How to keep your sanity in a diseased America

Maybe we've had avaricious, corrupt, ill-intended and even anti-American presidents before. We never "felt" them. Their evils and infirmities didn't count. They didn't interfere with our pride in being Americans. Do you gather what I'm gathering from Washington these days? The state of Oregon receiving a multi-million-buck bonus for enrolling the most residents per capita onto food stamps; Obama's ham-handed attempt in 2009 to hand Egypt over to the Muslim Brotherhood, the same year he went voluntarily deaf to the pleas of freedom-loving Iranians for a word of moral support against the Islamic dictatorship; refusal to arm the Kurds, who've proven their ability to stand up against ISIS; and now we have the first fumes of an administration manipulating the handover of American uranium to Russia.

Benedict Arnold may have run West Point, but he never betrayed us from the White House!

I know Americans who are physically affected and afflicted by the stench. I, personally, have mobilized an effective counter-measure that helps me keep my sanity as America suffers at the hands of those who asked for power and were granted it. Maybe this mental trick will work for you.

I'd go mad if I ever went to prison. Thanks to good breeding and a firestorm of sermons in school, I've arranged to live my life so that prison is not an appropriate place for me. The only way I could ever keep my mental stability in jail is if I really felt I were guilty! That would provide the "balance" that would carry me through.

Let's deploy that medicine against the pain of being a citizen in a diseased America. Those are tough and hurtful words and for me they cover not only the present proliferation of headline scandals but other symptoms of national illness that zip right on past most of us unnoticed. There sits Sen. Charles Schumer, arrogant enough to dwarf an Alp, saying, "All this business about foreign donors and the Clinton Foundation will be like little bumps in the road when we look back." How dare he? Schumer probably doesn't know a lot more about that particular scandal than we do. To me, that's a plain and painful example of putting party – and hence self – ahead of country! In the America I long for, Sen. Schumer would shove conservatives like me out of the way, the better to take direct aim himself at potential major scandal within his own political organization.

Some people still believe poverty causes crime. Those people are wrong. Some of the poorest people of all are the most honest. Try this instead: Crime expands to fill our willingness to put up with it!

Saudi Arabia, not my role model for societal orchestration, removes the hand of a thief. And there's precious little thievery in that country. It's interesting to note that among those Saudi Arabians inclined to steal despite that draconian bit of Shariah law, the word is out – "Make sure you steal only from Americans!" Americans have the reputation for refraining from reporting petty thievery because they don't want to be morally responsible for even a thief to lose his hand!

Crime isn't the only negativity that "expands to fill our willingness to put up with it." A Russian educator visiting an American fourth-grade class was curious about what was going on when the teacher started handing out pills to so many of the students. "It's called Ritalin," explained the teacher. "It's what we use to get children to stop staring out the window and start paying attention. How do Russians deal with absent-mindedness?" the teacher asked. The Russian curtly replied, "We don't permit it!"

Never before have so many prominent American leaders betrayed our trust. And my secret weapon to preserve sanity in today's America begins with finishing that thought! Never before have so many Americans said, done or cared so little about it!

Bad leadership – from incompetence to treason – expands to fill our willingness to put up with it. So it's half our fault, hence my fault, too! Feeling I helped "deserve" this America helps keep me balanced.

Where's the pique? The pitchfork? The profanity? How many Americans do you suppose say, "Sorry. We can't go golfing, bowling, dancing, barbecuing or boating this Friday. We're getting together in a neighbor's big basement lounge to figure out how to stop this disaster. Please join us? And bring some friends!"

As a tactical measure I wouldn't just fold up into the tea party. A national uprising against this oppression is too important to get pigeonholed into "warfare between the Republican establishment and the tea party." I'd praise the tea party. I'd let the tea party know we're aware if it weren't for the tea party the Obama-crats would still control Congress. I'd let the tea party and the world know we're among millions and millions of allies of the tea party all across America. Think of us as the "Basement Auxiliary" of the tea party or "The "Game-Room Gang." Keep it all non-partisan and goal-oriented.

You say the American Revolution was so long ago there's no tradition of Americans joining together to change things? You're right. There is no tradition.

Let's start one!

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