Saturday, June 25, 2022

What the Heck?

 
     I've been trying to tell people (i.e. Americans I know) that losing the "Center" in our political representation was going to be a disaster.  We're tearing ourselves apart and heading towards the ridiculous.  Soon it will be both ridiculous AND ignorant!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

“ Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,”

That’s what I’m reminded of reading what you wrote, anyway. (Yeats’ “The Second Coming”)

Anonymous said...

torthuiljourney.blogspot.com

C. Marie Byars said...

hanks for visiting again. Yes, indeed, I did publish Yeats a while ago. As I said in that posting, this quote originally meant something other than promoting Centrist politics. And, yet, it secondarily applies to that because centrist actions also keep the Center defense line from being breached. Thanks for remembering. Here's that link again. http://yaduck.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-second-coming.html (Or a reader can find it under the "modedration" label.)

What's called for is a robust, principled Centrism, based on ethical and reasonable compromise, not a namby-pamby 'moderation' to try and win in the polls. Sometimes you absolutely have to stand firm. Other times, you have to say "We had to bend on this to get things done." The way our nation was forged has always made this a challenge, but we had made some headway in governing this way during blocks of the 20th Century. I think the 1980s "Greed is Good", lack of challenge to Reagan's "charming steamrolling" set in motion this current and very ugly cycle.

In fact, I just ran across this. I'm not so sure it's alarmist; it may be accurate. https://andrewmtanner.medium.com/americas-grim-future-aa0b5954bf96 It's a difficult time, around the 4th of July, to ponder such things. I feel I'm in a preliminary grieving stage. But our patriotic holidays have been challenging for me for a few years now, and I used to straight forward love them.

It's also hard for me on the Christian front. I feel a lot of things are naked power grabs done in the name of Christianity. There's been too much of that already. I feel that when this round settles down, it will leave a very diminished Christianity that few people are willing to listen to on its own terms, for what it really stands for-- the basics of sin (all of us! not just the "other guy") and grace.