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| Whole world is going crazy, so why don’t we just dance? |
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Most of the noise that comes out of my teenage son’s computer (nobody listens to records anymore) is hard for me to appreciate as music. I have nothing against today’s music; it is just that I feel for sound to qualify as music it should have a beat, a melody, and the singer should be singing in the same key as the music.
Every now and then, however, the random selection of digital audio files, known as shuffling, calls up a country song. One such song caught my attention as I was researching this column. The chorus goes, “Well it might be me but the way I see it the whole world has gone crazy. So baby, why don’t we just dance?” There are a lot of us in agriculture today that feel like the whole world has gone crazy. For example: on the one hand, the government wants to spend millions of dollars to make sure children get plenty of good nutritious food; while on the other hand, they want to ban or regulate the tools needed by farmers to produce that food.
It is not okay for Americans to buy or sell raw milk, but a U.S. coffee company can import tainted milk from China. An international oil company contemptuously thumbs its nose at the American public and the US President, but legislation to jumpstart our own home-grown energy source can’t get off first base. Americans want to legalize marijuana for medical use, but don’t want to let livestock producers give antibiotics to their animals.
Yes, baby, the whole world has gone crazy.
Another line from the Josh Turner song goes: “Why don’t we just turn that TV off. Three-hundred-fifteen channels of nothing but bad news on.” It is true - we do seem to be obsessed with bad news these days. A lot of that bad news has to do with the economy and American business. It seems that businessmen are viewed as public enemy No. 1. In fact, the whole basis of our economic system has fallen into disrepute with most Americans.
A recent Harris poll indicated that most people do not like our basic system of capitalism. Only 28 percent said they like our current economic system. Even more frightening, only 23 percent like our current political system. However, 62 percent rated TV, movies and entertainment highly. Technology received the highest rating at more than 70 percent.
In another study, people disapproved of “capitalism” but approved of “free trade.”
Our basic economic system, which is unique in the world and is responsible for our freedom and high standard of living, is despised by most of the people who benefit from it.
Given this, it is not surprising that people are so willing to support government mandates and accept government handouts.
A few weeks ago we celebrated our nation’s Independence Day.
There was lots of talk about freedom, but the reason July 4, 1776 happened had more to do with economics than political freedom. What inspired our founding fathers to declare independence was not a dislike of the king but a dislike of taxes. Had King George not levied burdensome taxes on the colonies, we might still be drinking tea every afternoon and playing cricket instead of baseball. It was the taxes that made it impossible for farmers and merchants to make a profit that sparked the American Revolution.
We need a little of that revolutionary spirit today as we face increasing taxes and more regulations. Our capitalistic, economic system provides the best hope for our future, the recovery of our economy, and the solution to many of our most pressing problems. It will, however, take voters and leaders who are willing to face these issues.
As tempting as it may be, our response to a crazy world cannot be to just turn off the tube and dance. |
| 7/21/2010 |
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