Someone Is Blind With Something.

 

From the Washington Post, a headline (Capitals removed)

Postal Service warns 42 states their voters could be disenfranchised by delayed mail in ballots

The resultant dialogue with D, the poster:

D:  This alone should say at all.

Me:  Yes, it says the Trump administration is working to sabotage the election in a move to destroy democracy in America.

D: Rreally?  You're smarter than that

Me:  Confiscated mail sorting machines, confiscated mailboxes, slashing the budget, forbidding overtime, for bidding extra deliveries, the post office run by a man who has over $100 million invested in companies which compete with the post office. Sounds perfectly normal to me.😏

D: the USPS just put out information about the "confiscated" machines that indicate why they were removed.  Has absolutely nothing to do with this administration.   Geesh

Me :  For over 100 years mail in ballot and was completely successful and no one doubt it. Suddenly this year and this year alone it is happened. Reality is real.

D:  we have mail in ballots here in Washington and there are still races that are not settled.  Plus...we got two EXTRA ballots sent to us for this Primary.   It's just a bit Lucy goosy for my taste

Me: It has worked since Lincoln was reelected during the Civil War. It is strange that it suddenly doesn’t work in the year when Donald Trump fears it might cost him reelection. Of course it could just be an amazing coincidence. But I doubt it

D: I shared with you my personal experience with mail in voting, and you are so blinded by hate that you're telling me my multiple ballots and waiting for results  are Trumps fault?   Or are you just calling me a liar?

Me:   Why are you so bitterly angry? I’m not upset at all by our conversation. You think I’m calling you a liar? What?

What exactly is it that you think I hate?

Calm down. Just because we disagree is no reason to be rude or insulting.

D: I'm not angry at all.  Just questioning your responses.   You said you doubted that it was problematic...after I told you the problems.  Simple

Bty, do you choose your retirement check be mailed to you or direct deposit?  Kind of the same reasoning, yes?

Me:  You as one single individual had problems and therefor you conclude that the entire system is totally failing? That’s like your car not working, therefore assuming the cars are not valuable and should be abandoned.

And suggesting I’m calling you a liar and telling me I’m blinded by hate do not sound like you’re just having a calm discussion.

Again, USPS has done an admirable job. If a check is mailed me I have it go to the bank. Of course I do direct deposit. It’s easier. But the USPS has been the most popular and most successful branch of government (It’s also a private business, since it’s hard to serve two masters, this messes things up) until Republicans begin interfering with its operations back in the Bush era by requiring them to fully fund their retirement system for 75 years ahead. Meaning they had to set aside funds for the retirement of postman who hadn’t even been born yet. The Trump administration has savagely attacked the post office service. Of course it’s not functioning right now. It’s like someone saying that your car isn’t working after I took a sledgehammer to the engine. That doesn’t mean the car is unreliable.

D:  Or...as one single individual that has experienced problems, can you imagine it on a larger scale?  Perception is everything, wouldn't you agree?  Gotta take grandkids for haircuts

Me:  be careful out there. The world isn’t a safe as it used to be.

Me vs Society

New York Times columnist David Brooks reports that in the 1950 the Gallup organization asked high school seniors, "Are you a very important person?". 12% said yes

They asked the same question of the same group in 2005 and 80% said they were very important. 

TIME Magazine asked Americans, "Are you in the top 1% of earners?" 19% of Americans thought they were! 

This brings me to the question, "Is self-esteem important?". I answer, "Yes of course!  However, an inflated sense of self-worth, making you think you are better than other people, absolutely not!"

In a related issue, Mr. Brooks also points out that economic consumption in the 20th Century is flat until the 1970's when it suddenly takes off.  Over most of the 20th century, that was consistently at 43% of GDP, when 1970 arrived it suddenly jumped to 133% of GDP.  Note that we are approaching the era of Reagan. Similarly, corporate executives did not make vast amounts of money,although course they were wealthy, until the late 70's and early 80's when they suddenly began demanding tens of millions of dollars a year and golden parachutes which would save them from economic loss – even if they destroyed the company.

Mr. Brooks contends that this is due to a conviction of being absolutely correct which possesses these individuals. They have a high self-esteem, indeed an overinflated self-esteem. They have an absolute certainty about the correctness of their beliefs and if you disagree with them, you must be regarded as an object that is in the way.  I recall a philosopher who once said something along the line of: the more certain you are that you are absolutely correct, the more likely you are to be wrong.

Mr. Brooks also points out that, given a test psychologists utilize to identify narcissism, which is an excess of belief in and even adoration of oneself, in the last 20 years, the median number of people who are identified as narcissistic has gone up 30%! My own view of the self-esteem movement is that it is very important to build self-esteem of youngsters, but it should not be based on the sense of the individual is significant and important as opposed to other individuals. In other words, the lesson should be; yes, I am an important, special, unique individual, and so is everyone else! What we have lost, in my opinion, is the sense that everyone is important, that we all matter, and that we are a part of a society, a family -- a group; and that that group is important and we are simply one important part of it, not the most important part.

I no longer have the article, but I recall in long-term study which extended over decades. The study listed 100 attributes of  children, and asked parents, utilizing a forced choice methodology, to rank those characteristics as to which were most important for their offspring.

In the 1950s, parents ranked traits such as "is a good citizen" and "gets along with others" at the top of the list and ranked "stands up for his rights" in the middle. By the 1980s, this had been reversed.  I think this is profoundly significant. Being a good citizen, doing one's duty, having a sense that one is a part of things greater than oneself, were once considered essential to a child's well-being by American parents. Today, this is no longer so. It is considered much more important for a child to stand up for his rights, as opposed to the rights of others, or the welfare and benefit of his society. It seems to me that this is not an exemple of our social decay, but rather a root cause of the problems our nation is facing today.