I got a jury summons today. Call-in, for June, by which time I will have completely forgotten everything about it and will spend a few gut-wrenching days worrying that the federal government is going to come to my door and take me away to be locked up in a prison for nonconformists because I forgot to call. Recently I had put my contempt for the stupid things written on government forms on the backburner, but I just filled out the jury summons questionnaire and it all came flooding back, began boiling, if you will, to avoid a mixed metaphor. There are so many things wrong with the summons and questionnaire that you will think I am just splitting hairs if I list them all. You would probably be right; I lose more and more patience with both the government and stupidity with every passing minute and am un-inclined to give either one any benefit of the doubt. The icing on the cake is that I, in my civic duty, have been reduced to a number and a barcode – every patriot’s dream.
They make you fill out your race on the questionnaire. Well, first they make you answer whether or not you are a citizen and whether or not you are over 18 which is proof of their incompetence because why the hell would they be sending jury summons’ to someone who is neither a citizen nor over 18. But then they make you fill out your race. It’s a weird policy of mine to never fill out the race section of these bubble-in forms because (I’ll admit ignorance here) I am never certain of exactly what they mean by race (white is a race?), and because it annoys me that they ask this question because the only two things it could possibly be used for are a) their own curiosity which is a waste of my time, and b) some sort of discrimination (most probably to screw over the whites and to give preference to minorities). Usually these sections are optional and so I can go on my way feeling as though I have stuck it to the man in my own small way. On the jury summons questionnaire, the race section is mandatory. Their explanation is this:
“Federal law requires you as a prospective juror to indicate your race. This answer is required solely to avoid discrimination in juror selection and has absolutely no bearing on qualifications for jury service. By answering this question you help the federal court check and observe the juror selection process so that discrimination cannot occur. In this way the federal court can fulfill the policy of the United States, which is to provide jurors who are randomly selected from a fair cross section of the community.”
There is so much wrong with this explanation that I almost give up on it, but let’s face it, this is me and I have to blather. First of all, I cannot fathom what kind of reasoning allows that they have to KNOW your race in order to AVOID discrimination. This is such a perfect example of how the people and the government (which are supposed to be the same thing but have never been farther from it) find a problem and try to fix it by creating an even worse problem. It’s Einstein’s whole “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them” concept, except that apparently we are going to try to until we run ourselves into the ground. Let’s backtrack…wouldn’t it be much simpler, and make much more sense, if they DIDN’T know your race and so could pick jurors based on their actual qualifications and the randomness that is supposed to be involved in the jury selection process?
But no, the government has redefined discrimination. What they mean in saying “to avoid discrimination,” is that they are going to ensure that there are not too many white guy jurors beating up on criminals. What they mean by “to avoid discrimination” is that they are in fact going to discriminate based on race so that they have an even distribution of races within a jury. Why didn’t they just say so? Discrimination is “the act of distinguishing differences,” according to Webster who is, I think, still considered an expert by both liberals and conservatives. So, the government is in fact discriminating in order to have jurors of multiple races. Discrimination is also “a showing of partiality or prejudice in treatment.” By specifically choosing, for example, 1 white guy, 1 black guy, and 1 Hispanic guy, instead of 3 white guys, isn’t the court showing partiality? I’m not arguing whether or not the practice of having an even distribution of races within a jury is the right thing to do. Rather, I am arguing against the way the government and all stupid organizations use buzz words to get away with doing whatever they want. DISCRIMINATION is bad. Thus, if the mandatory race section of the questionnaire is “to avoid discrimination,” it must be good.
Which leads me to my personal favorite buzz word FAIR. I am saddened and disheartened (and I’m not being sarcastic in either of these two words) that our JUSTICE SYSTEM is using the word “fair” as justification for their actions. What the hell is a “fair” cross section, anyway? The implication of a cross section of a population is that the percentage of races represented within the cross section is proportional to the percentage of these races within the entire population. How do you make this fair or unfair? But fairness…we all want fairness, right? Thus it must logically follow that, if the race section of the questionnaire ensures fairness, it is a good thing. This is not just semantics. This is not just me bashing the incompetent, but probably relatively innocent writer of the questionnaire because I am a crazy English major who has spent the last four years dissecting the way people should and shouldn’t write. I honestly believe that misused language supporting faulty reasoning is a technique for pulling the wool over peoples’ eyes and that peoples’ acceptance of this technique leads to the demise of democracy. Do I really care about the race section of the jury summons questionnaire? Not a hoot. It took me two seconds to bubble in “white,” I got over the fact that I hate filling out race sections and I moved on. Please see that that is not the issue, it was only my springboard.
There is a separate box that asks you to check yes or no to the question, “are you Hispanic?” I have no idea why they ask this question. But can you IMAGINE the outrage if they instead asked you to check yes or no if you are white. Even if they were using the question to screw over all the white people, the whole world would be up in arms over such a racist question. Racism in this country is misused in the same way as discrimination is misused, not as it pertains to all people across the board, but only as it pertains to majorities screwing over minorities. When the discrimination, or racism, is in the other direction, everyone averts their eyes.
I have more, but this blog is getting too long. I’m still saving the notice from the tax commissioner to all law abiding citizens that was on my federal tax form this year (and probably yours too, you were just smart enough not to read it). I’ll admit that I almost forgave the jury summons people because the envelope that I had to send my questionnaire back in was one of those ones that tastes faintly of watermelon instead of the kind that makes you think of public toilet seats. But then I flipped the envelope over and saw that I had to pay postage. As a potential juror fulfilling my honorable civic duty, apparently they still see me as a regular old chump who has to pay postage. Big surprise!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
A story
The sun was brisk and burning on Jonas’ shoulders as he bent over his work in the clay-ridden soil that consumed this long coastal valley. He leaned up to stretch his sore back, taking in the thirty acres that were his life and had been his father’s life before him.
“A farmer can’t be faint of heart,” his grandfather had once told him, “But the land repays you, boy, if you give it all you’ve got.” Jonas had learned that a farmer’s payment had little to do with monetary wealth, but he had come to consider his grandfather’s words truth. With just he and his wife, Annie, on the farm, their pains were more than enough for them both. As he knelt over his work, Jonas heard a faint breeze toil gently around the tall grasses as though it was speaking to him. It filled his spirit with the strength he needed to finish the field.
Jonas didn’t hear about the plans to build Highway 57 through town until a man wearing a black suit and pasty white skin knocked on his door and asked for the thirteen acres they would require through his fields.
“No, thank you,” Jonas told him and shut the door. But the man returned with more government people in more expensive suits who cajoled and preached and threatened him. Finally when the men were nearly defeated by Jonas’ obstinate refusal, one of them in the back stepped forward waving a paper like a victory banner in Jonas’ face. At the top of the page was printed, in bold, swirling font, “5th AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.” These were pages and pages of explanation about how and why the government could take Jonas’ land and they gave him a week to read them. Jonas read every word. The government men returned in a jovial mood, willing to be friends now that Jonas had surely come around, even if he had been rude and unaccommodating at first.
“Public good,” the man in the black suit misquoted, and nodded his head, certain that now finally, Jonas understood their altruism. But Jonas still didn’t understand. It hadn’t been for the public good, for example, when Eastern Port had been attacked from without and the government hadn’t sent the military because it might incite war. The bombed wreckage of the three square miles around the port was like a dark hole burned out of the country’s landscape and it whispered across the nation the message that they hadn’t until then been able to convince the public of. It whispered that the government’s modern role was regulation, not protection. And Jonas suspected that the Constitution was as good as lost in the wreckage.
“Your signature, sir,” said the official, clearing his throat, and Jonas’ hand, signing away the deed to his grandfather’s land, didn’t shake.
“Drought,” he told himself. “The drought of ’74 dried up the entire farm, not just thirteen acres.” The only solution then had been to work harder. And Jonas did work harder, now, as he had then, until the exhaust from the motors and the shaking ground from the incessant traffic permeated across the remainder of his land and the crops curled up into black rolls, like ashes, and the farm was ruined.
Jonas was 45.
“Only 45,” he said to his wife when he told her he’d have to get a job in town.
“Only 45,” he told himself the day he left his home and walked onto his first building site. And he put the thirty years he had devoted to the land behind him.
When Jonas was 47, he was allowed to become an equipment operator.
When he was 50, he became a mason.
By 55, he was foreman, and had never been paid as much money before. He tried not to notice the farm, overgrown, and still patched with black from the old ashes, and it wasn’t too painful because hard work was what he had been taught, and as long as he was doing that, and providing, he knew he had everything a man should have.
It was for the debt, at first, the national debt, that they raised the taxes.
And then the schools, because there were more kids now, and they were entitled to college, not just grade school.
The hospitals needed it next, but not the hospitals, really. The insurance companies needed it because healthcare was a right, not a privilege, but some people couldn’t afford it.
And this time, a tax-collector came to the door and waved a form in Jonas’ face.
“Wrong tax-bracket, sir,” he said, “You filled out the wrong form. You’re in the upper bracket now.” And Jonas found that this meant that he paid for twice as many doctor visits for people he didn’t know.
And then one day Annie died. Jonas’ Annie. And he finally knew what heartbreak was. The muscle inside him seemed to be ripping out of his chest like the roots of an ancient tree that has survived hurricane and blight, but finds – at the last – that time itself is more than it can bare. The tears fell down his face in rivulets, running the course of each work-worn wrinkle on each long cheek as he knelt by her coffin. For three days straight. Until, on the fourth day, his forehead resting on his arm against the coffin, he heard the preacher whispering to a sympathetic parishioner.
“They say this kind can be treated, if it’s caught fast enough,” the parishioner said, “But each day counts with these things.”
Jonas knew then that it wasn’t the cancer that had killed Annie. It had taken them eleven months to get her an appointment with an oncologist. When Jonas raised his head, his eyes were dry, even as he watched them lower the coffin into the ground. Foreign ground. Because family burials on private land were no longer legal.
Eventually, business moved away from that bustling city on to another, as business will. Route 57, that ran across Jonas’ thirteen acres, was all but abandoned. He watched people roll out of town. First the truckers and workers; then the homeowners and their families; then the business-owners and public officials. Each parade of cars fancier, shinier, than the one before. He recognized the tax-collector leaving in a convertible.
Jonas was left on what was left of his farm, supporting his countrymen through forced charity what he would have given them freely out of his own hand. And that was how it was. That each good, hardworking man worked for naught. That his neighbor – whom he would have liked to befriend – was ashamed to show him his face, for for each new motion of laziness and ineptitude that he committed, his neighbor worked harder and more futilely than before.
They called it kindness, fairness, humanism, that each man might live unconditionally granted the rights with which he was born. But it was just a more vicious kind of injustice.
“A farmer can’t be faint of heart,” his grandfather had once told him, “But the land repays you, boy, if you give it all you’ve got.” Jonas had learned that a farmer’s payment had little to do with monetary wealth, but he had come to consider his grandfather’s words truth. With just he and his wife, Annie, on the farm, their pains were more than enough for them both. As he knelt over his work, Jonas heard a faint breeze toil gently around the tall grasses as though it was speaking to him. It filled his spirit with the strength he needed to finish the field.
Jonas didn’t hear about the plans to build Highway 57 through town until a man wearing a black suit and pasty white skin knocked on his door and asked for the thirteen acres they would require through his fields.
“No, thank you,” Jonas told him and shut the door. But the man returned with more government people in more expensive suits who cajoled and preached and threatened him. Finally when the men were nearly defeated by Jonas’ obstinate refusal, one of them in the back stepped forward waving a paper like a victory banner in Jonas’ face. At the top of the page was printed, in bold, swirling font, “5th AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.” These were pages and pages of explanation about how and why the government could take Jonas’ land and they gave him a week to read them. Jonas read every word. The government men returned in a jovial mood, willing to be friends now that Jonas had surely come around, even if he had been rude and unaccommodating at first.
“Public good,” the man in the black suit misquoted, and nodded his head, certain that now finally, Jonas understood their altruism. But Jonas still didn’t understand. It hadn’t been for the public good, for example, when Eastern Port had been attacked from without and the government hadn’t sent the military because it might incite war. The bombed wreckage of the three square miles around the port was like a dark hole burned out of the country’s landscape and it whispered across the nation the message that they hadn’t until then been able to convince the public of. It whispered that the government’s modern role was regulation, not protection. And Jonas suspected that the Constitution was as good as lost in the wreckage.
“Your signature, sir,” said the official, clearing his throat, and Jonas’ hand, signing away the deed to his grandfather’s land, didn’t shake.
“Drought,” he told himself. “The drought of ’74 dried up the entire farm, not just thirteen acres.” The only solution then had been to work harder. And Jonas did work harder, now, as he had then, until the exhaust from the motors and the shaking ground from the incessant traffic permeated across the remainder of his land and the crops curled up into black rolls, like ashes, and the farm was ruined.
Jonas was 45.
“Only 45,” he said to his wife when he told her he’d have to get a job in town.
“Only 45,” he told himself the day he left his home and walked onto his first building site. And he put the thirty years he had devoted to the land behind him.
When Jonas was 47, he was allowed to become an equipment operator.
When he was 50, he became a mason.
By 55, he was foreman, and had never been paid as much money before. He tried not to notice the farm, overgrown, and still patched with black from the old ashes, and it wasn’t too painful because hard work was what he had been taught, and as long as he was doing that, and providing, he knew he had everything a man should have.
It was for the debt, at first, the national debt, that they raised the taxes.
And then the schools, because there were more kids now, and they were entitled to college, not just grade school.
The hospitals needed it next, but not the hospitals, really. The insurance companies needed it because healthcare was a right, not a privilege, but some people couldn’t afford it.
And this time, a tax-collector came to the door and waved a form in Jonas’ face.
“Wrong tax-bracket, sir,” he said, “You filled out the wrong form. You’re in the upper bracket now.” And Jonas found that this meant that he paid for twice as many doctor visits for people he didn’t know.
And then one day Annie died. Jonas’ Annie. And he finally knew what heartbreak was. The muscle inside him seemed to be ripping out of his chest like the roots of an ancient tree that has survived hurricane and blight, but finds – at the last – that time itself is more than it can bare. The tears fell down his face in rivulets, running the course of each work-worn wrinkle on each long cheek as he knelt by her coffin. For three days straight. Until, on the fourth day, his forehead resting on his arm against the coffin, he heard the preacher whispering to a sympathetic parishioner.
“They say this kind can be treated, if it’s caught fast enough,” the parishioner said, “But each day counts with these things.”
Jonas knew then that it wasn’t the cancer that had killed Annie. It had taken them eleven months to get her an appointment with an oncologist. When Jonas raised his head, his eyes were dry, even as he watched them lower the coffin into the ground. Foreign ground. Because family burials on private land were no longer legal.
Eventually, business moved away from that bustling city on to another, as business will. Route 57, that ran across Jonas’ thirteen acres, was all but abandoned. He watched people roll out of town. First the truckers and workers; then the homeowners and their families; then the business-owners and public officials. Each parade of cars fancier, shinier, than the one before. He recognized the tax-collector leaving in a convertible.
Jonas was left on what was left of his farm, supporting his countrymen through forced charity what he would have given them freely out of his own hand. And that was how it was. That each good, hardworking man worked for naught. That his neighbor – whom he would have liked to befriend – was ashamed to show him his face, for for each new motion of laziness and ineptitude that he committed, his neighbor worked harder and more futilely than before.
They called it kindness, fairness, humanism, that each man might live unconditionally granted the rights with which he was born. But it was just a more vicious kind of injustice.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Just a note
There are significant differences between the words fairness and justice and a good lot of people would do a lot of good to learn the difference and then choose their words accordingly.
(For the sake of self-betterment, reading the United States Constitution through a couple times - or even once - wouldn't hurt either.)
(For the sake of self-betterment, reading the United States Constitution through a couple times - or even once - wouldn't hurt either.)
A new level of low
I disagree with the current administration and the politics that back it on virtually everything. I think the campaigning for this election was underhanded and graceless and I think that the American people are not only being fed, but also eating lies. But I watched scapegoating on TV today and I think this is a new level of low from our current “leaders.” I don’t intend to go off on the AIG “scandal” for too long or to dissect or quote people on the subject. But has anybody been watching Congress tear Liddy apart on the subject of AIG? Congress has turned AIG (and its questionable integrity) into a scapegoat to hide its own huge mistakes which involved:
1) throwing bailout funding (money that, incidentally, doesn’t even exist in America)around like it’s Monopoly money when they shouldn’t have approved any money to go out to begin with, and
2) not explicitly stating what the receivers of the money were and were not allowed to do with it.
AIG’s use of bailout money is not the problem we are facing; the problem is the bailout itself. And everyone (some with excruciating slowness) is beginning to notice. Now, realizing their own horrendous mistake, Congress has decided to find a conveniently big name like AIG and try to bring it down with the support of the taxpayers by framing it to look like it is AIG’s fault that the government stole and negligently used taxpayer money. It’s a beautiful thing: a whole slew of Congressmen against Liddy, asking him obscene questions that he can’t answer because if he does they will tear him (or his associates) further apart for the way he worded something or for some promise he made that he didn’t actually make but that they can make it look like he made. Liddy actually said (okay I am going to quote) “I’m sorry to be so evasive, but…” (and he went on to explain his concern for his associates’ safety if he revealed names and other information). When was the last time we heard a politician or corporate head or any other big shot ADMIT that he was being evasive and then explicitly explain why he was being evasive for good cause? It indicates to me that Liddy is still a human being which is more than I can say for the majority of Congress sitting “stone cold dead” on their high horses trying to make AIG look bad so that nobody will notice their own failures. And the bald guy yells at Liddy (actually interrupts him with), “YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE EVASIVE…” And all I can think is that this guy must have done something really terrible because anyone who is that passionate about bringing someone else (who is not even guilty) down must have a lot of his own hide resting on it.
So President Obama’s stimulus crap continues to fail (Caterpillar is still laying off tractor-loads of people) which is no big surprise to any rational human being; Congress is too stupid to insert a small clause that says, “you can only use this money for the following ten things…;” and AIG gets blamed. It’s very convenient. Because Obama stands up there comparing himself to Lincoln and people keep swooning over him and AIG is the type of Big Bad Business that everybody loves to hate. Well played. This game is a great test of the public’s intelligence.
1) throwing bailout funding (money that, incidentally, doesn’t even exist in America)around like it’s Monopoly money when they shouldn’t have approved any money to go out to begin with, and
2) not explicitly stating what the receivers of the money were and were not allowed to do with it.
AIG’s use of bailout money is not the problem we are facing; the problem is the bailout itself. And everyone (some with excruciating slowness) is beginning to notice. Now, realizing their own horrendous mistake, Congress has decided to find a conveniently big name like AIG and try to bring it down with the support of the taxpayers by framing it to look like it is AIG’s fault that the government stole and negligently used taxpayer money. It’s a beautiful thing: a whole slew of Congressmen against Liddy, asking him obscene questions that he can’t answer because if he does they will tear him (or his associates) further apart for the way he worded something or for some promise he made that he didn’t actually make but that they can make it look like he made. Liddy actually said (okay I am going to quote) “I’m sorry to be so evasive, but…” (and he went on to explain his concern for his associates’ safety if he revealed names and other information). When was the last time we heard a politician or corporate head or any other big shot ADMIT that he was being evasive and then explicitly explain why he was being evasive for good cause? It indicates to me that Liddy is still a human being which is more than I can say for the majority of Congress sitting “stone cold dead” on their high horses trying to make AIG look bad so that nobody will notice their own failures. And the bald guy yells at Liddy (actually interrupts him with), “YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE EVASIVE…” And all I can think is that this guy must have done something really terrible because anyone who is that passionate about bringing someone else (who is not even guilty) down must have a lot of his own hide resting on it.
So President Obama’s stimulus crap continues to fail (Caterpillar is still laying off tractor-loads of people) which is no big surprise to any rational human being; Congress is too stupid to insert a small clause that says, “you can only use this money for the following ten things…;” and AIG gets blamed. It’s very convenient. Because Obama stands up there comparing himself to Lincoln and people keep swooning over him and AIG is the type of Big Bad Business that everybody loves to hate. Well played. This game is a great test of the public’s intelligence.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Maybe this is what Limbaugh means by failure
The headline on CNN right now says: “FIRST STIMULUS PROJECT ‘A WASTE?’” They’re in St. Louis making some enormous deal about how shocking and offending it is that stimulus money in St. Louis is being used wastefully and I think – out loud and to the misfortune of everyone else in the room attempting to have a peaceful evening– how amazing it is that they are SURPRISED by the fact that stimulus money is being used negligently. To think that billions of dollars worth of money being negligently thrown at people by a government that has no respect for fiscal responsibility to begin with should then be used negligently by companies and industries that were irresponsible enough to get themselves in the situation to need the money! To think that people who are fiscally irresponsible have not magically become responsible after having large sums of unearned money thrown at them! To think that billions of dollars worth of money does not make people smarter!
But what I really want to say is: thank goodness for companies like Northern Trust (who, before you call me shortsighted, I fully admit probably has a lot of low, unethical, and wasteful action going on behind the scenes that has no association with their recent “infamy”) and God keep me from strangling the virtual necks of the unintelligent people who comment on these news reports! The story goes (and it is startlingly difficult to get a straight story. “Where the press is free and every man can read…” – Jefferson, right?) that Northern Trust Bank threw a huge appreciation gala for a bunch of their clients and execs after having received federal bailout money. The golf tournament, music extravaganza was the second annual Northern Trust event and, according to some sources, raises large amounts of charity money. According to Northern Trust, they never wanted bailout money to begin with. The company made $641 million dollars last year and didn’t need any federal money, but “agreed to the government’s goal of gaining the participation of all major banks in the United States.” Supposedly, they are more than willing to give the money back, albeit gradually. According to some sources, however, Congress, despite being up in arms about the incident, won’t actually accept the money back. People are even angrier because Northern Trust apparently laid off 400-some employees in December. This doesn’t seem to me to be a particularly large number, but that’s not the most important point. The most important point is that laying off employees that are not needed is one of the ways to keep your business from flopping, as is schmoozing loyal customers. Both of these actions on Northern Trust’s part seem to me well-thought-out business decisions, not extraneous acts of negligence.
But all of this is irrelevant when compared to the fact that Northern Trust never wanted or needed government money to begin with. Furthermore, if their gala cost them less than $641 million, then it is a totally justifiable argument that they were not spending government, but their own money. Besides which, there were no specific directions by Congress prohibiting this type of spending with bailout money. Thus, for the government to condemn Northern Trust is a blatant attempt to exert even more excessive control over the banks. If Congress can arbitrarily proclaim that a company, industry, or individual is not using “their” (i.e. my) money “properly,” then there are virtually no lines at all that they can and will not cross.
I’ve left out another relevant detail. Apparently, Northern Trust signed a contract two years ago that they would host this event for the next five years, well before any bailout money was offered to (or forced on) them. The article on ABC news online by Maddy Sauer ACTUALLY STATES: “Critics say even if the bank has contractual obligations, money could have been saved by canceling concerts or staying in budget accommodations.” So now, a company is free to spend its money as it pleases unless socially moral and intelligent judges like Barney Frank proclaim that they are being (and I quote) “lavish.” I see.
Tom Schatz, some meager human being with the title President of Citizens Against Government Waste (reminds me of the Dr. Seuss book where the watcher needs a watcher!) suggests that, “that’s really the issue more than prior commitments. You can cancel a concert.” Apparently, a contract no longer means anything. This is good news for me as the state is stealing $23 in taxes from me this year and I am glad to hear that the signature I put at the bottom of my tax form is null and void and I can keep my twenty three bucks. But Schatz doesn’t stop there. He is, after all, a concerned citizen. “Firing” (I read a shirt once that defined liberalism as changing the definitions of words to suit their own needs) 450 employees, Schatz says “isn’t great…for the morale of taxpayers.” He’s right! When I heard that Northern Trust had laid off 450 employees, I was on Prozac for weeks, but when Obama raised everybody’s taxes and stole hard working people’s money to give to failed businesses, that was only fair.
Apparently, though, some people agree with Schatz. If the articles on Northern Trust aren't ridiculous enough, people’s commentary on the (this was the favorite word) “greed” of the Big Bad Bank is over the top. Aside from the patriotic citizens like “help this country,” who said things like “the bailout was rewarding bad behavior to begin with,” so many people seem to believe that Northern Trust’s extravagant spending (of their own money) is an insult to hard-working Americans, though stealing our money to begin with was all in the line of duty. “lalibertekai0111” asks “Why was the money taken if they DID NOT NEED IT!!!” (apparently, “lal” entirely failed to actually read the article) and wants to “build some kind of database that every corporation should install therefore tracking exactly where the money was spent” This amazes me! Granted, random people leaving messages at the ends of online news articles don’t have to qualify as intelligent (at the risk of sounding egotistical, random ranting bloggers don’t have to be qualified either), but this person calls himself (for all the politically correct crusaders out there, this is not me being sexist, this is just me being unwilling to write: him/herself every time I don’t know someone’s gender) an AMERICAN and wants a universal database through which companies have to input all their spending for government surveillance. “So this is how democracy dies - to thunderous applause.”
Apparently, “lal” isn’t the only one touting socialism. According to him, “we ALL [emphasis mine] agree that the money should go to the most appropriate places as long as it revives the economy.” In fact, when I wrote 90% of my hard-earned salary away to the feds, I specifically noted that ALL of my money should be used in the MOST appropriate places JUST SO LONG AS IT WOULD REVIVE THE ECONOMY. I trust that Congress will be able to judge what is “appropriate” for me, as I am clearly not competent enough to do so, but I asked for a contract stating that I would receive a refund if the economy was not dramatically improved by Tuesday. They signed the contract, but Tuesday has come and gone and the economy still stinks. I can’t even get two cents on eBay for the signature because this is America and we don’t abide by contracts here.
This other guy (P.C. gal), "pinkpoppies09," says that “the actions taken by Northern Trust were a slap in the face of every hardworking American who is going to have to pay higher taxes down the road for the bailout money they were given.” This represents truly superior thinking because I am sure that, had Northern Trust adamantly resisted the money being forced down their throats to the point of being sent to jail for nonconformity, the government would have taken their allotted money and redistributed it to all of us hard-working Americans, thus reducing the katrillion dollar debt we have already prepared for our children by 0.0000000023%. Six-digit disability money being given to a woman who thinks she is Angelina Jolie and is birthing large quantities of babies without any prospect of acquiring a job is not an insult to taxpayers. Taking more money from rich people who have earned their money through blood, sweat, and tears, and distributing it to people who lack the motivation, ambition, courage, or persistence to do the same is just the American way. Northern Trust using their own money to further their business, now THAT’S a slap in the face.
There’s still hope. IberiaBank Corp. is sending the money back. Based in Louisiana, the bank has filed paperwork to repay some $90 million from the Troubled Asset Relief Program’s Capital Purchase Program (the more words, the more vague and gray appears the evil), because, they say, “We believe recent actions, interpretations and commentary regarding various aspects of the program places our company at an unacceptable competitive disadvantage. Our board of directors has determined that continued participation in this program is no longer in the best interest of our company and its shareholders.” (i.e. lalibertekai0111’s universal database is scaring the need out of Iberia) So what if the companies realize that the government intrusion on their livelihoods isn’t worth the pay? And what if the people realize that the way their money is being spent isn’t worth the working hours? Well, what if America becomes a free-market again? Maybe this is what Limbaugh means by failure.
But what I really want to say is: thank goodness for companies like Northern Trust (who, before you call me shortsighted, I fully admit probably has a lot of low, unethical, and wasteful action going on behind the scenes that has no association with their recent “infamy”) and God keep me from strangling the virtual necks of the unintelligent people who comment on these news reports! The story goes (and it is startlingly difficult to get a straight story. “Where the press is free and every man can read…” – Jefferson, right?) that Northern Trust Bank threw a huge appreciation gala for a bunch of their clients and execs after having received federal bailout money. The golf tournament, music extravaganza was the second annual Northern Trust event and, according to some sources, raises large amounts of charity money. According to Northern Trust, they never wanted bailout money to begin with. The company made $641 million dollars last year and didn’t need any federal money, but “agreed to the government’s goal of gaining the participation of all major banks in the United States.” Supposedly, they are more than willing to give the money back, albeit gradually. According to some sources, however, Congress, despite being up in arms about the incident, won’t actually accept the money back. People are even angrier because Northern Trust apparently laid off 400-some employees in December. This doesn’t seem to me to be a particularly large number, but that’s not the most important point. The most important point is that laying off employees that are not needed is one of the ways to keep your business from flopping, as is schmoozing loyal customers. Both of these actions on Northern Trust’s part seem to me well-thought-out business decisions, not extraneous acts of negligence.
But all of this is irrelevant when compared to the fact that Northern Trust never wanted or needed government money to begin with. Furthermore, if their gala cost them less than $641 million, then it is a totally justifiable argument that they were not spending government, but their own money. Besides which, there were no specific directions by Congress prohibiting this type of spending with bailout money. Thus, for the government to condemn Northern Trust is a blatant attempt to exert even more excessive control over the banks. If Congress can arbitrarily proclaim that a company, industry, or individual is not using “their” (i.e. my) money “properly,” then there are virtually no lines at all that they can and will not cross.
I’ve left out another relevant detail. Apparently, Northern Trust signed a contract two years ago that they would host this event for the next five years, well before any bailout money was offered to (or forced on) them. The article on ABC news online by Maddy Sauer ACTUALLY STATES: “Critics say even if the bank has contractual obligations, money could have been saved by canceling concerts or staying in budget accommodations.” So now, a company is free to spend its money as it pleases unless socially moral and intelligent judges like Barney Frank proclaim that they are being (and I quote) “lavish.” I see.
Tom Schatz, some meager human being with the title President of Citizens Against Government Waste (reminds me of the Dr. Seuss book where the watcher needs a watcher!) suggests that, “that’s really the issue more than prior commitments. You can cancel a concert.” Apparently, a contract no longer means anything. This is good news for me as the state is stealing $23 in taxes from me this year and I am glad to hear that the signature I put at the bottom of my tax form is null and void and I can keep my twenty three bucks. But Schatz doesn’t stop there. He is, after all, a concerned citizen. “Firing” (I read a shirt once that defined liberalism as changing the definitions of words to suit their own needs) 450 employees, Schatz says “isn’t great…for the morale of taxpayers.” He’s right! When I heard that Northern Trust had laid off 450 employees, I was on Prozac for weeks, but when Obama raised everybody’s taxes and stole hard working people’s money to give to failed businesses, that was only fair.
Apparently, though, some people agree with Schatz. If the articles on Northern Trust aren't ridiculous enough, people’s commentary on the (this was the favorite word) “greed” of the Big Bad Bank is over the top. Aside from the patriotic citizens like “help this country,” who said things like “the bailout was rewarding bad behavior to begin with,” so many people seem to believe that Northern Trust’s extravagant spending (of their own money) is an insult to hard-working Americans, though stealing our money to begin with was all in the line of duty. “lalibertekai0111” asks “Why was the money taken if they DID NOT NEED IT!!!” (apparently, “lal” entirely failed to actually read the article) and wants to “build some kind of database that every corporation should install therefore tracking exactly where the money was spent” This amazes me! Granted, random people leaving messages at the ends of online news articles don’t have to qualify as intelligent (at the risk of sounding egotistical, random ranting bloggers don’t have to be qualified either), but this person calls himself (for all the politically correct crusaders out there, this is not me being sexist, this is just me being unwilling to write: him/herself every time I don’t know someone’s gender) an AMERICAN and wants a universal database through which companies have to input all their spending for government surveillance. “So this is how democracy dies - to thunderous applause.”
Apparently, “lal” isn’t the only one touting socialism. According to him, “we ALL [emphasis mine] agree that the money should go to the most appropriate places as long as it revives the economy.” In fact, when I wrote 90% of my hard-earned salary away to the feds, I specifically noted that ALL of my money should be used in the MOST appropriate places JUST SO LONG AS IT WOULD REVIVE THE ECONOMY. I trust that Congress will be able to judge what is “appropriate” for me, as I am clearly not competent enough to do so, but I asked for a contract stating that I would receive a refund if the economy was not dramatically improved by Tuesday. They signed the contract, but Tuesday has come and gone and the economy still stinks. I can’t even get two cents on eBay for the signature because this is America and we don’t abide by contracts here.
This other guy (P.C. gal), "pinkpoppies09," says that “the actions taken by Northern Trust were a slap in the face of every hardworking American who is going to have to pay higher taxes down the road for the bailout money they were given.” This represents truly superior thinking because I am sure that, had Northern Trust adamantly resisted the money being forced down their throats to the point of being sent to jail for nonconformity, the government would have taken their allotted money and redistributed it to all of us hard-working Americans, thus reducing the katrillion dollar debt we have already prepared for our children by 0.0000000023%. Six-digit disability money being given to a woman who thinks she is Angelina Jolie and is birthing large quantities of babies without any prospect of acquiring a job is not an insult to taxpayers. Taking more money from rich people who have earned their money through blood, sweat, and tears, and distributing it to people who lack the motivation, ambition, courage, or persistence to do the same is just the American way. Northern Trust using their own money to further their business, now THAT’S a slap in the face.
There’s still hope. IberiaBank Corp. is sending the money back. Based in Louisiana, the bank has filed paperwork to repay some $90 million from the Troubled Asset Relief Program’s Capital Purchase Program (the more words, the more vague and gray appears the evil), because, they say, “We believe recent actions, interpretations and commentary regarding various aspects of the program places our company at an unacceptable competitive disadvantage. Our board of directors has determined that continued participation in this program is no longer in the best interest of our company and its shareholders.” (i.e. lalibertekai0111’s universal database is scaring the need out of Iberia) So what if the companies realize that the government intrusion on their livelihoods isn’t worth the pay? And what if the people realize that the way their money is being spent isn’t worth the working hours? Well, what if America becomes a free-market again? Maybe this is what Limbaugh means by failure.
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