I am convinced we're a nation of masochists.

Whoman has been exhibit A on that score. For every post I put up stating ideas and goals for advancing the Libertarian Party, he tells me how stupid and futile my efforts are (interestingly enough, he's a rabid democrat who seems to hope that if he belittles me enough, he'll get me to see the error of my ways and go running back to the Democrats, no matter how stupid I see their party as being. Some logic, huh?).

But in all fairness, it goes much further than this particular "democrat-in-residence". I see it in communities and everywhere.

Take the city where I live. The residents moan about how the town's going downhill, there are no businesses, the school's going south, and they can't get enough volunteers for the fire department.

Well, I'm a newcomer, and I can answer WHY EVERY ONE of those problems persist. There are no businesses because there is a contingent of older people who are vehemently opposed to change in this community. They spread the (false) rumour among the community that homeschooling (which we do) is illeghal in the state of Texas; they are attempting to thwart our efforts to homestead by citing nonexistent laws regarding livestock, and attempting thwart our efforts to build a greenhouse by citing nonexistent building codes. This, in effect, is an attempt to limit our ability to earn a sustainable income, which could have the long term impact of FORCING us to move out of the community (it won't come to that, don't get me wrong, but I can see how it could have driven less assertive individuals out of town).

The school is going south because of many of the same reasons. The previous superintendent ran the school into the ground, the current superintendent is trying to get it back on track, but because he doesn't "toe the line" where the school board is concerned, he's out the door at the end of the year. They haven't even given him one full year to try to dig the school district out of it's nearly $1 million hole.

As for the volunteer fire department, well, I was voted in over a month ago (see my article: "Gideon MacLeish: a Man with Authori-Tah!" for a more exact date). To date, I have received no bunker gear, no radio, and the fire chief is reluctant to send me to fire training in August, despite the fact he has two slots and nobody else wants to go.

Put simply, the reason that things don't happen the way we want them is, we fight change. Whenever somebody comes up with an idea that is new or different, we fight it. We would rather stick with our "safer" (though tried and FAILED) ways of doing things than to embrace or include anybody with new ideas. It's that way in my tiny Texas community, and it's that way in national politics.

And until that mindset changes, the one thing I CAN guarantee is, we will NEVER see meaningful change.