I could be splitting hairs, but I feel the urge to decode the upcoming Republican convention, before the malarkey starts flying.

     You’ll be hearing buzzwords, coded to get the maximum bounce out of its intended audience. And, if you’re not careful, you might be lulled into thinking they’re real.

     John McCain is going to be pushing “national security.” It’s a nice buzzword. Everyone likes to feel secure. It gives male co-dependents a reason to flair their nostrils and feel self-important.

     But, the reality is that Pancho Villa raided American soil in 1916, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, and a group of paramilitary civilians flew a handful of airplanes into a handful of buildings in New York City and Washington, D.C. in 2001.

     That’s three days in one hundred years.

     That’s not exactly justification for all of the cameras that are springing up at intersections across our fruited plain.

     Sure, if you’re among the rich and powerful, you’re going to like all of that Big Brother intrusion because, hey, you can call your buddies and beat the speeding ticket. And, besides, it’s another tool for keeping the peasants paranoid, down, and in their place.

     You’ll also hear about “tax cuts.” Again, on the surface, it sounds good. I don’t know a single soul that looks forward to bumping up cash to The Man. But, it’s a deceptive concept.

     If you paid attention in Economics class, you probably came across a very simple, yet profound, concept-- money is simply salaries.

     In English, that means that whatever you paid for something is simply the collection of all of the salaries that went into getting that good or service to you. Somebody had to dig the raw materials for your widget out of the ground; the price he sold those materials for was his salary. The person who bought those raw materials shaped them into a widget you’d want; he attached the price of his time and energy to it in the form of a paycheck. A shipper picked up the finished widget and carried it to a store near you; the cost he layered onto the widget was for his time and effort. Then, a salesperson got a commission for putting up with your mindless questions and his time and effort was layered onto the final price you paid for your widget.

     Thus, if money is salaries, when a political candidate says he wants to cut your taxes, he’s actually saying he wants to cut the goods and services you get from your government. And, trust me, he has a vested interest in getting you to throw away your vote on him. The amount of taxes he and his cronies are paying is an awful lot more than you’re paying.

     And, thus, we get down to the core of the whole thing-- the distribution of wealth. There is not a single rich person in this country who did it all by himself. Everybody has had help from somebody. But, that doesn’t mean the greedy want you to have your fair share of the prosperity.

     Therefore, we are back to that time-honored Muslim saying, that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” In case you haven’t noticed, the rich have a knack for taking care of themselves. And, if you want to accomplish anything in this world, you’re going to have to learn to take care of yourself, too. For some, that will mean joining a union. But, for most of us, it will mean not throwing away your vote on the candidate who sings about cutting your taxes.

     Sure, he may try to muddy the waters by trying to stir up racial divisions or hot button topics like abortion and/or gay rights. But, at the end of the day, he’s ultimately wanting to take goods and services away from you, leaving enough money for himself, so he can buy what you want/need.

     Then, he’ll have the temerity to blame you, the victim, for not being as big of a crook as he is.

     But, hey, it’s your vote.

     TWH