"Let's get into the salt business!"

Hello everyone.

Yeah so I needed a little extra time to find that spark, but I've got it.

Arguing with conservatives online, I've run many times into a quite preposterous and insidious argument, which is usually used by rich people (or, more often, their idiot lackeys) to defend upper class tax cuts and killing benefits for lower income people.

"Well, rather than asking for a handout from CEOs, just start your own business, and become one of them!  BLEEGHHHH!!!"

(This kind of statement is usually said in response to a comment that we should hike the minimum wage, or anything related to employers paying their employees more, or raising taxes on the upper 1%, you get the idea.)

Ok.  Sounds great.  Want to be rich?  Just take advantage of the free market, start a business, make good decisions, and beat the CEOs at their own game!  Easy!!!

There's about a hundred million things wrong with this so I'm not even sure where to start.  I'll do my best.

So great!  Great idea!  I'll just become a millionaire on my own pluck and moxie!!  No problem!!

So, ok, there's a lot of money in pharmaceuticals, that'd be a good industry to get into.  Soooooooo, I'll just get a loan to build a huge chemical plant and hire some scientists to develop drugs for me!  I'll only need, I don't know, 100 million dollars to get rolling?  I'm sure a bank will be more than happy to lend that to me.

Or, ok, I'll get into the oil industry.  All I need is a loan to hire some engineers and build some offshore derricks or buy drilling equipment or refinery plants to turn crude into a product I can sell.  And buy the land or whatever oil holdings to drill into.

Oh wait.  There's no way in fuck I could generate the capital to do anything like that.

So, well, maybe I should just start on a small scale!  And work my way up!  Compete with those big guys and teach 'em who's boss!!!

OK, I think it should be clear how stupid this is now.  I mean, I might be able to get a loan to start a small business, but if you want to become a real billionaire, you've got to inherit the resources to do so (i.e. a chemical or oil company, or a media empire, or whatever.  Oh great!  There's another example.  I'll just take out a loan to hire some reporters and buy some broadcasting equipment and I'll kick those mainstream media outlets' asses!  YEEEEEEEEAAAAHHH!!!!)

OK so no, none of that is possible.

But hey!  What about Bill Gates?  He started out with nothing, and became the richest man in America.  I can do that too, right?

Oh wait, I'm not a computer and marketing genius who is capable of creating a revolutionary operating system.  That might make it tough.  But this is America!  I can get the education to learn how to do it, right?  Wrong.  I took a computer programming class and couldn't do it, and had to drop the class to avoid failing.  So I think I can forget making billions in computers.  But Bill Gates did it!  So that justifies everything.

1 in a million people making it big DOES FUCKING NOT justify the million struggling and being ground down to nothing so that the 1 can keep a higher percentage of his money, which he is directly taking from everyone else.  As it happens Bill Gates is a pretty generous billionaire, but hey, not so generous that he's not still basically the richest guy in the world.  Or Mark Zuckerberg! He became a billionaire overnight!  I could do that!!  In case you forgot Zuckerberg went to fucking Harvard, the best and most selective school in the country.  He is the POSTER BOY for 1 in a million.

Anyways, the point to be distilled from this is, the argument "oh, well if you don't like it, just become a CEO yourself" is completely fraudulent and ridiculous.  The biggest industries, where the most money lie, are on fucking lock.

Hey, you know what I'll do, I'll just start my own bank!!  YEEAAAAH!  Then I'll be rich in no time.  BOOYEAHHHHH MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!  WHY DIDN'T ANYONE ELSE THINK OF THIS??????

You think big oil companies are going to let you find a way in there?  Even if you manage to put together the millions necessary to even be able to start?  The answer is no.  What's the evidence?  That we still have the same handful of oil companies that we've had for decades and decades.  That a company like BP can spill millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and still make big profits.

Yeah there's the one Bill Gates who became the richest guy on a shoestring.  But guess what?  Not everyone is a fucking genius.  And even plenty of people who are geniuses, aren't geniuses in something that can make them millionaires or billionaires!!  Bill Gates just happened to be a genius in an incredibly valuable way!!  And be incredibly lucky!

So, yeah, why don't I get into precious metals?  Easy!  I'll just buy a gold mine.  Or why don't I get into salt production?  Easy, I'll just buy a salt mine or a huge salt flat and the machinery and labor to harvest it!  Easy!!!

I don't know if I have, but I hope I have adequately illustrated how fucking moronic this argument is.  Asking people to be poor in exchange for the promise that they could be millionaires one day if they just STICK TO IT!!!  is incredibly immoral and terrible and wrong.  The truly confounding issue is not how millionaires and billionaires could try to sell this horse shit, but rather how fucking poor people could try to sell it with just as much vigor and determination!  Now THAT is stupid.  That is so stupid that I can't think of anything more stupid in the whole world.

And here's the really awful, fundamental truth that underlies all of it.  All these resources I've talked about, the land and the oil reserves, and the money to create a company to take advantage of them, are on lock.  Feel me?  What I mean by that is, the people who already own these things aren't going to loosen their grip on them, no matter what.  Like, they'll kill all of us and destroy the whole world before they loosen their grip even a little.

So, this so-called freedom we have?  It's in name only.  Technically, I could become a media magnate or an oil tycoon, but well, really no I couldn't.  Because the people who are have a lock on the business, and it's not going to maybe pass to me, it's going to go to their families, and their bullshit spoiled children are going to become the next them.  It's been happening, it's going to keep happening.  And there's nothing ordinary people can do to break the cycle or even stick a foot in the door.  Nothing.  And the fact that the rich assholes in charge are selling this bullshit idea to morons, that they could somehow become part of this, in order to fatten their pockets even ridiculously further, is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.

And there's nothing any of us can do about it.  Because, like I said, they'll take the whole world down before they even surrender 1% of their power or wealth.  So even if normal people were able to seize some kind of political power, as I've said in the past, the power the government has is miniscule compared to the power this ruling upper class has.  So political change, which is impossibly difficult to affect anyway, still would not be enough to significantly change the distribution of wealth.  I mean for God's sake, they've got these idiots believing BARACK OBAMA is a fucking communist!  There is no hope.  So I guess we just ride this rocket train all the way to hell and try to scavenge a few moments of happiness along the way.

So, once again, rich people, fucking fuck you.  "Oh, don't hate me because I'm successful."  OK, I won't.  I'll hate you because you're a manipulative fuck and lying is as easy to you as breathing.

I wish there were actually such a thing as class warfare.  Because there's nothing I'd like more than for everyone to get a piece of what this planet has to offer, instead of nations of people starving to death so 9th generation motherfuckers can fly around in fucking private jets.

Will enough ever be enough?  I'd like to hope so, but it really, really super doesn't seem like it will be.  So fuck me.  But, even more so, fuck you.

Oh wait. Bill Gates went to Harvard too.  Whoops!  Forgot that factoid.  But, he dropped out, so that doesn't count.  He was an underdog, I tell you!!!

"out" envy part ii

This is a quick one, I'm working on something more long-winded.

And I think this goes a long way to make up for the numbers that may be left lacking from my theory/explanation in "out" envy i.

I think, as an alternative to the person actually being gay, the harasser could have also had a gay daddy, for example, who was just as much not supposed to gay as they are not supposed to be gay.  So, while these individuals may actually be straight, they still have some seriously personal and repressed feelings about gayness.  So yeah, if you put those two groups together, I feel like there aren't that many more numbers to make up in terms of gay persecutors.  Yeah.

Back soon!

loving my president part ii

So.

As I've said in part i, not that many people are ready to get on board with me saying Barack Obama has been a great president.  Certainly no Republican voter seems to be.  And also a lot of Democrat voters and liberals in general say no.  They're ready to say, oh, "he buckled on Guantanamo Bay", or "he should have pushed through single payer" or, "blah blah blah blah".

Very good.  Very well attested.

However, let's take a look at what's going on here.

I'm going to just say it:  when the Democrats made Obama the nominee for President for 2008, as much as I was happy and of course ready to go in support of him, I thought to myself... this guy can't win.  This country is just too fucking racist to elect a black man to be President.  It was hard for me to say, or think, that the party had made a mistake, but there was a part of me that said, at the time, that it's really important for us to win this election, this is a risk, I think this might really blow up in our faces and allow terrible things to continue to happen for 4 or possibly 8 more years, years that we don't have to give away.

Perfect example of my disaster orientation.  I was wrong.  He won.

And while Obama is certainly not the most liberal democrat out there, he certainly is repeatedly accused of being the most liberal.  He is accused of a lot of things.  And why oh why should I be surprised by this?  I didn't think the guy could win over a majority of voters!  How could I not expect that a huge percentage of people would still hate him, win or lose, and most especially win.

Barack Obama is... I don't know.  I would compare him to another civil rights leader, for example, but I think anything I picked would cheapen his significance and currently unknowable effect on this country.

Jackie Robinson, for example.  While his accomplishment is completely essential to American culture, and while no one will ever forget that name, and while it took inconceivable courage to do what he did, it took more courage to be the first black president of the United States of America.

(before we continue please acknowledge that some idiot conservatives try to say "oh he's not the first to have some kind of black ancestry", or, even an awesome guy like Morgan Freeman saying "he's not really the first black president, he's not actually that black", sorry folks, this is my blog, and Barack Obama is a fucking black man.  In the time of segregation in the 1950s and before, Obama would have been strongly discouraged from going into white places.  I don't think Andrew Jackson or Warren Harding would have been.  I mean... I just don't.  Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but Dwight Eisenhower and Calvin Coolidge... I don't know if you have looked at their presidential photos, but they're not distinguishable from all of the other 42 president-guys.  And they certainly wouldn't have been asked to sit at the back of the bus or leave a restaurant.)

I'm treading on some shit here that, maybe, a white person has no business doing so.  But this is a blog.  This is letters and words.  And it's fucking mine, all mine.  I'm not going to pull punches and I'm not going to hold back from saying the truth as I experience it.  Fuck you.

Barack Obama... while he hasn't been an "activist" as president, and he hasn't pushed liberalism particularly hard, he is a groundbreaking figure, a figure that history won't soon forget, a figure that people of all races, creeds, genders can look to as someone who made a difference.  And I think in time they will.  While there's a bunch of assholes now who try to take away his accomplishments and deny his significance, in time they will be proved to be short-sighted and stupid, and I will be proved right.

Small comfort.

Dear President Obama,

I understand your importance and value.  I have not overlooked your accomplishments.  And I think, just this one little white guy, can go ahead and go out of his way, even at the risk of being "wrong" to someone or getting burned in a debate or argument, and say you're a great president and I'm very proud to have you as my president.  Thank you very much.  Thank you again.  You have moved America forward, in a way I feel no other candidate or person could have done, in your position.  Thank you.

And in a later post, but first here, I would also like to say that Michelle Obama has been an incredible example as well.  And while it pisses me off to see Barack bad-mouthed in media, social media, etc... I can't believe how incensed I am to see terms like "Moo-chelle" used or... ugh... *shudders*.  I would like to delete that term in quotation marks I just used, because it makes me sick and it makes me want to fucking punch a hole in my wall.  But you need to see it.  And I need to see it written out, by me, to let it sink it that this is HOW FUCKING RACIST America is and WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?  I hated W. Bush but in all the many tirades, in all the even sometimes over the line cries against him, I never ever said a negative thing about Laura Bush.  And why would I?  Unless I was a complete and utter asshole.

Maybe I am, but it could be worse.  Probably.

Cowardly bullshit

Say, you know what doesn't help anything, and holds up actual sustainable progress?

Non-brain-dead-conservative people digging at the President or Democrats while doing nothing else.

A possible response:

If you want to tear down the Democratic party, what do you want to put in its place?  Do you think anything you put in its place could serve its purpose in like, close to the near future?

This is ringing really similar to idiots saying we need to get rid of food stamps and that private charities will take their place.  It's not realistic, it's stupid, it's pointless and dangerous.

Want to overthrow the government?  What do you propose will replace it?  Do you have any specific plan, or understanding of how things should be run instead, or how they're run at all for that matter?  You fucking spoiled, misguided "independent thinkers", need to just shove it straight up your asses.  Oh, it's not enough, oh, it's too slow, wah wah wah wah.  You know what?  Fuck you.  You're as bad as the fucking dip-shit conservatives because you're playing right to their fucking hands and making it even slower.

Where's your contribution?  What are you doing to move things forward?  Or have you just not given a second fucking thought into what exactly it takes to make your stupid privileged life possible?  Do you want anarchy?  Why don't I just call you Rand Paul or Paul Ryan?

This kind of shit is a HUGE part of the problem.  "Oh, what's the point of voting man, they're all corrupt, maaaaaaan."

News flash, genius.  The government is all we have to protect us from the companies who write your paycheck.  Think they'd pay us less if they could get away with it?  Think they'd offer healthcare benefits or any other benefits if the government didn't put pressure on them to do it?  Think they'd offer 8 hour work days?  Think 8 year olds would be back in the work force?  Yes, no, no, and yes.  The wealthiest (and their bullshit conservative politicians) want no government because it means they get to concentrate their wealth even more and because they have the means to protect themselves, they don't need to be provided with defense or security.

I think this shit could potentially be dumber than idiot conservatives flushing their money down the toilet to vote for boneheaded dark ages social policies.  I don't know that I'd be willing to go that far yet, but it's close, and it's really not much more forgivable either.

This lunatic conservative base doesn't represent anything close to a majority of the population of America or even the Republican party.

So what does that mean?  That if people who understand how full of shit the real criminals in congress are, and that while the Democrats are hardly ideal, they're all we have, actually voted, the Republicans would fucking win nothing ever again.  Maybe they'd hang onto some red states, but not enough to pull the kind of obstructionist bullshit they've been pulling since the teahad started, in 2010, when assholes like you let the thugs retake control of the House of Representatives.  So your ignorance of reality, apathy as to the problems of others, and laziness are as much responsible for this shit as Ted Cruz or some other thieving criminal who's still running on upper class tax cuts when the wealth distribution is the widest it's been in almost a hundred years.

This is really killing me now as I'm realizing it, with all you fucking spoiled shit stains voting, we could have voted the Republicans into irrelevance years ago, and who knows what could have happened instead of what has happened (not enough)?  Perhaps, a new, more liberal party gaining influence?  And then you complain that things aren't getting better.  You are exactly the same as the criminal congressional GOP.  You should be fucking ashamed of yourselves.

Oh, you're so cool, voting's lame, why bother, man?  Unacceptable.  I'm as sick of this as I am of people saying shit like "an embryo is a person" or "gays shouldn't be able to get married" or "wealth trickles down from the top and the rich are job creators" or "the second amendment means anyone should be able to buy any gun ever no matter what".  Idiots.  And not only are you enabling it, but you also might be just as big of idiots for doing it.  Vote third party!  Vote for Fred Flintstone!  Just get out there and vote and be active instead of being content as countercultural and above it all.

Well you being above it all means a lot of people not having their needs met.  So fucking enjoy it.  Pat yourself on the back.  Really just lean back and enjoy being a huge asshole.  And fuck you.

why it's science

Unlike in all my previous writings I have tried to make this blog entirely not about me personally.  This will be my first lapse into the style that is my most natural.

So my mother taught me to value science.  She also made me go to church every week, and taught me the value of spirituality and tradition, but we both knew the emphasis was really on science.

Science demands that an investigator, or experimenter, start from a position of no knowledge, nothing assumed, a baseline, null, unbiased stance of basically ambivalence.

From this position of ignorance must ye come to knowledge.

So that is the most important and fundamental virtue my mother, and family,  instilled in me, to make no assumptions, to come to my own conclusions, to test them and question them, to amend them if it is appropriate, and not allow any predetermined conclusions to dominate my decision-making process.

This is what a scientist must do.

So, starting from this point of view, just how can you expect someone to accept that God, (or), an extra-physical process, which we cannot prove, which rules all of our decisions, which made our ancestors and the world that they lived in, is in control of us?  There is absolutely nothing in our immediate experience that demonstrates or corroborates this.  It very much seems that I can do whatever I want to do and that God cannot stop me.  When I attempt to do something, I observe the results, and I speculate as to what might happen if I do that particular thing again, or if I do similar things.  This is what most demonstrably guides my decisions.

God doesn't need to exist to explain everything, and that's why God has such a hard time courting followers in a time of increasing scientific thought; however, this isn't the first time religion has faced this problem and emerged on the other side renewed and basically the winner.

Darwin's explanation of the evolution of life on earth is complete and sufficient.  All the so-called "holes in Darwin's argument" are fucking nothing stitched together with horse shit string.  When you take into account the inconceivable amount of time that has passed since the first single-celled organism came into being on this Earth through now (4 billion?  and the oldest humans live to like 100-120?) ... I really don't think it's that hard to believe that we could have eventually evolved from some proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates mixed together in a nice hobo stew, which combined to make a whackadoo chemical reaction called life.  It's really a WAY more reasonable and believable explanation than any other I have ever heard offered, from any culture or philosophy.

I believe Charles Darwin was exactly right.  And I also think that he knew it and that it literally killed him.

However I can't disprove spirituality and religion.  And I take it seriously based on my own personal experience.

It is a conundrum, but it shouldn't be, at least when in comes to governing and law-making.  As people who deal with the problems of this world in a very real and direct sense, we must respond to what we see and experience every day, and not be influenced by unrelated and functionally irrelevant beliefs.  We need to do what will keep us all alive.  And if that means allowing abortions, I say fuckin' eh!  Let's do it!  If that means locking people up in prison, let's fucking do it!  If that means charging into a burning building, let's FUCKING DO IT!!!!!

I value science, but not so much that I will get lost in and paralyzed by it, at the expense of the life and limb of others.  With religion there are so many and much clearer reasons to take this position. (specifically: not letting your personal beliefs limit the realistic ways you deal with situations)

WHAT THE FLYING FUCK??!!

Yes, that's right, flying fuck.  It's a thing.  You've heard it.  Does it make any sense?  No.  So, most seriously, fuck you.  And fuck the motherfucking horse you rode in on.  And fuckedy fuck mc fuckely fuckerston.  Holy to the living fuck.  Fuck.  FUCK YOU!!!  BLERGHHHH!!!!!!! *vomits blood*

Sincerely,

W. Giffs Afuckhh

dictated but not read.

"out" envy

There are a lot of things about the conservative point of view that I have to push really hard and get creative to even hope to understand.

This is certainly an idea that has been proposed many times, but I think usually when I hear it, it's as an off-handed statement just for the sake of argument, and not followed up on and considered as a reasonable and correct explanation of a certain behavior / point of view.  Certainly not insisted upon.  Just always considered a kind of a jest, really, and not a correct and rational full explanation.

So, what if everyone who fights the hardest for "traditional marriage" and thinks that homosexuality is "unnatural" and "sinful" is actually just a closeted gay person?

I think this next is an understatement that can only be interpreted as sarcasm - I believe there are certain quarters in our society where people are under pressure to not be gay or admit they're gay.

So it's not so hard to understand why at least some of these people would refuse to acknowledge their gayness, and just bury it down inside, rather than accept this thing that their own families clearly would not accept or tolerate.

It's also not hard to understand that burying such a fundamental thing about a person could cause them great stress and frustration, or anger, not being able to live this life that they desperately want to live but feel they cannot.  Then imagine if you will, them "having" to listen to people who are out and proud, and enjoying their lives as homosexuals and being accepted in doing so.  The resentment towards those people that must be felt - the jealousy.  Persecuting gay people as a result is a grade-school-level-of-maturity response, but as we've seen that is not unusual for closed-minded conservative thinkers.

The other thing is I've always believed (at least once I started to meet and befriend gay folks) is that there are way more gay people out there than is generally thought or accepted or documented.  In polls and such, the people who identify as gay is something in the single digit percent, middle or maybe high.  But I think a lot of us know that it must be higher than that, and possibly a LOT higher.

I have had trouble understanding how people could hide such a fundamental part of their personalities for so long, and fool so many others, and just never admit it to anyone or possibly even themselves.  But I did not grow up in a household where I was told that being gay is unnatural, or wrong, or sinful, or behavior that would be punished.  I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that if I had, my views would be very different today.

So while it is hard to fully relate to for me, I believe it makes perfect sense that people would rather hide this than alienate their families, friends, and communities, everything they've ever known.  And I believe that these people exist in large numbers, in the millions.

So rather than accept and acknowledge being gay, their way of dealing with these feelings is belittling and persecuting "out" gay people.  I'm sure the psychology behind this is complicated, and not done justice by as simple a statement as this, but:  They probably want to lash out against the part of themselves that knows they are gay, but since they can't even admit that this part of them exists, the only target available is people who are admittedly gay.

In all seriousness, I think it's possible that gay people number upwards of 20% of the population or something.  Maybe half, or slightly less, accept it to some degree, and the other half is so deep in the closet that they're passionate about marginalizing people who are enjoying the life they secretly want to embrace.  This would be very difficult to prove, of course, but to me it is the simplest explanation of how so many people could get so fired up in opposition to another person's lifestyle, which should not affect them at all.

Philosophy and reason instruct us that we should always consider the simplest explanation for a phenomenon first, when attempting to determine the truth.  The explanation that these people are out there crusading so vehemently against gay rights due to a couple of isolated and random lines in the Old Testament, which they just happen to believe in so much that they dominate their lives, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially since 1) there are so many other "rules" in there that no one, even the most conservative, practices or takes seriously anymore. 2) the mentions are very few and far between and 3) Jesus himself made no mention of it.

The explanation that they lash out at individuals who are what they wish they could be, but in their culture never can be, makes perfect freaking sense in a way that we've all seen and experienced in our own lives.  This is not a jab meant to push the buttons of, and provoke, conservatives.  No, instead it is the naked truth, unwashed, emotional, irrational, and quintessentially human.

Let's get serious.

I like to kind of joke around.  But today I'd like to be a little more straightforward.

The newest statistic floating around is that more than 50% of congress is made up of millionaires for the first time.  (This statistic is correct, not liberal propaganda). This probably doesn't represent a huge, recent change, as representatives have always been wealthy at a percentage that dwarfs the people they represent.  However, I think this number puts the difference in very clear terms. 

About 9 million "households" have a reported net worth of more than 1m (in America) This is a bit of a difficult statistic to interpret but I'm going to try.

Of course many of these households are households of one.  Many others are couples.  Plenty of others include kids. Averaged all together, you'd probably get an average of 3-something. To be inaccurately generous to the other side, let's say 4.

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When I say inaccurately generous, the average number of kids in a household with kids is between 2 and 3.  So the average household size in a household with kids is between 4 and 5.  So clearly the average household in general is not 4.  But my point can be made clearly even spotting the opposing argument a couple of touchdowns.

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And now for some grade school arithmetic.  

9 * 4 = 36.  (By the way, the 9 was rounded up too.) 

So, that makes 36 million Americans who are part of a "millionaire household", at the absolute most. Now for the percentage! 

36/ 300 (for 300 million total Americans) = .12 = 12%.

According to the 2012 census, 15% of Americans are living in poverty.  So....

300 * .15 = 45 million. 

Once again, 36 million living in a millionaire household, 45 million living in poverty.  Again, this is not new, I doubt if there has ever been a society where the poverty-stricken did not outnumber the wealthy.  And that's fine.  Actually that's probably pretty good.  I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about relative representation in the body that makes our laws.  

So, being that all members of congress draw a 6-figure salary, none of them live in poverty.  So this group of people's (numbering 45 million) number of representatives is 0.

Millionaires, on the other hand, have 268 out of 534 current members of congress that represent them economically.  So, mathematically, that top 12% has infinitely more representation than the bottom (at least) 15%, and more than half of all representation.  In fact they'd have infinitely more with 1 representative, so they've got infinity times 268 more representation.  (I apologize to serious readers, if there are any, for this last "statistic".)

I think if we continued to break these numbers down we'd see that plenty of others above the poverty line have literally no representatives that reflect them, but the stats I've laid out already clearly demonstrate that congress is rigged to advocate for the wealthiest and silence the poorest.

This goes a long way to explaining how they could possibly allow cuts to food stamps and unemployment insurance - these cuts literally don't affect any of them.  So anyone in congress who opposes these cuts does so not out of self-interest, but out of sympathy, which anyone can tell you is not as strong a motivator as self-interest.

My point is, when someone like Elizabeth Warren says the "game is rigged" against poor and working people, she is demonstrably correct, and correct in a way that a 6th grader should be able to understand.  So how can this point of view be dismissed as radically liberal? Only because the game of politics is rigged, thoroughly, and it would take radical change for this not to be the case.

Indulge me in an imaginary example to summarize my argument.

Say a bill is up for a vote.  The bill would cut taxes for millionaires by 75%, while cutting all benefits for the poor and feeding them into a huge meat grinder.  A majority of congress (enough to pass the bill) would stand to reap millions of dollars in benefit from the tax cuts, and literally 0 of them would be going into the meat grinder.  Would the law pass?  Also, how far is this from what is happening in real life, today?

The truth hurts.