Wishing for Another Truth

Interesting week:  the Speaker of the House of Representatives is suing the President of the United States; the Texas Governor slams a Senator from Kentucky regarding foreign policy; The US Supreme Court rules it is OK for a company to limit women’s rights based on the company’s religious beliefs; there remain people who think the earth is flat, the earth is 6,000 years old, and humans are not triggering climate change; the biggest headline all week has been Brazil’s soccer defeat (now Argentina’s); and the President’s Chief of Staff commits treason by selling out Jack Bauer to the Russians.  Oh wait, that last one is fiction.  Sadly, the rest are real.

Is it just me, or do you also sense that our world now tilts on the wrong axis?  Where once we as a nation stood for what is right, what is good, what is noble, we now vary our stance based on what is politically favorable.  We advanced based on science and knowledge and human rights rather than archaic belief systems and the self-aggrandizement of petty demagogues.  Lines now are not drawn between a Hitler and a Roosevelt, between a Khrushchev and a Kennedy, or between those who persecute and use humans versus those who protect and honor humans.  They are drawn more like the history of Galileo versus the Pope, or what is believed to be true versus what is known to be true.  I am scared.  This tilt is the prerequisite of the inquisition.  When we lose our footing in what we know in favor of what we believe we return to the times of believing Zeus hurled lightning bolts.  Such times should not be our future, but our past.  Radical Muslims are ready for such times.  Enlightened Americans should not be. 

In what may seem to be a paradoxical position, I believe our “beliefs” should be grounded first in our knowledge and second in our “beliefs”.  If you believe the earth is flat that’s OK, but you should not work for any shipping company or NASA.  If you believe Zeus hurls lightning bolts that’s fine, but you should not write the building codes for protecting our structures from thunderstorms.  If you do not believe that humans via fossil fuels are negatively impacting our climate and our atmosphere that is fine, but you should not be shaping guidelines for the EPA.  If you believe it is OK for men to practice reproductive rights but women should not, that is OK, but you should not be writing health insurance guidelines.  And if you believe “companies” are capable of moral positions that supersede the individual human moral positions of their employees that is OK, but you should not be ruling on human rights from the bench of the US Supreme Court.

We get to this point when what we know to be true is in conflict with what we wish were true.  The Pope wanted his interpretation of scripture to be true even though we know Galileo and Copernicus were right.  The Pope is an expert on scripture, not solar systems.  We should not look to his holiness for our astrophysical answers.  He is also not a biologist and we should not defer to him for reproductive questions.  Bill Gates is not an educator.  Ron and Rand Paul are not economists.  Arne Duncan talks as though he knows education, but he does not.  He knows Bill Gates.  And Rick Perry is not an expert of anything.

For instance, a little research will reveal what we should all know:  the national debt was compiled during the 8 years of the Bush Presidency and that Obama has not even doubled it.  The Speaker should know that we know that a member of Congress should not sue the President of the United States.  That is not our structure.  If the President has broken a law then impeach him.  Otherwise we need no political stunts to gain sound bites and waste our tax dollars.  If members of the Supreme Court hold belief systems that place corporate rights over human rights they should recuse themselves from issues that reflect that conflict.  The only rational position can be that corporations only have rights as they are comprised of humans.  Rights apply to all, not just the majority.  If they do not get that, Boehner should sue them.

Our hope for the future is that our form of government can find a way to work based on what we know.  We must abandon what we wish to be true for what we know to be true.  The climate is changing and we know why.  And, we know what to do to make it better.  The economy has been in terrible condition since 2008 and we know why.  And we know what to do to make it better.  Better that is for everyone except for maybe the top 1%.  We know.  If you feel you know otherwise then do some research.  Listen to and read those who are the experts in the field, not those who are on the payroll of those who wish for another truth. 

If you need an electrician do not call a politician.  If you need an astronomer do not call a flat-earther.  If you need a public education policy do not call a private-schooled billionaire.  If you need an economist do not call an oil company executive.  If you need a doctor do not call a member of the clergy.  Let us get about the business of looking our problems in the eye and dealing with them as best we know to do rather than blindly holding to tenets we wish were true and are not.  We have abandoned the Pony Express for airlines.  We cannot move forward in similar ways if we believe that horse riding is somehow more moral than flying in a plane, and that we should protect ranchers more than airlines. 

Education and knowledge are the answers we need; not beliefs we wish were true.  Yes, we must have a moral foundation in our decision making.  I recommend this one:  do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Be bold enough to see the truth as it is, not as you wish it were. 

God grant me and you the serenity to accept the things we cannot change; courage to change the things we can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

Now, back to worrying about saving Jack and the world as we know it.