Village Fail?

"It takes a village to raise a child".

This quote has always bothered me. I believe it is an African proverb that has made its way into the American psyche. One-time presidential candidate and former Secretary of State (who shall remain nameless here) touted this phrase at one time. Perhaps it was her way of working to bring people together, at least as much as it would benefit her.

At its root, I understand the philosophy behind it. Raising a child or children is a complicated and expensive task. A child is involved with friends, family, teachers and educators of all types and persuasions, coaches, and, in this day and age, constantly bombarded with images and influences from on-line sources. In my mind, this is what has become the issue. There are too many influences that are simply not controllable from a broad range of a 'committee', and today's society, much of it coming from the left-thinkers of the world, is working to lessen the influences of the parent. That's not to say there isn't success in today's society, but that success seems to be slipping away incrementally.

It occurs to me that this mode of thinking has negatively influenced family and children. When has a committee ever truly been successful at anything when a focused idea generally succeeds? Across the board, educational standards are slipping away, the juvenile crime rates are going up (if you believe the standard media reports) and parents have little to say about how their children are educated. What this shows is the globalization of America is well underway. Have you ever looked at where all these ideas of child rearing originate? Mostly from parts of the world where populations are unable to feed or fend for themselves. Countries racked in generational poverty and continually relying on handouts from the industrialized nations, primarily the United States. And when these ideas have completely infiltrated this country, where will they turn when the money runs out, because it will.

Much like those nations whom the left touts, the village of raising a child has failed. Parents need to become the guardian and angel of death to those who interfere with their parenting. That's not to say that all parents are good parents, no more than all politicians are good politicians, or teachers, or engineers, et al. It's obvious when parenting becomes a village requirement and the lazy parents who rely on others to do the work for them. These in general become the problem children...because they relied on the village and the village has failed.

Cap vs Soc

Capitalism versus socialism. It's a touchy subject these days, at least for some people. There are various thoughts on this subject, most are along the lines of many liberal-minded folks versus conservative. However, I am finding it is very much a generational chasm.

I grew up in the era of the cold war. It was the US and NATO against the communist threat of the Soviet Union and their 'allies'. But in truth, their allies were little more than those countries they had conquered and overtaken after world-war two. Those countries were under the boot of the communist regime with no voice of their own on the world stage.

Communism, back in the day and now, is nothing more than a variant of socialism, albeit the extreme version of it. On its surface socialism touts that everyone is equal and everyone should have the same benefits as everyone else. To that end as well, no one is above anyone else. The kicker to that is, that is a lie. Every socialist government that has ever existed has solidified the leaders of that government into their own privileged stratosphere. They have taken from everyone in the name of equality for all and literally left their populace with little or nothing of their own. Socialism stunts growth because there is nothing to strive for because there is no benefit to succeeding. Whatever is gained is taken away and given to the state for the common good. After a time, there is nothing left to take and the state and populace withers away. That is history.

Capitalism isn't perfect. No system of government or economic agenda has ever been no matter who has claimed their systems are. But what capitalism offers is a change to succeed and prosper, something socialism fails to do. Our system in this country has social elements to it, welfare, food stamps, etc., however the difference is, you don't have to stay at those levels of prosperity if you work to better yourself and/or your family. Nothing is promised, but the opportunity is there to succeed and build a better life for yourself. People from all over the world flock to this country for that reason. No one is clamoring to get into true socialist countries anywhere in the world. Those European countries that the left claims are socialist, aren't true socialist governments. They have socialist elements like the United States, but their overriding capitalist framework is the foundation of their societies.

The social programs in this country were never meant to be a way of life as some have come to rely on. Most who are generational dependents on these programs only want a hand-out so they don't have to do the work and then want to blame others for their situation. They are lazy. There is plenty of help in this society for those that are truly needy due to circumstances beyond their control. The 'left' however shouldn't continue to blame those that have made something of their life as being cruel to the less fortunate. Life isn't free or fair and in the history of man, it never has been, but that doesn't mean there is no heart in a capitalist society.

Us vs Them

As with most people these days, I have a facebook account, but that's about it. I used to have a couple others, but no more.

One of the things I have always tried to do, usually successfully, is to avoid politics on my posts. I do have feeds that hit that are political; I guess you can't screen everything out. I am surprised however, how many people it seems get their 'news' from social media. You almost wonder if they have any other source of information. Now, I don't screen out one side or the other. I get feeds from both the liberal and conservative, democratic and republican. To me, this lets me see both sides of an issue, and generally don't comment on either side, and I do have friends and family who have views almost diametrically opposed to mine.

What has come to mind for me is, the two feeds are not really the same. Yes, both sides of the coin complain about each other, some posters (on both sides) more than others. I do find, in my opinion, the posters coming from the liberal side tend to be significantly less flexible in their opinions and are more derogatory than the posters on the conservative side. Leftists find no good in anything the current president does or accomplishes. Even things that benefit the country as a whole are overlooked and criticized, at times, the same things that were done or said by a president of the opposite party. They blame MAGA followers as inflexible and only able to see what the president says or does. I would make the same argument about the far-left liberals who blindly follow whatever people like Bernie Sanders or Allexandria Ocasio-Cortez seem to say once they are in front of a television camera.

It's about time the centrists of both parties begin to reign in the extremists. They accomplish nothing more than inflaming differences and driving a wedge down the country. Not everything Trump does is right and I don't always agree with his views, but neither is everything he does is wrong. He was elected by the process we have as a nation. It is the process. Both sides point fingers at the other saying things were manipulated. Likely true, but both sides are really to blame. It's time the parties begin to work together for the people of the country that elected them and not the special interests, be they business/corporations or immigrants to this country that aren't supposed to be here in the first place.