J.T., my blue heeler, is one disgruntled pup. He didn’t ask for it but now he has a little sister. Her name is Belle, she is a rescue puppy. Like all older brothers, he sees her as a rather large annoyance. He is constantly yapping at her, telling her how to behave and what to do, or he’s yapping at us and snitching on her. Quickly, he has become the shunned puppy because he is always yapping about something. He doesn’t listen, just yaps. Shouts of “shut up J.T!” now reverberate around our house.

It occurred to me, this is politics today. People go around and “yap.” They yap on Twitter, they yap on Facebook, they yap on the news, they yap in a public forum and they yap behind the scenes. Just like older siblings, people are yapping to either “complain about the younger sibling” or they are verbally chastising the younger sibling for perceived oafishness. Democrats yap at Republicans. Republicans yap at Democrats. The media yaps at both sides and both sides yap right back. All of our yappers are yapping merely for yap’s sake (how fun was that sentence?). The prevalent feeling is the loudest and longest yappers win. No one listens.

As some might say … “What in the actual dog poop is going on?” We have become so focused on the “yappers,” no one is truly having a discussion. If we don’t like what we hear, we bark. The idea of intelligent discussion and thoughtful reasoned conclusions has gone the way of J.T.’s last meal (yes the backend). We are so busy yapping and castigating others, we have forgotten to listen and empathize. How do we fix it? I don’t know. If I knew that I’d make lots of money but I lay a lot of blame at the feet of both popular political parties.

Therefore, I’m going to form my own party….we are going to be Aloneitarians or Aloneicrats or Aloneicans.  The key word being “alone,” as in “leave us alone.” I am certainly aware we can’t ever be truly left alone. But as a former newsaholic, I can tell you “I don’t care anymore.” I am weary of the boorish bickering cretinous cantankerous, devilish duplicitous (gonna skip some here for the sake of brevity) juvenile judgemental sniveling snitching crap that passes for social discourse today. I don’t mind differences of opinion, I actually enjoy discussing an issue logically, but please act like rational intelligent human beings. Just because someone holds a different opinion from you, does not mean they are the offspring of Hell. If football players want to kneel, fine. Stop talking about it and take action if you want or don’t, I don’t care. Stop yapping. If the President calls someone a “poopy head,” I don’t care, stop yapping. If person A wronged person B and caused “X” to go wrong, I don’t care. Stop yapping. It’s like the whole world is full of little dogs with small dog complex and all they do is yap. For the love of my receding hairline … Shut up, J.T.!!

We want to live our lives with quiet dignity. We want to raise our children to be intelligent, thoughtful, empathetic human beings. We want to be free to make choices to better our lives and allow our children to surpass us. We want to smile, laugh or cry without the need for a news broadcast. Yes, bad things happen. Yes humans make mistakes. We acknowledge all of that with the caveat that every tragedy does not need federal, state or local intervention. We want to be free; we want to be allowed to discover the wonderful places freedom can take us. We want to be left alone to learn from our own mistakes and suffer the consequences. Sigh.

I don’t have an answer for J.T. He continues to think the solution to his troubles is to yap. Short of a muzzle or a yap activated shock collar (not really…relax A.S.P.C.A.), I don’t have a solution. I hope the passage of time and his maturation will reduce the yapping. I can only hope and pray the passage of time and maturation fixes our yapping too.

Travis D. Kern

Moultrie, Georgia