Tell me, please, because I really would like to know…are you as sick and tired of this year’s elections as I am? Forget for a moment the contentiousness of the Presidential election, but look at some of the “lesser knowns.” I happen to live in Massachusetts, land of the bean and the cod, where the Lowell’s speak only to the Cabot’s, and the Cabot’s speak only to God…actually, the original poem referenced the City of Boston and not the entire state. The lesser knowns in our case consists of two races in the adjoining state of New Hampshire. The Republican candidate for senate is trying to tar her opponent with the untrustworthy Hillary Clinton brush, and the Democratic candidate is hanging the Donald Trump/Koch brothers’ nasty noose around her ‘enemy of the state.’ Similarly, the governor’s race in the Granite State pits a famous name Republican, who doesn’t appear to be doing any television ads at all against a Democratic opponent who is doing everything short of calling his rival the Devil incarnate.
I find this entire 2016 political process to be nauseating, repugnant, disgusting, despicable, and detestable. How grown men and women can engage in such filthy rhetoric is beyond belief. I suppose that the ‘public figure’ exemption will disallow any liable or slander suites following the outcomes of these elections, but frankly, I’d like to take all of these candidates for all of these offices – one at a time, of course – out behind the woodshed and give them a paddling they would never forget.
I cannot help but wonder if the behavior of our politicians isn’t merely an outgrowth of what else has been silently simmering in American life for some time. When I speak with school teachers at the gym, they tell me tales of kids in elementary, middle, and high school who have no qualms whatsoever of being disrespectful, both in language and attitude toward the entire educational process. Disrespectful to a teacher? You have to be kidding me. One friend told me of a third grade teacher who left the profession after three years. Why? She couldn’t control…get this…the parents who would come in and defend their child’s rude behavior. “Where do you suppose they learn to act that way?” she was asked, and her answer was, “Where else, in the home.”
What has happened to us as a nation that we feel so empowered that we care nothing for the rights of others? Someone gets cut off on the highway. Rather than utter a string of obscenities at the “cut-or,” the “cut-ee” takes out a gun and begins wildly firing. A police officer attempts to pull over a vehicle for a traffic violation and instead, receives two bullets through his windshield from the fleeting car. A fourth grade teacher tells a student that she failed a test and the kid picks up a chair, charges the teacher’s desk and throws the chair at her…and the mother has the chutzpah to tell the teacher she shouldn’t have failed the kid! Say what? Kids walk out of class to protest a dress code that certainly appeared to sound realistic to me, but the principal has to meet with some who are offended. Uh-uh, not in my world. In my world, if you want to walk out, keep on walking, and if parents wish to protest, they can keep on walking too. My school; my rules. How you act or how you dress at home has nothing to do with how you act or how you dress when you’re in my shop. State boards of education, however, appear to have stopped defending their teachers, their principals, their coaches, or any other employee of the board. Are there poor teachers, principals, coaches, and other employees? Of course there are. Who wants to go into a profession that pays so poorly? It is truly a wonder that we have any teachers, administrators, or staff working in our schools.
It’s not only our political and educational systems that are messed up. I saw a T-shirt recently that read, “Why people who wear a helmet and carry a gun are paid so little while those who wear a helmet and carry a football are paid so much.” I may be paraphrasing a bit here, but you get the gist…and it’s a fair question. Now the military is demanding that those who received ‘re-up’ signing bonuses return the money with interest…because the military made a mistake. It’s bad enough that military pay is so poor, but now the military wants to penalize its personnel for its mistake? This is a horror show. Men and women in the military, just like police officers and firemen/women never know when they are going to be called upon to lay their lives on the line. Those in combat areas don’t know if today will be their last, and some bloody bureaucrats want another pound of flesh? What have we become? Where are we going? It seems to me that we have lost our moral and ethical compass. Our priorities are not what they should be, and why is this?
It appears to this old man that over the past several decades, we have begun to use such words as “empowered and entitled,” without explaining sufficiently what these words mean. Certainly, I wish to see people empowered, but with that empowerment comes responsibility and accountability, and that seems to be lacking. Most assuredly, you are entitled to certain rights, but your rights end where my rights begin. You have the right to be respectful and well mannered, whether at home, in school, on the job, or anywhere else…and I have those same rights and responsibilities.
Let us just get this election out of the way. Then, let us reassess what our priorities are as a nation, as a state, and as communities. We darn well better or America is on its way to the scrap heap!
Dick Bishop
Dick Bishop's Blog 