Audio Transcripts
04/04/07
[Start Program]
(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)
Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.
For the past few weeks I’ve been talking about tax reform. About how our current system of taxation is slowly destroying our way of life, about how we NEED to scrap the entire system and start fresh, and about what it takes to do it. I’ve given you the alternatives. I’ve even spelled out and explained the number one thing that destroys any discussion of changing our current failing tax system.
There’s only one element left that I haven’t really delved into: what it takes to get any kind of needed changes made.
You see… I’ve been talking about the need for tax reform for a couple of years now. I bring it up in my columns, in online commentaries, in chat room discussions, and even one-on-one in personal conversations. And every time… every single time… people will nod their heads in agreement and say that they like the ideas I bring up. They agree that reform needs to be done, and they even like the alternatives that I mention. HOWEVER, they really don’t think that ideas like this will ever see the light of day in Washington. They have become so JADED by the corruption and the bureaucracy and the petty ego-driven political games to believe that anything could EVER be done to make the system work for us instead of screwing us over.
And I really don’t blame them for thinking that way! I really don’t! Look, we as voters took the GOP OUT OF POWER in 2006 because they were a bunch of corrupt arrogant bastards who couldn’t get anything done outside of rubber-stamping the White House agenda. And they couldn’t even do that right!
And I’m not happy with the politicians who ARE in power right now. So far they’re pretty much a lot of talk and very little action where it is needed the most. So yeah, I can understand why people are jaded about making government work FOR us instead working AGAINST us, as it has been doing.
But at the same time, we need to do something about this failing tax system, and we need to do it pretty damn soon.
So what does it take? Quite simply, it takes the WILL to get it done.
You see… politicians know, especially from this past election, that if you piss off the voters enough, they will DEMAND that something be done to fix the problem. And they will vote accordingly just to save their own jobs.
This is why many of our politicians seem to suffer at times from a lack of direction. They’re waiting to see what OTHER PEOPLE will tell them to do. For some politicians, it’s a party leader. For some others, it’s a special interest group. And for the rest, it’s whatever the POLLS tells them to do. You know why? Because they lack the SPINE to decide for themselves how to represent their constituents… and because we’ve all become so JADED by the ineptitude that WE pretty much don’t give a crap about the process… and so the decision-making process defaults to these other groups.
That’s why our system is screwed up the way that it is, boys and girls. We’re not taking part in the process… either by our apathy, or by conscious decision, or even by some orchestrated conspiracy by special interest groups. Blame whomever you want to, but the fact of the matter is that we’re not doing our jobs.
But here’s the thing: if there is enough WILL from the public, then we can MAKE these changes happen.
And as luck would have it… I happen to have a little story from our own history to prove that it can be done.
You see… once upon a time there was a certain measure that a certain special interest moralist group wanted enacted. Now this was something that the public, by in large, DID NOT want. But that didn’t matter to the moralist group… THEY wanted it enacted, and they did whatever it took to get their way. They infiltrated the government and made sure that the politicians passed THEIR laws exactly as THEY wanted them passed.
But every time that the moralists seemed to get their way, their efforts were stopped by the general public. Moralist laws on this subject either got repealed or else they got shot down in the courts. People made it clear that they DID NOT want these laws enacted. Unfortunately, this moralist group was determined to have their way, and when they had just enough political power, they passed their law in such a way that they believed would NEVER be removed. They made it a part of the US Constitution, which meant that the courts couldn’t throw it out, and the public couldn’t repeal it once enacted. They believed that they won. Game over.
This law stayed on the books for a little over a decade, enforced by the government at the behest of the moralists. At first the public tried to ignore this action, but then once the government started enforcing this law, the public pretty much turned to criminals for help, because they were essentially criminals at this point anyway.
The moralists didn’t care, though. If the general public became criminals, then so be it! Their will be done!
But there were still those who said that this WASN’T over with! They believed that the measure was fundamentally WRONG, and they did everything possible to get rid of it. They tried to go to Congress to change this… only to find that the Congress was still corrupted by this moralist group. They refused to do anything, even when proof came out that this measure was causing the very problems that they claimed they were trying to prevent! Still didn’t matter, though… because the moralists wanted it, and THEIR WILL be done!
Well it turns out there WAS a way to bypass Congress on this. The moralists thought that it would never happen, but it did, and the measure was finally repealed.
Now to fill in a few of the blanks here… the moralist group in question was a collection of Christian fundamentalists, women suffragists, temperance activists, and, believe it or not, a certain bigoted organization with the letter K in each of their three initials. You can probably figure out that the matter in question was the outlawing of alcohol. And the only Constitutional Amendment that was ever repealed in a manner that did not involve congressional action… was Eighteenth Amendment, otherwise known as the Volstead Act or simply as Prohibition.
But let’s get brutally honest here… this repeal would have NEVER happened if people didn’t stop trying to make it happen! They took a stand and they continued to press for a way to shut down that measure. They heard the same arguments as those being made today about tax reform. They were given the same amount of skepticism as the people pushing for tax reform are getting today. They knew that the corrupt bastards in Congress wouldn’t lift a finger to do what’s right.
Prohibition would STILL be in effect today if there wasn’t sufficient WILL from the public to make that repeal happen! The repeal would have never been passed if the public wasn’t pissed off enough to WANT it.
And that is EXACTLY what needs to be done here for REAL tax reform! The public REALLY needs to get PISSED! They need to know what is at stake here with our current failing tax system. They need to know that within a decade, we are facing a serious, SERIOUS crisis. We won’t have to worry about how our grandchildren or even how our children will handle this problem… because we’ll be right there as it happens! It’ll happen when WE are still alive! THAT is the kind of urgency we need. The public needs to know how important this is, and that the only way that this failing tax system will change is if WE REALLY WANT it to!
Now once that happens… once the masses are determined to make these changes happen and have the system work FOR us instead of AGAINST us, then the politicians know that they can either support us, they can step aside, or they can look for another job. The GOP found out that little lesson just this past fall, and that was for just incompetence, ineptitude, corruption, and one hypocritical child predator. Imagine what it would be like if the masses actually had something to rally FOR!
(Computer – a real FairTax promo – yes there is one! And you have to listen to the show to hear it!)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)
Our failing system of taxation is in place today because we as voters have been lulled into thinking that we can tweak an already flawed system and keep things going just long enough to pass this problem on to another generation. Listen to the rhetoric about Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare! They’re not talking about fixing the system! They’re talking about simply making it work just long enough for it to become someone else’s problem… and preferably that would be some point after we’re dead so we wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences.
Well guess what? The delaying games won’t work anymore. Our system is on borrowed time right now, and the expiration date is a lot sooner that you think!
And here’s the punch-line: our elected grifters and shysters have KNOWN this for a long time! They’re just waiting for US to tell them that this is an issue.
(Pause)
Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!
(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)
[End of program]
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