The country is divided. You are either right wing or left wing, you live in a blue state or a red state and if you disagree you are unpatriotic.
Political candidates, well, at least the only two allowed to be recognized as such, spend their time bashing each other. The media dishes the dirt on each of them and not so evenly perhaps.
From both sides, we hear how bad things are, how we are under threat, and how our way of life is being threatened.
Frightened and cowed by the political rhetoric, frustrated and distracted by the media and desperately fact checking every statement, an endless job, we turn our anger toward each other.
We draw lines in the sand about whether or not standing for the national anthem, itself a song about war and written while witnessing an attack, constitutes treason.
We support police, law and order even when we see fellow citizens shot and killed over nothing or at least for no capital crime.
We support protesting those actions and yet are hard pressed to justify the property damage and violence we see unfolding as the news cameras decide what to film.
We, at least the majority, forget or are ignorant of the experiences of others, which indicates that two separate segments of society reside side by side under the auspices of what only appears as a society united.
My country right or wrong, my country love it or leave it, we are number one, bumper sticker rhetoric that totally ignores the deep seated angst that the majority of the working class and the poor are feeling.
Egregiously ignorant is the command to go back to Africa, a comment hurled at African-Americans for it ignores the horrific fact that their ancestors were kidnapped from their homes and forcibly brought to this continent to work as slaves. There was no choice. They did not pack up their belongings and cross the Atlantic looking for a better life. They were kidnapped. Stolen. Forced against their will.
An unarmed black man is killed for appearing threatening while an armed white man known to have killed nine black churchgoers in their own church is approached and taken into custody. No shots fired. He is then given a hamburger. The image of the body of the black man lying bleeding in the street alone, no one rendering aid, no one just being with him is shocking.
But we are told who is to blame. Muslims. Blacks. Poor. Mexicans. Immigrants.
We are told the solution. The nation needs to turn to god. Which god? Whose god? Over seventy-four billion dollars in estimated tax revenue is lost to religious tax exemption. Religious phrases have been inserted into the anthem; they weren’t original. The eloquent “E Pluribus Unum” has been replaced with religious belief.
Considering that many of the victims might well have been praying to their god for help, to allow them to live, to not die alone in the street or to be gunned down in their church, this sentiment of needing more religion seems ridiculous to me.
Considering that many of the perpetrators of these killings might pray to their god for the same sorts of things, and this sentiment of needing more religion seems hypocritical to me.
Considering the fact that there are seven states in this country that prohibit non-believers from holding office, that it is now common for presidents to profess belief in a god before taking office despite this being contrary to Article Six of the Constitution, I find this sentiment for more religiosity to be seditious.
Science is under attack in the classroom. Knowledge is being eroded by religion and that ignorance has found it’s way into politics.
Lawmakers can comfortably and righteously hide behind religious sentiment, writing laws benefiting corporations to the detriment of communities, the environment and public health.
It is nigh impossible to learn the truth. In this, the Information Age, we are brutally awakened to the fact that the information disseminated is mostly false, misrepresented and fact checking is a full time job.
It takes so much time to fact check, we can’t keep up with the latest round of lies. So, we take sides. If I agree, it’s true and if I disagree, it is not true. There is no room for nuance that died long ago.
Straight talking, telling it like it is and to hell with political correctness, lends gravitas to carnival barkers posing a politicians and legitimizes racism and bigotry. It matters not one wit that this jingoistic, xenophobic, nationalistic authoritarianism is bereft of anything resembling reality.
And it’s all because of them!
Those people over there! Round them up! Better yet, let’s send armed flying robots to bomb them and their children to pieces while they sit waiting to see a volunteer doctor to have their bullet wounds assessed.
Sure, it costs money to do this, to keep us safe here at home. A million dollars for the armed flying robot controlled by the trained professional hoodwinked from college or most likely high school, but he guided that robot well, blowing up the tent euphemistically called a hospital. Freedom ain’t free!
If those deadbeats at home would stop sucking at the government teat, we would be in better shape. Parasites! Now they want to be paid a minimum wage of fifteen dollars! The unmitigated gall!
And those illegals crossing the border in droves, they are draining the healthcare system.
Oh, I know! I saw it on the news playing on one of the seven large flat screen televisions, while I was getting my cappuccino and gourmet sandwich in the waiting room of one of the ninety-thousand square foot medical facilities, (there are now four within a two minute drive from where I live). Yesiree Bob, they are bleeding us dry! That’s why my co-pays are so high!
Personal responsibility and accountability are good things.
No one owes you a living. That is something you have to figure out on your own.
Because society is so big and complex, we need government to work for us, to tackle problems too big for any one individual or even one company to solve.
There will always be poor people. There will always be needy people. A truly great society will be judged on how they care for their weakest constituents.
If you build a company based on your vision, your dedication and hard work, you deserve the lion’s share; the hunter gets the choicest cut after all.
But you didn’t do it alone. People work hard for you, they help bring your vision to reality.
Working people should be able to make a living on the wages paid to them. No one should lose all because they got sick or injured. You want a rosy future for society? Then education needs to be effective and free, sponsored by the rest of us. Why? Because we will all benefit from a society of educated, intelligent members.
Not everyone can be a superstar. There will always be a need for service industry workers, sanitation workers, construction workers, transit workers, police, ambulance drivers, firefighters, correctional officers. These people are your neighbours, they are members of the society you live in and from which you benefit from being a member. Treat them with respect. Pay them for the jobs you don’t want to do and be thankful.
No, a janitor should not make as much as a CEO.
But neither should the janitor be forced to eke out a miserable life in squalor while the CEO eats caviar from a boat he is parking inside the belly of his bigger boat!
No, neither the janitor nor the government should own the company the CEO created. But the founder of the company needs to abide by rules and regulations set forth to protect the society in which he resides and from which he profits.
Law and order are necessary. Anarchy serves us not at all.
We are primates and as such, we have a predisposition for a hierarchical social order.
With the social changes brought about by our transition from hunter/gatherers to agriculture, the deeper division of labour heralded in with the Industrial Age, and the problems inherent with the population explosion we have experienced, domestic and international laws have been useful in mitigating self-destruction thus far. (Although, we have still seen the collapse of many societies as has been pointed out by scholars).
Healthy societies seem to be those that are in some form democratic as opposed to totalitarian regimes that rule by force.
Most industrialized nations operate under rule of law. Those elected, or appointed by the people write the laws. Laws, which are unpopular or fail the standard under closer scrutiny to meet the greater good, are amended or discarded.
For this circumstance to occur, protesting via civil disobedience, is necessarily allowed and tolerated with the proviso it be done peacefully.
In some cases, violent disobedience born from frustration, disenfranchisement, and desperation, may bring down the governing powers.
And so it is in the best interest of those in leadership to allow civil discourse, listen attentively to grievances and correct them where possible, arguing cogently and persuasively against them when such grievances run contrary to the greater good.
I accept the hierarchical nature of society. It is the social contract I engage in with the society in which I am living. I do reserve the right and which is afforded to me under the law of my society to protest that which I find unjust.
Political candidates, well, at least the only two allowed to be recognized as such, spend their time bashing each other. The media dishes the dirt on each of them and not so evenly perhaps.
From both sides, we hear how bad things are, how we are under threat, and how our way of life is being threatened.
Frightened and cowed by the political rhetoric, frustrated and distracted by the media and desperately fact checking every statement, an endless job, we turn our anger toward each other.
We draw lines in the sand about whether or not standing for the national anthem, itself a song about war and written while witnessing an attack, constitutes treason.
We support police, law and order even when we see fellow citizens shot and killed over nothing or at least for no capital crime.
We support protesting those actions and yet are hard pressed to justify the property damage and violence we see unfolding as the news cameras decide what to film.
We, at least the majority, forget or are ignorant of the experiences of others, which indicates that two separate segments of society reside side by side under the auspices of what only appears as a society united.
My country right or wrong, my country love it or leave it, we are number one, bumper sticker rhetoric that totally ignores the deep seated angst that the majority of the working class and the poor are feeling.
Egregiously ignorant is the command to go back to Africa, a comment hurled at African-Americans for it ignores the horrific fact that their ancestors were kidnapped from their homes and forcibly brought to this continent to work as slaves. There was no choice. They did not pack up their belongings and cross the Atlantic looking for a better life. They were kidnapped. Stolen. Forced against their will.
An unarmed black man is killed for appearing threatening while an armed white man known to have killed nine black churchgoers in their own church is approached and taken into custody. No shots fired. He is then given a hamburger. The image of the body of the black man lying bleeding in the street alone, no one rendering aid, no one just being with him is shocking.
But we are told who is to blame. Muslims. Blacks. Poor. Mexicans. Immigrants.
We are told the solution. The nation needs to turn to god. Which god? Whose god? Over seventy-four billion dollars in estimated tax revenue is lost to religious tax exemption. Religious phrases have been inserted into the anthem; they weren’t original. The eloquent “E Pluribus Unum” has been replaced with religious belief.
Considering that many of the victims might well have been praying to their god for help, to allow them to live, to not die alone in the street or to be gunned down in their church, this sentiment of needing more religion seems ridiculous to me.
Considering that many of the perpetrators of these killings might pray to their god for the same sorts of things, and this sentiment of needing more religion seems hypocritical to me.
Considering the fact that there are seven states in this country that prohibit non-believers from holding office, that it is now common for presidents to profess belief in a god before taking office despite this being contrary to Article Six of the Constitution, I find this sentiment for more religiosity to be seditious.
Science is under attack in the classroom. Knowledge is being eroded by religion and that ignorance has found it’s way into politics.
Lawmakers can comfortably and righteously hide behind religious sentiment, writing laws benefiting corporations to the detriment of communities, the environment and public health.
It is nigh impossible to learn the truth. In this, the Information Age, we are brutally awakened to the fact that the information disseminated is mostly false, misrepresented and fact checking is a full time job.
It takes so much time to fact check, we can’t keep up with the latest round of lies. So, we take sides. If I agree, it’s true and if I disagree, it is not true. There is no room for nuance that died long ago.
Straight talking, telling it like it is and to hell with political correctness, lends gravitas to carnival barkers posing a politicians and legitimizes racism and bigotry. It matters not one wit that this jingoistic, xenophobic, nationalistic authoritarianism is bereft of anything resembling reality.
And it’s all because of them!
Those people over there! Round them up! Better yet, let’s send armed flying robots to bomb them and their children to pieces while they sit waiting to see a volunteer doctor to have their bullet wounds assessed.
Sure, it costs money to do this, to keep us safe here at home. A million dollars for the armed flying robot controlled by the trained professional hoodwinked from college or most likely high school, but he guided that robot well, blowing up the tent euphemistically called a hospital. Freedom ain’t free!
If those deadbeats at home would stop sucking at the government teat, we would be in better shape. Parasites! Now they want to be paid a minimum wage of fifteen dollars! The unmitigated gall!
And those illegals crossing the border in droves, they are draining the healthcare system.
Oh, I know! I saw it on the news playing on one of the seven large flat screen televisions, while I was getting my cappuccino and gourmet sandwich in the waiting room of one of the ninety-thousand square foot medical facilities, (there are now four within a two minute drive from where I live). Yesiree Bob, they are bleeding us dry! That’s why my co-pays are so high!
Personal responsibility and accountability are good things.
No one owes you a living. That is something you have to figure out on your own.
Because society is so big and complex, we need government to work for us, to tackle problems too big for any one individual or even one company to solve.
There will always be poor people. There will always be needy people. A truly great society will be judged on how they care for their weakest constituents.
If you build a company based on your vision, your dedication and hard work, you deserve the lion’s share; the hunter gets the choicest cut after all.
But you didn’t do it alone. People work hard for you, they help bring your vision to reality.
Working people should be able to make a living on the wages paid to them. No one should lose all because they got sick or injured. You want a rosy future for society? Then education needs to be effective and free, sponsored by the rest of us. Why? Because we will all benefit from a society of educated, intelligent members.
Not everyone can be a superstar. There will always be a need for service industry workers, sanitation workers, construction workers, transit workers, police, ambulance drivers, firefighters, correctional officers. These people are your neighbours, they are members of the society you live in and from which you benefit from being a member. Treat them with respect. Pay them for the jobs you don’t want to do and be thankful.
No, a janitor should not make as much as a CEO.
But neither should the janitor be forced to eke out a miserable life in squalor while the CEO eats caviar from a boat he is parking inside the belly of his bigger boat!
No, neither the janitor nor the government should own the company the CEO created. But the founder of the company needs to abide by rules and regulations set forth to protect the society in which he resides and from which he profits.
Law and order are necessary. Anarchy serves us not at all.
We are primates and as such, we have a predisposition for a hierarchical social order.
With the social changes brought about by our transition from hunter/gatherers to agriculture, the deeper division of labour heralded in with the Industrial Age, and the problems inherent with the population explosion we have experienced, domestic and international laws have been useful in mitigating self-destruction thus far. (Although, we have still seen the collapse of many societies as has been pointed out by scholars).
Healthy societies seem to be those that are in some form democratic as opposed to totalitarian regimes that rule by force.
Most industrialized nations operate under rule of law. Those elected, or appointed by the people write the laws. Laws, which are unpopular or fail the standard under closer scrutiny to meet the greater good, are amended or discarded.
For this circumstance to occur, protesting via civil disobedience, is necessarily allowed and tolerated with the proviso it be done peacefully.
In some cases, violent disobedience born from frustration, disenfranchisement, and desperation, may bring down the governing powers.
And so it is in the best interest of those in leadership to allow civil discourse, listen attentively to grievances and correct them where possible, arguing cogently and persuasively against them when such grievances run contrary to the greater good.
I accept the hierarchical nature of society. It is the social contract I engage in with the society in which I am living. I do reserve the right and which is afforded to me under the law of my society to protest that which I find unjust.
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