In
November of this year, we will select a President/Vice President, every House
Member and 1/3 of the Senate. That kind
of turnover among elected representatives is possible every 4 years, but this
year, the outcome will be profound, earth-shaking, and possibly
unimaginable. Seems like I should arise
from my silent stupor and address the concerns I have going into this
election. I am not concerned about the
age of Trump or Biden. I am not losing
sleep regarding any one specific policy proposal promoted by either man or
either party. I am, however, deeply
concerned that voters in our country will make their election decision in
ignorance of the issues, and thereby run the risk of repeating a human history
we must avoid. It appears to me that we
may have metaphorically cured polio only to learn there are those who want to
bring it back to cull the herd, and I am horrified.
Before our
war for independence commencing in 1776, there were only two kinds of governments
on this planet. Dictators by birthright
and dictators by military might. Want to
be a ruler? Great. Raise an army and attack the sitting
government, which is also a dictatorship, or find a way to marry into a royal
family and inherit the leadership gene.
Play polo or study war, enjoy pomp and circumstance or raise an army,
either way could get you to the throne of leadership in almost any nation on our
planet.
But
standing on the shoulders of great thinkers throughout human history a particular
thinker in 1690 published a book entitled the “Second Treatise of Government”. John Locke (1832-1704) was wonderful, and
chances are you may never have heard of him, but if you have read our
Declaration of Independence and our Constitution you will know his words. He was a tremendous influence on the great
thinkers who not only founded this nation but who were able to articulate what
we stood for, and what democracy was really all about.
Imagine a
nation where the path to the throne did not go through a military general or a
royal family. There was no such
government on the planet in 1776. We
were it. We became this great, noble,
wonderful experiment wherein everything seemed possible, everyone had a chance,
everyone was treated equally, and everyone got to help make the decisions via
the ballot. Wow. We were laughed at by kings and generals
around the world. They are not laughing
now. They are worried. Or at least those in the world who have come
down the same path we cleared to enact a democracy. We are and have been their guiding
light. Those leaders who absolutely
oppose allowing the “people” to choose are prepared to leap for joy should we
decide to abandon democracy. You know
who they are: Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan,
Syria, Yemen, and this week a scattering of African, Central and South American
countries.
With so
much at stake, I encourage everyone to read Locke and Jefferson and Madison and
Franklin and Adams to get a gut-level understanding of the foundation of the
United States. There are deep footings
that support our foundation and on which we have built this democracy. We should know those footings as they keep
our democratic foundation afloat. As a
high school government teacher, I taught hundreds of students about this great
and noble experiment. But it appears to
me now we have people in leadership roles who could not pass my high school
government final exam. Some appear not
to be aware of the three branches of government which is a mere drop in the democracy
conceptual bucket. That scares me.
So how in
the world were these early thinkers able to wrest the organization of
government away from bloodlines and battle lines? Logic.
Footing number 1. They began with
one simple tenet: All humans are created
equal. Not in terms of height and weight
and aptitude or talent but in terms of human rights. If we fail to give one person their inherent
rights we have infringed on all humans. Every
human has certain rights. Every
person. From there it was easy to argue
that these equal people should be able to cast equal votes when it came time to
select leaders. If we are to be a government
of the people, by the people, and for the people then we must admit right up
front that all people are equal to all other people. There cannot be a group that gets special
treatment based on the amount of pigment in their skin, or the amount of
dollars in their checking accounts, or the language they speak, or the gender
they claim. All men (sic) are created
equal.
If you do
not buy that notion, do not accept that notion, and are not willing to act in ways
that demonstrate your belief in that notion then America is never going to make
any sense to you at all. We keep doing
things like monitoring the wealthy to be sure they aren’t cheating and monitoring
the military to be sure they are in line with civilian authority or monitoring
each manufacturer to be sure no one company gets a competitive advantage in
such a way that they can set price as though they were a monopoly or produce a
harmful product. All of that is because
we believe all humans are equal and the rich and powerful should not be more
equal. When Elon Musk votes it cannot mean more than when my first-generation American
family next door votes. He and other
wealthy folks may wish they could override the votes of “peasants”, but not in
this country they cannot. And I assure
you they want to. They yearn for the
royalty of old into which they could buy their way.
The second
footing is: no human is above the law.
When we elect these reps and senators and they draft legislation that
the president signs it becomes the law.
No one is exempt from those laws.
They are to be applied equally to all. Anyone who argues there are some
people we should legally punish and some people to whom we should offer exemptions
does not get America.
Other
footings include the separation of church and state. Why?
Because our founding fathers arrived here from nations where the church
and state were the same and people were punished or rewarded if they believed
the right things and worshipped the right way.
The state, the government, is prohibited from recognizing religion
because religion is such a precious belief for all who hold religious
beliefs. About 1,000 religions are being
practiced today on our planet. Each of
those congregations believes they are worshipping the one true deity and that
their deity stands behind them. The
state cannot say Muslims are right and Christians are wrong and atheists are
really wrong. The government must not
say anything at all. We keep fudging on
this footing. Some people want their
deity recognized by the state not knowing how awful a circumstance that is for
the human condition. Like candidates for
office, we each get to choose our own religion or our own lack thereof.
Another
big footing is freedom of the press. If
our news source promotes lies rather than truth, we are in trouble. You may have received your view of the world
from a small portion of news media. If
so, your view is likely wrong. We have witnessed
news sources going before the audience and announcing they lied. Why?
Because those journalists and printed news and broadcast news have the
right to get at the truth and share the truth and liars were revealed. Few things are more important in a democracy
than knowing the truth, and then deciding.
The people
shall have freedom of speech, freedom from self-incrimination, freedom to
peacefully assemble, freedom to petition the government to redress their
grievances, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, right to a fair, speedy, and public trial with a jury of your peers. As the government had a very small standing
army, we were dependent on members of the militia to protect us. Therefore, those in the militia shall have
the right to keep and bear arms, and no soldier shall be boarded in a private
house during peacetime.
Reading
these amendments implies the trials and tribulations the new citizens of
America had experienced. The “Crown” and the “Church” were interwoven giving a
belief system the power of enforcement of one religion over another. The press was unreliable. People were tortured to confess. People were thrown in jail and never brought
to trial. When public speech conflicted
with a general consensus then the speaker was often punished. On and on and on. None of the above was reflective of freedom or
of a government of, by and for the people. It was a government solely for the
powerful or the majority. Jefferson
warned us about what he called “the tyranny of the majority.” No, we cannot vote to enshrine evangelistic
beliefs as American beliefs. That very
sentence is treasonous.
We said we
believed no man was above the law. No
man, woman, child, etc. We said all
humans should have equal treatment in the eyes of the law. We said procedures ranging from
investigations and indictments and trials and convictions must flow the same
for the wealthy and the poor, the White and the Black, the hetero and
homosexual, the Christian and atheist, and all men and all women. No exceptions.
And hence
my fear. There are proselytizers afoot
preaching that the law for the rich should be different, and the treatment should
be different. If a rich person does not
want a speedy trial for political reasons that trial should postponed. We have a candidate for office who clearly
does not believe all humans are created equal as he has promised to use the
military to secure his view, not the Constitutional view, promised to punish
those who disagree with him, implying that some identifiable groups of humans
should not have the same rights as others.
Nothing could be more un-American, more treasonous, than those
beliefs. Those positions are not held by
folks who swear to protect and defend the Constitution. Those positions are not held by those who
value our freedom and our liberty. Those
anti-American positions are the footings of right think, 1984, Nazism, and any
other dictatorial government with the audacity to announce what all in the land
should believe and follow without due process of law.
If we
excavate the footings our foundation then the US of A will be gone, and this great and noble
experiment will end. The only recourse
is to vote if we are to remain a government of the people, by the people and
for the people. “The people” is
everyone. On the side of police cars it
says their mission is “To protect and to serve.” What must be made clear is that this mission
applies to everyone, even the person locked in the back seat of the car.
Please vote. Please think. Please choose wisely even if you agree somewhat with the extremists who would undo America. They have the right to their opinion. They do not have the right to attack the Constitution and dismantle the foundation of our nation, nor do they have the right to physically attack those who think otherwise and the institutions that represent our footings. Those who propose to undo our democracy follow one man who does not understand America. We must defeat him, then teach him. What’s afoot? The future of democracy in the USA.
