::::::::
As I, myself, am beginning to experience the phenomenon, I need to warn that we cannot, any longer, blithely allow ourselves to be led by men whose competence is not just in question, but rather definitely, inexorably debilitated by age.We cannot elect McCain.
If the argument is that experience requires forbearance of age, then let me question that experience. What good has come out of our recent leaders who have claimed the mantle of experience? What experience in making good decisions can they point to? The Economy? War? Social Policy? International Policy?
No, nothing. Give me an inexperienced newcomer any day, and give me one whose brain is not addled past the ability to think. When a presidential candidate says "economics is not something I've understood as well as I should" and that's his self- justifying answer, how can anybody think that the experts he'd choose to make such decisions would be chosen with any kind of wisdom? Apparently he doesn't even understand the differences between the men he has available -- some of them are 180-degrees apart from each another -- not exactly a good starting point for a team "meeting in the middle". And didn't someone once say something about "I would thou wert cold or hot" rejecting others "because thou art lukewarm."
A friend of mine once cited the anonymous philosophical musing that "for every problem, there exists a solution that's simple, elegant, and wrong. Our conservatives, including those who can still think but are firmly holding to traditional values, are giving us old habits that are simple, elegant, and wrong.
Those who are not thinking, but have "reasons" such as "a white man who wants 100 years of war is better than a black man" will be the death of us all. And many of them have the intention to create just that -- looking to Armageddon as a solution! Simple, elegant, and wrong!
There's a reason why the economics of the unthinking doesn't place much value on jobs or manufacturing -- their view of the future is of a Roman-style Empire where everything that's needed (by them, at least) can be taken from "the enemy" -- by an army of the easy-to-recruit jobless. If you're young, I guess you'll be going off to "the crusades". But if you're old, apparently their attitude is that you're gonna die soon anyway, and you should have known to get yours while the getting was good, like they did.
I'll be voting for Obama, obviously. I only hope for two things. First, that he's not assassinated -- thanks for the interesting thought, Hillary. And second, that the votes are actually counted.
But beyond this, I hope people will start remembering the image of a senile chief executive sleeping through his meetings, but looking the part of "senior statesman". Let's start caring about the important images. Even if not senile, ignorant is not something we need in a leader.
