Government service was a noble calling when I was young.
The military kept our country safe, and public works agencies built roads, dams, and water works. Our policemen and firemen protected our neighborhoods, our courts meted out justice, and social service agencies helped our neediest citizens. “G-Men” tracked down Commies and terrorists. Laws that protected workers, stimulated the economy, and safeguarded our natural resources were enacted by legislative bodies that found compromise to get things done. And, our court systems safeguarded the Constitution and made sure that justice was served.
The Erie Canal, our transcontinental railroads, the Interstate Highway System, eradicating polio, and putting a man on the moon, ensuring Civil Rights…these things happened when people, through government, worked together toward a goal.
I am disheartened in my old age to realize that government has become a dirty word in America. Politics used to be called “the art of the possible”, but, today, it seems like politics serves no purpose other than to divide people and stifle cooperative works of any kind, lest “the other guy” gets credit for something good.
I devoted more than three decades of my life to public service, first in the military, and later working for local government. During that time, our county (Riverside, in southern California) evolved from rural to urban. My role was as a land use planner to start, then infrastructure planning, and later infrastructure finance as Deputy C.E.O. Problem solving, inventing new solutions, working with politicians and property owners to improve neighborhoods and helping develop a diverse economy were my roles.
At the time, I felt like I made a difference, and that my work was appreciated.
However, if I were a young person today, looking toward a career, I probably wouldn’t choose public service. Who would want to be the butt of jokes or thought of as an impediment to society? That’s the propaganda being continuously broadcast to the public today: government is the problem, not the solution.
Of course, the poisonous atmosphere created by today’s crop of divisive politicians makes traditional governmental models unworkable. Nothing gets done, yet taxes still get collected.
Mass murders are on the rise, the divide between the rich and poor is growing, our public infrastructure is crumbling, medical costs are skyrocketing, and foreign respect for the United States is plummeting. Who can blame the public for losing confidence in government? Is it any wonder why about one-third of eligible voters don’t bother to show up at the polls?
It’s funny to me that our government intrudes on people’s freedom where it shouldn’t and takes a “hands off” posture where it should.
I think about death more now than I used to, as the Grim Reaper stalks my retirement community. Many relatives and friends of mine have deceased, some of them in not such a dignified manner. There came a time in many of their lives where they would have rather succumbed quickly rather than be kept alive, suffering horribly and hardly knowing who they were. Euthanasia, which is perfectly legal to “put down” a terminally ill or suffering animal, is illegal for human beings (we’re also animals!) almost uniformly throughout the United States, the Land of the Free.
Probably the purist expression of freedom should be one’s “right” to make decisions about their own life (and its ending). Why do our politicians allow doctors, clerics, insurance companies, and drug companies to make this all-important decision for us? I guess I’m just too old to understand this.
Our physical environment is humanity’s most precious resource. And, yet, our government does so little to protect it.
My background is in planning; i.e. looking far forward, determining trends, examining alternative outcomes, and devising solutions…not as much for our generation but, rather, for our descendants. Society needs people who do this, and it is a proper, and almost indispensable, function of government. Responsible political leaders must be looking three or four chess moves in advance, while the populous is focused on the here and now. Society cannot afford political and governmental myopia.
And, yet, as my life nears its end, I am amazed and saddened that our government is focusing on immediate economic gratification rather than facing and significantly addressing climate change caused by human actions. The proof of the problem is overwhelming, the outlook is bleak, and the urgency to do something significant is real, yet our government would rather pretend there is no problem, attack our climate scientists, and purposely attempt to thwart serious efforts by almost all other countries to make a difference in this matter. Why are politicians gobbling up the disinformation on this issue? Why are our citizens, for the most part, not insisting that our government take a leadership role?
Sad to say, but it’s probably because modern society is not as serious as my generation or my parents’. “Live for Today!” seems to be the motto.
Problem-solving has gone out of style in this country. It is easier to blame someone for a problem than to actually do something about it, and it’s easier to kick the can down the road than to pick it up. “Let the next guy handle it” seems to be the answer.
Or, like the current Administration, just pretend the problem doesn’t exist. (Or, sadly worse, spend time and gobs of money attacking problems that don’t exist.)
Sharp young people with energy and ideas don’t want anything to do with government. I notice that almost all of the candidates running for President in 2020 are old farts like me. Where are the young lions, like Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy? Why can’t one of our experienced, creative C.E.O.’s like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos give it a shot? Why must we voters always have to choose between a bunch of septuagenarians peddling old ideas and pie-in-the-sky solutions?
Speaking of old gasbags, I just heard the news that popular radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh has advanced lung cancer. I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. I’m probably next.
Limbaugh has been the loudest voice of conservative Republicans for probably 40 years, back when the terms “conservative” and “Republican” actually meant something in a positive sense. Fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets, and strong commitment to our military alliances were cornerstones of the conservative Republican platform.
Back in the 1980’, Limbaugh would spend his entire broadcast each day laying into “tax and spend” Democrats and “liberals” who were mollycoddling the Russians. He was the Senator Joe McCarthy of our generation, identifying dastardly plots right and left. Limbaugh orchestrated a 30-year campaign against Hillary Clinton, beginning when she was a governor’s wife, accusing her of all manner of skullduggery, cronyism, and, even, murder. Even now, when the defeated lady is retired from politics, Limbaugh continues to lambaste her for imagined scandalous acts.
I think it was Rush Limbaugh who elevated the term “liberal” to dirty word status in America.
It was as if Limbaugh was denigrating education, particularly a well-rounded one. And, he probably was, as he didn’t graduate from college, and his target audience was a vast horde of ill-educated “redneck” listeners who were mad about such things as gun control, abortion, taxes, non-Caucasians, regulating Bureaucrats, uppity women, and anything else he could blame on those pointy-headed, “liberal” Democrats.
I guess “liberal” was simply his term for anything that he didn’t consider “conservative”.
Limbaugh was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom last week for helping America regress back into the Dark Ages of shortsightedness, spending like drunk sailors, and hatred of anything that isn’t pasty white. I guess that’s what “conservatism” has come to mean.
Who knows where this country is headed? We’ve got a narcissistic bully winging it in the White House, surrounded by a third-rate crew of sycophants who pretend that they don’t see and hear the damage being done. And, on the other hand, we have the Democratic opposition which doesn’t seem to be offering any alternatives that are novel or substantive, and whose Presidential candidates are unexciting.
The recent Iowa Democratic primary caucuses were bungled by Party officials there, which doesn’t reflect too well on the Democratic Party “leadership”. The candidates that did well in Iowa are a gay mayor of a Midwest town and an 80-year old Socialist who makes run-of-the-mill “liberals” look like old time conservatives.
President Trump must be drooling in anticipation of the 2020 election; it’s his to lose.
I was raised in a staunch conservative Republican family; my Dad was a Barry Goldwater fanatic in 1964. However, in Presidential elections, I typically try to see what the country needs at the time (i.e. if it’s too far conservative, I vote for the more liberal candidate; if we’ve swung too far to the left, I go right). I try not to get too focused on personalities, but, rather, on the realistic policy initiatives that the candidates favor.
I have voted in Presidential elections since 1968 and I liked Nixon, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Reagan, Bush (Sr.), Clinton, Clinton, Bush (Jr.), Bush (Jr.), Obama, Obama, Clinton. So, thus far I’ve voted for 7 Republicans and 6 Democrats, all of whom prevailed in the election except Hillary Clinton.
I probably would have voted Republican in 2016 except that Donald Trump had a bunch of goofy ideas, pandered to racists and religious nut jobs, and went out of his way to insult vast swaths of American citizens. Hillary Clinton was offering four more years of Obama-style leadership, which wasn’t earth-shaking. The government probably needed to swing to the right, but I just couldn’t hold my nose strong enough to vote for Trump.
Predictably, Donald Trump has been an embarrassment as President. As expected, his Administration has reversed decades of “liberal” policy, which was needed, to some extent. However, in the process of running the government like an arm of his private Trump Organization, he has undermined our Constitution and acted publicly like a petulant juvenile. He might be the most corrupt President of all time, and he publicly flaunts it. It’s almost scary to think what excesses he might display if elected to a second term.
A Democratic Party nomination of Bernie Sanders would be a Trump wet dream; the President wouldn’t even have to campaign for re-election. The same is probably true if a gay man is nominated. As Jerry Seinfeld used to say, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”, but, really, all of Trump’s MAGA folks and most of the other people of faith in the U.S. would probably place undue focus on Mayor Buttigieg’s sexual preferences. So, those two potential nominations spell a catastrophic defeat for Democrats in 2020.
Who else is there? Ex-V.P. Joe Biden, a couple of ex-lawyer/female Senators (Warren and Klobuchar), and two billionaires (Steyer and Bloomberg).
I have not followed the early campaigns of these folks. Biden has some baggage and seems too old for the job, Bloomberg’s seems to be a vanity campaign, and I’m generally distrustful of District Attorneys (i.e. Klobuchar’s old job). Warren and Steyer seem like smart, decent people with scruples; I might consider them if they get nominated.
But, if Trump faces off against Sanders, I’m stayin’ home.