Flash in the Pan

Homer Stokes [as Grand Kleagle at a KKK rally]:
Brothers! Oh, brothers! We have all gathered here, to preserve our
hallowed culture and heritage! We aim to pull evil up by the root,
before it chokes out the flower of our culture and heritage!
And our women, let's not forget those ladies, y'all. Looking to us
for protection! From darkies, from Jews, from papists,
and from all those smart-ass folks say we come descended from monkeys!
. . .And so, we gonna hang us a negro!
--Oh Brother, Where Art Thou (2000)

If I owned Texas and Hell,
I'd rent out Texas and live in Hell.
- General Phillip H. Sheridan
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Campaigning requires a certain skill set. That skill set is not necessarily consonant with good decision-making or leadership in a consensus-building way. It is like vying for Miss Congeniality, in a contest where winning that banner means you are top banana. Think a gushing Sally Field for the weightiness we are talking about here.

Why won't a one of them say, "I won't talk about my views on homosexuality. I won't tell someone who they may take as a partner. I will neither sanctify nor curse such private acts. I won't tell fertility labs what they can do with their surgical waste. I won't tell a family what to do with a member in a persistently vegetative state. . . These are matters beyond the President's office."

The front runners are all wealthy beyond the dreams of the average American taxpayer, who has little actual cash reserves, much like our Federal government. They never address this issue since they do not know what it actually feels like to live on the edge. Being out of touch with reality, or at least feigning ignorance, seems to be a requirement for holding national political office today.

Another reality is the U.S. is no longer the sole superpower in the world. When a group of rag-tag level one threat terror or insurgent groups can control the tempo of in-theatre military operations, the writing is on the wall. That's on the unconventional side.

On the conventional side, the picture is even bleaker. The U.S infrastructure of military training facilities has been eviscerated and the National Guard and Reserve forces are inadequate to address a general war scenario, like an actual WW III. The active forces are too thin to face say the Chinese or Russian armies. Imagine a war with Pakistan or India, or a combination thereof. Where is the money to pay for an international conflagration? Where's the draft to support an actual war?

Where is the will and the industrial base to face these potentialities? Yellow ribbon magnets don't help win or finance wars.

What is real is the future of the dollar is in foreign hands. If OPEC repudiates the dollar and if foreign investors dump their dollar-denominated holdings, then America is in a precarious posture.

If this happens, Social Security will be an immediate and non-deferrable crisis, as will all aspects of of American financial well-being. At that point, democratization of the world will be a moot point. Battles over gay marriage and all the other rhetorical bling will be overcome by a serious flash of reality.

The "values voters" want a candidate with values (that resonate with and therefore validate their own.) We need a candidate who concerns himself with matters of state, alone. There is no time for anything else. The rest belongs on the table in a college ethics seminar, or a Sunday school study group. Even the best man is no one's moral arbiter.

How magnificent it would be to have a candidate refuse to play God. Refuse to say he or she will mandate and legislate everything. A candidate who hands that terrible freedom and uncertainty back to the fundamentalist voter, who will then realize there is no absolute certainty available only to the elect (elected?)

Then you take a step toward real equality among men.