Saturday, September 28, 2013

Do you know what you want?

It comes to mind that there are something like 300 million people in America. And by America, I mean the United States of America. And it's truly amazing to me how many people in D.C. "know" what all of America wants. I mean, really, there are six people in my (immediate) family, and sometimes it's just four of us going for lunch after church, and between the four of us we often have six or seven opinions on what we want for lunch. Rarely do we have a unanimous desire, or even a 75% consensus, and yet some guy or another in Washington claims to know "what Americans wants" on numerous issues. I don't know about you, but he didn't call my house to ask. (In fact, the only time I've had a call in the last decade or so asking my opinion on anything, it wasn't the opinion that was later trumpeted as "what America wants" on TV or in the news.) So, instead of saying something is what I want, maybe ask? Or quote a survey or something, and be sure the survey is actually representative of America? Or consider that perhaps the representatives in the House, the ones elected by Americans, have some idea of what Americans want. And, it's probably not a unanimous decision, so don't act like it is.

Take, for instance, this: the US budget is not balanced. We spend more than we bring in. (And I'm not suggesting we should bring in more; we should spend less, much less- our government is too big, way too big!) And what do we spend money on? Well, among other things, Pakistani student scholarships. Now, I have kids in school (two at the time of the events in that article, and I'm talking college here). And I pay taxes. And my taxes, among other things, paid for scholarships for Pakistani students, while the government, and my taxes, didn't give any scholarships to my kids. Loans, yes, we received federal loans, but no scholarships, and the loans didn't even come close to paying the school expenses, not even for the one at South Alabama, one of the least expensive schools in Alabama. So, I pay my taxes, which provide scholarships for foreign students, and I pay for my own kids' college, while the US, which is taking my tax money, goes even more in debt providing those foreign students education.

Something just isn't right here. Let's take care of our own people first, and then, from any excess, offer aid to the rest of the world. Don't give scholarships to foreign students when we can't afford or budget and aren't even offering scholarships to our own students. And that's certainly not how I want my tax money spent.

And don't say that you know what Americans want, especially when there are multiple, conflicting statements of "what Americans want."

So, in other news, I think I need to start keeping my trash in my son's room. The other night he was complaining about its smell, and I suggested we should just keep it in his room so he'll adapt to the smell and the rest of the world will be like a breath of fresh air to him. (I think we had some chicken parts in the trash that night that had started to stink.)

Also, I'm a little less enamored with the Galaxy S4 battery life, which seems to last till about now instead of a day and a half. Not sure if perhaps adding the Android device manager to my system settings has caused it; Google services is the largest culprit outside of the screen for battery consumption. Maybe some additional use of gps for location services is to blame (for the lost or stolen device thing). Whatever, other than that, and sometimes the keyboard (which may be more due to the Zagg screen protector), still pretty much liking the S4.

Later, America!

1 comment:

Christy said...

I think the ones that are asked are typically the ones who agree with those who are asking.