Socialism

So, I try not to get sucked into the fear-mongering that is happening because we have a very liberal president + liberal majority of elected leaders + one not very happy economy.
This = some scared extreme conservatives = some fear-mongering.
It's hard though.
I just start feeling that edge of hysteria when I see how primed the situation is.

I found a very profound little nugget of clarity on why, even though in theory socialism is appealing to some (I mean what cold hearted person could see some of the suffering in this country and not want to do more), it just doesn't work.

It doesn't work because it penalizes the producer behavior and rewards slacking (or consuming).
Thus, everyone's standard of living goes down.

This has been proven.

How could our country be heading toward this?
Many reasons, but I am thinking of a couple that I want to list.
1)We as a people have forgotten to fiercely love and work for the freedoms handed to us.
2)A new generation has risen up, never having seen real, intense want or poverty.
3)In a world of credit, buying things with real money is foreign.
4)Therefore living within means is somewhat of a lost art.

The consequences have the potential to be frightening.
Without an appreciation for certain freedoms they disappear, ...without a knowledge of them being gone.
Now, I am "meh" on Angelina Jolie as a person, or tattoos in general...
...but I love her tattoo "know your rights".

There is absolutely no logical way out of the economic mess until budgets, personal and governmental, are kept to.
Anything else is postponing and expanding the hurt.

I don't like doom and gloom, but I also don't ever want to feel so beat-down-because-it-won't-do-any-good-anyways that I don't let my feelings be known.
Heaven knows people who I do not agree with are vocal.

(Plus I know that this blog actually only has a couple of readers as opposed to my happier blog, so I feel kind of safe using this as an outlet to vent a little)

Self Evaluation

I have not written in over a month.

It's not like I haven't been thinking, more like I have been thinking things that I want to keep in my own head to mull over. Maybe if these different trains of thought develop themselves enough or if the trigger events get far enough into the past I will want to share, but not right now.

I have been doing a lot of self evaluation.

I decided a while ago that I should learn more about the power plant I work in. I am of the thought that all learning is useful and applicable, even if not in a superficially perceptible way.

For example, I am reading a 1950's textbook on steam generation and its uses that was produced by the company that also made a lot of the original equipment for the power plant. It is very interesting, and it is a very brain intensive work out as I have to constantly be evaluating the information..."is this a subject that has changed over the past 50+ years, or is it solid science that has stayed the same?"...and "how does this information jive with or fill in the gaps of my education of building practices, physics, material properties, and chemical behaviors?"...and "so this would be applicable to the little power plant that I work in, and this other thing shows more of what happens in a large power plant like IPP, a plant some of my family works at".

I like it.

And, as I am doing so, I am finding that I understand more of what the supervisors are saying about different projects on different pieces of equipment. And this helps in cool ways like in understand the budgets better and being able to bridge the gaps in understanding between all of the different groups I deal with; accounting, work control, preventative maintenance, and human resources, to name a few.

I get all excited and then want to get a couple more degrees.
Which is not feasible at the immediate moment.
But I totally want to be a perpetual student.
But I also want to be a lot of things.
Good thing there is all of eternity to learn the things I want to know.
Namely Everything.