The empty promise of "freedom" and "simplicity"

I here offer my deepest apologies and sincerest regrets to my fellow citizens for failing to properly shoulder the burden of maintaining our faltering economy. I offer no excuses other than my unwillingness to manage the paperwork.


This is about those endless offers from credit card companies that fill our mailboxes and keep the post office from going completely broke. In the 12 weeks since June 5, I received 24  of those suckers from outfits that promised in large print to guarantee freedom and simplicity in my life, plus another six mailings containing "convenience checks" for my existing credit card accounts.


I just spent 90 minutes tearing all of them into tiny pieces that fill a brown paper grocery sack.


However, with Michele and her fellow travelers running their mouths so much lately about all of our disappearing freedoms, I feel guilty, and really should do something with these offers besides shred them. In addition to gaining copious amounts of new credit that adds consumption capacity to the economy, I could transfer outstanding balances on existing cards for a low-percentage fee, pay no interest on transferred balances for generous lengths of time, and thereafter pay APRs ranging from 3.99% to 18.99% (the average for my 12 weeks of offers was 11.99%).


From four of the offers, I could obtain 30,000 free bonus miles each, 120,000 in total, to use on American Airlines, a company that serves Minnesota minimally and with which I have done only minor amounts of business over the years. Still, that's four times around the world.


I am pretty adept with a spreadsheet, and with a bit of concentration I could probably play this shell game for years without paying out any real money on either my principal or interest.


Hell, if I was half as smart as my ego would have it, I would take these offers, cash them out to the max, quit working, and use the remaining years on my passport and my life to remain free and simple outside the country. Makes sense. If Rick Perry and Texas can secede from the Union, why can't individuals separate themselves from the hard work of living and embrace the slick and easy promises of freedom and simplicity?


These proferred possibilities spell "freedom" with a capital "F" and "simplicity" with a capital "S." For sure!


Then, as these importunings are so rich for folks like me, one can only imagine how important they must be for the credit card companies themselves and for the compensation of their shareholders and corporate leaders.


By now, all of us should know – from the mouths of Boehner, Cantor, Mitchell, and our GOP brethren in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and elsewhere – what that kind of financial good fortune means to our economy, for these people, the shareholders and corporate leaders, are our job creators. They are the very lifeblood and hope for our nation's financial salvation. They count on people like me, and you, to choose freedom.


Thus, I take seriously my shirking of responsibility for insuring freedom and simplicity in this particular realm for myself and my fellows. Simply put, however, I choose to believe that life is too short for the paperwork, and even shorter for the rhetoric of the empty promises.

Vignettes

Minneapolis, Minnesota


The Minnesota Orchestra presented the world premiere of its commission, "Oboe Concerto," by composer Christopher Rouse this week. A thoroughly pleasant work, it was given a fine reading by Basil Reeve and his colleagues under the baton of Osmo Vänskä. Along with other works, the program also included Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique." I have not heard this symphony live since Eiji Oue led the Orchestra. As conducted by Vänskä, the work had more energy and nuance than one hears on many recordings.

• • •

Why do some Republicans insist on speaking about real Virginians, real Americans, and now real people?


Michael Kranish reported in the Boston Globe last week about criticism of the economic stimulus bill moving through Congress. The House version – passed without a single Republican vote – contains $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. The funds are not in the current draft of the yet-to-be-passed Senate version. Kranish cited Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the third-ranking Republican in the House, "who has urged Obama to 'get the pork barrel spending out,'" and Rep. Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican, who wants to transfer the proposed NEA funding to highway construction. "We have real people out of work right now and putting $50 million in the NEA and pretending that's going to save jobs as opposed to putting $50 million in a road project is disingenuous," Kingston said [emphasis added].


Michael Steele, the newly-elected GOP chairman, shares that line of thought. Speaking on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos this morning, Steele said "What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work.... It's not a job."


It makes one wonder what is real.

• • •

The Minneapolis Convention Center stands four blocks from my house and serves as the portal to the downtown skyway system – enclosed bridges that span streets to connect buildings on the second level. Over the years I have observed and overheard the buzz of many convenings, including those of varied religious organizations. For three days last week, nearly 1,400 pastors swarmed the hallways and skyways leading to the Hilton Hotel for the "Desiring God" conference. According to their literature and website, this is a Baptist-related group that follows the ministry of John Piper, a senior pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Piper's congregation has played a positive role in its community, including as an advocate for affordable housing. Nonetheless, it was a bit startling to understand how divergent are some of its perspectives from one's own. To-wit, this answer to a question about the Desiring God conference:

Can Pastor's Wives Attend? We intentionally seek to foster a male fraternity because it is rare and uniquely refreshing for pastors to fellowship with men who carry similar burdens and to counsel one another with the kind of frankness that is awkward to do in mixed company. However, we do not prohibit wives from attending, knowing that there are circumstances where it is the best choice for marriage or ministry

This is startling because I have become used to churches where women serve as full partners in ministry and whatever burdens come with it.