Over the course of the past few decades, we as a Country, and we as parents have failed our children miserably. We haven't taught them about consequences. We haven's shown them that when they screw up, there's a price to be paid. If a kid wears an offensive shirt to school, and the teachers make him take it off, he cries and whines to mommy and she calls the principal demanding immediate action be taken against the damn teacher. And guess what folks, because the principal doesn't want to get reprimanded by the school board, the principal backs off, punishes the teacher by putting them on leave and little dumb-ass Johnny gets away with not following the rules. Pretty soon, every kid is acting like this and we have created bedlam in our school system. (sound familiar teachers?)
We haven't demonstrated to them, or let them experience that failure is often-times painful. It starts out when our kids are 4 years old learning to ride a bike. We put helmets, knee pad, elbow pads, butt pad, mouth guards, leather biker gear, and just about any other safety device we can find on them. Then we run with them for miles and miles, never taking our hand off the seat, just so little Jenny won't feel scared. When they finally break free, go about 15 feet on their own, and fall over, mommy's right there to take them to the hospital because we fear they might have serious brain trauma from the 14" fall. Or when our 15 year old son gets dumped by his girlfriend. Instead of talking to him, consoling him and letting him have some time to get over it, we organize a party, invite 15 of his friends over for pizza and go to the movies to help him get his mind over it. Geez.
It's the high-school athlete, who makes a mistake in a game and gets pulled out. Dad goes ballistic, in the gymnasium, yelling at the coaches, yelling at the refs, call's the athletic director the next day screaming at him. It's the high-school basketball player who stares at the ref after he gets called for a foul, shaking his head. It's the trombone player who doesn't practice, so he get's moved to 4th chair, and instead of working hard, quits the band. And we let him.
We, as a society, can stand around, or sit around (whichever is your preference), and blame the president, congress, the catholic church, the police, the farmers, the industrialists, the teachers, the system, the immigrants, the ex-pats, the athletes, the artists, your mother in law, or whatever is convenient to blame at the time. But instead of doing that, why don't you do something more productive? Go look in the mirror and point a finger at the person to blame. That's right. Everyone in this country holds some blame of some sort. And if you disagree, that's fine, I hold some blame. (and I don't really care anyway)
We have forgotten what it's like to live in this country and be able to have an intelligent conversation with someone with a differing opinion. Hell, even an un-intelligent conversation would be better than the crap we have now! I can walk out on the street right now and tell somebody that the sky's blue, and immediately I get a lecture on how it's not exactly blue, but more of a deep cerulean. (I don't even know what cerulean is, I just know I saw it in a crayola pack) You know why I don't talk politics? Because I don't want to always be wrong. And I don't want to always be arguing. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things I'd like to talk about. But for the most part, I'd rather keep my friends, and ignore the politics. Because IT'S NOT WORTH IT! Either side you're on, you are so entrenched in the ideology, you can't even begin to open your eyes long enough to see some blue sky. (or cerulean as it might be). I could offer a left wing zealot a million dollars, and tell them it came from Trump and they'd refuse it. I could offer a right wing zealot a million dollars and tell them that Nancy Pelosi wished them well, and they'd light the money on fire.
It's not the politicians folks. All they're doing is spitting out whatever they think we want to hear, and whatever get's them votes. It's all of us. We have let the political system in this country take over. We have effective politicized every issue possible. Gun control? check. Immigration? check. Public school? check. Medical care? check. Hunting? check. fishing? check. Construction? check. Transportation? check. Farming? check. You get it, every possible thing, the government has politicized. If we could somehow come together, stop spitting out bullshit and venom at each other, and have rational, morally and ethically based conversations about the needs of the country, maybe we could get something done. But so far, all we're doing is hurting ourselves. and our families. And our Country.
And another thing, neither side is perfect. There. I said it. Both sides of all this crap are to blame for this condition. Nobody is right all the time. (I mean, I might be the exception, but the spousal unit would probably disagree) Whether you're democrat, republican, libertarian, black, white, brown, red, yellow, orange, blue, green or rainbow, pull your head out of your ass long enough to give a damn about this Country.
Turn off the tv. Get off of Twitter. Turn Facebook off for a while. Go outside. Have a conversation with someone. If they have a differing view, listen to their points. Ask them to listen to yours. It can't hurt.
And if they don't, well, sometimes, you just can't fix stupid!
