What's holding us back

Well, as a nation, there a few things holding us back.

We have the "job creators" on Wall Street who got tired of speculating on the price of oil when it wouldn't stay above $4 a gallon so now they're pushing up coffee prices so that a $10 cup of coffee is within reach.

Nevermind, that there is no classic "supply-and-demand" dynamic driving these price spikes. It's the invisible, and all-knowing, hand of the marketplace manipulating the market like a marionette.

And then we have Republican congressmen who believe that relief for the victims of natural disasters, like what victims of Hurricane Irene experienced, is money wasted. These elephants postulate that if we give out money to Americans flooded out of their homes, then we must cut money to people who were flooded out of their homes.

The logic is there, but it's a tad warped.

And then the usual elephant in the room surfaces: All of the problems in America, according to the GOP "brain trust," can be traced to all those regulations, environmental and financial, that have been in place for years.

If only manufacturers could pollute at will, or if bankers could foreclose on more homes, then we could reduce our jobless rate, their thinking goes.

But, as Stephen Colbert notes, the only factory left in America is The Cheesecake Factory. Those eateries may pollute, but it's something not necessarily experienced at the restaurant, but much later on. Also, we know what The Cheesecake Factory pays: "family wages" for three families living in single-family housing.

The other "theory" of conservatives, teabaggers included, is that for every job cut from government, another job is automatically, and permanently, created in the private sector.

Of course, there is absolutely no evidence for this belief, but that doesn't mean anything.

Afterall, nearly every scientist in the world believes in evolution, also known as Darwin's theory of natural selection, but that doesn't mean it's real. GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, who is also a gynecologist, doesn't believe in evolution.

Hey, it's a free country. We can believe what we want to believe because we have the freedom to do so.

They don't have that freedom in China or Cuba or Saudi Arabia.

But, in America, we do.

And, can you believe how many different cheesecakes they serve at The Cheesecake Factory?

Only those who have never been to a Cheesecake Factory can say that America is in decline.