Civilization ho!

    If there is one theme that runs through the blogs I read it is that our freedom is being slowly eroded by the government in the interest of our welfare. Somebody (society?) has decided that we can't take care of ourselves, so it is up to the government to take care of us. If you look back it has been going on for about a century, which is just about as long as women have had the right to vote. Is that a coincidence? I think not. Women, in general, grow up to be mothers, and mothers, as we all know, are fiercely protective of their children, so anything that is a threat to their children must be dealt with in the most effective manner possible, and what's more effective than the government?
    I find it a little odd that most of the blogs I follow are written by women. Not so odd is that and most of those women, as far as I know, are not mothers.

    I think most people would agree that all people should have the right to vote, well, except children, but then they aren't really people are they? They're more like dangerous little animals that need to be corralled until they acquire enough self-discipline to be allowed out into society. Women getting the right to vote was like a major milestone on our road to civilization.
    Problem is that ever since then we have been trying to make society more civilized by passing laws. A hundred years ago this country had a horrible problem with alcohol, so we passed a law to make everyone sober. Didn't work out too well. Every time we discover a new ill, we pass a new law to correct it, and many of those laws backfire, one way or another. Some of them work out pretty well, at least for a while. Not sure  just what laws those are, but there must be at least a couple of good ones somewhere.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there is a major disconnect between the forces that are shaping our society and the hot topics of conversation. If you want to know what's going on you need to ignore 99% of what passes for news. Celebrities, hot button topics, ad hominum attacks (me esteemed opponent is a dirty commie/useless jerk/slimeball of the lowest order) don't really tell you anything at all. Economics is the driving force behind everything substantial, and no one seems to really understand how it works. There are all kinds of pundits trying to sell their explanation, but I haven't heard one that makes any more sense than any other. Seems like every explanation for what we ought it to do has a big fat, real world counter-example that says, NO, that is not what we should do.
    I hate to drop names, but Warren Buffet is only guy who's every said anything about money that made any sense to me.