Follow the Yellow Brick Road: A Referendum

image from Fee.com

Does anyone else think about how we get caught up in our ideals? That there is a certain longing to be impartial, and yet we continue to find ourselves turning away from our own compassionate instincts in order to feel like we are a part of something, even if that something is so excruciatingly uncompromising and imbalanced.

I was planning to write about Immigration this week. And then the shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio happened and I started thinking about how we immediately succumb to rhetoric and it just, I don’t know, it just didn’t seem to matter anymore—not that the issues that we’re facing: Immigration, Social and Political Divisiveness, etc. don’t matter, of course they still matter, but why, exactly?—We’re all playing this game: the political left vs. the political right, two fixed opposing views neither of which effort any critical thought whatsoever and the only thing that changes from day-to-day, from week-to-week, year-after-year is the issue and that even is on a fairly predictable systemic orbit.

What the fuck are we even talking about?

I mean the resolution clearly rests somewhere near the pivot of this endless charade, and clearly something about our present situation isn’t exactly working, so what the fuck are we talking about?

Here’s how the conversation kind of works in my head; and I’m going to side step both the Immigration and Gun Control issues in order to illustrate how this works. I had a conversation recently with someone who has consciously dissected her purview enough to recognize, based on the harmony of emotion, reason, critical thought, and the fundamental guideline of the American Constitution, where the foundations of measure help to create sensible legislation, and that’s refreshing, you know, to have a conversation about politics that’s rooted in deliberate resolve.

I am Pro-Life. And what I mean by that is a measure beyond our eloquent locution, I am, fundamentally, opposed to Abortion as well as War, the Death Penalty, et al.; I am opposed to the intentional act of execution—of killing.

And yet I find myself arguing with myself regarding just about every one of the those topics.​

• Abortion: I’m a thirty-something, single, white, male; I have been married and divorced, I do not have children (unfortunately). What the hell do I know about abortion? I mean, really? The only thing that I can be absolutely sure of is that I’ll never truly understand what it means to gestate a human inside of my body. Now, I might find myself involved in conversation that directly affects me, but the affects of which I will never understand to the degree of every human woman what has ever lived.
  ...still I can’t let go of the possibility of adoption, because there are innumerable people out there not only willing to adopt, but who would do, just about anything to have the opportunity.

 

• War: Insert The Bhagavad Gita here. (Shucks you have homework in order to understand this reference).

 

• Death Penalty: I fail to understand how killing somebody in response to killing somebody instructs us to not kill people. It’s a fundamentally flawed concept.
  ...However! We cannot have these people roaming around our streets freely, mingling with seemingly well-adjusted, tax paying, law abiding citizens, that just asinine.
  ...and, yet our prison system is so unfathomably terrible it makes next to no sense financially and emotionally supporting these people for the remainder of their destructive, pointless lives.
  
  
  

So, what do we do?

The answer, for many, might be one of these equally contemptible options, because as a society we are doomed to the silly fate of a coin toss, because that’s the way it has always been, and that is the way that it will always be. If we vote Democrat we blindly choose one option or if we vote Republican we blindly choose the other, at least that’s the way that our political atmosphere has developed.

...that is how the conversation goes, in my head. That is my argument with myself.

And the political lobbyists, the marketers and advertisers of our deafening, Constitutionally lite political affiliates would have us believe that that back-and-forth is a political “Flip-flip”, a “U-turn,” a “Back-flip,” the idea is that you (me!?), yes you! Have no integrity.

But, in reality, it might just be a sign that, well, you’re both full of shit; you the Democrats and you Republicans need to be doing some critical thinking in order to actually develop policy that’s rooted in deliberate resolve.

Here’s the thing about:

• Immigration: There is a legal and illegal way of going about it. Let’s address that a little bit better; why don’t we take a look at the language of legal route and revise it where we need to, and then make it clear. If people go about it that other way, you know, the illegal way, we send them back until they go about it the legal way. And somewhere in-between we educate ourselves about the difference between Immigration and Asylum.

 

• Gun Control: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
  The second amendment exists for a reason, and it’s a good reason. People have the right to keep and bear arms, I don’t know that-that means what gun manufactures, lobbyists, and (many) owners always think it means, “regulating” gun laws may not be such a terrible idea; why not look at: background checks, high-capacity magazines, gun show loop-holes, as just a few examples.
  It is a psychological and philosophical absurdity that more guns means less murder. Period.

 

• ...also bear in mind that every American citizen is not inherently a member of a militia, I bring that up because a lot of Americans who are thoughtlessly arguing the rights of gun ownership seem to think that the Second Amendment reads something like:
  
  
  
  • “Gun’s, I’m Lovin’ It
  • “Gun’s, Finger Lickin’ Good”
  • “Guns, The Possibilities are Infinite”
  • “Guns, It Does Exactly What it Says on the Tin”
  • “Guns, Connecting People”
  • “Guns, Just Do It.”
  • “Guns, Think Different”
  • “Guns, The Quicker Picker Upper”
  • Guns, Betcha Can’t Eat Just One”

Or, even, just the exclusion of the first part, “A Well Regulated Militia,” because a lot of people seem to ignore the very first thought engraved in the second amendment of our Constitution, and, for them, it simply reads:

“Being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Cafeteria Constitutionalism is infuriating, stop it. 

Don’t get caught up in the political rhetoric. We do not have to live blindly between party affiliations; critical thought, and examining the issues with an open-mind and open-heart until we creatively and reasonably create sensible legislation that is rooted in deliberate resolve is essentially our only option, I suppose I shouldn't be too worried, I mean, if reality TV is an indication of where we're headed as a society I don't think we have anything et al to worry about.