Roadblocks and Stumbling Blocks

Who stands in your way? When something doesn’t happen the way you want it, whose fault is it?

Is that how you look at life?

There seems to be a good deal of this sort of thinking these days. Folks turn disappointment about a local (or national) issue into an attack on the person or a particular group of people that must be at fault. Thus their disappointment morphs into targeted anger.

Their original desire may have been to solve a genuine problem. Now it is simply to punish/annihilate that person/group that stands in their way.

At this point no genuine problem-solving is possible. It is war.

Unscrupulous politicians, demagogues, and other would-be leaders encourage this. Angry people who have chosen a target and who have really stopped accessing rational thought are easier to manipulate and they are loud.

Really, really loud.

It is one thing to feel, “I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” It is quite another to turn that into: it’s their fault.

“the Gays”
undocumented workers
transgender students playing sports
the unions’
libraries
greedy developers
Black Americans in your workplace

Do you get my drift?

This morning I came smack up against someone who has turned their crusade for a local school into an outright attack on the people that they think are standing in their way. It just so happens that those people are living in the Village of Oakland Mills. Obviously, that’s where it gets a bit personal for me.

I won’t go into detail here because it would be wrong for me to turn my frustration into a personal attack. But I am exhausted and disheartened by this way of operating in public life. It looks like this: if I can’t get what I want by fair and reasonable means, then maybe I can stir up enough hatred against whoever I think is in my way to mow them down.

Anyone who endorses these tactics tells you everything you need to know about whether they will be thoughtful, trustworthy, or honest in their dealings.

Who stands in your way? Whose fault is it? Is it “those people?”

You may have a problem.

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