My own political allegiance has always been “complicated” I’m registered as a Democrat but loyalty to one party has always seemed disingenuous at the very best. How anyone can claim to follow anything without some kind of filter has always been beyond my ability to understand.
I was once told my politics was easy to define, I was one of those people who hated everyone who disagreed with me and when i was young that might have had some merit. But as I grew older I realized that the only person I could be sure was telling the truth was me and my wife and since my first wife was about as loyal as an ally cat marrying the second time required quite a leap of faith but ultimately that faith was justified.
But still loyalty to one particular group evaded me, it was and is difficult for me to understand how anyone could be loyal to something they didn’t yet know.
Both “parties” have flaws and the closer you get to the extremes the bigger the flaws become until it get to the point of sides becoming a circle that meets in the (secret) back. The secret back room is populated by both republicans and democrats suckling at the teats of the olgarcy.
Both sides exist to feed off the rich and powerful, i’m not talking about the rich guy who created a successful business or income stream through hard work or even through inheriting it from someone who did. People have a right to profit from honest work, no qualifiers, we the people have that right.
We do not have the right to buy the government and control everything to the point that no one else has the opportunity. A small cadre of fabulously wealthy people have the ability to pretty much change everything to their own desires but they do not and should not have the right to do so.
With it’s unholy marriage to the Republican party Religion has lost any relevance it once had, religion once had the ability to shame, if nothing else, the desire and drive to control and or abuse others. Now religion is the temple of such abuse and control. Money was once the root of all evil now money is the route by which the power to abuse and control is obtained.
Again I say I am not talking about people who use their money to better society or even to ignore society. As long as a person lives within the rules of a society that gives all the same rights and privileges to everyone and protects the majorities as well as the minorities I say bravo! I know people who are quite well off financially, I don’t like all of them on a personal level but I respect them for being decent human beings.
In recent years, let us say the last 50 or so mainly because any earlier would be well before my time on this planet, it seems that the bid for money and power has become a means to an end seperate from simply being a decent human being.
The extremes of both sides have met, they know the only challenge remaining is to eliminate the middle class and turn us into surfs at best, slaves at worst.
This drive to control everything they deem valuable can only end in serfdom for the rest of us. This will result in Capitalist Communism, a small number of oligarchs who own and control everything. The only other path is Democratic Socialism not to be confused with Socialistic Communism Where one group owns and controls everything… oops Lenin must be smiling in his grave…
We can do better but we must come together as one people instead of the fractions our current political system drive us toward.