How Can We Be so Wrong?

As a nation and as a society in general, how is it that we can continue to be so wrong about so many things? Examples, you ask? Well, I barely know where to start. How about this: For the last 7 years we've had, as our "leader," a man who had absolutely no business being in office and who, for that entire time, has done absolutely nothing to benefit the lives of everyday Americans. The first time he was appointed (no, not elected) was a ridiculous fraud (read about it here), as was the time that he was re-elected (if you haven't read this, you should). However, outside of that, were the candidates he was running against worth anything in their own right? Al Gore was a somewhat weak candidate who could not fully capitalize on his President's perceived achievements over the previous 8 years to keep his party in power and though he lost under a cloud of controversy, there's no evidence that points to him being a great candidate in his own right. Plus, his running-mate was Joe "Neo-Crat" Lieberman and that can only be viewed as a bad thing. In 2004 John Kerry was the "lesser of two evils" candidate, but in hindsight, would he have been any better? Had he won in '04, would we be in a different position 4 years later? Unlikely, in my opinion. So, not only were we wrong in our Presidential selection over the last 8 years (though who knows what would have happened had the votes truly been counted), we were also likely wrong about the alternatives.

Well, at least after the tainted results of the two elections the American people stood up and railed for changes in the electoral system, and got those changes through sheer power of will. Wait, we didn't do that, you say? In fact, we didn't even really make a stir about it save for a protest here and there directly after the elections? Well that certainly can't be right! We must have done something. Hmmmm, now that I look back on it, I guess we didn't. Was that the right thing to do? Of course not. But surely over the last 8 years we've stood up to this oppressive regime and fought tooth-and-nail for our civil, political and privacy rights, yes? Oh, you say we didn't. Well, that certainly can't be right either, can it?

Hey, at least now the Democrats have worked out their issues and decided to stand together behind a strong candidate so "we" can take the power back in 2009, right? Hmmmm, you say we haven't even done that, and that what we do have is a petty battle between two more John Kerry's who don't have anything but re-hashed ideas from 20 years ago wrapped in discount paper that was bought at Wal-Mart? At least one of them got a discount on that paper though, right, since she worked on the Wal-Mart board for something like 6 years? And hey, at least the other candidate isn't another pro-Israel tool who disguises old ideas in sheep's clothing and gets by mainly on his charisma and charm rather than the merit of his policies, right? Hmmmm, I guess I'm wrong again, eh. Well, at least the republican candidate is a stand up guy who has bucked the recent neo-conservative trends in his party and who actually values traditional republican ideas and stances, right? Oh...I guess not.

So, where do we find ourselves nearly 8 years after Bush was elected? Inconceivably, we are in an even worse position than we were when the news broke that the Supreme Court had handed him the presidency. We are here in a wasteland, looking at three pools of tainted water and trying to decide which one won't kill us...Which one will sustain us, help us stumble on to the next polluted oasis and allow us to make yet another odious choice, with each one in succession bringing us closer and closer to death. Unfortunately there is no reservoir, no wonderful well dug in to a water table that can actually help us start to recover from our dehydrated, delirious state. Yet we are America, the world's lone Superpower, and we must stumble on. We have no other choice.