Dr. Forbush Thinks

I really enjoy getting comments from people, whether they agree with me or not. When people disagree with me it offers an opportunity to either clarify my thinking or my writing. Sometime what I write isn’t exactly what I am thinking and that disconnect leads to problems. Sometimes I see how a person has been programmed to look at a problem and it offers me an opportunity to show that person how they can look at the problem in a more useful way. Sometimes it just makes my job of pointing out a problem with conservative thought just that much easier.

So, it was quite interesting when I was accused of advocating "relaxation and ignorance," in my last post “Republican Rhetoric.” when this is precisely what the Republicans advocate for the wealthy. The Republicans would like to protect their wealth so that it can be passed down to their children for many generations so that they never need to work or even educate themselves if they choose not to. In addition, in the Republican ranks it is not what you know that gets you promoted, it is whom you know. This cronyism assures the ignorance of the government to issues that life long public servants have understood for years.

So, to make things clear here, when I advocate for the poor to have a safety net for when they loose their jobs and are inflicted with an illness I am advocating “relaxation and ignorance.” But when the wealthy want to make sure that their ignorant friends get plum jobs with high pay and low skills required that “relaxation and ignorance” should be ignored.

But, this was in response to the idea of security being a feeling of being safe without fear. And to this I also received a comment saying "Security as a feeling is useless!" I have updated my post to include the definition of security for those who are only familiar with the financial market definitions of the word.

My dictionary says that security means:

1) Freedom from risk or danger; safety.
2) Freedom from doubt, anxiety, or fear; confidence.


To this I need to reply, Security is only a feeling. Either you feel secure, or you do not. The absence of security is fear. When you feel fear, then you take measures to change that which results in a feeling of security. For those who hold the narrow definition of security to imply military might equals security I believe that your fear must be focused on the world powers being out to get us. Or, if police security is your focus you must be overly concerned with the criminals taking over the city. The wealthy have every right to think this, because the top 1% of the wealthy control 80% of the worlds wealth they pass that wealth down to their children and grandchildren and there is little hope that the majority of people will ever break into that top 1%. The American idea of meritocracy is a good talk, but it doesn’t play out in real life. Just look at the extensive cronyism in the Republican Party. If the majority of the worlds population actually realizes this they may use force to rebel like they did in Russia and China. However, if a more peaceful and political way to alleviate these inequalities through a true meritocracy actually come to fruition more of the poor will find their way to wealth and the wealthy will actually need to work to support their lifestyle.

In order to have true security the government either needs to calm the nation by telling us how wonderful everything is, or they need to spend money on things that make us "feel" safe. For some, those things are police and military for others it is health care and insurance. How safe do people feel today when we know that Homeland security is just as bad now as it was on 9/11/2001? Cutting the funding for FEMA and other Homeland security projects only cuts into the true American security issue.

The truth is that lying and distortion do not buy us true security. They give us a temporary illusion of security by telling us to calm down because the government has things under control. But when a disaster like Hurricane Katrina strikes the American people are made aware of the truth behind the rhetoric. There were just to many ignorant people at FEMA and in the Department of Homeland Security because of who they knew rather than what they knew. And, since they didn’t really know what they were supposed to do there they just sat around and relaxed. The American people know this now and hopefully they will want the mess cleaned up in the next election.