America In Crisis...

That's the headline T.V. is bombarding us with. They need to take it down a notch and lower the heat of the rhetoric. They won't because bad news sells. Just like a crash on the side of the road, everyone wants to see the wreckage.

Last week within 24 hours we learned that two African-American men were shot and killed by police officers. One in Louisiana and one in Minnesota. What we as the general public have seen would seem to indicate these were not justified shootings. The Justice Department is investigating both shootings and in due course we will have a clearer picture.

Then comes demonstrations throughout the country about these shootings. In Dallas an individual shot and killed five Police Officers and wounded seven others and some protesters. This man had been plotting to do something for awhile but acted when he did supposedly because of the shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota. He was allegedly angry over this and wanted to kill some white people, especially Police Officers. So his rationale was to do exactly what he was mad about, murder without justification. Perverted thinking indeed.

There is no acceptable explanation for police brutality or murder at their hands for trivial incidents and yes police should and must be held to a higher standard. They are the direct enforcement arm of government and must conduct themselves in a prudent manner.

The majority of Police Officers are good and honorable people who do their job properly and care about serving and protecting. They do the right thing everyday and deserve our respect and thanks.

But when an individual Officer abuses his or her authority we must be willing to call it as it is. That person must be held accountable as we all are.

Condemning entire groups for the actions of one is wrong and pisses me off. Generally speaking I don't like generalizations nor do I prattle on about the good old days or all that take the country back shit. But one thing that has occurred during the course of my fifty years is an ever growing  pattern of indicting groups as opposed to holding individuals responsible for their own actions and recognizing we all have choices to make. Do not hold me accountable for the actions of an individual who just happens to be a statistic in my race, profession, religion or whatever.

We are all a part of our figurative community beginning with our neighborhoods, towns, States, country and social organizations. We have certain basic obligations to each other as human beings. But we are not guilty of the misdeeds of the one.

Individual responsibility has eroded, not because of any political ideology or social programs but because of the pack mentality which has propelled our species to divide into sub-groups.

Actually I've just arrived at the logical conclusion, tribalism is alive and well and will be our undoing.

As for me I'm a curmudgeonly isolationist and that is the smallest tribe of all.

You tend your garden and I'll tend mine.