While attending the National Association of Sporting Goods Wholesalers annual meeting and exhibit last week in Little Rock, Arkansas, I saw a jarring example of how small our world has become.
Making a pickup at the airport, I saw travelers arriving on domestic flights wearing surgical masks . In forty-plus years of travel, I'd only seen that with any frequency in Asia where overcrowding and pollution made those exceptional measures necessary to try and avoid airborne pollutants and/or viral infections. To see surgical masks in the interior United States -at least until the Ebola scare - normally meant someone had undergone a transplant and had a suppressed immune system.
No more. Just one more tell-tale of just how small our world is today.
And federal officials' hesitation to take protect our borders from the possible importation of Ebola by travelers legally entering the country is just another demonstration of how slowly bureaucracy reacts in a crisis. Another indication of why people feel it necessary to take more responsibility for their personal safety- even if it means wearing surgical masks.
Government's reluctance to respond decisively, unfortunately, is yet another indication of what may be the greatest threat to our country: political correctness.
Not wanting to be seen as discriminating against anyone, it seems as if our "leaders" would prefer doing nothing; then dealing with the aftermath. After all, the dead can't complain- or vote.
A cynical viewpoint? You betcha. Defensible? Consider their (in)action before arguing I'm wrong.
Agreeing, however, means you'd best be prepared for demonization as a mean-spirited, discriminatory threat to society for pointing out the emperor's nakedness.
What I fear most isn't government's inactivity. It's their grand gestures afterwards. You know, those "common-sense measures" they'll try to rush into law in order to protect us from future threats.
Those same "reasonable restrictions" just might allow the prohibition of U.S. citizens reentering the country-especially if they pose some nebulous risk to the "general health and well-being of the citizenry".
To me, that's the beginning of irreversible restrictions on our free travel.
Get caught in that net, and you might find yourself disenfranchised. If that happens, don't be surprised if the government -in an effort to "help" with your predicament (that they created) doesn't ask -or insist- that you spend a little time in a "safe area" while they work through your situation.
It won't be called "confinement" but you won't come and go at will.\
That's not my yelling that the sky's falling. It's simply a personal observation from having spent the better part of last year touring the country and seeing how far-and how fast- "political correctness" has removed the idea of using common-sense in problem-solving.
So what can you do? What Americans have always done when the chips were down: get involved.
If you've been watching to see what happens, we can't afford your sitting and watching one minute longer.
It's time to take the most basic step toward corrective action: showing up at the polls.
Think your elected officials have stopped listening? Show up at the polls and help turn them out.
Think they're doing a good job? Then show that support at the only place where you are assured the same amount of influence as Michael Bloomberg, Mitch McConnell or even President Obama: the ballot box.
Turning out those who don't listen helps correct the hearing of those who remain- or replace them. Change via the ballot box is the only real threat politicians face.
Unfortunately, it doesn't keep them in line forever, but reminds them the office and privilege they seem to take for granted is only on loan- from you.
The time for sitting on the sidelines is long past. And giving money to causes or candidates doesn't relieve you of the responsibility of being a citizen.
Your job as a citizen is to vote.
And I hope you'll agree to do your job next month. Because no matter what you've been told to the contrary- your vote matters.
--Jim Shepherd
