The Age of Consequences;

SUMMARY:  After the Great Depression and the end of WWII the general sense of the common good generated by these crises gradually disappeared from public discussion (with the exception of the civil rights forces that yielded some important civil progress).  America’s success in the world and our fear of Communism helped fuel individualism, greed, selfishness, and independence (the illusion of individual separation from the whole).  This largely unexamined mind set eclipsed the ‘united we stand’ American character.  It was an aberration of logic, compassion, and empathy that basically steamrolled American politics into the train wreck we have today. 
Recently, technology accelerated this dangerous mental meme of our separateness/independence.  The tragic and lethal consequences are now upon us.  And instead of recognizing this collective mental flaw that got us here, and correcting it, many people have doubled down on it.  They want to Make American Great Again by going backwards to the irresponsible freedoms, unjust conditions, and wasteful selfishness that tragically enabled our disconnect from reality.  The self-evident truth that “United We Stand” still stands.  And, divided we will fall.   Our fall could be so hard that our nation may not recover.  

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. Abraham Lincoln 

The Age of Consequences.

Trump is not the problem.  He’s a consequence.  Climate change isn’t the problem. It’s a consequence.  Unprecedented obesity rates, opioid deaths, mass shootings, and suicides rates are not emergencies.  They are consequences.  Flint, Michigan’s contaminated water, Honeybees’ Colony Collapse Disorder, and Florida’s red tide are not environmental problems.  They’re consequences. The continuing wars in Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria are all consequences.  Radical extremism, nuclear proliferation, and Russian cyber hacks are not security threats.  Growing economic inequality, fake news, and loss of privacy are not dilemmas.  All of these, and most of the other problems that we are now encountering at breakneck pace in newspapers and in our lives are the inevitable consequences of our thinking and actions.  They are the result of our collective failure to do what we knew was needed to prevent such problems. 
All Americans have solemnly pledged dozens, if not hundreds of times, "Liberty and Justice for all”.  But our desire for comfort, wealth, distractions, popularity, and unbridled freedom comes with all too real life and death consequences.

Americans love freedom.  Some freedoms have arguably been worth the cost of thousands of American lives and trillions of our tax dollars.  But it has been our overindulgence in freedom without responsibility that is the fundamental cause of our (and the world’s) growing list of profoundly dangerous, destructive, unhealthy, and increasingly lethal consequences.  Consequences that were predictable and preventable. Expensive consequences that were, and remain, related to a simple conceptual flaw within our mental calculations. We think and act as if we are independent and celebrate this illusion every 4th of July. In reality, independence exists no where in the known universe. It should have no meaningful application in rational thought, US public policy, or world affairs.

It is our unquestioned faith, reliance on, allegiance to, and reflexive defense of this flawed principle that essentially disconnects us from much of our personal, civil, environmental, social, and economic responsibilities.

Like Neo in the Matrix, we all sense something isn’t right… but can’t see the truth; The truth that every aspect of our lives is dependent on others, the environment, our nation's laws, but most importantly, the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” as expressed in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.  

Pulling from biblical words, Abraham Lincoln called the Declaration of Independence our “apple of gold,” and our Constitution the “frame of silver” around it.  Our greatest error remains keeping our Constitution disconnected from serving this greater purpose. 

The growing mass of undesirable consequences that threaten our freedom, security and prosperity were as inevitable as they were unintentional. And they are only self-evident if we are honest about reality.   Our Founding Fathers defined reality as "Truths we hold to be Self-Evident" ..Truths” Truths that were based on “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”.  Their catastrophic error was failing to codify this wisdom into their new government blueprint -- the U.S. Constitution.  The consequence was a civil war that killed more Americans than all the wars our nation has fought in since then, combined.  And some of the consequences remain with us today.   

In the future, far more Americans will die from preventable causes that are related to global factors such as terrorism, pandemics, climate change, wars, and economic instability because the systems and structures that our Constitution protects today (on both the national and international level) never codify the wisdom of “liberty and justice for all” in a world of irrefutable and irreversible interdependence. Interdependence rapidly accelerating because exponential advances in technology while our government’s capacity for adaptation or change has virtually stopped, and in some avenues actually reversing.

The illusion of Independence continues to underlay most our thinking,planning, policy making, and actions.   And, we continue to assume without question that our individual, budgetary, institutional, and national independence will keep us safe and free.  
The endless war against terrorism (a tactic that cannot be defeated) accelerates our loss of freedom and security. Our modern world's increasingly powerful, affordable, and ubiquitous technological capacity for creating WMD is unprecedented. Combined with a growing difficulty of accurately attributing an attack to anyone our privacy will continue to be whittled away in hopes of deterring attacks. And deterrence won't work if an attacker is not afraid of dying.

Imagine the loss of lives, freedom, and prosperity from a global pandemic or biological weapons attack as bad, or worse than the 1918 Flu epidemic.  Unlike nuclear war such a security event is inevitable.  And, we remain lethally unprepared for it. Even a minor event will have a negative cascading effect on virtually every system and structure in our bodies, our homes, our economies and our world. Independence is an illusion.

We have based our policies on this illusion (a concept created by humans) instead of looking to nature’s fundamental principles that are used in the science and technologies to engineer things that work to save and protect life and make our lives more comfortable, profitable, and free.

Acting as if we are independent leads to our misuse and abuse of unprecedented science and technology thus creating problems on multiple levels. Sometimes catastrophic problems. Problems that were preventable had we followed the laws of nature and nature’s God by codifying 'liberty and justice for all'.

Imagine a government engineered on these fundamental principles. The basis of every major world religion is the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Anyone experiencing an injustice doesn’t need to be a religious believer to understand the supreme value of justice

Our US Justice Department offers two quotes engraved in stone. “Justice is found in the
rights bestowed by nature upon man. Liberty is maintained in security of justice.” And, “Justice is the great interest of man on earth. Wherever her temple stands, there is a foundation for social security, general happiness and the improvement and progress of our race.”   Yet our federal (and lower) systems and structures of justice are profoundly unjust. In reality we have a legal system in which it is better to be guilty and rich than innocent
and poor.
Many of our laws are unjust. And unacceptable injustices can also be found in virtually every one of our national economic, electoral, education, healthcare, agriculture, military, foreign policy, and intelligence systems. Is there really any wonder why things don’t work, our government is dysfunctional,Trump was elected, trust in government is non-existent, wars persist, fake news dominates, the environment is trashed, and our society is ailing?

Every time I see or read of another failing in our nation a phrase I heard last year comes to mind; “How healthy can we be if we are well adjusted to a profoundly sick society?”  Our affliction is a mental illness; Our capacity to believe anything!  Literally, anything.  The range of conspiracy theories should make that stunningly clear. Just as our worship of the illusion of independence.

In reality, every system and structure in our body, our house, our environment, and our world is interconnected and interdependent and reliant on the fundamental principles listed in our Declaration of Independence. Liberty and justice for may be the most important for the health and sustainable functioning of our troubled world. Our mind’s fantasy of independence has disconnected us from our bodies’ vital needs; Love, peace, justice, freedom, and the products of nature’s vital systems that provide us with healthy food, reliable weather, clean air, safe water, and other natural resources for essential our prosperity, and ultimately our species survival.

There is zero guarantee that our nation will last. The Federalists worried that hostile nations could exploit any domestic divisions. George Washington warned in his farewell address that partisan “factions” could rip the country apart. James Madison feared that liberty could be lost by the “gradual and silent encroachments of those in power.” John Adams said, “There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide” yet many in our Republic praise democracy yet rightfully blame each political party that is dominating our flawed two-party system for the consequences we are
suffering today. 
Some are proposing the creation of “People’s Party” putting too much promise in the will of the ,masses. They offer a platform based on creative progressive ideas that are largely devoid of fundamental principles.  In other words - they are engineering a political party relying on popular proposals that could win a majority - but completely incapable of transforming the profound flaws in our current system and structures (both national and international).

Earth does have an expiration date. And we the American people (and probably most of the world) reflect the reality of our founders who wrote in the second paragraph of their Declaration of Independence  “accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.”

Unfortunately the suffering that’s coming in this age of Consequences may be so great that our species may expire long before Earth's expiration date. With the consequences of global injustices merging with of the acceleration of technologies that are already knocking on our door (WMD proliferation and AI), the majority of Americans (or people in the world) may not get the chance to suffer the full effects of climate change. Given the multiple unpredictable factors, time is NOT on our side.

If you are so motivated to stop this insanity and are seeking the most practical action to take, ‘justice for all’ won’t be welcomed or adopted immediately by many policy makers or political parties.  This would require the global protection of inalienable human rights which will not be done by the force of law. But it could be funded by the force of political will.

President Roosevelt offered the basics of global security in his four freedoms speech;  freedom of speech and worship, and freedom from want and from fear.” Universal access to clean water, safe sanitation, adequate food, access to basic health services, basic education, and an equal opportunity to earn a living wage would be a great start. The fastest, most affordable, practical, and effective means of maximizing such ‘Liberty and Justice for all” (both here and abroad thus laying the foundation for maximizing everyone’s freedom and security) is the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed to by every nation in 2015 for achievement by 2030.           

Seventy years ago (December 10, 1948) was the global approval of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  It was offered in the context of world security. Those who experienced World War II, the holocaust, and a new weapon that could vaporize 100,000 people in a flash understood the essentials of ‘justice for all’ as a preventive measure. Unfortunately, they were also given an international system (and structures) committed to protecting national sovereignty (national independence) instead of any effective capacity to protect any God given inalienable human rights. This structural flaw in the UN resembles the one in the US Constitution had that led to our catastrophic Civil War.

It’s obvious an enforceable Global Bill of Rights will not be adopted any time soon.  But we could functionally enforce the most essential human rights by funding the SDGs.  The growing array of global threats demand we to this as rapidly as possible.  A set of less ambitious but, measurable, achievable, and affordable goals were set for the year 2000 a the 1990 World Summit for

Children. Even with all governments then signing a pledge to make available the resources, few did, and few goals were achieved.  Another more ambitious set of “Millennium Development Goals” were set in 2000 for the year 2015. These were also shorted and the wars, terrorism, climate change, refugees, starvation, revolutions, state failures, infectious diseases, international crime, and genocides that we see today are largely a consequence.

If we fail this time in achieving the SDG’s our deteriorating global conditions may overwhelm any chance of our children have of setting things right. The depressing news is that achieving the SDG’s will cost trillions that governments cannot spare.  The exciting news is that government's don’t need to.  They just need the political will to freeze and seize a good portion of the $32 trillion dollars

that is now stashed in offshore bank accounts by kleptocrats (dictators and their cronies), drug cartels (illegal gains), and wealthy capitalist (legally and illegally avoiding taxes). These funds should have be going to basic government services to begin with.  And, the political will could be generated if the general public is made fully aware that the threats to themselves and their nation’s security (and cherished freedoms) if we don't. Meeting the SDGs is far more important for protecting our freedom and security than more military spending, more nuclear weapons, or a new US military “Space Force”.

Generating that level of political will in the US will require a movement of movements. Peace, environment, and social/economic justice movements combining forces to achieve one goal. Funding a comprehensive approach to protect our national security from destructive global forces spawned by injustices. First active citizens must recognize that voting is the least powerful civil action they can take. It's only slightly better than protesting, resisting, or counter protesting.  If committed souls in these movements combined their efforts to education their elected officials (and those running for office) about the coming costs and consequences of their current dysfunctional policies, miracles could happen. And we would finally have a government of “We the people” ”with liberty and justice for all” instead of a failing political system.

In reality, it truly doesn’t matter who is in office or what party is in charge if they codify fundamental principles into the laws, budgets, and actions of our government.

Given the multiple threats we face as individuals, nations and a species it should be self evident that few can be stopped using military power. And, some are actually exacerbated by its unprincipled use.  Our primary goal as voters and citizens must be to recognize our global interdependence and the profound value of “liberty and Justice for all”.  Make it your personal goal to educate your policy makers on this fundamental reality.  

Connect the dots (we are all connected).  See the web of life (all systems and structures are sustained by it).  Work for justice (for all) …or prepare for the consequences (which will be catastrophic).