Some have asked, “With the Mueller Report and Brexit and the yield curve inversion, why are you going on about ethics and sociology stuff?”  This piece, from a year ago, explains it.  Just take the long view.

Did you see the news today? It’s hard to not simply react to the world around us. There’s too much going on, too much chaos, too much news. And that post on facebook – did you see what “they” are doing now?

There are many problems associated with this sort of life, starting with anxiety and unhappiness. Stress induced coronaries come to mind as well. But as bad as this is for a person, it’s even worse for people. Everything in our world depends on some level of planning, deliberation, and rational thought.

Good luck with that.

It’s a veteran of Nazi fighting.

It would be a little too easy to call the constant turmoil inflicted by Trump to be “deliberate.” If nothing else, we don’t know exactly what someone is thinking at any given moment. For another, the man has been a narcissist and gaslighter for 70 years now, so everything he does is instinctive. Constant diversion away from his misdeeds is simply what life is all about.

As a creature of constant stimulus meeting response, he’s essentially a lower form of life.

The problem with this is that we live in a world which has this tendency to start with. American culture has been bizzy running around highly caffeinated for a long time. A stable, reliable life eludes far too many people. It becomes a habit, an instinct, and eventually a medical condition. Slowing down long enough to think is essentially impossible.

Most of my ideas come from informal conversations with smart people. This is definitely my definition of fun!

While a little meditation or a beer among friends is obviously a better ticket to happiness, there is more to it than that. A useful politics requires nothing less than careful thought and a desire for stability. The best way out of pain and poverty is a reliable world where one step one day at a time gets you somewhere. The path to riches is always consistency. And there isn’t an economist in the world that doesn’t, at some point, believe that everything comes down to rational choices based on long-term best interests.

Ever get the feeling that all of this is just a Producers remake? That Trump wasn’t supposed to win and actually be … get this … responsible for stuff?

Since everything in life is organized in the quiet long-term, our social interactions degrade when the noise cranks daily life up to a frenzy. That includes our politics, which is simply a more codified and regulated social interaction. Nothing in our system can possibly work as long as we are running around reacting.

And it’s contagious, too, with a generally crazy world bouncing off of everyone, no matter how still they try to be.

Many people are indeed tuning out and trying to find their own peace. Good for them, of course. But what is good for the rest of the world?

It’s long past time for an actual political movement based on everyone calming the eff down. That’s the ultimate anti-Trump, anti-disaster platform. Just cut it out.