My America; Our America

José Rizal, a physician, writer, and a peace advocate during the Spanish-American War wrote: “There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves.”

Merriam-Webster defines a tyrant as “an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution…an oppressive ruler in the harsh use of authority or power.”

We normally think of tyrants as madmen, vicious and violent dictators who brutalize their people, often with beatings, imprisonment, and death. And there have been and still are leaders of countries with those characteristics.

But tyrants can also be less than that. They can simply be those who lead by manipulation, deceit, and mocking rhetoric, who, as Merriam-Webster put it, rule “unrestrained by law or constitution.”

But whatever stripe of tyrant one may be, they cannot stay in power, as Rizal said, “without slaves.”

What does that mean? It means those who do as they are told. Those who follow without consideration of their own best interests or the interests of others. Those who give blind obedience to their master. Those who are powerless under the influence of an ideology so manipulative and dishonest that they obey without thinking, without argument, without protest of any kind.

It is illogical to think of Congress as slaves to the president. After all, they are supposed to be a separate branch of the government established to make laws, administer and keep in line the executive branch, and to serve as a voice of the people they represent.

And yet they are not doing any of that.

In many ways, Congress has indeed become slaves to the president. Behind the scenes, we are told many members groan and wince at president Trump’s wild antics, his bizarre tweets, and his lack of understanding of how government works.

And yet, we hear nothing in public from these members, except for a few polite comments of concern or dismay at some of the things Mr. Trump does.

Where is Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House? Where is Mitch McConnel, Senate Majority Leader? Where are the Democrats? Where are any brave members of Congress who are taking courageous public stands in full disagreement with the president, and who are attempting to hold him to the laws and constitutional requirements of his office?

A nation led by selfishness, greed, and basic lack of respect for human life and the needs and concerns of all citizens, is a nation doomed. It is a nation lazy, undisciplined, intolerant, satisfied with its ignorance, unmoved by its rudeness, its inequality, its mean-spiritedness.

America has a long history of fights between liberals and conservatives, elitists and the common folk; between whites and minorities; between decency and decadence.

But in those times, we had leaders who tempered our fierce battles with wisdom, intelligence, moral strength, and resilient leadership. They were leaders who found ways to bring us together, to create a working unity, and to foster a love of country that included all of us.

We do not have that today. Our president and our Congress pit us one against the other. They cheer their side and belittle the other side. They include their followers and exclude everyone else. They do not inspire, they antagonize and embitter. They rule, and they enslave. And we drag our chains in surrender.

President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, said, “This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.”

That kind of country comes to people not enslaved, but courageous, decent, tolerant, diverse, hard-working, compassionate, and free.

That America is one we could proudly say we live in, and serve.

© 2018 Timothy Moody