The ability to “conduct” politics is critical to the survival of democratic republics, most specifically, to the survival of this one, into which we have been most fortunate to be born or naturalized. Prudence teaches that, as Benjamin Franklin wisely observed following the Constitutional Convention, we have “…a republic (only) if you (we) can keep it.” What is required for a citizenry to “keep” its republic?
First, obviously, is citizenship, itself… a fascinating quality, uniquely so for the United States of America, and the most valuable quality for the nation’s education system to impart. Before joining a political party, our citizens should all be members of the “U.S. of A. party,” in effect. That is, we all should share the principles of “America.” How is that accomplished?
First and foremost, we must agree on the meanings of words and, simultaneously, on the meaning of laws, starting with our bases of right and wrong. Just suggesting such a radical idea will generate heated argument, if not violence in certain venues, today. Here in 2019, just 220 years since the Constitution was ratified, Americans no longer agree on very basic word definitions, starting with “nation.”
Those who now want to defend the borders of their “nation” are called “nationalists,” a term so pejorative as to be synonymous with Nazism. Clearly the use of the word “nation” is close to the word “national” and the NAZIs were “National” socialists, meaning that they were transformed from socialists into right-wingers bent on either lynching a brown person or gassing some Jews. I mean, “Duuuhhh.” It is the same as owning slaves to be a foul “nationalist.” It’s just like, ummm… Republicans.
So, principled conversations have become both tedious and more difficult. Another bad word is “abortion” or, even more prejudicial: “infanticide,” or, “life,” itself. Abortion is the epitome of goodness and deep caring about civil rights, in today’s lexicon, when it used to mean the premature and usually violent ending of the miracle of life in the womb. So clearly it can neither be worried about or discussed, since it is settled civil rights “law.” People with the temerity to question the beauty of abortion or who might suggest that the effects of rampant, profit-making abortion could be somehow bad for the “nation” or for our social communities, can be attacked physically, spat upon, kicked, thrown down to the ground and even worse. No one will make much of a stink.
Governments have even created safe zones around abortion mills (sorry), “clinics,” so that those preparing to accept the sacrament of ending their child’s life, will not, themselves, be made uncomfortable. I mean, “gosh,” after all.
States are finding their voice regarding abortion, passing various restrictions on when it is legal to kill unborn children. One is based on whether a heartbeat has reached detectability, which is somewhere around 6 weeks after conception. Others use a “principle” called “viability,” which is when modern technology can enable the fetus to survive outside the womb, generally successfully, while the, now, baby completes gestation and is able to mature with normal maternal care at home. Viability seems to be around 24 weeks after conception, or two-thirds of a normal pregnancy “term.”
Opponents of these concerns, and these are among the most strident of advocates America has ever heard, pooh-pooh all of these calculations about life, and insist that death is somehow better and better serves everyone involved, but to do so they have to change the definition of “life, unborn, baby and offspring.” Those words are relatively meaningless if the confused or weak-minded “mother” doesn’t “want” the child, baby, offspring.
Consequently craven politicians make what they think are legal laws based on the feelings of the weak-minded or weak-hearted proto-mothers. The ramifications are grievously complex. In the case of a new mother who takes her baby home from the birthing center but, for some reason, loses control under the new stresses of motherhood and kills the new child: she has committed a crime and will be arrested. But, in the case of a new mother whose child survives abortion, which happens when abortion is performed late-term by a “doctor” who hasn’t practiced snipping the baby’s spinal cord before complete delivery, for example, she has no responsibility to the baby who, despite his or her automatic citizenship, may be allowed to starve to death on a table someplace near where it was delivered and NO ONE has any criminal liability.
Prudence wonders if those tables have a special, descriptive name, like every other piece of “medical” equipment.
At one time, doctors swore to “first, do no harm.” Indeed, they became doctors and joined an industry the mission of which used to be helping people overcome… oh, injuries, diseases, old age and other life-threatening conditions. Unfortunately, politicians are unable to allow big economic functions to carry on successfully, and this politicization of medicine is reducing the money that can be made doing all the things we thought doctors were sworn to do. The big money is in abortion, now. Politicians are urging each other to send more money into the abortion industry, and then fight off every attempt to limit abortions, while placing restrictions on top of restrictions for the life-saving arena of doctor-activities.
Doctors, of course, worked their fingers to the bone, so to speak, to become doctors, and figure that the rewards should be commensurate – they’re not stupid, obviously. Consequently, many are learning and practicing how to help the almost-born overcome LIFE. Life is now a disease that doctors can cure. What did you think you knew?
Fascism and Fascist are two words we can’t seem to agree upon the meanings of. Those who are acting exactly like, umm… well, fascists, seem to believe that they are courageously fighting fascism. This disconnect interferes with useful discussion and, unfortunately, interferes with sworn “peace officers” actually defending public order when faced with “Antifa” chaos, lest they “enflame” the situations. When government policy is senseless, the sensible are left speechless.
Some Americans – and other residents – are unable to accept the meaning of “immigrant.” While it is true that native-Americans (which is a meaningless term, itself; indigenous peoples got here before Europeans did, but there was no “America” then, making the term, “aborigines” the only accurate one) were able to roam around as far as their war-making prowess enabled, they had no concept of “immigration,” today a distinct and legal condition. They understood “invaders” though, by whatever words they described unwelcome “others” who threatened their lands and way of life. They understood ethics better than many “others” do even now, and the concept of “theft.”
“Others” stole their lands and lives and very ways of life, often by creating treaties that aborigines agreed to, but which were quickly abrogated by their “other” treaty-creators. Those sensitive to honesty, today, are painfully aware of the lies told against aboriginal peoples. Lying is the distillation of not agreeing on word meanings, and it can threaten everything a people holds dear. Back to “immigrant.”
We no longer live in a society where people can just slide onto one another’s land or appropriate their means of living. The concept of private property is the basis of economics and social order, itself. The need to strive to obtain the means to survive, protect and shelter oneself and one’s family, also provides the opportunity to be charitable toward others – often to sacrifice for others. In order to “emigrate” to another country, a person must accommodate the legal strictures of his or her intended new home country and, in some cases, the strictures of his or her present country. It is part and parcel of adopting a new “citizenship” which carries with it significant legal sanctions and benefits. It is not a simple condition of location.
So, an “immigrant” must have a status defined in law, else he or she is simply a law-breaker… which is to say, a criminal. The legal adjudication of that criminal’s status is a matter for the illegally adopted country to perform. Otherwise, that person is not an “immigrant” at all, but a thief.
These are but a few examples of words the definition of which – specifically the disagreement over those definitions – threatens the existence of the United States and some other nations, as well. Words have meaning, tied to the meaning of “truth.”
One other example is the word, “racism.” Racism is a social concept that is based on an undefinable term, thus yielding a meaninglessness that enables the epithet, “racism” to be used with little connection to any of the circumstances that inspire its use. Racism, epithetically, infers some group membership, of those so accused. That is, the accused must be prejudiced against another group, presumably based on surface, observable traits.
Usually this refers to “white” people who are accused of a variety of wrong feelings, or thoughts, toward, usually, brown-skinned people. Now, brown skin covers a broad swath of human beings who cannot by any measure be considered racially singular. Anthropologists have tried dozens of ways to “define” races and every classification system immediately is challenged by freshly observed biological distinctions that must be shoe-horned into the supposed standard classifications. In short, there certainly are biological “races” but it is nearly impossible to identify them, so “racism” is reduced to mere political advantage, today.
This is not to say that terrible actions haven’t been taken against people – of all shades of skin color – by countries, states, counties, towns, mobs and, in truth, individuals. But, except for individuals , official, legalistic discrimination and worse bad actions have ceased in the United States. Why has “racialism” increased? Why have the accusations of “racist” and “racism” become more commonplace? Politics – not logic, not biology, not science, not group connection – politics, through which racialist grouping by the most superficial of distinctions, can produce a sort of “groupthink” that yields “group-voting.” For shame.
Our Constitution embodies the greatest spirit of individualism ever made nationally foundational in human history. Individuals are required to be responsible to themselves and to others, a radical idea. It marked the intentional, codified rejection of serfdom… the rejection of monarchy… the rejection of tyrannical control of others, altogether. In other words, individuals are sovereign under the Constitution. As a result, the government was formed by communities of individuals, each of whom relinquished limited amounts of that sovereignty so that all may benefit. The government was formed to serve its sovereign citizens, and not the other way around.
Now, we see our democratic, individual political powers being defined by false connection to arbitrarily defined groups. Nothing more threatens our national cohesion and our nationally protected individual liberties. Group membership yields group responsibility, the fundamental destruction of individuality and individual responsibility. It is antithetical to our Constitution. Billions call it socialism.