In the present political climate I’m starting to feel like the proverbial man without a country. I feel as if I’m living in some sort of bizzaro world. Things just don’t make sense. This feeling really goes beyond the current political craziness. It extends to religious and social issues as well. In my daily life, things seem relatively normal. But if you listen to the rhetoric on social media and the news it seems as if the country is coming unglued. It’s that apparent disconnect that’s baffling to me. The claims made by many about those they happen to oppose are just so extreme and over the top that I really don’t know what to think anymore. People think Trump and his supporters are extreme, well, so are many on the left. The hatred displayed by both sides is really all out of proportion to reality. Why is everyone so damn pissed off? Are things really that bad? The idea that Obama is on some sort of mission to subvert our constitution and impose sharia law on us is just too absurd for words. But people seem to believe it. Well, he’s had seven years. Why hasn’t it happened yet? It’s not just Obama, either. Supposedly, every single Muslim in this country wants to destroy us. There are almost 3 million Muslims who call this country home. Why haven’t they taken over yet? They have the support of the president, don’t they? Some are claiming on social media that there are 94 million out of work and that the economy is in shambles. Well, with that many supposedly out of work, you would think we would see some evidence of that in our daily lives. I don’t know many who are out of work. I don’t see bread lines. I see no evidence of rampant unemployment. And this is not to mention that the unemployment number put out by the government paints a decidedly different picture, than what the doomsday prophets proclaim. But that’s right, I forgot, Obama is lying to us about everything. But this sort of insanity isn’t exclusive to the right. You have the nutjobs on the left who think that rich people are to blame for everything. Many seem to believe that the rich want everyone as poor as possible and the environment as polluted as they can possibly get it. In addition to that, conservatives are supposedly waging war on women. But are female conservatives waging war against themselves? Conservatives are accused of being racist, despite the fact that there are actually celebrated conservatives that happen to be minorities. What’s so sad is that we are really so close to solutions to our problems. The solution is actually freedom. We need less laws, not more. One side is all for freedom when it comes to certain things. The other side opposes those things but is in favor of freedom for other things. Why can’t we just agree to stop managing the lives of others? Why can’t we just get the hell out of the way? Maybe this isn’t so baffling after all. Most of us are just normal people who want to live our lives. I think we let the extremists run the show. We’ve let them take over. If common sense could prevail, real change could occur. There are very practical changes that could be made to solve our financial issues. Freedom actually has a role to play there as well. It costs money to restrict behavior. Less restricting means less cost. More freedom means more money. But the basic truth is that we the people hold the keys in our hands. We can’t blame politicians. We can’t blame demagogues such as Donald Trump. We have a choice in the matter. Most people are reasonable. We don’t have to live in bizzaro world. We can live in a world of cooperation, based on freedom and liberty. We all seem to want to be left alone to live our lives. Why can’t we give others the same freedom? We need to somehow wrest the reins from the extremists. I fear we are on an escalating spiral of extremism. Far too many of us are paying far too much attention to all the chatter on the news and social media. We all feel compelled to take a side. That is a natural reaction. I suggest we need to resist that urge. When neither side is making sense, then maybe we need to find another way.