What's the point? If you watched the Republican debate and you've got someone to hiss at or, better yet, root for, good for you!
I don't. Sure, I dislike some of them more than others, but it's a matter of degree, not of kind. Barry Goldwater's gone, William F. Buckley's gone, and any lip service their party gave to intelligence died not long afterward. The Dems went populist -- and smug -- at least a generation earlier and I will bedammed if I'll settle for choice of idiots. Sure, many of them -- probably most of them -- are only playing the fool for votes, but they can't stop playing and in the end, they are all effectively cynical, hypocritical morons, driven by polls or other indicators of mass opinion rather than some inner compass.
A choice of crude thugs is not really a choice.
No, I don't want to watch it blow up. Why does anyone? All my stuff is here. I like having the gas laid on, indoor plumbing and hot and cold running electricity. Too many people fail to understand that those amenities are not a given. We may yet learn the hard way.
Too many people today didn't grow up without those amenities, so they think they just grow on trees or appear magically from a pipeline or something. You write a check, the gas flows, the electicity electrifies, and the water runs. You swipe a credit card, gasoline goes into your car, food goes onto your table, etc. But few ever consider where all that bounty comes from. It's just there at the turn of a valve or a key, or when you open the pantry or the refrigerator.
ReplyDeleteIf the general public had even an inkling of how close we are to the abyss, every stinking day -- as I understand it, most large cities have at most one to three days' worth of food and drink available at any given time -- they'd have an absolute conniption.
I had a hungry childhood, so have overcompensated (so says the wife) by having an excessive larder, which overflows into several rooms of the homestead. Pity for my neighbors, who always ASSume that they can get their next meal from the grocery store or McD's.
ReplyDeleteIf someone has been raised lacking one or more 'necessities', they will be cognizant in adulthood and will hopefully remedy the situation and remind their progeny to never take anything for granted. Many of us take our reliance on technology as a given, never thinking that it can disappear in a twinkling by physical or economic disaster. Necessary items can abound, but are useless if we haven't the money, or barter goods, to attain them.
Preaching to the choir, I hope.
Raz
So I can't talk you into supporting Sweet Meteor of Death 2016?
ReplyDeleteRobin, it seems redundant. "I do not seek out the embrace of oblivion, Mandrake." ;)
ReplyDelete