Meta Finis: Reasonable

When thinking about the possibilities of democracy, Abraham Lincoln said that there should be no artificial obstacles to anyone who wanted to improve and a reasonable prosperity for the majority.

The statement pivots on the word "reasonable". Hopefully he thought that "reasonable" was opposed to excessive, either in want or surplus. As such I understand his statement.

In the US, most now enjoy "affluent" lives compared to other historical times. Affluence is excess and is generally a sign of decline. Affluence cannot be sustained. Nothing in excess can. Excess numbs experience as any overstimulation does. As the wise used to say, virtue stands in the middle, not in excess.

I suppose that citizens of no other country are as interested in dulling their minds chemically or ending their lives similarly as is ours. Excess breeds that mind set. Michael Jackson comes to mind as do many others. Fame and wealth is often a terrible experience that warps lives to the point of despair and the desire to end the pain. The wisest move away from the centers of excess. The Newmans and the Pitts come to mind.

The inherent problem of capitalism is that it is prone to excess and has no built-in moderating mechanisms. It outsources its labor to socialist and communist countries while demonizing them because for profit economies have expensive health care, opportunities to sue to resolve grievances, and less excessive expectations of affluence than their American counterparts. And so we shoot ourselves in the leg by decimating our workers and spend our treasures on wars that destroy lives and property in our desire to protect our affluence. As Eisenhower warned, the military-industrial complex will be our undoing, as was the case in Russia. War's only product is profit to the military industrial complex and protect our influence over the resources of other countries needed to sustain our affluence.

We blame the supplier of drugs and not the users. We blame the teachers and not the learners. We lionize interventional medicine when we should be encouraging preventive and reasonable behaviors. We make war on everything that curbs our excesses. If we are to survive, we will have to be regulators of our own lives, not victims of advertising and its conditioned needs for the latest and the greatest signs of affluence that we simply must have. Mesmerized consumption.

Fascism is generally understood to be a conservative, nationalistic ideology, enabled by a charismatic communicator who demonizes others. Ronnie the actor was the first we saw and the beginning of the demonization of the worker and the lionization of the investor. All we need now is the Reagan jaw and rugged good looks, or the beautiful woman with starry eyes or the bulldog with lipstick. They have already demonized many, particularly workers and immigrants. None of them will be reasonable and they will lead this country into decline and idiotic policy.

The common good is reasonable. Excess is not. Those who greatly influence the media, the banking and financial system should consider that they are not beyond demonization again.