We must not let this poison consume us or allow it to divide us. The words from the title of this article are from a man who is no doubt flawed, but how he thought and considered society and the governance of people must be taught, discussed, and understood daily in this country.
I am extremely sad and scared. For the first time I cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel. What has me more concerned is the fact; I am unable to see a tunnel anymore. I cannot even convince my own family of this and the people I speak to about my concerns shut me off because they think of me as an idiot.
Maybe I am. Sometimes I forget it took me 5 years to graduate high school and when the board of education finally awarded me a high school diploma, I had a cumulative GPA of 1.3. That is nearly the level of zero competency and it almost required a sixth year of high school.
But if an idiot can recognize failures in a complex system that allows people to live free and fully understands the appropriate way to treat a fellow human being, than it should be easy for the rest of you geniuses who were able to achieve better than a 1.3 GPA in high school.
Please correct me if I am wrong but I do not see this ending any other way unless we work together. If we fail to put our differences aside for peace and tolerance we may effectively destroy the protections that keep us all safe. The rule of law must be protected at all cost. Including holding those accountable who betray the faith and standards we as a people, bestow in them.
At every level of accountability, it must be had. This is and must be non-negotiable. From the speeding ticket given by a police officer, to the police officer abusing his power, and yes even when dealing with incompetency in the White House. All levels of accountability must be present. Or it is all for not.
If you look to the accountability examples listed [it is by no means an exhaustive list but it will do for its purpose] and the consequences when lack of accountability occur, you can clearly see that when you start at the bottom and work your way higher, the examples of failure get more serious and the consequences of each betrayal more dangerous.
People do not understand what happens when we allow civil unrest to be uncontrolled or divisiveness to grow unfettered. It soon can turn to civil war forever altering society. The changes may not always be those intended and may not all be positive.
Those who are in denial of that statement lack the basic understanding of what tribalism can do to a free democratic nation. The system we have works, we must protect it, nurture it, and sometimes change the status quo to preserve the fragility of America.
This is the fairest system that exists. Why do we all fear change when it is the type that can change people’s lives for the better. What have we become when our selfishness outweighs the benefit of helping others at little or no cost to ourselves?
If this is what America’s belief has mutated into, we do not deserve any freedom. But, I for one, would like to leave my children and grandchildren something more than the ashes of the greatest Country the world has ever seen. Do you not agree?
This article does not represent any specific person, idea, or movement. It is from the standpoint of an architect and viewing America as a machine so I can better understand the inner-workings or the system and how people must protect what is so precious to us all.
I promise you I do not believe myself to be self-righteous or arrogant enough to believe that I can change the world, or able to write something worthy a reader. These are just observations and thoughts that pop in my head as I toss and turn in my restless nights.
What do people want – a lawless, hypersensitive PC culture- one that cannot hold people accountable for an individual’s actions. This free for all everybody’s opinion matters threatens the very fabric of our constitution and real American values.
We have to make the system better and improve it, but we must also protect the system by supporting each other. As the current events show us for the last, well beginning of America, we have failed each other and by doing so we are creating a tribalist culture. When militias start to form to quell the unrest and to defend people’s belief system over the system that is already in place, we are not what we should be, and the end of the current society is near.
As a people we must not give in to our animalistic urges and we must prevent separating ourselves from one another. Our divisions are growing too rapidly without a chance to recover before the next one begins. This removes our ability to heal, correct, and move forward by bettering the system we are all a part of.
This doesn’t get better. This doesn’t end the way people think and contrary to what people believe this has never happened before. Our system was not meant to operate in a shutdown posture, and battle a global pandemic, nor was it meant to place people higher than the law, above reproach, or out of reach of a system designed for accountability. Now we have to deal with all three issues at once. We can’t wait this out. Our citizens are not prepared for what comes next.
It seems evolution has changed us to:
~ A society who works to live a life of entertainment from a society who worked to simply survive ~
Don’t get me wrong I believe both are important and should coexist beside each other creating a better quality of life for all people. However, contrary to belief only one is absolutely necessary and we cannot live without it. Also, evolution does not mean progress. It is a simple change in a timeline of human existence. For without humans who will define and make up words
People cannot survive this because we have made ourselves weak and incapable of surviving as we sacrificed the knowledge and skill sets of gardening, hunting, fishing and other useful self-reliant necessities – all for convenience, being entertained, and ignoring what is important as a united people.
And while we were pursuing individual materialism and extreme greed of a personal nature, 1% of the world’s population quietly amassed enough wealth to highlight a lifestyle that many people blindly pursued.
Instead of taking pause we quietly accepted that this was the way life was meant to be and we said thank you may I have another. May I have another $1000 cell phone. May I have another credit card to max out. May I have another unnecessary luxury in life that serves no purpose but to distract and strip away our evolved values we gained over the last 250 years.
In case you haven’t been paying attention, as the system is collapsing around us, the rich are still acquiring wealth at an alarming rate. How is that possible and why don’t we riot over that as well?
How is it possible that the government is giving money to hospitals, businesses, and other entities while these very same people who benefit most; fire, lay-off, or furlough hard-working Americans, all while paying themselves and top executives outrageously overinflated compensation. Enough is enough. These people, the powers that be, are accumulating and amassing enough wealth to prepare and to protect themselves for the fallout that is about to occur.
We still have people making millions in this country as others around the world starve and are unsure what will become of them or their loved ones. And after we turn on ourselves, self-destruct, and destroy the precious life America offers us, they will wait it out, lie, and somehow convince you that they are the ones who are best fit to lead the world out of the very same circumstances/consequences that they created.
As I am writing this our elected leaders make nearly $200,000 a year to legislate, represent, and lead us away from demise and failure. At the current state of the Union do you feel your money is being spent wisely? We have politicians who sold stocks and knew of important vital information before the public was aware of the very consequences we are struggling to overcome now.
If you want to watch a fantastic movie that will make you laugh, cry, and ill to your stomach as you learn the truth or as you compare it to the reality we are in now, please take time to watch The Big Short. Please think critically and understand that they knew what they were doing was wrong, but they continued to do it anyway. It is occurring now but on a much larger scale.
No this has never happened before and if we are not careful, we may never have the opportunity to make mistakes again or to learn from them. Great leaders have and are blessed with the incredible foresight that most do not have the capacity to comprehend.
The men who wrote the Constitution were able to understand what the limits were of self-governance and what would threaten it as well. Imagine knowing what would destroy America in the mid 1700’s and it actually having the possibility to occur in the year 2020.
Thomas Jefferson doubted the viability of a self-governing people because it took participation, understanding, and the unwavering support to protect what we cannot live without. Leaders must be present to unite not divide.
We were blessed. As Americans were given the greatest treasure in the history of human civilization. What have we done with it? We have almost squandered it and pissed all away by failing to be involved in our democratic republic.
I am saddened, disgusted, heartbroken, and angry. I watched the country I love slip into the worst political crisis ever because we decided that a standard of professionalism and accountability was not necessary when leaders represent citizens at all levels of government. There is plenty of blame to go around and it is not a new issue. It has festered for many years.
We all are to blame. Instead of trying to put out fires we fanned them and doubled down on what is now the catalyst in this powder keg. And for what, to be right? We are brought up to believe that one way of life is superior to another and in doing so created fractures that society may never recover from.
These words have always given me pause when I read them, I was never in a position to have contextual understanding of exactly what it meant until recently. “A Democratic Republic for all, if you can keep it.” I fear we may have lost what so many of us were built to protect.
We no longer have a united vision of what America should be or the standards of how we treat each other. When our leaders disagree, they ignore compromise and instead, substitute understanding and knowledge with lack of respect and ignorance; only to throw more fuel on the fire of intolerance.
And all they were able to accomplish was the normalization of aggressive behavior that was viewed, consumed, and repeated by every ignorant person who cannot grasp the consequences of what is occurring. What is worse that garbage, what they created, is passed down to their children and their children’s children. Generation after generation of intolerance for anyone who has an opinion different than yours.
Now the millennial generation I fear has put the last nail in the coffin allowing words to become so offensive to one another that if an opinion different than theirs exist, it is met with a social justice response and since we created a fragile group of coddled, entitled, weak people; they always look to politicians and others as principles of a grade school because their feelings were hurt.
These are not bad people. Depending on the person who decides the generational year I may or may not be a millennial . But nevertheless, we created an alternative response effectively destroying the only acceptable one that allows effective change- dialogue.
In an attempt to protect people, we removed an important way to resolve conflict and to move toward an understanding or compromise. Conflict has and always will occur among people. The only possible way to constructively solve it is by talking it out. We cannot do this by censoring one side, or as a society grab your social warrior battle gear to claim harm by another’s opinion.
Somehow we even convinced ourselves to let them believe that part of the Constitution contains the notion that they should be protected from being offended. It is quite the opposite. We must protect the unpopular with the popular. That is what it means to be an American and giving true freedom to all. Being a part of and living in a society where a person offends you is what freedom looks like.
Benjamin Franklin and the rest of our forefathers continued to give us directions to be successful and hints to destroy our country if we so chose to do it.
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech”
~Benjamin Franklin~
We failed our forefathers, we failed to protect the Constitution, and we failed each other. Not because we aren’t capable or undeserving of the gift of freedom, but because for far too long those we elected and put above us; beat us down telling us we could not do it without them, all while dismantling the architecture of America’s protections. The greatest success of their cancerous views; convincing us we wanted it and it was the only way to move forward.
I fear America does not possess enough of the people needed to correct the failures and continued destruction of this great Nation. And if she does contain those who possess the competency and ability, I believe people are too selfish to change for the benefit of all and the American way of life.
Please do not mistake my words as a complete dismissal or lack of understanding for how people feel and what issues matter to them. My support has and always will be for the voiceless, the persecuted, and those who seek justice from those who have the position and authority to give it. The system is not broken we just have competency issues in the ones we appointed to protect.
Do not misinterpret or take my position out of context. I assure you I am a rare true patriot who believes in America more than I do in the people she represents and will protect it at all costs. And, if you are in anyway a true patriot or enjoy the American way of life, regardless if you are an American or not, come let us protect it together before we all come to regret not heeding the warnings gifted by history and those who came before us.
We are in an exceedingly rare timeline of history and together we can continue to improve the greatest way to govern a society of free men and women. We are so very blessed as we have been given three of the greatest gifts in the history of human civilization.
We were born into this Nation without having to pay the cost. We were given instructions on how to keep it. And, thanks to history and the many mistakes made by societies before us, we know what not to do and what occurs when we fail to follow these instructions. It seems as if the choice is an easy one.
Please believe in something. Whether it be religion, America, the rule of law, the judicial system, the police officers and soldiers who protect us, your neighbor Timmy down the block, or simply the great wisdom we so often fail to leave for our children.
What you chose to believe in is irrelevant as all choices, at the core, are pure; representing the best way to treat one another. It is not until these beliefs come in contact with human interaction a problem exists. That is when people perverse it, that is when a belief system becomes flawed.
Let us not be judged by future generations as the “Ones who ruined it for the rest of us.”
If this is not something you are willing to do;
“I assure you, you do not belong here, and do not deserve the result of the great many sacrifices those before us made, so we may share -EQUALLY- the protections this great Nation has to offer”
Shawn Paul Cosner
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