I've been reading the book of Daniel. It occurred to me that, though it didn't happen through conquest, we conservative constitutionalists are in a similar situation as Daniel. Stuck in exile in a land we don't recognize, a land with alien values. . . our liberties curtailed.
In the last month or so, I've been discouraged enough to just not write in my blog. I wouldn't even look at it or at anyone else's blog. I felt originally that God wanted me to start this blog. I already had a "home" blog that I could write about little things, my dogs, my cats and cooking. . . But I felt led to create a blog about the big things: God and America, and how we relate. I felt some great purpose to this little blog.
But I saw no evidence that anyone -- other than a friend or two, in which case, I was preaching to the choir -- was reading my blog. So what's the use? Thus began my discouragement. And yes, I reminded myself that we can't always know the results of God's commands; we must only do them. But that didn't help me come back.
This discouragement is tied together with the feeling that I get when I call and write our senators' and representative's offices and get a polite acknowledgment, or worse, a response that explains to me why they choose to vote contrarily. The anxiety, the urgency within me, the need to do something, anything! is hardening to a husk of what it was. What's the use?
In the prospect of long-term exile, Daniel and his friends behaved in a way to glorify God. Their home, homeland, capital city was shattered. They had been, in essence, kidnapped, and taken to Babylon to serve the king. I wonder how much time and effort they spent in trying to get away. Or did they from the start give it all up to God?
When my Christian friends shrug and say, "These are the last days," and their attitude is to basically roll with it, accept it, I get really irritated. We can't just bend over and take it! This is not the time to withdraw and wait on the Lord! That's abdicating our responsibility.
First, Daniel and company made sure that they were able to continue to glorify God through maintaining dietary standards -- not with a protest fast, but with a suggestion of a scientific experiment. In order to get this far, they had to treat their jailers, the chief of eunuchs and the steward over him, as people, not as evil enemies. I'm sure that if God had not brought Daniel into the favor of the chief of eunuchs, whatever he suggested would have been dismissed out of hand. But the chief explained to Daniel the reason for the food they were having to eat. And Daniel could come back with this suggestion that they compare the results of the two diets after ten days. And in case you don't know the story, Daniel's diet of vegetables and water kept him and friends much healthier than those who'd been eating the king's delicacies and drinking the wine.
Their training was to last for three years, but even before that time was up, Daniel had his first big break in being able to tell the king his dream and interpret it. It was into their second year there.
Hmm, we've been in exile only a few months. We have to see ourselves as being in it for the long run. Even if we are able to put politicians with integrity (boy, is that an oxymoron!) into office in 2010, we will still be fighting an overall attitude of relativism and a lack of understanding of the Constitution.
And Daniel lasted as wise man, counselor for the king, through King Nebuchadnezzar's reign, the short reign of his son, Belshazzar, the reign of Darius the Mede, and Cyrus the Persian. (This is where I am in the book of Daniel.)
What struck me is that through Daniel's behavior, all these kings knew God to be the "living God, steadfast forever." They didn't necessarily give up their own gods, but they recognized God and His power.
Let this be a wake up call. We've been called bitter clingers; let us now cling even more tightly to God. The anxiety is counter-productive. At the same time, let us not relax and give up our responsibility as citizens. That's part of the problem and why we are in this mess.
When I told a liberal (progressive) friend that I was planning to go to Washington, DC, to protest on the 4th of July, she said, "It's good that you're finally getting involved."
I said, "Thank you," but I was miffed. What do you mean finally getting involved? I've been involved all along. I've been doing the things we're supposed to do -- informing myself and voting. But . . . that wasn't everything we needed to be doing, I realize now. I think we have abdicated our responsibility as citizens, assuming if we voted correctly, then these politicians will keep the country running. It's like those parents who send their children to school with the idea that now they don't have to do much in the training of their kids. While protesting should not have to be a normal part of an involved citizen's life, when the citizen has allowed things to get out of hand, protesting is perhaps the last option.
We should have been training our children about the steadfastness of the Constitution, about our founding fathers and their vision, and making sure that our educational system doesn't allow the insidious changes, revisionist history, etc. to make inroads into our children's minds. In my defense, I didn't know about these things. But responsible citizenry requires much more thorough education than we got in K-12 and even through college.
We should have been keeping an eye on our representatives, both state and federal, following what they were voting on and how they voted, and expressing our educated opinion at every turn. If we had, they would not have been able to vote themselves an automatic pay increase every year, for example.
The US that Obama envisions and the results, which we envision, cannot be more alien to us than Babylon to Daniel. We must find a way to work within the framework we are given, so that when it's all said and done, God will be glorified.
Showing posts with label tea party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tea party. Show all posts
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The Mirror Demonstration!
I had never seen anything like it.
I wasn't a complete demonstration neophyte. I had "marched" with about five friends in the CNM teacher's union in front of the building where the CNM board was meeting to decide on salaries for CNM security. We had signs ready made. We marched in a circle and sang, "We shall overcome." (Don't get on to me for being in the union and doing this. I had my reasons, which I thought were very good at the time.)
Then there were anti-war demonstrations that I happened to drive through on my way to Wal-Mart. Those made me very nervous. The vitriol of the (small) crowd was palpable, even with me protected in my car. I'd just focus my gaze straight ahead and try to get through without running over someone mad enough to jump out in front of me. It never happened but that was my fear.
So at the Albuquerque Tea Party, I could very well relate to the few drivers who focused straight ahead and white-knuckled their way to the center lane. But there were so few of them.
A counter demonstration marched somewhere around Smiths, I heard, but I never saw any of them. Only one or two "nuts" wandered through doing their own thing that might have been contrary to us. I really couldn't tell. One guy dressed in a red t-shirt with a yellow hammer & sickle on it paused every few feet and waved a kind of anti-American flag. That is, its blue and white bars were vertical and the blue field with white stars on the American flag was on this thing a white field with blue stars. We ignored him and he wandered on.
Of the drivers, a few people shot us a finger as they passed. We just laughed. Actually, I had to keep asking the guy next to me which it was, a finger or a thumbs up. The clouds had dimmed the sunlight enough that without my glasses, my vision wasn't good enough to determine which was which. But during the entire three hours, Dale counted only three or four middle fingers, and maybe five thumbs down.
That left everyone else in the thousands of cars, SUVs, and trucks passing by, approving of what we were doing. It was a 5:00 rush-hour traffic jam until after 7:00! People reported that to get onto Montgomery from Carlisle and San Mateo, it took 15 minutes!
Did I say thousands of vehicles? Or were they the same ones on a loop, going round and round and round? Quite a few began to look familiar. We finally figured out that people had driven by, perhaps as a result of their daily tasks, gone home, collected their kids, flags, dogs, and quickly-scrawled signs. Then driving up and down the four miles of Montgomery, honking their horn, waving flags, thumbs up, and showing signs to the people they passed, they served as a kind of mirror demonstration for us.
One little girl had scrawled on her lined notebook paper, "Obama sucks!" She flattened it against the window as her mother drove slowly by us so we could read it.
Another lady held up a sign that said, "This is all the change Obama gave me!" Huge coins were plastered on it, one fitting within the O of Obama.
People perched in the opening of a Hummer-type search and rescue vehicle waving a full-sized "Don't Tread on Me" flag, the Army Rangers flag, and Old Glory, while the airhorn of an 18-wheeler sounded.
Children waved flags and sticks with teabags on them out the windows of their cars.
One driver jumped up and down in his seat, waving both arms, and grinning.
One old guy had four flags, one for each of his windows, sticking up around his car.
There were elderly people in Cadillacs, young parents with babies locked into carseats, Hispanics, blacks, and whites, men dressed in grungy t-shirts, men dressed in business suits, ladies in classic power suits, ladies in scrubs, trucks pulling trailers with motorcycles and trucks pulling trailers with landscaping tools. My daughter noticed that the driver of nearly EVERY truck or van that had a business logo on it went crazy honking, grinning, and giving the thumbs up. "It's because they're working," she deduced.
The numbers were hard to determine. People came and went on the sidewalks on both sides of Montgomery. Since the numbers seemed to come out as between 5,000 and 10,000, I'd just go with the more conservative 7,000. But that's just counting the people who stood on the sidewalks, not the mirror demonstration. What a boost we got out of the support we received.
I wasn't a complete demonstration neophyte. I had "marched" with about five friends in the CNM teacher's union in front of the building where the CNM board was meeting to decide on salaries for CNM security. We had signs ready made. We marched in a circle and sang, "We shall overcome." (Don't get on to me for being in the union and doing this. I had my reasons, which I thought were very good at the time.)
Then there were anti-war demonstrations that I happened to drive through on my way to Wal-Mart. Those made me very nervous. The vitriol of the (small) crowd was palpable, even with me protected in my car. I'd just focus my gaze straight ahead and try to get through without running over someone mad enough to jump out in front of me. It never happened but that was my fear.
So at the Albuquerque Tea Party, I could very well relate to the few drivers who focused straight ahead and white-knuckled their way to the center lane. But there were so few of them.
A counter demonstration marched somewhere around Smiths, I heard, but I never saw any of them. Only one or two "nuts" wandered through doing their own thing that might have been contrary to us. I really couldn't tell. One guy dressed in a red t-shirt with a yellow hammer & sickle on it paused every few feet and waved a kind of anti-American flag. That is, its blue and white bars were vertical and the blue field with white stars on the American flag was on this thing a white field with blue stars. We ignored him and he wandered on.
Of the drivers, a few people shot us a finger as they passed. We just laughed. Actually, I had to keep asking the guy next to me which it was, a finger or a thumbs up. The clouds had dimmed the sunlight enough that without my glasses, my vision wasn't good enough to determine which was which. But during the entire three hours, Dale counted only three or four middle fingers, and maybe five thumbs down.
That left everyone else in the thousands of cars, SUVs, and trucks passing by, approving of what we were doing. It was a 5:00 rush-hour traffic jam until after 7:00! People reported that to get onto Montgomery from Carlisle and San Mateo, it took 15 minutes!
Did I say thousands of vehicles? Or were they the same ones on a loop, going round and round and round? Quite a few began to look familiar. We finally figured out that people had driven by, perhaps as a result of their daily tasks, gone home, collected their kids, flags, dogs, and quickly-scrawled signs. Then driving up and down the four miles of Montgomery, honking their horn, waving flags, thumbs up, and showing signs to the people they passed, they served as a kind of mirror demonstration for us.
One little girl had scrawled on her lined notebook paper, "Obama sucks!" She flattened it against the window as her mother drove slowly by us so we could read it.
Another lady held up a sign that said, "This is all the change Obama gave me!" Huge coins were plastered on it, one fitting within the O of Obama.
People perched in the opening of a Hummer-type search and rescue vehicle waving a full-sized "Don't Tread on Me" flag, the Army Rangers flag, and Old Glory, while the airhorn of an 18-wheeler sounded.
Children waved flags and sticks with teabags on them out the windows of their cars.
One driver jumped up and down in his seat, waving both arms, and grinning.
One old guy had four flags, one for each of his windows, sticking up around his car.
There were elderly people in Cadillacs, young parents with babies locked into carseats, Hispanics, blacks, and whites, men dressed in grungy t-shirts, men dressed in business suits, ladies in classic power suits, ladies in scrubs, trucks pulling trailers with motorcycles and trucks pulling trailers with landscaping tools. My daughter noticed that the driver of nearly EVERY truck or van that had a business logo on it went crazy honking, grinning, and giving the thumbs up. "It's because they're working," she deduced.
The numbers were hard to determine. People came and went on the sidewalks on both sides of Montgomery. Since the numbers seemed to come out as between 5,000 and 10,000, I'd just go with the more conservative 7,000. But that's just counting the people who stood on the sidewalks, not the mirror demonstration. What a boost we got out of the support we received.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Young Man on a Bicycle
My sign at the Albuquerque Tea Party read "BASTA!" because I wanted to make a unique one for New Mexico, so I figured the simple Spanish word for "enough!" would be good. It was funny when I was drawing it out at the sign-making party. I drew B-A-S-T, and my daughter started asking, "What are you writing? Don't you know this is a family friendly thing?"
Well, it looks like not as many people knew Spanish as I expected. Several people asked what it meant. My daughter enjoyed waving the sign for awhile. With her body-modification -- tattoos, piercings, and brandings -- she figured people would take her as an "infiltrator." And if they didn't know what the word "basta" meant, then they might really take her as an infiltrator.
But there came a time when I had the sign.
A young man on a bicycle was passing behind us (we stood right on the edge of the curb to get the drivers' attention) and he stopped suddenly and asked me, "What does your sign say?"
"Basta. It means 'enough.'"
He nodded and started on his way, but turned back. "Enough . . . what?" He was taller than I and had to lean his head down to hear me with all the yelling and cheering going on.
"Enough spending. You know, the budget, stimulus, all that." I was yelling over the noise.
"So the spending from the previous eight years wasn't enough to justify protesting?"
"Oh, we didn't like it. We were pissed about that, starting with the prescription drug thing. My husband even changed parties over that."
"But you didn't protest."
"No," I agreed. "But Obama's spending was just SO much and SO fast, we had to do something more."
"If it hadn't been Obama, would you have protested?"
I tried to answer him honestly. I mean this young man was listening to my answers and asking good questions -- something I crave to get from liberals around me. So I said, "I think whoever it was, if he went more slowly, we might not have protested. We would still think we could do something about it. But this happened so fast."
"So if Obama had spent more slowly, you might not have protested?"
"Possibly. If he'd spent more slowly and not so much at once."
He nodded and thanked me, mounted his bike and rode on.
But now I have more to say. You know how it is. Only hours, if not days, after the event, you think of what you should have said.
I would have said, had I had my wits about me at that point, that we conservatives don't protest. That's the domain of liberals. They'll protest and demonstrate at the drop of a hat. I bet they all have a protest kit made up and sitting next to the door just in case they decide to protest and get the call. We conservatives, on the other hand, call our representatives, write letters to them and to the editor of local papers, send emails, voice our opinions on talk radio, and try to make changes through the voting process. We don't even think of protesting. That's almost as foreign to us as suing someone for offending us, as foreign as using the courts to make social and legal change.
When Heather Wilson supported the SCHIPS bill and was on Jim Villanucci's show, people blasted her. I blasted her in an email.
I can't tell you how pissed I was that Bush went ahead and signed the TARP bill, in spite of the "no" vote of Congress. This was stomping on the constitution, as far as I was concerned. But he was on his way out. No use "firing" him! I had to focus my energy on what was happening after that.
The fact that there were . . . it seemed like 5,000 conservatives (pretty much all fiscal conservatives -- some Republicans, some Libertarians, some Independents, even some Democrats) there doing something they don't usually do should say we're really, really mad. And we're serious. And when our usual methods seemed to have no effect on the conduct of Congress and the White House, we were driven to protesting.
Not that I regret it. It was a blast. But I wonder if our politicians heard us, or if they're covering their ears with their hands and going, "La, la, la, la, la!"
Well, it looks like not as many people knew Spanish as I expected. Several people asked what it meant. My daughter enjoyed waving the sign for awhile. With her body-modification -- tattoos, piercings, and brandings -- she figured people would take her as an "infiltrator." And if they didn't know what the word "basta" meant, then they might really take her as an infiltrator.
But there came a time when I had the sign.
A young man on a bicycle was passing behind us (we stood right on the edge of the curb to get the drivers' attention) and he stopped suddenly and asked me, "What does your sign say?"
"Basta. It means 'enough.'"
He nodded and started on his way, but turned back. "Enough . . . what?" He was taller than I and had to lean his head down to hear me with all the yelling and cheering going on.
"Enough spending. You know, the budget, stimulus, all that." I was yelling over the noise.
"So the spending from the previous eight years wasn't enough to justify protesting?"
"Oh, we didn't like it. We were pissed about that, starting with the prescription drug thing. My husband even changed parties over that."
"But you didn't protest."
"No," I agreed. "But Obama's spending was just SO much and SO fast, we had to do something more."
"If it hadn't been Obama, would you have protested?"
I tried to answer him honestly. I mean this young man was listening to my answers and asking good questions -- something I crave to get from liberals around me. So I said, "I think whoever it was, if he went more slowly, we might not have protested. We would still think we could do something about it. But this happened so fast."
"So if Obama had spent more slowly, you might not have protested?"
"Possibly. If he'd spent more slowly and not so much at once."
He nodded and thanked me, mounted his bike and rode on.
But now I have more to say. You know how it is. Only hours, if not days, after the event, you think of what you should have said.
I would have said, had I had my wits about me at that point, that we conservatives don't protest. That's the domain of liberals. They'll protest and demonstrate at the drop of a hat. I bet they all have a protest kit made up and sitting next to the door just in case they decide to protest and get the call. We conservatives, on the other hand, call our representatives, write letters to them and to the editor of local papers, send emails, voice our opinions on talk radio, and try to make changes through the voting process. We don't even think of protesting. That's almost as foreign to us as suing someone for offending us, as foreign as using the courts to make social and legal change.
When Heather Wilson supported the SCHIPS bill and was on Jim Villanucci's show, people blasted her. I blasted her in an email.
I can't tell you how pissed I was that Bush went ahead and signed the TARP bill, in spite of the "no" vote of Congress. This was stomping on the constitution, as far as I was concerned. But he was on his way out. No use "firing" him! I had to focus my energy on what was happening after that.
The fact that there were . . . it seemed like 5,000 conservatives (pretty much all fiscal conservatives -- some Republicans, some Libertarians, some Independents, even some Democrats) there doing something they don't usually do should say we're really, really mad. And we're serious. And when our usual methods seemed to have no effect on the conduct of Congress and the White House, we were driven to protesting.
Not that I regret it. It was a blast. But I wonder if our politicians heard us, or if they're covering their ears with their hands and going, "La, la, la, la, la!"
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The Cop at the Tea Party
Whew! I'm still pumped! Exhausted and sore, but brewing! I have so much to say about the Albuquerque Tax Day Tea Party, but I'm going to dole it out so you, my dear reader, don't get overwhelmed!
As a volunteer, I helped set up (trying to keep a huge paper banner from being ripped up by the wind as we taped it across the front of the sign in area), collected my badge, t-shirt, and little plastic megaphone (cone). My job as "block captain" meant I was to help monitor our legality -- for example, keeping people from trespassing on private property or keeping driveways open. I had about a block of territory to watch over.
Albuquerque Police were there, of course, keeping an eye on the crowd. Now I have a little soft spot in my heart for APD. I have a good friend whose husband is APD. So when after arriving at my territory and getting people spread out, I spotted the nearest cop, standing back from the crowd, his arms crossed, I went up to him and said, "Hey, I just wanna thank you for being here and helping us out."
The corners of his mouth lifted in a very slight smile and he said, "Thank YOU for being here," a bit stiffly. Then he continued, "Some of us had to work or WE'd be here."
I grinned at what I thought was his meaning. As I walked away, he called out, "Unofficially, of course!"
"Oh, of course!" I replied.
As a volunteer, I helped set up (trying to keep a huge paper banner from being ripped up by the wind as we taped it across the front of the sign in area), collected my badge, t-shirt, and little plastic megaphone (cone). My job as "block captain" meant I was to help monitor our legality -- for example, keeping people from trespassing on private property or keeping driveways open. I had about a block of territory to watch over.
Albuquerque Police were there, of course, keeping an eye on the crowd. Now I have a little soft spot in my heart for APD. I have a good friend whose husband is APD. So when after arriving at my territory and getting people spread out, I spotted the nearest cop, standing back from the crowd, his arms crossed, I went up to him and said, "Hey, I just wanna thank you for being here and helping us out."
The corners of his mouth lifted in a very slight smile and he said, "Thank YOU for being here," a bit stiffly. Then he continued, "Some of us had to work or WE'd be here."
I grinned at what I thought was his meaning. As I walked away, he called out, "Unofficially, of course!"
"Oh, of course!" I replied.
Friday, April 3, 2009
So Tired. . .
On Monday, I hit a wall. I am finding myself unable to even work up a righteous anger at everything that our government is doing. Every day, I read the news, and it's terrible, horrible, and I'm just numb. Friends send me informative emails and I read them and just shrug. I'm not surprised.
Like the last thing I read about. The Obama White House is looking for more Muslim people to work with the White House. When one of the aides says they're doing it quietly, so it won't look like Obama's all that interested in Islam, and when high-up Imams express their interest in taking apart the US from the inside, it's got to be alarming. But I'm not alarmed! I'm just not surprised.
All I can do now is focus on the little I can do: help with the Albuquerque Tea Party on April 15 (it will be on Montgomery in front of Independence Grill, one block west of Louisiana, from 4 to 7); help with the Big Stick Tea Party, which will follow through with our representatives and senators, keep in contact with my friends, and try to teach my students history, the Constitution, and critical thinking.
Other than that, I need to take care of myself and my family. We still don't have water. (Our well's pretty much dried up.) So washing dishes and cleaning clothes has become more burdensome. And I'm concerned about when I start our garden. Will I be able to raise our food if we don't have enough water for the plants? I have been constructing a compost barrel, am about half done with that, so we can have better soil.
Anyway, Monday, I took off work and slept all day. Tuesday, I stayed home, too, and caught up with my homework, baked for my church's bake sale, and made clay "Don't Tread on Me" snakes for the tea party.
I feel better, but I don't seem to feel the anger I have been overdosing on for the last 12 weeks. This may be good. There's only so much of that poison that a body can stand.
Like the last thing I read about. The Obama White House is looking for more Muslim people to work with the White House. When one of the aides says they're doing it quietly, so it won't look like Obama's all that interested in Islam, and when high-up Imams express their interest in taking apart the US from the inside, it's got to be alarming. But I'm not alarmed! I'm just not surprised.
All I can do now is focus on the little I can do: help with the Albuquerque Tea Party on April 15 (it will be on Montgomery in front of Independence Grill, one block west of Louisiana, from 4 to 7); help with the Big Stick Tea Party, which will follow through with our representatives and senators, keep in contact with my friends, and try to teach my students history, the Constitution, and critical thinking.
Other than that, I need to take care of myself and my family. We still don't have water. (Our well's pretty much dried up.) So washing dishes and cleaning clothes has become more burdensome. And I'm concerned about when I start our garden. Will I be able to raise our food if we don't have enough water for the plants? I have been constructing a compost barrel, am about half done with that, so we can have better soil.
Anyway, Monday, I took off work and slept all day. Tuesday, I stayed home, too, and caught up with my homework, baked for my church's bake sale, and made clay "Don't Tread on Me" snakes for the tea party.
I feel better, but I don't seem to feel the anger I have been overdosing on for the last 12 weeks. This may be good. There's only so much of that poison that a body can stand.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The Lunch Bunch
The other day, I told my colleagues at lunch that I was going to participate in the Albuquerque Tea Party.
And when I later told my husband about our conversation, he said, "Knowing your situation there at work, I would not have brought it up."
But I'm so tired of being in the closet. I decided two weeks ago that I can't keep hiding out in my office during lunch, that I had to face my liberal colleagues and stand up for my values. And since the O's inauguration, politics as a topic seem to have died down. The only thing that came close was when one colleague complained that her young son was wanting to get into the Boy Scouts. She said, "'Hon,' I told him, 'we're atheists. And then I had to explain to him what homophobia is.'" When a more moderate colleague laughed at that and said, "That's nuts!" (I was choking on my food), she asked, "You mean the Boy Scouts won't make my son a Bible-thumping homophobe?" That had been one of my forays out of my office, and it had sent me fleeing back.
But now that I've determined I NEED to eat lunch with the old lunch bunch, I've found their discussion to be ordinary, dealing with lazy or clueless students, questionable administrator decisions, and family issues. The one friend did tell me her son was getting his first badge in the Boy Scouts. "So you decided to let him join?" She nodded. "That's big of you."
"Well, his best friend is in it."
"Friends are important." And we left it at that.
So anyway, on another day, when asked what I was up to, I told the lunch bunch that I was going to go to the Albuquerque Tea Party. They looked at me blankly. "You know, like the Boston Tea Party. Protesting."
"What are you protesting?"
"Taxes."
"How are you being taxed?"
I blinked. I thought I was ready for whatever they might say or ask, but this blew me away. I began to think, okay, what would they be thinking to ask such a question? That we are NOT being taxed? Oh, yes, we are still under the tax brackets and the same percentages as there were under Bush. Obama didn't immediately repeal the most recent tax cuts that were set to sundown in 2010. (That's a pleasant surprise.) But he has promised to let them sundown.
Or were they thinking that being middle class, we are NOT going to be taxed, according to Obama's promise?
I merely responded, "With all the irresponsible spending, we WILL be taxed."
And with that the conversational ball bounced another direction. And I was left feeling my position was semi-weak. (I often correct my students who use a future result to support a present action in their essay writing.) I have no doubt that we WILL be taxed because taxes included in the stimulus bill and the omnibus government budget bill already enacted, taxes geared toward punishing "the rich" (which includes individuals and all businesses making over $250,000 a year -- that is, MANY small businesses, some of which I know personally) will be recouped by the businesses raising the price of products, which we the consumers pay. This area of economics is called "tax incidence" and says that the entity on which tax is imposed is not necessarily who bears the burden of the tax.
In addition, cap and trade tax will raise the cost of energy, so ANYTHING in our life that uses energy -- electricity, gas, petroleum -- will be much more expensive. WE WILL pay the taxes.
And that's not even counting one way the government will attempt to pay for its deficit: by raising taxes and applying them to more people and more activities. (The other way is by printing more money, which means inflation, for which -- you guessed it -- we pay.)
Well, okay, so at least the topic was brought up to the lunch bunch. Maybe they changed the topic because they were concerned themselves about their taxes. Only time will tell.
And when I later told my husband about our conversation, he said, "Knowing your situation there at work, I would not have brought it up."
But I'm so tired of being in the closet. I decided two weeks ago that I can't keep hiding out in my office during lunch, that I had to face my liberal colleagues and stand up for my values. And since the O's inauguration, politics as a topic seem to have died down. The only thing that came close was when one colleague complained that her young son was wanting to get into the Boy Scouts. She said, "'Hon,' I told him, 'we're atheists. And then I had to explain to him what homophobia is.'" When a more moderate colleague laughed at that and said, "That's nuts!" (I was choking on my food), she asked, "You mean the Boy Scouts won't make my son a Bible-thumping homophobe?" That had been one of my forays out of my office, and it had sent me fleeing back.
But now that I've determined I NEED to eat lunch with the old lunch bunch, I've found their discussion to be ordinary, dealing with lazy or clueless students, questionable administrator decisions, and family issues. The one friend did tell me her son was getting his first badge in the Boy Scouts. "So you decided to let him join?" She nodded. "That's big of you."
"Well, his best friend is in it."
"Friends are important." And we left it at that.
So anyway, on another day, when asked what I was up to, I told the lunch bunch that I was going to go to the Albuquerque Tea Party. They looked at me blankly. "You know, like the Boston Tea Party. Protesting."
"What are you protesting?"
"Taxes."
"How are you being taxed?"
I blinked. I thought I was ready for whatever they might say or ask, but this blew me away. I began to think, okay, what would they be thinking to ask such a question? That we are NOT being taxed? Oh, yes, we are still under the tax brackets and the same percentages as there were under Bush. Obama didn't immediately repeal the most recent tax cuts that were set to sundown in 2010. (That's a pleasant surprise.) But he has promised to let them sundown.
Or were they thinking that being middle class, we are NOT going to be taxed, according to Obama's promise?
I merely responded, "With all the irresponsible spending, we WILL be taxed."
And with that the conversational ball bounced another direction. And I was left feeling my position was semi-weak. (I often correct my students who use a future result to support a present action in their essay writing.) I have no doubt that we WILL be taxed because taxes included in the stimulus bill and the omnibus government budget bill already enacted, taxes geared toward punishing "the rich" (which includes individuals and all businesses making over $250,000 a year -- that is, MANY small businesses, some of which I know personally) will be recouped by the businesses raising the price of products, which we the consumers pay. This area of economics is called "tax incidence" and says that the entity on which tax is imposed is not necessarily who bears the burden of the tax.
In addition, cap and trade tax will raise the cost of energy, so ANYTHING in our life that uses energy -- electricity, gas, petroleum -- will be much more expensive. WE WILL pay the taxes.
And that's not even counting one way the government will attempt to pay for its deficit: by raising taxes and applying them to more people and more activities. (The other way is by printing more money, which means inflation, for which -- you guessed it -- we pay.)
Well, okay, so at least the topic was brought up to the lunch bunch. Maybe they changed the topic because they were concerned themselves about their taxes. Only time will tell.
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