August 4, 2007

(South Carolina) - "See Dick. See Jane. See Dick and Jane run. Run, run, run."

Only those of you who went to a "big city" South Carolina grammar school between 1950 and 1957 will know that the above quote comes from More Streets and Roads - the Second grade reading book. One of the fundamentals of this book is that happy, healthy children in every day towns could identify with their infrastructure. South Carolina, and, in turn, America, has always identified and been identified by its amazing and progressive infrastructure.

It's still true.

I'm not going to express outrage that Progressives have blamed President Bush for the failing of a bridge in Minneapolis. Besides being an obviously stupid idea, if anyone is to be blamed, it's the Progressives who have raped the public weal with their socialist experiments and pitiful education attempts, instead of providing for the infrastructure of the country. And the Republicans got in on the act, too. They stole from commerce rather than providing for it.

In our federated republic¹, there are only three things which government MUST provide: a strong military, good infrastructure, and a fair and impartial judicial system.

Now, think about all the other stuff we're spending our confiscatory taxes on.

• Bank Insurance for profligate banks.
• Medical payments and insurance for people who now can't provide for themselves because federal medical mandates have pushed prices out of reach of the average American. Remember - money chases product in an open-ended system and the current 3rd-party pay system is definitely an open-ended system.
• Trailers for people who built their houses where government told them the levees were safe.
• Trying to make profligate people whole who build in stupid places or build stupidly.
• Housing for people who are too stupid to use birth control.
• Housing for people who have beaten the system by having multiple children out of wedlock and can't work because they have to stay home to raise them.
• Extra police to oversee the children of people who have beaten the system by having multiple children out of wedlock and can't work because they have to stay home to raise them.. and then don't.
• End of life payments to everybody who was forced into the end of life payment system - the money poorly managed by the government so that there really isn't any money in the system and has to be funded by increasing the amount of money from an ever-dwindling number of primary providers per payee.
• A bloated and useless bureaucracy hopelessly screwing up every task with the finest of intentions & a government helpless to end it.
• An educational system which keeps rediscovering that energized teaching coupled with repetition works, and then ignores the fact.
• The FCC.
• The FTC.
• The FAA
• The NTSC
• Anti-Global-Warming efforts.
• See where this is going?

A bridge fell in Minneapolis. It could have been fixed, but we were too busy wasting our money on things that make us weaker, too. It wasn't Bush. It wasn't a war against terrorists we're fighting there instead of here. It wasn't even Newt Gingrich. It was every politician who tried to play socialist tinker toys.

In any case, it's a STATE problem, not a federal one. And South Carolina would have plenty of money if we weren't getting reamed by the federal gas tax, half of which goes to North Carolina(!)

We need strong bridges. We need more streets and roads. See Dick. See Dick protest. See Dick voting for new people for the Statehouse if we don't put less money into socialist programs that corrupt our people and more into infrastructure.

- Dick Anderson