Am I Boring You?

By Alan Caruba

Years ago, beginning around 1984, I became “famous” as the creator of The Boring Institute, a media spoof that literally garnered international attention for its annual list of “The Most Boring Celebrities of the Year.” Until around 2002 I averaged a thousand radio shows and television appearances as the result of the Institute’s spoofs.

Along the way, I became an expert on the subject of boredom and was astounded at the links between boredom and many social problems. It is a frequent factor in various addictions, in crime, as a reason why children drop out of school, why marriages fail, and a host of other problems in people’s lives. It can be an indicator of depression.

You can criticize people in many ways, but telling them they’re boring are fighting words.
We spend a lot of time avoiding boredom because it is such a constant factor in our lives. Watching television is for the most part boredom avoidance. Almost anything that does not require us to actively use our brains falls into this category. Thinking is scary.

So, because I tend to write about certain topics and am increasingly convinced that Barack Obama is just about the worse thing to happen to this nation since the horrid Jimmy Carter, my question is—am I boring you?

Because, if I am, I suspect a lot of other people are bored as well and I suspect that they are the people who voted for Barack Obama. One wag suggested his campaign motto was “This is a great nation and I am going to change all that.”

The rate of change occurring since he took the oath of office in January has been astonishing and it has been bad for America in almost every way. This determined effort to introduce changes swiftly suggests that, if given the normal discussion and debate, most if not all would have been rejected.

Given a rubber stamp Democrat-controlled Congress, however, Obama knows he has a small window of opportunity in which to enact changes that essentially seek to replace capitalism with socialism.

Writing a daily blog as I do, I find myself forced to return to certain themes, not the least of which is the fact that there is no “global warming”, as in a sudden, dramatic warming of the Earth, because the Earth in fact has been experiencing a cooling cycle for the past decade.

The repetition of this simple truth is a response to the daily torrent of lies being put forth from the White House, the Congress, government agencies, some corporations, and the countless environmental organizations all seeking damaging legislation such as “Cap and Trade”, entirely based on lies about “climate change.”

Chief among the lies is that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a “pollutant” responsible for the non-existent “global warming” when, in fact, it plays no role whatever in climate change except to show up in larger quantities hundreds of years after a period of warming.

Imposing limits on CO2 emissions, resulting from of the use of all forms of energy, would raise the cost of everything our economy depends upon to produce goods, to transport them, and to use them. The Big Lie that carbon is a threat to all life on Earth ignores the fact that all life on Earth is based on carbon, including human beings.

Boredom is often a response to too much information. The vast machinery of media in America continues to repeat the lies about the environment and, as a result people “tune out” much of it or uncritically accept it. Recent surveys by all the leading polling organizations demonstrate, however, that most Americans have concluded there is no global warming, rating it last among their concerns.

Recessions are known to last about 18 months and we are approaching that time limit. That suggests America will begin to emerge from this latest recession, the result of the “housing bubble” that burst, but most Americans are still unaware that it was caused by federal government intervention into the housing market by requiring banks and mortgage loan firms to make loans to people who were clearly unable to repay them.

Similarly, government intervention in the automotive market has been part of the cause for the collapse of General Motors and Chrysler by imposing mandates that increased cost, altered design and engineering. The Obama administration just imposed new, higher mileage requirements at the same time as it has interfered in the normal process of bankruptcy, providing taxpayer’s billions to these two companies that are not likely to ever be repaid.

These unconstitutional actions require a daily response but that in turn leaves many Americans confused and inclined to leave such matters to Congress. They have grown bored with the complexity of the issues. So Congress is able to pass legislation involving hundreds of pages that even its members do not read before voting.

A government calling for “energy independence” while shutting off access to the nation’s own vast reserves of coal, oil and natural gas is engaged in a vast deception.

A government imposing baseless “global warming” taxes is impoverishing Americans, denying them the capital necessary not just for ordinary expenses, but vital for the growth of our economy.

Our system of government was designed to slow the process by which laws are passed. Government by crisis is an open door to deception and the destruction of the protections the Constitution extends to every citizen. When there are no “checks and balances” everyone is at risk as sacred concepts of private property and contractual law are thrown overboard.

Thus, writers like myself and many others face the prospect that our warnings are ignored by a public grown bored with the many weighty issues that will determine whether the nation emerges from its current economic woes and whether issues such as national security and even national sovereignty are cast aside.

Americans cannot afford to be bored by such matters.