Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Tired Excuses

Two over-used phrases I wish politicians from the local level to the national would retire, permanently:

1. "We don't want to re-invent the wheel""
If our ancestors had adopted this same attitude, we'd still be using rollers and a sledge to move things around. The wheel has been re-invented many times and each time, it moved us forward by leaps and bounds.

2. "We don't want to just kick the can down the road"
My problem with this one is that it's just thrown out there with no explanation as to why the can should continue to lie where it is, following a statement that makes it clear that we need the can to be somewhere other than where it lies. Whether we need to kick the can down the road depends on where we need that can to be. Sometimes, "down the road" is the wrong direction, other times, it's exactly the direction the can needs to move if it's ever to reach that final goal. Maybe we can't kick the can all the way to where we need it to be, in one short kicking session, but that doesn't mean we should just leave it where it lies. Kicking it down the road to move it closer to the goal is called "progress." It's what our ancestors did with each improvement of the wheel from its humble beginnings as rollers and sledge through its many re-inventions along the road to becoming the modern version we rely on, today.

Overall, I really just want our elected representatives to stop telling us what they don't want to do and just get to work doing the jobs they asked us to give them.

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