The Fundamental of Fair Play

Why is there so much angst in America?

Why are our neighbors so upset about so many things?

Can the sources of the angst and upset be identified and resolved?

And then can we, as Americans with some sense of community, move forward?

And so we started our essay on the fundamental of fair play. Our attempt to get at the root cause of the divide in the land; the turmoil in state capitols; the disconnect between the forces of spend and save; taxpayer and public servant; progressive and conservative brought us to focus on this simple and very American concept of fair play. Americans know when someone is not playing by the rules. When someone is taking advantage. When someone thinks they are either better than or deserve more than their fair share. We’ve been thinking about this concept of fair play as the root cause of our angst and upset for some time and we read a pretty good article written by David Brooks. The article was entitled, Make Everybody Hurt which is one way of looking at “fair play.” Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/opinion/22brooks.html?ref=davidbrooks   Brooks is a NYTimes writer/columnist and frequent TV person who is called upon by the mainstream media to represent the other side of the issue. By that we mean, the side they neither grasp nor support. David is pretty good at this challenge but again he does hang out with a strange group of characters.

And this is how far we got, writing the opening lines above, when we were distracted* and came upon this article in the NYTimes “Magazine” Section, written by Matt Bai, staff writer: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/magazine/27christie-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&adxnnlx=1298718153-nFGjunU7R8yOdopCovpC7A  The article is entitled “How Chris Christie Did His Homework” which is a bit of clever play on words as you will discover after reading Mr. Bai’s very well written piece.

Now, are you beginning to see our dilemma? No. Okay. Bear with us for a moment.

One of our personal fundamentals is to not reinvent the wheel which simply means why do something that someone else has already done and most likely done better than we can. We, of course, find great wisdom in these fundamentals of ours. Others, perhaps our critics, the numbers of which appear to be growing with a geometric rise similar to our national debt, would just call it laziness.

Oh well.

Messrs. Brooks and Bai have nailed it in their work. By it, we mean “fair play.” We will someday, perhaps, finish our essay, begun above, on fair play. In the meantime, please read the two essays referenced above. We hope both give you a sense of what is going on and what should go on but also why we, at TheFundamentals, are very optimistic that yes, us angst and upset Americans will indeed get through this period; and, as a community, we will move forward.

Closing. Read Brooks last paragraph carefully. He says, “austerity.” Is that anything like sacrifice and frugality? Remember folks, that we at TheFundamentals have been talking “sacrifice and frugality” for years. Nice to see the NY boyz catching on/up!

* Focus is not our strong suit!