Sometimes, mostly lately meaning in this period of my life running hard in middle age, I think democracy is full of it. Give me a benevolent dictator like what they have in Thailand over the option of what the current political circus gives us every four years.
Years ago I had the misfortune of knowing someone who was accused of something that eventually put him away for five years. I still don't know to this day whether or not he was guilty, but I attended his trial, and I have to tell you, if I am ever in that position, the last thing I want is a jury of my peers. There's no such thing. I don't know what the founding fathers were thinking, but if they saw what was sitting on the jury they would have just broken down and cried.
Sorry, I know this country was founded on the rights of the individual, as opposed to someplace like the old Soviet Union or Japan that favors society over the individual, but we've been dumbing down for so long in the United States that the individual seems to have been reduced to nothing but a big bag of water, which is basically what the human species really is anyway. Think jellyfish with hair.
So, I think when whatever the process is that allows states like Ohio and Texas pretty much decide who's going to be in the White House, I think that process is in dire need of fixing. What people on the east and west coasts don't fully comprehend is that there is 2,999 miles between Boston/New York/Washington and California/Oregon/Washington. And there is a very good reason that Stanford is on the west coast and Harvard and MIT and Princeton are on the east. There is a really good reason why innovation in this country comes from the coasts and not the heartland (unless you consider Wal-Mart an innovation.) It's dying out there people. People are conservative (not in the political sense, just meaning they're afraid of risk and they're just willing to let this sit and fester; I mean they are so afraid of change.) It's been going on for decades now, starting at the beginning of the 20th century. Anyone who wanted to do anything with their lives got the hell out of there as fast as they could, even with $26 in their pocket, and headed for either coast.
And now, the people who are left get to choose the president. Fucking brilliant.
Sorry, I know it sounds elitist and I guess it is. I'm not an idiot. I've been tested and my IQ runs up on what's considered very high intelligence. If I'm sitting in a roomful of people, there's a very good chance I'm going to be the "brightest." And it took me a long time to be comfortable with that. I would just dumb myself down to the rest of the people sitting around me. And I did that to great expense to myself. Finally, a very good person said to me, John, you just have to get used to the idea that you're smart. I did, and it's part of my age and experience that I have at this point in my life that I just don't give a shit anymore what anyone thinks.
And I'm not trying to brag on myself; only position myself as someone who has a right to have an opinion. Because I don't believe that, while everyone may have an opinion, they necessarily have the right to express it.
Nor, just because everyone has that right to vote, it does seem to me to be a problem that you might not want them voting for dog catcher much less president based on their knowledge base or personality.
And yeah, don't think I don't know that I'm treading on thin ice. I'm talking about an elite ruling class.
But there was a time in the United States when it seemed people were smarter, more engaged in society, better educated. I don't know what happened. The cost of education kept people out of the college? The fracturing of the family made people didn't allow us to concentrate on our children. The rise of cable television and all of its crap that slowly rotted our minds like sugar cereal did our teeth?
I don't know. All I know is, this country is going to hell in a handbag, and I don't see anyone--politicians, the voters, anyone, taking charge and by that I mean taking charge with a real vision. A new vision for the new worldwide economy and foreign policy and re-establishing the US as a true world leader and rebuilding the infrastructure of this country so there are jobs and opportunity. It's all the same old/same old and right now that's not working for us.
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