Susan Boyle--exemplar of what is right about the world

OK, maybe I'm a sap, but if I am, there are millions like me. I just can't get over that episode of "Britain's Got Talent" with Susan Boyle. That whole clip is just so uplifting. It is SO easy to become depressed about the state of the world, then out of nowhere comes this frumpy Scottish woman who, at middle age, throws herself to the sharks to get a chance to sing for the world. And the sharks are transformed into worshipful lambs as she proves herself to have a voice from the angels.

On the chance you've been living on Mars and haven't yet heard this, invest a few minutes. You will not regret it.

Here it is.

I just don't get it

I guess all my 58 years and all the traveling and living I've done across the world mean I haven't learned a thing.

OK, it's one thing to shake hands with dictators. I mean, what are you going to do at a conference, give someone the cold shoulder? That's just rude. Obama didn't have to look so happy to see Chavez, but I wouldn't have expected him to turn on his heel and walk away from the guy, either. That would be playing into the guy's hands.

But releasing the CIA memos, over the objection of his own CIA director? Apologizing to all and sundry for America's supposed sins? OK, the US has at times been exploitative, but we don't hold a candle to most nations at various times in their history. And the old aging hippie idea that we're imperialistic is just silly. By apologizing for our so-called national sins, Obama is trivializing the hopes of people who really are suffering under tyranny, trivializing real imperialism.

I just don't get how this is supposed to make people respect the US more. I've lived in Europe and traveled there numerous times. I have many friends in Europe. They are laughing behind their hands at us, or appalled. That this country is basically good is evidenced by the immigration here.

I have really been trying hard to get inside the Democrats', and especially Obama's, heads, but these actions completely baffle me.

Happiness

CAVU is facing some personal challenges in her family, a close one's severe illness. It is so easy to become negative when this kind of thing is going on, and if on top of that, one is worried about one's country, it's too easy to feel the weight of the world on one's shoulders.

So I am making a concerted effort to take note of the small, beautiful things in life. Spring is beautiful anywhere, and CAVU is lucky enough to live where there is still a little bit of wild. Outside our sliding glass doors right now are dozens of tiny yellow wild lilies that come up every year. They don't last long, but they are so beautiful.

CAVU was also lucky to escape caretaking duties for a few hours, and found herself at the airport to update a database in her plane. It was a spectacular day, the first day of real spring (CAVU lives way up north). I decided I just had to get into the air, as my opportunities now are so infrequent. I took off and climbed straight up among the clouds, turned east toward the mountains, and just soaked up every joyful moment as much as I could. Steep spiral back down through another gap in the clouds (a steep spiral is actually an emergency maneuver I hadn't practiced in awhile, but it's also fun), and back for a couple of cross-wind landings. It was pure joy.

The party of "no"

The Democrats have been calling the Republicans "the party of 'no'". Now, I don't really want to defend the GOP because they have behaved shockingly irresponsibly in recent years. But I wonder if the Democrats realize how this makes them sound.

I guess I just can't get past the Democrats proposing to "solve" the horrible deficits, for which they so roundly criticized the GOP, by quadrupling them (yep, it's quadruple). The GOP is saying "no" to that, not least because they realize that they messed up and don't want future generations to suffer any more. The Democrats are coming across like kids in a candy shop: all of a sudden they've got access to all this money, they've been out of power (they think, though not really) for years, and they want everything they want and they want it now. "D*** the torpedoes, full speed ahead, and s**** the deficit." For a party that prides itself on compassion, they are showing a disgusting lack of concern for future generations. They would do a lot better to get the deficit under control and THEN go after what they want. That would be the responsible thing to do.

The GOP are coming across like adults in this one.

How do liberals think?

I've just been exchanging posts with a teacher on a web forum I participate in. This guy is very liberal but also very reasonable.

After a few posts, I realized that we were completely talking at cross-purposes. And I realized I had no idea where he was coming from. As a reformed liberal, I thought I could get inside liberals' minds to figure out where they were coming from, useful for honing one's arguments. But suddenly, I can't do that any more. Moreover, apparently they can't see inside my mind, either. This really scares me. One cannot effectively fight what one does not understand.

This reminds me of women and men who are so closely identified with their own sexes that the other is a complete mystery, and they just sort of bumble through life hoping for the best when they have to interact with the opposite sex.

When I "reformed" as a liberal, it wasn't me that changed. I used to be a Democrat, but I felt the Democrat Party left me behind as it veered ever leftward. I don't feel I've changed in any way. Now the Democrat Party seems to me to have veered SO far left that it has come all the way around to being exceedingly reactionary--let the government run everything because "the masses" are too stupid and greedy to be trusted with anything.

investing in the future

I know someone who once bragged to me that he was investing X amount of money per month in some mutual funds; he was pleased that at his young age he was already putting money away for his retirement.  In the same conversation, he confided that he had $30,000 in credit card debt.  I couldn't believe that this otherwise incredibly bright young man did not realize that his investments were pointless.  The math is simple:  Say you earn 8% (typical) or even 10% (optimistic) on your investments per year but you're paying 12% interest (optimistic on the low side) in interest on your debt.  The compounded interest on the debt is more than offsetting the compounded interest (earnings) on the investment, and that's if you're not accruing more debt in the meantime.

This is precisely what Obama is proposing only worse.  His "investments" are education, science, green energy, etc., and he thinks the increased revenue from those investments will more than offset the expense of the debt.  

But let's look at that debt.  It's not just sitting there accruing interest--it's much, much worse than that.  First, he is adding to that debt, the equivalent of my young friend continuing to make purchases with his credit cards.  Second, he is borrowing money to just to pay the interest on the debt, so not only is he adding to the debt itself but to the interest as well.  I don't blame Obama for this--he really did inherit this, although accelerating this practice sure isn't going to help.  This would be equivalent to my young friend borrowing money to make the minimum payments on his credit cards.  Finally, he is borrowing money to make the investments.  This would be the equivalent to my young friend borrowing money to invest for his retirement.  The amount he would sock away and earn on that retirement wouldn't even come close to paying off the loan.

Obama has presented no evidence that the payoffs on the investments will actually generate enough revenue to offset even the additional expediture on those investments, much less offset the additional debt to finance the additional interest and the acceleration of "normal" budgetary expenses.  In fact, there is quite a lot of data that additional expenditures in green energy and education will not significantly increase revenues in the future at all, much less by the extraordinary amounts his plan requires.

 I despair.

Mixing it up

I haven't exactly done a scientific study, but it seems to me that the country does best when the President is in one party and the Congress dominated by the other, certainly in my lifetime (Reagan, Clinton).  I've been trying to figure out why this is, and it seems to me that it's because they bring different strengths to governing (despite the fact that they are alarmingly similar in some ways).  Republicans "get" the big picture about economics and foreign affairs and put more emphasis on the macro issues.  Democrats concentrate on the small pictures of human rights and individual suffering.  The big picture without the humanizing effect of the small picture leads to imperialism of all kinds of stripes, where as the small picture without the realism of the big picture leads to inefficiency and overspending trying to fix things that will never be fixed (i.e., "The poor are always with us").