Day: October 30, 2018

Everything is coming apart.There’s no place to hide. We depend upon each others sanity. We drive down a two lane road betting the car coming towards us is not being driven by a homicidal/suicidal maniac. We live in a state of mutual dependency.

We assume our leaders have a modicum of good will and sanity so we can watch football and go to the gym. We assume civilization will run itself like a perpetual motion machine. Not so. Never has. Never will. One person’s passivity provides another person with more space at the political table to dominate and manipulate. “The love of money (and power) is the root of all evil.” The rapaciousness of the very rich and very powerful must be checked by the idealism energy and tenacity of the many.

Might doesn’t always make right. Sometimes right magnifies might. Huh? Read it again it makes sense. Ask John Lewis and the surviving family members of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney.

The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are not going to save us. Franklin’s response to the question about what the constitutional convention had produced is instructive…”A republic if you can keep it.” Can you dig it? It doesn’t run itself. We run it by our engagement…Or others run it because of the vacuum left by our disengagement. Shaw had it right. ” Democracy is a device that ensures that we are not governed any better than we deserve.” the corollary is that the people who outwork us get the government they deserve.

It’s on us. It always has been. We don’t chose our time or place to live but we chose how to respond to the challenges of that time and place. Kant said an enlightened person is a person with the courage to have his or her own opinion. If you don’t have an opinion, get one. Courage, same drill. Continue Reading…….