The one thing everyone wants to know when starting a trip is
where he or she is going. In fact, most logical people want to know that little
bit of information before they even start to plan the trip. Therefore, it
bothers me when the North Carolina legislature takes us on a trip but refuse to
tell us where they are going. What is their objective? What is it they want government
to be or do? They seem to know because
they follow a consistent theme but will not admit it. When I ask myself these
questions, I could not arrive at a logical solution until recently.
They are actively suppression voters’ rights. What is their
objective? Do they want only the rich to
vote? What is it in the constitution, the plan of government that tells them that
is what democracy means? Or, is it that they only want white people to vote? What is it about “We the people . . .” they do
not understand? What is it about the make up of the population of North Carolina
they want to create: no Asians, no black people, no Arabs people, and no Buddhists?
I have never heard them say where they
are going or what their objective is.
This legislature clearly has shifted the tax burden to the
middle class. Incredibly, they have designed a tax system that will cause middle
class taxpayers to pay corporations to come to the North Carolina. They make their
money not by providing a great service or produce a good profit but because of
the lower cost of doing business. In other words, they take more money out of
the state than they put in. How can they say they represent the people when
they clearly do not? This question begs the next question, which is, “What is their
objective?” Why are they doing this?
They have allowed the Governor, an employee of one of the biggest
power companies in the nation to take over State regulatory agencies. He immediately
raised the cost of energy on everyone but the homeowners pay more and businesses
pay less. Where is he taking us?
They are destroying K-12 education with a voucher program,
promoting charter school formation, which is privatization of education with
all the inherent problems that brings, and raising the cost of advanced
education. All children will be less well educated. Only the rich families will
be able to send their children to college. What is their objective of doing
that? They have removed the protection a teacher, the most educated person in
the community, to teach what he or she feels should be taught; they have treated
tenure as if it was seniority and have done away with it. They are in the process
of taking over school boards and putting politicians in charge. Where are they
taking our educational system? What is the end game?
They are closing women health care clinics. Women need reproductive
health care that men do not. It should not come as a surprise that women become
pregnant and need special care during pregnancy. It should not be surprise the
North Carolina State Legislature to learn that infant survival in the United States
is poorest of all developed nations. This behavior seems to be connected to
male dominance. Evaluate the divorce court system in the Southern United States
and see if the male or the female is favored. Where is this current legislature
taking us with the flood of new laws that seems so counterintuitive to the modern
liberal mind?
None of this makes any sense unless you have read George
Lakeoff’s book Moral Politics (Amazon.com). Even then, it takes an understanding of
evolutionary psychology. There seems to be a bestial motive in the conservative
mind. They seem to think like cave men; a guy with a big club dragging a woman
about by the hair. The strongest person, in modern society, that is the one
with the most money, which in their mind is a “male”, is in charge. It could be
in a family, or it could be an entire society. Everyone can be a member of our
society but all members must obey orders or suffer punishment; it is the moral or
natural order. This could explain the ambivalence of their position on
questions of race and immigration; black people are OK as long as they are
servile. If not disciplined in a manner
the strong “man” deems appropriate, then “he” has the authority to expel the disobedient
from his society. In their minds, the authoritarian model establishes moral
order. This is where they are taking us. Some how they do not see that there
are and have been many rich and powerful women. Some how they ignore the plan that launched this
nation on the path it is on; one person, not one man but one person, one vote;
with a goal of equal opportunity for all
achieved through fairness and compromise; two words not found in the language
of this North Carolina legislature. You see it in churches, you see it in
dictatorships, and you see it in the North Carolina Legislature.
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