You Scratch My Back, I'll Scratch Yours

Every man is imperfect, we all have our faults. Some people are stronger than others, some smarter, some more greedy, and some are simply more devious. We join together in self regulation for our own protection. Sometimes we over regulate ourselves and sometimes we under regulate ourselves but over time we, in each of our societies, come to what should be though of as a well-regulated life. When our ability or propensity to establish rules fails so does our society.

Our country grew up hard. We are the stuff of adventurous stock, and ruffians, and debtors, and the pious too. In a new land of immense natural wealth a few men climbed to the top. We had our age of robber Barons and we had our great depression too. We learned from them. What we learned was that rational regulation leads to a society that offers the greatest opportunity for the advancement of all of its members, or at least as many of its members as we are able to include. This is what our nation is. A complex state governed within the framework a a myriad of regulation designed to protect us from the greedy and the devious.

When you want to understand what the current Administration is all about just look to its treatment and disdain for regulation. They would deregulate everything under the guise is a level playing field, they would give themselves the power to take all unfettered by rule or law designed to protect the greatest number of us. It is an interesting mindset, this antisocial haze in which the members of the Republican Party believes that the best of Government is the least Government, that every man has the god given right to do as he pleases, that the first to find the end of the rainbow gets the whole pot of gold, and the rest can fend for themselves. When you look at the republican ideal in that light it does away with the need for conspiracy. The coal interests can coexist with the military/industrial boys, and the antiabortionists, and the off-shore drillers, and the bloodsuckers of the pharmaceutical and banking industries all under one banner - deregulation. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

And this, it seems to me is the state of our nation today. They have deregulated where they could and where they couldn't they have simply ceased to enforce regulation. It is the same from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Defense, at State and Justice, Commerce and Education, Labor and Treasury - its every man for himself and preference given to campaign donors. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

And the working man and woman? Where do they stand? Well, nobody deregulated them, you can bet on that.

If we lived by the laws of those we displaced, we could truly be a beacon of hope for the rest of the world.