I’m afraid…
Naah…that’s the wrong word. I’m not afraid of anything that walks, talks or lives under rocks.
I’m concerned. Hell, I’m actually a little worried.
I’m a planner. I’m always looking a good ways down the road. I try not to get too wrapped up in the things I have no control over, but something’s been weighing on my mind for a while now. I know I have no control over it, but that doesn’t seem to lessen the degree of my angst.
November 4th, 2020 is a little more than a year away and yet that day is already residing in the forefront of my mind. In my 50 years, I can’t remember a time when I’ve looked forward at a specific date with any kind of emotion. Holidays, Birthdays, Anniversaries….I dread them all, but never have I given them a millisecond of consideration a year ahead of schedule.
It’s been nearly three years since the 2016 election and we’re still suffering from the fallout. “Suffering” may seem like the wrong word to use there, but I don’t think so. Individually, some have been reveling in the results of that election and others have been mired in a state of emotional breakdown…disbelief evolving into anger…anger evolving into something akin to a hatred. But as a nation I believe we’re suffering.
You can argue that statement from many different vantage points, and I’ve heard ‘em all. Stocks are up. Unemployment is down. Manufacturing jobs are coming back. Foreign policy isn’t sitting stagnant. I don’t disagree with any of those points. But what good is any of that if we still have Americans living on the streets, children going without meals, drug abuse and healthcare issues, a shambles of an asylum protocol and an education system that’s not preparing our children for the realities of life?
Now…before I go any further…I’m not a socialist. Anyone who knows me can wholeheartedly confirm that fact. However, I am a middle class American who pays way too much in taxes annually and budgets a household income. With that thought in mind, consider the following:
The Muller Investigation took two years to complete and cost the taxpayers in excess of $32,000,000. In that time, the Special Investigation Staff, 20 lawyers, 40 FBI agents and an undisclosed number of forensic accountants, analysts, and support personnel worked on nothing but the investigation. That entire two years, politicians from both sides of the aisle as well as White House and Department of Justice personnel spent countless hours standing in front of cameras or lounging in interview settings spouting off about what they were sure would be the outcome of the investigation. I don’t think I need to tell anyone what the investigation actually produced.
Imagine for a minute if all those tax payer funded man-hours and all that tax payer funded money was directed at something useful. Imagine how many REAL issues could have been brought to light in the media had they not spent two years spouting divisive rhetoric about that damn investigation. I’m not sure, but I’m pretty confident we could’ve fed a lot of hungry kids for $32 million.
The Muller Investigation is just one example. Congresswoman Maxine Waters started yelling “Impeach 45!” the day after the inauguration and I’d bet if someone could get their hands on all the numbers more tax payer funded man-hours and money has been wasted on that quest than any other single issue that we currently face as a nation…with no results.
I’m not in the business of telling people how to feel about things, but the waste of money by the government pisses me off and, in my opinion, it should piss you off too. Just for perspective, consider this…the government produces nothing tangible. They have nothing with which to barter other than fear…Fear that they’ll take your rights if you don’t pay what they say you owe.
Alright….I’m going to move on…I’ve beat the taxation thing to death in a previous post…I’ll leave it at that.
Taxation isn’t the concern that worries me the most anyway. I’m more worried about the way we’re going to treat each other on November 4th, 2020.
What I’ve seen from the citizens of this republic in the last couple years hurts me to the bone at times. Think about all the bullshit that’s flashed across your eyes since the 2016 election. People having utter panic attacks because their candidate lost an election…music and movie personalities standing at a rally talking about blowing up the White House…”Impeach 45!” being shouted by an elected official with no evidence to even suggest a parking violation…the rise of ANTIFA…the Justice Kavanaugh character assassination…Stormy Daniels…the revolving doors on the offices of the White House staff…The (fucking) Tweets…collusion, Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, China. Hell, that’s just what comes across the television. Worse than a lot of the stuff I just listed is conversations with people I’ve known for years…and then the endless stream of speculative propaganda that floats through social media all day every day.
I’ve got friends I’ve lost some degree of contact with because they won’t open their Facebook account any more due to all the negativity. I’ve seen long time friends split ways over political arguments about a senseless meme.
Think about the last three years from a personal perspective and a national perspective. Not just the highlights I’ve mentioned…think of all the social and political bullshit we’ve seen. Go ahead…think about it for a few minutes…I’ll wait right here.
Now…imagine that you wake up on the morning of November 4th, 2020 and find out that your preferred party lost the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. What do you think that’s going to look like?
I’m quite literally dreading it, and it has nothing to do with politics. Actually, from a political perspective, I believe that scenario is the only way ANYTHING will get done in Washington at this point. Whether that “anything” is good or bad is yet to be seen, but seeing as the only rules of cooperation that apply in Congress right now are eerily similar to the playground rules from elementary school I fail to see how progress is going to happen without one party having a majority in both chambers and the White House.
I’m dreading it from a social perspective. Demonstrations, riots, the calls of racist, fascist or socialist…half the population jubilant and the other half in a complete melt down…media personalities and celebrities stirring the pot faster than the population can comprehend…Chaos.
October 30th, 2016 I would have told you that kind of mayhem was impossible in this country. I’ve learned different in the last three years. Ya want to know the worst of it? I spent a lot of years traveling all over this planet and everyone always wanted what we had. Our freedom…our blind justice…our economy. We had what nearly every other society on the planet dreams to become and all we can seem to do is bitch about it and try like hell to dismantle it.
Is that really what we want? I mean…we’re better than that, right? If you’re nodding your head up and down right now…then, prove it. If you believe we’re better than that, start acting like we’re better than that, start setting the example for the youth that we’re better than that and dammit, start demanding that your elected officials act better than that.
(Long Pause)
I’ve been sitting here staring at a blinking cursor for ten minutes trying to decide whether I should continue on the path my mind was running with this. I don’t want to…I never talk about this shit and I try to characterize my perspective without mentioning this…but I’m going to…I kinda need to get this off my chest…and nobody’s reading this stuff anyway.
So….
In your wildest dreams, could you imagine getting sent to Afghanistan in January of 2016? There are a lot of parts of that country where you get very little information on what’s really going on back home. Gossip and speculation force you to disregard most of the news you hear from home. You’re walking around most days carrying more equipment than the human body was designed to carry, sweating or freezing your ass off depending on where you are at what time of year. Everyone you encounter has to be considered a threat…you’re more or less in a constant state of heightened awareness. The laws of civilization you’ve grown up knowing cease to exist outside the protection of your operating base…but that’s okay…you tell yourself you’re there defending the American way of life. You’d get your absentee ballot and send it in a few months before the election. You’d hear who won the election. Then in January of 2017 you finally get home…and see the disheveled mess of bovine fecal matter that was on display here after the inauguration.
How would that make you feel? You just spent a year of your life convinced that you were keeping the world safe for democracy and the first thing you see on TV is Madonna at a podium spouting off about wanting to blow up the Oval Office…the bastion of the very democracy you’ve been defending.
Imagine how the men and women who hopped islands in the Pacific or hit the beach at Normandy in World War II feel when they see Americans having a hissy fit about political differences. How do you think the Korea and Vietnam vets feel when they hear the elected representatives of their republic lying, cheating and misusing their hard earned money?
I wouldn’t even dare to speak for all those men and women, but I can tell you from my perspective, it’s soul crushing. To see everything you spent most of your adult life defending turned into a chaotic mess over election results….to watch your government piss away money that they didn’t drop a bead of sweat to earn…to see all the whining and crying from Capitol Hill because nobody’s getting their way…the only way I know to describe it is simply…soul crushing. Never once did I don a uniform and shoulder a rifle to defend a political party…but the two parties are trying their damnedest to destroy everything I did gun-up to defend.
There was a popular saying I used to see all the time when I first enlisted…it was on jackets and pins…hell, you saw it everywhere. It read: “For those who fought for it, Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know”. I never really took that to heart until here recently..but I’m beginning to realize how accurate it is. I don’t think the people we’re putting in Congress “feel” patriotism. Sure, they can define it and they can rattle off about the importance of it for hours…but if you can’t feel it from somewhere deep down inside…if you’ve never had to sacrifice for it…if you’ve never been willing to give up everything in order to preserve it…should you really be in a position where you can influence it?
INFLUENCE is the problem. Politicians influence your patriotism. I don’t expect everyone to enlist and serve. I get it…not everyone can…absolutely no big deal with me. BUT I don’t want someone who doesn’t feel the highest degree of patriotism in the depths of their soul to be able to walk in front of camera and influence Americans to treat other Americans like anything less than the finest human beings that have ever walked the Earth. We’ve been conditioned to trust these people, and they haven’t earned that trust…they’re stirring the masses for political purposes (aka money) and we’re allowing them to do it to us.
Ya know…I’ve thought quite a bit about this….I don’t blame those idiots in ANTIFA or the New Klan or BLM…I blame the politicians and media who stirred them up, encouraged them to hate and enabled them to act that way.
pa·tri·ot·ism /ˈpātrēəˌtizəm/ noun devotion and vigorous support for one’s country.
It’s just my opinion…but according to that definition, if we consider ourselves patriots shouldn’t we be a little more concerned about spending the man hours and the tax dollars on our country…the hungry kids, the education system, the homeless and the drug epidemic?
(Long Pause)
Yeah….this wasn’t meant to be a rant, but it kinda went that way didn’t it? Sorry about that.
Forte Adiuvat Animus Paratus: Chance Favors the Prepared Mind
That was supposed to be the whole message behind this post. I’ve got a feeling that bad times are coming after this next election. I hope I’m wrong. Incase I’m not though, start wrapping your head around it now. Get your mind right and stop treating each other like adversaries from opposing political parties. PLEASE stop revelling and gloating over the failures of our government officials…none of us win when they fail. We’re all human beings…even better, we’re all Americans…let’s start acting like it.