America Has Lost Her Sense of Outrage
8/14/26
Citizens!
One noticeable trait in America right now is our diminished capacity for outrage. We simply are not getting worked up about things that would have collectively infuriated us a generation or two ago and, frankly should infuriate us now.
We should’ve been outraged when our government started sinking Venezuelan shipping. Under the guise that they were hauling drugs to America, these ships were sunk and mariners killed, essentially executed without a trial.
We should’ve been outraged when we bombed an Iranian schoolhouse at the start of the war with Iran. 156 people were killed, including 120 schoolchildren, but that didn’t outrage us, either.
We should be outraged at the war with Iran in general, because it remains illegal, immoral, and stupid. Illegal because it was not declared by Congress. Immoral because we killed schoolchildren. Stupid, because we are fighting to retain conditions that existed before the war, a circumstance that is causing History’s great commanders to roll in their graves.
Why we’re not capable of outrage anymore is not clear, though we have a theory: we are now in our seventh decade of TV and fast food occupying central places in American life. We are well entertained and well fed and aren’t really willing to get too worked up about anything that doesn’t affect that. We have full bellies and empty minds and, collectively, America is no longer capable of doing anything great or hard.
We deserve better than this. We deserve a government that doesn’t execute mariners on the high seas, doesn’t bomb school children, and only fights wars declared by Congress. But we’re not demanding that right now.
It is time for you and me – we the people of Colorado’s 2nd District – to start demanding it right now. We deserve better than the status quo, better than the ignorance of Donald Trump and the Republicans who enable him and the Democrats who are standing by and watching it. It is time for us to tell our state and our country that we are demanding better this Election Day.
If you agree, I would like to earn your vote. My name is Gaylon Kent, and I am the Libertarian Party’s nominee for Congress from Colorado’s 2nd District. We have a country to change; let’s get to work.
