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.

Seriously

Minneapolis, Minnesota


Minnesota may not need a second United States senator when we already have a self-described "foreign correspondent behind enemy lines" in Washington to keep us informed and to look after our interests. Her name is Michele Bachmann, and she represents the people of our state's sixth congressional district, having been elected to her second term last November. This past weekend she used the airwaves of WWTC 1280 AM to make one of her periodic reports to us on a number of issues. About the administration's cap-and-trade proposal to reduce carbon emissions, she had this to say:

I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people – we the people – are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.

Some of the folks reading this will find these and others of Bachmann's comments perfectly lucid and reasonable, while some will think she is totally nuts.


A similar divergence of perspective has been occurring lately at the University of Minnesota's dance program where an anonymous protest has attacked "institutional racism and white privilege." The protest was chronicled in a posting on the tcdailyplanet website, which includes links to a blog started by the anonymous protesters and a Facebook page set up by some not-anonymous students.


After reading the manifestos, comments, and meeting minutes, it is clear that the protesters have cut the ground from beneath their efforts by insisting on anonymity and failing to cite specifics to which anyone can respond coherently. (Feel free to dispute this conclusion in the comment section below.) Everyone, including students, who seeks desired or justified change can benefit from learning certain basics about effective dialogue and strategy. Hopefully, for students, that learning can occur while attending a major university.


The protesters – and all of us – might take a cue from Jay Smooth and his upbeat, three-minute video of advice about "How To Tell People They Sound Racist." His pointers might even be applicable to some of our political and public policy dialogue.