Blog

What a difference a few weeks make.  I’ve checked the paper (WSJ) for the past several days and the closest that Covid has made it to the front is page 4—that has got to be a recent record and definitely a good trend!  Not that it’s over, it’s just been replaced by more “important news”—namely, politics.  “My problem with politics is that it’s gotten too political.”  Anon
 
I’ve gotten a great deal of feedback from these emails and I really appreciate it. It’s been a healthy (cathartic) outlet for me and some of you have told me that you find them inspiring as well—that honestly always makes my day!  I’ve gotten several replies like, “Jerry, you should run for office…I’d vote for you depending on what side of the isle you sit” and, “Jerry, are you a democrat or a republican?  I like what you are saying, but I need to know what you believe in.” Hmmm, first off, thank you, I’m flattered—I think, but it does remind me of a quote from someone to the affect ‘those who want power are the least worthy of power and those who are worthy of it, don’t want it.’  While often true, I believe that there are good people on both sides of the isle that believe in our country and want to help keep it great.  I’m also good with the fact that my political party of choice isn’t apparent.  Whatever happened to ideas and character being what’s relevant?  I know, that is an overly naive statement and pretty worthless, but I do think it’s a shame that it’s ALL about your party.
 
Last week we packed up the GMC family truckster and, just like a young Chevy Chase, took the family on a vacation road trip.  In our case, this meant four humans and three dogs for four days of driving round trip.  Actually, it wasn’t bad.  Now that we have three licensed drivers, our turns in the seat weren’t too painful.  On the way home, we listened to some pod casts which is something that I rarely take the time to do.  I have a bunch of friends who love Joe Rogan, so we selected one of his recent talks with Ben Shapiro.  Now, I’m not going to define other’s political views, but I think that it’s safe to say that Joe is not a conservative and Ben is not a liberal.  We all figured that this should be an exciting conversation as opposing views tackle many of today’s issues.  I was impressed!  Two smart and funny people with completely different outlooks on life conducted intelligent discourse on topics that would have triggered many of our politicians and pundits into hurling insults back and forth (substanceless vitriol).  This never happened and I found myself agreeing (at times) with both of their perspectives.  
 
Coming back to reality, I was later speaking with a couple of people that listened to the same podcast and their take away was “If only the (other side) would listen more to (their side), we would all be better off”.  Well, isn’t that convenient?  The problem is, we all like to think that we are right and we let our egos get way too attached to “our side”.  This isn’t the Aggies versus the Longhorns, we are all on the same team in the same country.  We need both sides to listen to each other and work together to uphold our constitution and principles. Our problems are not inherent flaws in our constitution and our principles of democracy and free enterprise.  The problems come from when we fail (and we do) to uphold these principles. We don’t need to “throw the baby out with the bath water”, we just need to uphold the principles that our in place and when issues arise (and they always will), focus on addressing the issue itself, and not debasing the entire foundation.  Politics are important and debating and understanding the issues that we face is also important.  My point is simply that we need more substance and less vitriol.  More intention to fix and improve and less intention to politicize through worthless talking points—isn’t that what great leaders are supposed to do?