…
It’s a challenge sometimes. When I think about the fact that almost certainly the last three presidents all used drugs, but none of them issued a block pardon to all drug offenders arrested for no crimes other than possession / nonviolent distribution.
I do feel a bit like we live in, increasingly, a police state. There are way too many laws, they’re way too complex and poorly written, it seems lately it’s acceptable for a cop to shoot you just because he doesn’t like the way you looked at him and he will not lose his job nor his right to carry and continue shooting innocents.
Trump feels to me like a page right out of Hitler. The same sort of hate. Why can’t we make our government stop, have a constitutional convention, make a prioritized list of everything that sucks, and figure out closed-loop results-oriented ways to make it not suck?
Part of why is politics involves some sort of insanity in humans. I swear neither party wants to hear from me. They want my money, but I am the last guy they want to talk to. I’ve sent Bernie many emails asking to just have a staffer talk to me about my ideas concerning resource allocation – even a 21 year old intern – just because I think I could convince one guy enough that I’d have a dog in the fight – and no response. In the case of Hillary and Trump I didn’t even bother because, yes, what’s the point? They both have huge things to gain from a better resource allocation system but I am guessing neither one of them knows that or is willing to find that out. I’d love to be proved wrong. I really want things to improve *massively* for people here. I just .. don’t see it. I want to see it. I’m ready to see it. But so far..
And I will admit, I have a hard time seeing the point of view of my political opponents. I just can’t wrap my head around it at all. I try, but it basically feels like they just can’t make the intellectual leaps I have and so they want me to be forced to live in a country that’s stuck at the level they can understand and believe in. And I have several people I love who are republicans.. I love them, but I don’t understand them. I’m sure it’s not that these are stupid people. I’m sure there’s another reasoning chain I could have gone down that makes their views make complete and total sense. But I didn’t go down it, and un-learning what I know now would be a challenge.
July 8th, 2016 at 12:05 pm
The trouble with democracy has always been “the dumbest common denominator”. The trouble with having above average intelligence is that most people you meet won’t be at your level. The smarter you are, the dumber the rest of the world seems, and it isn’t even their fault.
I think the real “break” for me in trying to understand some of those people on the other side of issues from me, is that not everyone can think logically. I can’t fathom not being able to consider a problem or situation logically, but there are people who run their entire lives on other patterns of thought than logic. They make decisions based on emotion and learned patterns (possibly learned from sensationalized media) and “gut feelings” without the consideration of consequence. They have almost no math skills, almost no ability to consider even the next move in a game of chess, no ability to think through the patterns in sudoku, but they might be excellent at crossword puzzles, and avid readers.
Yes, I’ve thought about this a lot, but getting closer to defining their motivations and patterns still doesn’t let me think like them to really understand.