Hindsight is 50/50

"Hindsight is 50/50," Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers said after a tough loss several weeks ago - sounds like a Yogi Berra quote, doesn't it?  I first heard the phrase many years ago when a guy I worked with said it mistakenly.  I'm not sure he knew what he was talking about... I don't think Cam did either. The real phrase is "Hindsight is 20/20".  It means everything is more clear when looking back on it.  You can see all the things you should have done, should have said, etc.  The best choices are obvious once you know the outcome.

Cam Newton

But recently I've begun to think that Cam may be on to something here.  I don't think hindsight is 20/20 anymore.  At least not in this country.

I've had a theory for some while now that America has become a 50/50 nation.  We are split evenly on just about every topic - it doesn't seem to matter what the subject is;  immigration, abortion, gay marriage, legalized pot, healthcare, Ebola, gun control, the budget, the economy, elections, the war on terrorism, and the list goes on and on and on and on...

And now it seems that even when an event is over or comes to completion, we are still split 50/50.  We can't even look back at the facts and decide collectively what should have been done.  Take for example Mr. Duncan, who died of Ebola in Texas.  People are still split on what could have been done and should have been done and when it should have been done. Everyone wants to lay blame rather than just define the right thing to do.

In a speech Lincoln gave after being chosen as the Republican Party nomination for one of the Illinois Senate seats in 1858 he said:

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free."

It is one of the most famous lines from his speeches.  I believe he got the line from the book of Matthew, chapter 12, where Jesus said:

“Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand." (NIV)

Either way, the point is clear.  Being divided like this is not a good thing.  I blame politics and political parties for the current state of affairs in this country.  I'm definitely not opposed to political parties.  As a matter of record I think they are absolutely necessary.  But in this country we have moved from this traditional definition...

A political party is an organization of people which seeks to achieve goals common to its members through the acquisition and exercise of political office.

... to something more akin to...

"It's us against them!  Dam the torpedoes and prepare for battle."

Debate and discussion on issues is a must.  We need to explore the other side's views and ideas so that we can ensure we know the whole story and make decisions that are best for everyone, not just ourselves.  But that is not what we do anymore.  The Interweb is full of hate speech, slander, and outright attempts to keep both sides at each other's throats.

We have to be open to new ideas and we have to sometime concede that we don't know everything or have all the right answers. We have to lose gracefully every once in a while without getting our panties in twist and letting it fuel hate.  I'm amazed at how much evil I see on the web for political candidates.  I'm also amazed at how every single person with a Twitter account, Facebook page, or blog is somehow elevated to the level of supreme knowledge holder with the answer to all the country's problems.

Is it a need for power? To be right? To win?  Do we somehow feel like a lesser citizen if our party or candidate did not get elected?  Does this void within us cause the need to strike out viciously at others?

General Colin Powell said;

"Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it."

That is good advice.  Lose gracefully.

Daniel Day Lewis, as Lincoln

The singular issue Lincoln spoke about was slavery.  There were some pretty distinct lines dividing the country then; the north and the south and that distinction eventually led to the Civil War.  There are no distinct dividing lines on the issues we face today.  Nor is there a single issue.

Where are our divisions going to take us?  If we can't intelligently and rationally come to consensus on things what will be our outcome?

Don't get me wrong, we can be a 50/50 nation when it comes to where we stand on the issues we face.  But we cannot (absolutely cannot) continue to be a 50/50 nation when it comes to how we treat and behave with our fellow Americans who have differing views.  Republican or Democrat - it doesn't matter who wins.  In the end we must all feel we are on the same team, America.

As a country we should strive for the unity that followed 9/11, without the need of a catastrophe as a catalyst.

God Bless,
Rob
www.starvt.com

Preemptive Strike Theory

Okay, I promised that I would share my views on the preemptive strike theory, so here it goes.

First, let me say that the reason I am writing about this is because of all the backlash President Bush took for attacking Iraq during the WMD scare (regardless of how the search turned out).  Second, let's look at the definition of preemptive.

[pree-emp-tiv] - adjective - taken as a measure against something possible, anticipated, or feared; preventive; deterrent.

The very definition describes an act that occurs before another act is possible, and is done as a means to keep the other act from occurring.

Here is the problem with preemptive strikes.  Most of the time that they are successful, the act they were preventing does not occur.  This non-occurrence leaves doubt in people's minds that the act was going to happen anyway, because it never ended up happening. 

Here is an example called the worn tire.  Your car tire starts to wear, in order to keep it from blowing while you drive down the highway, you have the tire changed.  How much longer would the tire have lasted, had you not changed it?  You'll never know.  You may have gotten 500 more miles out of the tire or it may have blown the next time you drove.  You had to make a decision that ensured your safety, so you made a preemptive strike to change the tire.  Had you not done so, the tire may have blown and you would have been responsible for letting it ride.  Its a pickle to be in, but most of us will get the tire changed.

Now imagine this.  You are standing at your car in the parking lot of a mall.  Your wife is buckling your child into her car seat in the back seat of the car.  You see a man approaching your wife at a pretty fast pace.  He begins to reach into his pocket for something.  You have but seconds to act.  What do you do?  Do you launch a preemptive strike?  Do you wait to see what he wants?  Do you wait to see what he pulls out of his pocket? I'll tell you what you do, you make the preemptive strike to stop him from reaching your wife and whatever he is retrieving from his pocket.  You find out it was a knife and you have just saved her life from injury or death.  You are a hero. Or, you find out it was a note that says, "I am a mute and need money for food".  Now you are a jerk and should have known better.  Its a pickle to be in, but most of us would have stopped the man.

Now you are the president of the United States.  You have information that a dictator who has ignored U.N. sanctions for the last 8 years and repeatedly used WMD on his own people to commit genocide, is stock piling them for distribution to terrorists who recently high-jacked airplanes and flew them into the World Trade Centers.  What do you do? Do you launch a preemptive strike to prevent their use on your country?  Do you do nothing and hope he doesn't use them.  If you strike and don't find the WMD, you're labeled a failure and a fraud.  If by some chance they were able to be hidden (I don't know where they all went) then because the action was prevented from ever occurring, the public quickly loses sight of the fact that the act was extremely plausible at the time of the strike.  Its a pickle to be in, and I hope all of our presidents make the preemptive strike.

Preemptive strikes are the hardest choices a leader or individual can make.  Until you have to make those kind of decisions, and suffer the consequences of those decisions, I think you ought to have a little more compassion for the man who does have to make them.

As a side note, people like Martin Sheen who parade around on TV telling everyone that the president is making wrong decisions need to also tell people that if the president does it their way, they have no liability in the decision.  Its easy for some to tell others they are wrong, especially since they have no consequences for their actions.

But, this is just my opinion...

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