Let’s acknowledge it: we’re in limbo vacillating between shock and cynical recognition. We can’t believe we’re reading/watching/hearing this escalating chaos and yet we’ve known and expected it since before Inauguration Day.
In the background there’s a clock ticking loudly, a countdown to mid-term election day. Many windows begin to close between now and then.
We’re pulling into Crazytown.
I’ve thought of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson too many times these past few weeks, wondering what he might have said about increasingly weird events unfolding. Would he have said once again,
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.
I think we’ve doubled down on insanity and it’s clearly not working.
Nor can I subscribe to his philosophy,
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
Somebody has taken this to heart and it’s cost the rest of us dearly — literally thousands of American lives lost, taken negligently by leadership living to their own extremes. This philosophy cares too little for others who are entitled to the same freedom to live fully.
But HST had a grasp on truth.
“In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”
Those who have taken control of our country don’t really care about others; they don’t care about the social contract. They only worry about getting their well-paved road to their personal oblivion and not getting caught along the way.
HST did leave us a helpful hint, though, in spite of his go-out-guns-blazing approach to life:
“We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.”
We may be pulling into Crazytown but we can teach the occupants a thing or two. Don’t shilly-shally about, either.
“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”
“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
This is an open thread. Bring it.