Making Sense of the Nonsensical

I’ve been waiting to use that title for a long time!  I’ve come close several times, but now seems like just the right time for it.

For example, we have mass shootings in America. However, violent crime is not running rampant in our country. No; it just seems like it with all the publicity focused on truly horrible, violent acts that are very out of the ordinary.  A shooting at a Gay nightclub is out of the ordinary; and it looked like it was a political statement against gay people; most likely it wasn't; rather the shooter was a misanthrope who was internally conflicted over his own gay feelings and tendencies. He is dead. We will never know for certain what motivated him to do what he did. At the end he sought publicity only and lent his name to Islamic extremism; most people do not feel that was his motive only a tangential urge to increase his notoriety when all was lost anyway.

Monday morning’s shooting at a teen nightclub is another example of hideous violence in a mass environment; we do not know the motivation yet; but teens? Why them? Why then? Why there? So many questions. So nonsensical an event.

And the killing of an entire family in Florida or in Utah, or in Oklahoma, or…you fill in the state’s name. These sort of things go on in the privacy of a community or family. Relationships sour and unformed minds of people stunted in their psychological development choose to do weird things that end in violence and not understandable to the rest of us.

How do we make any sense out of all of this?

And that’s just the violent stuff. How did our nation become so twisted that people who do not know history, do not follow facts, but do follow frustration and emotions, support somebody like Donald Trump for President? The man does not have the temperament to be the chief executive of a company, or a nation, let alone America. He can be the chief executive of a corporation that he owns outright. Who’s to argue against him and win that argument?

But in a political environment where others share his power in constitutionally formatted structures, he will not get along very well. Compromise is the key ingredient of all governance. All governance, even dictatorial ones. There are limits formal and informal that must be accommodated. But in a democracy those limits are law and ordered structures. The President does not have all power. There are checks and balances, and that is precisely why we have a trilateral form of government – Executive – Legislative – Judiciary. Even within each of these three there are checks and balances written into the structure and protocols. They are legal and sacrosanct.

Mr. Trump can bellow all he wants. He will not get his way in the halls of Congress or courts. Same for Hillary. She will have to earn her way with each issue within the cultures of each government social structure. And she is uniquely experienced to do just this kind of work. Whether you like it or not, Hillary is that person who can weather the storms of partisan politics. She has the experience to do so.

And that’s precisely why what a lot of people want to happen don’t get what they want. They are not the King of America. No one is. This is not a dictatorship. It is a democracy.

It is messy and at times not logical. But together we make decisions to live by. Best we learn how to better get along with each other and search for what we agree on and move forward from that vantage point.

Now, enough nonsense about parties and their missteps. Let’s focus on what matters most to America and work on that with great focus. If one party or another and its candidates don’t support your values or desired outcomes, then you know who to vote for. For the rest of us we have work to do. And you’d best leave us to it. Your survival and happiness rests on what we can accomplish.

Amen!

July 29, 2016