Power to the people

We all have merit.
That is the slogan I contributed to my union, Texas State Employees Union, for one of their yearly rallies a few years ago. This simple phrase is the crux of the divide in the US today. Maybe the world.
Mankind has been seeking for at least the last millennium to find and establish a meritocracy. In feudal times they tried genetics. The hope and belief was that extraordinary people would have extraordinary descendents, so royalty and nobility was inherited.
When that proved an error, the dream was equality, but either people didn't know how to ensure the practice, or were simply not determined enough, because instead wealth became the standard.
This is where we stand today.
IMO, one of the major divides, the fundamental differences that lead to the more commonly discussed, superficial differences, between the two parties is their attitude towards meritocracy.
First, let me say, I would be all for meritocracy if I thought it could ever be achieved in our emphatically imperfect species.
As I further see it, Republicans believe in meritocracy and Democrats agree with me. Republicans, at least the economic Republicans and probably many in the other wings of the party, believe that wealth IS evidence of superiority and a valid basis for the decision power over society.
Democrats believe that it is not possible to select some group of people with sufficient merit to have that power and therefore we must extend the decision power to ALL the people.
In just the past month, I have heard a Republican verbally quake at that idea. The attitude of the founding fathers that rights must be restricted to property owners lives in these people.
It's time to get beyond that 18th century attitude.

rights? entitlements?

This may shock some, but I DO consider that ALL human beings are entitled to health care, housing and food.
Apparently Mr. Romney doesn't. Let that sink in for a while. Mitt Romney thinks some people are not entitled to food and housing.
Now of course, everyone believes that people should work for what they get. Society could not continue if most people didn't contribute to the common good. Even communism said from each according to their needs and from each according to their abilities.
But there may be many reasons why someone cannot contribute, especially now. Romney and his ilk seem to think that people who have a hard time supplying those basics for themselves will not be motivated by money, yet people who have enough to never have to work again are deeply motivated by the same. So those at the lower levels of society will choose to make less, just to be lazy.
Somewhere deep in their minds, they live in a fantasy world where everyone controls their own destiny. Don't want to be poor? Have an unwanted pregnancy? Surrounded by drug use and violence?Just rise above it!
They seem to have no concept of having such an out of control life that you need help.
And the worse thing is, they don't see how they contribute to this everyday by piling up goods they don't need and will never use. How they scoop up all the opportunity in life for themselves and their children and leave crumbs at best for the rest of us.
This is the world they call free. Ron Paul came very close to expressing this in one of the debates and the crowd wanted him to go even farther.
Sad to say this group of  'christians', rather than looking to help that beaten stranger along the road, would blame him not only for his own woes, but theirs as well and give him an extra kick or two.
This election will be very telling.

Apologies accepted

Not surprisingly, Mitt Romney is wrong again.
Even beyond the crass political nature of his rushed comments, lies the underlying error of his worldview.
President Obama has not 'apologized for America', but he has granted other countries and their leaders a more equitable standing in the world in his dealing with them.
This is a most correct way to approach other countries.
I'm not sure what I make overall of the concept of American exceptionalism, but I am sure I don't believe it means someone automatically becomes exceptional just by being American.
Does anyone believe Ted Bundy was an exceptional human being? He was an American.
Does anyone believe Mahatma Gandhi wasn't an exceptional human being? He was not an American.
To recognize that America has made some mistakes and to acknowledge our shared humanity with people of other nations does not denigrate our country, it exalts it.
To pretend that we are somehow superior to everyone else is not only insulting and unfair to those others, it makes us look childish and stupid.
No wonder the image of the ugly American is so widespread that even we are painfully aware of it.
If President Obama has begun to lift us above and beyond this awful stereotype, God bless him. Let's not go back to it now.