altjiranga mitjina

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD?

 

Despite what others may say about me I am not that full of myself that I would even begin to lay claim to knowing the answer to that question.  I may give some opinions as to theories that I have, but I think I would always know that I am far from being able to claim the answer.  But I'm sure you know someone, or several someones, that will tell you what is wrong with the world and even better they can tell you how to make the world a better place, and it ususally only requires listening to them and acting on their advice.  And I've noticed something.  As I get older a lot of my friends fall into this catergory.  I'm not talking about my younger friends, a lot of them don't even know when there is something wrong and what's worse could care less...that's a post for another day, but the friends I've had for years and that are my contempories as far as age goes.   Listen to them and they can tell you what's wrong and what to do to fix it.  And it ususally deals with getting those "others" to do something, to get off welfare, to stop killing people, to....whatever.  You know what "others" I'm talking about, the type of people that are different than you or me.  A couple years ago I got into a big argument with a really good friend of mine about oil companies drilling in Alaska.  He thought it was fine, that the oil companies should be able to.  He thought that they should be able to get as much proftt as they can squeeze from us.  This became a loud, shouting arguement.  Neither side gave an inch.  (Now I will tell you that when we finish we were still friends, that's one good thing about friends, you can argue with them but in the end they're still there as your friends.)  But I'm noticing that a lot of my friends seem to be on that side that thinks liberal is a dirty word.  What is going on?  Why does getting older mean getting more conservative?  My Dad was never someone you would mistake for a big liberal, but growing up there was a certain balance at our dinner tables.  My parents came of an age when they might say something about blacks along the lines of "those people", but I never heard either of my parents say a black person couldn't be just as good as a white person and they never used the N word.  And even more surprising is that as he ages my Dad seems to be getting more liberal in some regards.  He is a big supporter of Bill Clinton and cannot stand the current President.  Want to see him get mad real quick?  Say something good about W.  If you had asked me years ago I would have swore that he would hate Clinton and support the Heir Apparent.  So I quess that not all aging means losing your senses.  It's just when I'm with these friends I am finding myself on the other side of the opinions more often than not.