This is not a partisan political essay. Or at least I don’t intend it to be.
I woke up early this morning with the dreadful feeling that just about everything going on in the world today is wrong, wrong, wrong. Not just one kind of wrong, but a terrible and very dangerous mix of wrong-headed policies, pursued by feckless leadership, driven by ignorance (or intentional disregard) of history, fueled by personal and governmental arrogance and hubris, enabled by unbridled political ambition and the burning desire to impose the will and values of some on the lives and futures of others, disguised by cleverly misleading and disingenuous messaging and/or outright lies, all leading inexorably to the destruction of trust in the institutions that protect, preserve and advance civil order and hope for a peaceful and positive future.
I do not want that kind of world for myself, my family, my children, my grandchildren, or yours.
The blame for this mess can be spread wide and deep, like organic fertilizer. There may be “sides” in the debate, but none have monopoly over the truth, and all should be focused exclusively on the common good. The fact that they are not is unacceptable and intolerable, particularly at this moment in human history.
Herewith, a woefully incomplete list of wrong stuff.
First, here at home:
Financial insecurity abounds in this country. Inflation is its most obvious driver, with household concerns about making ends meet higher perhaps since the Great Depression, or at least the Great Recession. To claim that the current level of inflation was not caused or at least massively influenced by excessive governmental spending, particularly at the national level, is to be either ignorant or naïve, or cynically politically motivated. And it would be the height of irresponsibility to fail to acknowledge the critical role of energy costs in driving the price of almost all goods and services. I am not an economist, but even I can see and understand that relationship. The amount of energy resources available to the United States today are staggering and wildly varied. We are a clever and innovative people; if we put our collective minds and political will to the task, there is no reason we cannot find a way to take advantage of those resources while also serving as faithful stewards of our environmental future.
The rule of law is under attack. For the life of me, I do not understand the rationale behind the concepts of “defunding” the police, eliminating cash bail, and de-prioritizing enforcement of criminal laws protecting property (it’s now “OK” in some places to shoplift so long as you are careful not to steal more than the local law allows!). Is it any wonder that violent crime is rampant today? (The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey indicates that violent crime victimization rose from 5.6 to 9.8 violent crimes per 1,000 population age 12 and older between 2021 and 2022, an increase of 75%, and the aggravated assault rate more than doubled, from 2.7 per 1,000 in 2021 to 5.5 per 1,000 in 2022 -- https://counciloncj.org/did-violent-crime-go-up-or-down-last-year-yes-it-did/#:~:text=It%20rose%20from%205.6%20to,5.5%20per%201%2C000%20in%202022.). And efforts are being made to delegitimize the US Supreme Court by groups unhappy with its current makeup and decisions, including calls for increasing its membership (a/k/a/ “packing,” which was tried and failed before), imposing term limits in contravention of Section 1 of Article III of the US Constitution, and interfering with its internal governance policies in direct challenge to the Separation of Powers doctrine.
Our national sovereignty is being undermined and our internal security threatened. This country is a nation of immigrants, and all the better for it. But current policies allowing potentially millions of people from all over the world to cross our border without vetting or understanding where they are going to reside or how they intend to contribute to society are untenable and unsustainable. They also potentially threaten our national security, as foreign actors and groups with interests inimical to ours can exploit this situation to bring harm to our homeland. This threat is very real, as confirmed multiple times in congressional testimony by FBI Director Christopher Wray. Why are we permitting it?
We are failing to prepare the next generation to succeed in the world they will inherit. This is a topic much broader than just educational policy, but that’s as good a place as any to start. The recent experience of dealing with a global pandemic brought attention to major issues regarding our schools. While substandard educational outcomes have long been a problem, parents recently learned more about what their children were being taught, and many were not happy. When they raised their concerns with local school boards, their comments were not always listened to, much less welcomed. This standoff between educational bureaucracy and parents of the children who that bureaucracy is charged with serving, is deeply disturbing and must be addressed before it concretizes into impasse and dysfunctionality. And major issues abound also at our colleges and universities, where traditional majors and practical courses have been supplanted by offerings such as “Walking Online,” “The Beatles,” “Bagpiping,” “Puppet Art,” “Storytelling” and “Intro to Mime,” and the once-cherished dialectic has surrendered to the dictatorship of one-sided political correctness.
We are allowing ourselves to be divided as a body politic into artificially antagonistic categories based on outdated prejudices which benefit only those who promote that division. The truth is, we are each much more than just the color of our skin, the faith (if any) we choose to follow, our choice of who to love, or any of the multitude of labels others may attempt to place upon us. We have infinitely more to gain through unity than division. But there are those who see division as a source of profit or a means to promote an agenda. We see this plainly in the political rhetoric of the moment, and can there be any doubt that outside influences and potentially even foreign states encourage, finance and possibly even direct some of the social unrest and protests we have been experiencing recently on our college campuses and elsewhere? Is it possible we are on course to be manipulated into national self-immolation? If so, why would we allow such a thing?
And internationally:
It is not an exaggeration to say that the world is currently in a perilous state. Consequential wars rage in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The first resulted from the expansionistic aggression by one nation state against another, illegal under international law but not universally condemned or affirmatively opposed by world governments. A direct threat to European security, its defense depends significantly on financial support from the United States, domestic political support for which is deeply divided. The second, triggered by a horrific attack on innocent civilians in the name of a territorial dispute fueled by ancient hatreds, carries with it the risk of widespread regional conflict involving other nation states, including one on the brink of achieving nuclear capability which other nations, including the United States, have vowed never to allow. The risk of kinetic action to prevent that occurrence is higher now than it has ever been.
We are (and actually have been) in a new Cold War. The world is once again bi-polar. The United States and China compete directly on just about every level, and China aims to emerge as the dominant world power, using any and every means possible. For decades our national leadership has been asleep at the wheel as China expanded its military capabilities, acquired (often illegally) highly valuable intellectual property and sensitive commercial and governmental information, co-opted other national governments (e.g., by creating financial dependency through its Belt and Road Initiative), and rendered the United States dependent on it for the manufacture and provision of critical items such as medicines (the risk of this dependence was highlighted when China held back export of face masks during the pandemic).
The parade of potential predicaments is much longer, but these examples should suffice. The question is, what are we going to do about them?
The quick answer is that we as a nation must act collectively with a common purpose and a unified voice. The effectiveness and quality of our national leadership is a critical part of that equation, but that can be difficult to achieve and maintain in a representative republic such as the United States.
We are in the final stages of a quadrennial election that will choose a new President, one-third of the Senate, and the entirety of the House of Representatives. I don’t think I know anyone who feels that it is proceeding in a satisfactory manner. Grown men and women are behaving like children, calling each other names and playing a version of “hide and seek” with the public. This spectacle is unbecoming to a great nation. It is also terribly concerning to our allies and delighting our adversaries. It has to stop, but it won’t stop until We the People insist that it do so. In the end, which political party ends up in the leadership position matters much less than fixing the mess, and to do that, individuals of all parties must get their act together and put their shoulder to the wheel.
Here is what I plan to do to play my part, my message to each and every candidate for elected office no matter the level:
“I don’t care what you think of the other person. Your job is to work with that other person for the benefit of all of us. What exactly are you going to do to fix all these problems? And don’t give me platitudes or empty promises. Give me specifics that you are willing to be held accountable for pursuing. If you can’t (or won’t) do that, then you should be fired. In case you’ve forgotten, ‘we the people’ are the boss of you, and we have something called the vote that can accomplish just that. Now, don’t waste time, get off your keister and start making things better. And remember, we’re watching you.”
I might even follow it up with that V-sign-to-the-eyes-and-then-back-at-them gesture that De Niro made famous in the 2000 movie “Meet the Parents -- https://images.app.goo.gl/BwyA9wTPtonrWu7m8.
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