Let me get the pleasantries out of the way quickly. I've been lurking here for a few months now, really enjoy the quality of writing and discussion here, finally decided it was time to quit splashing around in the shallow end and jump in. So here goes with my first diary.
My wife and I were having a discussion the other day about the current state of affairs in the US, and something really jumped out at me. There were a lot of parallels to the old story of the tortoise and the hare. In the past, however, we were usually the tortoise, but these days, we seem to be the hare. Follow me over the fold to see if this analogy is going to hold up to more scrutiny.
Quick recap in case anyone needs it. The story of the tortoise and the hare is about a tortoise and a hare that decide to have a race. The hare knows he's much faster than the tortoise, so he takes off, gets a big lead, and then starts goofing off, eventually deciding to take a nap. The tortoise, meanwhile, just keeps going and keeps going, and eventually he wins because the hare is goofing off too much.
In a lot of ways, I think that what most of us think of as traditional American values (and I mean this in the old fashioned use of the term, not the twisted definition used by the right or the religious fundamentalists these days) correspond to the tortoise's way of doing things. For example, putting a priority on education and on always striving so that the next generation has it better than we do is a tortoise's value. Building a better school today may not provide dividends for a few years, but keep building better schools and in a few years, the dividends will really add up. These are the sorts of values that I think really drove America for so long, and I think they served us well.
Somewhere in the last 40 years or so, however, I think the focus of America started to shift. We started to think less of the long term picture, and more of the short term. And all too often, it wasn't out of necessity or principle, it was out of laziness or greed. Obviously, you can't make every decision looking long term, there are short term issues that have to be dealt with. But somewhere along the way we crossed a threshold. Suddenly, almost everything seems to be about today, and very little seems to be about tomorrow. Moreover, it seems to have happened to all 3 of the major decision makers in America: it's happened to our government, it's happened to our businesses, and it's happened to many of us as individuals. Now, we have an education system that is failing us, a medical system that is failing us, and an economy that is failing us.
So here we are - the hare. We built something amazing, got a big lead, and then got a little complacent. We goofed off a little. We took a little nap. Suddenly, we wake up, and we're behind. Frankly, it's a scary place to be, we haven't been behind in a REALLY long time. And I think it's that fear that has people on both sides so worked up. But if you believe the toroise usually wins the race, I think it's pretty obvious which side is which. Obama wants to revamp our education system, rebuild our infrastructure, resuscitate our healthcare system, and restore America's standing in the world. McSame, well, he's happy to extend nap time for another four years. For all of our sakes, let's do all we can to make sure this November's story ends the way it's supposed to, with the tortoise winning the race.
Edited: I just changed the title a bit, seemed to fit better.