Tonight I watched 22 July, about the Knights Templer bombing and student political camp massacre in Norway in 2012–in which 77 people were killed by one xenophobic, right wing operative whose organization wanted to keep Islam out of Europe.
If America does not wish to see more xenophobic, right wing extremism–either in the form of voter suppression, lies about stolen elections, the gutting of human rights from the courts, legislature or mentally unbalanced presidents–or seditionist and ethnophobic acts of terrorism–we all must tow a virtuous line in thought, behavior, action and at the polls–because we all affect one another.
We must put personal gain, party gain and ideological gain in the back seat–and lead with a character of courageous conscience, relying on right thought, right action and right speech with an eye toward equality of opportunity, fairness in public and private life and in our choices. The rational, good-natured and mentally-balanced who believe in E Pluribus Unum are my choir–so the extremists on the left and right (in government and outside of it) are my intended audience; you must ask yourself if you would rather be right or happy, right or fair, right or just–and the virtuous choices to those options will lead you to depart from division, from lying, from corruption, from hate, from disenfranchisement, from cancel culture, from revenge and from tearing our country its last wound; the right choices in those options will not see you voting out of spite, voting out of loyalty against reason and compassion, voting–for tribe rather than country; this is all the path of fear and cowardice–the monkey mind path.
You are human, but only insofar as you exercise superior judgement for the benefit of all. If you cannot do these things, you do not belong as a citizen in an Egalitarian Democratic Republic; and if that is the case, you should not try to transform America into a left-wing or right-wing state of fear and cruelty. If that is what you need–a totalitarian state, a theocratic state, a state wherein you do not want the best for all without forcing ideas on us, a state in which you can accept losing an election or paying a small increase for the less fortunate to have medical care and housing and education, a state where people can love whom they naturally are predisposed to loving, a state where a woman can face the horrible choice of choosing to end a pregnancy to save herself or an nonviable pregnancy from ruining lives–then you can go to China, Russia, Turkey, Myanmar, or any number of tin-pot dictatorships in the world and try to bend those places to your will; you will have more success in those places. Please don’t stay here.
America–by the numbers–according to polls and statistics is a progressive nation; that is why it is still the destination of many peoples of the world–despite the right wing hold on our health care system, our gun laws, and now a woman’s rights over her own sovereign body. And that is why the Founders wrote the Constitution the way they had–faults and all (Rome wasn’t built in a day).
If you have the capacity to change your mind and think like Homo Sapiens, or “Wise Humans,” and you can reason and grow in love for the differences in people and realize we are stronger with a non-mono-culture and a diverse nation of diverse peoples–whatever your issue–you can get help, to turn your heart to love and your mind to rationality–the paths of courage and progress.
This means you don’t have to go to the shameful trouble of defying your lights, cheating in elections, hating and taking up arms; you don’t have to fear people born differently from you. You don’t have to attempt to put a square peg in a round hole–trying to change an entire nation that will not let you and your kind take us back to 1939 or any permutation of it; you only have to change your mind–and then you can join us–no bloodshed, no crime, no irrational, hair-brained conspiracy theories, no death and no jail time.
America is for everyone. It doesn’t matter what pressures and stage of consciousness the Founders were bound by; they were righteous and virtuous enough–ahead of their time enough–to create the first modern–and longest-lasting–democratic republic capable of becoming more and more fair and of righting its wrongs.
In America, we honor the law, not the blood; it was set up that way for a reason. And that reason is the Framers were polymaths of high intellect–and thus of high moral character–as high as science and the philosophy of the day would carry their minds. If they had not written and amended the Constitution the way they had, people would still be paying a fine for not attending church, could not run for office without passing a religious test, wouldn’t be able to travel state to state freely, African Americans and other people of different complexions and physiognomies would not have the right to vote–nor would women–and children would be laborers in the fields and factories–and so much more primitiveness; not because the people who settled America or who were there first were of some particular orientation or make-up, but because power corrupts people–so human beings all over this oblate spheroid spinning in space work to make power a community blessing– through the progress of consensus. This is is greatness. One cannot make anything great if it is only great for a select group and burdonsome for everyone else; that’s tyranny.
Making America great does not–cannot–include taking us backward. Progress always includes more freedom–and the direction toward freedom is forward–with responsibility, not in unscrupulous retreat toward tyranny, via lies, and corruption.
And the first step forward always begins with courage; stop being afraid. Besides, it’s not a good look.
