Something I Stand For

Now that much of the nation has gotten its collective head out of its collective ass and put down the remote control long enough to have the gestalt that maybe the political party in power has no idea what it's doing (with the notable exception of massive corruption--and it's funny how it only took the Republicans 10 years of running Congress to become as corrupt as the Democrats after forty years of running Congress) (and it's also highly-amusing to see the number of Republicans in the House running for re-election who promised in 1994 to limit their time in office to 12 years), it's looking like, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, the Congress is going to switch majority parties in one, if not both, houses this November.

However, the only poll the Dems are losing is this: Nobody knows what they stand for. You know what you're getting with the President. It's stupid, myopic, corrupt, and, well, not even all that conservative if you believe that kind of thing, but, dad gammit! He means what he says and says what he means! I don't believe that, but when you have tools like Joe Lieberman speaking for "liberals," you can understand why people might think Democrats don't stand for much.

So, as a service to the millions who read this, I just want to tell you one thing I fervently believe to the very depths of my soul. Here it is:

I believe teachers should be paid more than golf pros. Thank you.

Maybe that's really crazy to some of you. After all, without golf pros, we wouldn't have guys and gals who are really good at a sport a fairly large segment of the population don't give a shit about. Without golf pros, we would have to find something else as marginally entertaining as a golf tournament on Sunday afternoon TV.

Okay, that's true, but did Tiger Woods teach you how to spell "neighborhood?" Did Nancy Lopez learn you all about your multiplication tables? Was it Lee Trevino who taught you to read?

But Rollie, you say, that's the marketplace! That's how it works! People want to pay good money to professional golfers, and there you go. Isn't it magical and wonderful and bountiful! It works so well, so leave it alone, Mr. Govmint Man!

That's the marketplace. Those who do the most amount of good for society make substantially less than those who hit a little white ball around.

Well, I'm sorry, but I'm against that. Now, this isn't a platform any political party is supporting, but call me a koo-koo krazy lefty, but I really believe that the best teacher out there should be paid more than the best professional golfer.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm acting out of my own rational self-interest because I'm a teacher. I've only been doing this for about five years, so maybe I could just be paid as much as the average professional golfer, or maybe even a little below that, and hopefully I can supplement my meager high five, low six-figures with some endorsement deals with Mead Notebooks and Elmer's Glue and Houghton-Mifflin textbooks.

So there you have it. It's a radical overhaul of society, but it's a lot less absurd than the ridiculous amounts of cash the sacrosanct marketplace pays its professional golfers.

If anybody knows of any candidates running for office who also share my view, I will gladly support them.