Outside The Box

“Thought I heard a rumblin’;
Callin’ to my name;
Two hundred million guns are loaded;
Satan cries, ‘Take aim!'” – John Fogerty

“If you’re gonna fight, fight like you are the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s ark and it’s starting to rain.” Tim Kennedy, MMA Fighter

Monkey fights are brutal, and it’s not a pretty sight even when they are just expressing anger. When angry, monkeys have a tendency to pick up and throw anything within reach, including things they may have excreted.

Sometimes, humans argue like angry monkeys, latching onto any conceivable weakness or mistake and hurling it like a projectile. “You always…” “Every time you…” “Just like you did two Thanksgivings ago…” Grievances we claim to have forgiven can be wielded like weapons.

These weapons have little or nothing to do with the issue at hand. They are not wielded by reason or a desire for justice. The goal is not communication or understanding, but like the monkey, the intent is to wound and by wounding to silence what may be family, friend, or neighbor, but in the arena, indeed the jungle of emotion, is now our adversary.

Politics is very much like monkeys fighting. It has always been this way, but now the monkeys fight empowered by technology and goaded by a ruling class that controls the arena with sophisticated means of manipulation and deception. Everywhere we turn we find an opportunity to become and to remain angry or fearful.

This is why I don’t write about politics anymore…and why I’m writing about it now. It’s very simple, but very difficult to ignore it or set it aside and go about the business of chopping wood and carrying water in gratitude for being alive. Politics, fear, and anger, they seek you out. Even if you cut the power to every pixel in the house and switch off every radio, they will come up your driveway in your relative’s car. They find you in the breakroom at work or in line at the grocery store. They can even lurk on the steps outside the church.

For that reason, we posit that at least an awareness of what may present itself can help us avoid the pitfalls. If we know there is a hook in the bait, we might just avoid getting caught, and right now the political process is chumming the water as fast as it can manage.

For several elections now we have been so busy taking the bait and hurling excrement in fear and anger that we find ourselves in the unenviable position of having to choose between two lame duck presidents, old men who might better serve the country by going home and enjoying their wealth and their grandchildren in peace.

No matter who gets elected, the losing side will escalate the continuing conflict. In the absence of a Congress perpetually snared on the treble hook of lobbyist, party, and voter, the coercive power of the Administrative State will continue to grow through the Executive Branch, its tool of choice.

The democrat, if re-elected, will continue his “whole of government” approach of leapfrogging Congress, and the unelected bureaucrats of the Department of Education will help enforce climate goals, for example, while the Department of Transportation will be concerned about pronouns.

The republican will use the same tools to undo as quickly as possible everything that the democrat did, and neither of them nor their future successors are likely to surrender any powers gained.

The challenges we face require leadership that seeks to de-escalate, to heal, to find common ground and common goals, and not one candidate with those intentions or abilities has emerged from the monkey fight to be noticed by the voting population enough to move the needle.

In my opinion, the republicans have an inkling of an awareness that the ruling class is intent on seeing the fight club continue, but they have forgotten something very important. Instead of offering better alternatives they have concentrated on attacking and judging both the personal choices and the persons of those who believe differently. Those conservatives who claim to be Christian should know that is not our job.

Democrats believe they have the moral high ground and are equally guilty of attacking person and personal choice. They seem unaware or unconcerned that they are currently aligned with the ruling class that manages the fight club, and this Administrative State considers them to be little more than human capital, a resource that can be replaced, first by immigration, and eventually by artificial intelligence. They might be shocked to discover how quickly the borders can be secured as soon as robots are capable of doing the millions of “dirty jobs” required to keep an economy viable.

In this election year, to paraphrase the song, “Two hundred million mouths are loaded; Satan cries ‘take aim!'” We are a nation deceived. Perhaps you will join me in a resolution to try to meet anyone we may encounter who is consumed with partisan politics with as much empathy and compassion as we can muster, no matter what they might be flinging.

Now I’ve got wood to chop and water to carry, and the sun is shining out from behind the clouds.