A Small Symptom

I finally ran across the exact quote I referred to yesterday, and who it's attributed to: Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN, referring to the collapse of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River at Minneapolis.

"A bridge in America just shouldn't fall down," Klobuchar said at a news conference with Coleman.

Whatever its intent, or the context, it pretty much sums up the "why" part of my complete disaffection with government. If I am wrong, Klobuchar, Coleman and others will take immediate steps to pass legislation that will see to it that our crumbling infrastructure -bridges, highways, railroads, electrical grid, etc.- is rehabilitated, brought up to date, and maintained properly. But I'm not holding my breath, because it's not going to happen.

Oh, it's not the worst or most pernicious form of this particular syndrome. An example of what is can be found in William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Chapter 12, "The Road to Munich" -which I am re-reading for reasons both complex and peripheral to this post. Chamberlain allows himself to be duped by Hitler (oh, he knew....) in the topic "Surrender at Munich: September 29-30, 1938," and comes back to Britain and utters the immortal lines: "My good friends," he said, "this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace in our time."
This was no belief at all, but a desperate wish that what Chamberlain knew was certain to occur, what it would take a miracle to prevent from occurring, would -somehow- not happen. He was the Prime Minister of a great nation, and many cheered his words -and yet, in less than a year, World War II was underway.

This is just another version of what happens when politicians pretend bridges shouldn't fall; it will ensure the familiar, odd human trait that consists of a combination of willful blindness, and ignoring, and forgetting continues, and is perpetuated by such people as Sen. Klobuchar, and, I fear, all too many of those in government.