ISSUES, POLICY, AND POLITICS – PART 13

This was originally posted on Facebook:

DAMN THE TORPEDOES

The term “constitutional crises” has been on and off in the news for the past two years. While I have seen various definitions of the term, I think the easiest to understand is “the constitution doesn’t tell us what to do.”

In our current situation, the term certainly applies.

Issues, Policy, and Politics – Parts 11 & 12

The following was originally posted on Facebook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here.

Part 11
Actions vs Consequences

To be brutally honest with ourselves, we must admit that the election of Barrack Obama to the presidency divided the country in a way we had not seen before and that we did not expect. It galvanized a portion of the country into blind opposition from the day he took office. They were livid that we could elect that N*****. They questioned his legitimacy, they called his wife names, and they refused to cooperate with anything he proposed. This is all hard to hear; it is hard to say. It is, however, true.

Issues, Policy, and Politics – Parts 9 & 10

The following was originally posted on Facebook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here

Part 9

Where is My Roy Cohn?

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were accused spies. They were tried in the early 1950s for giving secrets about the American atom bomb to Russia, convicted, and executed. The only real evidence against them was the testimony of David Greenglass, Julius Rosenberg’s brother-in-law, who admitted to passing the information, and the fact that the Rosenberg’s, who always maintained their innocence, were members of the Communist Party. Many on the left at the time were convinced the only reason they were convicted was that they were communists. The judgement of more recent historians is that they were guilty.

Issues, Policies, and Politics – Parts 7 & 8

The following was originally posted on Facebook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here.

Part 7 – History and Reality

History, we are told, is the best teacher.

Those who ignore history, we are told, are doomed to repeat it.

But we don’t experience history. We READ about history, and here are many, many history books. Just because something is written in a history book doesn’t make it what actually happened. With history, like with media and the press, you have to be careful about the source, and it is useful to compare sources.

Issues, Policy, and Politics – Parts 5 & 6

The following was originally posted on FaceBook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here.

Issues, Policy, and Politics – Part 5
PARADIGM CHANGE OR REVOLUTION

 If the government we have is not the government we need to solve the big problems that arise, what do we do?

We obviously need to change the government we have.

Issues, Policy, and Politics – Parts 3 & 4

The following was originally posted on FaceBook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here.

Part 3

So, power and money.

Despite what you may think, there is nothing intrinsically bad about either of these things. It depends on how they are used, and that depends on the people using them. All of our problems and all of our solutions depend on people.

Issues, Policy, and Politics – Part 1

The following was originally posted on FaceBook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here.

Part 1

There are important issues that need our attention.

Unfortunately, you can’t solve the vast majority of them.

Here’s an example: income inequality.

We have people in this country working several jobs who can’t afford to both feed their kids and put a roof over their heads while others, no brighter, nor more deserving (no matter what the prosperity gospel says), make millions.

It is a huge damn problem.

Tribes and Sects – One Nation, Under Siege

When the Stories We Tell Ourselves get so long and involved, embellished, enshrined in ritual, and removed from the very people doing the telling that it takes longer to understand them than it does to get drunk on Bud Lite, things usually begin to change.

Sometimes they change strictly for reasons of expediency.

Stories We Tell Ourselves

Stories are at the heart of human culture.  Stories are the basis for entire industries.  Stories are the foundation of all fiction writing.  Stories are what we tell our kids, what we tell each other, and most importantly, what we tell ourselves.  We never seem to run out and we never tire of telling the best ones over and over.

When a group of people tell each other the same stories over and over, they grow closer.  They find they have commonality.  There is plenty of grease for the wheels of their society.  When they tell each other lots of conflicting stories, tensions rise; divisions occur.  When they tell themselves one story and tell others a conflicting one, they are generally criminals, liars, or hypocrites.

Patriot Games

Consider this:  The word “patriotism” has never been well-defined.  Or perhaps it has never been defined well.

The dictionary says patriotism is “the quality of being patriotic.”  Well, that’s about as helpful as a pet pig in a manure wallow.  It continues, “Vigorous support for one’s country.”