Then I drag the snow blower in from the garage to clear the front hall.
We need a political system that isn’t so darn sure of itself. It’s time for the rise of the extreme moderate. Power to the far-middle! Let’s bring the Wishy and the Washy back together, along with the Namby and the Pamby, and the Milque and the Toast.
The extreme moderates’ non-negotiable demand? Negotiation. We won’t compromise until we see some compromising. We want political action . . . or inaction . . . it depends.
And wouldn’t it be great if we had an opinion-free news media source? I have the perfect name for it, “Happy Medium.”
We may be on different sides of the fence, but let’s make that fence-top wider and better padded and go sit on it. Then, no matter if I’m of conservative ilk and you’re of liberal stripe, we can have a neighborly chat.
Should the government be Laissez? Should the government be Faire?
We’re all in favor of peace, but when the wolf dwells with the lamb and the leopard lies down with the kid, how often do we have to replace those sheep and goats?
Does Medicare for All mean young people have to wear trifocals and Depends and trade their bicycles for walkers?
If taxpayer money is used to pay for political campaigns, do taxpayers have ninety days to return politicians for a full refund?
Animal rights are important, but what about animal responsibilities?
Does “Pursuit of Happiness” mean I can drink before noon?
These are all important questions. Let’s discuss them while making social justice more sociable. Here, have a nip from my hip flask. We might be able to come to some accommodation with each other’s views.
If today’s political leaders would rather burn the milquetoast and ignore the wishes of the wishy-washy, extreme moderates should hang them out with the wash and they’ll be toast. Mixed-metaphorically speaking, of course, because harsh words and rash actions are not our style.
Indeed, how to go about being an extreme moderate presents some problems. The kind of things that other extremists do seem so . . . extreme. But I do have one idea. Free speech should not only be protected, it should be compulsory.
Everyone with a strong political opinion should be required to wear a sign proclaiming it.
Hang an “Immigration Is Ruining America” placard around your neck and see how you get treated by restaurant staff, Uber drivers, the people who change your hotel linen, and your immigrant grandparents.
Go see your personal physician with “I Want the Government to Run Your Doctor’s Office” lettered in Magic Marker across your abdomen. “Sorry, Senator Warren, but it looks like we’re going to have to remove your other appendix.”
Introduction: O Beautiful for . . . Pilgrim Feet?
America is in need of some explaining, especially at the moment.
That the country is a mess is the one thing the country agrees on. And even about this we differ. Half the nation seems to be saying, “We don’t know what’s wrong with America, but we can fix it,” while the other half says, “There’s nothing wrong with America, and we can fix that.”
Polar icecaps may be melting (or not!) but America’s polarization is frozen solid. And if the climate itself is a contentious issue then we cannot so much as agree on what the weather’s like outside.
Everything is much more wrong than it ever was, and we are much more right about it. We’re all mad at each other and incensed that others are furious with us. It’s a sort of permanent anti-Christmas, an obligatory holiday exchange where we’re bound to receive umbrage and compelled to give offense.
Everybody’s got a beef. Except the vegans, they’ve got a Beyond Meat. To tally our national complaints would be to empty a bathtub with a spoon. And after this long and sodden labor we’d find some new tangle of combover hairs in the political drain or ring of scum on the social porcelain that we hadn’t thought to complain about before. It is confusion.
And, lest this most general of statements escape bitter contention, the previous sentence was—trigger warning (or is “trigger warning” an implicit denial of Second Amendment rights?)—a quotation from the Bible, Leviticus 18:23, forbidding sex with animals.
Further topics for Twitter storms: Is Leviticus 18:23 blatant anthropocentrism or a swipe left on Tinder? Does Leviticus also forbid sex with plant protein based–beef substitutes even when they are free from GMOs, soy, and gluten? Is posting the gluten content in communion wafers a threat to religious freedoms?
We have worked ourselves into a state of angry perplexity.
Not that this is anything new. America was discovered with angry perplexity. In 1524 a perplexed Giovanni da Verrazzano—an Italian explorer serving the king of France by mapping what would become British colonies—mistook the shallow waters west of North Carolina’s Outer Banks for the Pacific Ocean. Subsequent navigators, finding the dunes of Cape Hatteras rather than the riches of the Orient, were angry.
And America was founded in angry perplexity, starting with the first attempt to colonize the nation, on those Outer Banks, at the “lost colony” of Roanoke.
The people who already lived on Roanoke Island, the Croatoan and the Dasamongueponke, were perplexed when 115 English arrived uninvited in 1587. Angry, too. Within a few days the Dasamongueponke had killed one of the English, George Howe. Within a few more days the English had killed several of the Croatoan who’d had nothing to do with Howe’s death.
Thus a precedent was set for the way different kinds of Americans would treat each other for the next four hundred–some years and what would happen to innocent bystanders when the treatment was being handed out. (Advice to American bystanders: don’t stand by, stand back.)
Any number of horrifying examples can be cited, from the first colonial legislation legally recognizing slavery in 1641 (in enlightened, nominally pro-emancipation Massachusetts) to
