How Exactly Did It Come to This?

     I get people having different, even conflicting, political opinions.

     Some people seem to be motivated totally by idealology. Small government is best, they say, ignoring, or forgetting, that times change and as the world becomes more complex, people become less able to look out for themselves. If you grow your own food, you know what's in it. If corporate, industrial farms grow it, you need the USDA and the FDA. But, they have very right to believe they  don't need government regulation. They also have every right to get salmonella.

     Other people have this urban idea that guns equal crime. They have the right to believe that. They also have the right to be bitten by a rabid raccoon because they didn't have a gun to shoot it.

     But, today, it doesn't seem to be about ideology. I'm not sure what it is about.

     Fear? Sure, I get people don't like change. Nobody liked the New Coke. But change comes. And, to be in America and dislike the change that comes from immigrants is pretty ridiculous. I mean, this isn't like the immigration that destroyed the Indian Nations. If you're Navajo and pissed off, I get it. But, I don't think a bunch of Syrians is gonna drive out to the plains and wipe out buffalo herds. They may open some decent Middle Eastern restaurants in Brooklyn . . .

     Then, fear turns to anger. And anger is a lousy reason to cast a vote.

     An election season with more venom than facts helps no one.  There has been precious little actual discussion during the presidential campaign. I, for one would like to hear something substantial between now and next Tuesday. Something. Anything.