Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Are you beat up enough yet?


It seems the Kavanaugh situation is bringing up the ugliest in American politics. And we all know American politics has been ugly at times. This situation though is what we do not want to see.

It isn’t just the grandstanding either. Our politics includes grandstanding as part of it’s regular routine. This situation has brought the grandstanding to new lows.

People say they are tired of talking about politics, yet we still do. People want answers and we want our leaders to have them. This country has survived on the public believing our leaders will find an answer to any troubles our country faces. And many times, leaders have come to the forefront and brought us through dark times. Sometimes we have been blessed and we have leaders that take charge and guide us to new directions.

Now that confidence is waning. People are angry and cannot determine who they are angry against. They think they know. We have come to the point where sides matter too much and the whole be damned.  And no one is coming to the forefront to give us something we can rally around. Some people think they have someone they can rally around, however, it is only their misguided anger that fuels their energy. Misplaced anger historically does not lead to much good.

Yet, day after day we are bombarded with hate, anger, lies, finger pointing, inability to concede a point no matter how trivial, and neither side realizes they both are the problem. Any rational political point cannot be made by either side. There are still good liberal and still good conservative ideas. There are not good Democrat or Republican leaders. Last Thursday’s day long hearing was one long drawn out pontification. Yes, the Democrats acted superior, but they were grandstanding just as much as the Republicans. Senators speaking for themselves acting like they were making points for Professor Hill. Kavanaugh either unable to contain an honest anger because he is being falsely accused or completely off the rails because everything that is being said about him is true. Your answer depends on which side you fall. Generally, people say the truth falls in the middle and most times that is true. This time I do not think so. There is a horrible truth in this situation and if it were ever able to be proved the other side still will not accept a reality that goes against their worldview.

We are beating ourselves up unbelievably. It seems the heart and soul of this country is looking for a heart and soul and completely unable to find it. And maybe because we are looking in the wrong places. I rant and rave constantly that we need new leadership, even make half hearted attempts to describe what that new leadership should do when it comes to public policy. To find good leaders though seems to be a needle in a haystack search right now. And as beat up as we are, one leader will not suffice. We need new leadership to replace this my side is better than your side mentality, so it may take many people coming together and finding more than common ground, but people with the character to sit this country down and as they say; tell it like it is. Unfortunately, easier said than done. We have been lied to by the so-called leaders of both sides. I know the people on each side say, I am wrong it is the other side, yet my argument that I always make and has never been disproven is if one side actually did better than why have the middle class and the working class economic situation deteriorated over the last few decades, why is public education declining, why is the wealth gap increasing more and more each year, why is good public policy so difficult to implement and the list goes on. There are hundreds of sound ideas brought forth daily by various groups.

The cyclical election cycle produces much talk, yet no action. The Democrats scream about the greed of the Republicans, so why are the above points still continuing? Where is the help? Each base has been lied to religiously, yet each base denies the sins of their leaders. The media is biased and feeds the masses a new opiate even more dangerous than Karl Marx’s religion opiate warning. There use to be a concept of a moral compass. Today that compass is nowhere to be found.

We are still a great people and country. And to me that is the most maddening fact about the demise of our government over the last few decades. When you talk to most people one on one, rational thought is still the norm. People have desires for our country. People want the best for each other. Okay outside of a few envious moments, people do. People love their lives, they just want to be able to enjoy them. Yet when it comes to applying a set of standards to our leaders it seems to be impossible. We go brain numb. Every single one of our senses, our logic, our power to reason, it all disappears. It is sucked into a vacuum that no one can turn off.

Our history is full of people overcoming obstacles and rising to greatness. We do more for the world just by making ourselves better. We led. Now we do not. And I do not blame anyone in particular, I blame myself to everyone.

And this post has gone on much longer than I wanted. So, …

The real question is have we beat ourselves up enough yet, that we want to stop and find our heart and soul again.  Our greatness is not because of our politicians, it is because of us. Time to look inwards because that is where our heart and soul are to be found.

[And just to be clear, none of this is about President Trump. He is a completely different POS nutcase and how he got to where he is, shows how far we have fallen. As I always say when you keep voting for the lessor of two evils, sooner or later evil has won enough that is all we have left. Clinton v. Trump were the worst possible choices imaginable in 2016, yet we still got there and is proof positive we have lost our heart and soul.]

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