Not Quite Human Anymore - And Response (2)

  • Thursday, September 20, 2018

Much like birds, some feel as thought they are part of a different evolutionary chain. This is a curse one would receive at birth almost like an itch that is impossible to scratch. It is an intrinsic part of one’s self and at all times undeniable probably best described as innate existential thought.

In these troubled times of nihilistic and ravenous political discourse it simply becomes more pronounced. Like a passive observer watching a living museum of chaos, those of us bearing this burden watch as the majority seek one extreme or the other confused by the scenario laid out before them. Friends destroy each other and families cannot sit down to eat without an argument.

It may be noticeable that I am not mentioning current events, and this is because none of this is new. Hannah Arendt warned everyone in her discussions of Totalitarianism and its indicators many decades ago. When there is no longer any middle ground, when sides are demanded, we are in essence screwed. Given her personal experience with Nazism I find this very troubling. I worry of the language the current leadership uses as much as anyone else, if you can even call it functioning rhetoric, however the larger concern seems to me to be polarization.

An unfortunate truth that, like human mortality, people generally seem to suppress subconsciously is that we have no choice but to live with one another despite differences of every axis of daily life. It is easy to get lost in the flurry of modern news consumption, and I feel no one can claim at this point that their thinking has not been influenced. I grow more worried as this gap widens. Even if one side is correct, do we really only want one possible framework for which we base political consideration and decision-making? Many may think this is support of a conservative reformation, of course it is. Many may think my words support the left, indeed you are correct. The common failure of all human existence is to think we all have to like each other. This is folly; however, it is true that we must agree on certain core concepts. The absurdity that I would like to highlight is that no one realizes that we already do.

We need living wages, affordable health care, and the possibility of higher education that does not bankrupt us. We agree that people, all people, are to be treated fairly and justly. These principles are spouted on both sides, where the disagreement lies that has divides us is how to get there. Arguably obvious but at times returning to the basics is good for reflection. This divide has always been the case since the very idea of civilization. I would ask of anyone, what has changed now? We are being led by an arguably and demonstrably bad leader? Fair point, I would certainly agree, however you are letting this disgusting form of politics win if you refuse to find these commonalities between all rational people whatever the political bend.

There can be no progress without civil engagement and that means talking to people you fundamentally disagree with on policy. What I would hope that others see is that the difference lies in how to get to the same goal, not a fundamental disagreement on society at large as those are the extremities and fringes almost all see as problematic.

My message is simple a concise, we’ve got this as a society so long as we do not succumb to personal attack and obscurantism which will only serve to move people closer to absolute polarity which is inherently unsustainable.

Jacob Lee Padgett 

* * * 

No lie brother! Who in the world is Jacob Lee Padgett? This piece is brilliant and to me, smack-dab on the money. "If you disagree with a scintilla of our side, the only other side there is, you are the enemy and you should die a hundred thousand horrible acid bath deaths." 

Honestly, how absurdly stupid is it that highly educated folks with outta the park intelligence quotient on both political sides can't recognize where we are in our discourse? My reaction when an argument gets out of hand has always been either "Wait a minute, man. Let's take a step back and study what we're talkin' 'bout here." or to simply stick my head into the sand and hope it will all go away. Wrong. I'm with Mr. Padgett. We need, as an entire culture, to take a giant leap forward and sit down and shut up and listen to each other with at least a 5 percent open mind. But unlike Mr. Padgett, I'll go all here and now on you:

1: Mr. Trump, I voted for you and I would like dearly for you to please stop the childish Twitter blather and off the cuff, ill thought out and inflammatory baloney.  Could you lose the cell phone if you can't be an adult with it? Could you please give me a reason to vote for you instead of against another who I believe history will finally reveal is a larger fraud? 

2: Ms. Fienstein, I have always found you to be a fake, willing to say whatever it takes to promote your side. This time, though, I feel confident we will learn that you and your ilk have pounded a ten penny nail into a vital organ of the long overdue and desperately required Meetoo movement. You are the same woman who destroyed the career and, potentially, the life of that star football player who did hard time in your state when he could have been in the NFL but for a fictitious rape claim. All real-life rape victims paid a little bit for that and It looks to me like what you're doing now ain't too far away from the same kind of fiction. I'll most certainly say that the Repubs are quite recently guilty of stall tactics on Supreme Court nominees but drunk, non-rape in high school some 35 years ago from an avowed liberal professor? That and the righteous indigence from your tribe disgusts me.

And then you have all of that "AHAAH! It's revenge!" stuff coming with news that the judge's mom, a judge, took away our "victim's" family home when the exact opposite is what actually happened. 

This is sooo ridiculous.  

Please know I am not smart enough to use words like nihilistic and obscurantism on a daily basis. I'll be honest- I had to look those two up. But regardless, if I read Mr. Padgett's opinion correctly, and I read it three times, I found it to be a wonderful breath of logical air in this crazy sate of our Union. It inspired me. Thank you, sir!

Savage Glascock    

* * * 

Mr. Padgett, you write beautifully and it's obvious you put a lot of thought into your writing.  However your one sentence, "I worry of the language the current leadership uses as much as anyone else, if you can even call it functioning rhetoric, however the larger concern seems to me to be polarization" tells the reader everything they need to know about your attitude.  You're angry, you're upset that we don't have a smooth talking non-leader in the White House.  You were certain in 2016 that eight years of unbridled non-action was going to go on and on.  You can't imagine how anyone could not see the liberal dreams for this country, how moving backwards was the only way to continue on.  You were certain, as Hillary proclaimed, that World War III was right around the corner and the great sucking sound we heard was actually America going down the sewer lines.

Fast forward two years and it must definitely pain the liberal forces to see actual economic growth, high employment, the world's dictators backing away from being the massive terrorist threat that they worked so hard to reach, America's poor being trained in new technology enabling them to drop off the food stamp programs, God being reintroduced to the country without shame or disdain...all of these things must have felt like you'd been kicked in the stomach.  After all the progressive liberals worked hard for eight solid years to push for total control of American lives from what our children must eat for lunch to whom you can marry and for what reasons.  You folks almost convinced a large majority of Americans they were actually too stupid to care for themselves, too ignorant to manage their own lives and too dumb to know right from wrong.  You tried to make them believe that your brand of socialism was "the only light" in their lives, to follow anyone else was the road to doom.

I've been a Trump supporter for a very long time, longer than a simple election.  I know he's a compassionate man, highly intelligent, a whiz with numbers but bottom line, a man who loves America.  Does he resemble a smooth talker?  Not a wit and that in and of itself is refreshing because anyone can actually hear what he's saying and take notice, they are listening.  You spent several paragraphs using words we need to look up to see their meaning but your entire post really said "how can ya'll be so stupid that you can't see where this is going?"  My reply, how can you not see what the heck is happening under his administration and just admit that perhaps he deserves a chance to straighten out what progressives have done to this country?  Elections have consequences, suck it up buttercup, because I truly feel you haven't see anything yet!  We gave Obama a chance and it flopped big time, his mistakes are monumental from his apology tour to his red line fiasco.  The racial divide is the biggest we've seen since Dr. King made huge strides in civil rights, Obama set them back and continues his own rhetoric today. 

I'm confident President Trump will swat away the flies, he actually seems to excel where any other man would flop with all the chaos that surrounds him.  He says something and three days later the country sees he was right after hearing on the 6 o'clock news for hours on how stupid and wrong he is.  That would be amusing if it weren't so sad.  Give the man a break and try working together because I can promise you this, with or without the progressives' help he's going to succeed.  It would be better all the way around if compromise were reached prior to the next election but if not, he too has a pen and a phone.

Sue White


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