It’s a long list, those avocations that consume Americans. Head to your attic or garage, and you’ll find the relics like tennis rackets, skateboards, Rubic cubes, and yes, poker chips. The newest thing sweeping the States? Bashing anyone who chats about poliitcs.
IGGY’s taken barbs, along with everyone from Don to my favorite sports radio show (the Herd) and my favorite daily soccer podcast, World Soccer Daily. Toss one comment or opinion about the Presidential race, and a firestorm of criticism comes your way.
I actually think that is part of the problem. With the explosion of cable outlets and talk radio, more and more of our opinions are shaped by a core group of pundits and talking heads from both sides of the aisles. It is counterintuitive, I know, but there it is. Don’t believe this? Listen or watch one of the ladies or guys that you don’t agree with, then listen to those you bump into at the water cooler or at the soccer game over the next week. We’ve become a nation shaped by propaganda, and we have powerful engines who shape large chunks of us on a variety of topics. Disney/ABC/ESPN does it to us on sports. The GOP and Democratic Party does it to us on politics.
The problem with our America is that the needs, opinions, and views of its populace doesn’t break neatly into two buckets anymore. At the same time, we’ve run into a bad period of time where the two political parties regularly fail to produce the best America has to offer. How can McCain select Palin knowing that he will be the oldest elected president to take office? It is his responsibility as a future President to assume that he will die in office. I hope he lives to be 100, but you have to plan for the contingency if you say you are the right choice for President. Anything short of that is reckless.
Obama is charasmatic, no doubt, and it is almost funny that this has been turned into one of his flaws. Yet the situation is no different in that party either. He’s inspirational, no doubt, but the questions of his capabilities and experience aren’t slanderous. They are real. With Obama and Palin, we’re saying the highest office in America is second only to NBA coaches in the prerequisite for actual experience.
And let’s put aside all of the partisan red herrings, shall we? My wife forwarded one of these email chain letters about Obama raising taxes. My comment to her was uncharacteristically blunt and passionate. I know absolutely nothing about Obama’s plans for taxes, but let’s put this in proper context. Our nation has its Armed Forces deployed in a foreign, sovereign land. Men and women are dying weekly. I am bearing absolutely no cost to that. Our infrastructure is barren and broken, from the product of our education system to the physical infrastructure of our lands to the energy consumption and production of our nation to the natural resource consumption and production of our land and, increasingly, the developing world. Our long-term commitments are underfunded (see General Motors et al for symptoms of what happens next). Our country is diving deeper and deeper in debt to peoples who do not share our motives nor our values. Our Federal Government has demonstrated a long-term inability to solve long-term problems.
And we’re realistically whining that our taxes may go up?
There’s no mystery here. Our taxes should go up while our level of services should go down. In case we need a primer here, we are spending more in areas we historically have not spent more in (e.g., the Military), and we are taking in less in the process. The costs born by our citizens have increased, as have the costs born by our massive Government.
Maybe none of this should be talked about during an election, I don’t know. Both parties understand without a doubt that the objective in an election is to get elected. Both parties, by and large, are competent enough not to give an opinion that will cut themselves off from a group of voters crucial to getting elected.
So really, we’re left to ourselves to talk about this stuff and try to raise both the awareness and importance of what’s really important in our nation. Shout it out, whatever your opinion. If you’re a reader, lurker, listener, or viewer of a content-specific source of humor, content, or community, embrace it and dont’ fight it. “I don’t want to hear about politics on your _______ site/show/program,” is a cop-out. I’d much rather hear about it or read about it there than listen or read the pundits. Don’t forget. We are America.
September 10th, 2008 at 10:23 am
glad you’re back. i always love your perspective on things.