Understanding

Not too long ago I was having a beer, watching the TV at the bar. It was in the afternoon and someone had put one of the bar TVs on a news channel.

You can probably guess what happened next. Being a news channel, sooner or later they just had to play a segment of a Bush speech. Being somewhat recent, the segment was about this hoopla going on now with the NSA and wiretapping and stuff.

So I groaned. It sounded something like this: "Oh shit! Not this guy again!".

At this point the person who had put the TV on the news channel started to question me. They wanted to know what I meant by "oh shit, not this guy again". I started off by saying that I try not to watch serious stuff like the news while sitting at a bar drinking beer. I also mentioned that I try to not watch the TV anytime the president is on, because no matter what I am drinking, even if it is just water, if I hurl that is money wasted.

Apparently this guy was not very amused by my comments. He started to go off on how it was the president that understands the constitution, not "those liberals" in the senate.

Now I could have just left things where they were. But that would be no fun. So I said: "I do not think the president understands the Constitution. It is written in that loopy old-timey script handwriting which is hard to read. His attention span is not great enough to get past the first few words."

This was pretty much the end of the conversation. The guy moved down the bar, muttering something about me not understanding my ass from a hole in the ground.

But I thought my comments were witty and rather funny. I mean, can you form a mental picture of the President trying to read a reproduction of the Constitution? I do not mean a nice typed copy - I am talking about a copy that looks handwritten. Ill give you some time to form a mental image of that.

So did you laugh? Even a giggle? Come on now - admit it. You laughed. Hell, I am still laughing. Well not really but you get the idea.

All this got me to thinking. What is understanding anyway? And how can the John Deere baseball hat wearing people still support the president? I have been to a number of gun shows, and here is what I would hear all the time a few years ago when Clinton was the man (as opposed to the former man).

1. Democrats want to keep all the power in DC and remove it from the States.
2. Democrats want a huge all powerful federal government.
3. Democrats want to keep records on Americans, mostly gun records.
4. Democrats are all about tax and spend fiscal policy.
5. Other stuff.

But lets look at what Bush has done.

1. Created a massive power base on the federal level, leaving out the States.
2. Created a system where the Executive Branch can just decide that federal laws do not apply to it. Like for example the fisa law.
3. Created an effective system to keep who knows what kind of records on American citizens. The secret "do not fly" list that you can not get your name removed from. The wiretapping. Library book records. Stuff you buy using your bank or credit card. And so on.
4. Horrible fiscal policy. The deficit is WAY UP, and there is no end in sight. The "tax cuts" simply did not go to those who needed them the most. Talks about all the great new jobs that have been created - when in other news Ford recently laid off something like 30,000 jobs. What jobs were created? "Welcome to Wal-Mart, would you like a weekly specials flier?" is NOT a real job.
5. And other stuff.

It boggles my mind. It really does. But who am I to question all this stuff. So when I get my hands on the bar TV remote control, it goes right on Cartoon Network. Or Spike TV.