I spent an hour this afternoon listening to Nichole Wallis, Eddie Glaude, and Pete Budegieg speak about political violence, chaos, Fascism, and today’s news that a man — twice — brought a gun to a state capital with plans to kill that state’s governor. Their question: can we go back to having a respectful government and, more importantly, being a respectful nation? Clearly, hate seems to be winning in a section of our government, and chaos reigns there. Do we think it’s going to be any better out here, on the streets of America? I don’t think so.
Where is the rot coming from? Some leaders, some media, and a populist “base” that is exactly that: the most base of our natures. If they can hate, they’ll hate. If they can lie, they’ll lie. If they can yell, they yell…. even when the situation doesn’t call for it. MAGA Republicans got what they wanted — power — in the last election. That wasn’t enough. They wanted power over others. Then they clamored for top position among them, and McCarthy won. He tried once — and took it back — to be bi-partisan, to make the the government work at all. That wasn’t powerful enough, mean enough, harsh enough for his rivals. His rivals removed him from office.
My wife and I watched the Republican debate the other night, and got stuck watching FOX for ten minutes before it. I think it was The Five, but I’m not sure. That panel, with the exception of a younger woman, was so angry, so aggrieved, and so full of lies and vitriol, we almost didn’t make it through. To describe the ten minutes, it went like this: “Government blah, blah, blah, Joe Biden is old, society blah, blah, blah, Joe Biden falls a lot. Barbie, gender, blah, blah, blah… Joe Biden isn’t stong enough to be a leader, blah, blah, blah… and now for the debate”. Again, to be clear, one woman wasn’t having any of it, but the rest of the cast clearly didn’t like or trust her for saying what she said.
So, some of our leaders don’t have the answer. Some of our story-tellers doesn’t feel like they have the answer. A large core of their fans don’t have a way to make things work, either — unless, by “making things work” you mean “blowing up the situation“.
Mr. Glaude said we need a new vision, and new way that works. I want to suggest something. As a liberal, it’s not anything people might expect. Or maybe it is exactly what liberals expect: taking personal responsibility for our actions (sounds like Reagan)… towards others (sounds like Carter, or Obama)…. and expecting our leaders to do the same.
But the change is on us,
until we vote on leaders, and then it’s still on us to be a bunch of voters who expect a decent government that does what it needs to do (stay open, pay our debts, have reasonable discussions, and come up with solutions) .
There’s a type of psychology known as “solution focused” psychology. It’s a simple process and it works. Here are the steps:
- Ask “What are we doing now”?
- Determine the opposite of that.
- Do the opposite of what you’re doing now.
- See how it goes and make corrections as needed.
Here’s what I see us doing now:
Hating others, lying, and yelling about not getting our way. This leads to preparing to fighting against others and getting nothing done.
The opposite is trying to love others, telling the truth, and calmly looking out for others.
Let’s try that.
- in Judeo-Christian terms, Thou shall not covet. Don’t want anything just because someone else has it… or you think someone else has it. Assuming an even society, (yes, BIG assumption:) if minorities have special provisions (aka affirmative action) and you think “that’s cheating” and “I should be able to do it”, why would you want to cheat? If you can get it with a normal amount of work, you can still get whatever it is. Why does it bother you that someone else has something? What business is it of yours?
Once a year, on my birthday, I get gifts. Do I deserve them. Maybe. Maybe not. Does that mean you have to get gifts ? Not unless it’s your birthday. Is it fair to you if you don’t? Yes, it’s fair that I do because it’s my turn. It’ll be fair when you do; Should I be jealous on your birthday? Of course not! I should celebrate your getting gifts on your birthday, and maybe celebrate by giving you gifts then. We could be jealous or we could be celebrating. It’s our choice Celebrating is a lot more fun.
The point of “what-about-ism” in politics is jealousy. Jealousy doesn’t help. Let’s not engage in “what about ism”, as a start. And lets not let our leaders engage in it either. That should calm things down a little bit anyway.
2) “Thou shall not bear false witness against your.brother or sister”. In other words, don’t lie. Magazines years ago said that “we live in a post-truth society”. There is no post-truth. The only thing that matters is truth when making decisions about life. If you make a decision based on a false premise, you’re going to go the wrong way. Based on a lie, our society didn’t fix the climate. Based on a lie, we went to Iraq to fight a war and thousands died needlessly Based on a lie, our entire country is in chaos and hundreds of people went to jail because of January 6th.
if you’re in a position of power, don’t lie. Just don’t. It kills us. If you’re not in a position of power, don’t support people who lie. Certainly don’t give them money.
3) Thou shall not kill. Jesus adds, “Love your enemies”. Hatred without any reason is just stupid. If you say, I hate X group without having met them, how do you know what you’re hating? What a waste of energy that is. Hating people you don’t even know is bullshit! And it makes the world worse — angrier all the time. If you’re going to hate someone, hate somebody who actually did something to you. That, at least, makes sense.
And if you must hate them, don’t kill them. We can’t have a civil society if people get killed. If people get killed, the murderer feels bad because they were out of control — at least the first time. The victim is dead — the ultimate loss of liberty — and people that cared for them want revenge, so the cycle never ends. If you want to live in a safer world, don’t kill people.
This is how we get our world, our democracy, and our lives back. These aren’t new ideas, but we seem to (or our politicians seem to have) forgotten them. Holding ourselves to these principles gives us a reasonable chance to calm down the anger in our society, feel safer, and let democracy flourish. It also gives people a chance to say, with a clear conscience, “hey, leader, hey boss, hey bully…. Don’t do that. It’s not helping and I won’t vote for it”.
But it’s got to start with us . If these things work for us, we can believe that they will work for our leaders, our bosses, our oppressors. If we can do it, so can they.
So let’s start now.
Resisting With Peace,
John
Because It Matters 