Shortcut to Nowhere

Shortcut to Nowhere

My Dad was one of those who knew better than anyone else. Even when facts confronted him, he found a way around them. He was probably the source of that ubiquitous joke about men drivers never asking directions.

I never saw him look at a map or stop at a gas station to ask for help. All Dad knew was where he was starting and where he was going. He’d point the grill of the car in the direction of our destination and take off.

In our frequent trips from Fort Worth to the Panhandle, we had to go through Wichita Falls. On each of the first dozen trips, he tried a different route to circumvent downtown.

Now, I’ll admit we saw sights we would never had seen otherwise. Once I think we might have seen the Grand Canyon, but that’s pretty far fetched. Still-- Anyway we never saved any time with his shortcuts. He would never listen to suggestions, exclaiming instead, “I know what in the (expletives here-big time expletives) I’m doing.” And with that retort, the argument was settled.

Of course, he’d really get mad when he took a shortcut and then got back on the highway only to discover cars that he had passed ten miles back were ahead of him. My brother and I always muffled our snickers.

The reason I’m waxing nostalgic here is that if you look around this world of ours, there are a lot of folks out there who, I believe, are trying to take us where they think we should go, and without any better reasons that my Dad had in believing he knew the best shortcut.

Look how politicians tried to make us believe global warming was man-made- and now, look at how they’re crawfishing ever since personal e-mails have revealed scientists conspired to manipulate data to support what they surmised instead of the truth.

Certainly, you can’t argue with icebergs and glaciers melting. That is happening; there is global warming; but man is not the main cause. We might not be helping, but this earth will do what it wants.

No one denies ice once covered most of North America, then began retreating. All that is merely happening is that the ice is still retreating (duh), and if there were no humans on this planet, the ice would still be retreating.

There is talk about too much carbon dioxide, yet the proponents cannot tell us how much is too
much. All they can tell us is that it is higher than it has ever been. In other words, they don’t know what will happen, just like Dad didn’t know the way around Wichita Falls.

And the same is going on with this health care mess. Proponents jammed it through without knowing exactly what the effects will be. Their argument was ‘get it done, then figure it out.’ We need some reform. I won’t argue that, but let’s go about it sensibly.

All Dad should have done was look at a map and figure out a shortcut, not blunder ahead as he did so often, wasting time, gas, and patience.

The government needs to slow down, figure out exactly where we’re going, determine what it will cost, and then act, not the way the Senate pulled it off the other day.

I keep hearing politicians talk about how historical this health bill will be. Well, Jockos, jam that bill all the way through to the president’s desk, and I’ve got a feeling history will not treat you as saviors, but instead vilify the 111th Congress as the most dimwitted (pardon the redundancy), uncaring, and selfish congress in the history of our country.

A woman by the name of Joan Gorner observed that governments historically used crises to increase their power. In this last year we’ve had an Economic crisis, Health-care crisis, H1N1 crisis, and Global climate crisis.

This administration has told us unless we let the government step in and tell us what to do, we will drown, die, lose our homes, our savings, our hair, and happy hour at the local bar.

The lady makes sense.

Obviously, she knows this congress better than most, don’t you think?