DO Ask [sic] What Your Country Can Do For You
Time To Update JFK’s Iconic Words
(Note: I started writing this before Helene, but while I still believe in its importance long-term I cannot bring myself to ignore the storm that has affected so many on a vastly more personal level — or the request that volunteer rescuers yield to bureaucrats.)
I’ve often wondered why I and others believe what we do. While such a question (or what others figure lies behind it) may be too intrusive for many conversations, it can be satisfying to ask oneself…although it may be braver or more useful to ask others.
During this political season I asked myself as specifically as I could what most anchored my philosophy; not how it started, but why it grew as it had, and what I could best describe as the reason for it now.
People may believe as they do because of religion, or certain cultural or family traditions, or how a trade or ethnicity in their family is treated by the community, or on a simple economic or ecological question (forgive me if I stop without addressing a pet concern of endless ones by name).
Especially where stakes are high, such as deciding on a career or position or whom to marry or where to reside, so many reasons are used to justify a choice. I so wished I could remember where I read the idea that one reason is sufficient for a decision. I can’t even remember very well the subject of the book, let alone if the author coined or borrowed a name for this process.
While I could give many reasons for believing as I do, this issue I recall very well — as will you regardless of agreement. It’s no longer at the front of many minds, but even though it’s not a hot political topic, it will return in some form — especially by ardent “conservationists” who swear to “never let a crisis go to waste.” It should be apparent that my reference to conserving is not any kind of ecological criticism, but Medium readers don’t need to be told that.
Some of you are old enough to recall where you heard about Kennedy being assassinated (I hadn’t been born yet). I can’t point to where or when I felt the impact of Covid; I just know it in the end it stayed with me — and probably with indelible conclusions that many officials wish had not.
Politics can be so scripted and pseudopolite— but an unexpected “crisis” can pull the curtain back, as eager as some activists may be for what it opportunes. And I’d bet that the scramble for a return to the well — however planned — will be viewed by its perpetrators as justifying any inconvenience.
I also don’t remember any specific event which made “conspiracy theories” seem suddenly plausible — just that they became preferable to official narratives. The apparent chaos, inconsistencies and failure of business closures and shortages, the hiding of adult faces during children’s formative years, the discouraging of social and in-person educational meetings and the pushing of untested vaccinations, other medical procedures and flight shortages — just to name a few — don’t remotely make up for reduction of commute traffic or the growth of Zoom (as beneficial as those were).
I won’t bother detailing growing mistrust in media or institutions, or how people live and believe and what we might choose. Not that I believed every offering that was skeptical of the official narrative, but I will assert that those of you who were friendlier toward such beliefs haven’t helped me to refute skeptics’ claims that Covid was a dress rehearsal for the next real or plandemic, to use a portmanteau which will, rightly or wrongly, become familiar to those not already acquainted with it.
Obviously my concern is paramount with these issues, but a secondary flame is for what some might claim are “American values.” It’s easy to spout indignation about imagined or real votes cast by those of questionable citizenship status…but what are the values of those who make their voices heard? While on the surface it’s of concern that we’re importing those with needs or desires that are incompatible or might strain us, in today’s media climate I’d welcome hardened skeptics from anywhere with the experience to question offerings — notwithstanding a certain candidate’s over-the-top welcoming rhetoric.
Whatever positive or negative things one has to say about those who contribute their cultures to this melting pot, the bottom line for me is their bloc voting (or lack thereof.) We hear of events or issues that can divide a community. If I sound at all melodramatic by suggesting (especially by my behavior toward those who know me) that the most lasting effect of this story has been stark division between me and the bulk of Californians, I similarly found new ways to join with others I came to know personally or online, and I hope those I disagree with did as well — with the unspoken blessing that I long for a future whose events move us in the same aspiration.
Now that I’ve hopefully forestalled concerns about any prejudice of mine…have you ever asked yourself if people in one geographical location were (in whatever way) superior to another? This has nothing to do with immigration, although some might stretch it to culture in unkind ways; I’m speaking of questions that may innocently arise from apparent differences in voting. Red vs. blue states, to put it bluntly.
But perhaps these seemingly more lighthearted questions serve as a harmless defusing of graver xenophobic ones that the disaffected may latch onto — even if only rejecting an identity as a matter of pride. My experience in other states and countries is limited, but I know some places stirred markedly different experiences and laws than others. And while a blatantly partisan article just before an election is not my intent given that enough blame can be assigned for aspects of this issue, I don’t mind that its reporting and promotion doesn’t reflect evenly on its proponents given the deep stakes (I’m thinking especially of the governors of New York and Michigan at the time, but not forgetting the dracon of Canada and Australia among others.)
Certainly there are friends and family whom I value for other reasons, and my disappointment with some of their adherence to Covid recommendations is tempered by their physical and health circumstances and a lifetime of dilemmas in evaluating what passes for news.
But I’d also like to invite them — and readers in whatever country — to ask themselves to consider whether this issue might be worthy of consideration. However you vote and regard so many pressing issues, I don’t expect this is one campaigners will remind you of.
