We live in an agitated world.  People arguing, calling each other every bad name that you can possibly imagine.  I grew up in a polite society.  I never heard anyone call another person a bad name.  Hard to believe, but true.  Even at school, we were taught not to disparage others.

The closest I came to hearing anything politically antagonistic was when I was ten years old.   It was 1948. The Chicago Daily Tribune printed a large headline in the morning edition that Dewey had defeated Truman.  They were sure enough to go to print.  But it wasn't true.

Dewey was defeated.  Truman won.  And someone said, "They were really sure of themselves, weren't they."  The word "they" was the disparagement.  Everyone I knew was a Democrat back then.  And the word "they" referred to a very few people in town who had money.  I had never heard any disagreement between the people of the town, so to me, it was an unusual statement.  I didn't know there was any difference between "us" and "they."  It was my first encounter with divisiveness.  My first knowledge that there were differences of opinions in the world I lived in.

The Democrats of 1948 no longer exist.  Neither do the Republicans.  The issues they both stood for then are long gone.  Carl Albert--who was the Speaker of the U.S.House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977--was a friend of my dad.  They both grew up as kids around Wilburton, Oklahoma.  Albert was from Bugtussle.  He was 5'4" tall.  They called him the Little Giant from Little Dixie.  He was an Oklahoma Congressman for 30 years.  Just an ordinary man who worked for Oklahomans.

Those men are gone.  I don't know what I am anymore politically.  Back then, it was easy.  Now, it isn't.  Where are the statesmen of either party?  Where are men who are interested in working for us and not for themselves?  Would either party please stand up and be counted--for us.  

If you are someone who believes that government will solve our problems, rethink that.  After a multitude of presidents and government changes in my life, I can assure you that it isn't going to happen.  Ken came to the conclusion that you needed a Republican President and a Democrat Congress (or vice-versa) so that they didn't get anything done--because they always made things worse.  I'm about to agree that he might have been right.