My Country: Prologue

I have been told by many younger people that listening to NPR as the default in the car and at home, watching news on TV, and/or reading papers and news magazines both hard copy and on-line, is a sure sign of limited social skills, diminished intellectual acuity, possible impotence, and so on. Mostly I ignore these dire warnings, and keep listening, watching and reading.  It’s not too surprising that I don’t like much of what I hear, see and read, and I have been known to shout blasphemies at the radio on my way to work (I wonder what THAT indicates). The world, it would seem, is full of assholes, loosely and personally defined as people who don’t think like me. Assuming that I am not the problem (which may not be true) I thought I might try to do something about that.

What will follow is a series of short essays about American politics, government, and political thought intended to incite discussion.  This preface is intended to provide readers with a few assumptions I make going in to this undertaking. If you don’t share those assumptions, the essays that follow probably aren’t worth your time.

I assume that the residents of the United States have some common interests that include reliable infrastructure, safe and adequate water and food,  decent and affordable health care, an educated or at least literate citizenry, some level of national defense, freedom from want and violence, and so on. Put another way, I assume that the United States hangs together as a viable political entity of people that for the most part have more commonalities than differences .

I assume most of us are happy we live here.

I assume that the majority of citizens and residents are rational, and capable of acting in their own interests based on empirical evidence.   

I assume that most folks can live in the same country with people who don’t share their politics, and can strike compromises with such people to solve common problems in ways that they might not view as the best solutions but are, at least, fair.

Now I know these assumptions are not uniformly shared in the United States. A good number of people threatened secession after the last election, and some lefties contemplated immigration to Canada and Europe as recently as W’s tenure. My point is, I think folks who are hiding heavily armed in various bunkers against Obama’s certain confiscation of their firearms, or others who are just as certain that the Neocon Taliban are going to jail them and eat their children because they don’t go to church or are pro-choice, are all delusional and don’t represent a majority of anything but lunatics. If you fall into one of these cases, I apologize for insulting you. Don’t read any more of this blog, as it will just piss you off. If you fall somewhere between these extremes, I hope you find the essays that will follow on something like a weekly basis for a month or so to be interesting, or at the very least entertaining. 

I guess we’ll see…