Solving Problems--The Three Stooges Way?

An old Three Stooges (I know, I know.....) episode includes a scene in which the rowboat they are in is leaking and taking on water. So, they drill another hole in the boat to let out the accumulating water. Simple solution, right? Ha Ha Ha. That's one of the reasons they were the Three Stooges. It seems to me that Big Government (local, state, and, especially, federal) often, too often, resorts to Three Stooges solutions. As I read of the massive new CoVid bailout, approaching $1 trillion (another trillion on top of the $2-3 trillion from last spring), I thought of the Stooges. Here is a problem (a leaky boat?), largely created by government actions, and government now wants to solve it by creating another problem (drilling a hole that lets in more water?). The shutdowns and lockdowns have decimated the economy for a lot of people. Businesses, jobs, money, and even lives have been lost (not "saved"). It's not real surprise, is it, the Big Government solution is to throw more money, more of other people's money, to "fix" things. This isn't just about the CoVid response. It is what Big Government does. Besides, politicians might have to admit they were wrong, not relying on "the science," but on guesses. Trying to sort all of this out, I am reminded of an old cartoon, a philsophical one, whose caption read, "Sometmes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits." I normally don't watch television, especially sports. But the other night I caught the tail end of the MSU-Duke basketball game. What has stuck with me is not that MSU won, but the end of the game. From opposite sides of half court, the two coaches and their teams just waved "Good Game" at each other; there was no handshake line. No doubt that was due to CoVid restrictions. So, after two hours of pushing, bumping, and fouling each other, that is, touching!, these players didn't shake hands to help prevent the virus. Hmmm..... Maybe every little bit helps, but it seems to me to be another instance of "No thinking allowed." If shaking hands, presumably with players wearing masks, is prohibited, why are these guys playing in the first place? Of course we all know. There was a meme going around a couple of weeks ago, written by Dinesh D'Souza. He wrote that he is the same age as Barack Obama and has written a couple of dozen books. None of them are about himself. Yet Obama has written three, each about Obama. (Well, it remains unclear if he actually wrote them, but his name is there as the author.) D'Souza said something like "Obama is the president of his own fan club." I found that hilarious. In the same vein, I get e-mails where one guy frequently psychoanalyzed Don Trump. Now he's started in on John Kennedy. The same term is used to describe both, "narcissistic." Maybe I missed it, but I don't at all recall, not once, this guy labeling Obama "narcissistic." I still think a lot of people still don't "get it." Oh, Trump had and has his diehard supporters. But I still maintain his victory in '16 wasn't really about him. It was many people acting out their frustrations with "the system." Call it "The Swamp," "corporate welfare," "affirmative action," or what not. But they felt they were left out of things government was giving to others. Oh, most of these people were and are well-off, at least well-off enough. Eventually they rebelled at Big Government serving others, but not themselves. I'm not sure that is completely accurate, but that is their perception. And perception is reality. And these people were sick and tired of the government, for which they pay, taking care of others, but not them. They felt as if they were marginalized, even ignored; they had become people not worth caring about, at least not by their government. I am chuckling at some of the letters-to-the-editor in yesterday's newspaper. A couple of them talk about the election, how the attempts to "delegitimize" it are "harming" democracry. Wait a minute! What happened four years ago? Can you say "collusion?" Russian? Chinese? Ukrainian? Martian? One side went so far as to create false documents to bolster their accusations. Impeachment was based on this. Where were these letter writers then? Perhaps that was yet another instance of "But that's different." I'm reading a novel, The Washington Decree, by Jussi Adler-Olsen. He's a top-flight Danish crime novelist and his "Department Q" series is really good. Decree is different. It is centered in the US (written in 2007) and involves a takeover of rights/liberties by a President and his minions. I won't go into the story much, but how different Adler-Olsen describes Americans from the Americans of today. A sizable number resist the unconstitutional actions of the Executive--and they aren't all the militiamen. Today, though, the bobble heads reign supreme, blindly following the "diktats" of politicians and political bureaucrats, the least trusted groups in the country. I certainly don't want to see violence, but I would like to see Americans standing up for their rights/liberties.