there are some people, perhaps even a majority, who are afraid of dying. And if they persuade themselves, either on their own or because of the persuasive powers of those paid shills for Doctor Christman, that simply by patronizing Doctor Christman they will be given the additional magical blessing of life after death, they consider that they would be fools not to patronize Doctor Christman and anyone who knows about Doctor Christman and doesn't patronize him is just a fool.

In other words, their fear of dying has got the better of them and clouded their vision even more than their correctable myopia.

That is just plain silly. Those people are even bigger fools than the ones Doctor Christman's patients claim to be who aren't Doctor Christman's patients, because there is no evidence that life after death is even possible, much less with perfect eyesight.

What are Doctor Christman's patients afraid of? Why are they so egotistical as to believe that they are so special that they even need to have a life after death?

Where were they before they were born? Nowhere. What have they felt every night of their lives after they have been born? Nothing. They have been in a state of unconsciousness that people with perfect eyesight and those with corrected vision accept without fear of going to sleep.

Doctor Gold and Doctor Christman are quacks.

I rest my case.

How to Change Someone's Mind

Here's what gets me.

Throughout our lives, we encounter many situations in which we try to change someone's opinion to match our own.

As children, we tried to persuade our playmates to agree with us as to what to play, where to go, what to do.

Occasionally, we tried to persuade our parents to let us stay up later, buy us a particular toy, let us watch television.

As teenagers, we might have had younger siblings to convince to let us have our way, best friends to agree on which movie to see and sweethearts to persuade that we were being honest and true to them.

As adults, we sometimes have a fellow juror or a spouse we try to persuade to agree with us, a co-worker we want to do things the way we want and our own children to persuade that what we want is best for them.

But have you ever examined the art and process of changing someone's mind? Have you ever thought about your successes and failures and drawn any conclusions about what works and what doesn't? Have you ever taken the time before an argument to determine what you want to achieve, what the best persuasive evidence is to present and what characteristics your adversary has that might help your cause?

Childhood arguments are simple. We either reach a mutual agreement about what we want to do or one of us walks away in hurt or anger. With our parents, if we don't have a convincing argument to prove our point, the larger, more powerful person wins.

Teenage disagreements are more complicated. We can usually win an argument with a younger sibling based on our broader knowledge and experience, but we have to be aware that an arbitrary, selfish decision might be used against us later in life. With best friends and sweethearts, we are on equal ground, and logic has to come into play along with our emotions.

Adult arguments are the most complicated of all, and yet society wants us to conduct them in the most logical, dispassionate manner possible, as adults, without violence.

So, what is the best way to change someone's mind, so that not only do you achieve the result you want, but all parties are also in nonresentful agreement afterwards?

The best approach is to use logic. For example: "If all A is B, and C is A, then C is also B."

Who can argue against that? If you don't agree that C is B, then you have to disprove either "all A is B" or "C is A."

"All politicians are crooks. Richard Nixon was a politician. Therefore, Nixon was a crook."

The problem with logic is that the opponents have to agree that the premises are true. ("Two neighbors were arguing over the backyard fence, but they couldn't reach an agreement, because they were arguing from different premises.")

Humor can be useful in arguments, because it can break the tension, put things in a different perspective and sometimes allow you to save face and agree to change your opinion in an argument that isn't really important.

However, unless the parties agree to the truth of the premises, no amount of logic is going to change anyone's mind.

Pro-life people believe "All abortion is killing. Killing is wrong. Therefore, all abortion is wrong."

Pro-choice people disagree with either "all abortion is killing" or "(all) killing is wrong," and therefore they will never agree with the conclusion "all abortion is wrong," unless they can agree to live with something they believe is wrong.

The pro-choice argument is "Women can do what they want with their bodies. Abortion is an act of doing what you want with your body. Therefore, women can have abortions."

The pro-life people disagree with "women can do what they want with their bodies." And until the two sides get in the same backyard and argue from the same premises, no amount of logic is going to change anyone's mind.

When logic fails, threats can sometimes work, followed by force or else sometimes just force without the threat.

"If you don't give me that ball, I'm going to punch you in the nose."

"If you don't go to bed right now, I'm going to give you a spanking."

Threats and force, however, don't change minds; they just achieve results in a childish fashion and always cause resentment.

Logic works better, as long as we're all playing in the same backyard.

I rest my case.

Go, Turkeys!

Here's what gets me.

Ex-Senator Ben "Nighthorse" Campbell was a dope.

For those of you unfamiliar with Colorado politics or the Washington Redskins controversy over trying to build a new football stadium, Campbell was the Colorado junior senator whose former claim to notoriety was that he is 1/8-1/2 Native American/North American Indian, he flaunted riding his motorcycle without a helmet and he was trying to force the Washington Redskins to change their team name.

He also claimed to be the only Native American/North American Indian then sitting in the U.S. Senate.

Remember when you could be classified a non-Native American Black/North American Negro if you had only 1/16 nNAB/NAN blood in you? It is time to get rid of, or at least ignore, race classifications. They serve no purpose other than to perpetuate prejudice.

I'll bet you beads to wampum that based on such a strict classification, Senator "Nighthorse" was NOT the only NA/NAI in the Senate. Do you know anything at all about your eight great-great grandfathers and grandmothers?

However, he was the first senator to make a national fool of himself over such a silly, misguided issue as sporting-team nicknames.

Consider the facts: Senator Ben said the word "redskin" is a racial slur and introduced a bill prohibiting a new stadium on land used by "any person or organization ... using nomenclature that includes a reference to real or alleged physical characteristics of Native American or other groups of human beings."

He also said, "Simply put, the name 'Redskin' is offensive to Indian people. Whether it is considered offensive by non-Indians is not the issue."

Well, if it is so "offensive to Indian people," why did an Indian high school on a reservation in Red Lake, Ariz., use "Redskins" for its team name?

People forget that mascot names are chosen for their anthropological totemism, not their condescending tokenism. The names are chosen with pride to strike fear in their opponents' hearts, not laughter and chuckles in their throats. No team is called the New York Ninnies, Dallas Dumbbells or San Francisco Sissies. Names of pride are chosen like Giants, Cowboys and 49ers.

As for a term being offensive, the offense comes from context, not from the term itself. No one should be able to take offense at "mother," right? Well, how about "That no-good mother went crazy and he shot 14 people"?

A word is only a symbol for something so that communication and understanding can occur. Otherwise, why would Senator Campbell take pride in calling himself a word also used to mean "beast," "gelding," "heroin," "large or coarse," "old-fashioned" and "nonsense" when used alone or with other words?

Would the senator have been offended if the Washington Redskins chose to call themselves the Washington Nighthorses? I think not. So, was he being selective in choosing what to take offense at? I think so.

Calling attention to a perceived racial slur only perpetuates racism, and the only race we should be concerned about is the human race--especially the finish of it. Back in the Embarrassing Sixties, we thought we could solve problems by drawing attention to them, bringing them out into the open and rubbing everybody's noses in them.

Maybe we were wrong. Maybe drawing attention to problems only perpetuates the problems, because people will be offended at anything if it suits them, whether the problem is solved or not.

Perhaps problems can best solve themselves. When humans try to solve problems, they create new problems, and I hate to think that the purpose of humanity is to solve problems. I choose to believe that the purpose of humanity--if we have a purpose--is to live and be happy. If we can help others be happy, too, then all the better.

So, why don't we all try to live with a philosophy of trying not to create any problems? If we don't have any problems, then we don't have to solve any problems.

If you are offended by a silly mascot name, then take pride in being unique. Ask yourself how many additional problems you would cause by broadcasting the fact you are offended. Ask yourself how many people are not offended. Forget the silly slogan of "If one person has a problem, then we all have a problem."

Remember that Ben "Founding Father" Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird instead of the eagle.

How would you feel today if your favorite team was the Philadelphia Turkeys?

I rest my case.

Cleaning Up the Dirty Words

Here's what gets me.

I'm going to write every filthy, disgusting, dirty word you have ever seen or heard right now: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.

There. That wasn't so bad, was it?

"What?" you say? "That's just the alphabet," you say?

Correct, but it contains every dirty word ever written and every dirty word that ever will be written. You just have to string the improper letters together, assuming you didn't stop reading when I announced what I was going to do.

Now, what is it with so-called "dirty" words that causes such an uproar? We have all heard them, and many of us have used them. Then, why is it we make such a stink about them when we see them in print or hear them in movies, radio or television?

The reason is that somewhere along the line we made an unwritten agreement that certain words are "dirty" and out of place in "polite" society, and people who use them anyway can get into big trouble.

Lenny Bruce, the controversial comedian who died in 1966 at 40, got into big trouble for being "obscene" on stage. What did he do? He offended society.

Now, what is the problem with dirty words? Is it the content or the form that is offensive?

Well, it cannot be the content, because if one word for the human anatomy or a physical act is considered to be offensive, another word that means exactly the same thing is not. Why is that?

We won't allow the most common word for the act of love, but we will allow "sexual intercourse," "coitus," "copulation," "hiding the sausage" and "dancing the horizontal mambo," among many many others.

Why? Because the one word that is shortest of all and has no ambiguous meaning in that context has been banned by "polite" society.

Also, we don't allow certain slang words for various parts of the human anatomy, but "penis," "vagina," "breast" and "anus" are perfectly acceptable. Why?

Although "Saturday Night Live" once got into trouble for saying the word "penis" 23 times in one sketch, after Lorena Bobbitt sliced her husband's sausage and made all the newspapers, network news programs and late-night talk shows, using any other word would have made the speakers look prudish and foolish.

Wait a minute, however. It cannot be the form that is dirty, either. "Cock" is perfectly acceptable when it means a rooster. "Pussy" is perfectly acceptable when it means a cat. And "tit" is perfectly acceptable when it means in exchange for tat.

So, what's the big deal with dirty words if the offense is neither in the content nor in the form? Could it be the intent? Do we get offended by certain words only because we believe that the speaker or writer intended to offend us?

But that's not being fair, nor is it being logical. If we take offense by what we believe was someone's intent, then are we saying we have the power of knowing what people want to do before they do it? Is that what we are saying?

We are proud of the fact that our Constitution guarantees us the right of free speech. And yet we don't allow everyone to practice free speech. We censor free speech. Why?

Well, now you're going to say that something I might say might offend you. But, wait a minute. Something that might offend you will not offend somebody else.

Therefore, are you saying that you are better than those unoffended people and know more than they do? Is that what you are saying?

Hold onto your seats. I am going to offend you. I am going to write the common, four-letter word that means the supreme, gentle, tenderest, everynight act of love. Here it comes: f---. Were you offended?

You have seen that before, haven't you? People are offended when they see all the letters, but not when the newspaper substitutes hyphens for some of the letters.

What sense is that? You know what it means, I know what it means and the newspaper knows what it means. But somewhere along the line we agreed that we won't be offended when we see symbolic hyphens.

Why don't we just agree that we won't be offended by any word, no matter how s---- it is?

After all, a word is only another symbol for an object or an idea, and we all have the power to make a symbol mean anything we choose.

Now, isn't that silly?

I rest my case.

Proving a Negative: Superman, Flying Saucers and God Don't Exist

Here's what gets me.

One of the basic tenets of logic is "You cannot prove a negative."

For example, you cannot prove there is no God, flying saucers don't exist or Superman doesn't exist, according to the philosophers, psychologists and logicians.

Not so, say I!

Of course you can prove a negative, as long as you establish agreed-upon ground rules for the premises, the statements of facts or suppositions made or implied as a basis of argument. For example, "If A equals B, and C equals B, then C equals A."

If premises "(A equals B) and (C equals B)" are "true," then the conclusion "C equals A" is also true.

For example, "If (2 times 3) equals (6), and (3 times 2) equals (6), then (3 times 2) equals (2 times 3)."

"If Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964, and if you were born in 1950, then you are a Baby Boomer."

Now, back to God, flying saucers and Superman.

Can we prove they exist? Sure. All we have to do is get God to appear before us and some corroborating witnesses, coax a flying saucer to land in our backyard and take an irrefutable photograph of it and make Superman take off his glasses and fly faster than a speeding bullet, do something more powerful than a locomotive and leap a tall building in a single bound.

Can we prove that they do not exist? Sure, too. All we have to do is agree to the premises and then prove it with logic.

Now, we know that in one sense all three do exist, because a great deal has been written about them and a lot of people believe in them. One even has his own sequence of films, a couple of television series and a comic book to proclaim his existence.

So, instead of proving they do not exist, we need to prove that they are not real and do not exist outside our imaginations.

Well, we know who created Superman, because they have admitted it, and we have even seen Superman die and be reborn at the whims of his current comic-book owners.

Rather than use a negative in our proof, we need to rephrase the premises and conclusion to allow a positive conclusion.

"If Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster admit they created Superman and everyone agrees Superman is imaginary, then Superman is imaginary." Conclusion? Superman does not exist, regardless of all the literature about him and all the children who believe in him.

Flying saucers are trickier. We know the date of the first, most famous sighting and who reported it (although some believers claim the Bible even has sightings recorded in it, such as Ezekiel's "wheel"), and there have been countless sightings since then, sometimes with physical "evidence" and many so-called "abductions." But we have no physical evidence that when examined by everyone is convincing enough for everyone to conclude "Flying saucers are real."

"If we admit that many people with vivid imaginations create stories about observed or unobserved phenomena for their personal or financial gain and no one has ever produced any physical evidence of flying saucers that has withstood repeated, scientific examination, then flying saucers are imaginary."

Conclusion? Flying saucers don't exist, regardless of all the literature about them and all the people who believe in them.

God is even trickier. We know that primitive societies create a supreme being to worship and shamans establish rules of conduct for society to follow and sometimes to provide for the shaman's personal or financial gain, we know that all the major religions cannot be worshipping the same God and we know that no one has ever produced any physical evidence of God that has withstood repeated, scientific examination.

"If we admit that anyone can create a story about 'God' based solely on belief for personal or financial gain and if everything that has happened in the past and is happening today makes more sense without a God than with one, then God is imaginary."

Conclusion? There is no God, regardless of all the literature, people who believe and atrocities created in God's name.

William of Occam, the great Franciscan scholastic philosopher, stated that all unnecessary facts in a subject being analyzed are to be eliminated. In other words, if there are more than one explanation for a phenomenon, the simplest explanation is more likely.

Conclusion? Superman, flying saucers and God don't exist.

I rest my case.

Your Future, Your Choice!

Here's what gets me.

I believe a lot of time, effort, money and brainpower can be saved if you reevaluate your political-party affiliation and voting record in terms of your line of work, your personal philosophy and your de facto class in American society.

"What?" you say? "Class?" you say?

"Yes," I say. Contrary to what many Americans believe or would like to believe, there are three distinct classes in the United States and, perhaps, in every society for purposes of discussion: upper class, middle class and lower class. Now, the difference between the class society in the U.S. and the established class societies in, say, India and medieval societies is that Americans don't have to be forever restricted to the class into which they were born. All they need do is acquire a substantial amount of money, buy some new clothes and a flashy new car, move into a nicer community and perhaps get experience in the ways of the next higher class in order to become a BONA FIDE new member of that class.

American politics have pretty much become a two-party system, and for the most part people agree that Democrats are the liberal party that supports the common, everyday working-class people and Republicans are the conservative party that supports Big Business and the uncommon, country-club set of wealthy people. Which group describes you?

Common sense says that the majority of people are going to be in either the middle class or the lower class. Using the old "bell curve" of distribution, let us say that 25% of the people are upper class, 50% are middle class and 25% are lower class. Where are you?

Now, people tend to align themselves first with the political party that their parents support, the same as they do their parents' religion. That is why I voted for the Democratic candidate in my first presidential election back in the Sixties, even though I didn't much care for the man Lyndon B. Johnson or for his policies in Vietnam: both my career-soldier father and my salesclerk mother were Democrats. As I grew older, wiser and more experienced, I decided that I supported the liberal, pro-arts, anti-Big Business views of the Democrats more than I supported the conservative, anti-Big Government, pro-Big Business views of the Republicans, anyway.

Remember your schooling? "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Why doesn't "trickle-down economics" work? Because money is power, and the people with the money don't want to give it up, especially to the people without any money. However, they WILL give some of it to greedy politicians in an attempt to cause the politicians to pass laws that make life easier for the people with the money.

Where do you fit? People with money? People without any money? Or greedy politicians?

Let me make it easier for you. People with money tend to be Republicans. People without any money tend to be Democrats. Greedy politicians tend to drift to whichever party they believe will best support their greed.

"Wait a minute!" you say? "What about the Kennedys?" you say? "What about people without any money who vote Republican?" you say?

Well, people who are born with a lot of money can pretty much do what they want, and people who do not have any money would always like to have more. Some people are benevolent and like to help out their fellow human beings as much as possible. Other people are naturally mean and selfish and want to acquire as much money, power, more money and more power as they can.

So, forget the party of your parents. Forget the economic situation as a whole that the country is in and whom the politicians blame for it. Forget the personal life-styles of individual politicians in office.

Remember this: Republicans are conservative, tend to support people with money and try to find ways that those people can keep their money and acquire more money.

Remember this: Democrats are liberal, tend to support people without money and try to find ways that those people can live better lives and perhaps acquire a little more money.

Best of all, forget "politics" and remember that only about 30% of eligible voters can determine how your life is affected.

Are you in the 25% upper class, the 50% middle class or the 25% lower class? Did you vote in the last election? Do the politicians speak for you?

Your choice determines your own future.

I rest my case.