Following a logical path consistently is a hallmark of behavior. For individuals it shows a pattern of actions that reflect well on the person and allows society to be comfortable with the future of that pattern. For a country it allows other countries to feel comfortable that a proper benchmark of actions is to be expected when future issues arise. But ours is not a country of consistency. We are a mass (mess?) of contradictions. Consider: 60 million of us won’t take a life-saving vaccine in the middle of a pandemic to protect ourselves or our loved ones. We avoid vaccines–shouting “My body my choice!!” but we require women to carry fetuses to full term by passing anti-abortion laws. We preach fair play as the American Way but pass voting laws to restrict voting rights by pretending we are “fixing” the voting system that was proven repeatedly not broken. We demand separation of church and state but every courthouse in the country bears Biblical quotes and all our coins say “In God we trust”. Every witness is sworn in with the phrase “so help me God”. We prohibit people from entering stores while eating an ice cream cone but allow them to carry in an assault rifle. We allow every profanity ever heard on TV but do not allow beer commercial advertising on TV to actually show a person drinking the beer. All these inconsistencies paint an ugly picture of our society. It’s an easy conclusion that whoever screams the loudest (“the squeakiest wheel”) gets their “way” or whoever pays off the most calls the tune. The result is a patchwork of actions that betray our words and revile the intent of the Founding Fathers. Question: are we like a bunch of children who are incapable of governing ourselves? Is democracy beyond our grasp? Have we fallen so far into an era of favoritism that we cannot see all the contradictions? We don’t seem to care and that’s the real problem. Some readers may just see this as evolutionary and we might agree. The question we ask: “Is this evolution movement forward or backward?

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