I’m tired. I’m tired of all of the infighting and backbiting going on in Washington, and in our state capitol, and at City Hall, and in the newspapers, and in the blogosphere.
I’m tired of having so few good alternatives in dealing with so many issues.
And I’m tired of the perennial game of “Gotchaâ€.
I’m tired of people proposing alternatives to serious problems that we don’t really have. We don’t have the alternative of going to a hydrogen economy. At least not for the foreseeable future. We’ll be burning a hydrocarbon-based fuel in our vehicles for as long as I’ll (and, probably, you’ll) be alive.
I’m tired of environmentalists who aren’t. I had it up to here with arguments with so-called environmentalists on the subject of nuclear power fully 35 years ago in which I explained why their opposition to nuclear power was short-sighted. They won. Why aren’t they happy?
I was argued out on Viet Nam, too, nearly 40 years ago. I was neither pro nor con. I thought that we should be more cautious about entering into treaties but once we had ’em we should honor ’em. Even if the results were unforeseen. I never understood (other than the race of the people in the countries involved, of course) why NATO was so wonderful and SEATO was so bad. I don’t want to talk about it at all anymore and why the subject should be dragged up again in a presidential election in 2004 baffles me.
I’m tired of people who find principles when their pensions are secured and people who are all for free trade (except for the trade restrictions that benefit them, personally). I’m tired of Fortune 1000 CEO’s who make 100’s of millions of dollars when there’s not a doubt in my mind that an Indian CEO every bit as competent could be hired for a fraction of the cost.
I’m tired of companies like United and Ford where the employees hate their jobs while there are other companies (sometimes in the very same industries) like Southwest and Costco where the employees love theirs—even with lower salaries.
I’m tired of our leaders making nice with the cliques of thugs running the most horrible countries in the world because they think there might be a buck in it for an American company somewhere.
I’m tired of false equivalences. Neither we nor our government are as bad as the mullahs in Iran or the religious police in Saudi or the gangsters in the Chinese Politburo. George Bush has lots of shortcomings (where do I begin?). But he’s not a Hitler or a Kim Jong-Il and claiming he is just makes me angry. And tired. Clinton wasn’t as bad as his detractors made out, either.
I see I’m not alone. A lot of the bloggers on my blogroll have left, some just because they were tired. Jack Grant of Random Fate is the most recent great blogger who’s stopped because he’s tired.
I’m not tired of blogging. But I’m tired of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy I’m seeing.
So I’ll keep on keeping on. And I plan to keep right on blogging. I just wanted to warn you: I’m tired.
Yeah, there certainly are a lot things to be tired of. I’ve even found myself getting tired of myself. I haven’t gotten tired of beer though and that’s a great relief. Being naturally an optimist, I’ve come to see these moments of weariness as an opportunity to think new thoughts, discover new interpretations and rediscover old or forgotten ideas. One of the things I always liked about Jazz was the emphasis on and even expectation of improvisation. When you get tired of the same ol songs and styles, you invent new ones. We live in a time that offers a great opportunity to think new thoughts on politics and society. After all, the current political movements all across the political spectrum have been around for decades. They were mostly formed in response to circumstances that have long since changed. And I’ve grown weary of them all, conservatism, libertarianism, liberalism, leftism etc. There have to be fresh ways to think about being free people in a free society. Ideas that are relevant to our time and that offer some kind of inspiring vision worth striving towards. Seeking out and creating those kinds of new ideas has become one of my major goals and is my response to having grown tired, like you have, of so much ridiculousness.
Me, too, although my recent blogging paucity has more to do with numerous life-changing events than with the tired part.
Wow Dave, you just articulated why I have paused on the political blogging. I still read all the same news sites and blogs, but I can’t make myself care because the shouting has become ridiculous and burdened with cliche, recrimination and manufactured outrage.
It’s like we’re all locked inside a FOX News studio, itching for our turn to scream.
However, I think part of the burnout is our own fault; we just can’t believe that more people don’t agree with us, or at least don’t wish to shut up so that we can talk (or write) more.
I have no evidence, but my guess is that the more deliberate the thinker, the more frustrated the blogger.
Great post, Dave. I recall all too well the pros and cons of Vietnam. They wore me out then; they exhaust me now. Kerry still surfs what’s left of the 1971 wave he rode in on, as hard as it is to grasp.
And you hit it right on the head with the Bush/Clinton derision. It’s absurd to compare us with any of the world’s many political hellholes. It just shows how little perspective and common sense there is out there.
I can’t argue that Bush/Clinton weren’t both real real bad. But we’ve usually had real bad presidents. It’s just that we can’t afford it like we used to.
Reagan and Bush I. Reagan was early-Alzsheimers. His big thing was spending money like there was no tomorrow. It’s easy for the biggest Sugar-Daddy every to be popular. We were rich enough back then that he could get away with it. Bush tries to imitate Reagan but we’re a lot closer to the end of our credit-line now than we were then.
Carter. He had a real tough world to live in, oil shocks and such. He tried to respond like a christian. It worked in the philippines but not very well in iran. Maybe nothing else would have worked better, but still it didjn’t work well at all.
Nixon/Ford. Bad but we could afford it then. We never paid off the money we spent on vietnam, we’re still paying interest on it.
Johnson. No better than Nixon.
Kennedy. I felt all idealistic about him but I was a little kid then. I didn’t know any better. If he was any good (which gets debated if it comes up) it was only 3 years.
Eisenhower. My mother said he was good. Eight years of stable stagnation. We’ve seldom done better.
Truman. Enough said.
Roosevelt. He grew the government. He turned the Potomac river into a sewer, DC population grew faster than the new sewage treatment plants could keep up. Faster than they planned for, for well over 10 years.
My old uncle says that Hoover was a great man. He was an engineer, and he had a lot of plans to improve the country. He wanted to get a paved road across the whole USA, from the atlantic to the pacific. But he inherited problems that kept him from doing much. A lot like Carter. Bush is a lot like Harding. And like Reagan except he’s trying do act like Reagan when the well is drying up.
We’ve usually done badly with presidents. But we’ve usually been rich enough to afford them.
Meanwhile, people argue about things they can’t do much about, and don’t convince each other.
There are things you can do. Cut back your regular expenses. Develop an emergency fund. Decide how much to spend on supplies. You can buy 50 pounds of rice and 50 pounds of pinto beans cheap. Plus a small efficient charcoal stove and 50 pounds of charcoal. And vitamins. This is not a lot of money to invest in the future, and if things go very bad it could make a lot of difference.
Make sure your passport is up to date.
Budget money toward buying a better car. If you’re up to riding a motorcycle, look at getting an underpowered motorcycle with a sidecar. Good mileage, you can carry groceries, and you won’t be tempted to try stupid moves.
Sweaters and such so you can keep the heat down next winter. I have the vague idea that something like a computer glove box might sell. The keyboard goes inside, and you stick your hands into the gloves and they’re warm enough to type.
Be careful about telecommunication for your job. Your boss might let somebody review the logs and decide how much of your job they can automate….
Arguing about politics will wear you out. The Republicans are no good, I mean absolutely no good, but the Democrats don’t show any sign of adequacy either. It’s very hard to maintain enthusiasm when there’s no good choice. We might not be all that far from seeing both parties self-destruct. Could either of them survive at all as a third party? They don’t exactly stand for anything. It wouldn’t bother me all that much to see the Libertarians and Greens slug it out. For the first little while they’d both be run by idealists. Because you don’t join a third party for the money.
I was going to say I wasn’t tired at all, but zzzzzzzz…..
I’m with you! Tired to the bone, to the soul…
As Cosby said, “…’and tired’ always followed ‘sick’ ”
Cheers, AJStrata
> As Cosby said, “…’and tired’ always followed ’sick’ â€
Just remember what followed:
Cosby: “The worst beating I ever got was when I finished it for her: ‘I AM JUST sick…’ ‘…and tired’ I didn’t sit down for six weeks…”
This is nothing new — it comes in Latin:
“Illegitemi Non Carborundum”
“I’m tired. I’m tired of all of the infighting and backbiting going on in Washington, and in our state capitol, and at City Hall, and in the newspapers, and in the blogosphere.
I’m tired of having so few good alternatives in dealing with so many issues.
”
Amen.
What can be done get the blogosphere moving in a fruitful direction?
This … was ingeniously written. It doesn’t play to the left or the right, just the truth. Reading it kind of helped me, knowing that i wasn’t alone, as you so well put it. Thank you.