A few days ago, an article was written in the Telegraph speaking of how the city of Flint, MI is considering the elimination of many abandoned properties due to the shrunken population and revenue drain resulting from the city caring for property and land which is no longer inhabited.
Upon reading (some of) the comments section, I became slightly ill to my stomach and contemplated throwing the computer out the window. 845 comments were posted to this article as of 2:50 PM June 17...an absolutely immense number.
First of all, the majority of people posting comments to this article read the headline and then scanned the page, saw the name "Barack Obama" in the article, and automatically began spewing endless garbage about how our "freedoms are being taken away" and how Obama is "worse than Jimmy Carter" and society is "reverting to socialism/communism/statism/totalitarianism/fascism/insert favorite non-capitalist economic ideology here" If they have (D) after their name, they are lower than scum. Jimmy Carter told the people to turn their thermostats down two degrees and make a few sacrifices like they did during the World Wars. I guess those sacrifices aren't patriotic as they used to be...
(It really says something about us when we are seen using "fascism" and "socialism" in the same context, or stating that "capitalism == democracy" )
Many other commentators automatically reverted to the backup plan: "If all else fails, and I know nothing about the issue, and don't have time to read the article, Blame Bush!", blaming the economic problems (the tremors of consumer society consuming itself toward oblivion) on past presidents - Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush. If they have (R) after their name, they are uncaring nut jobs!"
The Europeans reading the article also chimed in, describing the lack (or lower level) of sprawl in European cities and how Americans were just asking for this by modeling their lifestyles around unsustainable modes of transportation (the car industry).
The Americans interjected and proclaimed their constitutional right (another abused term) to live in sprawling middle-of-nowhere, USA and consume a disproportionate amount of the world's oil supply. (e.g. I"LL DRIVE A SUV!! ILL PAY FOUR THE GAS THANK YOU! I DON"T CARE WHAT THE SOCIALISTS IN EUROPE THINK ABOUT IT!!!!!! ). I'm sick of those spoiled brats from the land of hybrid cars and married queers telling me what to drive!!!!
The Affirmative Action crowd made their point clear: "The reason for all of this trouble was the fact that these run-down areas are occupied by African-Americans who are never offered the same opportunities as the Caucasian Americans. And it's all the conservatives' fault!!! Bush/Cheney never did ANYTHING to fix this!!!"
The White Supremacy crowd then stated: "The reason is the White Flight - the liberal mayor moved all of these (insert favorite racial slur here) into the city when white people did not want to live near them."
The American workers made their point: "These damn loonies are trying to control our lives. They are destroying the free market and sending jobs over seas with all these free trade treaties!"
The land of the free... Free also happens to be the most abused and misinterpreted word in our society.
We blame the Democrats, Republicans, capitalists, socialists, Muslims, Christians, Jews, blacks, Asians, anarchists, atheists, whites, Hispanics, non-heterosexuals, heterosexuals, industrialists, and environmentalists for each and every problem. Everyone is locked into their own ideology despite the fact that one single ideology will never produce a desirable end product for society.
Is it still Capitalism when Walmart is the only game in town? Is it still personal care when we institute a federal (versus state or local) approach to social programs? Is it religious freedom when one single set of religious principles determines who may love and marry one another? Is it good ecological practice to dump usable resources into a big hole in the ground simply because it costs less money? Can racism go both ways? In a society where the majority of the population is addicted to caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, or some crazy anti-psychotic which can be synthesized only in the presence of a platinum catalyst at 100 atmospheres pressure and 200 degrees temperature, is it sensible to leave one of the largest potential sources of government revenue and jobs (cannabis production) in the criminal underground on account of "it is a DRUG"? Is your neighbors' "right" to drive big diesel trucks with smokestacks belching black smoke for show justified when they begin affecting your health and dirtying up your house?
In order to actually get something done, we will have to begin making compromises and realizing that there is no such thing as a perfect system; the most perfect the system can be is when it includes elements from all of the other systems. We will have to do what is RIGHT rather than what makes the most money, what scores the most brownie points, or what our conscience/personal impulse may tell us. It will be a wonderful day when legislation is considered based upon the weight of its potential benefits and downsides for society rather than the letters "D" and "R".