Just another report about American friction

Just last night about midnight on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee a friend of mine about age 24 was lambasting the current state of affairs here in America. I (age 62) had just awakened and so was full of senior energy to debate. Later I crashed, burned, and died, as did he. Then it was about 0200 locally.

What astounded me was his ignorance about the facts. What did not astound me was the reports of “his” facts.

I’ll only focus on one of his “facts”. It was that Gore was the legally elected president in 2000. I was surprised to hear this even now in 2010. When I asked him an historical question, like how many times this had happened before when the majority vote went one way, and the electoral vote went another way, he was embarrassed. He could not answer. He thought his passion was in his time and according to his beliefs. He was astonished to hear this has happened before, like three times if you include 2000.

My suggestion that he use the Amendment process to change the Constitution was accepted. It is a pain in the tail, by the way. But there are like 27 Amendments, so we can change our Constitution if we want to. He agreed with the idea of the rule of law, and taking an oath to an idea, vice an individual.

He had never even heard of King Louis 16th or the Weimer Republic. The idea of hauling in a wheel barrow full of paper money to buy a loaf of bread was simply silly to him. The idea of taking an oath to some individual (like Hitler), like what happened in Nazi Germany or is still happening in Iran with the Army of God, was new to him. The idea of paying a bribe just to travel was also new to him.

From there, I went on transmit, which is dumb. But I did. I made analogies to other forms of governments which I have experienced (lived under) around the world. Some got his attention, like what I did to keep from being assassinated in Istanbul a long time ago. Is that what we want here in America?

Last I heard, unbelievably to me, the old equivalence argument. In his opinion, the last 8 year president was so bad that to express my disappointment in the present president was also bad. I got my feelings hurt when he called me a Republican, and I reminded him for the umpteenth time that I was an independent.

So I guess there is much friction about. Some of it is based on pure ignorance. Some of it is based on facts.

In the end, I guess it is what the voters decide, good, bad, or indifferent.