Paul, the Pontificator

The revelation that hundreds of, if not more, instances have occurred at Arlington National Cemetery where soldiers’ remains have either been laid under the wrong tombstone or lost entirely has exacerbated my continued belief that on the whole, this country is incapable of tying its own shoelaces, much less continuing its status as the world’s sole superpower. Is this really the kind of story that would occur in a so-called superpower of a nation?  We’ve managed to bungle most entirely two whole separate wars and we can’t even honor those killed in action without bungling THAT too?!

What about the ongoing cataclysm down yonder in the Gulf of Mexico?  Was itpresumed that because it’s called the “Gulf of Mexico” it is actually the jurisdiction of Mexico and thus who really gives a good goddamn what happens in the wetback gulf?  I heard it through the grapevine that in non-superpower countries, they often, if not always, require their oil and gas companies who drill offshore to comply with relatively stringent regulations pertaining to remote blowout preventers and the sort--you know, the kind of thing that would have prevented a certain Deepwater Horizon oilrig from exacting the kind of damage it currently is.

The simple and pervasive problem with continuing our run as superpower seems to be that it is not so much that the “leaders” in this country don’t know what the right thing to do is; they are simply unwilling to do it.  See, doing the right thing would entail oversight and when you’re a superpower, who needs oversight anyway?  We are a superpower and superpower is as superpower does.  Lack of oversight, or oversight-oversight, begins in earnest when corners are occasionally cut here or there until exceptions become the norm and there is generally some incentive, financial orotherwise, for said corner to be cut.

This endemic pattern seems to have done a great deal towards setting this country in a continued and recently more pronounced downward spiral with no “leader” to steer us back in the right direction.  Doing the right thing, making the tough decisions, saying “no” to people are not easy things to do, but that is what is required of a leader and I wonder if we haven't reached a point where everyone is standing around assuming someone else will take the lead because it’s simply too hard to do it oneself.

The roots of this problem would likely be the modern obsession with what one is thought of by others, and how one is perceived by others has become infinitely more important than how one is morally obligated to behave and function.  We truly have become a “me” society, especially in the sense of “what, ME worry?”  So nobody worries anymore, as it is assumed that it is someoneelse’s job to worry.  The scary thing is that we have all but run out of people to worry about the worrisome issues and we are most certainly the worse for wear.