Has our nation become a national crazy house of cartoons? Have TV, print and social media come together to create a 27/7 "game show" or theatre of the absurd for us to participate and watch? Are we witnessing the ultimate "dumbingdownization " of America?
I thought we had traveled and come so far, and covered so much ground in our efforts to achieve "a more perfect union" that there are or were some issues no longer subject to rational dispute of challenge.
Are we a nation of laws? Is not the doctrine and our US Constitutional principle of the "separation of church and State" a cornerstone of who we are as a nation?
We all know that we are free as we wish to be. We can advocate whatever religious belief we may have. That other of our fellow citizens may share, believe, and practice a different religion, does mean that ours or theirs's is better or superior; only, different.
I thought the issue of "civil rights" in our United States of America had been defined in the 18th and 19th centuries, further developed and applied in the 20th and 21st centuries, so that today THIS issue should be no longer a credibly debated question. This is especially so since under the settled governing concept in our Constitution that Federal law is supreme; it PRE-EMPTS ANY law by any State, to the contrary notwithstanding.
Yes, we know the legislatures and governors of some States mistakenly believe that THEIR laws, enacted, enforced, or sought to be enforced by them, contrary to Federal Law, must be followed, when contrary to federal law.
Just because State officials in North Carolina, Texas, and some other States are "out to lunch" on this question, we should not be.
If our panoply of civil rights applies to LGBT persons the same as it does to other persons in our society, in THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, why do we permit and assign ANY legitimacy or credibility whatsoever to those private or government persons who seek to deny these civil rights to LGBT persons among us?
With hundreds of thousands of homeless people sleeping on our sidewalks nationwide, the continuing potential terror threat of ISIS to our homeland, rising health care costs, interest on our national debt being third highest expenditure in our Federal Budget, the highest incarceration rate worldwide, and income and wealth inequality remaining unabated, should we be seriously more concerned about who should be able and qualified to use a public restroom?
Have we succumbed to the "Trumpenization" of America: anything is ok, irrespective of whether or not it is true, immoral, or practically doable in the real existential universe or who it hurts or benefits?
Has our national 2016 presidential election become the holographic version of a reality TV show?
To mention the name of President Barack Obama and/or his two term presidency in the same breath as Donald Trump's efforts to become president of the United States is an oxymoron, if not an historical insult to President Obama's sagacity and personal integrity.
We should remember that this is the same Donald Trump who had the audacity to repeatedly question the legitimacy and authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate to be a US citizenship eligible to be elected POTUS.
To further question the political mental health of our country, some people say, Senator Bernie Sanders' campaign to become president is only a fantasy; and politically unrealistic. They are really asking: What sane person or politician today should rationally think and have the audacity to ask, why healthcare should be a right and free?
What "idiot" would even consider making public colleges and universities free in the United States? Or, that money should not determine the outcome of an election for president of the United States?
Moreover, Senator Sanders is further naive to even question the wisdom of some of our foreign policy commitments and expenditures. Therefore, his candidacy should be dismissed because the election of Sec of State Hillary Clinton as president of the United States would be in the words of Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire's Candide, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds"!
As I asked earlier: are we witnessing and living thru the "dumbdownization" of the United States of America?
Please, somebody say it isn't so!