By Eric Leitzen
Hokah, MN
Smartypants and online weirdos who care way too much about “owning” someone in a debate love to talk about something called “logical fallacies.” Basically, this is a fancy way of referring to what comes out of the back end of a bull. One of them is called the “Golden Mean Fallacy” which again is saying the middle of two arguments must always be the truth, simply because it is the middle and therefore it’s a perfect compromise. But when one person says we need to plant cabbages to have enough food and another person says we should grow giant ragweed because it’s easier, well… doing half & half is going to end up with a lot of people starving. The middle is not always the truth, and it certainly isn’t always the best idea. And yet, for decades now we’ve had one major group of people calling the shots in this country who seem to think that finding the middle ground between one group guaranteeing everyone basic needs, and another group supporting the boss that doesn’t pay you enough to eat is somehow the best way.
This sort of “Centrism” is a myth. When one party is taken over by extremists who want to build a new Great Wall of China (which didn’t work, by the way) and the other party wants to meet those knuckleheads halfway, you wind up with things being half-horrible, and that’s not good enough. That’s given us a situation where most of us have to suffer through a pandemic while a couple billionaires get even richer as half a million people die. Those are not acceptable losses you pay for a polite society or whatever these bird-brains think. It’s a policy of letting bad things happen because you’re worried about losing your own cushy spot if the rest of us are allowed what is rightfully ours.
You are owed 40 years of back pay. Profits and productivity have gone up for decades, but wages have not kept pace. The money made from that has been skimmed off by rich people who keep getting richer, richer than they could ever spend, and they’re using that disgusting amount of money to fund two parties that either offer you Armageddon or half an apocalypse while Jeff Bezos jets off to his space colony or whatever. That’s your money, it should be put in your pocket and spent to make your life better, because it’s yours. The reason you won’t hear any other “reasonable” person say this is because they benefit from things as they are, or they are angling to get a piece of that pie, rather than share it.
I have benefited from the pandemic. Being home with my kids these past 18 months has saved us a disturbing amount on childcare costs. As a family, we’re sitting better than we ever have before. Does that mean I want this keep this going? Heck no! I want everyone to have it better because everyone is working to make it better! I’m not a monster, for crying out loud, and if you’re for the status quo right now, you might wanna check your teeth in the mirror to see if you got fangs coming in.
How did we get here? Well, round about 1973 the ghouls who run giant corporations decided they were going to start fighting dirty and began buying the government lock, stock and barrel. This lead to both parties deciding that they either needed to get on that gravy train or get voted out, so now we have two parties that worry more about sucking up to the oligarchy than serving the people. Meanwhile, our food isn’t safe, our water isn’t clean, our towns are falling apart, you can’t afford to go to the doctor… and we’re told that it’s us, not those who took all the money, that need to foot the bill. Why? Because it turns out that the “center” between crazy and sane is useless.
The middle is not always the answer. Sometimes you gotta make a move.
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