“Whilst the last members were signing [the Constitution], Doctor Franklin, looking towards the President’s chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art, a rising, from a setting, sun. I have, said he, often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.”

– James Madison, Journal of the Federal Convention

A perfect, beautiful day, and a wretched, ugly day.  Both draw our eyes to the coming of the darkness of night. 

For the former, we look at the coming dark and struggle against its arrival, we strain to push it back with our hearts and our minds, refusing to let something so wonderfully good end.  We wish to stay in it forever, to feel it in our soul, to feel it deep in our bones, for as long as we can.  If we could, we would become the moment, become the day, feel ourselves fall into the universe’s memory so that we can live forever in joy.  Who wishes for what is good to end, after all?

For the latter, it is entirely different.  Such days we know just as well as the bright and sunny ones.  Days of pain, and anguish.  Days where the hours become eternities, where the undesirable races with your heartbeat, keeping you in time with it, unable to flee or escape it.  Days where every minute seems worse than the one that came before.  A day one wants to forget, to saw it out of one’s mind and throw it aside, so that it never attempts to remind us that it existed in the first place.  We grow to hate the memory, and all the moments.  We look to the night, to the dark, to the conclusion and the end of the day with something approaching relief.

The fortunate ones live lives with more days like the former than the latter, and many unfortunate ones walk only through days like the latter.  But in each case, the fall, the hush, of night is firm in the mind. 

Some hope the sun never sets.

Some hope the sun never rises.

Where do we find ourselves now?  To which hope do we lash our souls?

These are wretched, ugly days for our Republic.

From sea to shining sea, the people suffer.  The western shore burns, turning the skies shades of orange and red, as if to say the world is soon to be engulfed.  A plague creeps through the populace, extending itself with glee through those who welcome it into their homes through foolishness or wickedness.  It claims hundreds of thousands of lives, and weakens many more.  Storms seek out our coast and with mighty winds leave destruction in their path.  Good, honest people lose their employment, their homes, their families.  Fear wraps itself around us like a heavy cloak, bearing us down to the cold ground.  It squeezes the air from our lungs, freezes our hearts, and clutters our minds. 

We are an overwhelmingly diverse people, universally overwhelmed.

Our troubles are too many for one person to bear, or solve.  Yet we do bear them, do we not?  They cling to us, riding us like a mule, day after day.  There is no shame in falling.  Even the mightiest break.

In days such as these, the people are filled to the brim with need.  Not the need of want, but the need of relief. 

We have grown believing in our own legend.  Like a child who learns for the first time that their parent has a name of their own, so too are our childlike eyes being opened to the truth of things.  It is a moment of confusion.  It is a shift in the dynamic of our lives.

We have grown used to relying on tales of old.  We have collectively rested on the laurels of our American ancestors, praising their sacrifices and their knowledge and foresight, while limiting ourselves from doing the same.  We have ignored their faults, their sins, and created for ourselves the deep belief that we shall ever be as we always have been, and some kind of Providence guides our way.

When legends fall, the people will seek out something to which they can flee, in safety. 

And are our legends not falling, now?

We are the greatest nation the Earth has ever known, yet we fall behind so many other nations in so many other ways.  We are the most powerful nation, yet we are powerless to save ourselves.  We are a nation of laws, which serve the powerful and wealthy, and punish the poor and powerless.  We are a nation where dreams come true, while seeking to ensure millions never realize their most modest dreams.  All are equal here, but some, of course, are far more equal than others. 

This year, this dark, ominous year, has pulled the curtain back on the façade upon which so many of us have relied.  In stark relief now, traceable by our hands as we approach, stand out our many weaknesses, our many faults, our many injuries. 

Our legend is collapsing.

But where shall we flee?

To one man, many say.  Flee to one man, trust in his untrustworthy words, put your lives into his fickle hands, and believe in his mission.  Flee to this man, who takes the best parts of our Republic and corrupts them as gangrenous flesh corrupts its neighbor, threatening to collapse the entire structure of our society.  Flee to the man who cannot speak the truth!  Flee to the man who sees none as his equal or superior!  Flee to the man who has turned justice into injustice, truth into lies, pain into his pleasure, and our nation into his plaything! 

Flee to that man!  For from his lazy tongue fall the words so many wish to hear.  No no, he whispers.  The legends were all true.  They were all true, and only true for you, my followers.  You are the inheritors of legendary tales, the rightful heirs to their power and influence.  Follow me, and I shall make all as it once was, though it never was such.  Hear my words, and feel yourself empowered.  And, empower me. 

That man will not let legends die, for he is a legend now too, and if Truth is the spear that strikes down the False, then his legend is at risk, as well. 

And like so many before him, and like so many who will come after him, that man will do all in his power to retain all his power.  For what sacrifices are too great to one who sees himself as an anointed demigod of the modern age?  L’etat, c’est moi, that man would say, and crown himself under the auspices of the Sun.

If feeding Fear preserves him, he shall inflict terror upon his people.  He shall have them fear their friends and their family, fear the known and unknown, fear dawn and dusk.  For when a person is afraid, how well can they think?

If a tumbling financial market threatens him, then how could we doubt that he would let our fellow citizens die on the altar of his desire?  How could we doubt that he would let people lose their employment, lose their homes, lose their ability to feed their children, if it would shore up that which he fears seeing fall?

If his financiers abandoning him would destroy him, then how could he not destroy that which they wish for him to destroy, be it the seas, the rivers, the air, or the world entire? 

And if the people would threaten to topple him from his lofty throne, what then?  Would he not threaten use of force against the angry voice of the people, promise to send those loyal to him to conquer cities that may turn against him?  Would he not seek to ensure the people were too weak to force him out by the power of their vote?  Would he not attempt to prevent the people from voting?

Do you feel it?  Do you feel the undercurrent of those words swirl about your feet, tugging at you?

What you sense in the actions described is fear.  Not our fear.  No.

It is the fear of that man.  It is the fear of a man who knows that his legend is at risk of collapse.  It is the fear of a man who strolls about in a third kind of day.  Not a perfect day, nor a dark day, but a day of deception.  It is the day of a man who walks about in perpetual fear of being unmasked, and being revealed for what he truly is.  It is the day of a man who sprints from shadow to shadow, lest the sunlight reveal, not just to others, but most importantly to himself that he is not what he claims to be, or believes to be.

He was never a legend, and he is afraid, mortally afraid, of that truth.

And so he fears the end of his day, for he knows that his time in the sun may come to an end.  And if he must burn the world to stand atop a sun of his own making, where he need never fear anything again, do you doubt that he would do so?

We walk in our gloomy, woeful day and wish and hope fervently for relief and the coming of night.  Some will flee to this man.

I shall not.

I shall flee to that which has motivated the hearts of our truest patriots for over two-hundred years, to the idea that This is Not the End, and the only way to pass a day like this, is to pass through it.

For in our many dark moments as a nation, do we not stand here today?  Are we not proof that we, as a people, can overcome?  Are we not proof that together, we are powerful?  ‘Out of many, one.’  One people, one resolve, one nation yearning to be free.

I shall flee not to that man, nor to any one man, but to the American People, in whom our founders entrusted the most powerful tool, the most terrible weapon to wield against those who would seek to claim power and authority to themselves: The Vote.

And as I take up my vote, as I pull it from a sheath forged in 1787, almost 233 years ago to the day, I will look upon its shining face and find that I need not burn the world to raise myself up; the union of our votes, like stars in the night sky, shall prove that darkness shall not win out over the day.  And the more of us who vote, the more of us who draw strength from this great bequeathal from our ancestors, the brighter the night sky will be, a reminder to the dark that we are unconquered, and unconquerable.

In so doing, we shall make legends of ourselves.  For when fear wished to dictate our actions, when hate marched through our streets and corruption poured from the doors of our government, when all seemed hopeless and fruitless, we drew together and spoke, in one voice, No.

Thus are true legends created.

And so, as we walk through this horrible day, as we must, and as we approach what seems like darkness, do not find relief in the end.  Do not wish for the end and find comfort in the end.  For in that coming darkness, we shall lift our voices to burn like the heavenly bodies, and shine light and truth through the long dark that may come.

Benjamin Franklin struggled to decipher whether the sun was setting, or rising.

For now, it sets.  For now, darkness approaches.

But we as a people are not the setting sun. 

We are the rising sun.

And we shall rise again.

How brave a thing is freedom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness! 

– Herodotus, as quoted in Plato’s “The Republic” 

We are only human. And so, it is often not until we lose something that we find how much we needed it, or valued it.

It can be little things. A treasured keepsake, filled to the brim with memories.  A photograph, or a book.  But though those things can be lost, we can endure and continue on.

It can also be significantly more important things. For instance, the lessons, advice, and experiences of your elders are often too late recognized for their significant value.  The passing of a pet who has shared its days with you will be remarked every time your pattern of behavior reminds you of the loss.  The loss of a loved one, a partner in life, is often compared to having a piece of your soul torn away.  Instead of items, things, material goods, these are losses of love.  And as humans, those losses are hard to bear, and they often make us yearn to stretch our hands out into the void, if only to pull these loved ones back.

Some things, once lost, cannot return. And those things we cherish most, which are such intricate parts of our lives, nearly cripple us with their absence.

At the same time, some things are mainstays of our lives which we have grown accustomed to, and expect. Like the air we breathe, and the sunlight in which we warm ourselves, some things are a part of our human experience.  To lose those things, after living with them all of our lives, would be a shock to the system.  As humans, we routinely take them for granted.

For a significant part of human history, there has been a concept which has grown and stagnated like the ocean tides. As indicated above by Herodotus and Plato, that concept is freedom of speech.  And as Euripides wrote in “The Phoenician Women”: To fear to speak one’s thought is to be a slave.

How can it be otherwise? To each of us has been granted intellect, and corresponding experiences which are only ours.  Not a single human thinks the exact same way as another.  Common ground and agreement can be found routinely, but each individual has their own individual thoughts.  Thought, and freedom of expression and speech, is therefore as much a part of our human experience as a beautiful sunset or the sensation of a late summer rain on one’s skin.  To have individual thought and ideas, to be an entity of your own making, is certainly what it is to be human.

We have been granted human intellect and conscience; how could it ever be stolen away from us?

This, too, humans have taken from granted.

Throughout history, kings, emperors, churches, dictators and autocrats, and various others in positions of power or supreme judgment have curtailed, restricted, or banned the freedom of speech and expression. You may say whatever you please, so long as you do not say that.  You may read whatever you please, so long as you do not read that.  You may write whatever you please, so long as you do not write that.  You may express yourself freely, so long as you do not express yourself in these ways.

Is that freedom?

Do a few links of chain slithering toward our ankle threaten to bind us?

It is not freedom.

And it does not require many links to bind a person against their will.

It is therefore happy providence that our American experiment began with the protection of this freedom. In 1791, our United States Constitution was amended for the first time, and in this First Amendment were enshrined our rights to freedom of expression and speech.  The very first amendment!

The founders of our nation had experienced their own restrictions in speech and expression. In 1722, Benjamin Franklin wrote to the New-England Courant, under the pen name Mrs. Silence Dogood, quoting the London Journal after his brother was jailed for writing critically of the government:

Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know. This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together; and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own. Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech; a Thing terrible to Publick Traytors.

So too believed our first President, George Washington, before his presidency, in 1783:

If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

However, this ‘sacred Privilege’ whose absence could lead to an overthrow of ‘the Liberty of a Nation’ and lead us ‘to the slaughter’ need not come upon us suddenly. Instead, as James Madison said in 1788 in support of ratification of our Constitution, ‘silent encroachment’ is the true villain:

Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations . . . .

Volumes and tomes fill libraries around the world, containing the words of our founders and their inspirations in relation to the freedom of speech and expression. But of the many rights of the people, the freedom of speech and expression fights on to this day.  Justice William Douglas recognized this history in a dissenting opinion in 1952:

The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty.

Justice Douglas would then say, in 1952:

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

But who could suppress this freedom? The government, certainly, and the government is formed (or should be formed) by the will of the people.  Candidates for office present their ideas and their beliefs, and the voting populace selects those who they wish to represent them in our republic.  Thus, most often, the government represents the majority.

And, at times, the majority shall operate and act in contravention of the rights or beliefs of the minority.

It is into this dynamic that American citizens and the courts must thrust themselves. When the majority seeks to abridge the freedoms of the minority, the courts are often the obstacle the majority must overleap to achieve their goal.  And should that barricade fail, the onus falls upon the people.

Failure to stop the majority from overwhelming the minority, then, creates its own problems. We reach back again to the speech of James Madison in 1788: 

[O]n a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from those causes.

And by no means is this fear one that is locked in the past. Another President, Harry Truman, said to Congress in 1950:

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

We can see the path laid out before us, should a power once again seek to restrict the freedom of speech and expression. It can begin with small things.  In fact, that is the most effective way to impose restrictions.  You allow the people to adapt to the small change.  And then, once adapted, you introduce a little more change.  Inoculated as they are, they adapt again.  Soon, the restrictions surround the people, and before too long, it is too late.

Often, these changes have allies, allies who support and compel the change even though it can and would be used against them. Those of a differing opinion are made out to be strange, or ‘other.’  There is an appeal to simplistic thought and comfort, and divides between cultures and people are teased open further.  Soon, the larger group is made to feel that they are in the right; they are the majority, how could it be otherwise?  And then, the alliance being secured, the restriction of freedom commences.

Here too is a danger, as Judge Learned Hand indicated:

That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, becomes a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent.

And so, we come to the events of the modern day, and now look with disapproval upon the words and acts of our fellow citizens.

Not so long ago, an American football player looked at his country and was impacted by the events he watched on his television or his phone. The facts supported his belief: Black Americans are often killed by police officers in questionable circumstances.  He was an athlete with a national stage, should he choose to claim it.  He had an opportunity to make a statement, if he wished to do so.

His mode of protest would take place before the beginning of football games. A military veteran advised him that the most respectful form of protest during the playing of the national anthem would be to kneel.  And so he did.  He didn’t turn his back, or gesture rudely, or do some other outlandish act.  He, quite simply, kneeled.

And this, the majority did not approve. The football player’s allies tried to direct the conversation, and the message.  Look at the events he is protesting!  Look at the ‘why’!

But the majority made a more effective argument. The football player was disrespecting the flag.  He was disrespecting the anthem.  And thus, he was disrespecting America.

Quickly the message and the game changed. The majority did not understand, or did not have the inclination to understand, the message behind the act.  Instead, they were told its purpose was quite clearly to disrespect the United States.

As more players knelt, more anger rose.

In the cruelest irony, the symbols of our freedoms were used to attack the exercise of those freedoms.

The proper response would certainly have been for the football league and all the wealthy owners to come together to say that instead of disrespecting the United States, the football player’s actions were an exercise of the rights granted to all by the United States, and though many may disagree with the message and the medium, all have a right to peaceful protest.

This, the league and the owners did not do.

This, our government leaders, and our President, did not do.

Instead, the majority sought to quash the protest. The majority sought to silence the speech, and the expression.  Employers have always been able to restrict their employees in the course of their duties.  But now, a President of the United States called those who knelt, and exercised their American freedoms, ‘sons of bitches.’  The majority roared approval.

Now, a President of the United States demands that the athletes stand for the anthem, and that if they do not stand, perhaps they should not be in the country. Perhaps failure to stand, failure to be suitably ‘patriotic,’ should be grounds for deportation.

For exile.

How do you not scream? How do you not grow hot with rage?

How?

To borrow a phrase from a far better man, whatever you do to the least of my fellow citizens, you do to me. If the President, with the awesome power of the office, should seek to restrict the freedom of expression and speech of those with whom he disagrees, he abridges my freedom.  When the government tells a person to be silent because they disapprove of what they say, they attack my freedom.

As Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote in The Friends of Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

If one cannot stand with the oppressed, one will find that none shall stand for them. And so, we must all stand together, or we shall all most assuredly be broken separately.

Peaceful protest is a hallmark of American freedoms. To be sure, peaceful protest is often met with violent opposition.  Hateful words meet hateful acts as those who protest are told to be silent.  Now, these athletes who would protest are told to hide their protest behind closed doors, or be fined for public protest.

Peaceful protest should be the inverse of prayer. Prayer need not be public, and present before the faces of the masses.  Its effectiveness is in privacy.  Protest, however, must be public.  It must be able to make others uncomfortable.  It must upset the status quo.  Otherwise, what benefit is there to protest?  Why have a freedom to protest, when the majority shall not let you?

As George Orwell wrote, If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

It is time to declare with one voice, with the freedom granted to us by our Constitution and by our makers, that we will not stand for this. We will not begin the slippery slope of allowing a restriction here, an abridgement there.  We cannot allow the community to dissolve.  We cannot allow the republic to transform into despotism.  Our American history pleads with us, with speeches and letters and publications to fill libraries, to refuse to take this first step on an ever darker path.  We shall regret the loss of this freedom, once we have discovered that it is gone.  And, like losing a loved one, a piece of our soul, a piece of our god-granted fundamental rights, will be torn away, leaving us crippled.

It seems we have been taking our freedoms for granted.

We must use our freedoms to preserve our freedoms.

To do anything else would be to disrespect the United States.

“ . . . [H]e might even save our great . . . heritage!”

Seven-score and 12 years ago, a horrible and disfiguring American event drew to something approaching a close: the Civil War. To this very day, the wounds of that war lay open, festering, among so many Americans, even though none now exist who fought in it as the last Union and Confederate veterans died in the 1950s.

The war was the result of the Original Sin of the United States, where our founding fathers failed to accommodate the independence and god-given freedoms of slaves while they pronounced the same of the colonists, and instead allowed for the continuation of the subjugation of humans with the constitutional insult that each toiling slave only accounted for three-fifths of a human being. Said the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette, “I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery.” But it was, in fact, a land of slavery.  To our shame.  To our everlasting shame.

From the 1600s, slaves were imported to what is now the United States simply for the purpose of cheap labor. As the southern colonies began to develop, they also began to provide an abundance of crops and raw materials, like tobacco and cotton, which provided wealth and prestige to those who owned and controlled plantations.  But this wealth and prestige was premised and built on the backs of slaves.  The northern colonies and European nations benefitted from this arrangement, without a doubt.  But just as doubtless is the fact that the wealthy class in the southern colonies could only survive so long as their business was benefitted by free labor.

Abolitionists rose up in the face of slavery. They, like you today, could see no moral equivocation.  How could a human be kept as a slave?  How could a human, doted upon by their creator with all the gifts provided to every other human, be kept in bondage?  These abolitionists and political leaders strove to prevent the spread of slavery in the United States, fighting with word and sometimes with deed, to halt the progression of the degradation of the human spirit contained within those born into a life of horrible servitude.

Compromises were agreed to, in attempts to prevent slavery in some new states while allowing it in others. Territories were open game, and the fight took to the southwest and the west.  Kansas, especially, was a victim of this raging battle between those who would see slavery end, and those who would see it be evergreen.  Said Charles Sumner of the matter in 1856:

“But the wickedness which I now begin to expose is immeasurably aggravated by the motive which prompted it. Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of Slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved longing for a new slave State, the hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the National Government. Yes, sir, when the whole world, alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to condemn this wrong, and to make it a hissing to the nations, here in our Republic, force — aye, Sir, FORCE, — has been openly employed in compelling Kansas to this pollution, and all for the sake of political power. There is the simple fact, which you will vainly attempt to deny, but which in itself presents an essential wickedness that makes other public crimes seem like public virtues.”

Two days after giving this speech in the Senate, in which Senator Sumner proceeded to direct his words at two fellow Senators with whom he vehemently disagreed, he was beaten nearly to death in the Senate chamber by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who was a vicious proponent of slavery.

Such behavior causes one to recall the words of John Quincy Adams, when he wrote in 1820:

“But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom. They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee’s manners, because he has no habits of overbearing like theirs and cannot treat negroes like dogs. It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?”

The failure of the Founding Fathers of our nation to properly address slavery in its moral aspect, instead of its financial and political aspect, led to decades of increasing hostility between those who would see slavery gone, and those would see it remain. How could the wealthy landowners of the southern states do anything but fight for the preservation of slavery?  Upon those whipped and scarred shoulders rested the fate of their pecuniary fortune.  To do away with slavery was an affront.  It was a threat.

And the threat became all the clearer to the southern states when Abraham Lincoln was elected President with not one electoral vote from the South. Lincoln was of the new Republican Party, which leaned heavily toward abolitionist goals, where the Democrats of that time were staunchly pro-slavery.  The threat, now, had become real for the southern powers and slaveholders.  To remain in the Union would be to agree to economic destruction.  And as power in the South was tied to economics, a threat to slavery was a threat to power.  The Master relied upon his power over slaves for his power in government.

Fort Sumter was fired upon. Southern states rebelled and declared themselves a Confederacy.  The Civil War began.

It is illogical to ascribe to the Civil War an ideological battle over states’ rights. It is illogical to ascribe any other false premise for the war, if one were to exclude slavery as the sole and determinate reason for its inception.  Slavery was the source of fear for the southern masters and their representatives.  Fear, that a freed population of slaves would spell the end of their reign.  Their fear was the same as monarchs in Europe decades before: They could be torn from their decadent thrones and tossed to the floor, in the interest of freedom of the people.

And what did the Confederacy fight to maintain? It is all too easy to simply declare, ‘Slavery.’  The word is a concept.  The word is an idea, cleansed and purified of all its resonant meanings.  Instead, we should direct our attention to what slavery entailed.  Imagine, if you will, having your teeth knocked out of your mouth with a chisel so that you would be forced to eat.  Imagine, if you will, having your body be mangled and disfigured.  Imagine, if you will, being whipped nearly to death.  Imagine, if you will, the one you love being raped, or you, yourself, being raped.  Imagine, if you will, being punished for reading, or making eye contact.  Imagine, if you will, your infant child being torn from your arms and sold to an unknown face.  Imagine, if you will, being separated from your wife or husband forevermore, in return for the sound of money exchanging hands.  Imagine, if you will, a life of servitude to one who would beat you to death if you dared speak up for your own thoughts or desires.  Imagine all the other horrors inflicted upon them.

Does it strain imagination? Is your mind repulsed?  Does it struggle to conceive of such evils?  Does it feel burdened by the knowledge that these things did occur?  Does your heart sink when hearing the words, ‘infant child at buyer’s option’?  For those words were posted in sales of slaves.  Men, women, and children did stand on platforms so that others may bid on their lives.  Would you not scream at your loved ones being torn from your grip, never to be seen again?

Men, women, and children with all the same depths of human emotion as you or I experience. Humans, like us, who looked up at the stars and wondered, or whose hearts fluttered at the sight of one they loved, or who desired the freedom to choose, for themselves, what their life should be.  Stand now and declare that they should be slaves, due to their origin and their skin color.  Declare them lesser, though they are your equal.

Can you do it? How could anyone?

This was what the Confederacy fought, ultimately, to preserve. The relationship of servant and master.  The use of humans as chattel and free labor.  The conservation of a society and economy built on slaves.

Slavery was the lever upon which all was moved. In its absence, what cause would there be for war?  What cause would there be to pick up arms?  The debate of states’ rights and federal power began in the first days of the republic, and yet none took up arms.  It was a conflict of political philosophy, capable of being debated in chambers, like rational humans.

But slavery? Slavery necessitated violence to preserve.  Violence, to ensure generations and lifetimes of the slow and vicious violence of bondage.

While Lincoln and the Union first fought to preserve the United States, it evolved into a referendum on slavery, and by the end of the Civil War, the mortal blow was struck to slavery. It would bleed out, writhe, and deal out blows in its death throes, but it would, finally and mercifully, die.

But how could masters live in a society with those they have convinced themselves to be inferior and beneath them? If you always considered a slave an animal, how could you live with animals?  And therein was the concussive blast that echoes to our modern day.  The superior needed to remain superior, and superiority necessitates an inferior partner.  And thus, from after the Civil War to the late 1900s, the color of one’s skin determined one’s inferiority.

The Original Sin was not so easily banished. Even a war, even thousands upon thousands of dead in fields of blood, could not be a baptism enough to wash away the sin.  The evil persisted.

Those who would not yield and give up the fight for superiority raised other generations of those who believed, fervently, in their own superiority. They erected statues to Confederate ‘heroes’ decades removed from the Civil War, in public places to remind those of a different color that the South Remembered, and those of dark skin should remember that they were inferior.  They monuments stood as memorials to the idea that slavery was no sin.  ‘You are still animals,’ such monuments must whisper to the descendants of slaves.  ‘Look upon what used to be, and what we wish still was.’  What other purpose could they possible serve?

How could they feel no shame? Who among us would erect such a monument glorifying the leaders of the Confederacy?  Who could honor the memory of a man like Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederacy, who declared, “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.”

How?

And so we come now to the present day debate, which should not be in debate. We who live today as Americans are inheritors of the great sin of our founding but also the march of progress ingrained in our national soul.  Our heritage is a painful one, but one which finally declared that slavery had no place in our United States.  Our heritage is one which, finally, declared that all are equal regardless of skin color, and should be treated as equally instead of segregated.  Our heritage is one which, most importantly, instills in us a drive to be better than our past.  Our Founders knew their failure with slavery would lead to problems in the future, but there was hope that future generations would do better by the founding decree of our nation, that ‘all men are created equal.’  We walk on, not with our eyes closed, but looking back from time to time to see how far we have come, and forward to see how far we have yet to go.

That is our heritage.

To what heritage, then, does our current President declare his affection? Said this President, regarding a candidate for governor of Virginia, a former slave and Confederate state, embroiled now in a debate about the removal of Confederate monuments, that this candidate may ‘save our great heritage,’ ‘save our great statues.’

‘Our great heritage.’

‘Our great statues.’

That would be the heritage of slavery. Of torture, rape, and murder.  Of immoral subjugation.  Of immoral and institutional racism.  Those statues would be the memorials to the same.

I say now, wholeheartedly, that this is not the heritage of America. It is the history of America.  It is a history to which we should look with sad, disapproving eyes, with words tumbling from our agape mouths, ‘Never again.’  It is an everlasting shame.  It is a mark we bear to remind ourselves of our demons, and our better angels.

The heritage of the Confederacy is not our heritage. To suggest that it is so is an affront to all with a sense of morality.

Tear down the monuments to the Confederacy. Place them in museums with the chains that bound slaves, with the remnants of slave ships, with the cane of Preston Brooks with which he beat Charles Sumner, alongside the whip of the master and the unmarked grave of the unremarked slave.

Place them in their appropriate context. Inform the public of what they represent.  Make the American public understand the pain that people of color must experience when looking upon them.  Remind all of our history so that it may not be repeated.

But tear them down from their perches in our open society. Make clear that the Confederate heritage is an immoral one.  Honor the dead who were compelled to fight if you wish.  The idea of the Confederacy, however, and all its political supporters and financiers, should be viewed with the disgust it deserves.

If the heritage of the Confederacy is yours, Mr. President, then I can say without reservation that you are no American.

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

– Matthew 6:24

It is difficult, now, to lead by phrase or anecdote into a discussion regarding the crisis in which the American people and their interests now find themselves embroiled. For what a crisis it is, to be a citizen of a republican government, and to find that your representative in that government turns no ear whatsoever toward you, without even the consolation that they do hear, and choose to ignore.  To them we seem to not exist.  We find that those whom we have elected to represent our interests have now rejected our guidance and pursued a path laid before them by interests other than our own.  To such eyes, we are not seen.  To such ears, we are not heard.  To such hearts, we are nothing.

“Here, sir, the people govern,” spoke Alexander Hamilton in June of 1788. That was the dream of the American experiment, and the shining goal toward which all who fought in their own ways for independence struggled.  A government by the people and for the people.  The founders, with history as a warning, with intellect as a guide, and with the future as a danger to be faced, forged what they found to be the best available and most secure form of representative government.  While it was no pure democracy, the people did govern who would represent them in the House of Representatives, and who would represent them in their state legislatures.

It is to our representatives in the states and in the federal government that we entrust our lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It is to these select few who step forward from the multitudes that we offer power in return for representation, and along with this trust and with this power comes a solemn and sacred responsibility.  Our representatives are not given the scepter of power and the cloak of duty to empower them solely for their own ends.  No, and vehemently is it written ‘No!,’ for such an idea runs contrary to the very purpose of our government.

As Samuel Adams wrote in April of 1781: “Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.” There can be no greater trust, no greater responsibility, than to carry in one’s hands the fate and futures of not just one person, but of thousands, or millions.

To whom would we entrust our children in our absence? What character do we seek out in the person to whom we deliver our most precious gifts in the world?  Do we seek responsibility?  Do we seek honesty, and intelligence?  Do we seek a good heart?  Or do we simply deposit our treasured young ones with the first available stranger who declares themselves available for their care?  And if we cannot entrust our children to a person so lacking in character and ability, how then can we entrust our neighbor’s children, the future’s children, and even ourselves to a government representative lacking, in the same way, in the important traits of character and ability?

We must ever “[l]abor to keep alive in [our] breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience,” as George Washington instructed in 1748, and we must labor even more to keep such a spark alive in the breast of those we choose to represent us. What good is it to be a pacifistic blacksmith, if one’s tools are used for war?  What good is it to be conscionable ourselves, while allowing our representative to act in unconscionable ways?  What moral shield do we stand behind, when the one we elect to speak on our behalf throws theirs aside to stand unprotected in the rotting rays of self-interest?

The question, then, we must ask of our representatives, not only today, but regularly, is “Whom do you serve?”

If the answer given is any other than “You, the people,” then immediately you shall discover they are unworthy of the responsibility you have entrusted to them. And if they give the appropriate answer, apply then their record and their deeds to their words, and discover for yourself whether they speak true, or whether they conceal in honeyed words that their allegiance is not to those who raised them up, but to those who would wrap a leash around their necks and beckon them to act in ways indifferent to our desires.

We come now to the act that precipitated these words, an act so unconscionable, so foul to the mind that its inky, poisonous taste remains forever even with the mere general consideration of what occurred. One need not even plumb the depths of the depravity ensconced in recent acts to feel unclean and unwell at its existence and occurrence.

For you should consider, in this moment, what you should feel if the person to whom you entrusted your children, who promised what you desired to be promised and spoke the words you desired to hear, declared to you, upon your return, that as instructed your children are maimed and wounded in ways unfathomable, that their lives are surely at risk. And better still, this person consoled you with an arm around your shoulder, stating that not only was this what was best for you, but it was what you deserved.

The rage, the wrath that would brew in your gut like hellfire, waiting to exhaust itself in a pillar of flame to consume this person, this horrible, wicked person, would be justified.

And so, today, we come to a similar crisis of conscience, a similar moment of singular rage.

Of all the advanced countries of the world, the United States of America stands alone in failing to provide healthcare for each of its citizens, regardless of class, wealth, race, or illness. A mere decade before today, an American citizen, entitled to all the benefits of being a member of our nation, could be thrown into the cold night air and refused adequate insurance for their healthcare simply due to a pre-existing condition, and such conditions could be defined in the most absurd and unfair of ways.

Consider the immorality of such a world. Because of illness, you are refused access to that which might make you well.  What conscionable person could justify such a state of affairs?  What person, claiming the highest of morals, could stand by and watch as their neighbor suffered and became drained of financial resources, solely due to the fact that an illness, over which they could exercise no control, threatened their lives?

Must a human in a nation as great and powerful as the United States be forced to choose a home over life? What value is life if one must pay for it with all that makes life worth living?  Is there glory to be gained by sacrificing all one possesses to breath one day more?  Is there glory to be found in forcing a person to live such a life, to undergo such trauma and stresses?

Our Congress then passed a healthcare act only seven years ago that declared “This is unjust.” No longer could a person be denied care for pre-existing conditions.  No longer would there be lifetime caps to your care, so that one would no longer still lose their home if their illness was so great and malicious as to exceed the ‘kindness’ of the insuring company and their monetary limit to rescuing you.

The healthcare law that was passed was imperfect, for one cannot expect imperfect people to create perfection. But yet, it addressed so many injustices in the manner in which we care for our sick and infirm that it was a marked improvement on the dark days of the past.  Just as our founders recognized that our Constitution was imperfect and needed a manner in which to amend the ultimate law that guides our nation, so to would a law that addresses one-sixth of our national economy and the needs of the ill and dying require changes, adjustments, and repairs.

It came to pass, however, that one political party in our nation rejected the existence of such a law. They rejected every part of it, and rejected the President who pushed for the law.  They rejected the cures to our societal ills, on partisan bases.  Time and time again, with scores of attempts, one political party in our nation sought to completely rid our government of this healthcare law that insured so many more millions, and provided and guaranteed care to even the sickest and poorest (and even so, some Americans still remained beyond the reach of the law).  These representatives of the people, due to their personal dislike of a President, sought to doom millions.

With deception and immorality their guiding partners, this party finally arose to complete power of the nation. This party now controls the Presidency, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

And what do these stewards of the faithfulness of their voting citizens attempt to do, in mere months? They sought out, once more, an opportunity to undue in its entirety the healthcare law that ensured millions of Americans would live.  Rather than repair the damage they inflicted on the law, rather than improve the law’s faults to cover more Americans at less cost to the individual, rather than take every step possible to ensure even more Americans have access to healthcare, and thus access to that inalienable right of life, this party sought the complete destruction and devastation of the law.

The keepers of your children wrapped their arm about your shoulder, and informed you that the horrible acts about to be perpetrated against your children were for your own good.

For what justification can there be for such hatefulness and cruelty? What challenger shall rise to the defense of these acts?  Who shall defend the act of un-insuring more than twenty-million Americans?  Who shall defend the act of reinstating the excruciating standard that simply being sick is a reason to be denied healing?  Who shall defend the gutting of aid to the poorest among us, the cutting of aid to those with disabilities and special needs, the increased cost on the elderly, in return for tax cuts for the richest among us?

Who shall defend these things? Who shall stand, and with a strident voice and without moral compunction declare that this is right, that this is moral, that this is just?

Show us this person. Show us this man, or woman.  Show us these individuals, and we shall reveal to you the most horrid betrayer of which your mind can ever conceive. You ask the guardian of your children to keep them safe, and you return to find their faces cut, their bodies bruised.  Is this justice?  Is this right?  Is this what we are to expect from those we elect to represent and, fundamentally, protect us?

“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens,” wrote Joseph Story in 1833. “They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.”  Are we not betrayed?

Are we not betrayed?

Are we not betrayed?

When our founders declared their independence from King George, they enumerated the reasons for which they sought to throw off the yoke of royalty across the sea to pursue their own path. While the reasons were many, and many were unfair to the colonists and even criminal in nature, nowhere in the text is there any declaration rising to the level of the abject cruelty of this act of our elected government in relation to our healthcare and thus our very lives.

Our representatives, possessed of the sacred duty we gave to them, voted to imminently harm the least among us, to tear away the healthcare of millions upon millions, and for what? What is the balance to the dark pits in which these representatives have thrown us?  What loftier goal, what solemn necessity, requires that the many should suffer, needlessly?

The answer, the nauseating, haunting answer, is that these representatives betrayed our trust and our lives in order to benefit the wealthiest Americans. It was their stated intention, and the manner in which they so publicly describe their plans evidences the disrespect and dismissiveness they show to us, the citizens who elected them.

For, as these representatives so ably and happily explained, in order to deliver $1 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest in their forthcoming tax plan, they must find equivalent savings elsewhere. And where shall those savings be found?  By slaughtering the health of American citizens.

How else could one describe these unconscionable acts, but by declaring them slaughter? There was no rose-petal soft whisper in the ear as the knife was drawn across the throat.  There was no bullet fired into the heart of the enemy you faced, eye-to-eye with honor.  No; our representatives drew out their jagged, hateful knives and took to the body of American citizenry, slicing inward to pry us apart.  And there, behind them, stood the interests to which our representatives now owe their allegiance.  Into their hungry hands are deposited our hearts and our lungs, as our representatives set to the hungry, bloody work of eviscerating all that makes us alive and well to profit the few among the many.  No care is taken to properly honor and respect our integrity; no cause is given for the pain we shall endure.

Are we not betrayed?

“A little matter will move a party,” wrote Thomas Paine, “but it must be something great that moves a nation.”

Are we not moved? Are the intentions of those we trusted not laid bare and made clear?  If we are not moved now, then when shall we be moved?  And if moved, toward what are we moved?  As the growing wave of our discontent prepares to crest and crash down, shall we finally make answer to this betrayal?  Shall we finally bring political justice upon those who would deliver such sour injustices into our mouths?

As Joseph Story instructed, let us never forget that we “possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of [our] ancestors; and capacity, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to [our] latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence.” For life is the sister guarantee of death.  As we live, so shall we die.  And those two things being the only two guarantees we shall ever encounter, with the rest left up to fate, chance, and choice, we must faithfully guard an American right to a life, a full, healthy life, which is not hastily ended for the profits of the rich.

The battle, and truly this is a political battle the likes of which we have never seen in our lifetimes and which we shall hopefully never see again, “is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”

We must now be vigilant.

We must now be active.

We must now be brave.

We must call our representatives to account for their acts. We must demand of them, “Whom do you serve?”

And, if we find their answer unsatisfactory, we can assist their recollection by asking further, “To whom shall you answer?”

For it is not to God, or to themselves, or to their souls that they shall answer, but to those who trusted them, those who bestowed upon them power to act, and who are now aggrieved, pained, angered, and betrayed. It is to us that they must make answer, and it is we who must mete out justice upon them.

For if we do not bring justice upon them for this, then how may future generations bring forth justice for similar acts?

On you, fellow American citizens, “depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves.”

No one can serve two masters; our representatives must now make clear who they serve. Is it the people, or the profits?  The citizens, or the rich few?

You cannot serve both Country and Money.

Whom do you serve?

“. . . Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.”

– “The New Colossus,” Emma Lazarus, 1883

It is far too easy to fully believe in the mythological creation of the United States of America, and subscribe to the idea that the evolution and perpetuation of the country is preordained and protected by a deity.

It was not, and is not.

And though a debate still rages as to the fundamental interpretation of our founding document, the Constitution, and whether we, more than 225 years removed from the date the United States first came into being, should read the document strictly or liberally, Thomas Jefferson makes a strong case for the latter: “. . . [L]aws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” (Jefferson to H. Tompkinson, July 12, 1816)

Thus, we are a nation of progress. And by no means is progress to be an easy path.  Progress by its very nature determines the current state of affairs, and then dares us to push further, to advance one step more in the direction of a common cause.  If progress were a simple thing, it would occur rapidly, without difficulty, without argument and without obfuscation.  If our history has shown us anything, however, it is that progress must fight, with teeth bared, in a Sisyphean task that is unending and unyielding.

Progress is never complete. It is a story without end, the pages of which await our pens.

When our nation was first founded, we prided ourselves on the idea that all men were created equal, and to be treated equally under the law. Conspicuously, this lofty equality and freedom did not extend to all.  Many of our founding fathers owned slaves, and continued to do so into the early years of our nation.  Slaves toiled, their humanity and freedom torn from their hands in the name of the god of profit.  Women, too, were hardly equal, for they had no voice in their government, and were not allowed to vote to determine their own future.

It is safe to say that the first decades of our youthful nation were certainly free and equal, but only to certain individuals.

Such is the fertile soil in which progress takes root, and begins to grow. Progress looks at the status quo, and does not state ‘it has always been thus, and thus it shall always be,’ but instead presses, and questions ‘it has always been thus; but must it always be so?’  And even further it questions, ‘why must it be thus?’

Must we always condone and accept slavery? Why must there be slaves?

Must we always prevent women and freed slaves from voting and determining not just the course of their country, but their own lives? Why must we do so?

On and on the questions come from Progress, the naïve and annoying child who tugs on the sleeve of society and asks the uncomfortable questions society would rather ignore that lead, inevitably, to an evaluation of self.

Is that fair? Is that just?  Is that equality, and freedom?

After long and bloody decades, we brought an end to slavery in the United States. But was Progress finished with us?  No; again it tugged at our sleeve, and pointed at the inequality and injustice that the freed slaves and their descendants faced every day.  They pointed at government systems and laws that continued to treat them differently, and unequally.  On and on the tugging went, until finally we made answer to Progress, and once more took steps to make the lives of the mistreated more just, and fair, and equal.  And still, Progress reminds us that our work is not yet done.

And though Progress may have been momentarily sated by American women receiving the right to vote, again it tugged our sleeve, pointing at the treatment of women generally, the occupations to which they were steered, the fields of education they were often forced into, the pay they received, the fundamental choices of life which were being made for them. And again, we made answer to Progress, but still Progress reminds us that there is more work to be done.

Progress is the niggling reminder that we cannot rest, not yet.

These are but two simplistic examples of progress in our country, and the continuing struggle. On we push the boulder up the hill of promise, yearning as one to achieve the unachievable dream.

And that is the underlying strength of our country, and the alliance which holds fast and true for the work that always lies before us. The unity of one people, and one nation.  If it were one man or woman howling into the wilderness about injustice, they would move only their throat.  But hand in hand, voice with voice, the united whole can move mountains.

That is why the traditional motto of the United States holds such power. Its origins were with the union of thirteen states and former colonies into one cohesive nation: E Pluribus Unum; “Out of Many, One.”  It is written on the Great Seal of the United States, clutched in the beak of the eagle which holds thirteen arrows in its talon, reminiscent of the adage that together, they will not break.

As time passed, our nation changed. There was social progress, but also geographical progress as we stretched across the continent.  Then there was cultural progress, as the promise of our young nation beckoned to others throughout the world like a fiery brand, held aloft as a beacon in a tumultuous world of uncertainty.

And rather than weakening our nation, this cultural progress ushered in new ideas with new people. Fresh ideas and corresponding values fed Progress further, and kept its cheeks flushed with vigor as it continued to tug on our sleeve with unyielding vitality.  Why should the Irish be treated differently, Progress asked?  Why should the Italians be treated differently?  Why should the Chinese be treated differently?

Though we may have tried to ignore Progress, it would not be ignored. When the question as to why one group or another should be treated differently than the rest continued to be raised, we could only find peace and quiet in giving answer to Progress, and trying our best to once more hold ourselves to that overwhelming vision that we were a nation of equality and freedom.  How could we do differently, in contravention of the ideals to which we held so closely, the words almost like scripture and sacrosanct?  It would taste like a sin upon the tongues of those who knew that Progress would not be denied.

But the struggle of Progress was always met with resistance. The sleeve was often torn from Progress’ grip, words screamed into its face as tears welled in its eyes.  Our nation has had many, many dark moments throughout its history where we slackened our work on that boulder on that dreary hill and it began to roll back again, to crush the advancements we had made decade after decade.

Many such failures feel unforgiveable with the passage of time.

As an example, in 1939 the MS St. Louis, a German ocean liner, was captained by Gustav Schroder.  Schroder took more than 900 Jewish refugees on a quest to find them sanctuary from the Nazis in Germany, and first made an attempt to deposit them in Cuba.  Refused there, he then tried to bring them to the United States.  But there too, he was refused, and the Coast Guard was ordered to prevent Schroder from attempting to ram his ship onto the shore so that the Jewish refugees could escape to salvation.  Anti-Jewish sentiment may well have played a role, and the boulder we held from rolling back began to tip toward the hard workers and servants of Progress.

Around 250 of those refugees were eventually murdered by the Nazis.

Do we look on this moment with pride? Does the United States view these avoidable deaths as justified?  No; more likely we view this moment in our history with shame today.  What are 900 lives, in a country of millions?  What price would we now pay to ensure the survival of the 250 who were murdered simply because they were different?

What would we now give, to hear the tittering laughter of a child living in our country because they know our country is safe for them, and for their family? Would there be too high a cost to watch them laugh and play with children of other backgrounds, other beliefs, other cultures, secure in the arms of a country that prides itself on freedom, and equality?  What would we give now to stop just one brutal murder of a child who could have been saved from the grip of the Nazis?

Then take note of how our nation rounded up and effectively imprisoned more than 120,000 American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II, including children, simply because of their cultural and ethnic background. Families of United States citizens were taken from their homes and placed in camps, in acts that the great majority today would find unfathomable and unjustifiable.  It calls to mind an excerpt from a speech of Cicero, a Roman lawyer who lived at the same time as Julius Caesar:

“In the middle of the forum of Messana a Roman citizen, O judges, was beaten with rods; while in the meantime no groan was heard, no other expression was heard from that wretched man, amid all his pain, and between the sound of the blows, except these words, “I am a Roman citizen.” He judged that by this very reminder of his citizenship he could avert all blows, and remove all torture from his body. He not only did not succeed in averting by his entreaties the violence of the rods, but as he kept on repeating his entreaties and the assertion of his citizenship, a cross—a cross I say–was set up for that suffering man, who had never witnessed such ruin.”

“I am a Roman citizen.”

“I am an American citizen.”

Did those Japanese families cry out the same words as that ancient Roman citizen? Did they seek to avert all blows to their guaranteed freedoms by reminding those who corralled them of their citizenship?

On these two occasions, and for many, many others, our nation tore itself away from Progress, the child of Columbia, who was herself the youthful woman representing the ideals of our very nation before her imagery was replaced by the Statue of Liberty, of whom Emma Lazarus wrote so eloquently in 1883. Ideals must be reached and attained by their very nature, and Progress is the road we travel to get there, and at every turn of our journey stands Columbia, beckoning us and urging us on, urging us forward.

So it is with some regret that we come to today, and see again that Progress and the quest for the ideal is once more threatened, and the personification of our nation in the body of Columbia is gagged and bundled away, lest she lead us ever forward.

Fear can be said to be the enemy of progress. Fear of change, fear of losing power in the balance of equality, fear of that which is different than you.  We as humans are geared to be responsive to fear; do we flee, or fight?  It is an evolved trait that can, at times, be difficult to repress.

Today, we once more grapple with this fear that simmers beneath the surface of our society, awaiting its moment to blaze once more. The fear now applies itself to those of a different faith, to refugees fleeing from death, and to immigrants, to name but a few.  If it sounds familiar, it is because the fear of these three things has driven events in our country for decades upon decades.  It is an old friend upon the field of battle that we always defeat, but not without cost and effort, and never finally, always allowing the fear to retreat, only to come again.

This fear leads us to once more tell refugees from war-torn countries, who have undergone extensive vetting lasting years, who are largely children, women, or the elderly and infirm that they cannot find peace and salvation here. Once more we say to a child that they cannot find home and comfort by our fires, and instead must remain where they are, where death comes on swift wings, eager to pick the flesh off the bones of the unprotected.  Once more we burden ourselves with the memory that we could have acted, and did not act; we could have saved, and instead damned.

This fear leads some in our nation to hate and attack those of a different faith, simply because they are different. Islam, one of three religions sprouting from the same origin in the Middle East, is not to be feared, and yet it is because evil in the hearts of mankind take advantage of a faith to further their own ends, a familiar refrain throughout history.  Even Christianity, for all the sanctimony professed by some of its followers, continues on a now somewhat peaceful path that still has bloodshed caking the dirt in their past.

This fear leads some in our nation to believe that immigrants and their culture, their language, their beliefs, and all the many other facets that combine to make them who they are, are a threat to the fundamental premise of our country. These American citizens fear that they steal jobs, which they do not; that they seek to impose their ideas on us, which they do not; that they seek to bend the will of the country to suit their own ends, which they do not.

And fear, to its credit, is like a hungry brushfire, and spreads quickly, damaging whatever it touches.

Our President has taken hold of this fear and uses it as a weapon, a flame-wreathed sword which he points at those he deems his enemies or the ‘other,’ encouraging those of like mindsets to follow him on a crusade that, far from achieving his goals, will only gut the soul of our nation with one scorching stroke. He gives aid to our enemies by showing the world that we are not the country of freedom that we profess to be, but instead one that shall treat you antagonistically because you are different.  He would no longer have us be a banner around which the tired and poor, the exiles and subjugated, can rally, but instead he would have us wave a flag of intolerance, emblazoned with the cringe-inducing hateful phrase “America First.”

He is taking, measure by measure, the pieces of what constitute our great nation and flipping them on their head. By his words and deeds, he seeks to ensure that we no longer lead the world in tolerance and appreciation of every life and every creed, but instead lead the world by the opposite.

And so, here we are. Our shoulders, aching and bruised, are pressed against the boulder of progress which we shove toward our unreachable goal.  Our chests heave, and sweat stings our eyes.  Around us gather gremlins and despicable creatures in the dark, whispering into our ears that we need only step away.  We need only step away from a long-lived vision that we are a nation of immigrants, a melting pot of all peoples, a tolerant and caring nation upon which the dreamers and good-hearted citizens of the world can rely.  Is the burden not too great?, they suggest as their numbers grow around us, mocking those who stand, knees shaking with the effort.  Would it not be easier to let go?, they question, perched near our ears.

There can be no doubt that now, barely more than a week into this new presidency, so many values upon which we have built our nation’s progress are at risk. Tolerance is assaulted, pressed up against a wall by those who believe they can mercilessly attack and insult anything or anyone they find beneath them.  Equality is hounded down alleyways, chased by a mob who would see a woman’s body controlled by the state, or someone treated differently and as lesser simply because they believe in a different faith, or treated like less than human because of who they love.  Freedom is accosted while seated in a diner, as dissenters are told to silence themselves in favor of the new president, and free-thinkers and dreamers see themselves reduced to being insulted for being ‘special.’  Comfort and Aid are beaten in the streets, as those who would open their doors to those fleeing persecution and certain death are attacked for their values, and those who would feed and shelter homeless and heartbroken citizens are mocked and ridiculed for their weakness.

We see it all around us as our Sisyphean task remains incomplete. The creatures in the dark laugh now, for they sense doubt.  They sense a shift in resolve, as the boulder once more threatens to roll back down the path we have struggled so valiantly to ascend.

Will this be a moment to which our future generations shall point and declare that we failed, and our failure was unforgiveable, the very same way we point back at our own history and the dark moments we have left trampled in our wake? Or will this be a moment where we press onward, paying no heed to the forces that would see us fall, and instead trample their words into the muck where they belong, left behind as a lesson to those who will look backward?

The future of our country is not preordained. It shall not live forever if we do not care for it.  The pen sits in our hand, waiting for us to write further in the story of our nation.  Progress tugs on our sleeve, again and again, pointing with its little finger at the injustice, the inequality, the intolerable acts being committed by those who would embrace Fear and let go of Progress.

I am an American citizen.

We are American citizens.

And we are citizens of this world.

We have a legendary task before us, passed on to us by generations before, and which we must preserve and protect for the generations that shall come after.  Do we dare cede this responsibility, and allow this President and those cackling voices bring us to ruin?

Do we dare let go?

And so, in closing, allow me to share this excerpt from a song written by Thomas Paine, entitled ‘Columbia’:

“Ye sons of Columbia, then join hand in hand,
Divided we fall, but united we stand;
‘Tis ours to determine, ’tis ours to decree,
That in peace we will live independent and free . . .”

History is replete with examples of individuals who are wrongfully blamed for something they did not do, or who are wrongly believed to be responsible for something for which they bear no responsibility.  Once public opinion is set on the matter, it is easier to move mountains than perception, and often times any effort to change the perception only reinforces the opinion.

An interesting example comes from an unexpected place: Pre-Revolution France.

For most of the middle and late 18th century in France, France tiptoed around numerous political, social, and economic issues.  Tax structures were absurd; there was no real freedom of movement of goods without tariffs at every conceivable intra-national border; laws applied differently to different people in different regions; old nobility thought themselves better than new nobility who often bought their nobility from a French government eager to make up budget shortfalls.  France was, to put it less than delicately, an absolute mess with a high likelihood of a storm.

Into this woodchipper flew many high-minded individuals who thought they could improve the system.  Enlightenment ideas did in fact exist in France, just as they existed in the colonies that were declaring their independence from Britain and in Britain itself, and many prominent Enlightenment figures were French.  Reason and logic could save the day in France!  Only give it room to grow, to flourish, and all would be set aright.  Reason and logic would lead to a Truth capable of fixing what was wrong.

Unfortunately, logic and reason are rarely valuable commodities among everyday humans.  We are emotional, impulsive creatures.  It was no different for France in the late 1700’s.  Nobles were not keen on paying more than they were already (which was not much), and were resistant to reforms that might infringe on their titles, power, and luxuries.  The average peasant people paid more in taxes than they should, and every time a crop yield was significantly less than expected or even non-existent due to blight or some other calamity, starvation and anger churned.  The people on the bottom were being feasted upon, and the people on top were living the high life.  All the while, the French government was falling massively in debt.

Jacques Necker, a banking savant of Swiss birth, entered into the fray and had plans to fix the horrible financial situation of the French government.  His greatest feat was his greatest con: he cooked the books, in a manner of speaking, and made it seem that the French government had far more money than it actually did by separating debts into two groups, and only reporting on and revealing one group.  Meanwhile, all the loans he secured for the government with these false statistics plummeted the nation further into debt, which he covered up with a massive publication to the French people that stated how great the finances were.  He masked the untruths with what many people took for absolute truth.  The finances of the monarchy, and thus of France, were sound.

Enter Charles Alexandre de Calonne, who, when the country’s finances fell into his lap, was shocked to his core.  The country and the monarchy were in debt.  And not small debt, no, he saw that the monarchy was indebted to around 100,000,000 livres.  An insane amount of money (most likely around $700,000,000 in today’s money).  He tried to ring the alarm bell and pass reforms, but the common people, many of whom learned how to read by reading Necker’s untruthful publication about how great the monarchy was doing financially, did not really believe him, and the nobility caused him no end of problems.  The falsity of Necker’s claims jeopardized the country, but his claims felt right, and were more palatable and believable than Calonne’s fearful proclamations.

Reigning over all of this was Louis XVI, who seemed reluctant to take action on anything and seemed to be, to some degree, timid.  A firmer hand might have won the day, but Louis let far too many issues go unanswered.  He was very young when he became king, and he was shortly married off to Maria Antonia of Austria, who would become Marie Antoinette.  However, they failed to consummate the marriage for years, and Marie Antoinette began to be the target of a great deal of gossip, much of it negative as she spent her time with her friends buying things and living a more or less luxurious life as a queen.  Louis, meanwhile, went out hunting and participated in many other activities, neglecting for quite some time to consummate the royal marriage and produce an heir.

So we are set with the scene, of a populace being told one thing (the monarchy is on extremely sound financial footing!), then being told another (the monarchy is in enormous debt and has no money, and we must make reforms!), with royalty that seemed ineffectual and disinterested, and a queen who seemed to be unperturbed.  Whether these accusations against Marie Antoinette are fair is a matter of opinion, but the opinion of the common people at the time was an angry one.  There were concerns that the royalty were fudging numbers and playing games with finances to draw even more out of the people by way of taxes and the like, where the common peasant was already being drained financially while nobility rode easily above it.  It was not fair.  The perception of disinterest and duplicity weighed heavily on the crown.

Into this scene strolled Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Remy, who played up a questionable noble heritage, who was married to a man who also played up a most likely not truly noble heritage.  She would turn out to be, in essence, a con-woman.  Much like Necker, she would introduce untruth to combat truth.  She sought a way to make her way in this tumultuous French economy and political and social structure.  She found her mark: the Cardinal de Rohen.

When King Louis XV was still alive, he had a mistress at his court.  He ordered jewelers to make a necklace for her that would be far grander and of greater beauty than anything else that existed.  Obviously, such a thing would be expensive ($14 million in today’s dollars, 2,000,000 livres back then).  The jewelers set to work collecting the necessary jewels, but by the time the necklace was ready, Louis XV was dead, his mistress was kicked out of court, and Louis XVI sat the throne with Marie Antoinette by his side.

The jewelers tried to recoup their losses by selling the necklace to Marie Antoinette.  She refused them.  They tried a second time.  She refused them again.  King Louis XVI offered to buy it for her, but she didn’t want it, perhaps even requesting that the money be better spent outfitting warships and the like.  It was hardly a situation where she was outright demanding these precious jewels that cost so very much; she might even have gone so far as to say that the money could be spent better on other things (and not on herself).

Jeanne de Valois, meanwhile, was pretending that she was in Marie Antoinette’s court, and became the mistress of the Cardinal de Rohen.  Rohen was desperate to improve his lot in life after making Marie Antoinette angry by reporting on her to her mother in Austria.  Jeanne de Valois offered her assistance, as she was so very close to Marie Antoinette (she was not).  She gave his correspondences to Marie Antoinette (which she really didn’t do), gave him Marie Antoinette’s responses (forged by her), to the point that Rohen thought that he and the queen had a secret, perhaps romantic, relationship.  Jeanne de Valois even hired a prostitute who looked like the queen to meet Rohen one night and give him a rose, the prostitute declaring that their past disputes were forgotten.  Jeanne de Valois further fleeced Rohen of his own money, saying the money was going to the queen’s charitable causes while pocketing the money for herself.

When the jewelers heard how close Jeanne de Valois was to the queen (she was not), they tried to get her to get the queen to buy the necklace.  Jeanne de Valois struck on an idea: she went to Rohen and said the queen desperately wanted the necklace, but it would look too inappropriate for her to buy it herself.  Would the Cardinal be so kind as to enter into a transaction with the jewelers for the necklace and guarantee payment, and then the queen would give Rohen the money as the installments came due?

Rohen jumped at the chance to please the queen, entering into the deal with the jewelers who were also none-the-wiser, and Jeanne de Valois gave the necklace to her husband, who then traveled to England to have it disassembled and sold.  The queen did not get the necklace, nor want the necklace, nor did she know any of this occurred.  The Cardinal thought that he was doing the queen a favor.  The jewelers thought the queen had finally purchased the necklace.

When the jewelers came for the first installment, Rohen asked where the money from the queen was.  But, there was no money to be had.  The jewelers went to the queen directly and demanded their money, but she declared she had no idea what they were talking about.  There was an uproar.  Was the queen lying?  Were the jewelers crying?  When all was revealed, courts were held, accusations of guilt were made, and the public was made aware.

Surely the truth would show the public that the queen and the monarchy had done no wrong.  Lies on top of lies were told by some con-woman seeking to enrich herself; the monarchy was innocent.

However, the common person found the opposite.  They were under the impression that the queen and the royal monarchy had tricked or deceived honest hard-working jewelers for an extremely expensive piece of jewelry, then tried to get out of paying for it, all while claiming that the monarchy was in dire financial straits and trying to accuse another woman of guilt.

Was any of it true?  No.  A con-woman had tricked the jewelers and the Cardinal.  The queen had nothing to do with it and had a clear history of never wanting the necklace.  But, the perception and opinion of the queen was being etched in stone over the years.  An Austrian (where did her loyalties lie?), who took her time trying to produce heirs (why the delay?), who lived a life of luxury (if the finances of the crown are in such bad shape, how does she afford these luxuries while we suffer?), who scammed the hard-working (how could she try to keep the jewelers from their due?), who then lied to try to maintain her wealth.  Lies, lies, lies!

How is a person to overcome a perception of themselves over which they have little control?  Missteps can be made (it’s simply human nature), mistakes are common for everyone, but in the public eye, in an office of power, how can one convince the already convinced of the opposite of what they are convinced?  Marie Antoinette found herself in the unenviable position of someone who had done nothing very wrong, and only done things that were disagreeable but which were common for those in her position all over Europe.

She did not have control of the narrative (journalists of the time largely did, and feasted on these situations; gossip like this was like mana from heaven), and any attempt to prove the narrative wrong would likely only lead to the conclusion that she had been, in fact, caught doing something wrong and was trying to distract an angry populace from the truth.

A reputation is a hard thing to recover.

The reason that this history lesson is necessary is that it shows how primed people can be, over time, to believe the worst of someone, and then, even when evidence is shown that a person did not do a specific thing, the reputation that has been (unfairly) cultivated for them works against them.  The people will not believe, because they believe otherwise (whether fairly or unfairly).  It’s likely to be perceived as absurd to use Marie Antoinette as the subject of such a point, but perhaps it drives the point home better than it would otherwise; it reveals your preconceptions on Marie Antoinette and her reputation, and the confusion you feel at considering the idea of defending her speaks yet further to the strength of the point.  Marie Antoinette was not to blame.  (But wasn’t she?, your gut might say)

Apply this lesson to the modern day.  In the current American race for President, we are presented with two candidates.  For our purposes, our focus will be for now on one of them, Hillary Clinton.

There is a well-documented timeline of Hillary Clinton’s life, from her education, to her work after law school, to her marriage to Bill Clinton and his governorship, to his Presidency and his affairs, to her Senate career, and her career as Secretary of State.  For much of her life, and at least for the last 25 years or so, she has been a target of political attacks.  One need only look back in time to television interviews decades ago, where reporters ask Hillary Clinton why she seems to be unlikeable or untrustworthy.  With every passing year, as those questions are asked again and again, with or without basis, the public hears the echo in their mind: Is Hillary Clinton unlikeable?  Is she untrustworthy?  She must be, since I keep hearing it everywhere and all the time.

Hillary Clinton has been given this reputation, and must fight against it.  Of course as a human she has made missteps and mistakes.  Of course as a person seeking office she will seek to mollify her detractors and encourage her supporters.  But if she tries to show she is likeable, she is ‘trying too hard’ or masking her more duplicitous plans, whatever they may be.  If she tries to show that she is trustworthy and present evidence that there is no evidence that she is as untrustworthy as she is claimed to be, or more untrustworthy than the average politician, her efforts are dismissed with ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire,’ and her every attempt is met with a perception that has been decades in the baking.

The people were primed over time to believe the worst of her, and then, even when evidence is shown that she did not do a specific thing, the reputation that has been cultivated for her works against her.  The people will not believe, because they believe otherwise.

Very often you will hear that we live in a post-fact United States.  Facts no longer matter.  Opinion, perception, these are the things that matter.  Hillary Clinton competes against Donald Trump for the Presidency, a man who has a documented history of racism, of being unfaithful to his wives, of cheating the average person out of money, of benefitting from the loss of American jobs to overseas competitors, of advocating violence, of embracing conspiracy theories and creating a political home for the extreme right wing of politics.  Instead of pursuing these topics into the ground to get to the absolute truth on these matters, many journalists now engage in the game of ‘optics.’

Imagine, if you will, if Marie Antoinette stood accused, but meanwhile another monarch who had indeed done all the things of which she was accused, and much more, stood unmolested by the people and the journalists of the time.

The waters have been muddied so badly now that many are not even certain of what the truth is.  Politics in the United States have become so polarized after the election of President Obama that if one side believes something, the other side must believe the opposite, to a fault.  Truth no longer has any objective value; the truth is what you believe it is.  With broader access to broader audiences, online ‘news’ sites peddle less-than-true stories to people who consume it quickly and without critical thought.  If the site says it, they do not investigate it, because they rely on the reliability of news entities.  But when the news, and facts, become the slaves of opinion, the news loses its value.  Facts lose their value.

Objectivity is gone.  Long Live Subjectivity.

For years now, people have been flooded with news from different sources that absolutely conflict with each other.  News has become just as polarized as politics.  Both sides of the aisle now believe two different sets of facts about something that has a true, objective reality.  If you have an outlandish idea or extremely radical thought, you are more than likely to find at least one site that supports your position, which then further reinforces the idea in your mind.  The ‘echo chamber’ effect insulates you from contrary opinions, until all such opinions must be false in the face of your own beliefs.  It is an environment well-suited to foster and perpetuate a negative reputation.

For what is the best way to combat an untruth?  With the truth.  But when the truth loses its power, there is no way to combat an untruth.  A reputation constructed on a series of untruths, then, must also rely on truth to rescue it.  But if truth cannot be believed, then a reputation cannot be saved.

To this day, Marie Antoinette’s reputation cannot be saved.

And now, Hillary Clinton’s reputation likewise has little hope of recovery with the way things now stand.

Facts no longer matter.  And for someone like Hillary Clinton, who bases policies, answers, and yes, at times truth-stretching, on actual, verifiable facts, she enters the arena at a disadvantage against a man who lies more than any other public figure in American politics, who treats the truth as an inconvenience, who values belief over reality, and who the polarized sides of journalism cannot adequately combat after feasting for so long on opinion instead of objectivity.

The lesson of the necklace is a lesson without a solution, and all the worse for Hillary Clinton.

 

In the event that the risks and dangers of global climate change escape you even now, or someone that you know even as we see the impacts the world over, allow me to make a humble suggestion for an activity you can pursue in three months.

It is notoriously difficult to bring the world together to achieve anything as one. If you scoff, consider what singular act the world has taken that brought together every nation on this planet.  By most counts, there are 196 countries.  Those are 196 competing interests.  Those are 196 different leaders, with different world views and different perspectives.  Those are 196 different cultures and governments and geographical locations.  Those are 196 reasons for things to never be achieved as one.

Too many envision the world as one large pie. For anyone to have anything, it must take from others.  This is true, if one conceives of the world as a pie with finite boundaries and limits.  This problem is the underlying issue for international conflicts on the proper response, if any, to climate change.

Consider, for instance, ‘developing nations.’ We, as Americans, are in a very privileged position.  We have had the benefit of centuries and generations of improvements and technological advancements, as have many other countries.  In sixty-six years, the United States went from the first human flight (1903) to landing on the moon (1969).

It’s easy for us to contemplate that period of time in an academic sense, because that’s all we’ve ever known it as. Many of us only know of the Wright Brothers and the moon landing from school lessons.  We didn’t experience it, live it in the moment.  Imagine the awe, the absolute awe of someone who was alive before 1903 and after 1969.  The world changed dramatically and permanently.  It’s something worth pausing and considering.

In any event, while the United States and many other countries have flourished with relative wealth and technological advancement, other countries have not. And, those with larger populations are now pushing themselves to become ‘powers’ in the world, to get their piece of the pie.  They are termed ‘developing nations,’ and in order to reach the level of the United States and other ‘developed’ nations, they necessarily must follow the same path.

It might be uncomfortable to admit, but our advancement was driven by what we would now call ‘dirty’ power. Coal, oil, gas, fossil fuels.  The 1700’s were a vastly different time for the United States, but as technology progressed, especially steam power, energy needs had to adapt.  Whale oil and wood were no longer satisfactory.  To drive industry, to drive manufacturing, to drive electricity production, better sources of energy were needed.  And while those sources darkened the skies, and caked streets and plains with soot, grime, and slicks, we pushed ever forward, on and on.  Even to this day, we deal with the environmental impacts of our push for progress generations ago.  Even to this day, the impact of our advancement lingers in the global environment.

Not just us. Other countries too, but we shoulder a good portion of the blame.

Now other nations, like India and China, want to reach the level of other countries like the United States. However, their path to that advancement is a well-trod path that was forged by us: ‘Dirty’ energy, fossil fuels.  It is cheap, it is freely available, and it is effective.  With the current international mood toward nuclear power and the fear of nuclear weapons, countries with massive populations like India and China cannot yet rely on other ‘clean’ energy options or renewable energy.  They need massive amounts of power, now, quickly.

When the United States and other developed nations point out the dangers of using these fossil fuels, the developing nations, justifiably, point the finger at us. Who are we to say that such sources should not be used?  It is easy for us to say ‘no,’ since we have reached a point where we can feasibly live without those sources, or use them sparingly.  We have taken our piece of the pie, and now we refuse to let them have theirs.  We reaped the benefit, and now keep it from them.

The argument has merit, and is something that the United States government and other developed nations must grapple with whenever trying to bring the world together to combat climate change. This isn’t one small county out of the 196 voicing disagreement.  These are countries of millions and billions of our planet’s citizens voicing disagreement.  It is no easy thing to bring them together.  Concessions will undoubtedly have to be made.  Assistance will have to be provided across the board.  Diplomacy will have to ride high over a tide of competing interests.

The Obama administration achieved some success with the Paris Climate Accord, where 195 nations did come together to agree to fight climate change, and to agree to limit and decrease fossil fuel emissions. This was a huge, unprecedented success.  And even so, it fell short in a number of ways.

However, the most important aspect of the Accord is this: Countries came together and agreed.  One-hundred and ninety-five countries.  Mind boggling.

However, the success of the Accord depends largely on the promises made by the countries involved. The United States made many of those promises, and ever since the dissolution of the USSR, whether they want to or not, much of the world looks to the United States to lead.  The success of the United States will determine the effectiveness of the Accord.  The failure of the United States will likely doom the Accord.

To his credit, President Obama has made great efforts through his administration to combat climate change and limit emissions, almost exclusively though the executive branch of our government and federal agencies. There are a few risks involved with such a strategy.  The first is that a new president, of a different mind, could reject any changes and efforts of President Obama, because those acts were contained almost exclusively within the executive branch.  Another risk is that the Congress could pass laws countermanding the President’s attempts.  The third, and greatest, risk is that a conservative Supreme Court of the United States could strike down any attempt for any reason they deem fit.

Really let this information sink in.

Almost the entire world can come together and agree to do something, an agreement more delicate the a flower petal, and the whole world can look to the United States to hold up their end before they hold their own, and five justices on the Supreme Court could bring it all to ruin. Five human, flawed people could bring ruin not just to the agreement, but to the world.

For if the United States fails to uphold its part of the bargain, what incentive is there for other countries to do the same? This is just like the United States, trying to hold onto their piece of the pie while we must give up ours!  Trust is a precious jewel in diplomacy.  Without trust, there can be no real action.  And if the world cannot trust the United States to keep to their word, who else will keep to theirs?

And, the Accord having been ruined in this way, what will bring all these countries together again? They shall have the bitter memory of the previous attempt washing around in their mouth like horribly aged vinegar.  All that effort, all the promises, all the hopes and wishes, all the trust, was for nothing.

Who can trust in any new agreement?

So we come now to my humble suggestion.

The Senate has now waited 142 days to take up debate on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court of the United States. By all accounts, Judge Garland is a fair man, with a true appreciation for the law and the ways it should be used.  He is neither wholly conservative, nor wholly liberal.  But indications are that he would likely be favorably disposed to issues of climate change, and executive attempts to curtail the impacts of climate change.

The United States Senate, for an absurd reason that has no basis in history or reason, refuses to even debate his nomination and, with the outlandish claim that President Obama is a ‘lame duck’ President with a year left to his administration, refuse to consider Judge Garland until a new President is elected.

The Supreme Court now stands divided ideologically, 4-4.

Let the weight of those numbers settle on your shoulders like a heavy blanket. 4-4.  A number on one side or the other would not simply impact our government, but the entire world.  How could it not?  Any attempt to combat climate change in the United States government will be challenged by groups with financial and moneyed interests in opposition.  If a challenge is brought, one number is all that stands in the way of ruin.

Put aside all the other internal conflicts within our United States, all the debates about this or that that impacts only us, as citizens. Consider only the impact on the world, for surely and undoubtedly is this an issue for the citizens of the planet, and not just the United States.

One number. 5-4, or 4-5.

And so, three months from now, when it comes time for you to execute your solemn duty as a citizen to select your new executive leader, think on this. To which end shall the balance tilt?  Toward risking the world, or helping it?

The following is no longer a partisan party issue.  It’s become an American issue.

If you’re at all, in the slightest concerned about nuclear weapons and Donald Trump, read the following: http://storify.com/…/john-noonan-on-nuclear-deterrence-and-…

This should give every reasonable person pause.

If recent claims of Trump and nuclear weapons prove true, truly be concerned. Even if they prove false, consider the temperament of the man in relation to all those who came before him.  Allegedly, he asked repeatedly why he could not use nuclear weapons. Call me a madman if you must, but I would think the preferred question should at the very least instead be “Why should I use nuclear weapons?”, not “Why can’t I?”

As of 2014, I believe the largest yield nuclear weapon the USA has is 1.4 megatons. 1 megaton = 1,000,000 tons of TNT. That’s 2,000,000,000, or two billion, pounds of TNT. You could therefore explode a pound of that equivalent TNT every minute for two thousand years and still have about half the yield left over, if not more. You could blow up a modestly sized car every minute back to the time of Jesus Christ with the power of JUST ONE nuclear weapon.

This is the ungodly power we have given ourselves, like a wayward Prometheus.

But since there are no gods to bind us for all eternity as punishment nor a godly voice to chastise us, we must bind ourselves, limit ourselves, in the use of such awesome power. How can we do otherwise?  Through our intellect, we have come to the point in our technological development that we can recreate the conditions of a star on the surface of our planet, all for destructive purposes.  Zeus can retain his lightning bolt, and Thor his hammer.  Even the biblical God needed days of rain to flood the world, and could only focus his destructive might on a small city to raze it to the ground.  Witness what power we now have, and to what use we can put it!

It is unfortunate that these weapons exist. But though we can destroy the world, we still cannot traverse the space between points of time, and so we cannot rid ourselves of the idea of these weapons, nor the technology developed from those first ideas.  However, we must make sure that we do not rain down destruction on ourselves. The power of gods exists at the touch of a phone and a turn of a key. We are the Destroyers of Worlds, and fate just stalks our every step to see if we slip.  And slip, one day, we may.

Now, a candidate for President, who is baited by people left and right, who responds astonishingly strongly to any criticism no matter how slight, who is considering abandoning alliances established to push back against the desires of Strong Men, may be wondering why he cannot use these weapons.

For longer than I can even contemplate, the awesome power of the lightning bolt has struck terror into humans, before the nature of lightning was fully comprehended.  A blast of power from the sky that can destroy, burn, perhaps even explode!  It will strike you dead!  And from whence does it come?  The random destruction wrought by the lightning bolt could most often be laid at the feet of a god with little care for the affairs of men, quick to anger, quicker to destroy.

Now we are armed with a power greater than lightning bolts.  And, instead of a heartless god, we have a presidential candidate who contemplates raining down nuclear weapons on a whim.

No person should ever want to use nuclear weapons so cavalierly. Think about what groups in this world do want to use these weapons so cavalierly, and feel that cold shiver down your spine.  They are not peacemakers.  They are not great lovers of humanity.  They wish only to destroy, to kill, to instill fear the world over.  What other sort of human could, with relish, consider the use of these horrible weapons?

Say what you will about former presidential candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney, former Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or current President Barack Obama, or current presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, I never was actually terrified of the idea of them having access to nuclear weapons.  At the very least, they understood that nuclear weapons were neither a privilege nor a gift, but a horrible, horrible responsibility.

The launch of nuclear weapons is largely determined by one person: The President.

Will you entrust the power of gods to the hands of Trump?  Is that what we have come to?

Think on it.

There is a degree of religious belief to the founding of the United States.

We often recall the writings, exploits, successes, failures, and achievements of our American Founding Fathers, with the same degree of affection as the Romans had toward their own founding.  Miraculous.  Ordained.  The singular highest pinnacle of human society.

The truth of our founding is more muddied, in truth.  What began as a protest against a mostly reasonable tax on sugar (which in truth was a tax break; merchants had not been collecting the 6 cent tax because they were taking a 1-2 cent bribe and the crown instituted a new 3 cent tax to replace the 6 cent tax with more enforcement to actually have it collected) grew and grew until conflict was inevitable.  There were as many failures as there were successes.  Our original point of origin, the Articles of Confederation, is an uncomfortable part of our history.  Our United States Constitution takes the place of a near-sacred document, with most of us ignorant of the many compromises underlying it, and the actual intent of those who wrote it.

The risk in believing in a near-miraculous founding is that what is ordained by a higher power, what is established by saint-like human figures, must surely survive any assault upon its existence.  If it was purely of human design, of course it would be a frail, delicate thing with many flaws.  But if it was of a greater design, with a greater purpose?  Well, until that purpose is realized, it cannot break.

This concept or belief is, unfortunately, foolish and misguided.

Our nation is a flawed nation, built by flawed men and women, fostered by flawed men and women, and led today by flawed men and women.  There is no perfection to be found here.  There are no Halcyon days.

Much like the planet we reside upon, which every day finds new ways of trying to eliminate humans with temperature, weather, disease, and the like, every day our flawed nation is at risk of attack and destruction.  By our own hands.

There was a dream of what the United States could be.  We have pushed toward that dream, that ideal, for generations.  Pushing further and further, improving bit by bit, struggle by struggle.  We are a better nation today than we were fifty or a hundred or a hundred-and-fifty years ago.  More people are free.  More people are equal.  More people live better and longer lives.

But like the tale of Achilles in the race with the rabbit, we will always have to fight, to struggle, to improve our country, and even then we will never get there.  Like the muscles of your body, without effort and exertion, our improvements and cultural gains shall whither and disappear, and our long, hard struggle will only become longer, and harder.

So that is why I am here.  We do have a heritage, sacred or not, to uphold.  We must resist what may erode what we have become over the centuries.

We will persevere.