By Edwin Cooney
If anyone is more miserable these days with less cause than
the average American citizen, I’m damned if I know who it is! The misery of America the blessed and
beautiful crosses social class lines, political ideologies and religious
faiths!
For openers, it’s bad enough that for too many Americans our
twice-elected president is: a spendthrift Liberal, a deliberate baby killer, a
closet Islamic terrorist and jihadist.
Others insist he’s: an inadequate Liberal, both too black and not black
enough—and a black racist unappreciative of America’s great heritage. Internationally he’s both an appeaser
and a careless drone thrower.
Worst of all, “he wasn’t even born here!”
As for Congress, it’s fashionable to believe that: it’s
loaded with self-seekers more interested in their own incumbency and personal
benefits than in our comfort or security.
Millions have become convinced that Congress is packed with men and
women who’ve never had a “real job” and who insist on different living
standards for themselves than they legislate for you and me. Some continuously put forth the idea of
“the citizen legislature” which never existed. (I guess we’re to believe that Clay, Webster, Calhoun, the
Lafollette’s, several generations of Tafts, Adams’s, and Harrisons—among
others—weren’t career politicians and never served the country they
loved.) Yet, it’s my guess that
most of those who make that judgment couldn’t even begin to explain to their
children how a bill is passed by Congress.
Then, there’s the national judiciary which is infested with
lawyers—and everyone knows how corrupt and self-seeking lawyers are! The court system, we’re told,
legislates rather than adjudicates.
Next come public school teachers who’ve destroyed the public
school system by teaching secular civics rather than “the golden rule.”
Then of course there’s the Internal Revenue Service whose
very existence is a national sin since it requires the tax payer to pay more
than the ten percent prescribed for the support of the church by scripture!
Internationally, some insist we’re allied with a decadent
NATO which is made up of a bunch of near-socialist European republics on the
edge of being taken over by radical Islam.
Lawyers, we’re told without differentiating between
brilliant Republican and nasty Democratic or people’s lawyers, are ready and
anxious to sue well-meaning corporations who profit only when they adequately
serve the public. After all, “the free market” not government, guarantees the
well being of free men and women.
(Don’t let this get out of the room, but there’s no such thing as the
“free market.” It costs money to play in any market!)
Front and center for criticism these days is the
“bureaucrat” who works full time for all governments rather than sitting home
accepting welfare checks. What
most people refuse to acknowledge is that “bureaucrats” are someone’s kids who
were sent to college to learn a profession by red-blooded American moms and
dads.
Not even places of worship are above politics these days,
especially since much of today’s clergy, it appears, love politics almost as
much as they love their profession.
This has always been true, but upon the arrival of late Twentieth and
early Twenty-first Century America, politicians have come to seek, and
clergymen and women find it satisfying to grant them, “moral licenses” to
political causes. Hence, some
faiths are too evangelical and others are too “secular humanist”! The list goes on and on as to what’s
wrong with 2013 America. The last
president to enjoy overwhelming support upon taking office was Lyndon B.
Johnson and that occasion marked a national tragedy.
All of the above is brought to our attention by a relatively
recently-bred species of political animal known as talk show hosts. They’re Conservative and they’re
Liberal and most of them are bedecked with specific criticisms and almost
devoid of easily applicable solutions.
Even more telling, none of the really well-paid talk show hosts are
likely to subject themselves to the responsibilities of elected or appointive
office anytime soon. Ah, but
there’s good news; you might even call it a cure for our national funk. Even more important, you personally can
begin applying this cure. Here it
is:
First, stop listening to talk show hosts of all political
types, especially those who substitute ideologically and politically proscribed
ridicule for thoughtful political, social, and spiritual analysis.
Second, get over the idea that any president (including our
greatest) (Washington, F.D.R., Lincoln, Truman, or even Ronald Reagan) has ever
solved a major national moral dilemma.
Really effective presidents, congressmen and women, governors, mayors
and other elected officials adequately respond to socio/political conditions
not moral dilemmas.
Third, allow yourself the luxury to believe, until you
possess irrefutable proof to the contrary, that every elected official is
genuinely interested in serving the public regardless of how their philosophy
of government differs from yours.
You surrender no important principle by giving others the benefit of the
doubt. Furthermore, chronic
institutional chipping away of leadership credibility lessens your political
hopeful’s capacity for influencing events once your support enables them to
assume high office.
Fourth, set a standard for political critics of all
stripes. If someone tells you
President Obama believes or has done this or that, before swallowing it,
familiarize yourself with that someone’s capacity for objectivity. If someone tells you all Conservatives
are racist or fascist, or that Liberals are mentally ill or unpatriotic,
determine how well they understand political theory and how their ideas differ
before endorsing their judgment.
Even more, gauge for yourself their capacity to tolerate contrary
opinions and conditions they can’t control.
Fifth, understand that there’s legitimacy in a variety of
socio/political orientations.
Conservatism is most applicable to business and individual
dilemmas. Liberalism is more
applicable when considering what’s best for society as a whole. Unfortunately, both Conservatism and
Liberalism, as traditionally practiced in America, are too often assigned roles
they’re incapable of fulfilling and thus often fall short of their goals. Subsequently they’re too often used to
bludgeon one another to death.
Most of our assessments concerning where we are and how well
off we are today are based on political and social mythmaking. No one, to my knowledge, ever addressed
the subject of political and social mythmaking better than John F. Kennedy at
Yale University on the morning of Monday, June 11th, 1962. Said the president:
“As every past generation has had to disenthrall itself from
an inheritance of truisms and stereotypes, so in our own time we must move on
from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult, but
essential confrontation with reality.
For the great enemy of the truth is—very often—not the lie: deliberate;
contrived; and dishonest; but the myth: persistent; persuasive; and
unrealistic.”
“Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forbears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated
set of interpretations. We enjoy
the comfort of opinion rather than the discomfort of thought. Mythology distracts us everywhere. “
I believe that if you allow yourself to have confidence in
your own worthiness and believe that your country has the physical, fiscal,
intellectual and spiritual resources to prevail into the far distant future,
sooner than you can possibly imagine: You’ll reside in America, the blessed and
beautiful once again.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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