{"id":340,"date":"2017-02-09T23:29:02","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T23:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=340"},"modified":"2017-02-10T00:02:05","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T00:02:05","slug":"ive-seen-enough-right-is-wrong-left-is-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=340","title":{"rendered":"I’ve Seen Enough: Right Is Wrong, Left Is Right"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Please<\/a>
Please stare at this comfort food for a minute or two before reading the attached column. It certainly raised my mood on Tuesday (as well as my cholesterol level).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By RAHN ADAMS<\/strong><\/p>\n

When North Carolina’s U.S. senators\u2014Richard Burr and Thom Tillis\u2014both voted Tuesday to confirm the highly-unqualified Betsy DeVos as America’s next education secretary, even I could see that the fix was in and that all this political foolishness will continue at least until the next election in two years.<\/p>\n

You can define that term\u2014political foolishness<\/em>\u2014however you please. There’s plenty of madness and plenty of blame to go around, whether we’re talking about people in Washington, D.C., or Raleigh, N.C., or on our own Facebook pages. Most of us can’t help but watch this absurd reality show\u2014Survivor: America<\/em>\u2014and then participate either by playing in person at political rallies and protest marches, or by endlessly critiquing the winners and losers on social media from the comfort of home.<\/p>\n

Yes, I plead guilty. Sometimes I just can’t help myself, for all the good doing anything<\/em> does nowadays. Right is wrong<\/em>, and left is right<\/em>.\u00a0 Or the left<\/em> isn’t right<\/em> because the right<\/em> isn’t wrong<\/em>, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Confused? Yes? No? Well, then, can we just agree to disagree? How ’bout that? Feel better?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My 9th-grade English teacher would try to boost my confidence in class now and then by telling me, \u201cStud (yes, that was my nickname in his class, don’t ask me why), you’re like the dog that chases my ol’ car every day. He couldn’t drive it if he caught it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, as far as the ol’ U.S. of A. is concerned, that dog is now behind the wheel, we’re all buckled up in the back seat, and the car is rocking down the highway. Will we get wherever it is we’re headed? Will we end up in a head-on crash with a semi, or, if we’re lucky, will we just find our staring selves stalled against the guardrail with a dented fender? Is AAA on the way? Or an ambulance? Has anyone called 9-1-1?<\/p>\n

The only question I can answer with any certainty is the first one: Yes, we will<\/em> get wherever it is we’re headed, wherever that might be. To quote George Harrison from his posthumous Brainwashed<\/em> album, \u201cIf you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.\u201d Most of the others are questions we can’t answer yet, but they aren’t the only ones I’m asking myself these days:<\/p>\n

Do most of the folks who voted for Donald J. Trump value truth, justice and the American way? And, by the way, what is<\/em> the American way, anyway? How much, if at all, does it involve money and wealth? Do those same folks think Trump is like a fictional Superman\u2014you know, like the Caped Crusader who disguises himself as mild-mannered Daily Planet<\/em> (fake news!) reporter Clark Kent\u2014or do they see Trump as a theoretical superman in strictly Nietzschean terms? Do they know the difference?<\/p>\n

Is there anything<\/em> Trump might do to give his supporters pause? If he did<\/em> \u201cstand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody,\u201d would anyone who voted for him really care? Why is it OK for him to \u201csay what he thinks\u201d and break all the rules, when it isn’t OK for anyone opposing him to do likewise? Is it disrespectful to compare the President to a dog driving a car? Even when he lies like one?<\/p>\n

I’d better stop asking questions. All these answers popping into my head are confusing me. And they’re making me feel bad, too. Uncomfortable, even. Like maybe I could possibly be wrong about some things.<\/p>\n

Left is right, and right is wrong. There. I feel better now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By RAHN ADAMS When North Carolina’s U.S. senators\u2014Richard Burr and Thom Tillis\u2014both voted Tuesday to confirm the highly-unqualified Betsy DeVos as America’s next education secretary, even I could see that the fix was in and that all this political foolishness will continue at least until the next election in two years. You can define that … Continue reading I’ve Seen Enough: Right Is Wrong, Left Is Right<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":354,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions\/354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}