Change

Over the last 200 years or so, the US has changed.  The demographics and needs have changed and as a result, policy has changed.  The change has not always been painless, yet it has had to happen for us to progress.  I am pointing to the unpopular policy of slavery (1860’s) and the equal rights movement of the 1960’s in particular.  Today’s world is more technical than ever before and it will continue to progress.  Never in the history of the US has the television had such an impact on public policy as it has now.  When a person speaks publicly, the impact of those statements has an immediate effect.  What I mean is that just as soon as it is said, there are fifty different “experts” analyzing and criticizing what was said and what was meant and how it impacts what is going on.  These “experts” tend to have more influence with people because we have lost our ability to critically analyze.  If an expert says it is true—despite the fact that all the experts disagree—then it has to be true, depending on your political affiliation.  What happened to the time when people would say “wait…that doesn’t sound right” and we would question their position based on our own critical analysis of the facts.  Sites like Wikipedia and the myriad of blog sites have made inaccurate and generally irrelevant information easily quotable.  I think people need to take everything that is said in any public forum with a grain of salt—regardless of how many experts there are speaking about it—and use our own intelligence to study the subject from a thousand different perspectives, while at the same time keeping an open mind for the possibility that your own opinion may be wrong and then and only then, make an informed opinion.  It really is not rocket science.  The sooner we all learn to disregard the irrelevance and start to again analyze everything, the sooner we can make change happen.  After all the US has been a dynamic state that has affected outcomes and influenced countries worldwide.  May we again be at the forefront of revolution, questioning all policy, and making change happen…and remember, it might hurt a little.