Tuesday, January 12, 2021

The Way We Were

I want my country back.

I’ll admit I’m not completely certain what that means anymore. 


Am I longing for the white-male-chauvanist orderliness of my youth? No, we have to get past that, and we are, and of course rearranging our political and social norms on the scale that we are now engaged in is going to upset some people, maybe most people, but we have to persist. The people who have not had a voice must now be heard, and we must listen.


That’s not what is going on at this moment, though. The anger boiling into our streets, and into our Capitol, is not a cry for mercy and justice. It is the death rage of a group who are losing their grip on power and are digging in to keep it. White supremacists is not too harsh a label for them. Not just for the Proud Boys among them, but as well for the huge number of ordinary citizens who have been quick to pour out their hatred on social media and in public squares, who are ready to take up arms to protect their increasingly marginalized place in America.


They have been inspired and encouraged by our president. He is our very own modern Jefferson Davis. 


Without an actual civil war, he has been defeated. But he leaves behind an angry mob that must be sent back home, or if they won’t go home peacefully, jailed.


We have to stop tolerating the hatred our president has encouraged.


He should be impeached. I doubt he’ll be convicted (even though I think he should be), but he should be barred, under the 14th Amendment, from ever holding federal office again.


Those who rioted in the Capitol should be arrested and tried.


The members of the House and Senate who on January 6 challenged the certification of the presidential election, after those results had been certified by the respective states and all judicial challenges dismissed, should be barred from serving in Congress.


Insurrections must have consequences. Any governor and any parent can tell you that.


Social media must stop allowing itself to be a bulletin board for hatred. 


We have to calm down and go back to striving to be a nation of mutual respect and cooperative industriousness.


That’s the country I want back.

7 comments:

  1. Yes to all of the above! This is such a fragile, disturbing time in the disturbing history of our nation. It's stunning how powerful social media has been -- you're right that this has become blazingly clear. Stunning too to see how powerfully money talks! Now that some corporations are withdrawing support for right wing MOC spouting seditious lies, we see backtracking on at least some of their parts. So much enabling of this destructive, frightening president, for four years. I don't think our country can ever go back to what it was, and I don't think it should -- but I do hope all of us can help to carve a new country out of this aching old one, a country of greater justice, greater peace, and genuine "law and order" in the best sense.

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    1. "I do hope all of us can help to carve a new country out of this aching old one, a country of greater justice, greater peace, and genuine "law and order" in the best sense."

      Yes. Well said, Harriet

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  2. The Democrats and Republicans have devolved into two alcoholic parents, and are making their children just as toxic. My advice; get a paper route, and hope the 'adults' get into rehab.

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    1. Wait, didn’t I already do that?

      I suggest a more apt analogy, and one that fits both then and now, is a rageaholic father and an anxious mother doing her best to cope, never knowing what might be coming next, but realizing it might be violent.

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    2. I can't see Mom as Nancy Pelosi. Nancy's a little too close to Trump in temperament.

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  3. I am beginning to think the we have irreconcilable differences. It may be worth considering dividing the country ideological along state lines......seriously, I think we're at that point. A separation will certainly give us clarity on what does and doesn't work..... no scapegoats. That may be the social experiment we need. David Clayton

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    1. Ok by me.

      The problem is that commercially/economically we have a good thing going with our confederation of economies. It would be a shame to bust that up. The EU has been struggling to create what we have. Our free movement of goods, services and labor across state borders makes us an unrivaled innovator and producer.

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