I sit here, a white man, in white suburbia, ensconced in the bosom of white Middle Class prosperity, and I owe it all to my hard work and perseverance...
And white supremacy.
As someone pointed out to me on Twitter, what I have called for years "White privilege" is, in fact, simply a watered-down version of the truth of the matter: the domination of the White portion of American society is due to White supremacy, the idea that somehow, the melanin level of one's skin grants powers to those that others are not due, simply by virtue of having it or not. White supremacy is the idea that a person of any other color, even mixed with Whiteness, is automatically inferior. White supremacy is the idea that power must be concentrated in the hands of White people and must never be willingly given to anyone else.
White supremacy even has its own gradations, for it is clear that a White man is considered lord-and-master over anything and everything and everyone, even a White woman. Look to what happened this week in Texas, and you see it in action -- no woman of any color would be given the right to her own bodily autonomy with the say-so of the White men in power.
Of course, you will be alarmist, and sputter on about groups such as the Klu Klux Klan, and if White, will swear upon a convenient stack of Bibles that you are not like them. The point is, you don't have to be. White supremacy is not simply burning crosses on lawns and lynching Black men for whistling at White women.
White supremacy is the ultimate wink-and-a-nod, the unseen get-out-of-jail-free card, the worst kept secret handshake in history. You walk in the door and you get the loan, you get the slot at your favorite college, you get the job at a higher rate of pay, because the color of your skin walks into the room first, laying the groundwork for everything to come. It's not always so transparent, not always so overt, nor is it as subtle as some would love to claim. Electing a Black President did not magically cause it to evaporate. No number of successful Black actors, Black athletes, or Black politicians have served to eradicate it. At the end of the day, it is as pernicious as it was when irons, chains, and the lash held sway, but has now been covered over with a veneer of self-congratulation by many a White person who is sure that the whole sordid mess was cleaned up after the 60's.
We should note, that nobility in the name of righting the wrongs of race is not cut-and-dried, ever. With the 150th anniversary of the pivotal Civil War action at Gettysburg, the battle that spelled the turning of the tide against The Confederacy, we also have the anniversary of the draft riots in New York City, where many an immigrant community, angered at being conscripted to fight in the war, took to lynching Blacks and burning Black businesses and schools to show their displeasure, forcing weary Gettysburg soldiers to march to the city to quell the uprising.
The Civil War did not end racial inequities or injustice, anymore than the 60's Civil Rights movement that came after it would. Every momentous event in the history of White and Black relations merely serves to paper over the truth: that we cling to stereotypes, that we maintain our prejudices, that racial tension does not simply go away because Blacks and Whites go to the same universities and riots do not break out. Even now, a person such as myself, who prides himself on equanimity and a lack of racial prejudice in his heritage, is still betrayed occasionally by thoughts from dark recesses that paint those of other racial types in a bad fashion. To maintain personal racial tolerance is not the simple flipping of a switch in my conscious mind, but a constant struggle to overcome baser instincts buried in my subconscious by the stimuli I have been exposed to over time. Even where I strive to give equality to all people at all times, there is an accumulated detritus festering below the surface of my mind, roiling in its darker recesses to plague me, unbidden.
In the end, if I am honest with myself, I can claim to have built the successes I have made over the decades solely by dint of my hard work and pluck, but must acknowledge that my Whiteness was carried with me and certainly influenced some to give me opportunities or deference out of all proportion to my due. If that is so, then it is equally true that many around me, who worked as hard, if not harder, were barred from reaping the benefits of the fruits of that labor, by being unable to carry the calling card of Whiteness with them.
Now, after all this, we have the incomprehensible result of a trial in which an armed White man killed an unarmed Black boy in cold blood and will not be held accountable, save by his God. While we can claim that the jury made the only verdict it could given the evidence presented, justice is not about the cold, hard facts of law, but about the warm, soft edges of human nature and behavior. A law may say that if you fear for your life, you might kill another in self-defense, but does it seem reasonable that this applies to a man who chose to pursue the black Boy, because he was a black Boy? A man with no authority, save that which he forged for himself through his machinations, who was given the instruction to allow people with authority (the police) to handle the situation? A man, who had a concealed weapon, that turned his cowardice into "courage?"
No, it is not mere privilege that explains this, for privilege is bestowed by those with the power. Supremacy is enforced, by the use of all the tools available to press others down, to tear power from their hands, to marginalize and demonize them, denigrating them and making them somehow less than those who hold supremacy. It is always the case that conflict starts when one group turns another group into something other than their group is; in this instance, the White person maintains the Black person is lower, inferior, less intelligent, less educated, and then enforces those views with the tools at hand, by stripping away educational opportunities, forcing them into poverty, abandoning them to crime, and using that as "evidence" that the supremacy is correct.
The George Zimmerman verdict is only the most visible sign that White supremacy is alive and well in our nation, and still holds sway over a society that continues to trill its belief in "all men are created equal." That equality is, sadly, merely a good idea; it has gained no true traction in the nation that has enshrined it in a "sacred" document of its creation. The council of White, landowning men that wrote and signed off on those words perhaps believed their intention was enough, but by not broadening it to "all people" being equal, and by enshrining Black slavery directly in the Constitution, they laced a noble idea of self-governance with a perpetuation of their White supremacy. Over two hundred years later, and despite our best efforts, we have not honestly expunged the ghosts of it from every corner of our land.
So Mr. Zimmerman walks free, which is more than can be said for his victim, Trayvon Martin, and we are outraged, but then, we built this system, with our inattention to the workings of our government and our nation. That inattention allowed the perpetuation of White supremacy in the guise of governance, and allowed the purveyors of such supremacy to ensconce themselves in positions of power by dissuading everyone else from becoming engaged. But no one should turn us from our right and proper duty: the maintenance, and occasional readjustment, of our Local, State, and Federal governments. This moment is the clarion call that should stir the beating heart of any American to action, to right the wrong this verdict represents by ensuring it never happens again. The restoration of true and consistent order in our nation is our responsibility, and we can no longer shirk it.
It is time to fold the tent of racial supremacy. The White portion of America, slowly merging into the national milieu, can no longer count itself as superior, the only just arbiter of what is proper. We were never anointed masters of the world -- we stole that from every other race we could, and now our transgressions fold in upon us. As much as I, a White man, want to grasp the reins of power, to restore order, to make amends, I know I cannot. I must cede control and convince others of my race to do likewise, to attempt to create balance in a nation that has never known it. It is not enough to bring up other races, genders, creeds, or sexual orientations; I must tear down that apparatus that has kept those groups in the shadows, without hesitation or fear. It is time my country lived up to the fair and just principles long ago espoused, without qualification, and without malice. Let there be the new birth of freedom President Lincoln called for, but this time let it be real, and let it ring throughout the centuries from this day forward.
Showing posts with label liberty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberty. Show all posts
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Thursday, December 20, 2012
In The Shadow Of One Gunman
28 people are dead. One gunman, the gunman's mother, six staff members and twenty children from an elementary school in a quieter part of Connecticut, a town that many of us might drive through or past on our way to anywhere else in New England.
This event is nothing new, not even in recent memory. It joins a litany of such events that have happened in many parts of the nation, in many publicly accessible places, and to many types of people. Every time it has happened, every time the wailing of frightened victims has mixed with the flat crack of high-velocity projectiles and the attempts of some to stop or prevent greater carnage, a nation gasps, horrified, shakes it's head, mutters "never again," before casting its glance back down to rectangular screens, where they read stories of young, black men gunned down on street corners by white men who were "standing their ground."
Only now, there is a barely subsumed rage at work, a primal enmity that for most years floated below the surface of economic woes, Presidential elections, real estate crashes, foreign wars, falling buildings, celebrity breakups, and cable television, barely managing a ripple. It breaches the surface, shouldering aside all other thoughts and cares, resplendent in the bright of day, a stately leviathan whose mass is undeniable in its presence. All it took was the death of white suburban six- and seven-year-olds.
It may seem coarse to break that moment in Newtown, Connecticut down this way, and I, like many others, am tinged with a pain that will not seem to ebb, but it must be little consolation to the parents of all those massacred before or the families of those murdered on streets and in homes every day to share their grief with so many new families. The common denominator, here as with all that came before is simple: guns. Circumstances, time of day, place, mental health, upbringing... all these things may be different, but there is the commonality of readily and easily available weapons to those who perpetrated the crimes which so shocked us at the time. At some point, in some manner, people who have lost a connection -- or may never have had it -- with human society take these devices for dealing death and spray their unhappiness, their despondency, their rage, their phobias, their hatred over a broad swath of the rest of us. People, who rose that morning to another new day, do not live to see the sun set again.
One is left to ask: when were we going to act? What about the murder of Abraham Lincoln did not change our society? Or John F. Kennedy? Or Martin Luther King, Jr.? Or Medgar Evers? Or the attack on President Ronald Reagan? The rampage at Columbine? Virginia Tech? The attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords? The death of Trayvon Martin? What among these events did not say to us: "That is not our way. This is not acceptable."?
These deaths of innocent children are but the tip of a very long spear that America carries because the Founding Fathers could not conceive of weapons with torrential rates of fire and bullets designed to rend and tear and ruin. They wrote the Second Amendment at a time when the nation was young, ill-formed, nascent, vulnerable, and they wanted every American who wanted to, to be able to have a gun, with the express purpose of being able to raise state militias in the face of invasion by a foreign power. The War of 1812 was an example of the necessity: America was not yet strong enough to repel an invasion and it was only through the judicious use of militia forces that battle could be tipped in America's favor.
While it may be that the Founders had the forethought to equip America with the ability to fight battles upon its own shores as the nation slowly rose in strength, they did not have the precognitive ability or personal will to place limitations on what the Second Amendment implied. Thus it was left, its language making perfect sense in the 18th or 19th Century, but inconceivable in the face of the 20th Century and the Tommy gun. And no doubt, it was this insurance that well-armed militias could be raised at a moment's notice that allowed The Civil War to be fought, as Southern militias rose from the fields to take on a U.S. Army welded to the Union. Even when that was over, General Ulysses Grant and Abraham Lincoln were loathe to take the arms of every Southerner, for their now deposed nation was so ravaged that hunting would be necessary to feed families.
The gun has gone from liberator to protector to terror. Now, the tip of the spear has wounded our nation's heart, by slaying 20 of our most innocent. We must hold a personal amount of shame, each one of us, that none of the earlier tragedies pushed us toward action, but to fail now, fail to let this pain slough off the shell of inaction that prevented us from seeing clearly, would be criminal. Whatever else must come from this, there must be a final recognition that the unfettered access to guns is not the solution to the further protection of a nation, but is too much a path of destruction. Abraham Lincoln noted it, that the chances were very small that our nation would be crushed by a trans-Atlantic foe, but that we would commit suicide as a nation. He said this, even as the United States was embroiled in a war whose outcome seemed none too certain.
The Second Amendment was tailored toward the protection of the nation as a whole; it was never meant to establish the right of personal protection beyond that ownership of arms for national protection. That is the construction of those who see guns, not in their proper context as weapons, but as dollar signs. An industry that feeds on war cannot live by war, and so it must sow its deadly seeds where peace was meant to reign. To do this, has required a vast and complex interlinking of factors: the disenfranchisement of minorities, the lowering of educational standards, an increase in poverty, the creation of the idea that young, black men are a "dangerous" group in and of themselves, the spreading of abject fear through outright lies and petty obfuscations, and so on. By the gun lobby wrapping itself in the Second Amendment, the American flag, branding themselves as patriots, co-opting the National Rifle Association to be their confidence men, and allying themselves with the Republican Party mainly, the arms industry has planted seeds of self-destruction that people like the shooter in Newtown were all too happy to reap.
If there is any silver lining to such a virulent tragedy, it is that perhaps now the public is finally galvanized to action. Combine that with the hard fought Presidential election, and perhaps in the air now wafts the scent of organization and action required for Americans to take back control of their country from the special interests and parties that seek to turn it into their own personal fiefdom. Maybe now, a healthy dose of common sense can be taken in by a deep inhalation of that scent. and finally, after the drowsy slumbers of past decades, we can awaken the United States of America to the threat in its midst.
If we do nothing -- again! -- then we set a steady course for the dissolution of our nation in a hail of bullets, a self-inflicted wound that will bleed away individual freedom and liberty here for all time. We stand in the shadow that gunman and it is time to come back into the light.
This event is nothing new, not even in recent memory. It joins a litany of such events that have happened in many parts of the nation, in many publicly accessible places, and to many types of people. Every time it has happened, every time the wailing of frightened victims has mixed with the flat crack of high-velocity projectiles and the attempts of some to stop or prevent greater carnage, a nation gasps, horrified, shakes it's head, mutters "never again," before casting its glance back down to rectangular screens, where they read stories of young, black men gunned down on street corners by white men who were "standing their ground."
Only now, there is a barely subsumed rage at work, a primal enmity that for most years floated below the surface of economic woes, Presidential elections, real estate crashes, foreign wars, falling buildings, celebrity breakups, and cable television, barely managing a ripple. It breaches the surface, shouldering aside all other thoughts and cares, resplendent in the bright of day, a stately leviathan whose mass is undeniable in its presence. All it took was the death of white suburban six- and seven-year-olds.
It may seem coarse to break that moment in Newtown, Connecticut down this way, and I, like many others, am tinged with a pain that will not seem to ebb, but it must be little consolation to the parents of all those massacred before or the families of those murdered on streets and in homes every day to share their grief with so many new families. The common denominator, here as with all that came before is simple: guns. Circumstances, time of day, place, mental health, upbringing... all these things may be different, but there is the commonality of readily and easily available weapons to those who perpetrated the crimes which so shocked us at the time. At some point, in some manner, people who have lost a connection -- or may never have had it -- with human society take these devices for dealing death and spray their unhappiness, their despondency, their rage, their phobias, their hatred over a broad swath of the rest of us. People, who rose that morning to another new day, do not live to see the sun set again.
One is left to ask: when were we going to act? What about the murder of Abraham Lincoln did not change our society? Or John F. Kennedy? Or Martin Luther King, Jr.? Or Medgar Evers? Or the attack on President Ronald Reagan? The rampage at Columbine? Virginia Tech? The attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords? The death of Trayvon Martin? What among these events did not say to us: "That is not our way. This is not acceptable."?
These deaths of innocent children are but the tip of a very long spear that America carries because the Founding Fathers could not conceive of weapons with torrential rates of fire and bullets designed to rend and tear and ruin. They wrote the Second Amendment at a time when the nation was young, ill-formed, nascent, vulnerable, and they wanted every American who wanted to, to be able to have a gun, with the express purpose of being able to raise state militias in the face of invasion by a foreign power. The War of 1812 was an example of the necessity: America was not yet strong enough to repel an invasion and it was only through the judicious use of militia forces that battle could be tipped in America's favor.
While it may be that the Founders had the forethought to equip America with the ability to fight battles upon its own shores as the nation slowly rose in strength, they did not have the precognitive ability or personal will to place limitations on what the Second Amendment implied. Thus it was left, its language making perfect sense in the 18th or 19th Century, but inconceivable in the face of the 20th Century and the Tommy gun. And no doubt, it was this insurance that well-armed militias could be raised at a moment's notice that allowed The Civil War to be fought, as Southern militias rose from the fields to take on a U.S. Army welded to the Union. Even when that was over, General Ulysses Grant and Abraham Lincoln were loathe to take the arms of every Southerner, for their now deposed nation was so ravaged that hunting would be necessary to feed families.
The gun has gone from liberator to protector to terror. Now, the tip of the spear has wounded our nation's heart, by slaying 20 of our most innocent. We must hold a personal amount of shame, each one of us, that none of the earlier tragedies pushed us toward action, but to fail now, fail to let this pain slough off the shell of inaction that prevented us from seeing clearly, would be criminal. Whatever else must come from this, there must be a final recognition that the unfettered access to guns is not the solution to the further protection of a nation, but is too much a path of destruction. Abraham Lincoln noted it, that the chances were very small that our nation would be crushed by a trans-Atlantic foe, but that we would commit suicide as a nation. He said this, even as the United States was embroiled in a war whose outcome seemed none too certain.
The Second Amendment was tailored toward the protection of the nation as a whole; it was never meant to establish the right of personal protection beyond that ownership of arms for national protection. That is the construction of those who see guns, not in their proper context as weapons, but as dollar signs. An industry that feeds on war cannot live by war, and so it must sow its deadly seeds where peace was meant to reign. To do this, has required a vast and complex interlinking of factors: the disenfranchisement of minorities, the lowering of educational standards, an increase in poverty, the creation of the idea that young, black men are a "dangerous" group in and of themselves, the spreading of abject fear through outright lies and petty obfuscations, and so on. By the gun lobby wrapping itself in the Second Amendment, the American flag, branding themselves as patriots, co-opting the National Rifle Association to be their confidence men, and allying themselves with the Republican Party mainly, the arms industry has planted seeds of self-destruction that people like the shooter in Newtown were all too happy to reap.
If there is any silver lining to such a virulent tragedy, it is that perhaps now the public is finally galvanized to action. Combine that with the hard fought Presidential election, and perhaps in the air now wafts the scent of organization and action required for Americans to take back control of their country from the special interests and parties that seek to turn it into their own personal fiefdom. Maybe now, a healthy dose of common sense can be taken in by a deep inhalation of that scent. and finally, after the drowsy slumbers of past decades, we can awaken the United States of America to the threat in its midst.
If we do nothing -- again! -- then we set a steady course for the dissolution of our nation in a hail of bullets, a self-inflicted wound that will bleed away individual freedom and liberty here for all time. We stand in the shadow that gunman and it is time to come back into the light.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Revolution Declared, Revolution Unfinished
The day was July 2nd, though it is not the day we celebrate. On that day, a document was sent forth to be read everywhere, writ by the hand of Thomas Jefferson, that said that the thirteen British colonies in North America were no longer colonies, but states, and that those states were -- of a necessity viscerally felt -- no longer beholden to the British Empire. In the moment of this document becoming public, all hope of reconciliation with the mother country was consigned to futility, and the states were left to gamble what little they had, that they could, in fact, create the very nation they claimed they would.
We sit with two hundred thirty-six years of hindsight before us, and a checkered, quirky, sometimes nonsensical history behind us. We are at the latest of a series of crossroads, whose origin can be traced to that hot Summer in 1776 and the decisions made by the founders of our nation. Men all, slave-owners some, intellectuals most, these founders put down the blueprint for a nation in the words scrawled across that parchment. It was only a promissory note for a nation, but at least the thought was now on paper and public. It was not a guarantee of anything, only a hope that a nation could be built upon more human and reasonable principles.
Of course, the blueprint was flawed from the start, because these Founding Fathers, though intellectual and progressive for their day, were unwilling to challenge the conventions of their world. They allowed slaves and slavery to be written into the fabric of the nation, which lent a hollow sound to the phrase "all men are created equal." And in that, too, was the further hypocrisy of claiming inalienable rights, then denying those self-same rights to women.
Many of the Founding Fathers knew it was flawed, but they chose expedience and the desire for union over correcting all the wrongs of human society at that time and building a nation cleanly from the start. The native tribes of North America were left out. Slaves remained slaves. Women remained bound to men. In this, the foundation of the United States was shaky, and that weakness would cause crumbling that led time and time again to conflict that was wholly unnecessary. Even with a civil war, the foundation could not be shored up enough to keep the nation from facing the occasional shaking to its core. To this day and even in this century, we hear the creaking of floors, wrench at stuck and squealing doors, and note the slant and slope of the window frames which keep so many shut.
They knew, these men, that what they started in July of 1776 would not spring fully formed from the earth, nor would it be a perfect union. They felt, rightly or wrongly, that it was more important to get the nation built, get it standing, and that it would be left to future generations to improve upon their workmanship. They were not afflicted with such hubris as to think they had, at a stroke, done so easily what thousands of generations of humans before had not been able to manage. Their belief was that if American citizens were given freedom and liberty, and the tools to maintain them, they could immeasurably improve what was begun.
So we stand here on another July 4th, Independence Day, and we are split. Some among us believe in America that is perfect as she stands, and see every attempt to change her as an affront to the founding. Some see a nation rife with hypocrisy and feel that we are deluding ourselves in thinking we are free. Many just want to live a normal life, and not be drawn into every battle over the meaning of being an American. Whatever your belief, whatever you may think, it is important to know this: this day we celebrate, is the birth date of an idea, a concept, not a full-fledged utopia. The revolution that began with this bold declaration, far from being over with the battle of Yorktown and the passage of the Constitution, would go on. It would go on at every point where people decided that our nation was not quite right yet, where some small matter or large injustice required adjustment.
It goes on even now.
What this day should mean to us, is a re-dedication to the cause that so emboldened the Founding Fathers, the cause of Freedom, Liberty, and Justice For All. We should recognize that what was begun with the reading of those words, "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another..." has never truly ended, nor can it. Though the flags are in their cases, the canons silent, the muskets propped up in the chimney corner, and the uniforms packed away, the American Revolution rolls on. Every American who looks at their nation, appreciates all that it gives them in the way of law and liberty, but knows there is more work to be done, especially where such law and liberty are not equitably apportioned to every single one of us. It remains the work of the sons and daughters of the American Revolution, and all who have joined them from shores far and wide, to continue the fight, and never surrender.
We sit with two hundred thirty-six years of hindsight before us, and a checkered, quirky, sometimes nonsensical history behind us. We are at the latest of a series of crossroads, whose origin can be traced to that hot Summer in 1776 and the decisions made by the founders of our nation. Men all, slave-owners some, intellectuals most, these founders put down the blueprint for a nation in the words scrawled across that parchment. It was only a promissory note for a nation, but at least the thought was now on paper and public. It was not a guarantee of anything, only a hope that a nation could be built upon more human and reasonable principles.
Of course, the blueprint was flawed from the start, because these Founding Fathers, though intellectual and progressive for their day, were unwilling to challenge the conventions of their world. They allowed slaves and slavery to be written into the fabric of the nation, which lent a hollow sound to the phrase "all men are created equal." And in that, too, was the further hypocrisy of claiming inalienable rights, then denying those self-same rights to women.
Many of the Founding Fathers knew it was flawed, but they chose expedience and the desire for union over correcting all the wrongs of human society at that time and building a nation cleanly from the start. The native tribes of North America were left out. Slaves remained slaves. Women remained bound to men. In this, the foundation of the United States was shaky, and that weakness would cause crumbling that led time and time again to conflict that was wholly unnecessary. Even with a civil war, the foundation could not be shored up enough to keep the nation from facing the occasional shaking to its core. To this day and even in this century, we hear the creaking of floors, wrench at stuck and squealing doors, and note the slant and slope of the window frames which keep so many shut.
They knew, these men, that what they started in July of 1776 would not spring fully formed from the earth, nor would it be a perfect union. They felt, rightly or wrongly, that it was more important to get the nation built, get it standing, and that it would be left to future generations to improve upon their workmanship. They were not afflicted with such hubris as to think they had, at a stroke, done so easily what thousands of generations of humans before had not been able to manage. Their belief was that if American citizens were given freedom and liberty, and the tools to maintain them, they could immeasurably improve what was begun.
So we stand here on another July 4th, Independence Day, and we are split. Some among us believe in America that is perfect as she stands, and see every attempt to change her as an affront to the founding. Some see a nation rife with hypocrisy and feel that we are deluding ourselves in thinking we are free. Many just want to live a normal life, and not be drawn into every battle over the meaning of being an American. Whatever your belief, whatever you may think, it is important to know this: this day we celebrate, is the birth date of an idea, a concept, not a full-fledged utopia. The revolution that began with this bold declaration, far from being over with the battle of Yorktown and the passage of the Constitution, would go on. It would go on at every point where people decided that our nation was not quite right yet, where some small matter or large injustice required adjustment.
It goes on even now.
What this day should mean to us, is a re-dedication to the cause that so emboldened the Founding Fathers, the cause of Freedom, Liberty, and Justice For All. We should recognize that what was begun with the reading of those words, "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another..." has never truly ended, nor can it. Though the flags are in their cases, the canons silent, the muskets propped up in the chimney corner, and the uniforms packed away, the American Revolution rolls on. Every American who looks at their nation, appreciates all that it gives them in the way of law and liberty, but knows there is more work to be done, especially where such law and liberty are not equitably apportioned to every single one of us. It remains the work of the sons and daughters of the American Revolution, and all who have joined them from shores far and wide, to continue the fight, and never surrender.
Monday, April 2, 2012
If It Means What It Says
It becomes increasingly clear, that there are forces within the United States who are bent on the reversion of our nation to a state of puritanical and parochial existence, such that none may have the inherent, inalienable rights one is born with, save at their whim. At every juncture, at every turn, they seek to tear at the fabric of open, honest liberty with medieval precision, purveying fear, giving in to greed, and fed by self-righteous fury at those who would dare speak against them, as if they come wreathed in unquestionable Solomonic wisdom. They warp the meaning of the hallowed documents that form our nation, to build up their own "patriotic" facade, even as they make shambles of them, all in the name of American "exceptionalism."
There is nothing exceptional in hypocrisy and being holier-than-thou.
Even now, states across our country seek to limit the rights of women, seek to deny the LGBT community their rights as citizens, and seek to place the imprimatur of Christianity on a nation founded on the precept of division of Church and State. They stand against anything that works toward the benefit of the whole nation, where they would be asked to sacrifice something of theirs to provide for others, a very Christian notion in and of itself. They look down upon anyone who does not work, and then look down upon them again when they do. They are prepared to take what everyone has worked so hard for and flush it away in an orgy of self-congratulatory fiscal prudence.
It is madness.
Our nation is caught up in a torrent of bigotry, racism, sexism, narcissism, homophobia, ignorance, and blind hatred the likes of which could be seen during the Dark Ages. A nation founded on individual freedom and liberty, steeped in the expansive leanings of The Enlightenment, built to give its citizens full power and faith in their government, is being wrecked, internally, by covetous, pandering, fear mongers who are determined to drag the bulk of the citizenry before their version of God and pass sentence, denying us our legal rights and trampling on the precepts of democracy in the process, all in a vainglorious attempt to prove their piety.
This iteration of our nation is nothing that Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Hamilton, Washington, or any of the Founders would recognize as a product of their handiwork. The trappings would seem familiar, but the atmosphere in the halls of Congress would lead them to believe that bedlam had replaced discourse, and that the "united" in "United States" was being paid lip service in the name of partisanship and self-righteousness. Even among the many, varied, and sometimes divisive opinions held by the Founding Fathers, consensus could be reached for the good of the whole nation, or it would not even exist.
If the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States mean what they say, that we are a nation conceived in liberty, that the general welfare is paramount, and that the rights of the individual are inviolate save where the greater good of all citizens is involved, then the current wave of right-wing attacks on individual liberty and freedom goes contrary to what this nation is supposed to be. We recognize that each of us has the right to be who we are, and make decisions for ourselves, save where there are larger considerations. Our nation cannot become slave to narrow-minded thinking, to muddled intellect, to religious fervor, to absolutism, like so many other nations have. Our flexibility, our diversity, our strength of purpose, are our greatest assets; where we fail as a nation is in denying them.
No woman should be told what she can and cannot do with her body by another person. No two people -- where the government says it holds the right to so legislate -- should be told they cannot seal eternal love for one another in matrimony. No black person should have to walk down the street in fear that they will die for no greater offense than to have been born with their skin. No immigrant to this nation -- here legally or not -- should be treated as less than a human being solely for the desire to provide a life for their family. No person, of any stripe, should be told that because of who they are, they may not take full advantage of all the rights and privileges of American citizenship. No American citizen should be denied the right to vote, merely because they cannot produce an ID card.
If the words that were written in support of our nation mean what they do, then it is time to stop the witch hunt, time to bring down the prejudices, time to rectify the injustices suffered by so many in our nation, as opposed to furthering and deepening them. America cannot support and defend the cussedness of intemperate and backward thinking any longer. For the nation to grow, we must move forward, ever forward, not remain mired in the past. Stagnation leads to death, and so noble an experiment as America was conceived to be, should not be killed by the very people who benefit from its existence. The hypocrisy must end. Our nation must rise to become the nation it was always meant to be.
There is nothing exceptional in hypocrisy and being holier-than-thou.
Even now, states across our country seek to limit the rights of women, seek to deny the LGBT community their rights as citizens, and seek to place the imprimatur of Christianity on a nation founded on the precept of division of Church and State. They stand against anything that works toward the benefit of the whole nation, where they would be asked to sacrifice something of theirs to provide for others, a very Christian notion in and of itself. They look down upon anyone who does not work, and then look down upon them again when they do. They are prepared to take what everyone has worked so hard for and flush it away in an orgy of self-congratulatory fiscal prudence.
It is madness.
Our nation is caught up in a torrent of bigotry, racism, sexism, narcissism, homophobia, ignorance, and blind hatred the likes of which could be seen during the Dark Ages. A nation founded on individual freedom and liberty, steeped in the expansive leanings of The Enlightenment, built to give its citizens full power and faith in their government, is being wrecked, internally, by covetous, pandering, fear mongers who are determined to drag the bulk of the citizenry before their version of God and pass sentence, denying us our legal rights and trampling on the precepts of democracy in the process, all in a vainglorious attempt to prove their piety.
This iteration of our nation is nothing that Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Hamilton, Washington, or any of the Founders would recognize as a product of their handiwork. The trappings would seem familiar, but the atmosphere in the halls of Congress would lead them to believe that bedlam had replaced discourse, and that the "united" in "United States" was being paid lip service in the name of partisanship and self-righteousness. Even among the many, varied, and sometimes divisive opinions held by the Founding Fathers, consensus could be reached for the good of the whole nation, or it would not even exist.
If the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States mean what they say, that we are a nation conceived in liberty, that the general welfare is paramount, and that the rights of the individual are inviolate save where the greater good of all citizens is involved, then the current wave of right-wing attacks on individual liberty and freedom goes contrary to what this nation is supposed to be. We recognize that each of us has the right to be who we are, and make decisions for ourselves, save where there are larger considerations. Our nation cannot become slave to narrow-minded thinking, to muddled intellect, to religious fervor, to absolutism, like so many other nations have. Our flexibility, our diversity, our strength of purpose, are our greatest assets; where we fail as a nation is in denying them.
No woman should be told what she can and cannot do with her body by another person. No two people -- where the government says it holds the right to so legislate -- should be told they cannot seal eternal love for one another in matrimony. No black person should have to walk down the street in fear that they will die for no greater offense than to have been born with their skin. No immigrant to this nation -- here legally or not -- should be treated as less than a human being solely for the desire to provide a life for their family. No person, of any stripe, should be told that because of who they are, they may not take full advantage of all the rights and privileges of American citizenship. No American citizen should be denied the right to vote, merely because they cannot produce an ID card.
If the words that were written in support of our nation mean what they do, then it is time to stop the witch hunt, time to bring down the prejudices, time to rectify the injustices suffered by so many in our nation, as opposed to furthering and deepening them. America cannot support and defend the cussedness of intemperate and backward thinking any longer. For the nation to grow, we must move forward, ever forward, not remain mired in the past. Stagnation leads to death, and so noble an experiment as America was conceived to be, should not be killed by the very people who benefit from its existence. The hypocrisy must end. Our nation must rise to become the nation it was always meant to be.
Friday, February 24, 2012
What Right Is This That Men Make But Do Not Honor?
Let us start from first principles, and accept the premise that -- as was put in the Declaration of Independence -- we are all equal and endowed with unalienable rights. Let us also say that any American citizen, nay, any human being, can be said to claim such rights implicitly.
If we have posited such, and we accept such, and this fundamental ideal is the basis upon which a nation was founded and forged, what business have any of us to declaim against it?
To be fair, we have every right, by the Constitution of the United States, to say what we will in regards to individual liberty and freedom. Any opinion may be expressed; any thought may be, though not must be, shared in regards to it.
However... while we might rant and rail about specific formulations and values of said unalienable rights, we are not given leave to strip those rights from others, merely upon our say-so or the say-so of others. That they are proclaimed "unalienable" means they are not forfeit, not subject to the vagaries of human foible. Though one or all among us might proclaim them limited, their very essence proclaims them beyond the pale.
So, if we take the Founding Fathers at their word, those rights are ours and so on in perpetuity. Those rights may be regulated, where some of us would presume that our rights are superior and therefore should attempt to subject all of us to their whim, but to strip them as to leave none intact is a barbarity that turns citizens into slaves.
As such, the attempts of some legislative bodies in our nation to take the unalienable right to the control and disposition of one's own body -- specifically where one is a woman or of the female gender -- and remove their freedom of action is tyrannical. It is anathema to the spirit and law of the nation. It is a reckless and ruinous attempt to bend the will of women into a subservience that only in the last one hundred years they have managed to dig themselves out of.
The same can be said of the attempt to place those who identify as homosexuals from enjoying the same level of rights and privilege as all other Americans. Where we define things as matters of the State, and where the State is tasked with ensuring that such things are distributed equally to all, how can it be that we deny some the same rights as others? At every level, we have known this to be wrong: with blacks, with native tribes, with women, with immigrants. How can we claim that now another group is deserving of such shoddy treatment in the face of such factual and historical knowledge?
If one wishes to not avail themselves of certain medical procedures, or live their life in a certain circumspect fashion, owing to their personal feelings or beliefs, then they should -- and do -- have the freedom to do so. But as belief is the province of the individual, so is the right of self-determination, and one's beliefs do not automatically supersede those of others, despite what those beliefs might impute. The right of the individual, where such a right does not trample upon the self-same rights of all individuals, is paramount.
Of course, where we come to governance, the rights of the individual must be balanced against the rights of our society as a whole. Where this is true, liberality is preferable to close-fisted adherence. The litmus test must be the effect of the thing on society as a whole, where such effect is broad and direct. More often than not, outside the realm of those who commit crimes, the effect of the thing lays upon the individual's doorstep, not out own. It is disingenuous to claim that the thing affects those who have no direct tie to it, save in a tenuous and ephemeral fashion.
Ultimately, enough things find confluence in our society, that we are all affected, to a degree, and that is where government is tasked to ensure such effects are not deleterious. The government must, in this process, ensure that at no point is the effect so disproportionate to the measures designed to deal with it, that it can be said to remove our unalienable rights. We will be asked to tacitly support some things we do not, ourselves, see as necessary or desirable, but that should be done so only where the greater good will be directly influenced, not where such are in the realm of caprice. The ultimate goal of our unity is the resolution and equality of all things across society.
The diversity of belief, opinion, and action is out greatest strength, where we do not choose to impose it unnecessarily on everyone. Our unalienable rights start and end with us. Where you choose to tread upon those rights in others, you no longer deserve them yourself, and it is oafish hypocrisy to claim otherwise. All people are not subject to your whim, where they have the right, paid for in blood, to be free. It is time to end the continual perfidy that comes of intolerance for the beliefs of others and learn to live within the bounds of the human community as it is.
If we have posited such, and we accept such, and this fundamental ideal is the basis upon which a nation was founded and forged, what business have any of us to declaim against it?
To be fair, we have every right, by the Constitution of the United States, to say what we will in regards to individual liberty and freedom. Any opinion may be expressed; any thought may be, though not must be, shared in regards to it.
However... while we might rant and rail about specific formulations and values of said unalienable rights, we are not given leave to strip those rights from others, merely upon our say-so or the say-so of others. That they are proclaimed "unalienable" means they are not forfeit, not subject to the vagaries of human foible. Though one or all among us might proclaim them limited, their very essence proclaims them beyond the pale.
So, if we take the Founding Fathers at their word, those rights are ours and so on in perpetuity. Those rights may be regulated, where some of us would presume that our rights are superior and therefore should attempt to subject all of us to their whim, but to strip them as to leave none intact is a barbarity that turns citizens into slaves.
As such, the attempts of some legislative bodies in our nation to take the unalienable right to the control and disposition of one's own body -- specifically where one is a woman or of the female gender -- and remove their freedom of action is tyrannical. It is anathema to the spirit and law of the nation. It is a reckless and ruinous attempt to bend the will of women into a subservience that only in the last one hundred years they have managed to dig themselves out of.
The same can be said of the attempt to place those who identify as homosexuals from enjoying the same level of rights and privilege as all other Americans. Where we define things as matters of the State, and where the State is tasked with ensuring that such things are distributed equally to all, how can it be that we deny some the same rights as others? At every level, we have known this to be wrong: with blacks, with native tribes, with women, with immigrants. How can we claim that now another group is deserving of such shoddy treatment in the face of such factual and historical knowledge?
If one wishes to not avail themselves of certain medical procedures, or live their life in a certain circumspect fashion, owing to their personal feelings or beliefs, then they should -- and do -- have the freedom to do so. But as belief is the province of the individual, so is the right of self-determination, and one's beliefs do not automatically supersede those of others, despite what those beliefs might impute. The right of the individual, where such a right does not trample upon the self-same rights of all individuals, is paramount.
Of course, where we come to governance, the rights of the individual must be balanced against the rights of our society as a whole. Where this is true, liberality is preferable to close-fisted adherence. The litmus test must be the effect of the thing on society as a whole, where such effect is broad and direct. More often than not, outside the realm of those who commit crimes, the effect of the thing lays upon the individual's doorstep, not out own. It is disingenuous to claim that the thing affects those who have no direct tie to it, save in a tenuous and ephemeral fashion.
Ultimately, enough things find confluence in our society, that we are all affected, to a degree, and that is where government is tasked to ensure such effects are not deleterious. The government must, in this process, ensure that at no point is the effect so disproportionate to the measures designed to deal with it, that it can be said to remove our unalienable rights. We will be asked to tacitly support some things we do not, ourselves, see as necessary or desirable, but that should be done so only where the greater good will be directly influenced, not where such are in the realm of caprice. The ultimate goal of our unity is the resolution and equality of all things across society.
The diversity of belief, opinion, and action is out greatest strength, where we do not choose to impose it unnecessarily on everyone. Our unalienable rights start and end with us. Where you choose to tread upon those rights in others, you no longer deserve them yourself, and it is oafish hypocrisy to claim otherwise. All people are not subject to your whim, where they have the right, paid for in blood, to be free. It is time to end the continual perfidy that comes of intolerance for the beliefs of others and learn to live within the bounds of the human community as it is.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Turning Bones To Dust
The streets of Homs in Syria are slowly becoming caked in the blood of people whose only offense is that they prefer freedom to tyranny, as the tyrant shows his love for "his" people by showering them with a fusillade of rockets and mortars. Not unlike Libya in the recent past, a people seek to throw off the yolk of oppression, and are willing to fight if that is their only recourse. But there is fighting for freedom and then there is being an animal penned for the slaughter, and right now freedom lasts only as long as the whistling shriek of the shells.
The Syrian government refuses all calls to remove itself from power. Any deals brokered to do so are quickly cast aside or forgotten. The Arab League seems powerless to act. Certain members of the United Nations obstinately refuse to acknowledge the dying shrieks that ring forth amid the shuddering blasts that fill the town. Condemnation is rife, but action is nigh invisible. No sanctions, no blockade, can shield a populace from the hellish fury of a dictator bent on retaining power.
It is perhaps incumbent upon the United States to once more be forced to take the lead, as it is ever so. Surely, there will be nattering in many corners by some, who will first chastise us for doing nothing then chastise us again for taking action. But, do we dare stand idly by and let innocents suffer? No one has ever handed us a badge, but many have looked to us in the past to take up the mantle of protector of freedom and defender of liberty. There can be only be hand-wringing in engaging in another conflict, but there can be no peace while blood is spilled in the name of tyranny.
What to do? We must come to a decision soon. Where we wish to keep the sword, we do so with the tacit knowledge that we will be called upon to wield it. We must be unwilling, we must be reticent, lest we become enamored of our power, but the time comes when other considerations must be laid aside and the greater good must step to the fore. We cannot allow people to die where we can do something to stop it. Let it be that we take action now, and when it is done, take that same energy of destruction and turn it to energy of construction. A people cry out; how can we not answer?
The Syrian government refuses all calls to remove itself from power. Any deals brokered to do so are quickly cast aside or forgotten. The Arab League seems powerless to act. Certain members of the United Nations obstinately refuse to acknowledge the dying shrieks that ring forth amid the shuddering blasts that fill the town. Condemnation is rife, but action is nigh invisible. No sanctions, no blockade, can shield a populace from the hellish fury of a dictator bent on retaining power.
It is perhaps incumbent upon the United States to once more be forced to take the lead, as it is ever so. Surely, there will be nattering in many corners by some, who will first chastise us for doing nothing then chastise us again for taking action. But, do we dare stand idly by and let innocents suffer? No one has ever handed us a badge, but many have looked to us in the past to take up the mantle of protector of freedom and defender of liberty. There can be only be hand-wringing in engaging in another conflict, but there can be no peace while blood is spilled in the name of tyranny.
What to do? We must come to a decision soon. Where we wish to keep the sword, we do so with the tacit knowledge that we will be called upon to wield it. We must be unwilling, we must be reticent, lest we become enamored of our power, but the time comes when other considerations must be laid aside and the greater good must step to the fore. We cannot allow people to die where we can do something to stop it. Let it be that we take action now, and when it is done, take that same energy of destruction and turn it to energy of construction. A people cry out; how can we not answer?
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The Womb Of The Unknown Woman
You did not know her, and if you did, you did not know of her. Her life appeared in the broad view of passing time as a smooth, flowing continuum, wearing a path through the world along well-worn channels, but the quantized fragments of that path at the level below the skin and behind the eye were an unknown universe of misery, heartache, doubt, and uncertainty. The end point of her journey was at a place and time unforeseen in the delta streams of motion through her life and the world around her, but that end point was no less certain for being unknown.
A point before the end came, and that moment was either quite well illuminated or somewhere in the murk of human interaction, but cell met cell, and triggered a sequence of predetermined events that, unchecked, would lead to an irrevocable altering of her life. The product of the merger of many functions collapsed into a certainty, and with that, a potential new being was formed, consisting at first, of undifferentiated bits, merely dividing and expanding to fill space, mindless and automatic. Straight replication gave way under coded signals and altered to become differentiation, and at this point, still an insignificant and insubstantial mass, it settled down in a new home, tapping into the environment surrounding it, and drawing on the power it found there, accelerated its growth.
She was pregnant.
A point before the end came, and that moment was either quite well illuminated or somewhere in the murk of human interaction, but cell met cell, and triggered a sequence of predetermined events that, unchecked, would lead to an irrevocable altering of her life. The product of the merger of many functions collapsed into a certainty, and with that, a potential new being was formed, consisting at first, of undifferentiated bits, merely dividing and expanding to fill space, mindless and automatic. Straight replication gave way under coded signals and altered to become differentiation, and at this point, still an insignificant and insubstantial mass, it settled down in a new home, tapping into the environment surrounding it, and drawing on the power it found there, accelerated its growth.
She was pregnant.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Editorial Note
If you've wondered at the relative scarcity of posts here, it can be chalked up to the vicissitudes of life, the exigencies of maintaining home and providing for family, and the fact that writing is hard to accomplish in a whirlwind atmosphere. As events unfold, I am stirred to write, but often cannot find the time or peace to allow me to do so as coherently and cogently as I wish. I prefer to put out a quality product rather than simply throw up words in a fit of pique or as rage or dumbfoundedness consume me.
One thing I have meant to do, and have decided to start this year, is a compilation I hope to put into book form, on the problems of our nation, and how many groups are working to leverage an ill-educated electorate to hand them power on a level that was never meant by the Founding Fathers. It is my intent to outline where America came from, the real motivations of our founders, and how we have managed, subtly and with ill-considered judgments, allowed their vision to be corrupted in their name.
I have named my effort Defending Liberty, Defeating Idiocy, and it is my intent to undo, in whatever way I can, the rush toward the chasm that stands before us, a chasm formed by allowing power-mad political parties and self-described political soothsayers and corporately-run media outlets to chip away at the bedrock of our nation. It is an attempt to set right the misperception that there is something wrong with our nation, that those who know what's best for us intend to put right at the expense of the very thing they choose to venerate: the Constitution of the United States. It will also be my way of showing what is actually wrong with our nation, and how our energies are being spent in such a scatter-shot and ineffective fashion that we stand on the brink of wrecking the best nation in the world and the best hope for humanity, all in the name of what is "right."
So, I enjoin you to read my new efforts, and to continue to read my writings here, for there are still things happening that require addressing regularly, especially now that we are in a Presidential election year. Honest, decent Americans all, we must continue to be vigilant, for the same forces that have been operating to secure a stranglehold on political power in this nation will use this election to tighten the noose, if we do not continue our efforts to cut the rope. Stay informed, my fellow countrymen, that we may continue to enjoy the blessings of liberty.
One thing I have meant to do, and have decided to start this year, is a compilation I hope to put into book form, on the problems of our nation, and how many groups are working to leverage an ill-educated electorate to hand them power on a level that was never meant by the Founding Fathers. It is my intent to outline where America came from, the real motivations of our founders, and how we have managed, subtly and with ill-considered judgments, allowed their vision to be corrupted in their name.
I have named my effort Defending Liberty, Defeating Idiocy, and it is my intent to undo, in whatever way I can, the rush toward the chasm that stands before us, a chasm formed by allowing power-mad political parties and self-described political soothsayers and corporately-run media outlets to chip away at the bedrock of our nation. It is an attempt to set right the misperception that there is something wrong with our nation, that those who know what's best for us intend to put right at the expense of the very thing they choose to venerate: the Constitution of the United States. It will also be my way of showing what is actually wrong with our nation, and how our energies are being spent in such a scatter-shot and ineffective fashion that we stand on the brink of wrecking the best nation in the world and the best hope for humanity, all in the name of what is "right."
So, I enjoin you to read my new efforts, and to continue to read my writings here, for there are still things happening that require addressing regularly, especially now that we are in a Presidential election year. Honest, decent Americans all, we must continue to be vigilant, for the same forces that have been operating to secure a stranglehold on political power in this nation will use this election to tighten the noose, if we do not continue our efforts to cut the rope. Stay informed, my fellow countrymen, that we may continue to enjoy the blessings of liberty.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Morality Is As Morality Does
There are many who would claim a superior morality, owing to personal earnestness, religious certitude, and societal position. They feel it incumbent to tell the rest of us about our moral failings, to attempt to impress upon us their way of thought, as they see us incapable of making the "correct" choices for ourselves. They would, at every turn, attempt to harness us to the yolk of their faith, even though the bedrock principle of individual liberty upon which this nation is built and which is codified within our most sacrosanct document -- The Constitution of the United States -- says they cannot.
Morality is an artifice built of human mien; not a solid, load-bearing construction, but a more amorphous form, cobbled together from the vast swathes of human experience. A time comes at various intervals where the morality of society is tested, found wanting, and modified to excise those bits that no longer have relevance or were, in a new light, found to be barbaric, and to add new parts that modify or strengthen the remains, that we might all be brought closer together as a community without stripping away individuality.
Where morality fails us is when some choose to substitute their own judgement for that of society, attempting to bend the general welfare to their own ends.
Morality is an artifice built of human mien; not a solid, load-bearing construction, but a more amorphous form, cobbled together from the vast swathes of human experience. A time comes at various intervals where the morality of society is tested, found wanting, and modified to excise those bits that no longer have relevance or were, in a new light, found to be barbaric, and to add new parts that modify or strengthen the remains, that we might all be brought closer together as a community without stripping away individuality.
Where morality fails us is when some choose to substitute their own judgement for that of society, attempting to bend the general welfare to their own ends.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
The War At Home
If you were wondering, the United States is at war. It is not the war of declared intent and fixed enemies that we have fought over the centuries; it is an amorphous, shape-shifting war, in which the enemy can be anywhere, at any time, doing things we do not see until they raise themselves up into the light. It is the ultimate war of fear, where noncombatants -- read "civilians" -- are the avowed target of the enemy, and military combat is a sideline. It is a war that defies the use of conventional weapons and tactics. It is a war that may never, ever end.
As such, some in the United States have seen fit to codify and enshrine this war in the very fabric of the nation. Places like Guantanamo Bay, legislation like The Patriot Act, and processes like military tribunals are all being given extended value, becoming permanent fixtures in a the American landscape, rather than temporary expedients. This new type of war has given those who have sought an extension of American power an excuse to use the potential for enemy attack in many insidious ways on our nation the leverage to place into law the removal of restrictions on government's ability to infiltrate the life of law-abiding citizens, in the name of "national security."
As such, some in the United States have seen fit to codify and enshrine this war in the very fabric of the nation. Places like Guantanamo Bay, legislation like The Patriot Act, and processes like military tribunals are all being given extended value, becoming permanent fixtures in a the American landscape, rather than temporary expedients. This new type of war has given those who have sought an extension of American power an excuse to use the potential for enemy attack in many insidious ways on our nation the leverage to place into law the removal of restrictions on government's ability to infiltrate the life of law-abiding citizens, in the name of "national security."
Friday, November 4, 2011
My Values, Your Values, Our Values
What values do we share? Think on it for a minute.
Certainly, we could all agree that each of us, each human being, has an inherent right to be ourselves, to have our own thoughts, and our individual liberty... right? It was a guiding principle behind the founding of the nation.
Certainly, we could agree that, given the above, the right to that liberty should not be infringed upon by others, as individuals, organizations, or government. Again, another founding principle.
Given those things, and the moral history of human culture, there can be no argument that a human individual, secure in personal liberty, endowed with inherent rights, should be free of fear of malice or murder, correct?
Most importantly, given that every person is thus endowed with rights and liberties, does that not also mean that each is as precious as another, deserving of respect and decency to the same degree?
But wait...
Certainly, we could all agree that each of us, each human being, has an inherent right to be ourselves, to have our own thoughts, and our individual liberty... right? It was a guiding principle behind the founding of the nation.
Certainly, we could agree that, given the above, the right to that liberty should not be infringed upon by others, as individuals, organizations, or government. Again, another founding principle.
Given those things, and the moral history of human culture, there can be no argument that a human individual, secure in personal liberty, endowed with inherent rights, should be free of fear of malice or murder, correct?
Most importantly, given that every person is thus endowed with rights and liberties, does that not also mean that each is as precious as another, deserving of respect and decency to the same degree?
But wait...
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Fighting For Independence
My Fellow Citizens, I appeal to you in the name of all that is True and Right with the World, to follow me in Acts of Revolution, to cast off the Tyranny that grips us right now. I speak of none other than The Monied Powers, those Charlatans of Capitalism, who place the Value of the Almighty Dollar ahead of the Value of the Human Life, who speak of the Yolk of Taxation restraining their ability to Create Jobs, even as they pay Not One Thin Dime to the Public Treasury, seeing fit to ship American Jobs to Foreign Lands where they can pay far less for Labor and are Free of Their Obligations to the country that has Supported Them.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Sowing The Seeds Of Love
The forward march of humanity toward the future is retarded by the drag of thousands of years of ignorance and associated dogma. It is unfortunate that so much of human existence is predicated on developing and refining definitions of what is "right" and what is "wrong" in terms of what humans are and what they are supposed to be. Quietly, as each decade, each century, each millennium passes, those definitions are eroded, much as rock is battered to dust by wind and rain. The forces of nature and the intrinsic natural order of the universe are more powerful than the artificial structures erected by mankind to keep out the truth.
So it is that a momentous event, completed in the late hours of June 24th, 2011, has broken one more link in the chains that keep humanity from reaching its full potential. The state of New York, after much wrangling, voted to allow same-sex marriage to become legal. It struck a blow for civil rights, by proclaiming that members of the homosexual community are as much entitled to marry as anyone else. It was another moment affirming what we must know deep inside, but many are afraid to accept -- that human beings and their souls are not defined by their body structure, anymore than by their skin color, or the deity or deities they worship, or any other artificial measure we wish to create.
Advances in human society comes slowly, incrementally, and usually at great cost beforehand. Each group struggles against a tide of humanity that looks down on them, denigrates them, labels them as inferior or unworthy. Invective, rancor, epithets, and violence cascade down on them, and yet, even as it seems bleak and progress untenable, a strong, low, bass note begins to form amidst the tumult, growing in intensity, sweeping through the cacophony, subsuming the hatred, swallowing the fear. Like the seed buried deep beneath the soil, hoarding the precious drops of water that reach it, eventually the first tendril reaches out and breaks the surface, and a new birth of freedom and justice takes place.
New York, following in the footsteps of so many of its New England brethren, is that tendril, rising up into the warm air and gathering in the rays of the Sun, to further energize the growth of that seed of humanity. Another group may rise above the turmoil to assert its rights and privileges, and the plague of ignorance and the pestilence of hatred shall not find safe haven in their leaves anymore, but be cast upon the dust to blow away in the wind. Let the day be marked in triumph, for though much growth remains, this moment shows that where we sow compassion and tolerance and good will, we will reap the rewards of true humanity and fellowship, and our society will grow stronger for it.
So it is that a momentous event, completed in the late hours of June 24th, 2011, has broken one more link in the chains that keep humanity from reaching its full potential. The state of New York, after much wrangling, voted to allow same-sex marriage to become legal. It struck a blow for civil rights, by proclaiming that members of the homosexual community are as much entitled to marry as anyone else. It was another moment affirming what we must know deep inside, but many are afraid to accept -- that human beings and their souls are not defined by their body structure, anymore than by their skin color, or the deity or deities they worship, or any other artificial measure we wish to create.
Advances in human society comes slowly, incrementally, and usually at great cost beforehand. Each group struggles against a tide of humanity that looks down on them, denigrates them, labels them as inferior or unworthy. Invective, rancor, epithets, and violence cascade down on them, and yet, even as it seems bleak and progress untenable, a strong, low, bass note begins to form amidst the tumult, growing in intensity, sweeping through the cacophony, subsuming the hatred, swallowing the fear. Like the seed buried deep beneath the soil, hoarding the precious drops of water that reach it, eventually the first tendril reaches out and breaks the surface, and a new birth of freedom and justice takes place.
New York, following in the footsteps of so many of its New England brethren, is that tendril, rising up into the warm air and gathering in the rays of the Sun, to further energize the growth of that seed of humanity. Another group may rise above the turmoil to assert its rights and privileges, and the plague of ignorance and the pestilence of hatred shall not find safe haven in their leaves anymore, but be cast upon the dust to blow away in the wind. Let the day be marked in triumph, for though much growth remains, this moment shows that where we sow compassion and tolerance and good will, we will reap the rewards of true humanity and fellowship, and our society will grow stronger for it.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Where The Right Gets It Wrong
I might be tarred as criminally insane by some for attacking the conservative movement in America so vigorously, but I take any damnation of my calling out their hypocrisy as solid praise, for I have struck a nerve to have bothered anyone by my admonitions. For surely, in a world where reason was ascendant, it would be obvious when the fool and the huckster were attempting to woo us with sweet lies and grand obfuscations.
In our world, though, reason has taken a back seat to ignorance. The masses are more concerned with the petulant bombast of drug-hazed actors and the latest tiny glowing box to be foisted unnecessarily upon them to eat up their remaining credit limit, than they are the real and important state of their government and their nation. The victory for independence won over two hundred years ago, they feel no need to be engaged, considering all the important work done as long as they can continue to buy their over-priced, faux-Italian coffee.
In our world, though, reason has taken a back seat to ignorance. The masses are more concerned with the petulant bombast of drug-hazed actors and the latest tiny glowing box to be foisted unnecessarily upon them to eat up their remaining credit limit, than they are the real and important state of their government and their nation. The victory for independence won over two hundred years ago, they feel no need to be engaged, considering all the important work done as long as they can continue to buy their over-priced, faux-Italian coffee.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
A Call For Revolution
ATTENTION CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!
YOUR FREEDOM IS UNDER ATTACK!!!
DARK FORCES ARE ALIGNING AGAINST YOU!!!
JOIN me Good Citizens!!! There are Those amongst Us who are bent on stripping away Freedom, Liberty, and Justice from All Citizens, in the Guise of doing what Is Best For Us! They come wrapped in The Flag of our Nation, reciting the Constitution, and claiming They Will Take Back America! And they will -- if We lie down and do not Resist Them and Their Ways!
I Beseech you, Fellow Citizens, to Join With Me, and Raise Up Arms against those who would Take From You the things you were Guaranteed by the Founding Fathers through the auspices of The Constitution! Do not let them Bewitch and Bewilder You with their words; They seek only to Do The Bidding of their Shadowy Corporate Masters in the name of Our Holy Father, turning him from Blessed Prophet into Corporate Pitchman! They would claim Divine Inspiration, even as they Tread Upon The Word of those most Holy to Us!
Do not stand idle in the Face of their Tyranny!!! They would Ply You with promises of Jobs and Lower Taxes and Greater Freedom from Big Government, even as they would drain away the Federal Treasury into the coffers of their Rich and Powerful Benefactors, seeking to Line the Pockets of those sitting on their Gilt Thrones!!! They would take away Your Hard-Earned Dollar, and give it to the Rich Man, leaving the Beggar to Starve and Suffer in the street!!! They will Pretend to Care, even as they are Limiting Your Choices and naming those who would Speak Against Them as Traitors! They will Fight Wars in your name, sending Your Sons and Daughters to Die in the name of keeping the Wealth of Other Nations at their beck-and-call!
Rise Up, Sons and Daughters of Liberty! Rise Up Against Them! Arm Yourselves, as is Your Right, and prepare to take To The Streets, and March Upon Their Palaces! Let Us Raise an Army of Righteous Patriots, to hunt down these Traitors to Liberty, who claim the Republic as their Birthright and who would look down on Us as their Chattel and their Servants!!! Take them from their homes, Drag Them Into The Streets, and let us Tar-and-Feather Them, that we better know Who These Miscreants Are!!!!
I Implore Every Good American -- Let Freedom Ring, Save For Our Oppressors!!! Bring Them Down!!! Drag Them Through The Street!!! Burn Their Homes and Businesses!!! Let Our Righteous Anger Extirpate Them From Out Land!!!
ARISE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF LIBERTY!!!
SAVE AMERICA FROM THE TYRANTS WITHIN OUR RANKS!!!
GOD SAVE THE CONSTITUTION!!! GOD SAVE AMERICA!!!
Oh, by the way -- this isn't intended to incite violence, or anything, OK? You betcha!
Saturday, May 22, 2010
For The People
It can reasonably be said that the American people are tired of politics as usual, to such an extent that in recent primaries, incumbents were dealt severe blows, falling to new-comers who promised change and an end to "the usual business in Washington, D.C." The anger of a nation, fueled by a wanton Wall Street, corporate disaster, economic failure, mass foreclosure, and partisan politics, is being turned on those who constructed the house of cards that so recently fell, and continues to rain down on the citizens of this country. Rightly so, for the rush to consolidate power, to become adherents of corporations, and to use their political ambition toward their own self-aggrandizement, has cheapened Federal government and made a hopeless muddle of a system that should be serving the general welfare, not lining the pockets of its legislators.
However, in their haste, and untempered by cool reason, some Americans have fallen in for the cheap and easy fix. They seek to replace career politicians based solely on the rhetoric of change, and not with a critical eye toward the character and capability of those they would anoint. They drink of the wellspring of ill-will toward Washington, D.C., but do not taste the poison that still laces it. It is enough that the name-plate on the door changes, and that the elected agree with them wholeheartedly. There is no great debate, no casting of ideas, no formulation of a common theme, merely the reactionary tide of displeasure, which, as before the tsunami, sweeps all away regardless of worth, to leave wreckage in its midst, and an opportunity for the vipers and charlatans to have their day.
The ill-considered lauding of those who stand on in deep, dark chasms, rather than in the purer light and air of the surface, means that the political structure of the Federal government may be shifted, such that a system already fraught with sluggish turmoil, may now be dragged down into festering chaos. It means those who have hidden their lack of sympathy for fellow humans, and their disdain for the very institutions they seek election to, may now stand in the hallowed halls of great legislators, and tear down the curtains and abscond with the candlesticks, as they chop and hack away at two hundred-plus years of progress, to toss our nation back into the mire from which it has been patiently inching.
They who would cloak themselves in the tattered remnants of our true history, place "patriotism" over plurality, and seek to rip the country off of its foundations of liberty and freedom for all, may very well be let in the front door, by citizens who have no reckoning, no inkling, no memory of the darkness from which this country has attempted to emerge. The blood spilled and spilled again defending the soil of the Colonies, then the American nation, and finally, the world, will have been spilled vainly, to see jesters, fools, and mountebanks run the kingdom, as they steal what little the poor have, to fuel the petty excesses of the rich. The shores will choke in oil, the skies blacken with smog and soot, the water run unnatural colors when fouled again with the ichor of industry, in the name of "free markets" and "productivity." America will become the land of Sisyphus, watching the boulder that is our freedom roll down the mountain, forcing us to trudge back down after it, yet again.
It is true that we need change, and that change started with the election of Barack Obama, but even he pronounced that this was not the end, but merely the beginning. Change, that inevitable and irresistible force, must be driven by our desire to do better than those who came before us, not by the simple desire to heave out the old and replace them with just anyone. We do ourselves and our nation's heritage a disservice when we stoop to mob rule; the Founding Fathers wanted better of us. They wanted citizens to stay engaged, to work with, not against, their government, and to be its arbiters and conservators and care-takers. They entrusted the people, for whom the government was formed, with the task of shepherding the nation through every new age, every new change, every new challenge, and gave us the power to ensure that the government met its obligations fairly and with honor. That government now is seen as an enemy, rather than a partner, is an indictment of we, the people, for it has become so only because we have refused to take our stewardship seriously.
Even now, we face a test. We can throw out the old, fill the seats with those who salve our consciences and stoke our prejudices -- to our ruination. Or, we can seek to promote those who will restore the patina of honor to government, who will carry through on the credo that our government is of, by, and for, us, by working to make all Americans partners again, by ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of all citizens, without cost to our individual liberty. Given the right people -- thoughtful, magnanimous, honorable, tolerant -- we can seek to honor our history, and by doing so, provide a meaningful and prosperous future for all. To do less, is to place our nation in peril, and to see the dream of the United States of America that our Founders gave life to wither and die in ignominy. Let us be sure that never comes to pass.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Liberty's Price
We are so far removed from the original struggle to found the United States, so distant from the events that led to its creation, that it is probably very hard for most of us to imagine what it was like to live in Colonial America. We can no more wrap our heads around the idea of being ruled by a foreign power, than we can understand the motivations of those who perpetrated September 11Th. The idea that at one time, the people of America were subjects of Great Britain, subject to the whims of its king and unrepresented in Parliament, seems almost whimsical now.
It was not so in 1775.
The Founding Fathers fought a protracted, costly, and often contentious war to pry the United States free from the grip of Britain. In doing so, they knew that the end result would have to be a nation, conceived in freedom and liberty, that would have to do anything within its power to ensure that its citizens would never again fall under the thrall of another sovereign nation, nor be subjugated by their own government. The Bill of Rights was the foundation upon which the new nation was laid. It said the government would have no right to limit the freedom to speak, the freedom to worship, or the freedom of the press to report on how the country was being run. It said the government could not simply take what belonged to its citizens, nor charge them with crimes without some form of due process, and that people had the right to know what they were being accused of, and by whom. They also made sure that the government would not make them surrender their arms, to ensure the ability of the nation to raise martial forces in time of need and to make sure that the citizenry could resist, should the government turn repressive.
While it can be said that these precepts were earth-shaking in the 18Th Century, the founders knew that no half measures would do. They tried to anticipate what it would take to hold a nation of such disparate heritage together over generations, and made sure that the Constitution could be amended to adapt to change. They made assumptions about the course of history to come, hoping to ensure that the foundation remained solid long after they were gone. If our current place in the world is any indication, this new birth of freedom and the growing pains that came after, led to a nation that is strong, proud, and even more diverse than the founders could have imagined.
But there was a cost inherent to the liberty thus created.
That the government ceded the right to limit the freedom to speak, meant that in addition to the liberation of being able to criticize people, institutions, and even the government itself, in a manner which fostered public debate, created mutual understanding, and promoted growth, groups with less than admirable aims would have the right to stand upon their soapboxes and spew forth venom and vitriol. Sanity, reason, and logic would have to share the field with ignorance, intransigence, and intolerance. Any reasonable person would have to face the possibility of being set upon by howling mobs of the narrow-minded.
It could be no other way.
The founders had seen, first-hand, how a totalitarian regime would do whatever it took to suppress even mild dissent. They knew that for there to be true freedom, the good would have to be taken with the bad. One suspects they hoped, beyond hope, that as the nation grew, the bond of community would overwhelm any opposition. In essence, they were counting on, as Lincoln put it, "the better angles of our nature" to naturally suppress dissent. Freedom and liberty would do a better job reigning in the destructive tendencies of some, than a heavy-handed government.
They were eternal optimists.
The history of our country has seen the collection and distribution of disturbing ideologies, ideologies that have no basis in fact or reason, but that persist because they play to people's fears. Fear is a powerful motivator -- it is built in to us as a defense mechanism, causing us to flee if we can and fight if we cannot flee. Fear can be harnessed, used to fuel intolerance, cruelty, hypocrisy, and greed. Fear can be turned into a weapon, and a justification.
And so, on June 10Th, 2009, the dream of a nation conceived in liberty and freedom was weakened, by the act of a anti-Semitic, racist, hate-monger, who, for no reason we can fathom, decided to attack a memorial to an event, the likes of which the world did not know until the 20Th Century, an event he denied even happened. He turned a sick, twisted, misguided ideology into action, fear-inducing, hate-spreading action. Because of this, a decent man, a man paid to maintain peace and order and to protect the lives of others, paid the ultimate price, in laying down his life to stop a madman before he could kill others. A family has been deprived of a father. Parents have been deprived of a son.
We are outraged. We are stunned, both by the act itself, but more importantly, by the ideology that spawned it. We want retribution. We want the flaming sword of justice to swoop down from the heavens, and smite these hate-filled animals. We want to strip away their freedom, forfeit their lives, as payment for their ignorance. We want them dead.
It cannot be that way. The founders knew this.
If we are to honor our country, if we are to honor the memory of every person who has died, in any way, to sustain our freedom, then we cannot devolve to the level of such extremists. We have rule of law in this country, and we must use it, and wisely, to fight these hate-mongers at every turn. We must show that the vast bulk of the citizenry in the United States rejects fear and hatred, rejects anti-Semitism and racism, rejects anything that is contrary to the greater good. They must be repudiated, their views torn down, the truth shouted from every rooftop. We must drown their ideology of hate with the weight of decency and law. We must take this moment, take this opportunity afforded us by this tragedy, and turn it into action. All free Americans, all good citizens, must rise as one and say "Enough!" to the forces that would divide us and make us afraid of each other. We must make it clear to the forces of intolerance, that America may grant them the freedom to espouse their views, but we do not grant them the power to control us with fear.
Let us put a fallen hero in our thoughts, put his murderer behind bars, and put those who would lionize such a coward on notice, that their days of intolerance are numbered.
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