A SENSE OF CARE: Without this feeling there can be no sense of community

Today we are faced with the reality that a) we will either remain the United States of America, with our Constitution stating: “We the People affirm that the Government of the United States exists to serve its citizens” and establishes that we are all equal under the law with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of wholeness, or b) we can give up that way of life to wallow in delusions, pathological lying, the development of conspiracy theories and the use of violence as a means of enforcing the views and needs of one person over another.

Living in a constitutionally based society means that we can have different views about what should be done and what course of action we should take. Ideally, we would be able to talk to each other peacefully, even if we disagree. with respect for our differences. During this process we can compromise and incorporate what we agree on at the time. This is how we have survived as an American community for more than 240 years. Our way of life in society is based on the premise that “the United States exists to serve its citizens.” Or, in other words, that we treat others as we would like to be treated.

We have had our ups and downs regarding our need to assert the rights of each of us, and we have often taken small steps toward moving into the light of awareness and compassion toward our fellow citizens. We have slowly made progress in recognizing that we are all equal before the law. We have gone from abusing Native Americans, enslaving African Americans, abusing large segments of immigrant communities, and abusing women by treating them as “less than men” to claiming that we all equal and are over are treated with respect and support by ensuring that our fundamental rights and needs are met.

Our way of life involves a commitment to ensuring that everyone has food, shelter and health care, along with equal access to education and equal rights under the law. Many times we have stumbled along the way, but that is true persevered in our commitment for each other: our commitment to every citizen living a safe, fulfilled life, with their essential needs met and their rights respected. Some would say this is an idyllic description of our national history. I would say this has been our steady progress toward a better life for the members of our American family.

A threat to our sense of caring

Today, this approach to making our American family whole is under threat because there are those in government who want to tear apart our constitutional institutions. Instead of working for the good of all people, these people are only concerned with working for themselves. This is an approach that puts ‘me before we’ in what is said and done. For these people, their political agenda takes priority over our efforts to support our citizens and the other global citizens to whom we have committed ourselves over the years.

The strategy of this government group is not to pass legislation to make the Biden administration look weak. This Mega Group (MAGA) complains that Biden has done nothing to stop the flow of immigrants from entering this country, and yet it is this Mega Group that refuses to fund or support any effort to find a solution to the immigration problems.

The leader of this movement is delusional. He is someone who cannot distinguish truth from falsehood and is intellectually incoherent. It is said that his behavior has deteriorated over the years. He is now openly supportive the use of violence against those who oppose him. He is someone who quotes Hitler about immigrants being poison to the blood of Americans. He is a racist and a misogynist in his treatment of others. He is a reference to Joseph Goebbels, who claimed that if you tell a lie often enough, people will come to believe that the lie is the truth.

The idea that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” comes to mind as an example of one of the alternative truths he holds as reality. It offers us a glimpse of what our way of life will become in the future. as such a person becomes dictator (not president) of the United States. We will drown in alternative truths and conspiracy theories instead of dealing with reality, and we will all suffer for it.

This person has a certain appeal that attracts those who follow and support his words and ways. Those who support him feel like they are to replace as the dominant force and are victimized in our political lives by non-white members of our community. To appeal to them, this leader presents himself as the champion of those who are allegedly abandoned and overthrown by people who are not white. Immigrants have become his repeated targets and the glue that mobilizes his base.

If we elect this person, we will go from a government of “We the People” – a government that exists – to a government that exists serve its citizens– to a through which violence is routinely used as a means of coercion to achieve what only some people want. We have already had certain voting rights taken away, and a woman’s right to determine her reproductive health was taken away by the Supreme Court when it upheld the 50-year primacy of Roe v. Wade.

Three members of the Supreme Court were elected by this individual when he was the 45th President of the United States. Our health as a community is threatened by the toxicity that this one human being continually emits and exudes.

The four most important responsibilities of American citizens

There are two conclusions to be drawn from any discussion of our nation’s survival in this age of alternative truths and conspiracy theories:

The first is that, thank God, the majority of us have not been infected by this person’s perversions of reality. After all, he lost the popular vote in 2020 by seven million votes. Not all voters feel like they have sold out because they are no longer the dominant white power group they were a part of in the past. Today, our society reflects the reality that we are a multiracial society and we all count.

And second, the 14th Amendment (Section 3) clearly states that anyone who has committed an act of sedition is ineligible for political office. The people of the United States have seen firsthand that this individual is guilty of acting and speaking out in support of disrupting an orderly transition from one presidential administration to another.

If the members of the Supreme Court are faithful to their role as judges whose responsibility it is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Court will not allow this person (or anyone else like him) to run for political office. His only hope in this case is that those he has elevated to the Court will be beholden to him and will not exercise their role as judges, but will instead support his candidacy for the presidency. In my opinion, this conduct constitutes an act of sedition on the part of the judges he appointed to the Court.

Our responsibilities as citizens of the United States, to uphold our collective sense of caring, are simple:

• We must vote in the next presidential election.
• We must preserve the life, liberty and wholeness of our human family.
• We must ensure that “We the People affirm that the Government of the United States exists to serve its citizens,” rather than supporting the promotion of violence or intellectually incoherent conspiracy theories.
• We must treat others as we would like to be treated.

Namaste: The divine essence in me honors the divine essence in you.

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