Let others goose their heartbeats over Wiki Leaks, which, on a scale of significant news, rates midway between raindrops and bird droppings. The most serious story of the week is the dispute in Congress over whether to extend unemployment benefits for deadbeats.
Oops, tipped my hand.
As liberals and conservatives — 95 percent of political devotees are one or the other; independents mainly lean left or right; they are not pure centrists; otherwise they never would budge from drawing up to a signal light — we can reasonably disagree, especially if a family member or pal is on the sidelines.
Ninety-nine weeks of unemployment benefits creates a deadbeat society. This appears to be among President Obama’s objectives as he trains his primary energy on redistributing the wealth of those of us who go to work every day. Liberals stump for tax increases as easily as they drink water. Used to be 26 weeks, six months, which my conscience tells me is five months too long. If you aren’t working in a month, you are not trying — yes, even in today’s environment. As teenagers, most of us learned how and why we are morally obligated to pursue meaningful careers, to make a positive difference in the world.
Are You Persuaded?
If mewling liberals can stanch the bleeding in their hearts long enough to trot out handpicked sad sack samples of gloriously deserving “unemployed” persons to justify extending already outrageously lengthy benefits, I shall, too.
A certain person of my acquaintance — since I wish to mask identity, I will tell you it could be a single mom with two children or a married father of one child — has been supporting his/her family for 16 months on unemployment checks. The Person’s unemployment benefits expire in April. Since a year ago last summer, no one has reported being trampled or otherwise injured when The Person flew out the door every day at the crack of daylight every morning, desperately, pridefully, bulldoggedly pursuing gainful work.
Oh, no one flew out the door? I see.
To my knowledge, not even peripheral employment inquiries have escaped the lips of The Person, confident Mr. Obama’s delighted-to-cooperate government won’t interrupt the family’s lifestyle for another 130 days.
Lack of ballast, lack of gravitas, a soft underbelly of sentimental reasoning are the main vulnerabilities in America’s liberal leaders when they plant their feet to fight against Republicans in Washington for the du jour social justice cause. And class warfare, once shunned, is now recognized as a legitimate weapon by the left-dominated media.
You can turn on almost any television channel and catch a powerful person in Washington railing against the “rich,” against the morally ugly corporations, against the greed of wretches who not only earn more than $250,000 a year but — can you believe? — expect to keep it. How selfish.
The words to their Woe Is Me songs never vary — feel sorry for us non-rich because we are the daily victims of hose miserly successful people, only they never call them successful. They know naughtier words.
Reaching for a Pill
Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration now is in residence in Berkeley, warbled the warped Woe Is Me melody last Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle (http://www.sfgate.com/columns/reich/)
Never known for his penetrating reasoning, perhaps in honor of the recent holiday, Mr. Reich served up a cerebral turkey that even an amateur logician would have rejected at birth:
Extending the Bush tax cuts for the people at the top would cost more than extending unemployment benefits for struggling families without a breadwinner. These families need the money. The rich don't.
Just to prove one cockeyed rationalization was not a mirage, Mr. Reich sprang this delusional donkey on us:
A Labor Department report shows that for every $1 spent on unemployment insurance, $2 is spent in the economy.
I expect all children over the age of 10 can neutralize that feel-good nonsense without consulting a textbook.
Should we accept Mr. Reich’s logic, dozens of millions of Americans should resign their jobs this afternoon to draw unemployment because that will help the economy, presently wearing Obama handcuffs, regain its footing. Following the gentleman’s two-for-one formula, prosperity will be restored within days, weeks at the max.
Does anyone have an aspirin?
