On 10/1/13 5:34 PM, Patrick Reilly wrote:
Your children and grandchildren will suffer from this sabotaging of
the US government. None of this is funny.
As they will also from our collective sabotaging of the environment and
the economies and societies of the third world, yet we seem to continue
to fiddle (watch TV, eat junk food, argue online) as the world oxidizes.
The Anarcho-Libertarian in me has me trying to help them (my two
daughters and my one granddaughter) be more prepared personally for the
less than ideal circumstances we are collectively creating for ourselves
(more to the point, them).
The Humanist in me has me wishing we could do better than this, hoping
we can do better, trusting we can do better. I'm sure those
"sabotaging" the government think they are rescuing it... I don't hold
with the right wing rhetoric on such topics but when I do listen to it
carefully and openly enough, I know that they at least, believe it
themselves.
My biggest honest hope in the moment, perhaps, parallels the comment
about the backlash against the GOP's last shutdown. Sometimes things
*do* have to get worse before they get better. That is not to say that I
fully support the "other side" in all things, I think there is plenty of
hard-headed thinking there too, but in this era I'd call them the
significantly lesser of evils. A compromise at this point is better
than nothing.... but as with Obama's election, I can only call it "a
good start"...
What I really *wish* for is a more enlightened self interest from all of
us on topics ranging from the environment to economy to foreign policy.
I don't know where that will come from... probably not a religious or
political leader or institution, and probably not from any particular
"guru". Perhaps it is the very hard knocks we are enduring (at our own
hand?) that will lead us to more perspective.
One of the things I like to believe our last dozen years of folly may
bring is some perspective...
Hope springs infernal,
- Steve
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