Truisms

A truism is defined as a belief or value that is accepted as self evident; it’s obvious. Pretty simple. It is a truism that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It is a truism that boys and girls are different. It is a truism that the first job of a politician upon election is to work for reelection.

Truisms are fundamentals. They have to be. They are widely accepts truths and you dare not ignore them except at great peril to your credibility.

So, here we go. Let’s examine the truisms that are now dominating our national situation.

Truism #1. We can spend our way to prosperity. That’s what the economists and politicians are saying. Or, if you want to look at the glass half full – if you don’t keep spending, baby spending, it’s gonna get a lot worse. That is the current truism of the party in power (PIP) and the party out of power (POOP) is afraid to challenge it because if they do, PIP will descend upon them with the biblical strength of an excremental atmospheric event. So, what to do? Well POOP could be courageous, be bold, and propose cutbacks in spending, balance the budget, raise some taxes, and introduce the concept of debt repayment or some combination of the foregoing? But, that approach could backfire on them which lead us to:

Truism #2. Don’t interrupt your enemy while they are engaging in self destruction. There is little doubt but that PIP is doing its best to follow POOP on the route POOP took when they were PIP to get tossed out on their butts. So, POOP is saying to themselves, let’s just lie back in the weeds, avoid saying or doing something that PIP can pick up on and redirect the focus to us and, come November, PIP becomes POOP. Is this a good idea? Well, it does lead to:

Truism #3. Them’s that can, do; the rest teach and the few left over become politicians. Really they first become lawyers or economists and then they become politicians. Now this truism is not challengeable. There is no evidence that any lawyer or economist could have been a brain surgeon, an astronaut, a carpenter or an inventor. Instead they choose law and economics. They are lawyers and economists because they could not be surgeons, astronauts, etc. Which leads us to:

Truism #4. What’s the difference between lawyers and economists? Well, it is best to answer this question with a little story that we heard as young ‘uns at out grandfather’s knee. Grandpa, you see was an explorer and he was with one of the earliest expeditions that ventured into the Borneo jungle to see just what the heck was living/surviving/hanging out in that rather sultry climate. Lo and behold the expedition came upon a tribe of people eaters and they were cooking up their meals – legs sticking out of big pots of boiling water with arms flaying every which way but, the heads were missing. Off to the side was a table set up with big bowls and stick ‘em notes saying something in a strange language. Gramps asked the head people eater what’s going on? The top guy said that the bowls contained the brains of the dinner guests. He explained that bowl #1 had explorer brains and they were priced very low. The next bowl had soldier brains and they were priced slightly higher. There were several others and then came lawyer brains and they cost a lot more and finally, economist brains which were double the price of lawyer brains. Gramps was astounded. He could not believe this situation because it seemed to defy Truism #3 (see above) about both lawyers and economists. So, he asked, “Why do the lawyer brains and the economist brains cost so much more? “ Chief guy said, “Do you know how many lawyers and economists we have to kill to get an ounce of brains?”

Which leads us back to Truism #1. “We can spend our way to prosperity.”

Consider the source.