Faith + Reason = Truth

     John McCain is sticking with publicly financed campaign funds, reportedly in the vicinity of $85 million available to him for the general election campaign this summer and fall.  He's locked into this scenario whether he wants to be or not, so it is not known what his course of action would have been if the choice were presented to him.
     Barack Obama has both options available to him and has changed his mind from using public funds (capped at $85 million) to using private donations (which will be unlimited in total).  It is being reported that he will raise 3-4 times McCain's publicly financed war chest, which calculates to $255 - 340 million.
     Coincidentally, McCain announced this week that he would have a government-sponsored prize of $300 million awarded to people or companies making quantum technological leaps in the field of batteries for autos.  My first thought:  McCain takes $300M and uses it to stimulate a shift away from oil-based transportation.  Obama takes that same $300M and spends it on t.v. commercials to get himself elected.  My logic is flawed though.
     McCain's battery money is government money, whereas Obama's funds are donated by people directly to him.  Therefore, he can use them however he deems fit, provided they are used to get him elected.  In other words, he cannot use them to fund battery development - or can he?
     What if a candidate were to take his election campaign donations and use them to conditionally fund a program, with the condition being that he or she is elected to the office they seek?  Taking that one step further, what if private donors are tapped (the kinds of donors who are only "allowed" to donate a few thousand dollars to a specific candidate or party, even though they would donate far greater sums if the election laws allowed them to do so) explicitly for the purpose of conditionally funding programs to be enacted only on condition of their candidate winning the race?  Could the oil companies, hedge fund managers, and other deep-pocketed yet limited contributors be exploited for the purpose of funding programs that would be in line with the objectives of their candidate or their candidate's party?  Could billions of dollars be raised in this way?
     Certainly, with Obama projected to raise a third of a billion dollars under the current limitations, he could raise several billion in an uncapped scenario, couldn't he?  Take George W. Bush, for instance:  how many billions (or tens of billions) of dollars would the defense contractors, the Halliburtons, etc., and the oil companies, both major and minor, have conditionally contributed to governmental programs in order to ensure 4 more years of his presidency?  If Kerry had won, they would be out nothing.  If Bush pulled it out, the resulting friendly legislative environment could easily cover the program outlay many times over in the course of the ensuing 4 years and beyond.

People can be divided into two groups.  I am not referring to the "haves" and "have nots" or "thinkers" and "doers" or any of a host of other common divisions; I'm talking about people who need to tell other people what to do and people who do not have this trait.  This may have even been mentioned in another post at some time during the past year and four months, as it creeps up in my life from time to time.  The live-and-let-live camp (as opposed to the live-as-I-think-you-should camp) is the one that is most likely to be tangibly impacted by this division, and that is the camp where I reside.

The "tellers" are apparently under the impression that without their omnipresent direction, the "tolds" would allow civilization as currently recognized to instantaneously and universally descend into chaotic, barbaric, bug-infested, disease-ridden, untidy, non-productive primordial sludge.  They honestly believe with all their hearts that the business would crumble, the house would fall apart, the kids would live out Lord of the Flies existences, and Alaric would bring his hordes rampaging through the gates of Rome raping and/or killing anything that moved and torching all that didn't.

My friends, this simply is not the case.  Would things perhaps get prioritized differently by tolds than by tellers?  Would some things conceivably be deemed not addressable AT ALL by the unwashed multitude?  Quite possibly.

On the other hand, might some strange and wonderful occurrences that may not otherwise have had the chance to spring into being begin to emerge?  Unexpected, unforeseen benefits that would never have been predicted or even fathomed by either the tellers or the tolds?  Almost certainly!

In the interest of brevity, I choose to leave out some humorous, as well as some painfully contentious, real world examples from this discussion.  As for any tellers who may happen upon this post though, I challenge (in the best spirit of my non-telling self) you to at least consider some self-restraint the next time you find yourself face to face with a situation that beckons you to take charge and bark out some commands at someone who very likely neither desires them nor requires them.  Aren't you the least bit curious about what the outcome may be if you allow things to unfold without your command and control presence dominating that tiny corner of the world for that flash of time?

A story on Pravda's site today with a dateline of a week or so ago reminded me of the Russian President's comments that the actions of the U.S., coupled with the dismal economic conditions in the U.S. and abroad, are leading to a somewhat vacated leadership void that could well be filled in by Russia.  After all, they are still a huge regional economy, they have tremendous natural resources (particularly regarding food and energy), and they still possess the ultimate trump card in the form of their massive nuclear arsenal.

The reason they can't serve the unique economic powerhouse role that the U.S. occupies is the same reason that China can't:  nobody trusts them.  When a country has a recent and well-documented history of repressing citizens of its own and/or other countries, it cannot be trusted to be empowered with even more power and authority than it currently possesses and abuses.

Sorry, Mr. President, but if you would like to earn the world standing of an America or a Great Britain (or even a France or Germany), you'll have to earn it through your actions at home and your dealings with your neighbors.  And you'll need to do so over a period of decades, not just months or years.