I don’t understand how someone can fervently support the police, believe that “blue lives matter” and yet want unlimited and open access to guns. Likewise, if one wants to be “tough on crime,” how does one accomplish this if guns are more accessible than cigarettes or allergy medication? And the police in Uvalde?
How can one condemn violence after Black people are killed by police, but then condone violence against our own elected lawmakers who are certifying an election? How can people threaten and intimidate local election officials when they disagree with the results of an election? If violence is bad, shouldn’t it be bad no matter who commits it?
How can someone claim that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud when it comes to the election of the president, but make no objections to all the Republican candidates who won on the very same “rigged” ballots? If there were issues with one race on the ballot, wouldn’t there be problems with the other races, too? And where is the evidence of all these irregularities? If there were so many, wouldn’t some have led to criminal charges, successful lawsuits, or altered election results? The only verified instances of election fraud I could find were people voting for the former president!
Some people say they want to honor the past and thus preserve confederate statues, monuments, or symbols, but when discussing historical aspects of the civil war that deal with enslaved people and systemic racism, their discomfort trumps honoring and remembering other shameful aspects of the past. Could this perhaps maybe possibly be about race?
Many of these same people are eager to protect the unborn, but do not give any protection to already-born children sitting in schools. Some of these folks also refused to protect anyone by wearing a mask or getting the COVID vaccine. Is life only worth protecting when it is not yet here? Do children have to protect themselves – from guns and illness? Is it only embryos who deserve protection? Why?
If people don’t want teachers discussing the racism of our past and present, the diversity of gender identities, or any subject that might make some (white) kids (and/or their parents) uncomfortable, who decides what is or isn’t included? Wouldn’t the exclusion of this content make other students uncomfortable? Wouldn’t its inclusion eventually create understanding and thus bring more comfort? How are people evaluating this harm? How is repressing some people’s ideas and history not just another form of bullying and bigotry?
Some of these folks claim to be religious people acting on precepts from scripture. However, they worship people who are adulterers and bullies whose behavior is the opposite of the religious figures they claim to revere. They take minor biblical passages out of context and hold them as more important than the Ten Commandments and key statements from Jesus, Moses, and other key figures. Whatever happened to “love thy neighbor as thyself” and “thou shalt not murder?”
The slogans of the state in 1984 were: “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. Today, many people are holding a complementary set of commandments:
Morality is Indecency
Honesty is Deception
Bigotry is Equality
Freedom is Selfishness
Cruelty is Compassion
Rage is Virtue
Hypocrisy is Integrity
I don’t see how we can move beyond our current political impasse without civil discourse, common ground, a shared sense of right and wrong, and a moral commitment to improving the conditions for everyone (not just a few). Instead, so many are practicing deadly doublethink before, during, and after breakfast – and it is not only unhealthy for them, as Orwell predicted, it is poisoning all of us.
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