No one really looks forward to what others think may happen in a 12-month period when the calendar changes to a new year. Given the past couple of strange, guilt-ridden years, many just say or think something on the order of, “Please, just let it be more ‘normal’ or ‘stable’ or ‘American’ than it was in 2021.” Of course, the question is, Who’s doing the “letting” we’re hoping for?
When we think about it, we are asking some undefined “force” that (also hopefully) permeates all of life and reality, waiting for our entreaties to effect a needed change or “alignment” that will turn our pleas into pleasure, even if it is simply making a handful of traffic-light changes go green when we are running late.
Sometimes we question our very “right” to ask for help from the Universe (if that is where the help emanates), as though our own worth were questionable at that moment. Perhaps we were really snippy with someone we love and said some regretted words as we were running late, leaving us unworthy until we have a chance to “make up” for the hurt we inflicted. As that moment of opportunity approaches, we automatically ask the same “force” to put our loved-one in a good mood and able to accept our apology or peace-offering. Is this religion? What if we’re not particularly “religious?” What if Sunday School was our last brush with Biblical things. Chances are, when “things” seem out of our control or when a tragedy has struck someone we may not even know, we automatically (it seems) turn to a form of power outside of ourselves to adjust or rectify conditions for the better.
So, is there a Who? Let’s hope it’s not the government.
2021, and 2020, for that matter, are examples in stark contrast of how government power can destroy the lives of millions, perhaps billions, in multiple countries while other millions, perhaps, billions, are pleading with the “government” to make life better, safer, more prosperous and less guilt-ridden. Doesn’t seem like too much to ask. After all, government has the money and power to do what needs to be done. This attitude may not be the most Prudent: it exposes a feared failure of “the Universe” and the absence of hope.
Can’t the intercessor who changes lights from red to green also defeat a mere virus and balance the budget? We say “who” because humans can’t conceive of an omnipotent being or force without a personality and, to complete the package, a face. Whether it’s Jehovah or Jor-el, let’s hope the force is with us in 2022, ‘cause we’re running late.
Covid-19 was a creation of at least two governments and was released across the planet by government, as well, while governments insisted the fault lay within animals. So far no one has been punished for the largely avoidable deaths of millions of people. Is that the fault of us or of the “Force” itself? We know government entities caused the plague, we also know that simple treatments can stop it, yet we fret and worry and wait FOR THE SAME GOVERNMENTS to make everything better. This seems odd. It’s virtually a declaration of helplessness on the part of millions of people who, if they perceived their place in the “hierarchy of the Force,” could take dominion over their corrupt governors and set things in proper alignment. Is there a hierarchy? Are we groveling observers and pawns or do we have a role to play in the direction of life and hope?
At this point we’re all saying or thinking, “Oh, please let us not be groveling observers or pawns.” There’s that “letting” business, again.
We can’t avoid politics when discussing government actions and failures. Political parties – or “factions” – are amazingly inept mechanisms for effecting the “general welfare” of the whole nation. They must, by definition, serve themselves, first. That is, by some convoluted instruction set, or “truth table,” partisans convince themselves of the welfare of their party being synonymous with the welfare of the nation as a whole. It almost never is, although it might appear so in bits and pieces. In any event, more and more of what the party has achieved always appears to partisans to be better for the majority of people than a mere leaving of things as they are.
Troubles accumulate, however, because each party inevitably promulgates some evils that serve key (ie. Powerful) partisans’ very local, even as local as their wallets’ interest, and the opposing party accepts those evils in order to obtain some “goods” that, in the arcane legerdemain of partisan politics, somehow balances out against the evils.
When the levers of power change partisan hands, the pent-up desires for self-interest are unleashed and the immediate saviors of the nation transform into evil-doers, albeit, in their own minds, at much more rational levels than those foul denizens of the other (yuck!) party. And so it goes. The “goods” instituted by this or that group of partisans, are replaced, little by little – or, sometimes, in huge gobs – by evils of the other group. This fact of partisan life can be seen in the unimaginable mountains of debt with which the flocks of both producers and non-producers (who hope that bills are being paid in the background, but which are not, in fact) have been saddled while sloshing back and forth between partisan saviors.
It is most Prudent, going forward, that those of us who still have hope enough to ask for salvation from the What or Who that never employs evil, recognize that partisan politics and personages will never fulfill What’s or Who’s hoped-for intercessionary role.
Still, as with every New Year transition (many people revelers or not, miss the sound of the transition, which is a faint, barely audible ‘Ummm’ in low E) we have a “new beginning,” whatever that means for each of us. We have, by the good fortune of living into a “new” year, a new set of opportunities to “make up for” things we have done that may have hurt someone else or, often, ourselves. After all, as part of life, we also deserve to not be hurt or pushed out of alignment. If we are fortunate enough to still hope that What or Who is listening to us, as it were, when we hope for improvement, we might want to forgive ourselves for errors and omissions or direct injuries we have suffered at our own hands – or hearts. Perhaps our best hope is to adjust our lives so that we don’t “run late” in 2022.
What about the power we have to undo evils and effect good in the world? You may have fallen prey to the popular notion that only by doing evil, like burning, looting and destruction… and by hating properly, can humans bring about good, but in 2022 you need not believe that. If you know the difference between good and evil then 2022 could be the year when you agree to not support evil in the name of “progress.”
What if every adult in your town visited the city council or Board of Select Men and Women and stated, simply, that you want every act of vandalism, shoplifting and public drinking or drug abuse to be punished according to the law, including full restitution and public service by offenders. That’s it: no shouting, no anger, no hatred or petitions dropped off. Everyone appears and states his or her desire for good change. Is there any doubt that our “governors” or erstwhile “representatives” would effect those changes?
The same would work for bad and unfair laws that should be repealed or modified.
We saw this work before school committees in Virginia and elsewhere. There are no representatives who have as much power as their constituents; there are no elected officials who have as much power as their constituents. Gandhi showed us that there is no military/police force that has as much power as a people with a unified purpose.
Clearly we cannot allow our self-fulfilling governments to keep heading downward on the same paths they have taken us over the past two years. We are smarter than that – and smarter than they. The public good will be more perfectly realized when our government is again restricted by the Constitution, when it is as small as practical for the defense of our nation, and when it costs about a third of what it costs, now.
Over the past 6 decades it ought to have become clear that no government can ever provide sufficient “welfare,” as public charity is known. Nor is it really charity, since it is not given freely by anyone. It is taken from supposedly “free” people who never intended to grant sufficient power to the governments they formed to take their personal property under threat of loss or punishment (ie. Police power) so that it could be given to others who did not work for it or, to put it more starkly, who would be arrested if they took it from its owners, themselves.
Is governance so complex that it cannot be reformed? Is it our nature – or curse – that mistakes, once made by elected “representatives” of we, the people, cannot be undone amidst bountiful proofs of failure or error? What is it about Americans that we are hide-bound to repeat mistakes made by other Americans who were elected to some office or another? Why? Does the happenstance, no matter how dearly sought, of election perform some immutable purification that raises those so blessed above responsibility for their mistakes? Or, does it transform their mistakes into the most beneficial policy decisions, the perpetual financing of which confirms their near-miraculous properties?
Why is it that we, the people, who caused – nay, granted – the election of mistake-makers are perpetually bound to PAY for those mistakes, and suffer from them? Is there no means of correction?
One factor we have permitted and even encouraged is “career representation.” With a 95% re-election rate for federal representatives and senators, and similar rates for state-level reps and senators, the decline in governmental and budgetary quality – honesty – has to be reviewed through the lens of longevity. Connections and relationships among other denizens of capitol buildings become much stronger than the periodic and temporary connections to voters. Combined with influence over the spending of billions and billions of dollars – and billions of dollars’ worth of regulations – the personal, rather than representative value of elective office eventually outweighs the higher ethical requirements of representation. Soon, reps and senators at every level become elected bureaucrats. Their voters tend to ignore their work until an issue makes the news. When an opponent runs against a sitting (there is a lot of sitting) rep or senator, there is a desire to not “take away ‘Tom’s’ or ‘Jane’s’ job.” Can we change these attitudes?
If a thousand people showed up for legislative hearings do you think representatives could be tricked into representing, again? One of the key problems that inhibit citizen participation in their own government is the simple issue of parking. Boston, in Massachusetts’ case, has for a variety of reasons, not least of which is some ephemeral effect on global climate, made it more and more difficult to park in the city and most particularly anywhere near the State House on Beacon Hill. What if there were a 600-car parking lot reserved at certain times of the year for hearing attendees. It could be where people could take the “T” or commuter rail into Boston at low cost. With car-pooling there could easily be 1,000 citizens attending hearings.
Do you not believe that 1,000 testimonies about a topic would get “representatives” attention?
Is this 2022 a new year…, or less?