This is why we can’t have nice things.

When I was a little boy, I was told (something to the effect of) the science on governance and punditry was settled. After all, people had been ruling us and telling us what to think for centuries now: Millennia, if you count all the sword-bashing and head-chopping. Our current rulers, therefore, stand on the shoulders of giants. The procedure is established. Screw-ups will be few and minor. And so we should just relax and let them handle it.

While still a teenager I began to suspect there was a flaw in that argument, on which my elementary school teachers had remained silent. Not being privy to the debates of my betters I couldn’t quite put my finger on the specific cause of the problems, but it did seem that screw-ups were neither few nor minor. Principal among these screw-ups at the time was a major and apparently quite pointless war, to which they proposed to send my tender body. Oh I don’t think so, kemo sabe. Somebody’s thinking was not hitting on all cylinders here, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t mine. That particular foreign policy issue was very important to me.

Turned out I was just a touch too young to have to worry about it (plus I got blowed up in ’72 anyway – I turned 18 while occupying a bed-and-a-half in an ICU, and my fear of the Selective Service was not the first thing on my mind) but I didn’t know that at the time.

I was going somewhere specific when I sat down to write this, but now my original point has wandered into the weeds to play with its toes and left me sitting here. It’s possible that this qualifies me for an important position in government.

My point – to the extent that I still have a point – is that in the ensuing 40+ years I have never stopped being blindsided by utter blockheadedness at the highest levels of government and the broadcast and print media – which is where the adults are supposed to be. That propagandized little boy that still lurks somewhere in the vicinity of my lizard brain keeps insisting that “they” must have some sort of a coherent plan for keeping the wheels on, in the teeth of all convincing evidence to the contrary.

Maybe I just shouldn’t read the news first thing in the morning.