No sailing chart
By Dr. M. Sidney Wallace
web posted September 20, 2010
A young boy child watched as more experienced individuals came and went across the lake near his home. He would watch the mariners as they would simply climb into their boat, turn the tiller on the motor and away they would go. He watched the fishermen meticulously stowing their gear, fore and aft, port and starboard then hop in and take off. He watched work boats and ferries arriving docking and unloading with cargo for his side of the lake. It all looked so easy and effortless.
One day a group of educated friends with absolutely no real world work experience, dared the little boy to take them across the lake on one of the boats to prove how simple the task was. He already assumed that all he needed do was to jump into a boat, turn the tiller on the motor, and away they would go.
Our little boy’s ego got the best of him and he accepted the dare. He found a boat beached on the waterfront, and told his erudite friends to jump in and they started out onto the lake. There was much exaltation of the little boy as the boat headed away from the shore. After a few minutes the little boat was far from land in the center of the lake. Then all hell broke loose.
The motor on the little boat started to sputter and the little boy had absolutely no idea why. Some of the learned friends said to kick the motor and that will fix the problem. The net effect was the motor had a depression in its casing and started to sputter and run even slower.
Eventually the motor stopped all together. The crew of inexperienced educated inept professors started looking for shore. Our little boy and his crew began to look at each other and they decided to blame the owner of the boat for leaving it unsecured along the shore. This did not change the problem. They were out in the lake and the motor had stopped running.
The little boy decided to stand up, in the boat, to see how far they were from the shore. As he turned about his cultured friends all started moving to the left side and the boat started to list to the port side.
When our little boy saw the shore all around, he had no idea which way he should steer the little boat. He asked his left leaning educated friends and they told him that he should appoint a committee to study the problem.
After a while, the little boat drifted to the same shore it had been on earlier. The owners of the boat immediately took the boat away from the little boy and he started to cry while saying it was the fault of the previous boat captain that left the boat on the shore in the first place.
A competent captain would have: looked at the fuel tank first, known about weight and balance on a floating platform, and would have looked at a navigational chart before leaving port. America does not have any real world experience in its current government and therefore is destined to drift until the owners take it back in November.
America was not built on government actions; however, government actions will surely cause its destruction. 
If you wish to send a comment or ask a question of Dr. Wallace please use msw@gulf1.com.