There’s a lot to catch up on since we finished finals last year. Gun control is once again a hot topic of conversation, and it looks like Obama has that handled with his 23 Executive Strongly Worded Letters to Congress. We totally dealt with that fiscal cliff problem by, instead of driving right off of it, driving around in circles for a moment before we continued back on our original route. We considered minting a platinum coin to deal with the ridiculous amount of debt we have managed to rack up in our government’s exploits in using drone strikes to murder Middle Eastern children … or, as they prefer to call it, “anti-terrorism measures.”
If you haven’t already noticed, we live in a copy of The Onion.
Seriously? A platinum coin to deliver us from our debt woes? I saw the WSJ alert email that the Treasury had decided against the measure in my inbox and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
Our politicians evidently just noticed that we are carrying $16 billion of debt on the balance sheet, but seem to think that their measly spending cuts and tax hikes — some of which affect every single American wage-earner, including those in the fawned-over “middle class” — are going to make a material difference in the country’s long-term fiscal position. Then again, the politicians, including our self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives, seem to be operating off of the economic philosophy that “in the long run, we are all dead.”
Maybe all of this talk about gun control was secretly a government ploy by Obama to boost the GDP through a panic over the future availability of high-capacity magazines and the scarier looking versions of normal rifles deemed “assault weapons.” Because, you know, no one is going to try to shoot up a school unless they’re using a weapon that looks like it’s military grade. All of the other school shooters would just laugh at you if you used a normal weapon. And you’re definitely not going to use a weapon obtained illegally to try to slaughter innocent students! That would make you a lawbreaker, and you wouldn’t want people talking about you like you were a criminal after you had killed yourself and others.
By and large, our national political compass points more to satire than anything else. Political cartoonists are probably having a difficult time making reality more absurd than it already is. And what goes on in Washington is not going to affect our daily lives nearly as much as you think it would considering how much time we spend talking about it.
The Ole Miss community lost a beloved alum this weekend, Jermaine Jackson. He had been my mock trial coach for a year and had been involved in the program since he joined it during his undergraduate career. He was an honors adviser to a number of students, some of whom are still at Ole Miss. Many who knew him had not spoken to him in far longer than should have been acceptable, and now we will never have a chance to do so. So next time you get the urge to partake in the political circus going on in Washington, perhaps consider calling a friend or relative you haven’t spoken to in a while.
You’ll get far more out of it than you will out of a snarky comment on someone’s Facebook page.
Alexandra Williamson is an accountancy senior from Frisco, Texas. Follow her on Twitter @alyxwi.
