Sorry everybody,
Perhaps I should explain why I am using that phrase as a sign-in. It is an effort to indicate that I share the sorrow which has resulted from what Americans have been doing around the world.
However, as I used the tell my kids, sorrow is an easy emotion. I never wanted to hear "sorry" from them. What I wanted was an admission that they had done something either stupid or bad and a pledge that they wouldn't do it again.
Sorry everybody,
Perhaps I should explain why I am using that phrase as a sign-in. It is an effort to indicate that I share the sorrow which has resulted from what Americans have been doing around the world.
However, as I used the tell my kids, sorrow is an easy emotion. I never wanted to hear "sorry" from them. What I wanted was an admission that they had done something either stupid or bad and a pledge that they wouldn't do it again.
In this case, unfortunately, the majority of the American people, especially Democrats, can't make such a pledge, because they haven't done anything bad.
Then, why, you might ask, are they wailing and gnashing their teeth and heaping ashes on their heads? Good question. Further posts will be an attempt to answer.
******************************
So why are Democrats wailing and gnashing their teeth? It's a matter of pride, power and prejudice.
What pride, you ask. Well, when someone has been abused, humiliated, beaten and robbed and prefers to conclude that it was all somehow his own fault, that he failed to prevent all these things being done to him, then he obviously prefers not only to think of himself first, but to assume that he is in control of his fate. That, of course, was Job's failing. He refused to see that what was happening had nothing to do with him. And just so, many if not most Democrats feel content to accept responsibility for something they didn't do, rather than make sure it is set right.
In other words, Democrats are more interested in the power they might wield in changing other people's minds (next time) than in exercising the right they now have to see that the laws are enforced and that the evil-doers are punished.
What evil-doers, you ask. Well, for starters there's a warlord occupying our White House and the White House is not where such a person belongs. Of course, his confusion about his role may be understandable, considering that he got a whole Department of Defense which now refers to its members as "warfighters." (Perhaps that's just a lame attempt to refute the role of "peacekeeper" that some people envision for the Department of Defense, but it certainly reflects an attitude that needs to be examined).
In any event, that Democrats prefer pride and power over a realistic assessment of what the world is all about, may just be an unintended consequence of the prejudices of the brain. What do I mean by that? Well, the brain, when it's left to do its thing on automatic--i.e. without conscious review to check for new input--prefers information that agrees with what's already there, that reinforces what it's learned before and, as a result of that reinforcement, generates the satisfaction of being right.
In this particular instance, our attitude towards the major presidential candidates, having our assessment that the democratic candidate was not the "best he could be" confirmed by the electoral results makes us feel better than we should, considering that our government has been hijacked by a bunch of thugs.
It's sort of like saying, "I knew I should have just stayed in bed this morning" when some dodo just ran into your car as you drove through an intersection on a green light.
OK, you say, so what are the Democrats supposed to do? A fair question, but before I answer it, I do want to point out that the Democrats have been guilty of one thing--being too indulgent.
Now, you may think that indulgence is a good thing. It's not. Indulgences are bad. Not so long ago, it was pretty common for Catholics to earn themselves "indulgences" by performing good deeds ahead of time, in order to make up for the sins they were certain to commit. Indulgences are sort of an insurance policy where Catholics are concerned.
However, most people tend to see their own indulgence of other people's bad behavior as a virtue. Letting others get away with stuff they would not do themselves is considered being liberal, charitable, magnanimous in not being overly judgemental. But is it really? Couldn't it just as easily be a sign of laziness?
Wouldn't it be more charitable to set some standards of good behavior and hold our friends and relatives to them? Want an example? Well, there's the so-called "war on drugs," or rather, the war on "illegal" drugs. It's important to make that distinction, because our consumption of legal drugs is going through the roof. Indeed, the use of the qualifier, "illegal" can't help but send the message that taking drugs is good, as long as they have been FDA approved.
In any event, while it has been reported that the warlords of Afghanistan have been transformed into simple gangsters, nothing is being done about the drug lords who are busy importing those poisons, heroine and cocaine, by the ton into the United States. For that to be going on, surely somebody's being indulgent about behavior that doesn't affect them personally. Somebody's looking the other way--some dock worker, some customs inspector, some trucking outfit, some seller of glacine baggies. The poison doesn't get from the poppy fields of Afghanistan to the streets of red America by itself.
But then, we have become indulgent about a lot of poisons. Plants we don't like are to be attacked and killed with herbicides. Critters we don't like are to be attacked and killed with pesticides. It isn't that we've become a society that's fixated on death; we just indulge it.
*******************************
I started out this morning castigating the Democrats for their wailing and gnashing of teeth at having "lost" something that was actually stolen. But, they are not alone in their wailing and gnashing of teeth. There's thousands of people bemoaning the death of their loved-ones in Iraq, never mind all those who lost dear ones on September 11, 2001. And then, of course, there's all those people left behind and bereft by the forty five THOUSAND people killed on our roads and highways every year.
Is there wailing and gnashing of teeth about that? If so, it's obviously not doing any good because the carnage continues year after year. And who are the victims of this carnage? Well, the majority are in the same age group as are the people being killed over in Iraq. And why? Because the people who supposedly loved them, were indulgent.
After all, who taught them to drive poorly? Who lent them the family car? Who took them to get a diver's license and who then adjusted the family schedule so they could get a job so they could pay off a portion of the cost of a car and a portion of the insurance that would bail them out of the hospital when they landed in the hospital, as they most surely would? Right. Indulgent parents who were relieved not to have to be bothered with providing adequate supervision, transportation and standards of behavior that would keep their children safe. Indulgence is not a virtue.
Indulge is what lazy people do. And then when their indulgence has bad consequence, they indulge themselves even more by turning to some "comfort food."
It occurs to me that conservatives may actually have a point when they rail about liberals. But, because they are using the wrong word, they manage to overlook that they share in the characteristics they decry. What they should really be addressing is their own indulgence and lazy attitude, heaping scorn on liberals for behaviors that they engage in in spades.
Who, after all, has allowed the makers of munitions to get away with using free depleted uranium so the producers of this waste could avoid disposal costs? Who has looked the other way as the air and water was the preferred waste-disposal venue? Who has permitted the castigation and intimidation of other nations over a few deadly munitions while paying for the production and storage of the largest arsenal on the face of the earth? Yes, who's paid for it, just as they pay for their teenager's deadly cars? That's right, tax-paying middle America.
And why? Because it is perceived to be good to be indulgent, to let people do what they want, even if it's bad for them in the long run.
So what's in order? Well, I know what I intend. I intend to expend some righteous anger, like Jesus in the temple driving the money-changers out. It isn't about money; it's about indulging behavior where it doesn't belong--changing money in the temple.
There will be no more indulgence from this quarter.