I Never Forget a Face

We seem to have forgotten that the people working for large companies receiving bailout money are, in fact, just that: people. In our desire to see them lynched, or calling for them to commit ritual suicide (just scroll down a few posts if you don't have any idea what I'm talking about), we have shown exactly why a populist democracy is such a bad thing. Today the New York Times ran an open resignation letter from one of these recently-vilified executives, who was slated to receive bonus money but instead got a mailbox full of death threats. In case you missed it, you can read the entire letter here.

To me, at least, this could be straight out of John Galt's speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged. Unsurprising, but important for people to note. Populism is a dangerous, dangerous road to go down; and while I am disappointed in the American public for falling at such an obvious ruse as this bonus obfuscation, I am irate at the government's feigned outrage. They know better.

Well, now that I think about that, I'm not sure they do. Perhaps the blame should shift back on the public. Willful ignorance is not a justifiable defense, and voting in all these idiots doesn't help the case. So, just as a reminder, there's a reason we aren't a true democracy. There's a reason it takes so long to get anything actually done in the American system of government. Mainly the hope that, by the time some hare-brained legislation has passed through all the proper channels, cooler heads can prevail. People unfortunately have forgotten how to think straight when confronted with problems, and mob mentality seems to be the norm nowadays. There is so much misdirected outrage and offense that I fear we may never be able to return to that which was originally intended for us, and we sacrifice our freedoms by the minute to fuel the fire of our populist outcries. Why have we lost the ability to think? At what point did we decide to become ruled entirely by our emotions? That is the road to insanity! We pretend to be so cynical and world-wise, yet we take any random piece of data that's thrown at us as gospel without bothering to verify sources or even see if it passes the common sense test. We seem to want to have an opinion on every single subject, without an underlying philosophy. How is this even possible? How can anyone have enough knowledge to independently evaluate such an incredibly vast array of disparate information? Think about what you really believe, people! What are your principles? In what way to they color your view of the world, and how do your emotions and opinions fit with it? Do they fit at all? I'm especially looking at you on that question, Christians.

We will never be able to return to fiscal or political sanity in this country until we can revert back from "I feel" to "I think"...and actually mean it.

This got really stream-of-consciousness, at least for me...I'm going to try to pick through some of this stuff in later posts at a later date. Consider it an overview, if you can manage to wade through it. Stay tuned.