Am I the only one bothered by this?
My daughter, Tracy, is my partner on the blogs you receive. She edits my prose, finds the artwork you see every week and comments on content. Her first reaction to my initial draft for today was that it would offend a lot of my loyal readers and she needed to rework it a little. She did a second draft that - much to my surprise - was even more outspoken than my original one. The point of telling you all this is that what follows - our 85th and final draft - is intended to be an equal opportunity offender, both left and right. I am appalled by the condition of our country and the distant relationship with the truth on both sides. There is more than enough blame to go around to extremists and opportunists on both the left and the right. So, happy reading of this week’s snarky edition. I hope you join me in getting angry about where we find ourselves these days. Enough intro. Here we go.
Hip hip hooray! Today is Primary Day in the Buckeye State.
I am saddened by the fact that we will no longer be watching really thoughtful candidate ads on TV. Candidates promising things any reasonable person knows they cannot deliver. Candidates stretching the truth (AKA lying) about both themselves and their political rivals. Angry candidates in each other's faces. Two top-tier candidates (great role models) nearly getting into a fist fight with one telling the other, You don’t know squat. That is a false claim if ever there ever was one. By now, these political animals all know squat and they are in real danger of becoming squat themselves.
Here in Ohio we have a high profile celebrity candidate who, in advance of the 2016 presidential election, said, I’ve never been a Trump guy. I never liked Trump. He’s reprehensible. Backed by some serious money from Silicon Valley, this candidate has now been endorsed by Trump (even if President 45 cannot seem to remember his name). He says how wrong he and Trump were about each other. The odd couple. Hmmmm!
I have been especially taken by one unnamed candidate’s shrill voice proclaiming, Liberals are trying to destroy our country. To be honest, I have many liberal friends. I don’t admit this fact very often, but it’s true. I also have many conservative friends. This I NEVER (until today) admit publicly. Just for the record, not one of those liberal friends has ever called me to say, Davis, why don’t you come to our meeting tonight. We’ll be talking about how we can destroy America. I have, however, overheard more than a few conservative friends chatting about a stolen election and how we need to restrict voting to keep “this” from ever happening again.
Attention election doubters… Let. It. Go. Move forward with fresh ideas. And - this is a message for both parties - find much younger high-level candidates to run for president, not old fossils in their mid-70s to 80+. I can say that because I am an old fossil and, after much consideration, I have dropped the thought of running in 2024. Biden and Trump and Bernie Sanders should, too.
Then there is the candidate who keeps saying It’s China, It’s China, It’s China. He’s right, it is China that’s eating our lunch. But, that’s not China’s fault. It’s our fault for losing our competitive edge. That’s what happens when a country becomes complacent and fails to focus on what’s important, like education, healthcare, hunger and research. We are well on the road to becoming a nation of entitlement. Get a grip, America. There is no free lunch.
And, how about the constant fighting between political parties and among the various factions within the parties? It’s hard to remember a time when they agreed on much more than what day it is. Case in point - the southern border. Immigrants are streaming into the United States every day. Heck, some days they are flooding in across the Rio Grande River. No one in either party can really argue this point. But they also can’t agree on how severe the problem is and how to best solve it. I actually heard one Senate candidate ask in a commercial, Do you hate Mexicans? I couldn't believe my ears.
I gotta be honest, though. As a card carrying Ohio independent voter, the southern border seems very far away to me. What is in my backyard is the NORTHERN border and our very real issues with illegal aerial border crossings. (Come on, you didn’t really think I could make it an entire blog without finding a little humor in our rudderless direction, did you?) Every day, thousands of Canadian geese are flocking into our country through the northern border looking for a better life in my backyard. Wave after literal wave. Nobody stops them at the border. And yet, no candidate from either party has said a word about Canada. Nothing about putting up a wall and making Canada pay for it. All we hear from time-to-time are vague pronouncements that, A country without borders isn’t a country. And then what happens? Nothing. The Canadian threat gets buried by the treacherous, socialist mainstream media never to be heard about again.
In my opinion, Canadian geese are by far the greatest threat to our cherished way of life. Day after day, they leave visible warnings on our car windshields. And, nobody does anything about that. Because some liberal tree hugger in the Senate long ago drafted legislation to protect geese, there’s no retaliation. That’s just plain crazy. I don’t want to be an alarmist, but any one of those Canadian geese could be armed and headed for the Capitol Building in D.C. right now. Let’s get focused on what really matters.
Out-of-touch candidates for high office may not know squat, but those of us who live under constant threat of a Canadian geese bombardment sure do. Mexico and China are just political diversions to keep our attention from focusing on the real threat - Canada. Make no mistake about it, Canada is the enemy.
There, I got all this out of my system and I feel much better. Back to a normal blog next week…..unless, of course, something newsworthy happens.
DY: In Just a Few Words is a blog that comes out when something needs to be said or every Tuesday - whichever comes first. Davis Young is a communications professional who adds 50+ years of experience and perspective to issues of the day. His emphasis in DY: In Just a Few Words will be humor (a touch of sarcasm here, a pinch of facetiousness there...). Once in a while, he will touch on something a bit more serious - but hopefully not too deep or depressing.
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