I’m normally not political on this blog, but I had a notion and I thought ‘sure…why not’?

Complaining that we’re living in the midst of tyranny has become a new e-sport. Either the tyranny of the right or left, we are toiling and waiting to be freed – and only armed revolution is going to fit the bill. No, I’m not being hyperbolic. ‘Nazi’ is being thrown about by either side with abandon and frankly, the Overton Window can’t slam shut on this fast enough for me.

The point I am going to try to defend is this:

If we stop and look at the situation, it’s not very dissimilar. This is a topic that is going to be worth a deeper examination later on…say…late October to early November of 2020, but for now, I’m going to hit the highlights of what I can pull off from memory.

The big similarity? The rallies and the protests. We have fascists on one side and communists on the other. This is not more hyperbole from me. There are pictures of the red and gold flags from the Soviet Union being bandied about at the protests. While we’re not at the ‘running gun battles in the streets’ level of violence, but these protests are getting rather hairy on average. There’s been at least one notable death and several injuries. I don’t see it calming down any time in the future.

What of the economy? Oy vey…while the Chinese trade war isn’t doing us any favors, we’re not in a recession…yet. From what I’ve glanced at, 2020 could be the year that kicks off a recession, and that might give other interested people the impetus needed to toss their hat in the ring. While we’re not having to pay the murderous reparations that Germany had to do, which was a contributing factor to the rise of the Nazi party, but our national debt continues to soar with no end in sight. Unless the Trump administration does something soon, I don’t think his chances of retaining the Presidency will be very high.

So – what do we do? How can we put our time and knowledge to work for us, rather than waiting what seems to be the inevitable?

For Jesus’ sake – everyone needs to take a step back and breathe. While I don’t believe that most of the foment is engineered by those in power on either side of the aisle, I certainly am sure that no one is letting this crisis go to waste. I think it’s the ones who are very vocal and easily agitated who are steering the national conversations right for the icebergs. Facebook, news media and political organizations on both left and right are profiting from these fights with either cash or attention (which they can turn into cash). The more wound up we are, the less likely we’re going to examine the situation more critically.

Are we doomed? No. We have a lot of hindsight and history to guide us if we choose to examine it. I would like to think that at some point, we as a nation are going to step back from the brink.

“Nations do behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”