Something Has Ended

I wish I could figure out what is going on. Do you ever look around and ask yourself how we have arrived at this point in our history? Is it just me? Nothing makes sense anymore. It feels like I am witnessing the end of something...and the beginning of something else, dark and menacing.

I have friends who are buying guns, scrambling to get concealed carry permits. It's like they are expecting some awful thing to happen, or maybe they think it's the cool thing to do. 

One of the leading Presidential candidates of my country has his name plastered on casinos all over the country, his own line of cologne, and has never held an elective office. Another is an avowed Socialist, 74 years old, and looks like a cross between Statler and Waldorf of the Muppets. 

I can now fill up my 16 gallon gas tank for the same amount of money it would cost to buy an entire barrel of crude oil. I pay twice as much for a gallon of milk as I do for a gallon of gas. I wonder why some democratic senator hasn't launched an investigation into big oil to get to the bottom of these dramatic price declines...since they do so every single time prices rise.

Large swaths of our population want millions of illegal immigrants literally swept up and deported, and a ginormous, impenetrable wall built to keep them out on our 1900 mile southern border. Another large swath of our population wants to pretend that millions of new immigrants pose absolutely zero security risk in this age of terrorism and even to suggest that it might proves that you're a racist.

A country who is about to have 150 billion dollars transferred to their national checking account from the United States this very week has the stones to fire a missile within a nautical mile of one of our destroyers, and commandeer and humiliate the crew of two of our patrol boats, the Geneva Convention violating photos and videos released to the world days before the transfer is scheduled to take place. Can anyone imagine the Iranians trying this crap with Russian sailors? Our State Department practically breaks it's arm patting the Iranians on the back for being so gracious about the whole thing. Someone my age watches all of this and shakes his head in fascination at our diminished statue.

A group of militia ranchers have taken over a Federal building in Oregon and been there for over a week now because a couple of their buddies got sent to prison for starting fires on some federal land. After fourteen days...they are still there.

Something has ended, and something else has begun.