Who’s Really to Blame, Democrats, Republicans or …?

No matter which side of the political spectrum you are on you can hardly escape the feeling that America is in a real mess. Our politics are full of corruption. Our culture promotes the absolute worst of what it means to be human. We are involved in a multiple front war that seems to have no end in sight. Our future seems to be, at best, dismal if not outright catastrophic. What’s worse is that most of us feel that there simply is nothing we can do to divert disaster.

With such feelings comes a deep drive for some kind of explanation as to how we got here. For that, there seems to be an abundance on both sides of the political aisle of finger pointing and blame mongering. Democrats blame Republicans. Republicans shout at the Democrats. Libertarians mock Authoritarians. Michael Moore blames Capitalism. Capitalists blame Government. Hollywood blames repressive family values. The religious right blames Hollywood. The Religious Left blames everybody (except themselves). The blame game simply never stops.

But what if the blame game serves a different, more nefarious purpose? What if it is actually nothing more than a diversion? What if it really is just a way to keep us from seeing the real source of this mess? What if the real source of our American Tragedy is so dark, so ugly that we’d do anything to avoid the truth?

What if the real source had nothing to do with politics but instead had to do with character? What if those who are to blame for our mess weren’t politicians, Hollywood, the religious, the non-religious or even shadow covered “conspirators?” What if the true source of the American Mess was the person who looks back at us when we look in the mirror?

In his farewell address on March 4 1837, Andrew Jackson had this to say: “But you must remember, my fellow citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government.”

Thomas Paine told us that, “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”

Edmund Burke gave us the following warning: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

The dark and very ugly truth of the matter is that we lost America because we lost our character. We allowed personal security and prosperity to become so important to us that we gave up the only thing that could lead us to true security and deep prosperity. Our integrity.

We allowed politicians to bribe us with our own money. We allowed them to set up series after series of entitlements which we are now hell bent on keeping no matter what it does to our personal freedoms. The whole “stick it to the rich” mentality has been used time and time again to keep incumbent politician in office no matter how much they lie or how corrupt they prove to be.

We have remained silent time and time again giving excuses to corrupt politicians by constantly repeating: “That’s just the way it is in Washington. What can one man do?” The truth, of course, is that one man has often had tremendous impact in a society. Ghandi, Jesus of Nazareth, Martin Luther King, Jr., even Martin Luther himself. When it comes to fighting corruption, these men had tremendous influence. Their influence was, of course, long term and they never really saw the results of their actions. Maybe that’s our problem. We don’t take action because we are too demanding at seeking instantaneous results. Our silence isn’t really so much acquiescence to the futility of speaking out, rather it’s more likely acquiescence to expedience and ultimately cowardice.

We are the ones who redefined the “good life” away from it’s character based definition to a consumer based definition. We are the ones who accepted that the good life meant accumulation of things regardless of the effects that debt has on our freedom. We are the ones who have replaced the art of contemplation and deep thought with the drive toward amusement and celebrity worship. We are the ones who have become voyeurs desperately looking for the latest celebrity gossip rather than seeking to live by the higher standards of classic thinkers. We are the ones who abandoned watchfulness over our State and Federal governments in favor of obsessive devotion to sports and reality TV.

The horrific and dirty truth is we are the ones who have corrupted America. We are the ones who allowed our politicians to destroy our freedoms. We are the ones to blame.

Instead of being angry, we should be hanging our heads in shame.

Benjamin Franklin said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” We are now losing our liberties with increasing speed and we are much, much less secure than we have been in decades. It’s time to remain silent no more. It’s time to step up to the plate and pay the price for our freedoms…to undergo the fatigue of supporting them. If we refuse to do so, if we continue to allow ourselves to be distracted by what has become irrelevant partisan politics, if we continue demanding more entitlements from a corrupt and evil government, we’ll have only ourselves to blame and will deserve the hellish consequences the loss of our liberty will unleash.

Picture by flicker user Kyle Simourd under Creative Commons License. Use of this picture does not constitute an endorsement by Kyle Simourd of the ideas in this post.

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