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Another Essay About Privilege

I’ve lost count of how many I’ve written. This better be good.

Because of the context of using adverbs as nouns, I have bolded those words when they appear in that context.

Thinking about privilege, which I do more often than I let on, it came to me that one of the reasons it is so difficult and maddening to help certain of us understand the concept is that they individualize it. They are, in general, more comfortable as individuals than they are in groups. They take umbrage with what they consider to be a personal attack because they only respond to groups if they imagine they share every quality or when they share no qualities. It is hard for them to envision being a member of a group that has any great measure of diversity, such as being part of as group that is diverse, sharing a privilege that not everyone in the group acts on individually.

It is this part of their nature, be it learned or innate, that is being exploited by those who denigrate and outlaw DEI programs. Diversity has become a dirty word, not simply because they are averse to diversity themselves but because they have been sold a narrative that agrees with them about the nature of groups. They are told confirming information that groups are either completely good or completely bad . The narrative is filled with sordid exemplars of minorities getting unjust preferential treatment in hiring, housing, college admissions, etc. It reinforces the us versus them, sovereign citizen ideation.

An example (now here I go with exemplars) of this individualization is that so many of us react negatively to being told that America has a racist past. They need to make it clear, by immediately stating, loudly, that they are not racist. That’s not the issue. You don’t need to be a racist to belong to a group with the privilege of being a “right” race. Explaining this sort of privilege has always seemed very simple to me. That doesn’t make me a saint. Perhaps I’m an obsessive observer. I certainly get my share of blank stares when I talk about it.

In my world, privilege is always about what we are and not who we are. It’s that simple, but difficult. Making it complex is easy. I am a Caucasian male. That is what I am. I cannot change or alter that. I did not choose it. Any privilege it confers on me is none of my own, personal doing. I have male privilege because I am male and for no other reason. I am not singled out. All males have the same privilege I do, and they also did not choose it. Even trans men have male privilege, although it looks mighty diluted from here. Saying you can prove that not all men display male privilege will get no resistance from me. Some men choose not to take advantage of male privilege; others do. It can be very taxing to entertain this concept, but the fact remains that both using or not using privilege are there for the taking. 

The only requirement to have the advantages of male privilege or white privilege is to be what you are, male and/or white. Not all males choose to use their male privilege, but because they are male, they still have the privilege to use it if they wish. The defining characteristics of a what are that not just anyone else can be what that person is. The defining group is a closed group. Also, that person did not choose to be what they are. The thing that defines a who is that anyone can be any particular who at any time Whos are an open group. Being a who involves a personal choice.

Who we are involves a multitude of factors, the most prominent being that we, for the most part, choose who we are. Unless there are specific reasons we are not able to do or be something we can be whomever we desire. Anyone can be a teacher, lawyer, or butcher should they choose to become that and fulfill the requirements. Yes, lawyers get certain privileges that you and I do not, giving the appearance of a what. But, remember that anyone who passes the bar can be a lawyer. The privileges of the what of being a lawyer are a subset of who the lawyer is.

Privileges and privilege are different things. Privileges are things you can do that others are not allowed to. They are given to you by some worldly authority. Privileges can be taken away, and they can also be earned. A person has ‘privilege’ without it being given. You have it because you are something unique that only certain people can be. It is never earned and can never be taken away. You cannot change what you are. But you can change who you are. You could stop practicing law and become a scuba diving instructor anytime you so desire. But you cannot change the fact that you have type AB negative blood.

Many people become angry and defensive when it is said that there is systemic racism in America. They take it as an attack on their values without the ‘attacker’ knowing who they really are. They will deny being a racist and say you are a bad person for assuming they are. They feel this is accusatory and pigeonholes them as a bad person. They are sure they aren’t what you ‘say’ they are. It humiliates them and they won’t listen to another word you say.

This misunderstanding is significant. It happens largely because of that person’s troubles relating to groups. They feel better perceived as themselves, individually. When told there is systematic racism in America, they only hear that they are themselves being called racists, as individuals. They don’t clearly hear what was said, sometimes because the word racist triggers deep feelings, and they do not listen closely while influenced emotionally by the trigger. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this. We all have emotional triggers from various sources. What is heard is that they are part of a group that is racist, and they are angry for being assumed to belong to that group as individuals. What they aren’t hearing is that in America, there is systematic racism and has been for centuries. If you are not a minority in America (read ‘white’) you have the privilege grated to you by very old racist systems.

Not everyone understands systemic racism. There are and have been for a long time, systems that are racist by nature, i.e. redlining, job and educational discrimination, accusations of immorality, assumptive judgements based entirely on privilege with no evidence. People who do not speak out against these things are considered by many to be complicit and as at fault as the actual perpetrators. This is true in one sense, but to be generous, most of those considered complicit either do not know that the racist entities are, in fact, racist. Or, they have accepted a culture that normalizes the racism as natural without critically questioning those cultural norms themselves. This does not let them off the hook in complicity. But it provides teachable moments for those who can approach them truthfully and respectfully. 

Taking advantage of teachable moments is perhaps the best means of combatting the privilege afforded by systemic racism. This is one of the main reasons that MAGA legislatures want to control education by removing incidences of and references to racism, as well as alternative sexual and gender stories and such references from textbooks and libraries, as well as other truths they don’t want their vulnerable children to know. Conservatives, in general, think human beings are evil by nature and must be saved from themselves. They are afraid of ideas. Ideas will corrupt their children. 

It is a reality that many who don’t understand, when given the facts about privilege with grace, humility, and respect, will open themselves up to learning. Teaching truths without proselytizing helps people understand that knowledge is power and not propaganda. Knowing that because Americans committed genocide and encouraged ownership of other humans centuries ago, it does not magically make one genocidal or racist in the here and now. Hasn’t anybody ever told these people that we can learn from our mistakes, regardless of how heinous?

Raising awareness of what privilege is and isn’t is a giant step in the direction of helping all of us improve our lives by appreciating both what we are and who we are, with clarity about the differences. It lets us know which of our behaviors and attitudes we are directly responsible for, and which we are indirectly responsible for in the here and now, both as individuals and in groups. It tells us how not to fear things we are not overtly responsible for but need to know and understand. 

The dynamics of human social interactions and emotional reactions are rarely simple to grasp with facility. But humans of all sorts are capable of understanding those things and looking upon their fellows with compassion for their faults, which are also our faults. Opportunity, empathy, and responsibility are values that everybody has access to. They are not weak traits as we are often told. Paving a path to the embrace of those values for those who are lost might be a thankless job. But more likely than not, there will come a time when somebody appears from a thicket of oaks and, looking around, opens their mouth and heart in awe of the power that comes from simply being human, and realizing that we are all human. Instinctual, absolute truths can and will instantly replace the relative, learned truths of their past. We can unlearn that which is learned but we can’t unwhat what we are.

We can and will shine.

It takes work.

But the brilliance of the light makes it worth the effort.

People, Privilege, and Paradox

There are a limited number of basic and meaningful things that happen in a human being’s life. We are prone to experience any or all of them. Experiences just happen, regardless of our particular place in life. However, one factor that influences the experiences we have is privilege. Privilege is one of the more misunderstood concepts in America. Conflicting definitions of privilege are perhaps the major source of confusion over what it is. Privilege is defined by what we are and not who we are. There are many different whos that we can be, from artist to attorney, from republican to recluse. And there are many whats as well, from British to blind to black to a baby.

A what is a closed set. An American cannot be British. You may say there are British Americans. But that is also a closed set. Not just anyone one can be British American either. What you are cannot change but who you are can change many times and at any time. Anyone can be a who and a who can be anyone. An artist can be black, Catholic, rich, poor or woke. It is true that artist is a type of closed set but anyone can be an artist. So it is also an open set. This is a contradiction. We must realize that a contradiction is not necessarily a cognitive dissonance. Contradictory concepts can coexist and can have subsets that share a place in a Venn diagram.

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Many people misinterpret the relativity and absolutism involved in privilege. They confuse the who they and others are with the what they and those others are. When people are told they have white privilege that is a what, because only white people can be white and thus only white people can have white privilege. When a person professes to be an accountant that is a who because anyone could be an accountant. One might say an accountant has certain privileges. But because anyone can be an accountant those things particular to an accountant are features of the subset and not privileges.

Often, all white people are called racists by people who don’t understand privilege. It is true that white people have dominated American culture since before the American revolution. They have dominated governance since the beginning of our nation. It is also true that America has featured systemic racism for the entire period of white dominance. Consider that being white is a what and being a racist is a who. For example, asian people can be racist as much as white people. Recall the Venn diagram from above. Some people are in the shared section and some are in the individual section. Some people are both and some people are one or the other.

The truth is, not all white people are racists. Some are, some aren’t. This is the case regardless of whether a white supremacist culture has always featured systemic racism. Because of that cultural connection white people who are told they have white privilege assume they are also being called a racist. They can become angry that they are being stereotyped. This interaction is untrue and divisive. The people involved in these sad divisions are not wrong out of rancor but from a confusion of what privilege is. The misunderstanding surrounding white privilege is not the only instance of division caused by confusion. It is but one of many misunderstood concepts keeping Americans divided. Unfortunately, these divisions are promoted by those who wish us keep us arguing and not realize that we the people are one. They are major problems many others describe better than I.

Regardless of whatever who we are or profess to be, the only what that we all share is being human. Our only universally shared privilege is human privilege. All humans want to love and be loved. All humans want to be happy and have meaning and purpose in their lives. We all think and make decisions and worry and laugh. There are so many things we have in common. These are so basic as to be taken for granted and not rightfully considered to be things that bind us together.

We are small creatures on a small planet in a small galaxy in a vast multiverse. Can lose track of the fact that there is big and small but we depend on it. We recognize different colors on a TV screen as being different. But if the screen is entirely red we do not see any differences even though there are still thousands of individual pixels. It’s easy to see similarities and not the differences as much as we recognize differences but not similarities. That they can coexist gets lost in our addiction to duality. We see the world as black or white but choose not to see the gray that represents unity. One thing for certain, when we are being born we are all the same and as we die we are all the same. What makes us think there is an existential difference between the two?

We are individuals and part of a whole. We are all the same yet all different. It is a most sublime divine paradox. It is this conundrum that is the engine of a life that can contain both mystery and misery, both freedom and boredom. Life is not static nor moving. It is both. It moves and stays. For life to move there must be different places. For there to be different places there must be different spaces and for each individual to exist they must occupy their own particular space. Two of us cannot occupy one space but any of us can occupy any space at any given time. A major life contradiction is how can we be both one and many at the same time. It is this question that we strive to answer all our lives whether we know it or not. We seek out differences to legitimize our own individuality but also we all know in our deepest hearts that the things in life that truly matter are the things we all share, like family, being hungry, and having desires. These things stay.

I love being like you. And I love being me. There is a balance to life. When that balance is upset and we recognize only our differences, life becomes difficult and fractured. If you won’t recognize me, should I care to recognize you? If you don’t respect me do I respect you? I grow weary of spending so much energy disliking people. As an individual I already love everybody. I am called to love by my spirit. But if we are to like each other we must all work together. Love is the Alpha and Omega. If we can recognize and respect the love in each other it will go a long way towards making it acceptable to not like each other. And when it is acceptable to not like each other, because of the presence of divine contradiction, it is much easier to discover we actually do like each other. It is through respect for our shared humanity, despite our differences, that we find unity.

Regardless of who or what we are, when we occupy space in this world we create boundaries for a space I can occupy. For that I am grateful. What you do with your space is your business. As mine is mine. With this freedom we make our space a place. For this process to work we must allow each other a space in which to create our place in this world. We all deserve a place. We all want and need autonomy. I’m here and I belong here. We are also a vast network of souls, whether connected or seemingly not. It’s like this at every level of existence. From the macrocosm of the universe to the microcosm of a Higgs Bosun everything seeks stasis. Everything is individual and part of a whole.

I haven’t posted much lately. I’ve been caretaking my fiancee as she recovers from surgery and have taken on extra work around our castle. I wrote this a while ago. With some editing it is my latest contribution.

This is how I see it. The concepts of relative and absolute truths coexisting in a peaceful and productive world are, to me, what make life incredible, meaningful and exciting. We should embrace them.

Amid the chaos and turmoil there is a path to a reimagining of America. Right now, it is the path less taken.

Only we the people can change that.

A Few Things

I am not a baby killer. Regardless of whether a fetus is or is not a person I don’t think abortion is the best option for any child bearing person.. But, I don’t have the right, or duty, or ability to judge a person for the actions they take with their own body. I can’t demand their spiritual condemnation. That judgement is God’s and God’s alone. I believe when people legislate morality it’s dangerous, especially when it involves an individual’s personal decisions.

Those who favor banning books, or banning teachers from teaching things that give people valuable lessons, even they are are controversial should remember that someone els might benefit from reading or hearing about it. it infringes on their freedom. Banning such teaching is bullying. Implying that anyone is less human than you are is an offense against God. It violates the patriotic American idea that all people are created equal. Their desire to withhold truths from their children comes from the fear that those children might learn about something they don’t like. These deniers are afraid their children don’t have the common sense to know that learning about controversial things isn’t going to make them turn against their parents. In essence they are discriminating against their own children.. They do not trust their children to be clear thinking individuals. They don’t seem to have faith in human love or compassion. This is perhaps because they have difficulty with loving and empathizing themselves.

Yes, by themselves, guns do not and cannot kill people. And yes, people do kill people. This is not a good defense of people with guns. People with guns kill people much, much easier and efficiently than people without guns. None other than that famously woke Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, in his decision for the Heller vs. Washington D.C. ruling, stated that second amendment rights are not unlimited. He said a citizen can’t carry just any gum for just any purpose. Certain guns and how they are used can be regulated. We are reminded that freedom does not mean everyone has the liberty to do whatever they want to whoever they want.. Violating the liberty of another person who is exercising their liberty to use their freedoms is a crime.

At the leadership level Republicans and Democrats are less different than they and the media would have us believe. Both parties are heavily influenced by corporations. Republicans answer to corporations who are more interested in profit than people. They continue to follow economic principles that have little to do with ‘promoting the general welfare’ of the people. Democrats answer to corporations who use a more generous economic approach to create loyalty among their followers. They feel that appealing to the needs and desires of the average American will bring greater profits in the long term by establishing loyal customers. The Republican party makes its followers happy with secret appeals to their racial and white supremacist ideas,. These appeals are less secret now than in the past. The democrats appeal to their base by talking about doing good things but not doing a lot about it. Both sides accuse the other of doing bad things they do themselves.

Both sides try to keep the public distracted from the real issues of the time by talking a lot about issues that aren’t as important as they sound like which bathroom transgender people can (or can’t) use or demanding that their state representative be on their side on absolutely every issue. They use both social and mainstream media to tell people how bad the other party is and send out lots of emails and letters asking for more money than we have to give.

Republicans continue to try to keep people at each others throats by telling one group of people they are better than another group Or they tell a different group of people that the Democrats don’t care about them as much as another group. Because they are afraid there will soon be more Democrats than Republicans they want everybody fighting everyone else so they don’t see that the Republicans don’t have much of a plan for government. Democrats appeal to the decency of people. They feel this is the way to convince them to stop voting for Republicans against their self interests. The Republican message has backfired a little because they are losing suburbs to progressives who can now better afford to move there. These folks have become annoyed by what they think are stupid culture battles and the failure of government services under Republican rule. Democrats keep losing votes from voters who used to be loyal such as Blacks and Hispanics. Republicans tell them the Democrats only care about them when they need their votes. They appeal to their conservative religious and cultural values.

Most of us know that America is really run by a small group of super rich peopleThey work hard to control our voting habits. When Republicans are elected the wealthy few allow them to make lots of right wing laws and policies. People get tired of the weaknesses of right wing rule and eventually we elect Democrats. Then the same thing happens, the Democrats do too many liberal things and we elect the Republicans again. We go back and forth and back and forth a. This gives us the illusion that our vote counts but it is really the super rich that are controlling things.

I want to continue on something I talked about earlier. Many Americans confuse freedom and liberty and think they mean the same thing. This is not true. Freedoms are given to us by the constitution. They apply to everyone equally and are limited for everyone equally. Everybody has freedom of speech but no one can yell fire in a crowed theater for example. Liberty, on the other hand, is individual. Each person has the liberty to live their lives however they wish. Liberty is granted to every person because they are alive. Liberty come from God or whatever power greater than you that you recognize.

The issue with individual liberty is that there will always be conflicts when two people’s liberties clash. Conflicts of liberty are what most of our laws are about, civil and criminal. For example, the second amendment gives every American that follows the law the freedom to bear a firearm. The first amendment gives everyone the freedom to say whatever they want unless that speech would threaten someone else. But the person with the gun is not at liberty to shoot the speaker just because they don’t like what they are saying. Society determines how conflicts of liberty are to be judged. We do this by democratically electing representatives who debate and make laws about our conflicts. We have courts that decide who has the law on their side in a conflict. W have courts that decide whether the constitution agrees with a law or it doesn’t. Freedom doesn’t allow anyone to do whatever they want when and wherever they want. And liberty is only an inalienable right when it does not interfere with another’s liberty. These words are tossed about much too loosely.

There will be more tidbits of opinion coming soon.

Bernie and Trump: Redux

This essay was written the the fall of 2016 slightly before the general election. We know the outcome. And we mostly know the criminal activities of the authoritarian president who whipped his party into a Fascist frenzy. His malignant narcissism led to the big lie, rejecting the results of the legitimate 2020 election of Joe Biden. He imbued his rabid followers with the idea that the democratic process and the peaceful transfer of power in America, once inviolate, were irreparably broken. It gave rise to a normalization of the idea that violent revolution would ostensibly right the sinful ways of the Democrat’s government and forge a reign by the savior, Trump, and his army of ‘patriots’. 

The Covid pandemic, somewhat unexpected, had a dramatic effect on the nation during the Trump presidency and led to significant economic and societal issues. These largely unavoidable circumstances added to our existent severe partisanship. Now, as we analyze the existentially critical 2022 midterm elections we find that many of the observed issues in this 2016 essay remain in play today, perhaps even more so.

. One caveat, Gen Z was not included in the original essay with the Millennials as potential saviors of America. They were added, through an edit of the last part of the essay that brought some of the text up to date. As I revisit this idea I find that Millennials, while very capable and evolved, have largely become disillusioned with a disintegrating America and the Boomers who refuse to hand over the reins of that damaged society to those who might rejuvenate it. It is Gen Z who will lead the charge to bring light into the darkness that has shrouded America and the planet since the latter part of the 20th Century. They will “woke” many millennials from their angst and despair. Together they can be a great force for good.

.The edited 2016 essay follows. It bears a touch of prescience. 

A continuum is a line. A line extends through space, through the universe. The universe is curved. Therefore a line will eventually meet itself in space to form, in essence, a circle. A circle with one point missing is considered a line. There can be an infinite number of points between any two points. Thus, speaking from the standpoint of nuclear physics we have established a paradox whereby a line can also be considered a circle based on the observers point of view.

Why am I starting off with all of this gobbledygook? Because it provides a mathematical basis for my hypothesis, indicating it is based in science. Using this information, continuums, which are nearly always portrayed as lines, are actually circles. The far ends of continuums, rather than being opposites, as is commonly perceived, are very nearly the same thing. One example is the fact that on a hot/cold continuum both extreme heat and extreme cold will burn the flesh. And obviously, the continuum of the changing of the seasons does not have polar opposite ends but ends that run smoothly into each other.

So to get to the point, finally, it has always been my contention that radical right wingers and radical left wingers have more in common than they have in contention. It is our tendency as humans, these days strongly influenced by the media, to want to see dualities, black and white, in order to simplify life and our perception of it. This dualism causes us to see the ends of a continuum as opposites and encourages us to see extreme liberals and extreme conservatives as complete opposites. This is just not true. This year’s presidential campaigns provide us with good evidence of that fact.

Conventional wisdom would consider Bernie Sanders and his followers to be polar opposites of Donald Trump and his followers. However while they disagree on a number of policies they share many of the more visceral and esoteric ideas about issues and politics in general. I have experienced a large number of people who say they have been Democrats all their lives who will be voting for Trump as well as life long Republicans that will be voting for Sec. Clinton. Many of these folks go so far as to say they are changing parties permanently. Why is this?

Most of these switchers are Sanders supporters angry at the nomination process and appalled that the Democrats would nominate such a dangerous person who is not a real progressive. There are also traditional Republicans angry at the nomination process and appalled the the GOP would nominate such a dangerous person who is not a real conservative. What do these people have in common? A general mistrust of government and how it operates. Their main goal is to throw out all the mainstream politicians, who they feel are all corrupt sell outs, and replace them with outsiders who are not politicians but are ideologically pure. Most of these disillusioned Americans have never been involved in politics before because of their strong mistrust of the process and a belief there is no difference between the traditional parties. They want to throw away government as we know it and start over, based on their interpretation of the constitution and their idea of personal liberty.

But these two factions, as they are considered to be, are generally looked upon as opposites, especially by the press. Now this is true of of much of their overall reasoning, specific complaints, interpretations of the constitution, intentions of the founding fathers, and most importantly who they blame for all of it. But the bottom line is they both believe America is going to hell in a hand basket and the only way to save it is to return to government of, by and for the people. And I believe that in essence they are right about a lot of this.

However, this is where I think things go off the rails. People want all of this change but for a number of reasons most of them aren’t really ready to do the work necessary to make it happen, especially in the way they imagine it to work. There are a large number of folks, lovingly referred to as low information voters, who have little to no knowledge of how America works, what our major issues really are, and what impact proposed policy will have on them, the nation, and the world. These people are easily manipulated by appeals to strong emotions and will believe lies if they are told loudly and often enough. They feel uneasy about the direction of the nation but know little about how to change it or actively work for change except to vote for the radical political influencers they have been told about.

Then there are voters who know a little civics and have opinions on things but who are just too busy to participate in the process. Some are simply disinterested in participating, for various reasons ranging from laziness to feeling that government never changes anything for anyone, ever. These citizens only care about elections the last two weeks before election day. Which is why most campaigns bombard the broadcast media with ad after unfair and prevaricating ad during those final two weeks  So right when voters are looking for facts, after months of ignoring the campaigns, all they get is innuendo, half truths, and actual bald faced lies.

These two groups make up a very large segment of voters, most certainly comprising a majority. And what they have in common is a need to hand over power and responsibility to those they elect and then forget about politics until the next election. Unfortunately this ennui and ignorance is most apparent when they vote for president  Many of us want and expect the president to solve every problem, and right away. They want a savior, a messiah to lead them figuratively out of Egypt, up to and including parting the Red Sea. This phenomenon is one factor that has made President of the United States the hardest job in the world. Everyone expects redemption by the president in ways that are impossible for them to do, either because of the limits of presidential power or external factors beyond their control.

The next and most normal faction, if there is such a thing as normal in politics, is the well informed voter who keeps up with the issues and gets their information from multiple sources. Rather than considering the other party a pack of baby eating demons, enemies to be destroyed, they have some respect for their opponents, who are, in truth, opponents and not enemies. These people are what are often referred to in the media as traditional republicans and democrats or center left and center right voters, centrists, or moderates They for the most part make informed decisions and often subscribe to the mantra ‘I don’t vote for the party i vote for the candidate”. These people respond to parts of both liberal and conservative narratives and what they call “voting for the  candidate” is often more like voting for which of those narratives a candidate activates in their conscious mind.

The final demographic, who also need a savior, and to me the most dangerous, are the radical activists. They are extremely aware of what is happening in politics and society, both domestic and international. They have a clear idea of what they think will save us and they know that to make it happen they need one strong leader who can get the job done in the face of adversity. It must be somebody who displays supreme confidence and the charisma to sell themself, even to the most opinionated of the activists, who will then follow them fervently and bring along their own followers.

There are many societies who have such a strongman at the top of their government. controlling virtually every aspect of government and society. Some of these leaders are benevolent but most are authoritarian and dictatorial. I believe the US has avoided such a regime primarily because it’s two party system keeps both parties from straying too far into uncharted authoritarian waters. They have never felt confident that taking such a dramatic stance could be successful, not with a majority of Americans having basically center left or center right views. But things have changed. I’m willing to guess that the change is, in large part, the responsibility of the rise of the political purist, brought on by frightened parties that felt the need to pander to extremists to gain power. The extremists eventually gained enough power (This happened in both parties but primarily in the GOP) to require a purity test for candidates. This has led to a bloc of candidates who are safe in their districts because  of gerrymandering to become legislators who refused to make compromises and thus ground the business of the legislative branch to a halt. 

This paralysis has been the last straw for those who have become progressively more and more disillusioned with government and it’s failed ability to serve the people. They have come out of the woodwork to strongly influence the current presidential race. They were able to get Donald Trump nominated as a Republican, much to the chagrin of many prominent Republicans who know he is far from being one. And they nearly succeeded in nominating a Democratic Socialist, Bernie Sanders, as the Democratic nominee. What transpired then is a victory in the Democratic Party of the establishment. This after a more heavily contested primary than they ever imagined. And their candidate, justifiably or not, had an extremely low likability rating. And the GOP nominee, a loose cannon strongman, had an even lower rating.

This has brought us to a place where we had the most disconcerting race is recent US history. The hold your nose, lesser of two evils factor is off the charts. People are tired of having to elect this kind of President. They want someone they can admire. They want big change and they want it now. This frenetic anger has left us vulnerable to an authoritarian strongman being elected President. They will most likely break their promises to make the country a better place for the people, and institute policies that oppress us even more so than we already are. But in the event we can stop this very real danger, the alternative does not inspire much hope that she would ever institute many of the progressive policies this country needs.

This took us round robin to the longtime democrats and republicans, plus the disillusioned radicals or traditionalists who are abandoning their ostensible party’s nominee. What affect did this dynamic have on the outcome of the election? I doubt any of the mainstream pundits know even now. This is out of their comfort zone.

We are entering a new era of American politics, one which may result in a system with multiple viable parties, and a more parliamentary type of governmental creation. Right now the re-evolution is in it’s infancy and as in any revolution heads will fall. It is a critical, crucial time to be an American, even more so an educated and aware American. The arc of our future was forged in November like never before. 

Our Millennial and  Gen Z generations are the only ones who can save us, in my estimation. But their hope for the future is being systematically eroded by overwhelming student debt and impeded by a lack of career advancement opportunities. This is intentional. They are being squeezed by a shrinking job market and reduced public services across the board. They are being distracted by any number of petty playthings designed to numb them from their pain. We boomers, as our last redeeming gift, should protect them, and open the door to empowerment and economic growth. We must run interference for them and exert ourselves to keep them from getting picked off one by one into despair. We must keep the light shining so they have something in the distance to aspire to. 

A dictatorship will make that nearly impossible.

But we have defeated dictatorships before.

There is a reason both love and courage come from the heart.

And there is also a reason evil, cowardice, and hate come from the ego.

Love has always overcome hate.

There is hope.

Use It or Lose It

Most people, whether they are religious or not, believe in a power outside themselves that influences our existence and over which we have no or at best limited control. Call that power what you will, we understand that it is beyond any one individual’s needs, or desires, or imagination. 

Our founders knew this and sought to create a governmental power greater than one individual person, a power which we as a people might control. They strove to establish a model for governance that took everyone’s needs into account while giving us structure to accomplish it. They did not succeed.

They were imperfect, as are we all, and thus their creation was imperfect. But it shone with light, enough light to guide a people toward a new way of looking at and organizing government. It was a grand experiment that men of learning and toiling alike felt in their souls to be the best way they could imagine to “form a more perfect union”.

‘The people must rule’ was their mantra. But they knew when individual people themselves chose what they should do, for their benefit only, as individuals, there would be anarchy. After intense discussion they fashioned a heretofore unknown system, the American Democratic Republic. It featured representatives from a number of sovereign states, working together under a federal umbrella of common purpose.

Federally, its foundation was three distinct branches of government. Each branch tempered the power of the other branches and each had exclusive power over certain procedures, creating a system of checks and balances. No one branch would dominate. Returning to their original premise, they gave the people the ultimate power of choosing those of us who would represent the people in that government. They gave all citizens the right and responsibility of voting for those representatives.

State governments had a significant amount of freedom to govern in whatever fashion their voters chose. They retained control over many of their governmental functions. The people also democratically elected their state representatives as well as local and regional government officials, each having their own jurisdictions. 

To put this agreement in writing, after intense deliberation they forged a document, a Constitution, which codified federal law as the ultimate arbiter of how power should be wielded in these united states to provide both liberty and protection to the people of the union. It also addressed which aspects of government the states retained. This document, the Constitution, is the definitive law of the land to this day. Americans in power, and those they serve, accept this Constitution as the benchmark against which all American law is measured. When the elected representatives of the people’s power are sworn in they take a vow to protect and defend that Constitution.

The Constitution has held up as our organizing document for nearly 250 years. It is the true source of the unique American way of life, of both our freedoms and our limitations. It is the real thing all Americans should revere, not symbols or institutions. Symbols, like our flag and institutions like our military help us remember what is good about America, but the constitution itself is what we are to uphold and treasure. Our freedoms originate in the Constitution, not in the flag or the national anthem. These symbols simply remind us of how to honor our unique American experiment. There is no one way to honor the Constitution. That right to choose is protected by the words of the first amendment.

Americans are called, as are their representatives, to honor and respect the Constitution. The symbols of America, the flag, the national anthem, and the pledge of allegiance, exist to focus our hearts and minds on the promise enshrined in the Constitution. The institution of the military, protectors of the people’s power, do so to uphold America against all enemies, both foreign and domestic, as is directed by the Constitution. There is no one way to honor those who volunteer to protect American interests around the globe. This right is also constitutionally protected.

It is our founding document, our Constitution, which deserves our reverence. The symbols, the flag and anthem, as well as the uniforms of our cherished military protectors, are to be honored only in so much as they reflect the people’s power as written in the Constitution. They are not the people’s power itself. They are not America. The Constitution is America. The people are America. Those other things are symbols, signs and signals that point us alway, to the real idea of the rule of the people. They are institutions, means created in the Constitution to serve the people. They are worthy of our respect but nowhere in the Constitution is that respect demanded. We give it freely through our liberty. The symbols’ and institutions’ value is given to them by the Constitution and not the other way around.

The founders’ means of balancing power was unique in its wisdom. There were formed three branches of government, each separate but equal contributors. The Legislative branch, Congress, is elected to represent the people, measured by population, the House of Representatives, and also by the equal representation of each sovereign state, the Senate. Its purpose is to create laws based on the designs of the Constitution. The Executive branch is headed by the President, who is elected and appoints an administration of leaders for the primary departments of government, his Cabinet. This branch’s vitally and necessary function is to execute those laws. The Judicial branch consists of the federal legal system, federal judges, appellate judges, and the Supreme Court. They act act as arbiters of the law. They determine a law’s relevance to the Constitution. They are not elected but appointed by the President, who is given advice by and with the consent of the Senate. It is the Senate that holds this specific power because of its equal representation from each united state. The purpose of the court is to determine if the laws created and passed by Congress and signed into law by the President follow the Constitution’s edicts.

The judiciary is specifically designed to not be elected, so as not to be subjected to the whims and desires of politics. We elect the President and Senate to appoint judges for us. The founders were insistent that the court not be politicized. The reason for the Court’s impartiality is significant. The Judicial branch exists as a check on the people. Even the people’s power must be balanced and regulated. The people or their representatives can sometimes make laws that do not clearly follow the Constitution, out of neglect or by design. The Supreme Court protects us from this “tyranny of the majority” through impartially adjudicating conflicts between a law and the Constitution. This requires impartial justices. 

For most of our history an unwritten law was honored by our elected officials that justices should be chosen and appointed only through an appraisal of their suitability for this incredible honor and responsibility. Their knowledge of the law and their non partisan dedication to the Constitution were to be the only considerations used to select them for nomination. Over time this honor has deteriorated. A flaw exists in the process of appointing judges, in particular Supreme Court justices, and is now being exploited more than ever.

Justices are meant to be non partisan, impartial, using only the Constitution as their guide, and not a political ideology. Presidents, who nominate Federal judges and Supreme Court justices for appointment, slowly began to appoint them using the criterion that a justice must practice a political philosophy in line with the president who nominated them.

Application of this partisan plan relies on there being one political party which controls both the Presidency and the Senate. In this situation a Supreme Court justice, who is appointed for life, becomes not a politically neutral advocate of the law but a tool of that party, giving that party a better chance of seeing Constitutional law decisions on cases that come before the court determined from a partisan political standpoint. Their standpoint.

This politicization has slowly deteriorated the Judicial branch’s ability to check and balance the power of lawmakers and the executive from a non partisan position. One political party could ‘stack’ the court with justices who have a political bias toward interpreting the constitution. By appointing comparatively young justices, that party’s philosophy could dominate the Court’s decisions for a generation or more, even after those politicians lose the elected power of their offices. 

Perhaps the primary partisan division of judicial interpretation rests in the competing philosophies of perceiving the document as ‘living’ versus ‘dead’. A more liberal interpretation of the Constitution says the document was wisely designed to account for the inevitable changes in the evolution of society and continued advancements in technology and knowledge of the world. The document is living. The meaning of its words can change with the times. 

For example, the addition of the Bill of Rights and the opportunity for the people to amend the document gave us the power to reflect in the Constitution changes in the will of society such as ending slavery and giving women the right to vote. This more liberal philosophy also allows for new interpretations of the language of the original document as it pertains to modern times and the evolution of our citizens.  

Conversely, a more conservative bias sees the document as being strictly interpreted, literal and rigid, unchanging. These literalist constructionists see the Constitution as, in essence, dead. It can only be interpreted using what they consider to be the original intent of the founders. But who is to determine what was their original intent? That is still interpretation.

Interestingly enough we see a similar division in interpretation of religious law between conservative, fundamentalist Christians and more progressive denominations. Thankfully, it is no longer legal to stone to death an adulterer or force a widow to marry her husband’s brother. Human values change with time. Regardless, the Constitution will be interpreted according to the philosophy of Constitutional jurisprudence of a predominance of justices.

The politicization of the Supreme court is, in my estimation, the most significant factor in the slow but substantial movement of American government toward a place that looks less like a democracy and more like an authoritarian state. The grooming of vulnerable Americans by advocates for the theft of power from the people into the hands of moneyed interests, has been facilitated by their hand picked, bought and sold politicians. Mesmerized  Americans, like the frog in the boiling pot, have given away their power and freedoms, slowly, over time, almost invisibly. It has been accomplished through psychologically powerful propaganda, pandering to our most selfish interests. This deliberate erosion of our power through the efforts of these same moneyed oligarchs serves their ultimate goal, retaining their power at all costs.

It is interesting to me that as in physics the two opposing ends of the political continuum have come, in the eyes of their most radical liberal and ultra conservative factions, to the same conclusion. They posit that the country is being dominated by a somewhat secret and financially powerful cabal. The only difference being each side blames a different complex of culprits. It’s as though the strategies and tactics behind the goals of both sides are exactly the same and only the names have been changed.

In all of this it is easy for the individual common citizen to despair of having any power at all, unable to exert any influence over the decisions that critically affect their lives. But despite the machinations of those who think their vast wealth gives them license to run roughshod over the people, we still have one, and only one, power remaining to us which we can use to regain the ruling power granted to us by our founding document. That is the power of the vote. 

For any of us who think that our vote doesn’t count, or that all politicians are crooks and liars, or that both parties are the same, or that certain of our particular pet policies and issues are more important than the failing health of our democratic republic, I have this to say. Those are all illusions dreamt up in the backrooms of think tanks and the secret meetings of powerful white men designed to disillusion us and trick us into giving up our power, begrudgingly or willingly. They know our power, as given to us clearly in our sacred founding document, is the poison that can bring them, choking, to their knees, foiling their corrupt, degenerate plans for dominance. They will do anything, illegal and immoral, to diminish the real power of the American citizen that they fear. 

Our only remaining power lies in the accumulated will of our individual votes, in concert with what we know to be good for all peoples and not for only those few white men, rich in wealth but poor in spirit, desperate to hold on to their last gasp of dominance in a changing, evolving world.

Our only remaining power is in our vote. If we abrogate our responsibility to govern, a responsibility the founders intended we wield, we will deserve the dire fate we will so clearly suffer. One of my great fears is to know that many of my fellows stayed home, feeling proud of upholding their principles and not voting for either of the “corrupt corporate parties” they despise only to find out that one party IS actually worse, and has won, and is taking away their freedoms daily, one by one. Their pride lasted only until they realized the American experiment, the government they are privileged to live under, is being destroyed before their eyes, and they can do nothing to stop it. 

This fate can be diverted if only we can gather with single minded courage to ‘citizen’ and defeat those we know in our hearts to be the destroyers. It is said that the destroyers come to destroy that which is rotted and create a space in time for new ideas to flourish and new grown to thrive. That may be so. But I am not ready to give up American Democracy to rot.  To ‘citizen’ is a verb. (Thanks Aric) It means taking one’s civic responsibilities seriously. It means taking action, taking one for the the team, the team being the real idea of the America envisioned by the founders, through that still viable tool of the Constitution, our right to vote. It means doing absolutely everything we can to save our democracy, including dragging our friends, family and neighbors to the polls if we must. 

We don’t need to ’unite’. It is a sad and myopic concept. There are too many and diverse factions extant to come together singing Kumbaya. But we all have single minded purpose. We can go our separate ways and do our hard work after we have removed the cancer from the body politic; the rot that threatens us existentially. Only if we, all of us, citizen, will we fulfill that clear and true vision of our founders.

Know your power. Feel your power. Use your power.

It’s all we have.