A Dog’s Tale
Ahhhh, the joy of being a dog.
Did you ever try to point at something you wanted your dog to look at? If your dog is anything like mine what they end up looking at is your pointing hand (at least mine does on those rare occasions when she actually takes a break from her nap and has her eyes open). To the dog your hand is not a symbol for something else or an instructive tool to direct their attention elsewhere. It’s the hand that feeds them, the hand that pets them and in hopefully rare occasions the hand that reprimands them. You put your hand out so they figure you must want them to look at the hand. It’s a pretty simple way to approach life.
We, on the other hand (pun intended), spend so much time looking for hidden meanings and explanations that we often miss the obvious in search of the obscure. We argue and debate just about every issue until every minuscule detail becomes a quantum physics project where all true meaning is lost in the endless theory of the ultimate possibility.
Where Pavlov trained his dog’s subconscious to cause it to salivate at the sound of a bell, Americans have been trained to accept that everything resides in a gray area, where there is no real truth and no distinction between right and wrong. Our lives are controlled by market tested catch phrases and slogans designed to make us feel a certain way regardless of how plausible the reality of the premise. The shibboleths of Hope and Change are a perfect example of how easily we can be misled in a desire to find inner meaning while ignoring the obvious.
Hope and Change can mean just about anything to anybody, for as each person considers its meaning they shade it with their own life experience and innermost wishes. These two catch words bring with them the infinite possibility of happiness and security in the future. It’s kind of like buying a lottery ticket. With each dollar spent comes the hope of a mega-million dollar payday and the change that will have on our lives and those we care about. But while buying a lottery ticket may give us a temporary dream of opulent living it is not a sound long-term financial plan. If you have a dollar to spend on the lottery by all means go for it, but if you are looking to cash in what is left in your 401K and increase your chances by buying as many tickets as that will pay for you will likely be sorely disappointed unless you don’t mind the long line at the soup kitchen.
That ill-conceived draining of already diminished financial resources is exactly what the Senate is considering with the renewed push to pass the ObamaCare healthcare package. We have been programmed by the political left wing and their partners in the major news media to look at the word healthcare as a symbol for something else rather than taking it at face value. When we hear the word healthcare on the six o’clock news it is now inexorably tied in our psyche to the faceless millions that liberals claim are somehow not capable of participating in it. We have lost the simplistic common sense shown by man’s best friend to simply look at healthcare for what it is, healthcare.
We are heading down the dangerous path where every aspect of our lives needs to be tied to some symbol of serving the greater good. As it relates to healthcare, diminishing services to everyone will be to no one’s benefit. The recent government sponsored report recommending a reduction in cancer screening is a perfect example of this. It’s time we started taking things at face value rather than looking for theoretical advancements through reduced expectations.
The success of any good magician in getting his audience to look where he’s pointing and not at his hand. In magic it’s called misdirection; in politics it’s called Hope and Change.
