Intolerant

in·tol·er·a·ble

 adjective \(ˌ)in-ˈtäl-rə-bəl, -ˈtä-lə-rə-, -ˈtä-lər-bəl\

: too bad, harsh, or severe to be accepted or tolerated : not tolerable

So just how bad does something have to be or become to be intolerable, even absolutely intolerable? And when it does what, if anything can be done about it? There are several things going on at the moment that I find intolerable. For example, I believe the continuing Republican whining about Obamacare, and their continuing nonsensical votes to repeal it, is intolerable. They have wasted hundreds, if not thousands of hours of time, and millions and millions of dollars of taxpayer money on this absolutely futile attempt and are still talking about it. Why have they not been stopped? Why has this been allowed to continue well beyond the point when it became obvious it was simply a complete waste of time and money? Is there no one who could have stopped this nonsense? Well, of course there is. John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, could have stopped it, but didn’t.

What about Benghazi? There have been multiple official investigations on this so-called scandal, at least 50 hearings of one kind or another, 25,000 pages of documents provided, testimony by relevant witnesses, and It is by now perfectly obvious what happened and what went wrong. There is nothing new to be learned. So why do we now have a new committee to investigate it once more, another complete waste of time and taxpayer money? Could no one have prevented this? Why, of course, John Boehner could have refused to set up this new committee, but he didn’t. Personally, I find this absolutely intolerable.

I am not citing these two examples simply to castigate John Boehner. There are many officials, including President Obama, who are refusing to exercise their authority even when they have it. Why is this so? I suppose the simplest explanation is “politics.” Our elected officials no longer do what might well be seen as the “right” thing to do because it is not the politically expedient thing to do. Political considerations are now more important than the interests of the people. Take gun control, for example. It is common knowledge that the vast majority of citizens believe in certain kinds of gun control, even members of the NRA, but we cannot have it. Minimum wage is another example. The citizenry is overwhelmingly in favor of raising the minimum wage, but we do not yet have it, and may or may not ever have it. Food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, Social Security, jobs, all favored by a majority of the people but apparently beyond the capability of our elected officials to manage in the public interest . There is an obvious disconnect between the public interest and what happens in the corridors of power. We know the reasons for this, corporations and the wealthy control our elected officials, and cause them to act for their private interests rather than for the public interest. This is, I submit, absolutely intolerable.    

The most obvious locus for intolerability has to be the Republican Party which has refused for the past six years to participate in government at all. It is, put simply, the party of “no.” They announced this would be their policy as soon as President Black (oops, I meant Obama) was elected and they have stuck with it with remarkable obstinacy. They have done everything possible to keep Obama from succeeding at anything, and because they have been relatively successful at this they now have the temerity to blame Obama for the very problems they, themselves, have manufactured. Just as they wasted much of the Clinton Presidency with false claims and outlandish opposition, they have wasted the six years of Obama’s Presidency. Whatever you may think of Obama, and he clearly has his shortcomings, there is no doubt our country would be far better off if the Republicans had not elected their near treasonous strategy to prevent him from succeeding at anything. The Republican Party has now succeeded in becoming absolutely INTOLERABLE. Unfortunately there is nothing in our (false) democracy we can do about it except vote them out of office at every opportunity. Where is a benevolent dictator when you need one?

A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.

Henry A. Wallace