My last post criticizing Constitutional Originalists seemed to have hit a delicate nerve with many TMV readers and other contributors. One commentator noted that my post had no point but was entertaining. Thanks for the left-handed compliment. There was an underlying point that most people missed and might not have appreciated, particularly if they have not read or fully understood some of my other TMV rants over the past two years.

I don’t take myself seriously – never have, never will. No one should do so because that’s the first sign of lunacy. What has happened to our nation over the past 20 years and is now spinning out of control is the belief that somehow we can find the “truth,” and that we can never doubt ourselves or our sacrosanct beliefs, opinions and worldviews. Many of us wrap ourselves in various political, economic, social and religious ideologies, and constantly choose, stretch, misuse and ignore too many facts to twist reality to our narrow and warped perspectives. I find it difficult to respect anyone who participates in such intellectual shams.

At any given moment in time, about half the opinions are “wrong” and the other half are “right.” However, we are unable to objectively determine the difference between these opinions because (1) hindsight is the only accurate measurement, (2) we are not as a species well endowed with foresight, and (3) our minds are continuously shrouded in a fog of beliefs, prejudices, ignorance, close-mindedness and self-centeredness.

I thought my prior post’s last line about realizing that my cranium was stuck up my gluteus maximus brought my sarcastic rant into focus and we could recognize the same silly diatribes we find from extremists who think their ideas, analysis and opinions are superior to others. Collectively we no longer keep open minds and constantly ridicule and criticize any position that does not comport with our own. We have degenerated as a society (and that occasionally plagues TMV) into senseless ideological battles that can never be won or lost.

What is more humorous in blogs, posts and comments around the Internet are the many attempts to redefine and perfect various bankrupt ideologies in order to vainly justify them. It appears many people cannot function or even exist sanely without wrapping themselves in so much warm ideological excrement to give some meaning to their lives. And in order to maintain these cocoons of safety, we must ignore many facts to the contrary, and continue to construct new fallacies to postpone the really hard work needed to live life honestly and meaningfully.

More incongruous is the fact that the majority of Americans and our civic “leaders” via various media outlets, the Internet, and in all types of public and private interactions with each other, spend the majority of our time, energy and thoughts on matters that barely rise above gossip or entertainment. Yet we go to extreme ends to justify our positions on these trivial and useless matters by arguing for or against all types of political and economic ideologies that we hold dear.

We perpetually miss the important issues, real facts and big picture of what is happening on this planet. We want to “win” every possible talking point against our alleged adversaries and vainly think we are accomplishing something of substance by our endless bloviating and arguing. Our 24/7 diet of news, gossip and commentary is getting lower and lower in substance and importance, and it cannot be solely attributed to human shallowness and ignorance.

So many professed conservatives, progressives, Liberals, Libertarians, Socialists, Communists, Fascists, Republicans, Democrats, Keynesians, Monetarists, Capitalists, Free-Marketers, and Tea-Partiers waste so much valuable time and brainpower trying to perfect their world vision, and prove they are “correct” as opposed to all other viewpoints. Participating in such pointless and arrogant circular arguments implies a spreading collective insanity across the U.S. The comments to my last post reinforced the laughable silliness of the arguments propounded by the “serious” Constitutional Originalists and exposed their utter inability to tolerate any rational criticism.

I am not a relativist but I strive to be a realist. While I will defend each individual’s right to publicly voice many silly viewpoints, there is a limit to my patience with extreme stupidity, rigidity and intolerance. There are only a modest number of overriding moral and ethical guidelines that should rule all human activities, ideologies, individuals and societies. They are found in every religious, philosophic, and ethical system humans have created over the past 5,000 years, whether they are “divinely” inspired or not. However, most of our political and economic ideologies omit these universal ethical guidelines and they frequently ignore obvious human imperfections and positive attributes. Sadly most of our religious and ethical leaders have remained overwhelmingly silent on these important matters rendering themselves completely impotent and useless for most of humanity at the start of the 21st Century.

Taken to their logical limits via argumentum ad absurdum, every political and economic ideology collapses into hopeless silliness and conflicts with most universal moral and ethical principles. That is why they were bankrupted by the facts and cruel realities that presented themselves over the past several years. Most people are in denial that their cherished ideologies are now just worthless human excrement.

Unfortunately we are all too lazy to come up with new ways of thinking and living. We instead choose the expedient alternative of rehashing defuct ideologies because they are comforting and in the hope that just doing them better, harder, or more extremely, will make them create a world more to our liking and comport to our fantasies. Too many people prefer to bathe in the warm excrement of their rigid and bankrupt ideologies when they actually need the strong soap and cold water of reality.

I frequently come up with various ideas that should be aired and critiqued in public – but I always hope from non-ideological, open-minded positions. Instead, too many of us cannot break free from our many protective layers of discredited ideologies and thus our arguments are stale, repetitive, pointless, and never move anywhere but in silly pointless circles.

What is so distressing is to observe too many Americans embrace extreme, partisan, rigid positions based upon a whole host of biases, prejudices, fears, anger, ignorance, old stories, and narrow self-interests, based upon a warped belief in the pre-eminence of the individual over any considerations of society in general. Thus we can no longer discuss anything sanely or rationally. As with Constitutional Interpretation, various economic policies, and all other subjects and challenges facing our Nation, we are more than willing to argue every miniscule point in some egotistical battle to always be “right” and collectively ignore all the major facts and ugly reality facing us as a society.

We have reached that sad point in our history that we are in complete political gridlock and paralysis, and no one wants to admit that they are not always correct. Thus healthy compromise or any new set of ideas are never considered because they are anathemas to our rigid ideologies. Narcissistic close-mindedness is pervasive among our elites, the masses, the well-educated and uneducated, the wealthy, poor and what’s left of the “middle class” plus most every writer and reader of every Internet blog, including TMV. These are not the markings of a healthy, decent, responsible or sane Nation.

I am not going to identify specific TMV people because this national sickness is even more pervasive on other Internet blogs, across our 24/7 info-entertainment Media, and in most of our organizations, enterprises, businesses and institutions, public and private. I feel I am constantly and vainly screaming “Stop, Stop – Get a grip on yourselves – you’re all going crazy.”

We might have had the luxury of going temporarily crazy many times during human history. Unfortunately we are now too globally interconnected and technologically powerful, therefore our perpetually circular and stupid arguments threaten our planet and our existence as a species. We’re beyond the point that we can just muddle through and postpone addressing everything. More rational, creative, cunning and determined actors around the globe are perfectly capable of seizing the moment and leaving our society and Nation in the dustbin of history.

Waiting for really big political, economical, social, medical, military and environmental disasters before we finally abandon all our moronic ideologies might turn out to be too late for our planet and species. We are quickly approaching that inflection point that we will not be able to address, ameliorate, avoid or even solve our worst-case scenarios by any set of non-ideological, non-partisan, rational, objective and effective actions.

My depressing observation of our Amended 18th Century Constitutional and governmental system is that it no longer serves the needs of the vast majority of U.S. citizens in the 21st Century. No matter how much we argue about the actual words, preferred interpretations, or possible changes, it has simply outlived its effectiveness as a means of accomplishing anything worthwhile for our Nation. At this point, wishing for particularly interpretations of a defunct document ignores the reality of our system of government. No set of small or large amendments, modifications, fixes, or new interpretations will make any difference in the status quo.

Today a very wealthy oligarchy owns and runs our entire Federal Government and most State Governments. Unbridled Capitalism has killed itself at the start of the 21st Century because we could not regulate or control the corrosive effects of uncontrolled greed, stupidity, and self-centeredness at all levels of our society that have grown steadily over the past 25 years.

Absolute power and money concentrated in a few hands corrupts absolutely. Every oligarchy suffocates and destroys any society and system of government that permitted its rise and control. The rest of us not part of the oligarchy, and still clinging to our various silly ideologies, are left to debate useless and trivial matters. Our rulers don’t give a damn about us anymore and many of us have yet to notice that glaring fact. It’s not the first time this has happened in human history but it has never occurred to the sheer size and extent as now.

Some might argue that unlike many other nations, we still retain the right to vote. Unfortunately our current Constitution protects the oligarchy from any meaningful elective change now that money rules all elections in the U.S. Furthermore, elections are won by those who can successfully appeal to voters’ base emotions of rage, anger, confusion, insecurity, and their various fears, hatred, prejudices, and jealousies. Those who are the least educated, and many who should know better, fall for this surreptitious deceit and deception. Americans might have to seriously consider replacing it by convincing peaceful measures for our collective survival as a Nation and people in the 21st Century.

Asking our corrupt and powerful oligarchy to act nicely, ethically and fairly towards the rest of us will not likely succeed. Oligarchies only change when faced with extreme consequences that could quickly become realities or when its members start making frequent trips to the guillotine.

All contrary conclusions of the current state of affairs are simply the rants of demented denialists – some of whom write for TMV – and those who are foolishly trapped as mere stooges and manipulated dupes for those few who are running things in the U.S. Pointless circular debates have to end somewhere – generally by forces outside the closed circles of raving lunatics. It takes people with enough intelligence, experience, objectivity and sanity to accomplish it. I am far from the only person in this Nation who has arrived at this sad summary.

So my concluding word to all Americans – get your heads out of your asses! Stop your mindless arguments based upon all our discredited and bankrupted political and economic ideologies! We have to face reality and all the conflicting facts as they objectively exist – they will never comport to your rigid ideologies – and stop manipulating or ignoring them. This admonition I take seriously and I am not going to quietly accept anyone’s moronic critiques to the contrary.

We will not be able to find any workable solutions by being so close-minded or by uselessly arguing about how to interpret our defunct Constitution. Rather we have to be flexible, reasonable, respectful of others, decent, and brutally honest. (1) We have to see the world from outside our greedy, narrow and selfish perspectives. (2) We must acknowledge that we are all human and imperfect. (3) We must strive to find the best within ourselves and value all individuals equally. (4) We must treat others as we really want to be treated. (5) We really must be willing to make major shared and individual sacrifices for the benefit of our fragile planet and future generations. Otherwise within the next 10 to 20 years, I fear a complete breakdown of all our political, economic and social systems, ending in a very depressing state of anarchy and civil war within the U.S, and massive global environmental degradations threatening all humanity.

Submitted by Marc Pascal writing seriously and bluntly from Phoenix, AZ