Are we really all on a perpetually spinning Hamster Wheel of Doom? It would certainly seem so. Case(s) in point:
- The Simpsons last night sucked. It was supposed to be all daring and edgy and talking about how America was now a police state filled with patriotic zombies. Heh. Funny. Not.
One of the great beauties of The Simpsons is that it has always abused equally. It poked fun at celebrities in the same breath it poked fun at all us morons who care what celebrities eat for breakfast. It roundly denouced both sides of the political divide, picked on the rich and the poor, ad nauseum. Last night’s episode picked on red-state Americans without any corresponding abuse of blue-state folks. Pitiful. I didn’t smile even once. It was actually painful to watch: like looking at Rush Limbaugh or listening to Al Franken froth at the mouth.
See, Simpsons people, evenly distributing abuse can be done. I just did it. Man, I hate Rush Limbaugh.
- The great state of Massachussets has been doing gay marriages for nearly twelve hours now. What sort of brain-dead idiot opens up a municipal office at midnight on a Sunday night in order to hasten the downfall of Western Civilisation? I am amazed the Federal courts did not put a stop to this, given the very knotty federalism issues involved but I was impressed by the Governor’s insistence that Massachussets’ 1913 law forbidding weddings for out of staters when that wedding would be in violation of their home state’s laws would be strictly adhered to. Naturally, many of the clerks signing folks up to be wed vocally announced their intention to flout that order. I think the FMA furor will have to come to a head sooner rather than later. This is a bad thing.
- Apparently Americans are beginning to give up on the war. Is abject surrender an option? Certainly not. Suppose the war isn’t worth it, what sort of message do you think it would send for us to throw up our hands and retreat at this point? I can’t see any alternative but to continue the war – regardless of blood or treasure – until we succeed. I have no doubt – in fact, I always expected – that it will take 20 years, billions of dollars and probably thousands of lives but we haven’t got a choice.
If we turn tail and run we’re back in 1973-75: a President many people hate, a victorious anti-war and anti-american fifth column, large deficits and the stain of defeat magnified by the known cost/wasted effort. That is unacceptable.
If this world is to have any chance of a decent future America must lead. We’ve brought the world this far in 50 years: Europe at peace with itself for the first time since Caesar Augustus conquered the world, the Middle East seemingly receptive to change, virtually no agressive war waged anywhere on Earth. These are things to be proud of. These are things to pursue. This is victory. Nothing less is acceptable, regardless of cost.
I am not a full-on doom and gloom kind of guy, not deep in my heart anyway. Do I think any of these things actually presage the end times or the total collapse of America/Western Civilisation/etc? No. In fact, when pressed to prophesy where we’d all be in fifty years I said, “Basically where we are now.” I see no reason to doubt that theory. We may be trending downward on many things but we’re at the same time trending upward on many other things. We’re longer-lived, richer, and less restricted than ever. Simultaneously, we’re fatter, more in debt and more angry at our freedom than ever. Things tend to balance. Although I do think the overall trend is down.