There is no middle ground. None. Dehumanize anyone who holds a different viewpoint, and then make your opponent or anyone who disagrees with you seem as filthy, evil, and depraved as you possibly can. Then pitch this image to the masses, distilled down into a few slogans and sound-bytes. Repeat these slogans and sound-bytes often enough, so that it’s akin to mass hypnosis. Maybe draw up some big posters and banners… When the movement grows big enough, make a flag! Continue to seed and sow those images into the mass consciousness, and then further paint anyone who agrees with you as noble, strong, righteous, and tell them that God is on their side.

This is how crusades, genocides, and world wars are begun.

The news this week is about yelling. It’s about being rude. And the most amazing thing is that each time someone has an outburst, it was a man who felt a public apology would make it all better; like a boo boo on their knee.

It’s a real statement on the state of consciousness of the United States when certain people feel justified in throwing shoes at a US President, shouting “You lie!” during a joint congress gathering, and interrupting a young singer as she tried to accept her award.

My beef isn’t that we shouldn’t forgive people who make stupid mistakes. What worries me is that there seems to be this new sense of PERMISSION to act like an idiot. It’s as if there’s no longer any impulse to respect persons in authority. Leadership has always been a “teach by example” achievement, and yet today’s leaders are more inclined to show their mere mortal status. In one case, it was clearly Mr. Big Shot stealing the moment from a new talent. Kanye West claimed the death of his mother was the emotional driver behind his on-stage outburst while Taylor Swift was making her acceptance speech at the Video Music Awards.

Mr. South Carolina Republican Congressman illustrated that throwing a tantrum is some new leadership quality and by golly, he has a lot of public support for it!

I don’t accept what’s happening and am truly alarmed that so many Americans find nothing wrong with leaders and famous people acting in ways that would have had me grounded without dinner if I’d pulled a stunt like they did.

The rest of us regular people on the planet have lost loved ones too. You deal with it. If you have any common sense at all, you know enough to not spread your misery to others. Or if you do, you share with close friends and family who know you and can offer support. Rushing up on stage as West did was a public display of selfishness in an environment where the ego rules. He must have thought he was pretty hot shit to come up on stage, take the microphone away from a young rising star and tell the world he likes someone else’s video better.

When Rep. Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” we all heard it on TV. I was shocked. It didn’t matter who did it. What was incredible was that it happened at all. These men, and a few women, are called “lawmakers”. If any one of us regular people had yelled like he did, we would have been escorted out of the room and arrested. So why is it okay for people who make our laws and decide how we live to show bad manners? For what possible reasons are we expected to support them when it’s obviously okay to be rude and obnoxious?

Not only was his outburst pathetic, the entire Republican party display of frowns, folded arms, reading hand held devices, sitting during standing ovations, not clapping in any show of support, waving documents in the air, calling out with verbal feedback during a televised speech and their overall obstinate energy was fascinating to watch.

I was taught to be polite and listen with an open mind. If I disagreed, I was to keep my mouth shut unless invited to speak and again, always show respect. Are these lessons I grew up with a thing of the past?

Arrogance and stupidity among Americans is growing. Thousands of people marched on Washington for a “Tea Party” demonstration. I’m all for peaceful demonstrations but when the cameras were on, interviewees said they were there because they stood by Representive Joe Wilson! So now there’s an entire political party that feels proper behavior is yelling the loudest and being the most abrasive in public. That ought to go over really well in negations with other countries.

The true test of leadership is being able to continue in the face of bigotry, hatred, and enormous negativity. That President Obama does this every day is remarkable. For the USA to become stable again, things have to change and he knows it. The old ways no longer work. Its incredible how many people, from positions of authority to me and you, are unwilling to try something new. Even when the present way of doing things is literally killing citizens, talk of new ideas is shot down or someone starts a myth about the government killing people to save money.

I’m sick of the so-called apologies. When you’ve made a Class A fool out of yourself to a worldwide audience, there’s no excuse. These people knew the world was watching and they took advantage of that. Claiming to not be responsible for your actions due to a personal issue or emotional moment is not an apology. It’s an excuse. It’s showing how retarded these people are in their thinking; believing they can get away with this behavior.

What I want to know is what Mr. Shoe Thrower, Mr. You Lie Mr. President and Mr. Music Ego are planning on doing to help our country do better. Tantrums are for babies.

Grow up.

Remember Timothy Leary? “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out” was Dr. Leary’s 60’s counterculture phrase which was usually simplified and therefore misunderstood to mean, “hey let’s all get high and just hang!”

Leary later explained: “Turn on’ meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. ‘Tune in’ meant interact harmoniously with the world around you – externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. Drop out suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. ‘Drop Out’ meant self-reliance, a discovery of one’s singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean ‘Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity’.”

In this decade, and in this technologically-connected world, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to abandon the structures of our lives that we’ve become so attached to – and so committed to – and simply drop out. What would happen if we detached ourselves from what we know? How would our own lives change if we suddenly moved to a completely different world than the one know and lived in a way that is foreign to us? What if we “communed with nature” for a while? How would our lives be impacted?

I love the technology that enables me to reach out and communicate with people from all walks of life and from every culture on our planet. But am I constraining myself with the very technology that gives me that freedom? Would my life be better if I were to abandon the tech world and instead drift through rain forests and deserts? Would that mobility, choice, and change lead to new internal perspectives? Are we fooling ourselves when we appreciate the reach that we have via our wired and wireless connections? Or can we tune in and turn on via those very connections?

Just wondering.