The World according to Bono

For some strange reason, I have a subscription to Time magazine. I probably keep it up for nostalgic reasons, more than anything else. Though after barely being able to read the last several issues, I believe I'm going to let it lapse.

This week's issue has a wonderfully optimistic and uplifting theme: "A special report on the world's most dangerous diseases- and the heroes fighting them." I guess they didn't feel they sufficiently scared the heck out of America with their last article on avian flu. I digress.

When I get Time I usually leaf through it first, see what's on the menu for this week. What I will make a point to read, and what I will make a point to ignore. When I reached the last page, the closing essay, I knew what was coming. It's titled "This generation's moon shot," and it's penned by none other than Bono. There's even a nice picture of him, trademark shades on. He's got the cutest little girl sitting on his shoulders, proving to all, he likes people, he's a nice guy.

In the name of full public disclosure, I like Bono. He seems to be nice enough, polite, chose the world's poorest of the poor as his personal charity, very admirable. I don't much like U2 though. I've never been overly impressed with The Edge's lead-guitar playing. All he does is put a delay on his guitar that's set to a harmonic of the lics he's playing. If I can figure that out, there's certainly not much meat to it. 'Still haven't found what I'm looking for' was one of the first songs I learned to play on guitar. So I don't have anything against U2, I don't see myself racing out to buy any of their CDs in the near future.

Back to Bono.

As soon as I saw the essay I knew what he was going to say. I knew it for a fact. And once again, I knew he'd be wrong. After reading, I was, unfortunately, proven correct.

Bono begins by sucking up to America, telling us how the US moon landing was an inspiration to his generation. Then he continues on with accolades on American rock and roll. So far so good. Personally I think Britain deserves as big an applause as America when it comes to rock and roll. Many great American rock and roll artists were severely limited in where they could perform for no other reason than useless, baseless racism. Some of those artists managed to make it to Britain where they were heard, copied, and then exported back to America. As for the US moon landing, yeah, that was way cool. Think about it. At one time in ancient history, the moon was worshipped as a God. And then mankind went to pay it a visit. I so wanted to be a space shuttle pilot. But again, I digress.

Then Bono makes a plea to re-energize that spirit and put it to work on a new issue, world poverty and disease. I'm with him on that. How could any sane person be against helping those in such dire need? I mean, this is a win-win issue for him. Its a win-win issue for humanity.

Then we reach his error. And its not just his error; many, many people make the same error. So many people, in fact, there's a name for this problem. Its called modern liberalism. And here's how Bono screws up:

"The question is now whether politicians will prove themselves the equal of scientists."

Did you notice it? Did you see it? Here's another one:

"We must keep the pressure on our governments if we want them to follow through."

Here's one last hint:

"As voters and taxpayers, we must give our leaders permission to invest just a fraction of our taxes...."

If you haven't figured it out by now, you should probably be reading essays over at the Daily Kos weblog. Bono makes the same mistake far too many people in this country make. Granted, he has an excuse, he's Irish (back off the jokes, so am I). But he wasn't born or raised in America. If you want to appeal to America, you start by appealing to Americans. Please don't tell us to sit back and suck it up while the federal government 'appropriates' another few trillions of dollars out of us. Anyone with 51% of their brain working properly knows the federal government fixes almost nothing, and instead, usually makes the situation worse. Can any one say 'New Orleans'? If Bono wants his appeal to fall on fertile ears, he should stop sucking up to the Bush administration, and take his appeal directly to the American people. And I don't mean the kind of person who goes to a rock concert, gets stoned off their ass, and then is convinced they saved the world. Convince me. Convince me its a worthy cause - and it is - then let me do something about it. I don't need Uncle Sam to tell me what's right, what's wrong, and what to do.

Too many people in this country, and this world, believe that people are helpless, they can't accomplish anything on their own, and we need big government to guide us, to protect us, shield us, feed us, house us, clothe us. We do not. Humans in general, and Americans in particular, can, have and do accomplish great feats all the time. Government did not invent the airplane, which is used today to move mountains of aid supplies to the very people Bono wishes to help. Government did not invent the trucks used to distribute the aid. Americans did. (I will note there is some controversy over who exactly invented the car, but there's no doubt which country made the automobile what it is today.)

To sum it up: do not ask me to insist my government collect more taxes, and then piss them away. Ask me to help. I will.

11/28/05 UPDATE: Bono really really likes his hat. Hat tip to Taranto.