I often feel like a small voice in the wilderness these days. When I remember living in a tent with a dirt floor or under a bridge, I do appreciate how far I have come. That is the material side and we all know there is a lot more. I used to talk to my father about gambling and taking risks and he always told be that if he lost every thing and was poor that being poor was not all that bad. He had been there before and knew first hand that he could handle it. He know he would have to do without a lot of material things, but they were just that, material. Looking back, it is very hard for me to understand how we ever got to where we are now. I can't understand how most of our people think. This most recent affair regarding "payroll" tax is just the latest event. Where does it go from here? Simply put, our government allowed people to stop paying into their own social security account and now they see this as some kind of an "entitlement". When we try to get them to start paying again into their own social security retirement account, they see it as a tax increase. I am a father with several grown children and I know for a fact that if you were to give them candy or an allowance every week and then tried to stop, they would feel just like voters do now. What has happened? Do you understand it?
I have blogged in the past that there are really no "trends". There are "events" that take time to play out. I have also blogged that most things are driven by a very few "events" and if you can identify those very few events, then you have a chance of understanding what is and has been going on. The one that keep sticking in my mind is that "fact" that in about 1965 our high school graduates reached the high point in terms of SAT scores. Prior to that year, they were going up and after that they started going down. Since the high point in the mid 60's we have never again gotten back to that high point. Now why is this small statistic so important. It is not the statistic, but what that the statistic points out.
Let's look at people who were 18 years old in 1965 and see where they are today in 2011? My calculation shows that those people who were at the top in SAT scores are now about 64 years old. Once they were a majority in the working and voting population, but now they are in the minority. Their vote does not count as much as it once did. They have been replaced with people who have lower SAT scores. It is a fact, like it or not. Are you starting to see how our country has changed? At a time when the world is getting more and more technical and driven by intellect rather than strong backs that we have been falling behind in intellect since 1965.
I think that I have blogged before that I am a gardener and farmer and like to plant trees. I have planted thousands of trees and now those trees are so big that I can cut them for lumber. The point that I am trying to make is that I planted those trees and it was well after 1965 and yet those trees are now big enough to cut for lumber. These changes are easy to see when it is a tree, but we have the same thing happening right here within our country. Things are "not" being planted or the wrong things are planted and now we find ourselves in the harvest stage. I don't like what we have planted and I don't like what is now being harvested. How could anyone think that making them pay into their own social security account was a tax increase? That is the problem.
One final point. The fact is that our society has been dumbed down over the past 40 or 50 years and some politicians know and understand that. They have no respect for the voter since they know that they can easily manipulate them for their own ends. It is my position that Republicans still feel optimistic about the voters and try to treat them with respect while the Democrats understand how stupid they really are and take advantage of them. Are the Democrats the smart ones and the Republicans the stupid ones? It depends on whether or not you yourself have been dumbed down and do not even know it. As I have pointed out, the average IQ in the USA is 100. If you think that most people are above 100, then you are a Republican. If you think that most people are under 100, then you are a Democrat, but both would be wrong. You figure it out!!
