Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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MARCH 23-29, 2016 UCW 5 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Dear Up & Coming Weekly Readers: Super Tuesdays have come and gone in Nor th Carolina and other st ates, and even though the f ields have narrowed to a handf ul of candidates still st anding and time is growing increasingly shor t, we do not yet k now who will bear our par ties' st andards as we choose a Ppresident in November. At the risk of sounding like a grouchy old lady, this entire, remarkable, and in my lifetime, unprecedented election season strikes me as heading down at least t wo track s. We Americans — par t y aff iliation not withst anding — a r e b eh av i n g i n t wo w ay s . We h ave eit her s u s p ende d ou r d i sb el ief ab out w h at ou r w a n n ab e of f ic eholder s t el l u s or we h ave t h r ow n a l l r e a son t o t he w i nd a nd a l low not h i n g t o of fend u s . St u n n i n g l y, some of u s a r e doi n g b ot h . Let 's t alk about suspending rational thought . I k now Ted Cruz cannot singlehandedly do away with the Internal Revenue Ser v ice, because American president s have no magic wands. In fact, they have Congress just down the street . Our Constit ution created balances of power — thank you, thank you, Founding Fathers! I also k now the United St ates cannot afford to prov ide universal healthcare and free college educations to ever yone who might seek them, no mat ter what Bernie Sanders says on telev ision. We simply do not have enough money. And, goodness gracious, The Donald cannot build a for tress wall along our nation's southern border, nor can he bus or f ly ever yone in our nation illegally home to Mommy. Here again, there is not enough money — unless, of course, the Donald want s to spring for all this himself, and, of course, there is that pesk y Congress again to manage. Wor th mentioning as well is the U. S. Supreme Cour t, which can smack down both president and Congress, at which point the c ycle of figuring out new plans kicks in, and we are off again. Ours is far from a perfect governmental design, but I agree with Winston Churchill who famously observed about our messy system, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." Hear! Hear! Anyone up for another system? On the other front, American presidential politics have historically been rough and t umble from our earliest elections. Even so, I am hardly the f irst person to fret about civ ilit y and decorum in this year's campaigns. Our candidates have called names, accused entire groups of people of crimes, joked about the disabled, impugned a former prisoner of war's courage, made negative remark s about each other's physical appearances and commented on their own and others' body par t s and bodily f unctions. Many Americans would not allow this k ind of t alk at the family dinner t able, but we are not only tolerating it from our candidates, we are embracing it . It is as if we are hav ing a collective temper t antrum. Turn on your T V most any time, and the t alk ing heads are chat ting about anger in America, much of it centered on economic insecurit y and inequalit y felt acutely by our nation's shrink ing middle class. I get that . I feel it, too, and worr y about the Precious Jewels' generation of young adult s whom economist s and sociologist s say may not at t ain their parent s' level of physical or f inancial health. Our nation is in a period of transition, and change makes people uncomfor t able and anxious. I have to wonder, though, whether we are doing ourselves any favors by accepting candidate promises that simply cannot be true and by cheering on candidate words and behav iors that we would spurn in our own lives. Is choosing our leader and our face to the rest of the world out of anger and anxiet y our best decision? Elections almost always generate strong opinions and sometimes the passion we are seeing in the 2016 c ycle, but I struggle to imagine that decisions based on emotion instead of rational thought will t ake us where we want to go. That has rarely worked in my personal life, and I do not think it will work in our collective public life. Hav ing a temper t antrum in the voting booth is not rational decision mak ing. Thank you for let ting me vent . Fondly, Margaret This Amazing Race by MARGARET DICKSON OPINION Visit the City's New Website at: MARGARET DICKSON, Columnist, UP & COMING WEEKLY. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS Name: Address: Phone: Email: (All information required). Mail to Up & Coming Weekly-Attn: OSCARS P. O. Box 53461, Fayetteville, NC 28305