SHOW NOTES:

Fight, Flight, Fright, or Fall Down Quaking

We feel powerless in an age of volatility and disruption, of lack of trust in our institutions, and of polarization among those supposed to represent our best interests and not merely their own.

Fight or flight has added fright to the equation, but it seems to me there's also the new option of hiding under the bed (fall down quaking). Whining has become a national past time, and we hear of "toxic bosses, poisonous workplaces, unfair demands, too little pay for too much work. And the anodyne solutions is "soak the rich, tax the wealthy, take back....well, whatever."

Those experiments in Seattle and Portland, which were actually anarchic takeovers and the end of law and order didn't work out so well, did they? The Great City of San Francisco, where we lived for a glorious while in the 70s is not filthy and dangerous in many areas. The homeless often physically confront pedestrians.

At least we don't hear "defund the police" so much anymore, since it's such a stupid concept. The homeless, the mentally ill, deserve and require empathy beyond a police response. But when the bad guys are trying to break the law, trying to steal, trying to create chaos, we need more police not fewer.

In the long run this is about perceived powerlessness. We've lost faith and thereby feel alienated, which causes us to "drop out" (not vote) and the results are the greater influence of those with whom we don't agree, creating a greater sense of powerlessness and a "doom loop" exsistence.

There are a lot of positive things going on in the country, and other things that well-meaning people would like to change. Fair enough, but that takes will power and relative fearlessness, not some kind of hibernation.

At least we've stopped taking the names of the Founding Fathers, Lincoln and others off of public buildings. We're more concerned about gender and bathrooms today than we are with public welfare, quality education, and decency.

Fortunately, the system is brilliant and survived, made to endure even when run by idiots from either party.