Fair

I've decided that I hate the word 'fair.' In general, I consider myself to be a fairly fair mind person. I get along with people. I don't hold grudges really. I don't really hate people- because, I find that by and large it takes a lot of energy to hate people and I'd much rather do something productive with my time.

But Jesus, do I hate the word 'fair.' Whenever I whined about life 'not being fair' I usually got the standard response of 'Life's not fair. Deal with it.' (There were variations on this: my Dad doing his impression of Mick Jagger singing 'You Can't Always Get What You Want', and 'this is the world's smallest violin playing my heart pumps purple piss for you' being amongst the most popular.) Needless to say, when politicians especially start talking about people 'paying their fair share' it tends to rankle me a bit.

I did not watch the State of the Union address last night- I saw bits and pieces of it and scanned a transcript on USA Today.com this morning and I realize that I was somewhat glad I didn't sit through it. Drinking heavily as you're being reduced to an inarticulate rage and swearing at your television isn't good for your blood pressure.

Politically, this year is kind of bumming me out. So far I've always managed to vote for a real human being but this year, this year has got me wondering what the point of it all is. This year, voting for Bart Simpson or 'The School Sucks' is starting to sound really good. That's not to say that I'm part of the 'President Obama is going to send us all to socialist gulags' crowd. By and large, it's been four years and we're all still here. Four more year isn't going to mean the end of civilization as we know it- people need to calm down.

We're standing at an incredible turning point in our country's history- we're moving into the post-industrial age. What does that look like though? How do we bring our institutions into the 21st century? What does a 21st Century education system look like? What does a 21st Century welfare state look like? These are not insignificant, small questions and they're not being addressed by either side of the political spectrum. Last night's State of the Union was tepid and uninspiring on this point- in fact, the whole Democratic Party is uninspiring on this point as it seems they are hellbent on defending the status quo of the dried, decaying remnants of the New Deal/Post-War Coalition even though that status quo is looking increasingly unsustainable.

The Republicans sound better but really are no better. It's ridiculous for me to buy into the notion that the party that presided over the largest expansion of government since World War II barely a decade ago has somehow had a 'come to Jesus' moment and can be trusted with the keys to the car again. They can't. They're no better than the Democrats.

I saw nothing new. I saw a Washington completely out of touch with reality. It was uninspiring especially when we were all exhorted to work for a better, fairer America by people who have little to no idea about, well, reality. So a town that can be charitably described as having it's head up it's ass a lot of the time gets to decide what's 'fair' and what's not?

Does that seem fair to you?