This is probably not going to be as coherent as I wish because my feelings this a.m. after reading the paper are reflective of how complex society has become. When I was younger, I had a life to lead which included raising a child and achievement at work which provided a focus that no longer exists. I can see that unemployment (even retirement) can sap an element of spirit. Perhaps because money is not available for exotic travel and that is what I enjoy most from a spiritual standpoint. I love a road trip.
I will bring up my thoughts in the order they developed reading the newspaper.
Just on the front page, there was an article of a scorned 4 year old Ebola orphan in Sierre Leone. She just wants someone to love her and distant relatives want nothing to do with her despite her not being contagious. Then there is the story of Denmark rehabilitating former Jihadists on the basis that young men do stupid things, but are not necessarily evil forever. And while I am not a smoker, and realize all smoking will kill you, the lack of regulatory oversight of E-Cigarettes has resulted in some of them vaporizing lead, tin, zinc and other heavy metals/carcinogens into the smoker's lungs. And if that is not testimony, not mention the excesses of 10 years ago in the financial systems as well, that some kinds of regulation are necessary, I don't know what is.
Meanwhile, 2 guys on a motorcycle in Kabul assassinate a Supreme Court Justice. When your enemy looks just like you and believes that anarchy is the solution, you have both a military problem and a political problem. All civil wars require a political solution because you cannot kill everybody who supports the other side in a civil war. That is genocide. So the world and the interaction of different societies in this time of globalization is certainly complex.
So with that all swirling within my brain, I get to an article on Jeb Bush and an article on Our Unrealistic Hopes for Presidents. Jeb is trying to figure out how to win the Republic Presidential nomination without giving up his political policy soul to the Tea Party and its non-compromising beliefs which he disagrees with. But then, I read how it should not have been a surprise that Obama failed to unite us on policy. It's been over 30 years since we had a government that really wasn't partisan. That was a mid-20th century ideal and lord knows the country is more complex today then it was 60 years ago, and that threatens people. People disagree fundamentally about direction, people disagree fundamentally about scope and scale of government. I have my views on that, but to presuppose that compromise is possible is a false hope on my part. That saddens me, but that is reality.
I have written about how I care about a woman's right to control her body, but as a 61 year old male, that is not the most important policy to me. What is important to me, is economic growth to support my investments to fund retirement, a well regulated environment to keep all generations healthy in both a physical and financial sense, and access to affordable health insurance with pre-existing conditions. That will determine how I vote. And I have no sympathy for New England which has high electricity prices because the NIMBY's won't allow natural gas pipelines to be built. NIMBY's are almost always hypocritical at their core because there is no consistent set of policies that can be advocated when you are anti-economic competitiveness and job maintenance/creation.
I do care that I live in a righteous society and I am very sympathetic with the "I Can't Breath" protests. And I do think there is something terribly wrong when unarmed young black men are killed by policeman time after time after time after time. Without better gun control, and a reduction in gang violence (legalize drugs and remove their source of revenue?), I just don't know what a young African American on the edge of economic failure can do to protect themselves other than get on the straight and narrow, a path many young men of all color stray from because they are young men who don't think things through very thoroughly and act on impulse. Impulse self-control growth varies greatly amongst the population.
Link to Ebola Orphan Story
E-Cigarettes Kill too
Taliban Kill without risk
Is Jeb Bush a moderate?
Partisanship is not going away, it is reality
A Stuggle to raise an African American Son
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