Being True to Values

I must say that unfolding news challenges us to remain true to ourselves in unsuspected ways.  Here I am, a solid middle of the road person trusting in government and its mission to maintain order and yet build for exciting, creative futures. Some would argue I’m a flaming liberal, but I don’t buy that. I am for people, for what they are capable of that is good; I recognize they are capable of bad/evil and we must have answers for that to protect the good among us. I am willing to take risks in order to give others freedom to be themselves and to grow more fully into the capable human beings for which they have promise.

That promise is for them and for us. If they prosper and are happy, we have fewer problems and more strength with which to deal with other issues and problems. I see it that simply.

It isn’t simple of course. It is an enormous puzzle of competing policy and belief systems. But you see, at the very core of it all, if we fail, - we quite literally die or live in continuing misery. If we succeed, we live lives of accomplishment, intellectual excitement, purposeful achievement and success for the whole community of mankind.

Such a difficult prize to work toward. Well worth the effort, and filled with risks and challenges, but the reward; remember the reward.

Shirking the work because we are fearful of failure only dooms us to that failure.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia would say democracy will make the decisions. The process will work. If we don’t allow it to then we don’t trust democracy.

I wonder which democracy he is talking about? The one in which each citizen has a vote and uses it? Or the one in which political skullduggery blocks access to the ballot box, miscounts votes, misleads voters, and allows financing of campaigns to be paid for by the highest bidder and special interest group.  Which one exactly, Mr. Scalia?

I know you have a reputation of strict intellectual process, but I detect a weakness toward political influence in your speech. Over and over again that bias is noted in your utterances. The intellectual armor you present to the world is not the true you, right? Would you believe in raw democracy if your position were to go down in defeat due to misleading information and distraction? Misinformation is ruling today’s political message. You know that. I know that.

My question is: Why doesn’t the Media know that? Aren't they the watchdog for us all? They are to report what is happening and why it is important. They are to watch for facts and misstatements and report those to us. They are to keep us balanced and on point with the factual basis of history in the making.

Does anyone see the Media actually being that for us today?  I don’t. NBC doesn’t do the job fully. They keep pulling punches – no conclusions; they keep reporting what gains ratings – the weirder the better, regardless of the truth; and precious little fact checking.

One wonders if NBC’s advertisers are telling the network how to report the news? And ABC, CBS, CNN. We already know about Fox News.

I basically trust democracy, but it works well only when the voter understands the issues and votes intelligently on them. That requires them to do some work: to know, to research; to question; to measure truth. Does the media help them or is it a part of the problem? How can we know? Who do we trust?

And when all is said and done, can people set aside political party labels and vote their conscience when there is still doubt?

Will we repeat our history and intern those foreigners among us (citizens or not) simply because we fear them and their ancestry? Will Syrian and Middle Eastern peoples among us be jailed or interned because we simply don’t trust them?

Who’s foreign band of newcomers was your family among? The English? The Irish? Germans? Italians? Poles? Hispanics? Africans? Which among us is truly native to America and is thus immune to such internment? Do you even know? Do we all even know?

Questions, folks. Lots of questions. Stop the fearing and begin the knowing.

Ignorance never informed governance intelligently. Ignorance almost always led us to mistakes we regretted deeply.

Please God don’t let us stumble yet again into a morass that will doom us for years!

If you find fear on your tongue, hold your speech. Find instead an idea that you would offer as a solution. If you don’t have that solution, keep your silence.

Keep your silence. Only then will you remain true to yourself and your values.

November 20, 2015