Crankier By The Day

Bill, Joe, and BO are pumped for big times in Charlotte!

It is not intentional, it just happens. I'm sure the election year garbage is a slight influence, but not the whole story. It is the part of the story easiest to tell, thereby deflecting my other inter-personal failings and foibles.

From the time I first had a glimpse of TV convention coverage, years and years ago, I was embarrassed and appalled that people were running around with stupid hats, balloons everywhere, gaudy bunting all over the place, marching bands firing up on cue. I'm thinking, "Hey, isn't this supposed to be about who gets the big job of administrator, commander in chief of the armed forces? Would people hire someone in real life for a serious job if his or her resume was packaged like a big car sale or circus flyer?"

The underlying realization which I wanted to ignore--the thing that gave me a tinge of nausea--was the realization that, like the over the top car ads, they were appealing to the least among us, and the worst within us. That need to cheer for the winning team, that resistance to stepping back against the crowd because something is wrong. They are targeting emotions, people who would rather feed their emotions than be free or do the right thing, and they are targeting relatively illogical and dimwitted people.

The game is worsened by the thrill that comes when it is open season on some specific person or group. For whatever reason, our setup has locked it up so only two teams have a chance in this game. Now we can find labels, which become cliches, for the other team and their despicable fans. The actual substance of how the job is going to be done, and with what, often gets lost in the cheers and jeers.

I'm not sure I even want to hear more. In the past few years I've heard elected members of the US Congress gush about Cuba's healthcare system, which doesn't get good reviews from people I know who have either visited or experienced it first hand, claim that China's system of everything is a model we should emulate, and then they turn around a claim they are going to make my life better. Silly me, I thought their job was to keep force and fraud away so I could make my own life better, as I see fit--or not.

To realize that there are people in power who see examples of tyranny as role models is not comforting. They cheer states and leaders who saw fit to commit mass murder to solidify their power. Odd that humans haven't evolved a collective survival instinct which would make the Ches and Stalins of the world unthinkable considerations for leadership roles.

It's the cringe factor in overdrive. I know that there are people running for things who, in some ways represent me more than those in power, especially in Ca, but holy smoke, they can say and do the goofiest things, and in the goofiest ways. It is as if they do it to fuel the opponents. It offers such temptation for people to make fun of them and further ignore the true nature of political "issues". The damned issues are largely the result of overstepping proper functions, "partnering" with various companies and industries, and generally encouraging government to become a monster which can't stop feeding and growing.

The other part of the issue generation syndrome is the fact that most people have a very weak moral compass. They can't resist minding the affairs of others when it doesn't concern them. Particularly when life is tough, they suspend certain values if they can somehow blame others or society in general, and they become ripe for those who buy their votes with talk of how their government has failed them. Their problems aren't their fault, or the nature of life, they are the result of government not doing more, and all you need to do to make the pain go away is vote for me.

My only problem with that kind of thing is that after awhile, they come up with so many more things to do, and laws, that I cannot avoid being affected by it. Not that I am doing anything to harm or deceive anyone. You just can't live without permission, and that trend is on the upswing. It has been all my life, I guess.

We still have people who are fool enough to actually believe the circus barker rhetoric advertising what is in store if we just buy the right ticket. It is crazy. University professors, teachers, thugs, you-name-it, all suckering and hoping they'll get a little something for nothing, even if it is only a bit of power. No moral compass at all. Their values are based on whether everyone else accepts the same shady garbage wrapped in self righteous nonsense.

I do know it can be worse when a place goes all out and declares itself a people's state--marxist totalitarian set up. Now, anything can be seen as not in the interest of the collective, as defined by the party leaders, and the individual is on thin ice if he likes to disagree or rebel, even intellectually. I think we are on our way, but it is still subtle enough that the less sensitive among us do not feel it. Frogs in the slowly heating pot of water.

I'm wondering why people still assume that all people of a particular race or gender are supposed to think alike? That seems highly racist and sexist to me. But it is rare that white males find that requirement placed upon them. The accusation is sometimes launched that they all look out for one another, but a quick look around shoots that all to hell. I'd be repulsed if someone came to me to join a "white caucus", or white man's basic labor and handyman association, or white male lawyer's association, etc. Those things don't fly. Yet, if a non-white rejects such things, that person is a traitor their condition of birth.

I have a feeling that I will die before anyone cares what I think or that any of this is not considered subversive and all that. It is upside down. I'm against oppression and divisiveness. You keep forming little clubs based on physical characteristics in the world of social philosophy, peace is unlikely to result.

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