A Simple Man’s Walk Down the Road of Life

By David Lambert

College instructor, Sunday school teacher and stranger in a strange land

I have told many people that the next great war/revolution in the United States
won't be against a force from outside the country, but from inside. We are facing a
class war right here at home. The system that our society is progressing to is the
system of serfs and lords from days gone by. The large corporations and political
organizations have budgets that many 3rd world countries would kill for. I knew we
were in that hand-basket heading for the flames when corporations were given the
same legal status as people. Corporations are just that - CORPORATIONS! They are
collections of people, not people themselves. I think every person should have the
right to voice their opinions to their government representatives, but isn't it sort of
double dipping to let the collection of people have a voice too? Lobby influence
outside of congressional hearings is bad enough from citizen groups but it should be
illegal from business groups. The old phrase "the rich get richer and the poor get
poorer" isn't a saying anymore it is the way of the world. The mechanism that
allows the 3rd world countries to develop and our country to fall away is education.
The feudal lords kept their serfs in line by keeping them ignorant and it still works
today.

I heard somebody use the phrase "land of the free and the home of the dumb***" to
describe what is happening to our country. The way that education has been
handled in this country in the last few years really makes me wonder how close to
the mark this is. We are teaching to the test and it is getting worse all the time. We
now have to teach "critical thinking" in college because high school graduates have
none. If you don't know what that is you may recognize it by its
more common name - common sense. We no longer teach our children how to solve
problems, just to pass a test. We don't prepare them for the real world, just to pass
a test. When they do get out in the real world, they have no tools to enter the work
force unless they can find a job taking tests. The new way that we want to hobble
our teachers is to connect their pay to the results of these tests, effectively
smothering any sort of creative thinking that may find its way into the schools. As
much as the conservative talking heads love to bring up Nazi Germany, this is the
perfect example of controlling a population. If they don't know any better, they
won't complain about the corporations taking over.

Before we get to the part where I start talking about the "United Corporations of
America", I want to state that I am not anti-capitalism or anti-democracy. I am for
balance in all things and the purest form of each is self-destructive. If you really
look at it, pure democracy more resembles the communes of the 60's than our
current form of government. By the same token, complete capitalism is a corporate
dictatorship. We need both to balance the big picture. Both extremes only work with
a completely honest and pure society and that doesn't exist. What looks good on
paper may only be good on paper. If our country had more people with "critical
thinking" skills, they would see the need for balance and provide it. Our country had
its greatest boom when those in charge had these skills and the population could
tell because they had them too. We must invest in returning our country to the top
end of the education scale or we will end up at the bottom of all the scales.

After talking about the direction we are going, I am forced to think about the mass
rhetoric that we are pummeled with on a daily basis. Who can we believe? The old
joke popped into my head: "Q: How can you tell when a politician is lying to you? A:
His lips are moving!" Most of the government has been there too long. The original
mechanisms that were to keep the checks and balances have been broken for
years. It is like putting up the Christmas lights when you go to vote. The whole
string is not lighting up but it could just be one bulb that is out. We could just
replace one bulb at a time until it lights, but what if it is more than one bulb? We
could take each bulb out and test it, but how will we test it? Do we have a tester or
do we already have something that we could use to tests them like a meter? What if
the bulbs are OK and the wire is broken somewhere? The easiest, quickest and
surest way to solve this is to replace all the bulbs with new. You would immediately
know if it was the wire and less chance of one blowing out in the middle of the
season.

We need to replace all of the members of congress and the rest of government with
"new bulbs", bulbs that haven't been in the socket so long they are corroded there!
If the structure of the government has been worn away till it's "wire" is broken, then
we need to get a replacement that matches the original wire that the founding
fathers started with. I realize that the few (too few) good politicians that are still in
office would go in this purge also, but they would have a chance to try again once
the system had been repaired. I know this sounds a bit like the Tea Party platform
but I want to separate myself from that movement. They still have the ideology of
the conservative left. The black and white of the liberal/conservative war is what got
us here when very few people are completely one or the other. We need leaders not
party mouth pieces. We need representatives of all the people and not just selected
groups of people.

This will not at all be easy as the republic "for which it stands" is designed to
promote individual rights above all else. That is the reason that the founders chose
this type of government. They were looking for freedom and individual rights for this
new country and its people, not another king. There is a point, when things are
going good, that a country's mindset starts to shift however. When prosperity is
reached, people start looking at social benefits to be provided by the government
since all of their personal needs have been met. This is when general welfare,
retirement and public services start taking center stage. That is where the
advocates of pure democracy (a lot like socialism, but not) start pushing to the front
and that is when the battle begins. As with any war, it is the innocent bystanders
that get hurt the most and that is us!

Why does everything in the world today have to be black and white? Nobody is
willing to consider any opinion or point of view that isn't theirs. If you're not on the
left then you must be on the right. If you not conservative you must be liberal. If
you’re not Republican you must be Democrat. I can't believe that I am the only
person in the world that isn't just one thing. The majority of life has a full spectrum
of color beyond the black and white. Let's look at some things of great color that
people only want to see in black and white.

Should evolution or intelligent design (creationism) be taught in schools? Why can't

both? Why can't both sides be wrong and right? An all knowing intelligent designer
created the universe and then, in a gift of universal free will, decided to give His
creation the power to evolve and change or even improve themselves. If there is a
loving deity as promoted by many religions, why wouldn't He bless his creation with
the ability to improve themselves and their situation in His universe? What about
the ongoing argument over global warming? Why can't there be global warming and
it be a natural cycle? Since man is looking at a relative small piece of the planet's
timeline, why can't this climate change be part of a normal cycle that happens
every few 100,000 years? Why does science have to have the attitude that "if I am
right you have to be wrong"?

This also applies to politics and business. Companies are constantly trying to
convince us that the only product that can do what we need is theirs: "If we don't
make it, it must be crap!". In politics it is even more dangerous and takes on a tribal
or territorial feel: "If you aren't for a particular party then you don't exist!". When
are they going to figure out that one size does NOT fit all! I agree with some
conservative views and some liberal views so what party do I fit in? If you only have
parties on the far ends of the spectrum then you aren't representing the majority of
the people that are in the middle. On the road of life, we have politicians in both
ditches and the rest of use wondering down the middle of the road.

I don't claim to have the solution for all the worlds ills or I would be charging for you
to read this little rant. I do have a simple but crazy idea: listen to each other with an
open mind. Realize that the only mistakes that you make in life are the ones you
don't learn from. Make the lessons that you learn work by never making those
mistakes again. Most importantly, learn that not being right isn't the same as being
wrong if it helps someone get to the right answer. So proudly walk down the white
line of your road of life and remember that it is the safest place if you don't want to
fall in the ditch.