Today it's all about winning and ethics be damned

The Tea Party says if you are deathly ill with no insurance, that’s tough. Eric Kantor, Republican leader of the House of Representatives, says if you suffered catastrophic loss because of hurricanes or tornadoes or any natural disaster, that’s tough. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, leaders of Republicans, say we can’t improve the economy without severe cuts in spending – the very thing which will guarantee no recovery.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry says there is no such thing as Global Warming and Evolution is a suspect science. GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachman claims to “cure” homosexuals through prayer. She also says that if you are one of the injured due to natural disasters, you are simply a pawn in God’s wrath against Barack Obama.

Send in the clowns.

Common sense is hopeless against this virus, and virtue has become the enemy.

I have lived a hopeful life, believing in an evolved United States of America where the dream of its founding fathers would blossom at last – a place of equality among men and justice for all. I believed in the heroes of western movies and John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart fighting bad guys. I was taught that being good was a good thing, and caring for others was biblical.

Now, it seems, bad guys are running the system. What happened when we weren’t looking?
It is now fashionable to shout out in congress when the President is giving a State of the Union speech. Disrupting town hall meetings so independent voices cannot be heard is now sanctioned. Spreading misleading and even false accusations against the president over the Internet is seen as perfectly legitimate.

As Charley Sheen is famous for saying, “Winning, Duh!” It’s all about winning and ethics be damned.

The unthinkable cliché’ has come true. Inmates are running the asylum.

There is no moral compass, much less an intellectual one respected anymore. Small mindedness, narrow mindedness are the new champions. Seeing beyond one’s personal sphere is unacceptable.
A man by the name of Grover Norquist has become the most powerful person in America, and he wasn’t even elected to an office. Shouts of “Take our country back!” are common, but no one can delineate just what that means. Back from What? Back To what?

Back to two years ago? Four years ago? How about 2007, when the housing market completely collapsed along with the credit markets. Back to 1954 and Brown vs. Board of Education? Back to 1861 and shots fired on Fort Sumpter? How far back and to what set of circumstances?

The Tea Party and other “tag along rebels” can’t or won’t say. The fact is – they don’t have a clear idea. They just love the idea of rebellion.

Listen as they spout all manner of “righteous” slogans and one dimensional rants. They love the sound of their own voices above all else. Logic, reason and proven accomplishments are all suspect and can’t be trusted. Nurse Ratched is the enemy, and all must rebel.

The fact is: this Republic is, and always has been, in a process of evolution. The very constitution we value so highly was intended to be flexible and updated from time to time, because the founders knew they couldn’t predict every twist and turn the new nation might take.

The evidence is pretty strong, though, that they counted upon reasonable, intelligent men to come together to resolve any issue. Compromise was seen as the great leveler.

Spending too much money? Let’s find a way to rein that in without causing more harm than good. Balancing the budget? Let’s find a balanced approach which spreads the responsibility equitably. Too much government squeezing us? The answer isn’t to dissolve the government but to reform it.

There is a frenzy circling about which is close to getting uncontrollable.

W.B. Yeats famous poem is looking more and more prescient.

I hate having to change my boyhood expectations. I thought it was a solid lock that the good guys would always prevail.