Unless you live under a large, flat rock on the banks of a muddy creek, you have read about and discussed the reasons for the madness we are seeing in this country at present. This is not intended as a political musing, rather the reveal of the real reason why folks are raising hell on a our streets and bent on the destruction of reminders of our colorful history. However, in the end, politicians are the wind beneath the sails of people who are concerned with their relevancy. Give me a few minutes of your time, and I suspect you will have a little better understanding as to why we are changing the names of sports teams and renaming a school currently named after President Lincoln. The reason, my friends, is the desire to become or remain relevant.
America is populated with a large number of folks who are not satisfied with their impact on our culture and society. They hunger for relevancy in any form. If your contribution to personal infamy is limited to a 8 to 5 job, or no job at all, and you still feel as if you are not contributing, what better way to cement your legacy than tearing up something for the sake of relevance. When you can say you have attended a violent protest, and hit an officer in the head, you are suddenly relevant. When you burn a building down, or destroy a monument that means nothing to you beyond the convenient and lame reason that you are “offended” you become relevant. If you are one of the vast number of civic officials that condone these actions, you are relevant. If you are a loud mouth politician that is screaming to defund the police, in any form, you are seeking relevance in an arena where you had little relevance before this opportunity seized your weak mind. It is a huge mistake to buy into the reasoning that is very much a part of the justification for this irrational behavior, “that a statue, or Native American name, or President Lincoln was a racist, etc.”, is because you are offended. Offense is a convenient lie to justify the desire to be relevant. How does this get us to where we are today?
There are two basic avenues for relevancy. The first is a productive life as a responsible, gainfully employed individual who contributes positively to the success of the Republic. Thank you for this contribution. The other way is to negatively impact this Republic for the feeling of relevancy when you assault an officer, tear down a concrete monument or set a town on fire. If the political leadership would concentrate on rewarding group one and stopping group two in their tracks, we would be able to curb this unchecked desire to become relevant through destruction and abhorrent behavior. The totally ignorant wave of support to unfund the police is an example of civic leadership that wants to be relevant. See the point?
I am not advocating becoming Lemmings to the sea. There needs to be reasonable dissension and the consideration of divergent viewpoints. That being said, what a sad state of affairs when you sit down with your grand-kids and tell them you smacked a police officer or tore down a statue because you were suddenly offended. What a supreme disservice to that child. If we continue to reward the folks who are seeking relevancy in destructive venues, we are going to soon hand the country to them, and that is a monumental tragedy,
Have a great weekend!
SR
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