Bad Moon Rising...

Politics are akin to maneuvering through a maze with one eye blinded while nursing a severe head cold.  Some do it better than others.  Politics are inextricably linked to life itself.  People use politics in everything and whether they believe they do is irrelevant.

Politics is the art of affecting advantage for your particular interest and at the epicenter of effective politics lies the art of compromise.  However, what we see nowadays is a race to the former while condemning the latter as heresy.  Sure-sure, we all hate compromise--we hate feeling like we left money on the table.  That someone else in the deal may have benefited more or at all.

Politics, when wielded well, is more about getting the best for everyone instead of only for your clan.  When we leave something on the table we are trusting someone else will put it to use in ways familiar or even unfamiliar. Instead of a yacht, they might need to feed someone who can't feed themselves.

Ah, but I heard what you said just now under your breath.  You said, why don't they use their own damn money?  And there it is again.  The dirty little habit that infects us all--greed.  That is the stuff that we have all been baptized in and at the heart of the American mythos.  You know, the one about the rugged individual raising up civilization single handed while thwarting impossible foes with six shooters, bull whips and Hallelujah.

We need to stop drinking before noon.  We need to take a chance on each other counting that some will indeed take advantage.  So what?  The pendulum always swings our way at least half the time.  So let it go, the clock won't tick without it.  Time only goes in one direction for us all.

We need beneficence and magnanimity to be our cornerstones.  Charity in spirit as well as largess.  How about we start with the least of these as the Christian ethos states?  After all, we will be judged by how we treat them and not our friends, nor our families, not our possessions and certainly not our enemies.

I'm not advocating dropping the stick and handing out the carrot.  There should be a string attached.  But all stick and only the picture of a carrot means something else entirely.  Carrot and stick should always be in balance.  And always attached to one another.

To me, the American story should be an unending one.  The Grand Experiment is not over.  We are the sum of the choices we make.  We are the chances we took and lost and learned better how to take chances.  But we should never stop.  Shouldn't we all stake a claim in responsibility for one another?  And not in the Big Brother way, smartass!  If the need is there, can't we fill in?  We're a America for Christ's sake.  It's a chance we need to take.  Someone needs us to win for them.  Politics be damned.

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate...

Funny how some folks need only a little bit of info for them to go off half-cocked tilting at windmills and vaccinators.  BTW, have you ever heard the phrase, salting the mine?  Joseph Goebbels knew that a lie told well and often enough will eventually be accepted as truth.  Beware, my friends.  We all need to keep our bullshit meters turned all the way up.  The bastards are out there and they only have to set us against each other to fulfill their evil designs.  Let us stand together and deny them any room to do so.  Freedom is never free.  It might be a right but it exacts responsibility and sacrifice.  And the proper application of gray matter.