Leviathan

I have not blogged for quite a while. Settling into marriage, starting law school, and searching for some direction in my burgeoning legal career have left me a bit too muddled to write anything. Searching for a summer job was particularly stressful, because your first internship (or lack thereof) in law school can determine what opportunities are available to you down the road. Having found a very pleasing and hopefully rewarding summer internship (that actually pays!), I feel as if the fog which has surrounded me for the past year is beginning to lift somewhat. I am starting to feel more confident in my future work, and my ability to practice law. However, not everything about clear vision is comforting. Having been burdened by the stresses of pursuing a career in law, I am still left wondering what kind of future I have committed myself to.

The work, I believe, will delight a certain part of my brain. The part of me that preferred to keep "Mensa Brain Bafflers!" handy for bathroom reading instead of something a bit more narrative. However, I fear the oppressive obstacles facing legal, business, and government entities in the near future. I quake before the unstable obesity of our nation's fiscal future. I have no doubt that we must cut spending AND raise taxes in order to pull ourselves out of this quagmire. The financial foot of this nation is sunk deep into the quicksand of debt and deficits. If we struggle aimlessly to correct it, we will only hasten our crushing suffocation. Only through a well reasoned tax policy focused on reducing our debts and hence our annual interest payments can we wade ourselves out of this mess.

I think what bothers me about our two party system the most is the insane dichotomies we create. We have Republicans who sensibly advocate cutting programs, but also advocate cutting taxes. We cannot reduce our debt with that model, and will likely not cut enough to stop increasing the debt. On the other hand, we have democrats who are willing to impose new taxes, but who in the same breath propose new spending measures. Even with increased taxes, we will continue to see the debt rise under this model, and surely will not see any reductions in the deficit. However, as voters, we are still too greedy to really get behind a platform that says "Cut spending and raise taxes!" We, not only Congress, simply wish to consume more and more. Soon our nation will be like the 800 pound man on the daytime talk show who cannot fit through his own door anymore.

I suppose what bothers me most is that this situation was set up by irresponsible generations before us. In order to address this problem, our generation will suffer disproportionately high taxation with lower services for most of our income producing years in order to pick up the tab (with interest) that our parent's generation has left behind.

Let us be angry, but let us do better. Let us not wait until our nation is so rotund that we must be evacuated from our house by means of a crane, like some perfectly spherical man-fruit fallen from the tree.

And even with brave words like these, I dream of dark whales swallowing me whole.