What did you expect? You once swore an oath to protect the Constitution then told so many lies it's amazing anyone trusts you. Truth and trust are irrevocably tangled. I remain a supporter of the 2nd Amendment as one of the "unalienable Rights" and “Self-Evident” “Truth” referred to in the Declaration of Independence, our nation’s profoundly important founding document. As a child I was beaten and watched or listened to the beatings of both my saintly mother and faithful sister. Access to a gun gave me the confidence I stop the suffering if the police wouldn’t. My father saw hard times. He suffered much from his upbringing, ignorance, and tough stubborn tortured mind after the tragic loss of his 2-year-old first son in a drowning incident before I was born. I understand him now, but his rage and hate then was infectious. I'm glad my mother talked me out of killing him. In Sunday school I learned the golden rule and what goes around, comes around. Gravity is like justice. It is an unstoppable force. The increasing political polarization fuels passions. And you have said things have fueled people's fears on all sides. You swore an oath to protect the Constitution but so many of your actions and their outcomes prove that oath was ignored. That sniper could not be ignored. Hopefully it will wake you up to the increasingly urgent need bring all Americans (legal and illegal), and the world together keep our flag pledge of "liberty and justice for all'.
The CIA has a saying, ‘there is no problem that can’t be solved with a well-placed explosive”. I’m unaware of the sniper’s agenda, but it appears his intended well-placed bullet didn’t hit its mark. The great tragedy is the loss of any civilian life and the possibly that the sniper’s action could spark a civil war if our mental hyperpolarization evolves further into radical violence as it often does when people's minds have lost touch with all of the Self-Evident Truths within the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln wrote that it is our "Apple of Gold" and the Constitution its "Frame of Silver".
WARNING! Movie spoiler! In the conclusion of the recently released fictional movie “Civil War” that was made to reflect what a real civil war between Americans today might look like. Both political sides have publicly expressed fear of such a thing coming, In the movie, the make-believe President sounded a lot like 'a lying Trump' and he killed making it obvious that the Constitution had failed in forming a more perfect union. That failure us real today as it continues to fail in achieving any of the other six intentions within its preamble. "We the People" have failed in believing different truths and then electing those who agreed our personal and/or political truths. But real truth, reality, has only side. And our minds have obviously failed at grasping and acting on these TRUTHS we were supposed to hold as self-evident.
Project 2025 and most media coverage supporting both political camps in our currently ununited states have consistently warned Americans that we are about to lose our country - and then blaming the other side. I’ve been guessing that someone guarding former President Trump - who had sworn a similar oath to protect the Constitution, would try to take him out. Why? Decades ago, while working professionally on national and global security issues, someone I worked with closely, came to work one day seriously fearing her husband, a military pilot on AirForce One, was going to kill the President.
Anyone aware of Timothy McVeigh’s true ‘patriotic’ motive in blowing up the Oklahoma Federal building would know why I’m writing this. McVeigh, a former military soldier witnessed firsthand the lethal abuses of the US government in taking the lives of innocent people in Iraq and Waco, Texas. He felt bad about the truly innocent children killed in that explosion. Then he referring to them as “collateral damage’ in violence he justified by the writings of one our nation's founding fathers.
You once made the claim you could shoot and kill someone on the streets of New York, and it wouldn’t bother your supporters. Live by the sword, die by the sword. The phrase in the movie A few Good Men, “You can’t handle the Truth” comes to mind. As well as “Feel lucky Punk?” from Dirty Harry. The hard TRUTH is you remain a threat to the Constitution, just as "We the People" have been because of our collective lack of virtue essential to keeping our Union intact. And you are lucky that the sniper was only an ‘ear shot’ away. I hope you got the right message. Unfortunately, the anger visible in some of your MAGA fans while your protectors covered you then walked you away- put fear into my heart that now more blood would be spilled in the days ahead - regardless of the shooters motive. Many conspiracy theories are already flooding social media on both sides. And the only Deep State that exists in the one "We the People" have elected with our multiple personal religious and political truths that are not "Self-Evident" "Truths".
Our mind’s greatest flaw is its capacity to believe anything. And ignore who we really are which is human beings. One species, earthlings, passengers or crewmembers on spaceship earth 99.9% the same genetically. We only differ in the Identities that our minds have become addicted to... and then kill or die for different beliefs and various imagined truths.
We have so many flawed beliefs. I’ve been writing about them since President Bush was re-elected in 2004. We fail to grasp the one-sided Truth essential our collective survival and thriving. Meanwhile our mind’s personal and political truths and Identics it has claimed will continue to drive a lethal wedge between us all leading to unsustainable violence everywhere. And now with the weaponization of everything, it would literally do ‘a world of good’ for our 2-5-0 anniversary of the 4th of July now less than 2 years away to be celebrated globally, in every town, village, family, city, and place of worship.
The Declaration of Independence remains a profoundly universal assertion that we all have an unalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”. The saddest fact is that 'happiness' is not that modern and fleeting American feeling we associate it with. Originally, happiness meant finding your bliss in being a good person and doing good for yourself and those you love. In one word, virtuous.
Perhaps the greatest thing you did as our President was creating the newest federal agency, CISA, the Cyber and Infrastructure
Security Agency, and appointing Jen Easterly as its director. She is still there. And on Oct. 29, 2021, she said “Everything is
connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And
that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of
nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....”
Please understand that words have power. And the words “Everything”, ‘connected’,
‘interdependent’, and ‘vulnerable’ are not ambiguous words. Each are autological words, meaning
they define themselves. Now consider
that ‘everything’, like every strand of DNA in everyone’s body is vulnerable. Even yours.
We are so far lucky that you did not become a martyr to our nation's insanity that our guns and our military power can keep us safe and free as we, our Constitution, and the laws made with it persistently ignore “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”. If that phrase is unfamiliar to you, please read the first line in the Declaration of Independence. That profound document that should have truthfully been titled our “Declaration of Separation”. Because independence is a mental illusion. And any law or government that believes in independence, then fashions and tries to enforce such laws based on this delusional concept, will be forced into a perpetual dilemma of exchanging freedom for security, or security for freedom...until both are lost globally. The truth is all of humanity faces a trilemma. And only by accepting and consistently acting on our irreversible global interdependence can we maximins both our freedoms and our security.
With the hyper evolution of powerful, fast, and affordable weapons; pathogens (natures and lab created); environmental deterioration, and seemingly endless wars and economic debts it should be obvious humanity is running out of time.
We have the wealth but lack the wisdom and the political will to achieve what nations and populations have already agreed on. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And the 2016 United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030. Progress on these goals is flailing. Yet they are the wisest investment humanity can make in addressing the root causes of so many of the threats we, our nations, and our earth's life support system face.
Please use this chance you have been given to lead all Americans (North, South, and Central) and the rest of the world into a future we can all survive, thrive, prosper, and protect nature on our home planet long enough to do the same on others.
Yours 'truly',
A tired, yet hopeful old man.
cw
"A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security." -Albert Einstein. As quoted in Quantum Reality, Beyond the New Physics, p. 250.
“A great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the
effect of government. It had its origin in the principles of society and the
natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if
the formality of government was abolished. The mutual
dependence
and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all parts of a civilized
community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it
together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the
tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from
the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and
forms their laws; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater
influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself
almost everything which is ascribed
to government. – Thomas Paine, Rights of Man [1791]
“Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you've depended on more than half of the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren't going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Humankind
has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do
to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things
connect." - Chief Seattle, Duwamish (1780-1866)
“You cannot get through a single day
without having an impact on the world around you. Whatever you do makes a
difference. You have to decide what kind
of difference you want to make” Jane Goodall.
"The action
of even the tiniest creature leads to changes in the entire Universe." - Nikola Tesla
"For peace to reign on Earth, humans must
evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first." - Immanuel Kant
“All is connected. That’s the
truth of the world’s wisdom traditions ... No single thing, no species or
ecosystem, community or culture is safe when so much hangs in the balance. We
unravel as one or we regenerate as one.” - Ayana Elizabeth Johnson &
Katharine K. Wilkinson, All We Can Save
“All this is simply to say that all life is
interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a
single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all
indirectly. As long as there is poverty in this world, no man can be totally
rich even if he has a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and
millions of people cannot expect to live more than twenty or thirty years, no man can be
totally healthy, even if he just got a clean bill of health from the finest clinic
in America. Strangely
enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.
You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. . (hear his full speech! OMG. https://youtu.be/QN8ej4k2ilc )
Africans speak of ubuntu (humanity), often translated as “I am because we are.”
"One touch of
nature makes the whole world kin"
William Shakespeare.
“It is in the
shelter of each other that people live”
Irish proverb.
“The earth belongs always
to the living generation… Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of
19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.” Thomas Jefferson In
a 1789 letter to James Madison
Jefferson believed in the principle that “the earth belongs to the
living and not to the dead”. In his mind, “no society
can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law”. The only “umpire”
between the generations was the law of nature.”
“Classical and Enlightenment thinkers
defined happiness as the pursuit of virtue - as being good rather than feeling
good” Jeffrey Rosen, President and Chief Executive of the National Constitution
Center.
JUSTICE IS FOUND IN THE RIGHTS
BESTOWED BY NATURE UPON MAN. LIBERTY IS MAINTAINED IN SECURITY OF
JUSTICE. Engraved into the exterior marble of the US Justice Department
"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." Inscribed above the entrance to the US Dept. of Justice,
Washington DC.
"America does not need
another political campaign based on denial and avoidance of some of our real
problems. It needs a crusade to reform and renew our country, its institutions
and political system." - Richard
Lamm Reform Party's nomination for President of the United States in 1996.
"I would not use the US
Constitution as a template if I was creating a new constitution."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg
Shred the Constitution? During the Cold War a secondary
government was created to replace the real government had there been a nuclear
war that obliterated it. Those who proposed and organized such a ‘replacement government’ wrote that if this were ever needed, they
suggested ‘shredding the Constitution” and starting over. I would love to know
their reasoning.
"There
are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it
would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower
its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an
unqualified blessing." --
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) 7th US President Source: July 10, 1832, Veto of the Bank
Bill
"Understand
that all battles are waged on an unconscious level before they are begun on the
conscious one, and this battle is no different. The power structure wishes us
to believe that the only options available are those which they present to us, we
know this is simply not true." -
Teresa Stover
“[T]here is no more truth more thoroughly established, than that
there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between
virtue and happiness,
between duty and advantage, between genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous
policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity . . . “ –
George Washington, First Inaugural Address [April 30, 1789]
"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It
is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness,
without tuition or restraint:" Edmund
Burke
“Societies
in decline have no use for visionaries.” Anais Nin
“The real dilemma for all of us over the next
twenty years is going to be that the future is going to have way more positive
possibilities because of our interdependence,
but also continued opportunities for hacking, for cybersecurity problems, and
for the spread of deadly technologies, with a lot of confused, undereducated,
and unemployed young people in the world, and with a global shortage of jobs
for young people, opportunities to do destructive things. Young people are more
vulnerable to the siren songs of fundamentalism and the social media. And if
they get up thinking tomorrow is going to be like yesterday, that's a very bad
thing. This is why I think it's so important that the nation-states that are
functioning work harder on shared prosperity, shared opportunities, and shared
security, because that's the great battle here.
You can't make all this stuff happen without technology, without
relatively open borders and without other people being able to use the same
technology for more selfish and more lethal ends. And that's basically where we
are…The world is becoming more
interdependent, and national borders look more like nets than walls. The
nation-state will continue to be very important, but there will be more and
more and more unique, previously unforeseeable partnerships required. Alliances
by issues, hard choices. How can you make a deal with Iran on nuclear capacity
if they're still gonna sponsor Hamas and Hezbollah? How can you break down
barriers between government, business, and NGOs when you should and keep the
barriers when you shouldn't? All these questions are going to present problems,
and the nongovernmental movement is going to be filled with good actors that
some nations are increasingly trying to control—China and Russia, for
example—and also bad actors that can be very successful. You could argue that
ISIS is the most successful NGO—it's like the Gates Foundation versus ISIS, you
know? They're a nongovernmental organization…
So in the modern world, the ideas that will shape our time will be the
intersection of science and technology, medicine and health and technology; the
ability to eradicate poverty—we've already exceeded the poverty goals in the
first Millennium Development Goals; the ability to identify and lend dignity
and importance to every life, because there will be fewer people that need to
live and die anonymously in the world; and the ability to find ways to
cooperate against the forces that are using the same exact technologies and
mobility and porous borders to try to gain a very different future. Boko Haram,
Al Shabab, Ansar Dine, ISIS, et al. And underneath it all, in the twenty-first
century we will be called upon, I think and I hope, to resolve the oldest
dilemma of human society, which is "What does it mean to be a human
being?" Our identity crisis. Which is more important, our differences or our
common humanity?” Bill Clinton Bill Clinton on Missed 9/11 Signs, ISIS, and
Ragging on George W. Bush. By Mark
Warren, Esquire 19 September 2015.
"If liberty is worth keeping and free
representative government worth saving, we must stand for all American
fundamentals—not some,
but all. All are woven into the great fabric of our national well-being. We
cannot hold fast to some only, and abandon others that, for the moment, we find
inconvenient. If one American fundamental is prostrated, others in the end will
surely fall."
-- Albert J. Beveridge (1862-1927) American historian, US
Senator (R-IN) 1920
“…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.” Declaration
of Independence.
No comments:
Post a Comment