Time to Grow Up!

For the last few months I’ve seen a lot of people yelling and screaming that Obama – and all liberals – are Socialists or Fascists or whatever, and that they are out to destroy the country. In the midst of all this it suddenly struck me that I’ve heard this sort of thing before. Sure, the particulars are different, but the voices are frighteningly familiar – I’ve heard them my whole life. These people are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore. You know what -- so am I!

So what’s their complaint? Well, they’re afraid that the government is going to take over healthcare and – given that old Uncle Sam has already snatched the banks and the car companies – that seems like part of a larger plan to stamp out freedom, liberty and justice. The fact that that’s objectively not true doesn’t make a dent. The fact that America has a third-rate healthcare system that costs a third more per head than just about any other developed nations doesn’t seem to matter at all. ‘Everything’s fine just the way it is,’ they seem to say.

So why am I mad as hell? Because we got big problems and the only way to solve them is together. The anger from my friends on the right is making them blind and making it impossible to get things done. That's what anger does. Our minds were ‘designed’ a long time ago to help us jump out of the way when something mean leaps out of the tree. In the meantime we’ve learned to think rationally but don’t kid your self, when we get freaked that old lizard brain stills runs the show. We might have a nice cover story about how we’re a nation of self-sufficient cowboys fighting the revenuers but, in truth, we’re just trying to stay ahead of whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is-with-the-big-teeth.

So grow up people. Let’s work together and figure this thing out – together.