Unintended versus intentional consequences
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In My Humble Opinion
Jodi McDade
Unintended consequences vs. intentional consequences. I’ve been thinking about the very stark and scary differences there are between these two concepts.
When decisions are made or ideas put into play, the dynamics of life change – but who really knows what changes will actually be made? We all face these decisions every day. Do you get up each morning and do planned thought out tasks, or do you get up and just fly by the seat of your pants to see what happens? I think most of us probably do a little bit of both.
When it is us making these decisions we take into account our own lives, families, finances, and futures with what will the outcome of the decisions be. If we buy something, can we pay for it without doing without something else? If we cook chicken for dinner, will everyone eat it or will it be thrown out? Is it more important for us to save money or go on a long vacation? And then, after the fact, we find out if we made the correct decision with the expected consequences or did something very different happen? And, were these consequences for the better or the worse?
The trickle down effect of consequences is where we have to be very careful, and what I am watching happen in our country right now has me really concerned. First, I am wondering if the costs of gas, costs of food, lack of supplies, crime, illnesses, and many other things are the results of unintended consequences brought on by just bad or uninformed decisions in our government or, and I really hate to think this, are the results of intended decisions to bring about definite planned consequences.
Yes, I’m going down a rabbit hole this week. I have never been a really observant person, and it takes me a while to catch on to clues, trends and changes, but somehow I am now noticing things.
I’m looking back to things that were going on 50-plus years ago and connecting dots. I’ve studied enough history to know that our country has been slowly, slowly changing from the freedoms previous generations enjoyed – but WHY? Have we always had people who think in such drastically different ways? I understand we are not going to agree on everything, but it seems we can’t agree on ANYTHING right now!
Why did some people think that moving our industrial and manufacturing to other countries was a good idea? Did they intend to provide us with cheaper products or were they setting us up to be dependent on these other countries instead of on ourselves?
Why, when just 10-15 years ago our government (or we the taxpayers) bailed out the solar panel companies in this country because they couldn’t make a product or a profit, are we now being pushed to “clean energy” when there is NO infrastructure in place to support it?
Why, when we finally became energy independent for the first time in our history and were employing Americans again, did we overnight shut down our oil, gas and coal companies so we could go back to either buying from our enemies or just doing without? Ever since “The Jetsons” I’ve been waiting on flying cars, but you just don’t decide to stop making tires until you know the cars will really fly!
I am all for clean air and water, but over the last 50-plus years in our country we have cleaned up our energy production and reduced environmental issues to record lows. The continuing problems in the world are in the OTHER countries who have not done the same thing and who we are now buying the majority of our purchases from!
The oil and gas we are now purchasing from overseas are not as clean as what we can produce for ourselves (and sell to others). Their methods are not regulated the way ours are to follow good environmental and ecology standards. So we are now contributing to the overall problem again!
Why decide to throw open our borders to people from all over the world – and I mean ALL over the world? These are not just poor people wanting a better life.
We have increased the drug and criminal activities across our country with these criminals coming in – and YES, criminals are people who break the law. And, that brings me to why do we have laws if we are not going to enforce them?
The outcry for gun control is outrageous – the problem comes from letting criminals walk the streets. More laws to control gun ownership will only prevent law-abiding people from having guns. They will do NOTHING to prevent a criminal from getting them because – THEY DON’T FOLLOW THE LAW!
Every citizen in our country is feeling the effects of these unintended or intended consequences. It doesn’t matter if you are a liberal or conservative, black or white, young or old, man or woman, gay or straight, rich or poor. We are all trying to live within the means we have whether we are unemployed, retired, employed, or living on assistance.
We cannot continue to survive in this economy. So, what do we do? Somehow, we all need to put aside our other differences and speak out together. We are like sheep being led to slaughter – will any of us survive?