Escape?

My friend told me the other day that there was a two-word answer to all of the country’s hysteria and political frenzy:  New Zealand!   He said he was doing some long range planning for it now…..  At first I chuckled, and then as I thought about it, I was intrigued, so I asked him what he was going to do there.  He told me he was going to make cheese, and did I want to go with him and run a vineyard to make the wine!

Needless to say, the thought of a fresh start in a completely new place has its breathtaking allure, but is that the only solution?  As the days go by, I wonder more and more about that. 

This past weekend in Naples, there was a ‘rally’ at a major intersection in town with about 3500 people attending waving flags and placards with slogans like “Dump Obamacare” and “Get the Socialist/Nazi out of the White House!” or “Revolution Now!”
A similar rally happened in Washington this past weekend with tens of thousands of people marching and being egged on by such intellectual giants as Jim DeMint of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas.

There seems to be this tide of hysteria and stupidity that is rising in our country, fomented by the deteriorating economic condition of all the people who are doing the shouting and sign waving.  They all seem to believe that they are in this mess because of the new guy in the White House and all his Marxist ideas and policies.  They somehow believe that all their woes suddenly appeared last January 20, and gee, things sure were great before he got there.

What morons!  I see a bunch of idiots who are incited by neo-con ‘tea party’ fascists who can’t seem to stomach the fact that they have lost control.  They are intent on spreading lies to further their arguments and spread mistrust about the government. 

It seems to be getting worse too.  I listen to the interviews and sound bites from the people at these rallies and hear what they are saying and wonder if they ever read anything or have an independent thought in their heads.  How is it that a human being can just accept what someone else says as gospel without any personal thinking about whether it is right or wrong?  Are they just so emotionally overwrought that intelligent analysis is just not part of their toolbox?

Maybe it is just that I am living in a conservative bastion here in SW Florida, but I fear that what is happening is akin to a mob mentality that ultimately ends up spiraling out of control as the the level of civil discourse plummets.  So when my friend floats the trial balloon of a fresh start in a place less frenzied, there is a clear attraction that would not be there in calmer times.

I don’t want to live in fear of a mob psychology overtaking our society.  I want us to find accommodation and compromise with people with different points of view.  Is that possible in an atmosphere of fear and hysteria?  Listen to Talk Radio, my friends….ask yourself if this is civil discourse and honest criticism---- or paranoia, half truths and subtextual racial extremism. 

I think you know the answer already………