So I'm totally stumped this morning on what to write about. I could do a lengthy rant on guns and violence in our country but I'm done with that. I said a few years ago that once we made the decision as a country that our guns and our rhetoric were more important than our children I had no hope left that anything I said would make a difference. And that's what we did after Sandy Hook. Have no doubt about that. Once we rationalized the slaughter of our babies as they sat in school we gave up. My opinion didn't change, but I will no longer run at that wall full speed. There is no hope for change.
How bleak is that? No hope. There are so few things that I have no hope about changing. Well...there used to be. Now I see a longer and longer list. Something has broken in American society for sure and in the rest of the world as well. Or at the least the parts of the world I can see interact in my daily life. Maybe there is a pocket someplace that is unaffected by all of this hopelessness, and if there is I truly wish for them that they remain isolated and protected.
I used to scoff at people who talked about the country having another Civil War but now I have to think about it. We are so very divided that it seems impossible to me to find a bridge. Could there be a bloodless split this time? Just carve the country up. The coasts become one country and the middle another. And if your beliefs don't line up with where you live you have a year to move. Texas taxes can support you now, Southern states, instead of California and New York. Purple states would have to have a vote to see where they went. Which could cause a little problem. Say New Mexico wanted to go with the coast but you know that Arizona is going with the middle so how do you carve that up? And the Navajo Nation resides across a wide swath of that. Do we just finally let the reservations go and make them completely sovereign again? And if we do how do we then grapple with the Native lands that they really should just get back due to ignored treaties? Again, really complicated.
And it sounds super crazy right? Like that would never happen. But you know you have at least one friend who would go for it. Who longs for it. And if you don't you've seen them online. "I keep my gun so I can take my country back from the government!" Okay, what do you think they are talking about there? So if they were presented with an option to get rid of all the libtards and have only a country of patriots you think they wouldn't be on board?
How about the other side? You know you have at least one friend who is tired of getting nothing but contempt for being an elitist snob while at the same time paying in a giant share of tax money that goes to parts of the country who demand the highest portion of the social safety net while voting to get rid of it, and then being pissed off that they aren't doing better in life.
You could get the left and the right to agree on something for once. How amazing would that be?
And how sad.
If we really at the point where the only thing we could agree on is that we would be better off without the other side? Where does that leave the middle?
What middle?
I mean honestly. I've preached about the middle for years. I normally feel I'm in the middle. Because I am really fiscally conservative. Like, actually fiscally conservative, not pretend adding trillions to the debt because trickles man, THIS TIME the trickles will work, fiscal conservative. I firmly believe that we should evaluate every single program and cut those that don't work. I firmly believe that if we want new programs we have to buck up and pay more taxes for them. And yes, this is where I become a liberal again. I believe in taxes. I think people who want things and don't want to pay for them are greedy and ridiculous. I believe that we need to be honest about what all we subsidize as a country and stop pretending we are some sort of pure capitalistic society. We aren't, stop it.
But I am not in the middle where social issues are concerned. I don't care what your religion is as long as you practice it in a way that doesn't impact others. If you want to open a business you better read all of the laws (and they give them to you when you apply for your license, been there done that) and if you cannot abide by them then you don't open your business. Or you move to a state that has different laws and you open it there. It's your responsibility to know what you are getting in to. Wait, that actually sounds conservative doesn't it? Isn't that a hoot? Follow the laws, even the ones you don't like, or face the consequences of your actions. Even my socially liberal tendencies are fairly conservative when you break them down.
But where is that middle again? Right now we are seeing Republicans that don't fit the Trumpian mold fleeing the party and people like Roy Moore and his ilk flooding in. If you aren't willing to blow the dog whistle or make excuses for those that do there is no room for you under what used to be the Big Tent.
Right now we are seeing the Democrats do what Democrats are best at and destroy themselves from within. There is a hard line left that is trying its hardest to take over just like the hard line right is doing in the Republican party. Purity tests, for goodness sake. People decided who is a TRUE liberal and who is a NEO liberal. And the irony of having a 20 something say someone is a neo anything is rich... but there it is.
But there is no middle that holds anymore. Even if the country were somehow more middle, with more that we agree on than not, we don't elect people that represent that, so are we? Are we really? If your vote is consistently for the furthest left or furthest right candidate you can find how do you call yourself central? You aren't.
So where is the hope? I see external evidence of it less and less every day.
But wait, isn't hope internal? Hope is something you carry with you. Not something that is outside of you. So though the world looks hopeless maybe if we all have it in ourselves to hold on and ride this out it will get better? We will find that bridge? We will push the edges off those cliffs and form that strong middle?
We can always hope...
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