Quick call Goosey Lucy!

I try not to be a prick so much anymore.

It’s not worth the effort first off and second why put that kind of bile out there when there is already so much of it in the world. Still, I can’t help but find it in myself to tweak those people who run around with their arms raised in the air talking about the end of all things.

Mainly, it’s the people who run around and use that kind of discourse when talking about the American political realm. Shortly after the election in 2000, I got one of those emails from someone. It was full of anger and bitterness and foretold of all manner of horrible things which would occur leading to the end of our nation. Funny thing is six years later we’re all still here. i’m not saying we’re all happy, just that we’re all still here and we manage to continue to survive the stewardship of the most inept among us. 

It‘s one of the really great things about our country people seem to forget.

We’re tough and further more there is a limit to the American public’s patience. Meaning no matter who gets elected, if they screw up, they get voted out. We have term limits too so there is only so much damage a person can do during their term in office and even then they have to have the cooperation of other people in government. You know, the whole checks and balances thing.

Stupidly enough, it one of those things which makes me all warm and fuzzy inside - the belief that even though our system can be susceptible to missteps, ultimately there will be some kind of redress and reckoning.

The odd thing is how often people forget that small fact and in the course of trying to justify their point of view, they do so by trying to play into people’s fears. Seems to me though people never make good decisions when they’re afraid, societies don’t make good decisions when they’re afraid. It’s one of the big problems I have with the whole making America safe thing, we‘ll never truly be safe, bad things will happen, it’s the one thing you can bet on and it won’t matter what we do. We can try to prepare for the bad but, all our preparation won’t change things if someone is determined to hurt others and cares little for their own life.

Someone who has that little value of life is hard to stop...

So, I started this back in June of 2007 and you know what... that first line is just an out and out lie. I am a prick, a HUGE prick. It’s simply part of my makeup and no matter how much I try, deep down I’ll still be a prick. It’s my default state. I can try and subdue it to an extent but ultimately the prick will out.

I don’t care for the whole histrionics thing, although of late I’m probably as guilty of it as any of the people I’ve been bothered by in the past. Then again, things sure do seem way, way more polarized than at any time I can remember and part of that is that the level of the rhetoric has been ratcheted up to extreme levels.

Then today as I am writing this I saw this from the oddest of sources but wow if the guy didn’t hit the nail right on the head and it’s something all of us should ponder very seriously: