Problem Solving and Troubleshooting

The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one. But anyone who is unwilling to admit there is trouble is going to be impervious to calls from problem solvers to participate in the troubleshooting process. We will not solve problems we refuse to admit we have, in other words. And while this all may seem very obvious and self-evident, the current state of things in the United States of America increasingly beggars belief in the wisdom and decency of the mushy middle folks. "It's just so hard" may be true. But there's more to the story than that, and we do not make things less hard when we are more stubborn than the facts about not acknowledging or reckoning with the facts of the situation. It will be less hard to know what to do about all these things if we stop trying to play pattycake with the folks on the Left - inside and outside the Church - who with each passing day show themselves to be inept control-freaks who view themselves as the ultimate judges and arbiters of truth and justice. The Leftists among us will, if given enough time, erect golden statues of themselves and demand we all bow down and worship, or else. And when the 'or else' takes the form of very hot furnaces made for disposing of non-compliant people, we will have to know which side of the furnace we stand - whether the inside or the outside. But if there is a line - like bowing down to a golden image of the king, for instance - which the mushy middle folks will eventually refuse to cross, it is not impolite or unloving for us principled types to start asking them to tell us where specifically it is.