Choosing Sides; Who Would You Pick?

Good Morning Middle America, your King of Simple News is on the air.

I’m back from camping in the rain and have a new found appreciation for indoor plumbing. We did have a great time with our kids and grandkids and I also had time to ponder all of their futures.

Life in America is changing as we enter a new era where the conscious thought of natural resource consumption and population expansion will become everyday subjects.

In a way, we will reinvent the way that we live as Americans and perhaps it will be a better way in the end; which brings me to the subject of today’s article.

While I was sitting at nearly 10,000 feet in the beautiful forests and clear rushing streams of Western Colorado’s majestic San Juan Mountains, I had a thought. What if we could wipe the slate clean and pick teams for a new start for America? Who would be picked first and last?

Would we pick a high paid CEO to lead us? Would we pick a current Congressperson to represent us? At what point would we pick a Wall Street trader to be part of our team? Or, a multi-million dollar movie or sports figure?

My opinion is that the above mentioned people wouldn’t get to be on our team at all. We would pick those who would benefit our team, not weigh it down.

Remember Gilligan’s Island? While the plot was conceived as a spoof, there was a little more truth than fiction that played out in the scripts. The movie star was glamorous, but worthless as part of the survival effort. The millionaire and his wife wanted the others to take care of them as they attempted to continue living their past lifestyle.

Gilligan was the village idiot and more a hindrance than a help. The Captain was capable when provided with direction, but had no real leadership. Maryanne, however, was capable and practical and along with the professor, who constantly offered vast knowledge, kept them all from being doomed.

My opinion is that if we really could pick teams, we would pick those who possess the knowledge that created our country through a free-enterprise approach, not those who have risen to wealth by exploiting the spoils of unbridled capitalism.

First round picks would go to those who excel in the fields of engineering, medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, metallurgy, mechanical repair, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, education, science, food preservation, energy and so on.

Note that these people first chosen are those who provide the knowledge and labor necessary to establish a civil and functioning society and not the profiteers of the civilization that the aforementioned created.

It’s interesting that the profiteers (including political leaders) have risen to a level of wealth well above those who created and continue to make our society possible.

America today is laced with millions of people who do little more than shuffle papers and consume foreign made products as we unwisely follow a flawed economic platform that was never designed to last long term.

As our fatally flawed system of exponential growth and consumption continues to unveil the physical and mathematical impasses that were built in to that structure, America will go in one of two directions.

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