Barbarians in the Gates

We left New York harbor on the Norwegian Gem cruise ship on November 23. It was a clear crisp evening and the view of the NYC skyline and points of interest was riveting. We were escorted down the Hudson, past the Statue of Liberty, and beyond the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge by two gunboats and two armed helicopters. I don’t know if there was a particular threat to which the authorities were responding or whether this has become standard procedure for large passenger ships traversing the port of New York City. But it stood out to us as evidence that our world is not as it was just a short time ago. For me it underscored the importance of defeating terrorism.

The week before we left, Paris had been shot up by Islamic jihadists. The day before we were to arrive back home, a jihadist couple killed 14 people and injured many more in San Bernardino, California. Jihadist violence is and will continue to be on the march. Radical Islamists around the world rejoice as the rest of the world mourns the deaths, injuries, and suffering of the innocent. Our leaders, along with many media commentators, show their myopia about the nature of the challenge – none more starkly than President Obama and presidential hopeful Donald Trump.

Critics of Obama claim that he fundamentally underestimates and/or misunderstands the threat and persists with policy that helps the jihadist cause. This is evidenced by:

1. His refusal to name the threat as Islamist
2. His premature removal of American forces in Iraq, which led directly to the creation of ISIL and the establishment of a new caliphate (territory controlled by Islamists)
3. The release of hundreds of dangerous jihadists from our military prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, many of whom have returned to their cause and have killed and injured American soldiers
4. His challenge and subsequent backing down to the Assad government in Syria which harmed our credibility, aided in jihadist recruitment, and opened the door for the expansion of Russian and Iranian aggression in the region
5. His generous stance toward Iran, especially in freeing personal assets for known bad actors and clearing a path for their development of nuclear weaponry
6. His antipathy towards Israel, the only true ally America has in the region
7. A half-hearted prosecution of air attacks against ISIS targets, wherein American sorties run a meager 12-30 missions per day and release munitions fewer than 25% of the time
8. His insistence upon bringing Syrian refugees to the United States despite CIA warnings that they cannot be properly vetted
9. His refusal to tighten security along the Mexican border despite its use by jihadists to enter the U.S.
10. His rhetorical response to terrorist actions whereby he constantly: a) downplays the scope of the threat, b) admonishes against discrimination toward moderate Muslims, c) uses the opportunity to push the politics of gun control , and perhaps most significantly, d) refuses to admit that policy changes may be prudent.

Those who see things the same way as does Obama look upon Donald Trump’s recent remarks, along with his overall political approach, with a mix of revulsion, incredulity, and amusement. Just this week Trump issued a statement calling for a moratorium on all Muslims entering America. In the resulting hailstorm of criticism from Democrat and Republican political rivals, he clarified that this only applied to non-citizen Muslims who do not currently live in the U.S. But he hedged that stance, citing a Real Clear Politics poll suggesting that as many as 25% of Muslims in America are sympathetic to jihadist goals.

Those familiar with Trump’s methods see what he’s doing here. He uses inflammatory statements such as this to: a) control the media cycle (he’s received more than double the coverage of his nearest competitor for airtime – Hillary Clinton), b) establish an extreme initial position as a negotiation tactic, and c) distance himself from rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, in this case claiming the ground that he is the candidate most serious about protecting American lives.

Critics of Trump (and others in the Republican presidential race) claim that their approach is inflammatory, would lead toward widespread war, promotes racial and religious discord, and violates the constitutional rights of many Americans. This is evidenced by:

1. Their calls for screening and/or profiling American and non-American Muslims
2. Costly, both in blood and treasure, policy proposals that would ramp up military efforts in ISIL- controlled Syria and Iraq
3. Their alienating non-radical Muslims with harsh rhetoric
4. Aiding jihadist recruiting efforts by increasing the profile of America as a natural enemy
5. Their willingness to turn our backs to Muslims who are suffering the ravages of war in Syria by denying refugees sanctuary in America
6. Their blind backing of Israel despite its aggression towards Palestinians
7. Their seeming not to care about the plight of illegal immigrants in America and their U.S. –born citizen children
8. Their vilification of natural rivals such as Russia and China which increases the risks of conflict

The space between these two polarities is quite an ideological gulf. Both have some rationale. But both omit important considerations. If we are to elect leaders with better developed worldviews and policies, we need to think things through ourselves. Among the things we all must consider are:

• How prevalent is the jihadist view amongst the worldwide Muslim population?
• What is the likelihood and scope of future attacks if we continue our current course?
• What are the ramifications of a reduction of American influence and power in the Middle East?
• What steps can we take to reduce the allure of the jihadist viewpoint?
• Left as a viable entity, what threat does ISIL present to America over the long term?
• Is there a way for Muslims, Arabs, and other non-American powers to address the jihadist threat without a major American commitment? If so, why isn’t it happening and what must be done to make it happen?
• How much expense, in terms of resources and sacrifices in freedom and lifestyle, is appropriate to nullify the jihadist threat? If we decide to tolerate a small amount of threat, how much?
• Can we afford a nuclear-armed Iran? If not, what are we willing to do to stop it?

These are not simple questions and there are no simple answers. As we established, smart people arrive at very different conclusions. In order to come to a more cohesive and effective policy stance, we must openly and honestly examine our values. Fortunately, elections are a perfect way to do this. Unfortunately, the Machine (the Democrat and Republican parties, media, and vested interests) are not interested in the discussion. It’s up to you and me.

In order to do so productively, we must understand the history and dynamics at play. Sadly, most Americans are not well equipped for this task, not because they are unable, but because they are unwilling or do not have the level of education needed to wrestle with the issue. This is okay. It’s why we’re a Republic, not a Democracy. But it does not relieve us of our responsibility as citizens is to know enough to choose our leaders wisely.

So we must familiarize ourselves with the basics. Here’s a quick rundown.

First, jihadist aggression is nothing new. Fundamentalist belief in the teachings of Mohammad means the intolerance of opposition and the call to bring sharia law to every corner of the globe. This worldview requires submission and is the near polar opposite of the values upon which America was founded. What is new is the means by which this goal may be accomplished.

We also must grasp the power dynamics in the Middle East. The nations that exist today were imposed upon the area in the wake of the fall of the Turkish Ottoman Empire by the Sykes-Picot Agreement between Great Britain and France in the wake of World War I. The Arabs longed for self-rule, and largely achieved it within the new nations. Complicating the picture is the enmity between the three major sects of Islam – Sunni, Shi’a, and Kurd. These populations are not contained within the nations but are spread throughout the region. They represent the major factions that are fighting in Syria today.

Another irritant is the existence of the Jewish state of Israel. The area that Israel occupies was for centuries only important for religious reasons. The few Palestinians who lived there were nomadic and sparse and lived a hard-scrabble existence. Fleeing persecution in Europe, Jews began settling the region en masse throughout the late 1800’s and early 20^th century. They lived a different lifestyle and held different values. Those values led to rapid economic development of the area, and the population exploded.

In the wake of the Holocaust, to protect the Jewish people from further aggression, the nations of the world recognized Israel as a legitimate nation of its own. This has never been tolerable to the Arab world, and has been a source of conflict over the past 70 years.

Another seminal event in the rise of modern jihadism was the 1979 fall of the Shah of Iran under the feckless foreign policy of Jimmy Carter. Iran, despite inevitable abuse of power by the Shah, was well on its way to becoming a modern state ready to join the civilized world. Instead it became a terror-supporting Shi’a theocracy under Ayatollah Khomeini. That legacy plagues the western world to this day.

President Obama sees jihadists as a relatively minor threat. He believes that they are few in number and are not likely to amass significant destructive capability. Approximately 25% of Americans basically agree.

Donald Trump sees jihadists as a growing and significant threat. He believes that if they are not thwarted sooner rather than later, great harm will befall our country. Approximately 75% of Americans agree.

9/11 proved our vulnerability. It is much easier to destroy than create. If a perpetrator is willing to sacrifice him- or her-self, there is little a free society can do to completely prevent attacks. Some of these attacks are likely to be devastating, especially as chemical, biological, or radioactive weaponry becomes available. The reality is that a handful of people could possibly wipe out a city.

Whatever path we choose, we will not prevent all attacks. But it is the primary responsibility of the federal government to keep us as safe as possible.

There is no right for a non-American to enter America. They do so at our pleasure. Our values are such that we prefer to limit no one. We of course prefer peace to war. It’s unfathomable to us that there are people, both abroad and amongst us, who would like to cut off our heads, kill our children in front of our eyes, rape and torture – shoot, maim, and destroy – simply because we do not accept their worldview. But it is the truth.

The barbarians are in the gates. The question for all of is – what are we willing to do to stop them?

America the Beautiful (Ugly)

America the Beautiful Ugly

Judging by my Facebook feed, we should not continue to celebrate Columbus Day. Judging by the sentiment at the 20^th anniversary of the Nation of Islam’s Million Man March ominously entitled Justice or Else!, we should not be celebrating July 4^th, or really America-as-founded in any significant way. Judging by the logic of the political left as was on display at the first 2016 Democrat Party presidential debate, America has never been America the Beautiful. It is and always has been America the Ugly – racist, unjust, selfish, a scourge to the rest of the world – in dire need of continued fundamental transformation.

America has been taking it on the chin for most of my life. I suppose it began in earnest in the late 50’s and early 60’s with the counter-culture movement, later signified in anti-Vietnam protests and race rioting. Certainly racial politics and progressive, collectivist thinking had been chipping away at the bedrock of traditional American ideals. But it took a while to overtake our institutions.

While I was in grade school, I was taught to love America. People didn’t question America’s innate goodness. We were taught why millions and millions from all over the world wanted nothing more than to have a shot at life in America. The family of my paternal grandfather was like that, having escaped the Bolshevik revolution and ending up in NYC around 1920. When I was ten we went to Disneyland. In the Hall of Presidents, I saw the animatronic Abraham Lincoln deliver his historic speeches about freedom and the importance of the individual. It brought tears to my young eyes. I didn’t encounter vehement hatred for America until I went to college in Boston in 1979.

The first time I walked Harvard Square, student protesters handed me pamphlets about the evil, secretive Trilateral Commission and propaganda from MassPIRG. They were passionate about injustices that I’d never heard of before. They were all “shocked and appalled.” It was surreal and unappealing to me – I didn’t see the utility of living life in that continual state.

The drumbeat then was how the “Bedtime for Bonzo clown Reagan” was going to drive us to nuclear war and economic and environmental ruin. In my first Economics class, I was taught that the world would run out of oil by 2004. That professor also taught Keynesian models that even at age 17 I knew had been discredited. Other claims in the air at that time were that the oceans would be dead by the turn of the century and that we were going to suffer greatly from a rapidly approaching Ice Age.

Though things didn’t quite work out that way, that drumbeat hasn’t quieted. The villains have morphed, but the protest has spread from the University to secondary schools, pop culture, and most traditional institutions.

Life in today’s public schools is markedly different from 40 years ago. Just this week an Oregon boy was sent home for wearing this shirt:

America, at least in its traditional sense, along with Christianity is being ejected from our public schools. In are multi-culturalism, identity politics, and environmental activism. Instead of an Ice Age, we are now taught to fear Anthropomorphic Global Warming. (Actually, proponents have learned not to commit to a particular temperature direction; it’s bad for business. So they’ve wisely shifted to the catch-all phrase Climate Change. Now the $22 billion per year industry has more sustainability regardless of its predictive shortcomings – climate will always change.)

Our children are taught not so much about the miraculous achievement of America’s founding as they are the injustices of European (read: white) aggression. Textbooks are scant on Franklin, Madison, and Harrison and heavy on slavery, the plight of Native Americans, and the history of women’s rights. Columbus is not portrayed so much as a brave explorer who helped spread western civilization but as a greedy, blood-thirsty conqueror who spread injustice and disease. America as founded is deemed guilty of the original sin of slavery and of ongoing rape of the planet. The sentence for these transgressions is death.

This mindset is necessary to continue to expand the State in America. The success of the American Experiment is a stiff headwind against the growth of the State. The State requires a pliant and needy population who are content to trade freedom and opportunity for the security of a safety net. (Our children are no longer taught Benjamin Franklin’s famous admonishment against this.)

The problem for Statists in America is that this has never been the American character. People who have come to America over its history were not meek and mild. They wanted to be left alone, not taken care of. Prototypical Americans want to pursue their dreams and they want to be able to profit from their labors. People like this are brave. They also understand the value of cooperation and specialization. People who value the individual above the state also have respect for others. This breeds compassion and kindness. Cooperative creative endeavors brought about unprecedented innovation and wealth, the “5000 Year Leap” that demarks the modern era. This collective experience has built reverence for free markets and entrepreneurism.

But there is a portion of our population for whom the promise of America has been historically withheld and subsequently less available – black Americans.

Despite civil rights laws and uncountable programs designed to assist blacks to overcome institutional hurdles, large disparities persist. Understandably, resentment is strong as was evidenced by the “Down with America” chants by tens of thousands in D.C. this past weekend. Those who are caught in the whirlpool of dependence rightly feel disappointed. Over the past 40+ years, they’ve been electing Democrats who have promised to deliver to them better prospects. When Obama was elected, the black community was elated, because it signified that the day of promise had finally come. But seven years later, it hasn’t.

This reality places the 2016 Democrat presidential hopefuls in an awkward position. They must embrace the policies of Obama and at the same time distance themselves. It was amusing to watch the attempt during the debate. They had to behave as though they hadn’t held power over the past seven years. Their answers are the same as ever. “There are too many guns!” “More taxes on the wealthy!” “Make Wall Street pay for college for everybody!” “The 1% are greedy!” “The Republicans are holding us back!” “It’s Bush’s fault!” “Raise the minimum wage!” “We haven’t gone far enough!” In a nutshell, they suggested that in order to solve the pressing problems or our day, we have to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Good luck with that.

It’s an old show. These are characters straight out of an Ayn Rand novel. But if you watch close enough, you can glimpse reality behind the curtain of promises and platitudes. There is a sense, on the part of most Americans, that something is really wrong. People sense that our system is not functioning properly. Most pundits miss it, but this is why Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina are polling so well. In normal times, those candidates would have had similar standings as do Webb, Chafee, and O’Malley (all poll at less than 1%.)

Americans know that our system is strained. Yes, the stock market is high. But people sense that we’re in a debt bubble that could not only burst at any time, but when it does it will dwarf the housing bubble of 2007.

Sanders and Trump both boldly and clearly descry the corruption of our electoral system – they both declare that moneyed interests rule the day. They have very different ideas about both the remedies and what a better system would look like, of course. But they both tap into the feeling of disempowerment that many Americans feel. (Sanders, though his performance was spirited and earnest, blew his remote chance of winning the Democrat Party nomination during the debate when he compromised his ethical high ground by calling for the sweeping aside of the ongoing and scandalous national security investigation involving ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.)

The Democrat candidates vilified and belittled Trump and the other Republicans. For their part, the Republicans, along with prominent conservative pundits, ridiculed the Democrat candidates. What one side accepts as axiomatic, the other discounts. This exchange is perhaps juvenile and distasteful. But it is instructive. Trump calls these hopeful leaders (along with Obama and other past and current leaders) stupid. It makes no sense to him why we would act the way we do on the world stage. His assessment reveals that he’s missing something.

He does not seem to understand the important element of what belies the policies and decisions to which he objects. He fails to perceive that American Statists, including Obama, Clinton, and Sanders along with many others, want some things to which they cannot publicly admit and remain electable. First, they want our system to collapse. They believe that they can build something better in its place. Second, they want a new order that obsoletes nationhood. They want One World government. This is not something you will hear any of them explain. They know it will not be well received. Americans still, funny enough, kind of like America.

The story of America is of course not monolithic. No human endeavor is pure. We label things, in this case America, good or bad based upon our perceptions and values. Statists dislike America as founded. It represents the exact opposite of their ideal. Through their eyes, American history has been a never-ending stream of oppression.

I took my family to NYC a few years ago. In Rockefeller Center, we grabbed a quick breakfast before the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. I asked an older gentleman if he would mind if we joined him at his table in the crowded café. He welcomed us graciously. It turned out that he was from Switzerland and a retired commercial airline pilot.  Over the course of his long career with Swissair, he had travelled extensively; to literally every country in the world. In a thick accent, he told my kids this: “Be thankful that you live in America, children. It is the greatest country in the world. It is not even close. By any measure – hospitality, kindness, generosity, fairness, choice, opportunity – America is a friend to all in need – it is the best.”

I’ll take his word for it.

I Used to Like People

Don’t get me wrong. When I meet somebody or spend time with clients, friends, family, or brand new acquaintances, I enjoy the experience. I’m generally positive and supportive. I relish moments of real connection. To me a stranger is just a friend I haven’t yet met.

But something has been shifting. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s society. Probably it’s both. My attitude is morphing into: “I love meeting and spending time with quality people.”

What’s a “quality person?” My answer is this: people who get it. They get the basics, such as: “life is more than my following my base desires,” “if it is to be it’s up to me,” “I am to love and support others,” “I continually learn and grow.” Many do indeed get it. But many, it seems increasingly, don’t.

I see it whenever I drive. So many drivers are distracted, unfocused, neither courteous nor considerate. I mean, when a light turns green and there’s a line of cars behind you and the drivers all want to get through the light, hit it! Some leave gaps so large it seems that they’re doing it on purpose to piss people off. No, usually they’re just that clueless.

It is a reflection of our times, I suppose. It’s everywhere: restaurants, malls, crowds of all kinds. By virtue of the miracle of the digital age, so many are physically proximate but mentally distant. It amazes me to see groups of friends out presumably for a fun night, but instead their heads are down in their smartphones, and they invest their attention not in their companions but elsewhere. It is just plain sad when it’s a couple on a date.

My attitude likely comes with age. As we grow and mature, more and more of society’s doings strike us as superfluous, even misguided. The immature, regardless of age or era, are ruled by emotion. They’re self-indulgent. The immediate trumps the long run. They abandon their personal power in the illusion that it is someone else’s responsibility. They naively expect life to be “fair.”

I find myself struggling for patience for people who have the mindset that is an outgrowth of these limiting beliefs. I suppose it isn’t accurate to say that I don’t like them; I just wish their lights were on. Sometimes I fantasize about doing what Cher’s character in the 1987 film Moonstruck did – slap the person hard and shout: “Snap out of it!” (It didn’t work for her; it wouldn’t work for me.)

It isn’t completely their fault. For decades now, schools from Kindergarten through grad school indoctrinate a certain type of thinking as much as they teach students how to think freely and creatively for themselves. Education performance has been declining for 40 years. Well-meaning but misguided programs teach to the test as though this is a remedy. Teachers themselves lack context and a brand of group-think is limiting the capacities of multiple generations.

This effect has reverberated throughout society. With the onset of the digital age, many game-changing innovations have been created. The world is smaller and more connected as we can find detailed information about almost everything almost instantly. But something is being lost, too. Information and knowledge is of little use without the context to perceive why one thing matters over another. As the speed of society has increased, people less frequently slow down for careful consideration. An important part of social interaction, a part that serves to glue us together, is atrophying.

The degradation manifests itself in many ways. Some of it is visible. Americans are physically flabby. You’ve most likely seen the stats. 69% of adults over 20 years of age are considered overweight, 36% are considered obese. This is in one sense a symptom of the wealth that our society has created. Nobody wants for their next meal. Or even the next snack. But I suspect there is something more here too.

The blight is largely invisible. If we could quantify a similar scale with respect to mental health, the stats would be worse. People exercise their minds less than they exercise their bodies. Master Jung, the martial arts master who founded the school where I first studied, used to say: “If people had the same level of control over their body as they do their mind, most would be unable to walk.”

He said that in the 1970’s. That insight has stayed with me my entire adult life. If anything, it’s worse now. We’re distracted. We don’t think things through. We don’t even realize that we can control our minds. We imagine that it is up to others to deal with tough issues. This is extremely dangerous.

It is dangerous for our souls. It is dangerous for our families, communities, organizations, and our nation. It is dangerous for the cause of freedom. Why? Two reasons: 1) It coarsens society, and 2) It opens the door for despotism.

As I write my heart aches along with those who have seen the story for the loved ones of those who were shot on live television in Virginia. The perpetrator appears to be a disgruntled ex-employee of the news station. He suffered from the effects of a coarsened society. All those limiting beliefs I mentioned earlier? He had them.

There is plenty of outrage in the media for an act like this; more so because of the drama of it happening on a live broadcast, the fact that it happened to media members, and that it serves the cause of those who want more gun control. There is a suspicious lower level of outrage for the thousands of Christians in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East who are systematically being persecuted and killed in horrific ways. For that matter, the horrors of the systematic harvesting of baby parts committed by Planned Parenthood and revealed in a series of covert and shocking videos do not seem to be gathering as much collective interest either.

Rhetoric in this presidential campaign season is focused as usual on jobs, illegal immigrants, Islamofascism, government regulations, and various program initiatives. All are important, yes. But they are also distractions. Rarely do we hear discussions about what matters most: the care of our spirit.

That coarseness we’re talking about? Some of it is behind the political rise of Donald Trump. He takes no crap. He suffers no fools. He is unafraid. He says what he really thinks. Americans are so starved for leaders with these qualities they are willing to overlook or accept traits that would be political poison in a different time. This leads to the second danger.

When people feel desperate and their care for others is diminished, they take drastic actions. They will tolerate if not support outright immense cruelty and injustice. The last thing we need is a demagogue. But this is precisely what happens when minds and hearts shut down. People want an easy answer and a strong personality in a leader can embody one in their minds.

What we really need is the opposite: to think more clearly and be more loving. I suppose this means that I can’t just be dismissive and only seek people who I deem “quality.” I’ll have to continue to try to engage in as meaningful way possible everybody I meet. Oh well; life isn’t supposed to be easy.

“I’m Mad as Hell, and I’m Not Going to Take This Anymore!”

“I’m as Mad as Hell, and I’m Not Going to Take This Anymore!”

The famous cry from the 1976 film Network was prescient. If you don’t remember or know this classic, check out its most famous scene here: Beale’s rant. When you watch it, you’ll see that in 40 years, a lot hasn’t changed. Geniuses Paddy Chayefsky (writer) and Sidney Lumet (director) even imagined elements of reality television, YouTube videos, and sensationalist journalism 20 or more years before their time.

Can you relate to Howard Beale’s speech? Millions can. It may in part explain the quandaries political analysts find themselves in this young presidential campaign season. Perhaps unrest among the electorate is the crucial factor in the surprising-to-many polling numbers. There is, after all, more than a little Beale in the air.

The question is – was Beale right? Is getting mad the first step towards productive solutions?

History suggests both yes and no. Revolutions of all kinds are fueled by passions. Anger can be a powerful spur to action. Opposites of indifference, both love and hate move people to take risks and make sacrifices to change the status quo. The same ball these emotions may be, they have different spins. Each leads to very different ends.

The “love spin” can, at least in part, be applied to the American Revolution, for it was a revolution intended to historically elevate the individual. Through a combination of circumstances, wisdom, and many believe divine intervention, it was not a plea for the destruction of the system, but for independence and opportunity. Amid cries of “No taxation without representation,” it led directly to the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the longest lasting, most successful representative republic in human history. It ushered in the modern age.

A few years after the original Tea Partiers threw British Tetley’s into Boston Harbor, on the other side of the Atlantic, raged the French Revolution. Its rallying cry was “Liberté, égalité, fraternité!” While calling for democracy, it was, in essence, a class war that led directly to blood soaked streets at the base of the guillotine (during its height, called the Reign of Terror, an estimated 16,000+ were guillotined, another 15,000 – 25,000 less fortunate were executed with whatever means available at the time) and later the despotism and Imperialism of Napoleon. The string of resulting events set the stage for not only the Napoleonic Wars but both World Wars more than a century later.

Today, as then, people are angry. They have cause. Here are the big ones:

• Our government will not defend our borders or enforce immigration policy; illegal immigrants (in concert with enabling employers and officials) use resources, commit crimes, and do not pay taxes to offset the financial and social strain.
• The Obama Administration continues to dismantle and degrade our military, gutting it of its best commanders and most effective weapons systems while doing little or nothing about the deplorable levels of VA system medical care for veterans returning from America’s longest war.
• Urban populations see opportunity for improving their conditions slip further and further away; schooling effectiveness declines while the system resists innovation such as school choice and vouchers.
• The Obama Administration left a power vacuum in Iraq and has since allowed ISIS to gain wealth, territory, and influence; it is now the first terrorist group with a caliphate of its own. The group is now operating in America, with over 70 arrests in the last two years (a couple in NJ was just arrested this week in the attempt to organize a small ISIS fighting force.)
• The Obama Administration seems to be more sympathetic to the Mullahs than our allies in Israel and elsewhere, as reflected in the latest negotiated agreement with Iran.
• China and Russia, among others, continually conduct cyberattacks against private and public American institutions with seeming impunity.
• Our government continues to systematically decimate our currency through overspending, the Fed’s quantitative easing, and relaxed regulations that allow the top five banks to engage in perilous leveraged activity. These practices have robbed American wage earners and our progeny of the over $150 trillion, over half the wealth in the entire world. The 2008 housing bubble bailout alone cost every American household $108,000.
• Money continues to flow into the hands of the wealthiest, the middle class’s real wages fall, while a poor-without-prospects “dependence class” grows.
• Civility and decency continue a long decline and there is a dearth of voices who even want to reverse the trend, much less offer effective solutions.

All of this contributes to a feeling of unrest, even impending doom. These are problems long in the making. Our government’s mishandling of health care, the EPA’s spilling of toxic material in Colorado, seemingly constant scandals such as Benghazi and Hillary Clinton’s emails, Fast and Furious, IRS bullying, FCC and EPA over-reach, and countless other corruptions and failures of governance erodes faith that the system is even capable of fixing itself. People look to the upcoming election as an opportunity for an outsider, somebody who will not necessarily “play ball,” to shake the status quo and enact policy initiatives that will address the critical issues before it is too late.

All of the above described have reason and cause. We struggle with two incompatible visions of the American future. Those on the left side of the scale see more and better governance as the path to a better society. Nancy Pelosi passionately expressed this vision when she opined that it was good for people to not have to work in jobs they don’t want to do, that they could be free to pursue relationships and pastimes that are not what we think of as productive in a traditional way. She was selling the merits of a permanent, dependent, underclass.

Those on the right side of the political scale see injustice in systematically taking from those who are productive in order support those who are not. They also believe that you do a person no favor when you keep them dependent. They believe that this stunts a person’s personal and spiritual growth.  Therefore they favor the reeling in of government function.

This fight between the left and right is an old one. It is coming to a head, as the system is straining under its enormous size, the additional weight of debt, and external pressures from around the globe. The situation is exacerbated by those in control who systematically sap it of its remaining lifeblood – money.

Americans are very aware of this dynamic. It has clearly affected the normal political calculus. In previous election seasons been-around-the-block candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders expressed interest in potential runs. Neither was taken seriously. Today, they are front runners in the first Primary states Iowa and New Hampshire.

A week after the first debate, three of the top five polling candidates on the Republican side, Trump, along with Carly Fiorina and Dr. Ben Carson, have never held elective office. This is both unprecedented and remarkable. It is also healthy. New voices and perspectives may prove very useful.

But it is also potentially hazardous. Platitudes and rancor lead to dark paths. We are susceptible, because the system protects itself. Real, well-considered discussion is fleeting. We are fed through the media a polluted stream of partial truth and distractions. Political dialogue mostly consists of the exchange of barbs and insults.

What leads to better results, in our national politics as well as our organizations and even our neighborhoods and families, is respect and shared values. This is what we need to talk more about. We need not so much Megyn Kelly’s gotcha questions as we need to critically and actively listen to each other. We must be willing to learn.

Generally, I place little faith in politicians to effect positive change. Those candidates stuck in old paradigms, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and even Donald Trump, are not currently positioned to effect the change they claim to desire.

But I see rays of hope. Specifically, the rhetoric of Dr. Ben Carson seems imbued with a spirit of love and healing. To a lesser extent, I see elements of this in Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, and even Mike Huckabee. My hope is that the discussion and resulting policy initiatives move in this direction. If so, it would be historic. It would be potentially productive, possibly restorative. We may be able to grow together past identity politics, the politics of division, to a place where we begin to appreciate that we are in the same boat and we mostly want the same things.

So sure, get mad. Go on a rant, if it makes you feel better. But then settle down in the knowledge that the solutions lie in openness, cooperation, honest learning, and caring about one another. It may even be possible to break the machine that is marching us to ruin and tyranny, and do so without bloodshed.

It will require love and courage. This I pray for all.