May You Live in Interesting Times

If you know why this picture goes with the post title, you should go get an AARP card -- 20% off the whole check at Denny's!

I only learned recently, from Wikipedia, that "May you live in interesting times" is a curse.  More specifically, it is said to be an old Chinese curse, although the only known sources of the phrase appear to be British.  The idea is that interesting times mean change and turmoil, so boring times would be more comfortable.

When I was young, I always felt like the half-generation before me lived in more interesting times than we did.  If you graduated from high school between 1962 and 1968, more or less, you were in the middle of a decade of really radical social change.  There was the civil rights movement, anti-war protests, riots, political assassinations, long hair, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  Those people changed this country.  By the time I graduated in 1975, the Vietnam War had ended, Nixon had resigned, and Gerald Ford was President.  They had Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, and The Graduate.  We had streaking and John Denver.

But now I think the times have gotten a bit more interesting, and this is why:  We have two very old dominant political parties in this country, and I think soon, within the next generation, one of them needs to go.  The rational people of this country are so at odds with the Republican Party that I don't think we can continue to coexist anymore.  The Republican party needs to be destroyed, burned to the ground, wiped out of existence, and replaced with something more viable.  I don't mean that we have to burn their offices and hang their politicians; the model I have in mind is the Dixiecrats.  There are still a few adherents out there, but they are marginalized to the point that they don't run for office, and almost everyone realizes that they have nothing of value to say.  No one talks about them anymore.  Republicans need to be brought to that point.

And here's why:  We need to have intelligent discussion of political issues in this country, different ideas, solutions for our problems.  And I don't believe that what the Republican Party has to offer right now includes intelligent discussion, ideas, or any solutions.  They are, to put it succinctly, nuts.

Just a few quick examples:  Suppose I am a Democrat sitting down with one of millions of Republicans across the country to find a solution to some problem.  Like more than half of Republicans, this one thinks that global warming is a hoax.  Like about half of Republicans, this person believed, maybe still believes, that Barack Obama was not born in this country and is therefore not legitimately President.  Like about half of Republicans (52% in one poll), this Republicans believes that ACORN, a relatively small organization that worked to register minorities to vote, stole the 2008 presidential election, apparently stealing millions of votes across the country.  In fact, like 48% of Republicans, this one believes that ACORN also stole the 2012 election, even though ACORN had ceased to exist a couple of years earlier.

Am I supposed to discuss something serious, like the deficit, with this idiot?  I can't.  I just don't have any faith that anything he thinks or says has any basis in reason or reality.  My political counterpart is what I like to call "functionally stupid."  He may have a high IQ, but it doesn't do him any good, because he refuses to think rationally, making it hard to distinguish his ideas from those of someone who is truly too mentally challenged to understand any better.  I can't trust that anything he says will be anything other than utter bullshit, leaving me to try to evaluate both his thoughts and mine.  I might as well just leave him out of it.

As a practical example, Republicans are vehemently opposed to the Affordable Care Act.  Honestly, I don't personally know all there is to know about the law.  Still, when Republicans criticize the law, it sounds to me like their usually BS.  More than likely, people like Karl Rove know that the law will help people and be good for Americans, but it is his job to convince the conservative masses that everything Democrats and Obama do is terrible.  While he gets rich laughing at them, the Fox News watchers and Rush Limbaugh listeners mindlessly follow along, learning to hate the law because, uh, Socialism!  Any discussion of actual ideas is lost.

I have more thoughts about this, but I'll save those for another day.