Notes of
Concern…
RANTING & RAVING
Well, that shows what you know!
Everybody is actually busy “ranting.”
It seems the whole world is ranting. Our president is ranting that his opponents don’t want to pass his programs. Of course, he is correct. That is the way governments work. One philosophy against another. His job is to find compromise, to cajole, and to persuade. Ranting is not in his job description. But lately he has been doing some ranting and raving.
The Republican opposition is ranting and raving that the president’s health care plan, known as Obamacare, costs too much, isn’t any good, and is opposed by most of the people it is meant to benefit. Of course, they have an argument that supports these views. Ranting, however, is not helpful here. Americans want the opposition to be open to compromise, to work with the president and his party. Yet Nancy Pelosi was reported to have put the president on mute when he called with ideas; Speaker Boehner makes nice with Obama, then makes not nice with Obama. Then both go out and rant and rave to the press.
Now some Democrats are abandoning the president, and Tea Party Republicans are abandoning anyone in the House or Senate who does not agree with them. And, yes, ranting and raving at one another.
Senator John McCain wrote an article that was published in the Russian paper Pravada in which he ranted and raved against Russian President Putin. This followed an article Putin wrote for American papers in which he questioned our exceptionalism.
Bashir Assad ranted and raved that he had no chemical weapons, then did a complete turnaround and said he would give us a list.
Vladimir Putin said Syria had to reduce her arms. But while Putin was saying that, Putin was supplying those arms to Syria.
At the end of the day, the President is probably thinking that the idea that most Americans don’t like Obamacare cannot be correct because, after all, most Americans voted to return him to office.
As the sun sets on that very same day, the Republicans are probably thinking that their job every day is to convince those wayward citizens who voted to return the President to office that they made a serious mistake.
Politics is fluid. Daily events change the playing field. Both parties have to work each day to win the confidence of a majority of the people. Neither political party is even close to successful on this goal today.
It is a fact of life that every president’s popularity changes in the course of his last years in office. No president gets to keep his majority popularity after the last election for the next four years. His popularity either rises or it falls. And this is how it should be as it is based on a continuing relationship with the people and a requirement to present good, workable plans for the country.
As you get older, you sit back and look at these kinds of things and put them in perspective derived from years of living. You find it all very sad. You hate to open the newspaper in the morning or to watch the television news. So you rely on your own good instincts, the history you have seen in your life, and you make a determination as to how well the current leaders are doing.
I have done this. Here is where I come out:
Leaders in all fields are behaving like spoiled children.
No national leader should abandon dignity to rant and rave.
There isn’t an adult in most of these rooms when major decisions are being made. They are all children.
We should give all the ranters and ravers a “time out,” just like parents do with wayward children, until they learn to play nicely, and we should ship them all off to the island of Elba where their opportunity to do damage would be severely reduced.
In our country we have got to stop putting “8x10 glossy” handsome men and women in office who have little experience and show no dedication to America.
In our country we have got to stop returning politicians to the Congress because they remember our birthday or send us Christmas cards or because they are “nice.”
We have to begin to look beyond politicians who have velvet voices and can mesmerize us with their speeches.
It is time to look hard at resumes, lists of truly applicable experiences where performance can be measured, and to seek for at least a modicum of patriotism in each and every representative of ours at all levels. And perhaps, more importantly, lets do our homework before we cast a vote. Anyone representing us should be doing exactly that and if they are not we need to bring them home and send someone else. And we keep doing this until we get it right.
The fate of the Republic stands on that approach.
The
writer welcomes your comments, ideas and suggestions.
Please
take a moment to share your views on the topic by emailing
www.blair-notes.blogspot.com
