Curmudgeon's Corner

Tired of Perpetual Politics?

Posted by Al Campbell on Oct. 18, 2012

U.S., Political, Quality of Life, People Making A Difference

Tired of perpetual politics?  I know I am.

I am tired of seeing nearly everything cast as having some political importance.  We really seem to be reaching deep to find things at this point.  “Binders of women” is a clear example and shows the level of guise and distortion some will reach to in order to create an ‘issue’ they believe might impact a candidate.

I am tired of the near-constant drumbeat of the press gurus of each candidate who work to create an aura about ‘their’ guy or gal that holds that person up as a near-saint, a person who can and will simply resolve every issue we might have.  Just call and he or she will drop everything to get your problem solved.

I am tired of being told what I should think and why I am thinking of voting for the wrong person.

I am tired over the level of our political ‘debate’ sinking so low that it is essentially dressed-up name-calling.  I see the sometime nasty retorts to my blogs and to the blogs of others where the anonymous commenters are shielded from being ‘outed’.  It seems that name-calling is a useful tool if we cannot discuss issues on a higher plane.

I am tired of always being concerned when in ‘mixed’ company, mixed between liberal and conservative people, of what I say or of what others might say.  Some of us are simply hypersensitive.

I am tired of the self-appointed truth-checkers whose version of the ‘truth’ is stretched by nuance and suggested thoughts behind statements in order to support their personal decision about one statement being ‘true’ and another being ‘false’, or about degrees of truth and falsehood.

I am tired of the fact that ‘news’ organizations have so often lost track of what journalism is…or was.  The idea that our news sources have no dog in the hunt is ridiculous.  I think about the filter or lens through which what I am hearing or reading is heard or viewed and try to adjust the ‘believability’ factor to accommodate that skewed view.  I am fully capable, as are you, of providing my own distortions :-) 

These last three weeks will be very long and very trying.  I cannot imagine what the candidates go through.  There may be some truth to the statement that anyone desiring the Office of President ought to be disqualified for that very reason.  On the other hand, the pressure of the campaign trail does give us the opportunity to watch the candidates under real pressure.  Maybe that pressure doesn’t measure up to that to be felt while seated in the Oval office, but it certainly is significant from the perspective of how each candidate handles it.

I wish for a specific candidate to win, as you must know by now, but I pray that whichever candidate wins, he will be a just leader, one really and truly working on the behalf of all of us rather than creating the ‘legacy’ he wishes to leave behind.  Maybe I am naïve to think that a Republican can be above his party, or that a Democrat can be above his party; that the person in the Oval office really and truly believes whatever his decision is, it is best for all of us and not just for the 50.1% that put him in that office.  I’d like to be able to believe that we haven’t devolved to this level.

If this is the level to which we’ve gotten, we have destroyed the future of our grandchildren.  We will be no better than any other country.  We will not be that ‘shining city on a hill’.  We will be down on our knees begging for more hand-outs as many in Europe are now doing and there’ll be no one left to help.

We seem to have great difficulty in understanding that there is a finite end to the level of wealth that can be confiscated and then re-directed.  We are dangerously close to the tipping point that we’ve been taught can destroy democracies; that tipping point is surpassed when there are more citizens taking than contributing.  I realize that, for some, these words are pure blasphemy but I also realize this is the stark truth.  Once we, as a civilization have gone too far down the slippery slope, we’ll simply have passed the point of no return and be unable to reverse our slide.

Campaign slogans aside, this danger is real not contrived.