We Have to Save Ourselves

I’m tired folks. I’m tired of having to defend the very notion of Climate Change. I’m tired of having to explain to people why we shouldn’t have a known pedophile in the United States Senate. And, I’m tired of having to make excuses for people who voted for Trump – regardless if I know and love them.

We are living in scary times. There are “news” organizations that have devoted themselves to Trump and what he stands for, regardless of the fury of hell it releases on our country. We have White Supremacists marching in the streets without the veil of anonymity. We are playing chicken with nuclear weapons. Medicare, Medicade, and Social Security could be on the chopping blocks next year. Our President is insinuating that a sitting Senator offered him sexual favors in exchange for a monetary donation. Veterans benefits are being gutted while they dump billions into the standing war machine. There are pictures, visual evidence, of polar bears starving because of what we’ve done to this planet. And yet, millions of people stick their heads into the sand and pretend they don’t see what’s happening all around us.

We have abandoned our ability to disagree and have a coherent conversation on policy. This is a construction of our own making. We have spent years being told that it isn’t polite to discuss politics or religion. But where has that gotten us? We now find ourselves in a situation where we are fundamentally unable to have reasonable discourse. We think we can change people’s minds with facts, figures, or an antidote. I have recently learned, that is never going to happen. People ridicule religious principils they don’t understand and don’t bother researching. All of this is causing more hate, a greater divide, and a sense of displacement.

We live in an age where we have more information at our fingertips then we know what to do with, yet many choose not to look into anything outside our bubbles. If you don’t agree, you call the person a name and pretend that their ideas have no value, and they have nothing to offer. We have long abandoned the idea of community. People uttering vile curses on areas affected by natural disasters in blue states because it will be easier to push their personal beliefs down others throats. Others saying the more people who are shot at a country concert, the better. What have we become?

Here’s the truth folks, the government isn’t going to save us. We must save ourselves. We have to hold ourselves responsible, accountable, and we must look in the mirror. Once we are able to see our own demons, to recognize our own shortcomings, only then will we be putting the best people in office.