Feelings
Nothing more than feelings,
Trying to forget my feelings of love
Back in the 70s there were several frufru girly man songs like "Feelings," written by Frenchman Louis Gasté and sung by a Brazilian, a guy not an amount of money, who couldn't even sprechen sie Englisch, or Ingles, which ever the case may be.
About that time men were beginning to be told we needed to get in touch with our kinder, gentler, more feminine selves...
absolutely worn out over it in some instances, and still are. Wimmin, the libbers, were burning their b'aziers and those of us who offered to assist got slapped for it... at least figuratively, sometimes literally. I mean, like, all I was trying to do was help. For the cutiepie she was, that gal could really lay one on a feller... and I don't mean a smoocharoo, either. But she also had the element of surprise on her side.
We demanded, and received, a Constitutional Amendment in short order requiring women be paid equally for equal work because it was the right thing to do. In our modern society there are many career fields wherein women are actually paid more than men with equal qualifications as cited by CNN money ReporterBabe, Jeanne Sahadi, in many of her articles, especially her review of Warren Farrell's book "Why Men Earn More..." and her own article about the 76-cent myth.
I'd worry about those republican elitists trying to keel haul me for reading CNN columns, except compared to that cute little strawberry blonde with a vicious left hook they truly are whimpus dilicti.
But we still succumb to having our feelings played like an expert violinist might fondle a Stradivarius, don't we. There are laws requiring equal pay for equal work, equal access to education, equal access to buildings, all buildings, and transportation, like the $10 million the Charlotte (NC) transit system spent so one (1) lady could ride the bus, equal employment opportunities, on and on ad infinitum.
Can anyone cite a female truck scale technician who gets paid less than her male counterparts for slinging 50 pound weights all day? I didn't think so. Where are the plantation owners who mistreat those slaves? So why does everyone have to pay for atrocities of two centuries ago? To be sure, there have been, and are, recent examples of discrimination, but there's also recourse when it's proven. It requires proof.
P-R-O-O-F, as in verifiable and bona fide examples of behavior, not P-O-O-F like those poofy hairdos of the 70s and 80s.
We once advertised for an electronic technician. We always include minimum requirements of experience and education. A couple days later someone with a dark suntan ditty-bopped in the door and said he was there to apply for the job we advertised. We gave him our standard written test. Flunkaroobie. He couldn't tell the difference between the schematic symbol for a bipolar transistor from that of an SCR or UJT, much less identify a discrete component differential amplifier, nor could he show us which end of a scope probe plugged into the front panel. He commented that the shop looked awfully, um, "white" and said he'd be back. Sure enough, the next day in he waltzed with a coat-and-tie guy, a lawyer. I guess they expected my hands to go up and the checkbook to come out. "You don't have any 'people of color' working here" stated ScheissterDude. "And we won't until we find one that's qualified." We went a couple of rounds verbally and he eventually said we'd be hearing from him. If memory serves correctly, that was back in June or July of 1983 or there abouts. We had a job opening for a person with specific qualifications, not a paid training program.
Day in and day out we allow our emotions to be played by those who would make us feel guilty for some horrible, and some no-so-horrible, event or action we have absolutely no control over, don't we. We're made to feel it's our fault there's poverty in this world when we're struggling to live our own lives, people who don't have jobs when we're scratching and clawing to keep our own, or that someone whose only job skills might be weaving baskets can't find work as a military fighter jet jock.
Then politicians step into the fray... telling those who want, without working, that they'll take away from those who've worked to earn what they own, and give it to them what haven't. They tell those who want that it's only right and moral for everyone to share equally.
By what moral or ethical code does anyone take what someone's worked to earn, only to give it to someone who hasn't? Our politicians, and others, certainly will play on those feelings of guilt and sympathy they work so hard to instill, don't they. When we stand back and, as we should in all such situations, look at facts in a clinical, non-emotional manner we see things from an entirely different perspective, don't we.
I once had a psychologist say the best way to end a discussion, especially if we're losing the debate, is to tell the other party "I feel (blah, blah) about this." His comment was that we can't legitimately dispute the way someone feels, where we may be able to dispute facts and examples... discussion ended, next subject.
So how do we combat those elitists, of all shapes and fashions, especially politicians, particularly when they tell one group "We're going to take away from those people and give it to you," then proceed to do so?
There's an old salesman's adage that states "The person asking the questions is the one who controls the direction of the discussion." Yes, it was a girl who taught me that. Ever notice the way politicians try to change the subject when they're put in the hot seat? How do we bring them back? Re-ask the question just as we would any five year old and keep asking the same question until they answer it. If they refuse, or continue to obfuscate or otherwise lie about the issue, poke them in the eye with their own words, with facts that dispute what they say, and keep poking until they decide to come clean with their constituents.
Acting upon our feelings will more often than not lead us down a path opposite what facts will. Politicians and others who want what we've worked to earn rely on feelings rather than facts, don't they. But when we act based only upon what we feel instead of what we know to be fact, we just might wind up learning what Dallas Frazier wrote for Brenda Lee to sing:
So he told you
That he'd never lead your heart astray
And he told you that he would love you
Forever and a day
And I can hear him telling you
He's a shy and bashful kind
But did he tell you that he's known as
Johnny One Time
But our politicians and other political elites will keep telling us "We're going to do it to you just one more time," don't they... while they heap more and more debt on our heirs, for many generations to come. Maybe we should send them copies of Aesop's Fables, with "The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs" dogeared.
Life would be oh so much more simple if each of us buckled down and worked for our own instead of lusting after what those evil rich dudes and dudettes have, wouldn't it.
Royce Burrage, Jr.
Royce@Officially Chapped.org