Overreacting

Last week ended months of bitter campaigning for two candidates. The people have spoken, and Barack Obama has been reelected president. One would figure that the country would now look forward to figure out how we are to deal with our pressing issues. Issues such as what the new healthcare law will mean for each of us, what we really knew about what happened in Libya, and what we should do if we fall of the “financial cliff” at the end of this year. Naturally, we’re not talking about any of that, the press has been only talking about a sex scandal, and secession from the US.

I’d like to say that I’m baffled by this, but sadly I’m not. It seems that in our instant gratification society, where if something takes more than a day to figure out, no one is interested in it and then starts looking for the biggest gossip, or how they can get the most attention. Take the situation with General Petraeus. The man was unfaithful to his wife, and now has decided to resign from his post as the head of the CIA. This is newsworthy yes, but not worthy of a week of coverage from all media, trying to figure out who was involved and when they knew it.

Then there’s the situation with states wanting to secede from the United States and become their own country. (Sadly, Arizona is a state that has some signatures on the petition for this.) If there isn’t a more fruitless endeavor than trying to secede from the US, I haven’t thought of one. First of all, there’s no way that the federal government would allow such a thing. Apparently if the petition receives 25,000 signatures, the White House must then acknowledge the petition and give it a response. I can only imagine that their response would be something like this:

Thank you for your letter and petition with your intention to secede from our nation. We kindly reject your petition. You all are morons and apparently haven’t learned anything from history. Go take a look at US history between 1861 and 1865 and look what happens to states that want to break off on their own. And that’s what happens when they all agree and get together on it! You’re all on your own. Take back your petition and spend your time balancing a budget.

Sincerely,
Barack Obama

It’d either be that or a giant NO hand-written on a postcard.

I realize that most people signing this petition know that nothing will actually come out of this, and only want to “get their voices out.” Again, this is only an overreaction to an issue, and extremists making news. I think that a huge problem in our society today is that many people talk and get angry about issues, and then never actually do anything about them. It ranges from people protesting some issue with no actual results, all the way up to the president stating time and time again in his speeches his intention to balance the budget, yet never getting anything accomplished.

I honestly don’t have too much of a point to this blog today, it’s just more of an editorial on my feelings. If we really are to improve our country from some of the troubles we face today, we’re going to have to start actually doing things rather than saying we will. People will have to work hard, and not expect things to just be given to them merely because they’re breathing. We’ll have to stop caring about what a man does in his private life (as morally wrong as it may be) and focus on what he’s done in his professional life and judge him based on that. We have access to any sort of information we want nowadays, let’s start using it to be productive, instead of wasting our time.