Do me a favor, make two lists. Write down all the things you want in life under List #1. List#2 enumerates all the things you don’t want in life. Do this before you read on.
It is far easier to “not like”. When was the last time you voted for a candidate because you didn’t like their opponent? When did you last have a choice other than “lesser of two evils”?
Slogans like “change” subtly suggests that you are against “no change”. Rejecting has become endemic. Researching, and thinking about solutions is far harder than rejecting what we believe is no good.
Whatever happened to comparison? When did you last hear a detailed account or plan that you could compare and evaluate? Consider how Mitt Romney is denying that the health care plan he installed in Massachusetts is not the same as Obama’s? Can you describe three or four differences? Or is it enough if Romney’s is not Obama’s plan?
Once we reduce input decisions to a single ideologue, like, I don’t want that, we relegate our decisions making powers to belief and not facts. Another long term NIMBY hue and cry is to not bury spent nuclear fuel rods near their home. However, these very same people believe that the only way we can get cheap/clean energy is to have nuclear power plants. Not in my backyard, but bring it on and let someone else deal with radio active rods, some with half lives of thousands of years. That kind of thinking just won’t work and in the long run, problems that we are able to kick to the back burner will, be swept, like a roaring forest fire, into our lives with the winds of change.
NO, NO, NO
