Sincerity, no matter its intensity, does NOT confirm intelligence!

By Joseph Walther

Martyrdom never confirms the factuality OF a cause; it only addresses the martyr’s belief IN a cause. Likewise, there is no inherent relationship between sincerity and intelligence. You can be as sincere as it gets and still be stupid.

Several things make this apparent in our daily lives. Three of the most egregious ones, however, are politically oriented radio call-in shows, the flawed logic that only addicted gamblers seem to demonstrate, and a blind adherence to religious dogma (no matter how seemingly ridiculous).

First, politically oriented call-in radio shows…

I avoid listening to these shows as much as I can. It isn’t that I’m disinterested in politics; it’s just that these shows seem to do nothing but increase our social dysfunction.

I don’t blame the radio hosts, mind you. Without callers, these people wouldn’t even be on the air. The callers, of course, believe with every fiber of their beings that their individual assessments of the “problem” are correct in every detail.

Over the course of many years, tabloid newspapers, magazines, and TV shows have mastered a reporting technique called “baiting.” It works very effectively, too. Here’s how.

Never report the whole story. Real news and the supporting facts—in their proper context—are not necessary. What’s important is reporting only selective elements of the story. Doing it this way boosts TV ratings and reader numbers while leaving people free to fill in their OWN details.

An alarmingly growing number of people in this country have become big fans of “what might have happened.” Nothing satisfies our lust for this like hearing about “potential” facts, “likely scenarios,” and “gut feelings.

TV cable talking heads like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, and Wolf Blitzer—to name a few—and radio call-in gurus like Neo-conservative Rush Limbaugh AND his many Liberal counterparts on Radio America have all mastered the art of reporting “speculation” as news.

This is why many people “know” that Barack Obama is a Muslim. It’s why millions of voters “know” that John McCain is a moderate. It’s why some people, though no longer that many, “know” that George W. Bush is brighter than he seems.

It’s also why, to paraphrase Charlie Reese, we perpetually allow politicians to create so many problems and then campaign against them. It’s why we permit 545 people—100 senators, 435 representatives, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices to create the problems we face in this country.

We ALWAYS fail to hold any of them directly accountable for the mess we’re now facing. It’s just too easy to blame it all on Washington lobbyists.

While we can’t do anything about the Supreme Court justices, we sure as hell can fire the senators (who confirm Supreme Court nominees), the congressional representatives, president (who nominates candidates for the Supreme Court), and the other politicians who fail to represent the country’s best interests in lieu of their own collective ones.

We won’t though, which is precisely why we deserve what we’re getting and will continue to get until it’s too late.

About addictive gambler logic…

At the outset, I have nothing against gambling by responsible, non-addicted gamblers who can afford to do it. For the record, when the Powerball jackpot climbs past the $150-thousand mark, AND I don’t have to wait in some line, I spring for a ticket myself.

A few years ago, I heard a radio advertisement touting the benefits of playing Delaware’s many lottery games. It covered winning amounts and the fact that SOMEONE would win all the while avoiding the laws of probability like the plague.

The last thing the radio announcer said was, “Remember, the less you bet the more you’ll lose when you win!” While I simply chuckled over it, many gambling-addicted listeners may have taken it seriously.

Thirty-five minutes later, I stopped at a convenience store (7-11) for a cup of coffee. As I waited to pay for it, a woman in front of me confirmed my fears.

She had won $79 from a previous purchase of ten dollars worth of those scratch-off lottery tickets. As the clerk counted out her money, she informed him that she’d be buying more tickets.

She proceeded to drop the entire amount on additional tickets. The woman who was with her—I think they were sisters—jumped all over her case for “blowing” ALL of her winnings on more “stupid” lottery tickets.

“I just won $80-bucks. I’m playing with ‘their’ money,” she said. I just shook my head. It simply didn’t register with her that the second she won those 79-dollars, it ceased to be the “their” money and became HER’S.

“Remember, folks, the less you bet the more you lose when you win.” I’m guessing that announcer had this woman in mind when he said this. Yes, it’s true. You can be sincere and still be stupid!

And, about blind adherence to religious dogma…

On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most eloquent speeches in the history of this country: the Gettysburg Address. Less than 24-hours later, the Chicago Times expressed its great disdain for it, as well as for Mr. Lincoln, with the following editorial.

“The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dish-watery utterances of the man who has been pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States.”

A year or so ago, George W. Bush—our current President—said, “The jury is still out on evolution.” The Conservatives didn’t as much as blink over the statement and the Liberals’ response to it was tepid at best.

While science can never prove a theory true, we assign the label, “robust” to those theories that have withstood the test of time and challenge. Solid theories explain things. The more things a theory explains and the more accurately we can use it to predict outcomes, the more robust it becomes.

Evolution is the best theory—based on valid falsifiable hypotheses—that we currently have to explain from whence we came. It does not repudiate Intelligent Design or Creationism. It can’t. These are faith-based as opposed to valid falsifiable hypotheses.

In other words, God may be real. Neither legitimate science, in general, nor evolutionary theory, in particular, attempts to repudiate this possibility. It simply attempts to explain what we know relative to natural law.

George W. Bush, the current leader of the free world, openly chooses to ignore vast stores of human knowledge and scientific experience in such fields as Astronomy, Genetics, Paleontology, Geology, and Physics.

All of these point to some natural process that has gotten us, as one of millions of global species that have existed, from the Big Bang to where we are now. While science may find a better explanatory theory some day, EVOLUTION is the best one we have right now.

Denying it out of hand because the idea of humans evolving from monkeys is too distasteful simply makes the deniers appear silly, not to mention the fact that they have no idea of how the process has worked.

Besides, if we could read the monkeys’ minds, we’d probably find that they aren’t at all enthusiastic over human science blaming the fact of OUR existence on THEM!

Anyway, go figure. The Chicago Times condemned one of the most revered presidents in our nation’s history over one of the most moving, heart-felt speeches in our history.

Yet, not a peep over a current president’s repudiation of one of the most robust theories in human history. Let me repeat it; a person can be sincere and still be stupid!

Tune in same time next week. Have a safe and happy 4^th of July. Don’t drink and drive. If you do and you kill or seriously injure someone, will you be able to live with it? Besides, the cops will be out in force. Do you have any idea what happens to your auto-insurance rates after a DUI conviction?

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.

A point or two of clarification!

By Joseph Walther

Two things came up in conversation over this past week. First, two relatively young political opposites became rather vocal and animated over the state of Social Security in this country.

The other one involved a very close friend of mine relative to her agreement with Michelle Obama’s assessment of most Americans’ diminishing quality of life over the past 40- to 45-years.

Relative to the Social Security issue above, the two men discussing it could not have been older than about twenty-five. One was an “arch” Conservative in favor of doing away with Social Security altogether.

The other one was an unapologetic Liberal who absolutely blamed the Bush Administration for trying to destroy peoples’ lives by privatizing the system.

There were two major problems with their relative positions. One, neither knew what he was talking about. Not a clue! Not even close. And two, both positions raged on in a seemingly mindless state of emotional investment overload.

First, the Conservatives have to stop advocating the privatization of the system. It’s not going to happen nor does it need to happen. Second, the Liberals need to stop demonizing the Conservatives as the ones attempting to destroy lives relative to Social Security retirement benefits.

A Democrat by the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt began Social Security. We have him to thank for that FICA withholding each pay period, which is huge now compared to what it was back then.

Participation in the program was voluntary and included withholding of 1% of the first $1,400 of employees’ annual incomes. Participants were able to deduct the payment amount as an income tax deduction each year.

The government would place the money into a REAL “trust” fund, not the general fund. Washington would use the money to pay Social Security retirement payments and NOTHING else. And, the recipients of retirement benefits would NOT have to pay taxes on what they received.

Today, the program is INVOLUNTARY. The effective Social Security earnings have risen to $102,000 and the tax is now 12.4% of an employee’s income—half paid by the employee and the other half paid by the employer.

While the Bush Administration has advocated privatizing part of the system, neither George W. Bush nor the Republican Party has brought about the changes in the system that have caused the funding problems we face today.

Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats eliminated the Social Security “trust” fund and began placing FICA withholdings into the “general” fund. Guess where a large portion of that “pork” money comes.

You know… the money that sends Congress into its annual spending frenzy each year. And, worse yet, even with the extra money, this crowd still spends more than it takes in.

This same crowd—without Johnson—eliminated the tax deduction for FICA withholding, too.

And, we have Al Gore to thank, as Vice President under Bill Clinton, for the fact that we now pay taxes on our Social Security benefit payments. He’s the one who cast the tie-breaking vote in the United States Senate.

Finally, thanks to Jimmy Carter and his band of merry Liberals, immigrants, many who have never paid a dime into the system, now draw Social Security benefits.

I’m a Conservative. But, I’m not a fan of George W. Bush. Even though I voted for him twice, he’s been one of the biggest regrets in my voting life. Mea culpa! Oh my God, mea MAXIMA culpa.

No matter, though, the man has had nothing to do with our Social Security mess. His proposed solution to the problem, on the other hand, is every bit as knee-jerk as everything else he’s done!

I don’t favor privatizing the system in any way. Just return it to a voluntary status, restore the tax breaks—at both ends—and reinstate the “trust” fund to keep the money out of the hands of the porkers!

FDR and his Congress did not intend for Social Security to become a stand-alone retirement program. However, the government didn’t stop providing pension plans for workers. The private sector did—at least the bulk of the small to medium sized ones did.

If we go back to the original plan of Social Security, including the original rules—modified in terms of the income cap, employees would be able to afford to pay into some sort of “primary” pension savings. The tax breaks would provide the means.

Of course, for those who opt not to participate, they’d be on their own when retirement time comes around. All we’d have to do is enforce it!

Now, about Michelle Obama’s position on the worsening plight of average Americans since 1964...

Her exact words, according to George Will, were; “…most Americans’ lives have gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl.” My good friend, Shirley, agrees with Michelle Obama, as she puts it, “150%!”

But, I don’t… not even a teensy weensy bit! I don’t know where she (Michelle Obama) has been, but her assessment is so far off mark, it worries me in terms of her potential as the nation’s “First Lady.”

Since the mid-sixties, when Michelle Obama was growing up, some marvelous things have happened. A few things have gotten worse, but most of it has been great news.

Per capita income has risen close to 150% since then. We’re living longer by almost 8-years. Fewer—a lot fewer… about 76% less—babies are dying during childbirth. Heart disease, while still the number one killer, is only about half the rate that it was back then.

When I was in 4^th-grade, my friend, Roger Coyne died from childhood leukemia within 6-months of his throwing up all over our 4^th-grade classroom floor—the first indication that something may have been wrong.

This does not happen anymore—most kids don’t die from this now. Many other childhood diseases don’t kill kids any longer, either.

The list of good things that have changed for the better most significantly outweighs the list of bad things that are still the same or that have become worse since Michelle Obama was a “little” girl.

I’m not going to list them all here. Suffice it to say, though, that we’ve seen vast improvements across the scale of human endeavors. While we still have a long way to go in terms of racial, gender, and sexual orientation equality, we’ve not been sitting around doing nothing.

The point is that this has occurred despite political windbaggery gone wild. None of the current cable talking heads—O’Reilly, Hannity, Colms, Blitzer, Olbermann, Larry King, or Limbaugh—have had a thing to do with it, either.

Facts supporting the idea that things are better for the majority of us in 2008 as opposed to 1964 abound. So, until Michelle Obama decides to clarify her claims, I’ll remain optimistic.

I don’t hold her husband responsible for what SHE says, though. He seems much more hopeful. If he can actually “unite” this country politically, in a positive way, I’d be a fool to vote for McCain.

McCain’s been around for the last 35-years and hasn’t done a thing that he claims that he’ll do if we put him in the Oval Office. In fact, he’s done the exact opposite close to 80% of the time. The Congressional Record verifies this. Old habits are hard to break!

I’ll be back next week. Stay safe. In the meantime, to the two young men that were arguing about Social Security, people—meaning ME—will think you a lot less foolish if you check facts before blindly supporting or condemning a position.

This is especially important to remember when you are so young that both retirement and natural death are nothing but distant, barely audible rumors in your young lives.

As for my good friend, Shirley, Michelle has either missed a lot since the mid-‘60s, or I’ve been having some unbelievably optimistic dreams.

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.

Listen up! I need a volunteer.

By Joseph Walther

Sometimes I hang out at the “mall.” In this case, I was hanging out at the Concord Mall in New Castle County, Delaware, just about a mile from the Pennsylvania State Line. It was late Friday afternoon.

There I was, seated at a small table at the North end of the mall, sipping on a glass of iced-tea. Suddenly, like a finely tuned sonar system, my ears detected the sound and my head automatically turned to track its direction and pinpoint its precise source.

The sound’s source was a man’s voice. No more than ten feet to my left, a group of 8-people had pulled three tables together. They were in their 60s or older and were all discussing some steps our government could take to decrease expenses.

Specifically, the sound that earned my immediate attention was one man’s voice as he uttered a term. The term? “Compulsory Volunteerism!”

I immediately turned my digital voice recorder on and moved a bit closer to the group. He used the term, “compulsory volunteerism” three times in under 4-minutes. He was seriously in favor of this, as were at least five of his friends.

The first time I heard this term used was several years ago when retired General Wesley Clark, campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination to run against George W. Bush in the 2004 general election, used it to describe his idea of a “civilian reserve force.”

According to the General, folks like you and I could sign on for a period of five years—voluntarily, of course. Once we were “in,” our president could call us up for periods of six months. He could send us anywhere in the world.

I am helpless when it comes to minding my own business whenever I hear this sort of stupidity. And, make no mistake about it. Stupidity IS stupidity whether it comes from Liberals or Conservatives.

He must have seen me looking. My facial expression had to be screaming horrified disbelief! If he missed that, certainly the repeated “no” motion of my head most certainly told him that I disagreed with him.

“So what’s wrong with getting people to volunteer,” he asked, looking straight at me. “Nothing,” I answered. “But first you need to understand how silly the term, ‘compulsory volunteerism’ sounds,” I finished.

I asked him if he volunteers his time for anything. He told me that he regularly volunteers at his church to help collect food to feed the hungry. He told me he also volunteers to do other odd jobs around his church.

“If you decided to stop doing these things for your church, could the church refuse to let you off the hook,” I asked him. “No,” he answered. “That’s why it’s called volunteering,” he continued as though he had me in the throes of a gigantic gotcha.

“Agreed,” I said. “Now, do you see any semblance of a contradiction in the term, “compulsory volunteerism,” I asked. He just stared at me. He must have felt trapped, so I eased up a bit.

I tried to explain that people have a right to “volunteer” for any cause—legal, of course—that they deem worthy. But, for the same reason, they can stop volunteering whenever they wish to do so.

“THIS is TRUE volunteerism,” I told him. “We can’t force people to volunteer. Otherwise it isn’t volunteering.” The rest of the group seemed to get it, but he didn’t—at least it seemed so to me.

Every time I hear people talking about our “volunteer” military force, I have to laugh. I’m not against a volunteer military. I think we have the finest military the world has yet to see, but I think there is a serious misconception about what “volunteer force” means.

The only thing that is “voluntary” about military service in this country is that, now, people voluntarily join instead of our government ordering them to do so as in the use of the military draft of yesteryear.

Once they’ve joined, signed the induction forms, and taken the oath, volunteering is over. From that point on, they are compelled to serve, even to the death, for the period outlined in their service contract.

If, for ANY reason, they decide to “un-volunteer” themselves, they’ll find out in short order just how snotty the military becomes over it. The military deserters housed at Fort Leavenworth Federal Prison can explain the concept in vivid detail.

I am old enough to remember post WW-II film footage of German civilian labor battalions. These consisted of people who “volunteered” to do menial work for the Nazi Regime… you know, keeping the homeland all spiffy for Hitler.

Once they volunteered to “join,” they could not “un-join.” Well, they could, actually, as long as they didn’t mind being shot.

While the General Clark did not mean that our government should execute members of a “volunteer” work force for “un-volunteering,” I have no doubt that there would be some level of “consequences” for doing so, just as there are “consequences” for “un-volunteering” from military service.

I am an American. I love my country. I have served in the military, including two combat tours in Viet Nam. Still, even today at the age of sixty-six, I’d give my life in defense of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

But—I don’t care who is president—we need to end this obsession we have of permitting our elected officials and the media to get away with scamming us by “redefining” definitions, no matter how noble and patriotic they sound.

Our presidents are citizens just as we are. We elect them to administer the government functions outlined in the Constitution. They have to live by the same laws as we do. But, judging by the last 8-years in particular, I’m not so sure anymore.

The notion that an individual aspiring to the Office of President would submit such a ridiculous notion as “compulsory volunteerism” sickens me. That ANY members of an intelligent electorate would buy into it scares the hell out of me.

I most dearly respect the Office of President. However, I have NEVER agreed with everything our Presidents have said or done, no matter who held the office or which party. Not only do I voice my opposition, I feel an obligation to do so.

Voicing legitimate disagreement with our government or NOT volunteering our time just because a U. S. President calls for it does not make us unpatriotic.

On the other hand, blindly agreeing and adhering to whatever our government proclaims has nothing to do with patriotism. It’s plain old nationalism.

Instead of placing love for country above all else, nationalists place their hatred for other countries above all else. Such people seem to think that agreeing with their government—at any cost—is an imperative.

It isn’t, of course. And, during the impending campaign for the Presidency, we need to pay closer attention to all attempts at “redefining” definitions.

Let’s make a special effort at understanding a sometimes-subtle, but nevertheless real, difference between patriotism and nationalism. If we don’t, all of us may one day become compulsory volunteers in a one of those so-called “benevolent” dictator’s “labor battalions.”

Happy Father’s Day! This includes not just the men who are loving dads, but also the loving moms who must also be dads.

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.

We're the enemy!

No, I’m not talking about the war on terror or our invasion of Iraq, or any of the usual stuff that people write about whenever they want to discuss how much the world hates us.

I’m talking about US—ourselves! We’re our own worst enemy. Some parts of the world do hate us and would like to destroy us. But, this is not MOST of the world.

But, when it comes to what we, the people, of our own country do internally to solve our problems, we can be abjectly stupid.

I think the problem lies in the apparent fact that we like to view things as we think they should be or, perhaps more to the point, as we wished they were. It’s a dangerous thing to do. And, as a nation, we didn’t always think this way.

Early on in our history, we had to live on what we earned. We had to make do with what we had. Local government authorities, for the most part, took care of local problems and provided local services. The federal government handled the national issues and provided national services.

The system didn’t always work, but that was life. The point is that the system forced us to handle things more democratically. We came together and voted on things. We came to generally acceptable compromises.

Not everyone was happy with the way the vote went, but it kept the national government from running our daily lives. It provided for a much smaller national government.

It also forced the federal government to enact measures in the best interest of the majority. Sadly, this is not so today and has not been the case for the past hundred years of so. In fact, over the past 50-years, it has become downright intolerable.

Here in Delaware, the price of a gallon of gasoline has reached $4 a gallon. In some states it’s higher—lower others, but not by much. We’re outraged over it as though it’s not our own fault.

We’re convinced that it has to be a plot. “The ‘big’ oil companies are ‘screwing’ us,” we claim. “The government needs to do something about this, we scream!”

Well, we have ourselves to blame. Yes, our government could have done something, but it didn’t because we would not have elected national representative who would have advocated such action.

Economics is not all that complicated once we skim off all the technical jargon aimed at making it sound overwhelming.

Seemingly, hundreds of years ago, I had to take a few economics courses at the Wharton School of Finance. I encountered a tough professor there by the name of Dr. Irvin Miller.

Although I thought he was the meanest, most miserable, opinionated old dude whose parents, many of us believed, were never married, I did learn a few basic tenets of economics.

I’m not going into any detail about what I leaned or didn’t learn. I’m not going to discuss Dr. Miller’s teaching techniques other than to say that he’s probably dead now, possibly even in Hell if such a place exists.

No, I’m just going to apply the principles of supply and demand to the price of oil, along with some of the steps that we should have taken to change outcomes or, since we didn’t, what our federal government should have done despite our wishes.

Skim off all the fancy jargon, and we realize that supply and demand are intuitive concepts. The more of something there is, the less it costs to buy it. The less of it there is, the more it costs to buy it.

Oil trades on the world commodity market. The only way to make the price of a commodity drop is to buy less of it. And, since the United States buys more of it than the next 5-consummers combined, the price of oil would come down if we bought even moderately less of it.

Another simple concept in economics is something called an “equilibrium” price. This, in simple terms, is the price at which market consumers are willing to keep paying for something.

Raise a commodity’s price above this level and we’re going to buy less of it. Keep raising the price of it and we’re going to buy even less, still.

I think, at least in the United States, this price hit at around $3.50 a gallon. It got our attention and folks began to cut back. We hit the buying “even less of it” point at $4 a gallon.

Here’s the problem, though. We could have hit this point over a year ago had our federal government had the gumption to do something about it.

When the price of gasoline hit $2.50 a gallon, the feds could have slapped $1 a gallon tax on it. We’d still have had to pay $3.50 a gallon for our gas, but the extra money would have been going to OUR government instead of to far less friendly ones: Iran and Russia jump into my mind!

An added benefit would have been the beginning of our consumption cutbacks. We’d have begun showing our displeasure for the price then and the price wouldn’t be hitting $4 a gallon and threatening to go even higher.

Remember, we consume more oil than the next 5-world consumers combined do. If you were a supplier, could you afford to have your largest customer cut back on purchases by 20- to 25-percent?

I’m a Conservative. I hate taxes the same as others do. But sometimes a tax can be a positive thing in the end.

Even though Conservatives would rather have their hemorrhoids ripped out with needle nose pliers—sans anesthesia—than even mention “taxes,” this one would have been an appropriate one.

People will send me email telling me that this would not have helped because world demand for oil was increasing. I agree; it was. But, the demand would have to increase one hell of a lot to make up for the drop in this country’s demand.

Besides, once we jump on the conservation bandwagon and begin seriously searching for ways to develop alternative energy sources, the rest of the industrialized world will follow suit.

As it stands now, the price we now pay for gasoline has begun to exert its domino effect. Everything else is going up, causing cutbacks in those areas.

The average American citizen is in a difficult situation. We put OURSELVES there because we have a seemingly overwhelming “consume now and worry about it later” mentality.

Even when our government exercises good common sense, it seems to be such a rarity that we don’t trust them. We don’t elect people who raise our taxes.

If we were not so fast on the tax draw to support our pork spending and other nonessential things, we’d be more open to a legitimate tax.

Be back next week. Have a great one.

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.

Whoa! How many zeros did you say?

By Joseph Walther

Terrorism isn’t the worst danger we face in this country. It isn’t even close, either. And, while the war in Iraq is a serious problem for us, it isn’t the most urgent. Let me explain.

As a nation, we waste money in quantities that most people can’t imagine. We’ve become so desensitized in terms of government spending that the terms "billion" and "trillion" no longer mean anything.

The numbers are so massive that average citizens, having no real concept of just how big they are, simply shrug at the thought of such expenditures. They may even chuckle a bit whenever people issue those “Golden Fleece” awards over stupid spending.

The late Republican Senator Everett Dirksen (he died in 1969 at the age of 73) used to crack his famous joke about the way the United States Congress deals with spending issues.

"You know,” he'd joke, "a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon we're into some serious money."

I remember Johnny Carson’s audience cracking up big time over it. And, that was back in the day when everyone considered a MILLION dollars a lot of money.

So, just how LARGE is a BILLION dollars? Let’s do a little pretending to see if we can get it into perspective. We’ll all pretend that we have a BILLION dollars.

Let's ignore compound interest, too. We’ll simply assume that our $1-billion ($1,000,000,000—yep, that’s 9-zeros) is in cash, and that we have a storage closet that will hold it all in denominations of $5s, $10s, $20s, $50s.

In other words, when we want to buy something, we just open the damn closet and pull out a fist-full of $20s—or whatever—and go buy it.

A billion is equal to a thousand million—1,000 times 1,000,000. So if we have $1-billion, we could spend $1-million a year for one-thousand years. But, the bad news is that we’re not going to live for 1-thousand-years, so we’d better spend it faster.

But, even if we spend $2-million a year for 500-years, or $4-million a year for 250-years, or even $8-million a year for 125-years, we’re probably going to run out of life’s breath before our money runs out.

So, let’s speed it up a bit. If we conserve our finances effectively, we could spend about $12-million a year over an 80-year lifespan without running out of money.

We’d have to make some sacrifices—who doesn’t these days?—but I think we could all still live a pleasant life, all things considered.

Now, let’s add some perspective. We've spent over $466 billion on the Iraq war since "mission accomplished," which breaks down to around $8-billion per month.

But, even though I think our government has squandered this through the inept execution of the war, let's all forgive and forget. We’ll simply chalk it all up to what the private sector calls a sunk cost—lost due to monumental ineptness.

Of course, the private sector also fires its CEOs and Executive Managers for these kinds of screw-ups, but we won’t talk about this here.

Just remember; we have to be careful with this forgiving stuff. If we become too forgiving, our politicians may get the idea that we’re a bunch of damned, wishy-washy, pushover fools.

With this in mind, I want us all to consider that over the same Iraqi war reference period, you know… since “mission accomplished,” we've spent over $85-billion on PORK projects.

Breaking this all down into annual and monthly terms, we’ve PORKED ourselves to the tune of around $17-billion a year, or around $1.5-billion a month.

Understand that I’m not knocking this. While there are a couple of different definitions for PORK spending, here’s the most common one used by those with 3-digit IQs.

PORK is what OTHER U. S. Representatives and Senators spend on THEIR constituent states and representative districts.

Whatever our OWN Congresspersons and Senators spend on OUR state is never considered PORK, and is always a matter of vital security interest to the entire country.

Even so, 99% of PORK is waste no matter how we define it. It's used for nothing more than gaining election year "attaboy" points for each state's respective Representatives and Senators.

Now, let's redo the arithmetic. We have $17 billion dollars. Not only this year, but EVERY year. Over an 80-year life span, it comes to $1.36-TRILLION. Spelled out, that's $1,360,000,000,000.

Just think... If you had just $1-trillion (that's one-thousand billion), you could spend $1-billion a year for 1,000 years, or $2-billion a year for 500 years, or $4-billion a year for 250 years... You finish the arithmetic!

We spend all of this money on all of this PORK… not just during one year, but every year. Yet, we face a national debt of over $9-trillion. It will be even higher when the next President takes office.

It’s one thing to be in hock to the tune of $9-trillion and have the best of everything: infrastructure, energy independence, affordable health care for EVERYONE, etc. But we don’t. We’re light-years from it.

How many of our critical social issues could we resolve if we'd stop letting our elected representatives waste money at the clip they're presently doing it?

Think about it! We're going to have to do something about business as usual on the beltway. If we don't do it soon, it won't be terrorists who do this country in! Ya think?

Say… you don’t think these politicians think we’re a bunch of damned, wishy-washy, pushover fools, do you?

I’ll be back next week with some more dirt. I have not even come close to hammering the lobbyists on K-Street, but stand by.

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.