Morning Thoughts: January 17, 2018

One of the things that cause me despair these days has to do with my college education. I decided at first to study architecture. The only problem there was it took talent, and I had none. I ended up in urban planning, a more fitting, and surprisingly well-paid career. I flourished, but never regretted my efforts in architecture. They proved most fruitful in both my professional and public lives.

See, they taught me that problems exist to be solved, and that solving them is one of life’s noble callings. Further, it taught that difficult problems can be addressed with a combination of facts, analysis, education, study, application, and cooperation.

Does it always work? No. Is there a better way of solving problems? Not that I know of. Then what is causing me despair?

Simply this: at our higher levels of government, I see no effort to solve some of the most serious, dangerous, and emotionally-charged problems that our country faces. This unwillingness to collaborate on addressing problems appears is chipping away at the fundamental tenants of a democracy that once was a shining light for the world. That democracy is now becoming a world-wide laughing stock.

When solutions are proposed in Washington, or many state capitols, they are the most potentially disruptive, cruelest, polarizing and mean-spirited ones that can be devised. Is there an alternative? Maybe.

Some years ago, the federal legislature passed, and the president signed into law a bill very favorable to religious and other institutions but not so for public bodies, including cities. One of the provisions of the act stated that solutions proposed by those public entities had to be the “least restrictive possible.” That’s not a bad stricture for many issues—perhaps not for pandemics, but for most things. Current proposals by the federal government, however, tend to verge on the most restrictive and, as I say, disruptive solutions possible. One feels obligated to say, “physician, heal thyself.”

As for the poor, the disadvantaged, the forgotten, strangers from another land, or those whom nature didn’t produce as a Caucasian heterosexual, the attacks are particularly heinous and the neglect most heartbreaking. The most terrifying and confusing aspect of all this is that the very worst of the persecutors are the ones who most loudly claim direct guidance from The Galilean.

Is either political party blameless? No. But as the actual or cultural descendants of those who froze in the Ardennes, suffered for a woman’s right to vote, ended slavery, or hung from trees as “Strange Fruit” in our American South, we have the right to an elected president who seeks to unite, not divide us. If that individual refuses to do so, we have the right to demand that the political party represented take action for Americans and not for party.

It’s too important that it doesn’t. How can America be great when some of her children died of hunger last night? When war profiteers are using their power to convince us to invade again. When those who have everything demand more? When there are sick and dying in America, lying alone in forlorn places with no medical care. When there are those who love America, and would become a part of her heritage if only their plight could be viewed with human compassion instead of retribution. When there are those who are not allowed to live in peace as nature made them. When young boys are imprisoned in a ghetto hovel awaiting the day they are given their first gun and sent forth as a drug runner.

The list goes on, and we tweet our thoughts instead of proposing actions. As for me, I think I’ll go look in the mirror at the face of one of the guilty.