My Mind Is Going...I Can Feel It...

I am so, so tired of deliberately created 'confusion' over the meanings and subjective nuances of clearly stated words, used by the media-go-round and their political supplicants as a cudgel with which to bludgeon recalcitrant thinkers into line with pre-approved sentiments.

Jesus never said, "Turn off your brain and follow me or my self-proclaimed interpreters blindly"...And neither would any 'leader' worthy of a moment's prudent consideration.
Yet every day comes a stridently insistent reduction in logic as the inexorable triumph of gauche style over plodding substance continues.

Moronic nonsense like bowling abilities, long-irrelevant personal associations, and what one's pet sky-pilot says are held up as valid rationales for not voting for a candidate, proffered by people who can't even be bothered to research policy statements to arrive at a reasonable conclusion of merits.

'Oh please, bring me every salacious tidbit you can to further my titillation, but spare me the factual adult discourse - you know I cannot bear that' - Useful fools who can't be troubled to do a dime's worth of research that might contradict their cherished shopworn notions of politics, civilization, and life in the universe.

The ability to charm the diamonds off a rattlesnake is a wonderful, if oft-abused skill, but it is in no way commensurate with the ability to govern, well or otherwise...Or, for that matter, to be prescient enough to surround oneself with qualified personnel and actually listen to them and input their consensus into the social experiment that one seeks to nurture.

Neither, for that matter, are efforts designed to prop up the hoary myth of American exceptionalism, such as flag pins - to those who so vociferously insist that only by wearing a flag pin can one be deemed a true patriot, I want to ask you this:

A loaded gun is jammed into your mouth, and the trigger is cocked back. The holder of the weapon says to you "Take that pin off, or I'll blow your brains out'.
There is no doubt as to your assailant's intentions. The trigger will be pulled if you do not submit.

Are you any less of a patriot to comply, and if so, why?
Is your life worth 80 cents worth of glass and metal, or does it have a more intrinsic value than that?
Would true patriotism be diminished without the outward expression?
...And does wearing such a pin excuse the unpatriotic and treasonous acts of others, shielding them from unwanted criticism?

Consider, perhaps a more sensible course - Vote for a leader whom you will then task yourselves to holding accountable for the duration...not someone whom you believe to be stupider than yourselves so that you can indulge in a fantasy of superiority, or the dubious allure of a fear merchant with dreams of Empire.

Thank you