I think I’ve figured it out.  There’s multiple Americas.  I don’t mean North, Central and South.  I mean multiple US of As.  What other explanation could there possibly be.  When I hear a windblown politician, a television yakking head, or the wholly ignorant in the streets making these comments I think:  That’s exactly what should be happening in our country!  That is exactly what I value.  That is exactly who I am.  So, here we rest our weary hearts and minds.  In a standoff across an ever-widening abyss.  An abyss of wayward ideologies, ignorance, directionless baseless hatred, stupidity… multiple Americas.

As they like to declare over there in East Virginia, let me be clear.  There are rational people who consider themselves either liberal or conservative.  There are irrational people who are used as a broad brush to categorize them all.  Not every liberal is a progressive socialist.  Not every conservative is a white supremacist.  There are conservatives more liberal than self-identified liberals.  There are liberals more conservative than self-identified conservatives.  I would say the same about self-identified Democrats and Republicans except with each passing day, that nom de plume is becoming more meaningless.

One America has become irrelevant.  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is irrelevant.  Our Constitution is only relevant to the extent we can get enough judges to declare it means whatever we want it to mean.  What’s relevant is political power at all costs.  What’s not relevant is loyalty to our country, knowledge and acceptance of our history including the good, bad and ugly, understanding American Exceptionalism – the only country ever founded on the precept of individual liberty, and basic knowledge of how the branches of our government are supposed to function.

Own up to it, the world’s most powerful country, we are no longer a unified like-minded people.  Like minded in the importance of liberty that is.  Nope.  We are a color, an ethnicity, a religion, a gender, a hyphenated American, a sexual orientation, pro-life, pro-abortion.  We are you name it – everything except freedom loving Americans.  Guardians of freedom.  We hear about the unfairness of capitalism by people who’ve become wealthy because of capitalism.  We hear of the virtues of Socialism and Communism minus their world scourge from the already wealthy or the ignorant.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Washington is filled with people who forgot their purpose is service.  Many of them in Washington for so long they’re no longer cognizant of life outside the beltway.  They are not beholden to the people who continually send them there.  They are beholden to mega corporation and defense industry lobbyists.  Beholden to power and to the people who give them money to help them stay in power.  Their decision cycle is quite simple.  What do my donors want?  How much cash can I milk them for to push legislation they want?  How do I spread the wealth around to garner support from other swamp dwellers?  How can I dress it up so the saps who vote for me will think I am doing something great for them?  Repeat.

The Washington cartel relies on the divisions they foster.  They also rely on the stupid-ignorant.  Stupid are those lacking intelligence or common sense.  They’re prone to unreasoned thinking.  It is, as they say, hard to fix stupid.  Some even insist you can’t fix it.  The ignorant lack knowledge.  In this case knowledge of our country from our founding through our history, our Constitution and functioning of the branches of our government.  Ignorance is fixable, but it is a grand challenge when the ignorant do not believe they are so because of life-long indoctrination.  When stupid is combined with ignorance, it is the perfect formula for self-destruction.  The Washingtonians rely on it as do those who inspire the no borders no country protests, those who attack people for their beliefs, and those driven by blind hatred toward a group or an individual.

What happened to our country?  What are our values?  Who are we?

Questions for our time.  If all of us cannot answer them with the same response then we have no country, no values and no identity.

© 2018 JD Pendry – All Rights Reserved

E-Mail JD Pendry: jd@jdpendry.com