TIME GOES BY Fed Up with Elders Today
Ronni Bennett always is eloquent on her blog, as are her famous guest authors. Like Ronni, my frustration is at an all time high as I watch sheer hate and ignorance take center stage in our precious country. I keep trying to understand the motivation and position of the extremists and radical haters, but I just can't seem to crack the code. Their venom and anger is overwhelming.
I get that the population is in a sour mood because of unemployment and the economy. Frankly I am too. I am just not convicted that ignoring the past and denying history can get us past where we are today. My parents taught me that I am held accountable for my choices, and life and my religious upbringing reinforced that. It is absolutely clear to me that both heaven and earth require me – and all of us – to accept responsibility for where we are right now, and unfortunately that includes the decisions that have put us in this mess. Even though the decisions were not our own, we have to start where we are (yep, this is reality we are living in) and move forward from this place.
My parents also gave me a most precious gift – a demand that I think critically. That I work to understand and learn the truth, and not accept information at face value. That I wonder at why and how, and then consider a broad base of evidence and use analysis to make decisions and come to considered conclusions.
I thought we all learned this. Didn’t we? How can it be that there exists such an amazing lack of critical thinking going on at every level?
When did it become cool to pretend that all is well everywhere because it is well with us, that if I help out a few people I have done my duty, that all I really need to worry about is what I believe, that learning about the world and the very truth of it is not important, that what one person says is true even if everything else in their life is not, that agreeing without questioning makes for a strong platform? When did it become bad to ask questions, to think through things, to draw conclusions, to disagree? Being proud of being uninformed – really?
I watch as older Americans preach that they have never taken anything from the government and never will. I watch them shout down anyone that wants to dialog from a different position. And yet I wonder - haven’t these older people received Social Security, are they on Medicare, did they go to public schools? Did any of them attend college on the GI Bill and buy their first homes with government-backed loans? When they need to, do they call city-funded police and fire departments for help?
None of us can stand entirely on our own – a healthy society is functionally interdependent.
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