Next November, a small minority of those enabled to do so will go to the polls and decide who will be the face of the United States to the rest of the world for a four year term. One would think that this would be motivating after the disasters of the current resident of the White House and his immediate predecessor. But, evidently not. And what have these two august personages done that was so wrong? Let me begin....
While I am of the opinion that it is incredibly easy to sit back and pick apart a president's performance from the comfort of my desk, I also believe that a president should have the moral fortitude to at least consider what is the best course of action for the largest number of people over the longest period of time and to find a way to make it politically palatable to those powers, including their constituencies, that can make those courses of action a reality. That has obviously not been a priority in the administrations of the immediate past.
Our Democratic president of two terms lied to a grand jury, commtting felony perjury and then told Congress and a generation of young Americans that oral sex isn't sex. That's leadership and profound moral fortitude -- NOT!
Our Republican president has entered into the wholesale marketing of fear to gain power and control over the very people who are supposed to control him and his administration. The Patriot Act is profoundly un-patriotic. It is a way to invade anyone's privacy at any time woithout due process or even a legitimate reason in order to protect "the greater good". The really huge mistakes in policy weren't made after Sept. 11th, however. They were made in the months and years prior to that date. But, in all honesty, they have been compounded geometrically since then.
We should, as a society, have learned that war is not and cannot be a political action. Its causes are always economic and the best and only viable solution to a war, once entered, is to commit every single resource at our disposal to a swift and unequivocal victory. Fewer of our soldiers die, fewer of the enemy die, fewer instances of "collateral damage" occur when an enemy is defeated swiftly and soundly. It, historically, is also the best economic situation that has ever happened to our defeated enemies (see Germany and Japan after the WWII and read up on The Marshall Plan). But do we commit our economic well-being to this goal? Nope. We might have to do without a gallon of gas or a candy bar. Perish the thought that the average American should be inconvenienced over the total destruction of another society.
Where is the politically untenable but moral decision to share the plain truth? Where is the press in this mess? Why, they are allowing themselves to be spun in the interests of market shares. Who's fault is that? Take a peek in the mirror.
And in the meantime, we have removed control of our classrooms from our teachers, introduced standardized testing to insure that every single child, no matter their capabilities or promise (or lack thereof) recieve exactly the same education. We have reduced education to the lowest common denominator, which by the way, Title 9 insured would reach all time lows by insisting that children better served in other institutions have free and total access to a classroom along with every other student. We cannot separate students by learning ability, capability or lack thereof in any public school. Isn't that absurd? Why should children that will never be capapble of learning need access to an education? They don't. They need in loco parentis or socialized baby-sitting. Why should a child that can master calculus in the 6th grade be denied the educational opportunity to do so? Why because separate is inherently unequal. NEWSFLASH: Nature is inherently unequal. Deal with it.
While it is ridiculous and ultimately socially detrimental to deny opportunities to persons based on racial or cultural differences, its is absolutely mandatory that opportunities be made available to those who can take advantage of them. No one would think twice about denying a college scholarship to a mentally retarded person incapable of grasping basic mathmetical concepts, that's just silly. But we cannot say that about a high school math class. Why not? Why can we not give the mentally retarded man the tools and opportunities that he most needs to become as self-sufficient as possible? And save the classroom space for our calculus geniuses? Isn't that being socially responsible?
And where, for God's sake, is the church in this debacle? Why its telling us who God has chosen as our next President because of that particular candidate's moral superiority. Why aren't they taking on their responsibilities as the gaurdians of social and personal morality. That is their function. The church, as an institution, must take on the conscience-keeping aspect in our society if, for no other reason, because no other institution can do it. Government, by its existence and definition in a republic, is inherently immoral. It is not to be trusted. Which is why the founding fathers' intention was to leave the power of government in the hands of the governed. But that was a long time ago before we figured out that we could vote ourselves a paycheck, before Congress opted out of Social Security and went more directly on the Federal dole, before we grew complacent and apathetic.
Or don't you care?
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