I Hate Youism--a paradigmatic & practical polemic on political populism

I am the married father of 2 sons and one step-daughter and I am a disabled veteran who no longer recognizes our country or many of its citizens. I know people who refuse to speak with me because our politics don't match. Someone recently repeated the "opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one" adage which is, barring extraordinarily poor genetics or the horrifying results of a terrible accident, pretty much true. However, the problem with many of the citizens with whom I disagree politically and philosophically is that our system of government requires "Informed" opinions if the whole "public discourse" and "exchange of ideas" thing is to work.

While my genteel right-leaning friends scratch their protruding foreheads or begin lathering at the mouth (not you, VQ), I suggest that we, if we are indeed the responsible wards of Our State as the Tea Party contends (and I agree), refrain from the politics of One Issue/I Hate Youism and remain open to the dangerous, on-the-edge proposition that our minds are malleable and must remain true to the ideal that NEW information carries the potential of changing our minds if the NEW Information forces us to re-examine our stance on a given issue.

If any of you believe you understand HOW this country was formed and WHY it was so new and important, you should also recognize the pure American essence of the idea that we are SUPPOSED to use new information whenever it improves our lives. And this goes both ways. If the New Info is not useful and the old way is superior, we should admit as much and continue on our merry way; however, whichever way the cookie crumbles I'm reasonably certain the Founders and primary, iconoclastic draftsmen of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were of the mind that we should fucking think for ourselves! Additionally, not thinking for one's self abrogates your responsibility as a responsible citizen in the Brave, New System they developed. In a sense, every nauseating utterance of "Ditto Rush" or "By God, Glenn Beck KNOWS EVERYTHING, just repeat what HE says" is essentially a traitorous act against the spirit and principles of the Constitution, its amendments and the Representative Democratic Republic, The United States of America.

I care about my country, Our State, and deeply enough to fight--daily, if need be--for the ideals embodied by its enlightened Founders, viz., that EVERY person ought to be fortunate enough to live in a land ruled by a just, informed citizenry who not only respect the egalitarian rule of law BUT in the knowledge that, First and Foremost, inalienable civil rights are not subject to the whimsical nature of political fortune, religious zealotry or personal bigotry.

To bolster my position that allowing demagoguery to fashion and control public discourse, such that it is in our New Age of I Hate Youism, and that my "liberal" stance on this issue is indeed solidly based on the ideals of the Founders, I offer the following statement from some Virginia farmer and tinkerer who was not a very good businessman or steward of his property, the regular horizontal bop with his beautiful slave maid notwithstanding. His mind, nevertheless, was cut from some very rare, eloquent, and prescient gemstone that most people agree was rarified genius.

Please read the following very carefully and critically and tell me if I'm wrong.

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." --From the inscription on Panel 4 of the Jefferson Memorial*

If you're certain I'm wrong, I encourage you to respond, tell me how and why but only if you can abide by the following:

a) properly identify the topic; b) stick to the topic; c) cite references that are NOT blogs or web pages of otherwise opinionated jack-offs like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Shawn Hannity, Adolf Hitler, The People's Front of Judea, The Lizard King, Andrew Breitbart, Angry White Dude, et al; and d) write clearly and coherently.

I apologize we have to winnow the field of prospective commentators in such a severe manner, but most people today are not aware that name calling, a tactic called ad hominem or "to the man", is NOT a type of argument. It IS offensive and repugnant, but it does NOT serve any practical purpose except to show the world your mental age lags years, maybe decades, behind the one listed on your driver's license. Also, citing outside references to support your argument is encouraged but limited to sources that one can reasonably expect proper research and vetting techniques were employed prior to informational or scholastic publication. And just because Glenn Beck is starting a university it only proves that enough pinheads bought into his self-serving drivel to allow such an person to pass himself off as an academic. Think of it this way: was Hitler a noted artist because he could paint or because he had one testicle?

This challenge, as it were, is not designed to call out the entire movement, because there are aspects of the "Tea Party" with which I agree. Let's be honest, nobody likes to pay taxes, the wealthy least of all, because they're convinced that the egalitarianism espoused by the Founders really meant "wealthy, land-owning white men." Again, truth be told, that's precisely what was meant at the time Our State was founded and, if everyone was as honest as Abraham Lincoln (who wanted to send all freed slaves to Madagascar because he believed as some of you do that white men are superior) that's what a lot of wealthy, white men want us to revert to.

I don't know about any of you, but I've been harangued by wealthy, white men who spelled it out for me in simple sentences that "this country was great until we allowed women, niggers, and Jews into the process." This is a direct quote spoken to me by my great-uncle, a multi-millionaire who scolded me from the top floor of the condominium he owned in Boca Raton, FLA. And by condo, I mean the entire, fucking 22-story, beachfront building. (I wonder what went through his mind when, years after his death, his pedophile priest of a son, who inherited everything, went to federal prison for abusing teenagers after getting them stoned?)

And don't try the "just because your great-uncle was a great man for making so much money that ALL white men feel that way" argument because I've heard forms and variations of that theme since I was knee-high to Artis Gilmore, the 7'2" former Kentucky Colonels/Chicago Bulls great who I saw buying beer one time. I was 7 at the time, but you get the drift. In fact, one of the WORST polemics I heard on race and economics and imminent collapse of our system of government was from a doctorate-bearing idiot from the Univ. of Louisville Business School.

When this 43-y/o virgin wasn't talking into his beer bottle (I am NOT making this up!), he was "non-responding" to my economics questions and statements and babbling into the bottle about eugenics, race riots, the superior European model of governing which was startling close to real fascism and not the silly shit willfully ignorant Tea Partiers put on placards of Obama made to look more menacing than a regular black man, probably because he's half-white(?)...(I know another "I'm smarter than anyone here or who has ever been born" type, but he was a true-blue narcissist who was/is in DIRE need of professional help. He was also fond of the "answering the question by not answering it" technique which is another way of avoiding any responsibility or ownership of the conversation because it never really happened. Then again, all narcissists are dicks of the highest order.)

So, are the populists right? Do they REALLY want to revert back to the days of the Constitution? I've read some argue that the 2nd Amendment is the ONLY Bill of Rights worth keeping and no mention was made to any of the other amendments after the original set. (I have to apologize, but I cannot recall where I read this. If pressed, I might try to find it, but not if you're gonna be a dick about it.) There has been a little discussion in Facebook of what my core beliefs are, primarily because people cannot take an angle on me if they're not sure where I stand on EVERYTHING, but when it comes right down to it it doesn't matter because there is One Issue that someone can use to proudly pin the I Hate You because... accoutrements on my lapel.

As a result, an entire group of people can take their measure of me as a man, as a patriot, as a father, whatever the Hell they want because my label reveals the essence of who I am without need for further speculation or inspection. Once this VITAL task has been accomplished, the tribal leaders can more easily cast their marching orders to the minions eager to do their bidding against the evil "Other" because "he" can officially say, without saying, I Hate You because "he" told me to, because "you" are evil, because "my" group knows what "your" group always thinks when "that" happens, you son-of-a-bitch hippie terrorist coddler! Do "you" care more about a terrorist than you do an American soldier?

Well, my only real answer to the assumers, the key masters to the doors where all the "real" information is stored, is this: Have you told your secretly bisexual Republican father and Republican mother who dreams of making "Boom-Boom" with a strange, muscular black man that you voted for Barack Obama?

XOXO--JR

A conundrum of pain and excuses

Simply stated, I've been having a lot of difficulty with my emotions lately and, as a part of my therapy to open up and vocalize instead of internalize my "darker" side, I agreed to share these feelings in a blog. Conversely, when the darkness recedes, I don't dwell on me but on the world around mine, beyond my reach for lack of a better term. Please understand that my forays into the darkness are not wanted, welcomed, nor appreciated. Frankly, they scare the hell out of me and that fear may be why I've yet to do anything so drastic that it couldn't be fixed.

As I'm sure you've sensed (or know first-hand) on some of my other posts and ramblings, tilting at my windmills as it were, I believe I have a lot to offer those who let me in their little corner of the universe, i.e., I think I'm smarter and more insightful than most, not all certainly, but maybe enough to offer a unique perspective in otherwise complex or interesting issues. But, just as my friend correctly commented, we're all human, warts and difficulties and foibles and everything in between.

True, my physical difficulties have caused immeasurable damage to my psyche, some of it self-inflicted some of the result of possessing the genetic code that predisposes me and my siblings to the development of depression and anxiety. My father, a functional alcoholic and successful investment banker, attempted suicide on at least two occasions as far as I know. One of his niece's committed suicide at 16. Before my father passed away at a relatively young age as the result of alcoholic cirrhosis, he was diagnosed as a Major Depressive with BiPolar attributes, a psychiatric diagnosis that explains, in part, why he self-medicated in such a self-destructive manner.

Right now, two of my three siblings are being treated for depression, anxiety, and or Type I BiPolar Disorder. I was diagnosed with chronic adjustment disorder with depression and anxiety about 2 years after the pain became a constant companion. Just prior to my retirement due to disability in April '07, I was suffering from hypnogogic hallucinations and was pretty much psychotic. My former employers twisted the thumbscrews b/c I was unable to physically or mentally respond to the challenges in front of me. For example of the symptoms I was experiencing, I was utterly convinced that a co-worker had snuck a chimpanzee into his cubicle. Although that may have explained the poor quality of this person's deductive powers as an analyst, there was no evidence whatsoever that he harbored or relied on another species of the great apes to do his work. Imagine my wife's alarm when I called to ask her if it were true.

On another occasion, I was dead certain that another co-worker had been raised as a girl. I had convinced myself that I had seen pictures of him with braided pig-tails and wearing a sun dress. No rhyme, no reason. As my psychiatrist summarized in his report to the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM), he was "amazed that, given the chronicity and severity of my mental status changes caused by the severe, chronic pain, I had been able to work at all in the previous 12-month period."

Does this make me "crazy?" Well, at the time, I probably should've been under 24-hour medical supervision in a clinical setting, i.e., hospitalized in the bat factory. Those types of hallucinations have NOT returned, thank goodness. And though I joke about these events now, it was horrifying to realize at the time that I was quite literally going off the deep end. Believe me when I admit to the world that the darkness and menace of the abyss scare me more than anything I've ever had to contend with since my mom's boyfriend jokingly placed an antique chair over my head when I was 6 or so. I'm not morbidly fearful of wood or wooden objects used to set upon; but the spiders in the webs that suddenly covered my head and face caused me to panic. Remembering it now gives me goosebumps.

Why do I relate these boring and self-serving anecdotes now, to you, in this forum that may include an audience of 1 or 1,000,000? Because part of my recovery and on-going therapy is to "rediscover" who and what I am, what is it that I've become now that--in the middle of what should be my most productive years in my career as a person who analyzes medical and service data to determine whether a veteran is disabled due to an event or series of events during military duty and how disabled he or she is--I can't kick a soccer ball with my kids without risking shrieking pain in my low back, or take a walk exceeding 5 minutes without suffering back or hip spasms, or engage in the millions of things I used to take for granted. Like put on shoes and socks. Shave my whiskers. Cook a meal.

In other words, I've lost control in certain vital respects over what I can do. And that's the crux of the matter that my fucking MIND is having such a devil of a time understanding. It would be easy, I suppose, if I didn't give a shit. Unfortunately, I do. Too much I've been told at different junctures of my life by very different people who nevertheless understood that I was passionate about what I did and why I did it. While we're at it, I want to make something perfectly clear to anyone trying to sort out what the hell I'm talking about: I'm not creating a template from which everyone should read or follow. This is my journey and my decisions and my mindset with which I have to contend and adapt as needed. I would never presume to expect to have some secret access to the magical answer key in the back of the master textbook.  

So, here I am. Married. My eldest son, the product of my first marriage that lasted WAAAAAY too long, is out in the world, serving this infuriatingly and increasingly ignorant country of racist rednecks as a member of the United States Air Force. Closer to home, I am the father in a household of: a fish of unearthly vigor; two dogs; a cat cursed with the most rancid halitosis this side of the galaxy; one high-schooler about to get cooked in Catholic school for the first time after Montesorri and the hit-or-miss competence of the public school systems because they're based on mind-numbing, godless socialism*; one grade-schooler who loves Godzira movies as much as Wimpy Kid books; and an energetic, impatient (at times--ok, most times), intelligent, talented (she was named best actress in the former Confederate States of America or some such), green-eyed beauty who loves me still, warts, farts, alopecia, and all.

I have no actual "friends" with the exception of a former heavy metal lead guitarist and present-day right-wing conspiracy theorist, Bible-quoting, tobacco spittin' hee-haw who's married to a beauty queen and is the (purported) father of two beautiful children, neither of whom he can remember the name of. But he'd give me his last nickel and I'd do same for him because for some odd reason, we love each other like brothers should.

All my other "friends" are virtual, they don't exist unless they venture out into the ether of the FaceBook social networking site and accept me into their club, like you guys. Now, I give FB a hard time, but truth be told it's allowed me to reconnect with people I've not seen nor heard from or about for 10-20-30 or more years! Like me, it's not perfect and can be difficult at times; however, it has, since the End of Chapter One of My Life, given me hope that there may still be enough thoughtful and honestly nice people out "there" to make the Next Chapter worth writing. (Segue coming...)

Now, spirits already perked up by trying to be funny and true, we, or rather I must determine the best, most efficacious way to anticipate and obviate the psychiatric and psychologic demons that prevent me from living as full and fun a life I can manage with my family and friends. When I refer to the "darkness" and "the abyss", I'm euphemistically acknowledging the depression that often leads me astray of my goals and desires. I regularly attend counseling with a social worker specially trained for veterans and our issues. Fortunately, she has a strong background in family counseling which is lucky for me and the situation I'm in. I also see a psychiatrist whose primary function in the VA system is to oversee the medicines prescribed, psychotropics in particular. Again, I'm associated with a very competent, compassionate, and caring person who's concerned for my well-being and long-term recovery. Honestly, I couldn't ask for a better team (why does this sound like I'm reading my acceptance speech for "Comeback Story of the Decade" and thanking all the 'little people" who made it possible for me not to blow my brains out?).

In any event, in case you're interested I take the following meds daily in the Herculean struggle to keep me here long enough to try and make something of myself and keep me in a good mood if possible: Cymbalta for depression and peripheral pain (Duloxetine is the generic name), Wellbutrin for depression (Buproprion), Valium for anxiety and panic attacks (Diazepam), and Lithium Carbonate for mood stabilization. I'm not looking for excuses, scout's honor, but just maybe this info will allow you better to understand that I'm not looking for an easy way out; otherwise, I'd not attend group therapy sessions for chronic pain sufferers in addition to the regular one-on-one sessions to help me stay grounded and under the watchful eye of Tea Party activists who want to cut my funding so they can have two HUMVEEs  instead of one.*

Before the actual preparations begin, I need to explain something to those of you who've never dealt with something like chronic pain. It bites. It sucks beyond all belief. Imagine, if you will, never having a moment free from pain. And here's another thing to consider that makes it such a nasty opponent to overcome: depression caused by chronic pain makes the pain even worse! (Same phenomenon in PTSD sufferers the poor bastards). So, the chronic pain affects the actual structure of the brain that makes the receptors for pleasure, like dopamine, unable to function properly. As a result, you start to question yourself, doubt whether its the pain itself from arthritis in your spine and herniated discs compressing nerve roots...or is it just depression making me feel even worse because it's being a dick for some reason, like a bullying older brother who just enjoys dispensing flicks to your swollen, reddened ear because he takes pleasure making you hurt, because he's a dick like all bullies.

Perhaps the most difficult thing about the whole business is the fact that many people, myself included, have no obvious physical abnormalities that give the rest of the disbelieving world a hint why you're in such a shitty disposition, or why your profuse sweating is caused by searing pain after you stay at the grocery 3 minutes beyond your limit to maintain some sense of decorum and not scare the babies and the elderly as you try as best you can to fill the GOD-DAMNED grocery bags Fast Enough before that fucking, snooty Lexus-driving bitch rolls her eyes at your pathetic, laughable little play for sympathy and disgusting perspiration continues to roll of your ugly, misshapen bald head (sweat doesn't exist in her little world of pate and vodka and sex toys named Lars). Honestly, for real, scenes similar to this, embellished for humor and the chance to say "Lars", occur every so often. Only one time in all the times I was encountering severe panic attacks and bone-crushing pain did anyone offer to help. Once. To add some perspective, I received 3 hate mails attached to my vehicle from anonymous pussies who disliked my political stickers. Spineless fucks, it's no wonder I'm starting to hate this place. The Abyss needs some "volunteers."

But, I don't want to hate it, I want to like or even love it. I want to take my beautiful Ell to the Eiffel Tower and a Tuscan villa. I can't boot a soccer ball 75 yards like I used to, but I can still enjoy a game of Battleship with my youngest progeny, or watch a funny movie with all of them. I understand I'm imposing my wishes and desires on you and I fully understand if you want to spend more time playing Bejeweled or telling us how much you hate your boss. That's cool, but I'd welcome your comments or sharing your stories. If you want to keep them btwn us, just lemme know and I can respect that. Then again, if you're reading my pitiful story it's because you accepted me into your world as a Facebook friend, and friends help each other out even when it's inconvenient or possess differing political opinions. Help me acknowledge the pain, dispense the guilt for making it bigger than it needs to be, and I'll do my  hardest to make you smile even if I have to grit my teeth while I type. Make Chapter Next the Best.

Even though you don't know it or hear it very often, I love you all and I mean it, but not in a corny, let's get married kinda way. Even if you're a Tea Partier!

*jokes meant in fun

xoxo--JR