Everybody Has To Adjust

OK, so in my March to Globalism article I wrote about how we're simply stuck in one of the null periods of major advancements and essentially we're pretty much stuck until the next "big thing" comes along.

But I was just watching a Senate committee nomination proceeding chaired by Sen. Rockefeller of West Virginia, and his closing statement made me think.

He suggested that some level of control should be placed on the internet because there are bad players out there that don't conform to the ideals of the majority, and I object.

I have to admit that I don't like the concept of using the internet to bully a person, but perhaps the need is to teach your children not to pay a lot of attention to things they know not to be true.

The point here isn't to answer every possible bad thing that can come up on the internet, but to point out that we have had some major changes to our lives over the past 10 years or more, and life is moving so fast that most of us really have not had time to sit back and figure out how to adjust for the new environment.

We will figure it out, but until we do we won't have the same set of circumstances and the stolid, known environment we grew up with.

We have to adjust.  It would be nice to simply wake up one morning and be totally cool with today's world, but that is so far out of the norm for the human psyche that one cannot expect even ONE person to do so.

Our Congressional representatives are stuck in the same environment we are, and they have never been known to simply adjust in some reasonable way to changes they had no ability to control, although they may have adversely affected.  Congress is not a predictive entity and their only ability is to be reactive, not proactive.  And in doing so they fall back on what they know, not what is needed to be known.

My point is that the entire world has been thrown into a situation that, regardless of what instituted the problem, we now find ourselves in and obviously nothing is going to take us backwards to when we were safe and comfortable.

Let's face it.  The whole world knows that the Republicans spent money like it was waste water during the Bush administration.

And even though I just pointed a finger, I'd rather suggest that we simply cut the losses on the bad policies of the past, quit the arguments that don't produce any results because it is all already old and known bad policies.

Rather we should prepare ourselves for the new reality that none of these people actually know what the hell to do, and so they no longer matter.

Leaders don't go "oops".  Not real leaders.  But perhaps we no longer have any real leaders because the environment has changed so adversely that no one has the experience to be a real leader.

This is not to say that a number of people are willing to profess new knowledge necessary to get us through this crisis, but the fact is that anyone who does so and uses old ideas is simply lying to themselves, much less the American public at large.

Now I know that I started this article based on the idea that we shouldn't be deciding what can and cannot be placed on the internet, but that is only the point that got me thinking about all of this stuff.

Because, you see, we are a people who, even with a Democrat, are questioning whether we should impose more law to combat an environment that simply has to evolve into the next level of being.

And this is why I say everybody has to adjust.

We, the people, have to adjust more quickly to the new realities we are faced with, and sometimes that means tightening your belt and going on with your life, but people aren't institutions and this is why we have such a great divide between our cartel of leaders.

I wrote this a couple of years ago, but it still applies.  A Republican and a Democrat were walking down a road, and the road ended.  The Republican said, "We must go back", and the Democrat said "No, we must build more road".

We are at the point where we need to build more road.

The problem is that everyone still thinks that we can go backwards and achieve new and even greater heights.  We cannot do so going backwards.

The lines have been drawn and now it is up to everyone to adjust to an environment not of their choosing, but one that makes all of us unable to achieve new results with old thinking.

We are dancing naked around a bon fire that only has embers, and yet when the embers become bright because of slight breeze we dance harder not recognizing that the fire will go out more quickly.

Comments

[Bill Perkins]

"We will figure it out, but until we do we won't have the same set of circumstances and the stolid, known environment we grew up with."

Yeah, I remember all that stolid known environment of the 60's we grew up with: race riots, war riots, Bay of Pigs, free love and drugs, political assassinations, military draft, and oh yeah, that purely political war the alleged greatest generation imposed on us. Yeah, those were the days all right.

The internet issue you never get around to describing is whether we're going to have China-style censorship of the internet--which I don't believe in--or whether we're going to create an international consensus on internet piracy, intellectual property rights, and reasonable counters to international internet-born espionage and terrorism. Very difficult things to deal with, I agree.

"Let's face it. The whole world knows that the Republicans spent money like it was waste water during the Bush administration."

True, although I don't recall the Dems being dragged along kicking and screaming into those circumstances. But the current administration has made Bush look like a skinflint, so I'm not really sure what your point is, other than to take a potshot at Republicans. Whatever.

Please share exactly what road is it you want to build? Literally, more roads, or was that some sort of metaphor?