A Diamond in the Rough

There’s a state park in Arkansas that is very unique — it’s a diamond mine.  The Crater of Diamonds is open to the public for diamond mining.  Visitors can register and explore a 37.5 acre plowed piece of ground famous for diamonds.  And when you find a diamond, it’s yours to keep.  How big and how famous are some of the finds there?  The Strawn-Wagner Diamond holds the title of the most perfect diamond ever certified by the American Gem Society.  The 3.03 carat stone achieved the perfect rating of O/O/O by the American Gem Society when cut.    The Uncle Sam Diamond weighed over 40 carats and was found at Crater of Diamonds in 1924.  It is the largest diamond to ever be found in the United States.  When a diamond is found in the ground, it usually looks something like this:

Some actually look a whole lot worse than this — they look just like plain old rocks.  Even when found by professional diamond miners, the miner has no real idea of what the finished product may be.  They go through the process of finding and mining thousands of “rocks” hoping to find that one that will become when cut and polished the perfect diamond worth tens of thousands of dollars.

This entire post today is to remind Americans that good things most often start off as not-so-good things — at least in the beginning few if any know for certain it will become a really good thing.  Think about that:  when our children were born some of us actually visualized a scenario in which that child becomes the President, a Senator, a professional football player, NBA star, and that list goes on and on.   It’s only years and years of nurturing that will mature that baby into a person who has the possibility of achieving our lofty expectations.

Why doesn’t the political environment in the U.S. parallel the environment we live in at home?  Who decided that the U.S. Government is a god-like entity that exists on its own?  When did the men and women in the Government put off their humanity to become a part of that god-like body of people?  And, by the way, who created that process?

The fact is, it does not exist.  That god-like perfection we call Government with all of its glory and infallibility is a figment of someone’s imagination.  Government is a group of people with ideas they supposedly have received from the OTHER people that asked them to join the Government on their behalf.  And every two years that group of people leave the Government (supposedly) and are replaced by people who join for the same purposes but may have some new and different ideas.  The Government itself is NOT a living, breathing creature.  It is to operate FOR the People, not for itself.

Through the last 2+ centuries of its existence as a nation, the United States People have taken that plain and ugly rock discovered by the Vikings or Columbus and have spoken into existence through its founding “Operating Manual” — the Constitution —  that created the U.S. Government.  The intent was for all generations of Americans to revise and refine the Government to make it better, stronger, more and more representative of the People who actually own and operate it.  On the most part we’ve seen that happen.

Steadily over the last half century Americans have each election cycle ceded more and more of the Government to professional politicians that have made themselves elite.  Originally Congressmen were elected for two year terms to go to D.C. to represent their communities for 2 years, then be replaced by someone else from that community.  Senators originally were appointed by state Governors.  Serving for 6 years allowed them to establish and maintain legislation that best represents their state.  Those Senators talked their Congressional counterparts into changing the way they were brought into D.C.  They wanted to enter the political fray identically as those in the House of Representatives.

Senators and Congressmen and Women discovered they could create many more government programs than their constituents sent them to create:  financial and vocational opportunities for themselves full of benefits.  Those include really nice salaries, expense accounts, full time office and legislative staff paid for by taxpayers, exorbitant travel underwriting, amazing medical and retirement benefits, all of which apply only to legislators.  They could only serve two or six year terms, but as many of those as they wanted.  They can make and change laws at will.  Yet they make laws for all other Americans that in many cases Legislators are exempt from.  When this process of transition began to happen, that shiny, brilliant diamond began to lose its luster.

The once perfect diamond of Capitalism that shined brightly as the example for all the Earth began to slide backward into the likeness of many other countries.  Exceptionalism which has set the Nation apart from its beginning began to slip away.  The most amazing work ethic in the World  began to diminish as Congress began to dole out federal benefits for American citizens under the guise of “helping those who cannot help themselves.”  But it really was and is a way to use money to influence Americans to support those who give them money at each election — in essence buying votes.  Today close to 50 million Americans receive welfare.

Healthcare has become the big ticket item in the U.S. in the last 9-10 years.  Yet all this hoopla is NOT about healthcare, it’s about who’s going to pay for health insurance.  Until recently government healthcare insurance underwriting was limited to Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance for active and retired U.S. Military members.  For a hundred years or so Americans looked at commercial private health insurance as an option for those who wanted and could afford it.  It was not a right.  In the last decade or so, that has changed for many.  Many feel that the American government owes them health insurance and should pay for it.  Enter Obamacare.  And watch that diamond’s brightness blurring.

I could go on and on giving example after example about how our country is slipping backwards into the quagmire of Socialism that seems to be the mantra of the Democrat Party and other leftists.  “Somebody owes me something” is the justification for those demands from many in the public.  The problem is that NO ONE can point me to any country on Earth today or any country in history that was a true Socialist country in which Socialism has worked or is working.  They all implode.  Why?  In Socialism, someone has to pay the bills.  The Government appoints itself to be that payer.  But they have to get money to pay for everything from the People.  Socialists don’t believe in Capitalism — true marketplace economics — that states basically that someone creates and provides a product, if someone likes that product and wants to buy it, he/she pays the provider an agreed to price.  If people don’t like the product, it goes away — it simply fails for lack of want or need.  Socialism on the other hand is propped up and managed by the Government.  The Government taxes its citizens out the wazoo and decides who gets paid what for what products and the price, and it makes no difference if the marketplace wants it.  Government says “Do It,” and everyone must comply.

Obamacare is actually a Socialist program.  Unfortunately for many Americans — almost all Americans in that insurance program — it has been financially devastating.  It’s Socialistic and it will not work.  What’s happening now is a product of giving people something and trying to change it drastically or take it away.  Human beings don’t like that.  Fortunately conservatives are fighting now to replace this socialist program by going back to the previous insurance structure that with some changes will right the ship.  By the way, American healthcare was the greatest on Earth for decades.  It is now barely rated in the Top 20 — that in just the few years of Obamacare.

Shiny, valuable diamonds don’t just happen.  Getting them takes years of cooperation between a lot of people and much hard work.  American Healthcare is teetering on the edge of oblivion.  Healthcare professionals spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and years on their medical education to provide Americans great healthcare.  They are running from the system and their professions because a government run system does not work….for anyone.

Americans, we better recognize how valuable our diamond is and educate and empower those in our Government who have their fingers on the choices that can and must be made to protect that diamond.  Its brilliance is evaporating quickly.  I for one don’t want if I ever need heart surgery a government appointed surgeon in my chest who is there just because he told someone he could do the job.  I want the guy/girl in my chest that does 200 of the a year.  And those folks are leaving by the thousands.

It might be good for you to email/call your Congressional representatives and let them know socialized medicine will not be acceptable.  Obamacare has to go.  Listen to your constituents….you work for them.