At the time of this writing, probably only friends and family will see this but I’m very much intending to develop a much wider audience. That translates to I’m writing to you, dear, very bored, reader who stumbled on this old post probably in the early morning hours because you can’t sleep. My best advise to you is get a magazine, go sit up and read something even more boring than this until you get sleepy – and quit using tech stuff in bed.
Okay, you really ARE bored because you’re still here. Fair enough, may as well get on with the topic – who am I?
I’m a cantankerous woman in that awkward too old to be middle aged and too young to be a senior age range. I graduated with a Masters in Political Science in the late Eighties – and yes, I know you probably weren’t born then. Wait another ten years and talk to me when you can’t believe kids today don’t know what keyboards are.
Besides having a flair for the sarcastic, what that tells you about me is that I either didn’t want to go to law school, didn’t think I could go to law school (bingo) or just really wanted to be a poli sci professor (well, it was my runner up). So back then I was young, insecure and dumb – but didn’t know it yet. You know – a college grad.
My career – after I stopped pursuing my Phd further for reasons both private and sad – had nothing to do with any of that. I spent 18 years dealing directly with people who had sexually transmitted diseases and going into schools trying to convince kids not to become one of my patients.
If you’re really that bored, you can hunt down my old blog and hear how badly that story ended. Let’s just say, I was left with a very bad opinion of both government administration and the justice system, among other things. And for the record, I wasn’t a saint but I didn’t deserve the way I was treated, either.
Which is over and done with – and forgiven. Doesn’t mean I can’t apply the lessons learned to how we go about fixing the mess that is our modern ‘government’, however. Does mean I’m not going to moan about it here – and don’t plan to ever. I can’t fix the past – but I can affect the future.
So cantankerous, imperfect and disgruntled – why should anyone listen to what I have to say? Simple – humans don’t come in size perfect but they do come able to learn, grow and become wiser. The real question isn’t why you should listen to me – the answer to that is the same for any blogger or columnist, because you want to know what they said. The real questions are how correct is my analysis – and how good is my advice? The only way to know is to read it, think about it, and decide for yourself. That’s the only way to know if ANY commentary is worth listening to, no matter who wrote it.
The next question is why do I want you to listen to what I have to say. Because I’ve watched my country heading downhill for decades – seriously, we’re behind Uganda in STD prevention and always have been! The practice of media passing off lies as truth is nothing new – and not even unique to this time in history. What does seem to be different is that we’ve been trusting those lies for decades. The results are manifesting themselves in the political division and violence we see today. AND THAT PISSES ME OFF!!!!
It doesn’t have to be like this and it for danged sure doesn’t have to stay this way. And no, we don’t have to become the monsters we fear in order to bring sanity back to our government. I’ve got a couple degrees in Poli Sci because I find governmental systems fascinating. That bores the heck out of most people, I know – but people are asking the questions I know answers to – what the heck do we do now and how do we do it? I learned all the boring stuff (well, not to me, it wasn’t) AND I spent nearly two decades working inside the lower tiers of government – and ya learn a thing or two that away.
And most of all, I want my country BACK. Back to where we care about people, not just using someone’s plight for political points. Back to where we share values of honesty, integrity and open mindedness that doesn’t stem from empty headedness. America is far from perfect – because human beings are imperfect. Only perfect people can create perfect governments and run them perfectly. We don’t have any of those perfect people – just us regular folks who have to make mistakes in order to learn from them.
The slippery slope is, in fact, a logical fallacy. That’s because The Reasonable Man (TM) can see the danger and stop. The slippery slope is also a political reality, because the group, be it a community or a nation, can’t stop itself quickly or easily. Bob sees the danger – but gets carried over the edge by the running mob. This is one of the things we need to learn as a society – groups do not have a good braking system which is why government is supposed to be slow and plodding.
It may be counter cultural in this disposable modern world, but we actually can fix what we broke. Government can indeed be brought under control – but not if we’re asleep at the wheel. I know we can do this – and I know some of the nuts and bolts about how to – THAT’S why I want your attention. I want to help make things better!
Well, hopefully, we’ve already made things better by the time my dear insomniac reader stumbles onto this. The only way to fail is to never try. Well, I, for one, am going to try!
Good night, Dear Reader. Welcome to the fight, everyone else!
