Good Men

    

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke) This was stated in the late 1700's and to this day, it still stands true. Apathy will surely be our undoing. 

A few years ago, when my mind and interests were heavily into politics, I was a news junkie, closely following every major media outlet along with both local and obscure broadcasts and publications. I read myself into bifocals and would sit up bleary eyed at two in the morning flipping from CNN to FOX to MSNBC watching the headlines and hearing the multitude of takes on all the same stories. Emotionally it took a huge toll on me as there was seldom good news and depending on which channel I was on, the news went from bad to worse to catastrophic. I don't think that it is any great mystery as to why at this point in time that I was also suffering from stress blood pressure. Along with being completely immersed in all things news worthy, I was also blogging a great deal about politics and current events and speaking my mind quite prolifically on social media throwing out my opinions and debating others over theirs. It was pretty safe to say that with all of the other stuff going on in Lisaland, adding in all of this headline making stress, caused me to physically and emotionally idol in a constant state of stress. 

One day I woke up and realized that life was too short for all of this self imposed stress. My opinions, though respectfully expressed, no really......when it comes to politics and opinions of such, I honestly strive to never belittle or degrade someone for a difference of political opinion or party, however, my respectful opinions and views, were only in-sighting those who believed differently to various stages of anger. Full on wars were breaking out both in the comments of my blogs and in the pages of social media. I learned rather quickly that in this self serving, instant gratification world we currently live in, that the First Amendment just pisses people off. There is little room for anyone else's beliefs if they don't coincide with our own. I found myself unfriended and even black balled to a degree by a few, right here in my own little small town utopia. While I like to think of myself as tough as nails, it truly is a facade. It was becoming very personal for some and my opinions, respectful though they were, were fueling a rather dangerous fire. At this point, I had to ask myself two questions....1) Were my blogs and my opinions changing anything? If not then....2) Was expressing myself worth the added stress it was causing me? Sadly I hung my my head, turned off the tv and jumped to the other end of the spectrum and became a media hermit. Apparently I wasn't the only one, because along about the same time, I started seeing others doing the same. Once again social media was full of family pictures, detailed statuses about what we ate for lunch and cute pet memes. The stress was over but just because we were not acknowledging the crumbling of the world, didn't mean it still wasn't happening. 

In more recent times, my blogs have been less and less political with only the occasional soap box editorial slipping through. I post nothing political on social media and although I would much prefer to live in a media blackout world where the worst thing that happens in my life is personal and non-newsworthy,  I do turn on a computer daily and I channel surf on occasion, so I see the headlines from time to time. I am not oblivious to the state of our country or the state of the world. I do still post political from time to time, but I have gone underground to do so. This has come with mixed reviews from those who call themselves my friends on social media and those who read my blogs. My SM friends comments range from "I like your Facebook posts so much better now that your feed is all about (insert whatever fluffy piece of BS you choose)," to "What happened......did you quit caring about this country? Don't you care what our kids are going to have to face after we are gone?" My blog comments and messages are along the same lines. I get a lot of "We like it when your blogs are light and airy and really say nothing," (of course I am paraphrasing here) to, "When are you going to start giving us some real blogs again? I miss your political blogs where you really stand for something." Bottom line, there is just no pleasing a majority of the world. 

So of late I have been paying a bit more attention to the news. The world is in grave danger and our country is no exception. We are no longer viewed as a super power and therefore, we hold little clout in the eyes of our enemies. What was once hate, tempered with both fear and respect from our enemies is now little more than disdain as we have consistently shown the chinks in our armor and made ourselves fair game to those who would like to damage and even kill us. What is worse is that we have shown the world that as a country we choose to fight among ourselves using words like racism and discrimination causing huge divides within our own ranks. A divided country is a weak country and we are the weakest we have ever been since this country was formed. We are also desensitized to the world around us. When the beheading of an American journalist by terrorist is superseded in the news by the death of an 81 year old comedienne, we have lost our compass. No offense to Joan Rivers, I found her bawdy, funny and in some cases dead on with her no holes barred opinions, but......news of her death should not have been headlines on every major media outlet while Steven Sotloff's murder at the hand of our enemies was merely a minor headline rolling past at the bottom of the page. 

Perhaps as a people we are tired. Like me, speaking out, debating and trying to make people think and having it all fall on angry deaf ears, becomes exhausting, so we/me stop. I retreated to a comfortable though fictitious place, where regardless of what was going on in the world, my ears too were deaf, but to what avail? Am I now one of those "good men" that Burke spoke of over two centuries ago? Have we spent so much time arguing among ourselves, finger pointing and denying the facts about what is really going on in the world, that we have lost sight of the obvious realities and are emotionally and psychologically immune to learning that our enemies want us dead and are daily making great strides to that end? Are we just simply sitting back and letting it all happen? 

If the worst does happen.....then what? Who do we blame? Will it be the Republicans? The Democrats? The conservatives? The Liberals? Or will the real blame lie with the good men and women who stood back and did nothing, said nothing and made no waves, thus allowing evil to triumph. I think the answers are pretty clear, if we are paying attention. We are not just letting our country down nor our children and future generations. No, we are letting down everyone who ever fought for this country, suffered for this country and died for this country. Because of us, the men, women and children they gave so much to defend, and because of our apathy and denial, we are coming close to losing it all. So is this how it ends? Do we give up and give in.....laying out the welcome mat and arming our enemies thus bringing on our own demise? Or, do we once again take a stand, unite and take back what is our ours?  In the end, the choice lies......with good men.