The American People Need Therapy

This is not a partisan political problem. Our great desire to have a better, cleaner, freer, cheaper, lower taxed, and higher level of benefits, society is a general and pervasive delusion.

Energy issues, shown by the current catastrophic oil spill, are good examples of our internal conflict. No one, except oil companies, wants off shore oilrigs. They are unsightly and obviously subject to disaster. But no one, except oil companies and Arab nations, want us to be pouring our money into unfriendly pockets abroad, knowing that some of the money will be used to blackmail us and to arm our enemies.

On the other hand, no one really wants nuclear power plants in their neighborhood. Many don't want them anywhere on our soil. On the other hand (are we running out of hands yet?) the people who live along our beautiful coasts don't want wind farms. They are unsightly (The wind farms, that is. The people are tan, tucked and lovely). The wind-driven blades may act like Cuisinarts slicing, dicing and puréeing birds. The same complaints come forward concerning land-based wind farms. Even the attempts to build solar collectors in the desert raise passionate opposition for being (you guessed it, unsightly) and disturbing some snail, snake or lizard. Of course, we'll happily damn anyone who proposes building a dam.

We want our state and federal budgets balanced but resist cutting any programs or raising any revenue. Uh, this is a problem. We want everyone employed, the libraries open, the schools funded, the civil servants paid (and possibly even civil and of service), but we want lower property, sales and income taxes. We want less government and more service.