Archive: Business & Technology

Click to purchaseDuring our lifetimes, politicians redefined the words ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ and used them as labels to define opposite parties.  Traditionally, conservative meant risk averse.   Traditionally, liberal meant freedom loving.  This meant it was possible to be a conservative democrat or a liberal republican.

When freedom loving and risk aversion were both used to describe opinions (coupled with separation of church and state) political parties needed platforms built around issues. Placing the two non-opposing metrics in opposition eliminated the need for candidates to create or communicate sound platforms.  Now it’s just ‘Are you a conservative or liberal?’

The redefined conservative and liberal meanings create a simplistic political battle ground.  They have led us to adopt a number of misperceptions.  These misperceptions include:

• Money (currency) is wealth.
• Healthcare service plans (like HMOs, Preferred Partners, etc…) are insurance.
• Social Security and Medicare are ‘entitlements’ (The worst 4 syllable version of a curse word!!).
• Being outwardly religious equates to being conservative.
• Being liberal equates to restricting individual rights to guns, money, and religious ideologies.
• Being conservative equates to supporting strong national defense, budgetary discretion, and corporate rights.
• Being an American company means making products in America.
• Being a foreign company means making products outside of America.

If you agree with the list, that’s great…  If you don’t agree, have fun debating and creating your own list.  Whether or not you would call this list ‘misperceptions’ or accept the bullets as fact, or anything in between…  We propose that the list is getting in the way of resolving:

National debt levels
Rising cost of medical care
A public education system in decline
and a crumbling national infrastructure

There are reasonable approaches that are easier than most people think.  We all have our opinions.  And all opinions are like armpits and ………... (Fill in the blank with your own favorite stinky body part).  Fortunately for the readers, we live in a democratic society.  So you don't have to agree with our opinions… but we challenge you to come up with their own.  Not just take sides with the people you like hanging out with, or who serve your special interests… but really think and come up with your own ideas.  You’re smarter than the politicians and pundits think.

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