we're like teenagers

Our country is like a teen.
We decided to party in a very risky way once all the curfews were lifted in the early 2000's. The party got good! There were party kids (financial people) who were geniuses at coming up with cool ways to get the most fun out of nothing, and we followed! soon most of us were in a party mood and were buying into it with glee! Soon people were in houses they couldn't afford, in deeper debt than they should. All of that was supported by over-inflated housing prices and recklessly risky investments.
Then, like a Friday morning class after a 50 Cent draft Thursday night, came reality. The floor was removed from under us and we were faced with the harshness of reality without the means or desire to deal with it. We found ourselves suffering through the responsibilities of reality in no condition to undertake those tasks. Some flunked out and went out of business, others hid and just hoped it would all go away. Some others who had been caught up in the "peer pressure" wave did their best to fight back but it was just too hard.

As we were all in our collective hangover we called our "party friends" to yell at them and let them know how angry we were. For the most part that's as far as it went. As we did our best to deal with the harsh, bright, eye burning, head exploding sun of the morning after we looked for what every person with a hang over looks for, a quick fix.
We heard of this quick fix called Barack and went for it in the same way we had for the partying. So we projected all our hopes of a speedy recovery, placed unrealistic hopes in it and bought into it. Why not? the package said it would cure our hangover, it said it had the solution! So we took the pill and waited 20 minutes, and nothing happened! We turned into teens and threw a fit!

All this fix did was give us a new thing to blame for our choices. Whereas before we were blaming the partying and those who took us to it we were now blaming the Barack we had taken. Quicker than I could imagine we shifted the blame to the one trying to fix it and took the real reason off the hook, we are indeed teen! All the meanwhile refusing to acknowledge that we had anything to do with the whole mess at all!

Through this whole thing our boring neighbor to the north decided to only go to dinner with us. When the party people came and told us of the 5c draft beer the neighbors simply said, I'll pass. SO we partied on while they went home and missed out on it. Now, as we sit here with our unending headache, sore body and flunking grades they simply sit next to us planning their next dinner out and studying for the next test. Meanwhile we move on to the next quick fix, some kind of tea I think and it has the word "party" in it so it must be good.

At the same time, our older neighbors in that other school across the pond have gone a different way. Their people in leadership have decided that their people need tough medicine and have come together to give that medicine! (dem-lib coalition) They're doing some "austerity" thing that's not fun for anybody but at least they're working together while us here just pick a side so we have someone to blame the other side with.

So we are indeed teenagers. We followed some questionable characters to some questionable party that got us into deep trouble. Someone comes to help us and they take longer than a minute to fix the mess so now it is their fault we are in the hole we ourselves dug. So instead of putting in the hard, longer term work we simply look for someone else offering a quick fix. We choose a group of people who are yelling angrily and assume that since they are angry they must care for us. When was the last time you made a wise choice while furiously angry!? oh yes we are indeed teenagers

Ramblings

I am getting soooo very sick of our political extremes. I've been reading "Patriot" blogs and sites. I am amazed how these sick radical people have hijacked that word. The way they claim to be the only ones who are patriots or true Americans makes me sick and yes it makes my blood boil. However, unlike them, I still do read what they have to say and will support their right to say their opinion, which is NOT what can be said about most of them. Of course, I understand that these people are extremists and as such logic is not necessarily something they are interested in exploring. These people are experts at manipulating small pieces of information and abuse faith and good will to trick people who think them reasonable and honorable.

The most recent and blatant of this is Glen Beck's tirade on what "social justice" really means. Apparently this phrase is code for communism or nazi socialism. This is the world in which extremists live, one where an accusation of conspiracy is enough to distract people long enough to derail true progress.

Most of what I hear is complaints about how our president has done nothing so far. How much could a reasonable person expect from someone who receives a country closer to a depression than any other time than the actual depression, fighting two wars, and under the biggest deficit we have had in a long long time? All of this with a republican legislative body blocking every attempt at governance made. I should say blatantly blocking, as many of these people are blocking legislature they had themselves sponsored before! Did I mention that the previous president received the country in the complete opposite state?

Could you imagine what these people would be saying if a Democrat president had received a country with a budget surplus, had 9/11 happen, oversee two expensive wars, a financial collapse all before handing it to a Republican and expecting him/her to have it all fixed within a year!?