America, I Have Some Concerns, and Five Big Questions
Please let me know all your answers
There’s something happening here
Dear America,
Who are you?
In the divided states of America right now, a reckoning of race, but also of class, gender, wealth, and more, roils on before us in an explosive blur. Since the failed ‘coup’, ‘insurrection,’ ‘riot’ or ‘storming’ at our nation’s capital on January 6, I have seen and heard many perspectives.
Here are just some:
This is not America
This is what America actually is
This is broken democracy
This is the beginning of democracy
This is white supremacy
This proves the failure of white supremacy
This is Trump’s final victory
This is Trump’s miserable end
I do understand (I am a psychologist) that human beings think in the binary, and operate in delusion, due to our human vulnerabilities, but this is too much. It’s time to try to find facts, answers, and evidence to what we really are. If we are hopeless, ugly, and bigoted racists and misogynists, let’s start rolling the ball toward admitting it, so we can join AAAA (American Addicts to Authoritarians Anonymous).
If, rather, at America’s heart, a far greater number of us yearn for liberty and justice for all, let’s work toward revealing just that.
Just the facts, ma’am
Some basic questions have walloped me in the face this week as conflicting information and wildly divergent views. These questions, if answerable, go a long way toward understanding who we really are, and what we really want.
Question one: Do more people want equality than do not want equality?
Answer: Yes.
This question, to my mind, was settled the day after Mr. Trump was appointed president. Although Ms. Clinton won the popular vote, the electoral college chose Trump. Millions of people in hundreds of nations turned out in January’s Women’s March to say: We want equality.
The distractor in chief, aided by obstructionist and inept governance, saw to it that this basically faded into something that must have occurred about 200 years ago.
Even so, the answer to question one, then, in my mind (then, at least) is Yes. Most people want equality. Add, if memory serves, however smoky, there were also calls for equality by millions the entire summer of 2020. I think globally more people demanded equality than stormed D.C.
Two views of law
Question two: Do most people want law and order?
Answer: Yes.
Mr. Trump sold himself as the ‘law and order ‘president who would clean up our “carnage.”
Let’s try to define law and order as something no one citizen is below, nor above. That is, if several dozen women credibly accuse you of rape, to name just one tiny crime, investigation and justice under the law should see to it that no amount of money, or power, should affect the investigation.
Rape is a serious allegation. Even if it takes years, one should not accept that sending innocent children to prison for it with no evidence should be the norm. Then, too, anyone with serious claims should be heard, evidence, and questioning should commence, and just consequences should follow.
Did America do well on this one? Not yet. Can we do better? Yes. I believe the current outcry displays that we insist upon doing better. Having two different standards for people who are accused (or suspected) is unacceptable. Basing a police system on the idea to “ protect and serve,” not “threaten and terrorize”, is a far better goal if we are to ever achieve real law, and real order.
Is this the real life… is this just fantasy?
It’s hard to know what is real anymore.
Question three: Do most people know the truth about the reality of the world today?
Answer: No. We do not.
Fake news, rumor, conspiracy, media profits, powerful influence, lobbyists, corruption, and much, much more has erased the ability for most people to know facts. Many people do not even believe there is a pandemic and/or Chinese hoax (cough) going on. Many more have been brain-green-washed to not even believe that the climate crisis is real, although they have mysteriously found that they are on fire, or floating.
Who had the most votes?
Question four: Did more people vote for Joe Biden, than voted for Predator Trump?
Answer: Yes.
Despite this being factually true, question number three, (Do people know truth?) obfuscates and obliterates the facts of this reality. Is it possible that I am wrong? Yes, it’s possible, just as it is possible that we are all living in the Matrix waiting for a red pill vaccine.
Question number four, then, about how many votes are in muddy rivers, and how many have never existed — because lines were too long — is problematic. It is not a resounding yes, but in the next four years we have time to find a way to hear every voice, count every vote. That, or take as many pills, of any color, that we can get our hands on. Please.
E Pluribus Unum
Question five: Shouldn’t we all agree that “In God We Trust?”
Answer: No.
We should believe in a rule of law, not any one biased set of beliefs. As a Christian, raised with the hope and dream of Martin Luther King, and as a child when a peanut farmer took the presidency, I can say in all confidence, that being a Christian is not enough.
Be a patriot first. Render unto Caesar and all that, and worship and kneel as your conscience tells you. But do not be surprised when some kneel at sporting events because they love justice, and others find that to be disrespectful.
The point is, that America is not a purely Christian nation anymore than the human race is entirely people of one color. Tests of purity should be for air, water, soil and food quality only, not human beings. No one is all one color, not even the orange one.
America, in my much needed calculation of these five questions, gets three for “Yes.” and two for “No.” That is we pass, barely, as worthy of preservation.
You may well have five different answers to these five questions. By all means, let us know.
For my peace of mind, however, no matter how deeply saddened, and dismayed I am, that so many could be misled, for so long, by one so miserably un-American, I still think we are a work in progress.
We are, then, primarily progressive toward equality, justice, truth, and the soon to be American way.
