I'll Respect You in the Morning

Those of you old enough to remember the Robert Klein routine hinted at in the title will understand that there are many things people say that are clearly not true.

And the people who say them know they are lying but they rely on the naivete of the people to whom they are speaking to get away with, well whatever.

So in the spirit of that restless legged stand-up old timer I hereby submit:

Things Americans seem to accept without question that are inherently unfair and clearly untrue:

1 - Paying insurance companies tremendously high premiums for coverage is needed to ensure that I am covered for all illnesses.
       The coverage we pay so dearly for does not kick in until an equally unfair deductible is met and a Co-Pay is given at time of service.

We seem to allow without thinking that we should be giving money away with no true belief it will ever be used for our well being to large corporations who in turn wish to make that feeling a reality by hiring intelligent people to find loopholes in their own policies or write them in in the first place.

Just what exactly is a deductible or a co-pay or a co-insurance?

Simply put they are inherent future revenue streams that insurance companies bank on should a policy holder have the nerve to try to access the fruits of their policy.

Voting for a politician because he or she states they will stick up for your rights and because their beliefs most closely resemble yours on a majority of issues will ensure you have a friend in government.

     And then re-electing them when they prove to have lied because you believe their promise that they will do so this time!

By nature we have been a forgiving society and somewhat naïve when it comes to questioning authority or those in power.
We are not comprised of a mentality rampant in so-called third world countries where the people not only think their leaders are corrupt but they know for a fact they are!
Sadly those people cannot have ‘Occupy’ movements, or at least have then and survive to talk about them.

Luckily we have freedoms written into our constitution that protect our rights to congregate and dissent and do so openly, at least for now.

But as we continue to elect politicians who are of the ‘in name only’ variety we move closer to a police state where elections are a mere formality and a small few control and rule the country.

We already have a tiny percentage of citizens controlling the conversation who have successfully moved all the playing fields to the right and beyond.

How else could a civilized nation be talking seriously about turning a once free woman’s uterus into a crime scene?
These same small minded individuals stir up unreal fears and campaign to outlaw Sharia Law in America while trying to push women toward the path of wearing Birkas.

With regulations being proposed and even placed on ballots for supposedly religious people to vote on that will vilify a pregnant woman who has a miscarriage and possibly send her to prison we are heading not only down a dangerous path but back to the dark ages.

We have the best health care system in the world and changing it would lead to socialism.  This is true because we are told that by a great many of our leaders and some television personalities.

     Seriously?

With so many of our citizens simply dying due to limited access to health care how can anyone say something as blatantly false as that, let alone believe it?

When people propagate lies they must either be doing so for personal gain or an increased level of power over their world.  Or maybe they are just plain evil.

Evil does exist and in a truly intelligent futuristic world that kind of evil would be considered a mental disease to be treated with the best level of care the society could muster.

Unfortunately in our world that type of person is not considered diseased but rather the leader of a sect as in the Westboro Baptist so-called Church.

A person by virtue of his or her standing on the ladder of celebrity should be considered intelligent and all knowing as befits the level above others on that ladder.

     We see and hear hate filled speeches coming from polarizing figures on the radio or the web or any broadcasting medium attempting to pinpoint the cause of all our problems and point their despicable fingers in that direction.
One named Rush or former good actor named Mel come to mind, although using the word mind in connection with these two seems far fetched.

And in a true ‘Physician heal thyself’ way those people are generally the worst offenders.

We have a majority rule political system in America that is the best and most envied system currently in use in the world.

     Those are great patriotic words and were they accurate we would truly be the envy of the world.  But sadly the words are a mere smoke screen obscuring reality.

This one is actually easy to disprove by looking at Congress and noting that once the Republican Party became the minority in Congress they stopped allowing anything to get done. They did so by utilizing the childish tactic of covering their ears and humming so they couldn’t even hear the majority.

And since they won the House of Representatives by using that tactic they felt emboldened to continue using it until they had removed any semblance of fairness from DC.

To wit: There are 100 elected officials in the Senate and as anyone familiar with first grade math will tell you that means 51 votes on any issue would constitute a majority; but not in America and not now. Counter intuitively in order to get something through that body of planned inaction you must receive 60 votes or more!

When Americans speak to foreigners who do not understand our language if we say the words louder they will finally get it!

     Do I really have to explain this one away?

While waiting for a tardy elevator pressing the button with increased rapidity will cause the cabin to arrive sooner.

     As with the one above, seriously?

The Earth is approximately 6,000 years old.

     Right, and I just celebrated my 1 month birthday!

With rocks found all over the planet that have been shown to be at least a million years old can people really believe this ridiculous notion?
Do they dress themselves in the morning?

Can they really have graduated from one of our schools?
If so I need the names of those institutions to make sure they are removed from any accreditation system and certainly from getting any federal funding. They are obviously theologically rooted and must be called churches!

As long as big business is regulated we are safe from any fraud or from any harmful products hitting our shelves.

     If regulations were all we needed then we wouldn’t need police or agencies such as the FDA.

Businesses have long played the role of cheese lover in the cat and mouse game of regulations. Agencies are constantly trying to build better mouse traps to no avail.

As one of the executives at Gerber once said when asked if they should pull an awful tasting baby food from the shelf, "Who's gonna complain?"

As long as we have fraud minded greedy wealthy CEOs and board members who want to be greedy wealthy CEOs we will never be able to have a big enough mouse trap.

And even when caught these immoral law breakers weasel their way out of any convictions by bribing those in power to look the other way at best or bail them out at worst!

Bernie Madoff is an exception but don’t think there aren't tons of others waiting and watching in the wings trying to learn where he went wrong so that they can perfect the scheme.

When companies or corporations are found to be breaking the law and convicted of doing so in a court of law the fines levied against them will be paid and the bad behavior will cease. After all that’s the law.

     And Santa will bring joy to the world all year round!

Remember the movie about Erin Brockovich entitled surprisingly, “Erin Brockovich?” The movie chronicles her struggles to bring PG&E to justice for dumping carcinogens into the Earth thus polluting it and threatening the lives and livelihoods of thousands of innocent Americans.

The movie is from 2000 and therefore concerns the illegal acts of that corporation from earlier times.

It should surprise no one that after being found guilty of performing that anti-human dangerous dumping act they have yet to pay a fine or be totally brought to justice and the plume of carcinogenic liquid is spreading and ruining more lives and killing more people.

Rather than clean up the area and thus save lives these bastards have spent nearly a billion dollars to forestall any further legal action!
Rather than do the right thing that would have ultimately cost less and made them look good in the eyes of the public they chose to appeal!

In the corporate world it is all about winning no matter the cost, and if a few or a million lives are lost along they way, well fortunes of war. After all, they had a choice of where to live, nobody forced them to buy homes over our current and future dump sites!

We are too trusting of authority and either that or our definition of authority must change. Until that time we are all going to be treated as naïve fools only to be led to our slaughter after we cast our vote for the wrong candidates every November.

Stop accepting – start learning – Become involved. You’ll ultimately be glad that you did.