The late, great
comedian George Carlin, during one of his best live stand-up routines about 10 years ago, made the observation, “Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”
Carlin, as usual, was accurate in more ways than one.
I thought about his quote Monday night during the school bond forum sparsely attended by fewer than three dozen people. It appeared that most folks living in the Wayland school district preferred to stay home to watch TV, get on Facebook or play video games. Perhaps some of them didn’t show at the forum because they believe school officials are going to do what they want anyway, and the session would only be manufacturing consent.
However, as sociologist Prof. Robert Putnam so aptly wrote in “Bowling Alone” two decades ago, we’re living in a modern society alienated from one another and rarely gathering together in public, except to be entertained. Putnam asserted that Americans particularly have lost interest in community life and barely know their neighbors. This is troubling in that the lack of interest and caring in public affairs has consequences on the modern United States.
On the national level:
- The United States for the past couple of decades has incarcerated more of its people behind bars than any other country on the planet. Yes indeed, we’re No. 1 — in putting people in jails and prisons. “But nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”
Now that President Barack Obama has signed a law severing the federal government’s ties to private, for-profit prisons, better times could be ahead.
- The United States continues to be No. 1 in health care costs per capita. Our system is much more expensive than “socialist” countries with single payer plans and the recent news about the Epi-Pen’s skyrocketing costs clearly shows how greed is not healthy for children and other living things.
“But nobody seem to notice, nobody seems to care.”
America still spends far more on the military and weaponry, giving a lot of credence to President Eisenhouwer’s iconic warning in 1961 about the military-industrial complex.
“But nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”
- The United States continues to lead the charge as climate change denier while we’ve just learned that 2015 has been declared the hottest year ever recorded and NASA said July was the hottest month ever.
“But nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”
Closer to home, in Michigan:
- Our state is No. 1 in the nation with poorest rural roads. “But nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”
- Michigan has gotten a lot of embarrassing publicity with its business-like approach to public problems, such as Flint’s water tragedy, the Detroit Public Schools takeover fiasco and the emergency manager imposition after voters statewide rejected it.
“But nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”
There are times I think politicians know they’re dealing with an apathetic public that quit caring a long time ago, so they brazenly do things against the peoples’ wishes, like emergency manager and doing their best to make the medical marijuana law confusing and difficult.
Because nobody seems to notice, and nobody seems to care.
Sir Edmund Burke said, “The best way or evil to triumph is for all good men to do nothing.”
detroit has been under demacrats rule since 1962 ,slowly sucking the life out everthing ,
David:
While I completely sympathize with your distraught at the number of attendees at the high school band forum and our society’s lack of interest in spending time with one another your other views are, shall we say, trending politically socialist?
We incarcerate the most people in the world because we have the least tolerance for violence and the means to enforce that intolerance. Beyond that, we are starting to raise generations of new adults who “do what they want” and grow up with few or no consequences. Parents provide every desire their kids have and most of those desires lead to a self consuming self motivating lifestyle.
Healthcare costs are a joke, I’ll admit that. Insurance companies are out to make money (any insurance companies). The more sick people we have the higher the rates. The longer we prolong our lives through medication, the higher the rates. The more foolish activities we partake in, such as smoking (including marijuana) the higher the rates. If everyone was suddenly long term healthy, of course rates would go down because no one would be using their services. Public healthcare is NOT the solution, the government takes our money and loses half of it on overhead before it’s even spent on what we’re being taxed for.
Okay, so this was the hottest year ever recorded. We all remember “global cooling” in the 70’s right. The coldest year ever recorded was 1909. What does that mean? What does the dryest year mean? The wettest year? The year with the highest winds? The year with the least snowfall but the coldest temps? Come one now, climate change happens every day. Climates are cyclical. If the Earth is 4.5 billion years old (according to the secular view, of course) how can we base an entire theory on 150 years of data or 0.0000033% of the data?
We have the poorest rural roads because we choose to spend our money on other things and the majority of citizens choose to turn down the tax increases that are associated with road upgrades. Look at Dorr township as an example. How many times has the road mileage been on the ballot and they just now have chosen to accept it – by a very small margin.
I appreciate your concern for the progress and improvement of America. I too have concerns, mostly that the government is too big, too intrusive, and too wasteful. What good is freedom without liberty. There is a difference. Without choices, freedom is nothing. Let me choose what I want to do with my life, my property, my house, my car, my job. We are obsessed with controlling every part of life that liberties are vanishing. They are being pushed out for the general “good” of the population. But who decides what is in the best interest of the population and how much are we willing to give up (financially and liberties) to accomplish those goals?
Let America be the land of liberty again.
school *bond forum
Mike, David has always “been out there” in his political views, bordering on Socialist/Communist/Marxist and proud of it. Like all who think Russia and communism is great until they live under it for a while.
Your comments concerning “climate change” parallel my own and I agree with you. However, you are missing a great part of why global warming, climate change, or any other title you want to use is such a “big deal”, especially to the Democrats. It is all about money and control – it has nothing to do with weather or climate change. By creating a bogey-man scenario, they can create studies and government edicts; enlarging government and control and wasting more precious tax dollars. How much money can they waste on nonsense? Quite a bit, because, don’t you know you uneducated cretin, we are trying to save the world?
These statist, egotistical, blustering, educated idiots (All of the Democrat Party and 1/2 of the Remocrats) know better than the unwashed, stinking masses of the uneducated miscreants. Don’t you realize they are smarter than you?
I might be a country bumpkin, and an “aw, shucks” kind of guy, but I know bullsheet when I hear it, and bullsheeters when they are speaking – and at least 75% of those in government – both federal and state are full of bullsheet and themselves. We need public servants and leaders, not those with small minds, concentrating on enriching their own pocketbooks with selling their influence/votes or stealing from taxpayers (think Hillary Clinton).
But they can’t let you have freedom, liberty and free thinking and speech. How will they be able to control you and your ideas? You know what has and is happening to this country, and none of it is good. God help us, because the government will only bring misery to those believing in it. Limited government is what was envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. They would be revolted by what has transpired to their dream for the country.
Well said. Sad but true. I vote and it still doesn’t matter. What are we to do? Do you know your neighbors? I don’t. They choose not to speak or if I walk pass them, they look away like I’m not there. Welcome to 2016. Global warming? You think? Military spending is so good for the American economy. Marijuana laws? Why even have them? Oh well, who cares? Do you?