Let
it be said, by me, by all of us, that we will not sit silently by and watch our
country be shredded by ignorance and cowardice, by hate and violence, by
meanness and cruelty, or by discrimination, sexism, ageism, barbarity and
intimidation.
The
election of Donald Trump is not now an invitation for all of us to be punks and
jackasses and beasts. For those who think they will have in the White House
someone who will defend indecency, bigotry, and lawlessness, be warned: you
will be confronted and opposed.
For
those who think Trump as president is now your right to mock and piss on and
shame, him and those who support him, get hold of yourselves. This is not a
time for juvenile rants and petty retaliation.
Respect
for the Office of President, reverence for the Constitutional framework of our
government, must be honored. If we play this game of seeing who can beat up the
other, whether in words, photos, memes, or actual deeds of violence and
cruelty, then we do not have a country any longer. All we have is a wasteland
of indifference and hate.
This
is America, and though our history records times of human blight and the debris
of our stubborn selfishness and the fears that turned us against one another,
it also records periods of unity, of compassion, of high achievement when we
worked together to build our nation into a paradise of invention, brilliance,
freedom and hope.
Over
the decades, people all across the world have not come here to be oppressed or
scorned or fought. They came here to escape torture and evil, to create a new
life, to raise their children in an environment of justice and safety, in a
society of acceptance, welcome and promise. We have been that for them, time
and time again. Of course there have always been the detractors, the ignorant,
those who thought they owned the country because of their color or their status
or their religion. They were wrong. They are wrong. They will always be wrong.
And we must keep reminding them that they are. Not by bullying and tit for tat
and outright chaos and riot. But by living strong lives of decency, fairness,
equality and yes, love.
19th
Century playwright and poet, Henrik Ibsen, has his famous character Nora Helmer
say in a moment of intense frustration, “I have the most extraordinary longing
to say ‘Bloody Hell!’”
I
do, too, as I see what is happening to our country. What are we doing? It is
time to stop this incessant fighting and scolding and evening the score and
getting an eye for an eye.
Ibsen
also wrote, “Those who possess liberty other than as an aspiration, possess it
as soulless and dead.”
What
do we truly aspire to be as a nation? Once we answer that truthfully,
intelligently, decently, with heartfelt sincerity, we can then get on with
being America.
It’s
time.
©
2016 Timothy Moody
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