Don Tabor writes:

The problem is that if I, and other rational people, do not pay
attention, solutions to those problems will be proposed and enacted
which in many cases will be useless if not worse than the problem.

Actually, there's nothing you can do.

Most of what you see on the news does not affect you, and you cannot affect
most of what you see on the news. The reports are designed to make you
uneasy, so that you will seek reassurance--by watching more of the news. It
works very well with people who are not aware of how it is intended to work.

The reality is that if you stopped watching the news tomorrow, the world would
be neither a better nor a worse place in consequence. Most of what is on the
news is completely irrelevant to you, and you are irrelevant to it. There
isn't enough news that is truly linked to you in some way to fill all the
airtime that needs to be filled, and additionally the news that is linked to
you isn't scary, so it won't make you uneasy and eager to see more news.

But we can prevent some of them from happening again, or prepare to
deal more effectively with them if we cannot. Much as we analyze
aircraft mishaps to learn from our mistakes and those of others.

"We" meaning who? Certainly not you. There's nothing _you_ can do. That's
an illusion.

Actually, I am gathering signatures to run for the 14th Senate
District in Virginia this fall as the Libertarian Party candidate.

Which means you don't have a chance. It's ironic that a country that loves to
crow about its democratic tradition effectively prohibits the existence of
more than two parties, which effectively reduces many elections to merely a
choice between the incumbent and someone else ("change" or "don't change," a
bit like throwing dice).

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