Which some of the people in Boston are apparently quite happy to have happen. I saw a story on the NBC news about the various restaurants and such not getting the business they had hoped for, and actually losing business. One had a big banner that said something along the lines of “Hey Democrats, Thanks For Nothing! Go Bush!”. I love it.
I also apologize for not posting more on the convention. The first couple of days, it seemed the loons were coming out of the woodwork. I really had to make some decisions on what I would comment on and what I would take a pass on. But it would seem that after the Johns showed up (Why couldn’t the both be named Richard? Then I could have a lot more fun.) the party handlers corralled the worst of the offenders and got them out of public sight.
Of course, we do need to mention one thing in particular. No. not the Bush bashing–you should have expected that. It was the John Edwards speech and the “Help is on the way!” chants. This was a pricelessly funny moment as far as I’m concerned. Not matter what the problem, “Help is on the way!”
- Can’t pay for that Viagra prescription? “Help is on the way!”
- Gasoline too expensive? As long as you don’t drive an evil SUV, “Help is on the way!”
- Can pay for college for the kids? “Help is on the way!”
- Want to tell other people how to live their lives? “Help is on the way!”
And so on and so forth. People, let me tell you something. Even if the government controlled everything, they can’t give everything to everyone. The Soviet Untion tried that–it doesn’t work. Some people will be poor–it can’t be helped. Some will be rich, but rich people don’t cause poor people. Don’t believe me? Fine, we’re going to strip the 100 richest people in the US of all their money and give it to the “poor”. Know what, you’ll run out of money before your run out of the poor. Make it the richest 1000? 10,000? 1,000,000? You still run out of money before you run out of poor people. Poverty is like hurricanes–no matter what we do, it’ll always be with us. You can’t legislate (or tax and spend) poverty out of existence, any more than you can hurricanes.
I wonder if the Johns actually believe what they say, or is it all a sordid play to get power? I know what number my money is on.
All in all, the last 2 days were nearly content-free. If you were hoping to learn something about what these two men stand for, what they think, then you were surely disappointed.