Guns in America

Unless you've literally been hiding under a rock, you are aware of the latest massacre of innocent victims by a gun-wielding, mentally unstable man that happened on Friday, December 14th. Yet another unspeakable tragedy, that we have to talk about. This latest incident left 20 first graders and seven adults, plus the gunman, dead.This is going to be one of those times when everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. I only hope that it leads to real change that will prevent this from happening again.

I found out about it while trying to get in a little Christmas shopping after a lunch meeting. Normally, I start working at about 7:30 in the morning. I turn on the computer, make coffee. I scan the headlines on the BBC News and check emails while the coffee is brewing. Then I plan my day while drinking my first cup of coffee. Usually around 8 or 8:15 I'll turn on NPR and listen to the news while I work on the computer and do paperwork until about 1 or 1:30. That's when I pack up items to ship, photo new ones, do cataloging and write up descriptions for items to be posted at my online shop, do repairs, etc.

Friday, for some reason, I just didn't want to hear the news. The carnage in Syria and the horrible working conditions in Bangladesh garment factories was depressing and that didn't even begin to cover it all. Combined with the weirdly warm and dreary weather we've been having here in Southeastern Michigan this December, I was struggling to get into the Christmas Spirit. So Friday morning, I just plugged in my Ipod and listened to Christmas carols instead of the news, which kept me in blissful ignorance for a few more hours.

I had a lunch meeting scheduled for Friday, so I knocked off my computer and paperwork earlier than usual. Usually I listen to NPR in the car too, but that day I chose a Christmas CD. I was actually in a pretty good mood and starting to feel a little festive by the time I got to my meeting. After the meeting I decided to take a couple of hours and try to get some Christmas shopping done.

It was my second stop when I found out that everyone's morning hadn't been equally nice. The man in line behind me had a phone call. "Hi Mom," he said, "I can't really talk right now. . . what? Oh, my God, that's awful! Where? Connecticut?" He was quiet for a minute then said, "Mom, I'll call you back." He got off the phone and looked so shaken that I couldn't help but ask him if he was all right (normally I do not talk to people I don't know about their private conversations, even if they're making it all but impossible not to eavesdrop, which he wasn't, we were just in very close proximity).

"Another school shooting just happened," he said. "Somewhere in Connecticut, a bunch of little kids." I felt sick to my stomach and I don't remember what I said. He then said, "I am a gun rights activist, but there have to be limits, there has to be common sense involved." I have no idea who this man was and wouldn't recognize him if I came face to face with him again, but his comment and obvious horror resonated with me. I must have responded, but I have no idea what I said and although I must have paid for my items, as I now have a bag with a receipt, I don't remember it.

Once back in the car I immediately turned the radio on, searching for news stations. I sat there for I don't know how long before I felt like I could drive. At that point, instead of the other errands I had planned to run, I drove home. I turned on the radio and tried to work. I couldn't and found myself in front of the TV, in shock, crying as I watched the footage, which was pretty much running in a loop as there wasn't much information available at the time.

Now, bear in mind, nothing actually happened to me or anyone I know, for which I thank God. I don't have family in Connecticut, I don't have friends in Connecticut. I know no one in the entire state to my knowledge. Yet, this horrible event left me feeling traumatized and depressed. More so than when terrorists attacked the US on 9-11 and I had a friend who died in the Twin Towers. Why? Why this particular heinous act, only the latest in an ongoing series? I've been thinking about it for days now.

Partly, I think, because it was small children who were killed. Also, the community it took place in looks an awful lot like the one we live in now, the place where my children grew up and like the places I grew up as well. Watching footage unfold took me back to the days after Columbine happened, the first mass shooting  in what would turn out to be an ongoing parade of horrific events involving guns and the mentally ill here in the US. I grew up in the Denver area, I knew kids who went to Columbine when I was at another area high school. I knew the school, I had been in that school for athletic events many times and I was horrified when it happened, picturing the inside of the school as I had seen it last.

When Columbine happened, I had a four year old and a seven year old. For months I struggled every day as I dropped them off at school, praying they would be safe and trying to act normally so I didn't scare them. I know I wasn't the only parent to feel that way and it's a feeling that has never really stopped, for any of us. It also had a huge effect on our children, something I'll go into more later. One of Friday's victims closely resembled pictures of my daughter at the same age, bringing back the fear I had felt at the time, a fear that is back now, as I watched my 20 year old drive off to take his last two finals yesterday and dropped my 17 year old off at high school. I don't imagine it's a fear that is going to go away any time soon.

So why, at that time, did we let it go? Why did we, the American people and parents of children, after that horrible day that left fifteen people dead and 21 injured, decide to live with the nagging uncertainty, the knowledge in the back of our heads, that this could happen again, anytime, anywhere? What were we thinking? How could we not have acted decisively then? I believe that part of it was the hope that this was just a horrible aberration, something awful but so rare that it couldn't possibly happen again. But it did. Part of it also came from fear, fear of losing gun rights for some and fear of alienating friends and co-workers (campaign donors for politicians). Pathetic, really, isn't it?

Only a few months later, in July, a day trader in Atlanta killed twelve people, including his family, and injured another thirteen before killing himself.

In September of that same year, a man in Ft. Worth, Texas opened fire at a Christian Rock concert, killing seven teenagers and injuring another seven before taking his own life.

I could go on as similar mass shootings have taken place at an increasing rate since then, ten more times, with deaths from each incident ranging from four to 18, up until April of 2007. That was when a mentally ill student at Virginia Tech shot 56 people, killing 32 of them, before turning the gun on himself. You would think that incident, with its horrifying death toll, finally would have galvanized us to make a change, but no. It was easier to just move on, forget. Spout off a bit and then let it fade away, which is what we did.

Since students and teachers at Virginia Tech were massacred in 2007, there have been another NINETEEN mass shooting incidents - not including the one this past Friday. People, we have to wake up.None of these incidents are including the innocents killed by stray bullets in our inner cities, people, usually children and teens, killed by accidental discharges and those killed by gun crime. There have been 31 school shootings alone in the US since the Columbine massacre. The rest of the world combined has had 14, including countries torn by civil war.

Approximately 85 people here in the United States are killed by guns, EVERY SINGLE DAY. If you don't think this is a problem, well, you are the problem.We've all heard the (stupid) saying frequently trotted out by frothing at the mouth pro-gun activists to refute any calls for gun control, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Well, duh. However, regardless of how homicidally inclined a person may be, if they don't have access to a gun, it's going to be much harder for them to kill other people. Yes, if someone is really determined to kill others, they will probably find a way, but they won't be able to take nearly as many lives as quickly.

We need to stop stigmatizing those with mental illness and make sure there are resources where parents and individuals can get help, without fear of being demonized. That is another conversation, because the thing is, even if someone is mentally ill, angry at the world and determined to kill, without access to guns and weapons of mass destruction, the carnage is going to be limited. If that sounds cold, well, it is. Any loss of life is too much, so doesn't it make sense to make it harder to get weapons that kill more people more easily?

So can't we please, lose the rhetoric and use some common sense? We need to talk, like grown-ups, without the rhetoric and without the political points system in play. This is not a game. We need to protect our citizens and our children, from ourselves and the culture of violence we have created. That's what grown-ups are supposed to do. It's time for serious, rational conversations about gun control. Some of the ridiculous comments made by pro-gun nuts (who do their cause no good by sounding like ignorant idiots) don't deserve acknowledgement and I am certainly not going to respond to irrational statements made by those of questionable sanity and obviously no compassion or common sense.

My Dad was a police officer when I was a child, I grew up around guns. I know how to use them and I am a pretty decent shot. I also have a tremendous amount of respect for guns, although I don't own any nor do I want to. My Dad not only had trigger locks on his guns (which were never kept loaded), but also kept them in a gun safe which was kept in a separate storage room, also locked. Ammunition was not kept near the guns. He taught us all about gun safety and stressed over and over again, that they were not toys. I grew up aware of guns but not afraid of them.


It is not realistic to expect to pass stringent gun control laws here in the US like those in Canada or the UK. I not only recognize that, I support the right of responsible, thoroughly vetted adults to own a handgun, rifle or shotgun. Most gun owners are responsible, rational people who follow the law and take steps to keep guns away from children and others. Most. It is far to easy to gain access to guns. We need to have some serious, realistic requirements and screenings in place for those who want to own guns. We need to get serious about cracking down on illegal weapons and those who profit off of them. We need to stop letting the NRA and other pro-gun lobbies dictate our national gun policy. Our legislative bodies need to stop being intimidated and/or funded by the NRA (problems with lobbying and special interests is a whole 'nother discussion as well), and we need to be vocal about letting them know we expect this.

We also need to take a serious look at the types of weapons we own as citizens and recognize that there are times individual rights have to take a back seat to public safety and the public good. It is the same reason we have traffic laws. We need to be realistic about the 2nd amendment. It was never intended to protect assault weapon ownership. Automatic and semi automatic assault weapons hadn't even been conceptualized at the time. Nor was the 2nd Amendment intended to promote anarchy, which is what a society with no gun control at all looks like.Owning a gun is a privilege, not a right and it should be earned and given only to those who pass stringent requirements. It's harder to get a drivers license than it is to buy a gun and this is very, very wrong.

I was listening to an NPR program yesterday, which, of course, was addressing the mass murder that took place on Friday. One of the callers was a soldier, just back from Afghanistan. I can't quote her exactly, but this is the gist of what she said, "The guns he had (referring to the shooter in Friday's tragedy) are the same ones we used in Afghanistan. Those guns are not for hunting and they are not for target shooting. Those guns are for killing people. That is all they are for. No one who is not in a war needs to have one of those guns." If a soldier who just came back from a war can see it, why can't we, as a nation?

 No private citizen needs to have an assault weapon and it's ridiculous for anyone to claim otherwise. We require background checks and mental evaluations before we let people become law enforcement officers and before they are allowed to join the military. These are the people we train and rely on to protect us, the ones we give guns to, expecting them to be responsible and keep us safe. Why, then, do we let anyone walk into a gun show and plunk down cash for an automatic weapon? Really? Have we lost even the slightest, most tenuous of grips on sanity and common sense?

We need to look at our response to these tragedies and pressure the media to report responsibly, not sensationally. Stop trumpeting the names of these sick individuals, refuse to give them the recognition they crave. We've been told, over and over again, that this kind of notoriety can actually spark similar impulses in individuals teetering on the edge of mental illness. For that reason, I refuse to name the gunman or any others and give them any further publicity. Perhaps if everyone, including the media, refused to acknowledge their existence, others wouldn't be so motivated to repeat or exceed the horrific exploits.

We also need to take a good look at ourselves and our entertainment. The studies correlating a relationship between seeing violence, whether in video games, movies or on TV and subsequent violent behavior and desensitization to violence are so numerous you don't have to look very hard to find them. I am just as guilty as anyone and it's something I am going to give some serious thought to. I don't watch a lot of TV, but one of my favorites is Sons of Anarchy, probably one of the most violent shows on TV. So yes, how much responsibility do I, do all of us, bear for our current situation? 


I mentioned earlier the effect all these mass shootings have had on our children. My youngest daughter was four when the Columbine massacre took place. Both she and my son while appalled and horrified by what happened this past Friday at the Elementary School, were not surprised. "Mom, I don't think we see it the same way you do," she tried to explain to me. "This is normal to us, it is just something that happens."

I thought about it and it makes sense. It also makes me sad and angry. This is what they know. They grew up with Columbine, with mall shootings, with 9-11. They grew up in schools that have regular drills about what to do in case a crazy person with a gun or a terrorist storms the school.  To me and I think anyone who became an adult before April of 1999, this latest incident, along with all of those that have happened before it, is shocking. It is wrong, it is not normal. Maybe that's it, to us, the adults for the past 15 years, we haven't been able to believe it would happen again. We were so wrong and as a result, this shocking anomaly of random gun violence is part of life to our children.

 I grew up with fire drills and drills that taught us to hide under a desk in case of a nuclear attack. Even in 2nd grade I knew how stupid that was. My 2nd grade teacher told us that white would reflect the radiation better than other colors. I wore white for months, all the while knowing in my head that if Russia did drop a nuclear bomb on us, hiding under a desk and wearing white wouldn't help. I think about that tiny thread of fear that lived under everything I did for years, multiplied a thousand times for our children. Has it hardened them, desensitized them to the horror of these types of attacks? I think it has, they have had to become somewhat inured in order to function. Our children grow up seeing real violence unfold around them, to kids just like them. Their drills are not for something that will probably never happen, these things do happen, regularly. Our children know it, they know they could be next. How can that not affect the way they see the world?

I find this casual acceptance of knowing that they, their school, could be targeted at any time by a crazy person with a gun or a terrorist to be almost as horrifying as the violence. I also find it heartbreaking because I, too, know it could happen. Psychological experts can and have expounded at great length on the effect of this knowledge. After all, it's very like that experienced by children growing up in a war zone. That is what we have given our children as a result of our failure to act after the first of these horrifying events. We have provided them with a world in which, here, in the USA, regardless of whether they live in a wealthy suburb or in the south side of Chicago, our children grow up with the emotional stresses of living in a war zone.

If you're reading this, are you proud? As parents in the United States, we provide our children with cell phones, designer jeans, laptops and cars. The vast majority of us do everything we can to keep our children healthy and safe. We make them sit in car seats, we feed them vegetables, we supervise homework, as a group, we pay millions of dollars per year for them to participate in various lessons and sports activities.

Unfortunately, we have also provided them with the emotional effects of growing up in a combat zone. Our children deserve better than this. God only knows what effect this will have on their future and the future of our nation. Isn't it time we did something about it?  I cannot after this latest atrocity spend any time talking about how horrible it is before letting it fade and moving on with my life. No, I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing from here, but I know I have to do something so I can like the person I see in the mirror every day. I'm hoping that you will do the same, because that is the only way things will change. We, The People, have to not just talk, we have to act.


Sources:

http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=42&articleid=166&sectionid=1068

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2070226/Violent-homes-effect-brains-children-combat-does-soldiers.html

http://www.icyrnet.net/UserFiles/vol9no3Art3.pdf by JD Osofsky - 1999 -  Louisiana State University Health Sciences

http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2529/Violence-Children-s-Exposure-COMMUNITY-VIOLENCE.html


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/16/americas-deadly-devotion-guns

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/14/1337221/a-timeline-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us-since-columbine/?mobile=nc

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20571454

Conservatively Liberal, or Liberally Conservative?

Just words, no pretty pictures this time.

Where does one draw the line between Conservative and Liberal and really, does it matter? I don’t think I know anyone who agrees completely with every particle of either the GOP platform or the Democratic platform. I doubt even either of the candidates for President, one of whom will (hopefully – as long as there aren’t too many issues with absentee ballots, early ballots and voting machine issues) be named as our next president sometime in the early hours of tomorrow morning, agrees wholeheartedly with the entire platform of their Party.  

 I write this having voted today (I’ll share my voting story another time!) and not knowing how the election will turn out. I have purposely avoided any and all media today, because I am a) sick to death of hearing about politics; and b) it is just a matter of waiting at this point and all the pundits analyzing exit polls simply will not make a difference and I find them annoying. Incredibly annoying. However, I must admit, I keep thinking about it. So here I am taking a few minutes I don’t really have to write about some things that have been on my mind for a while.

Labels. We humans do like to apply them. We label each other, lifestyles, school supporters, everything pretty much, especially things like politics. Apparently, we must be either Liberal or Conservative. Democrat or Republican, Libertarian, Green, US Taxpayers and/or whatever other miscellaneous party names are out there.  If we don’t fit into any of the above, we can conveniently call ourselves Independent, which, by the way, is what I’m registered as, not that it matters. 

Am I Liberal or am I Conservative? Well, I’m not quite sure, to tell the truth, because there is an ever-changing line that divides the two and I find myself straddling it most of the time. My leaning to one side or the other tend to vary depending on the issue. I have never voted a straight ticket ballot in my life and fail to understand how anyone could.

I am a Liberal, because I believe that Civil Rights should apply to every US Citizen equally, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Republican Abraham Lincoln was the President who brought this issue front and center (After Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the early Constitutional Congress, who had the gall to approve the words, “all men are created equal,” later determined to apply to women as well).  I find it rather ironic that believing equal rights, basic human rights in US terms, should apply equally to all Citizens, is viewed as “Liberal Nonsense” according to a relative I will not name and far too many others.  

I am a Conservative, because I do not believe that asking someone to prove their citizenship before voting in an election that determines the direction of the country, state or municipality holding the election is unreasonable. I would not, for example, expect to be able to vote in Canada, in England or in France, even if I were living there and paying taxes (which I did, in England, for several years and I never would have expected to vote, it would have been ridiculous!). It appears to me to be perfectly reasonable to expect proof of citizenship before allowing someone to vote.

I am a Liberal, however, because I also believe that requiring identification means that it should be easy and affordable for citizens to acquire the required photo identification. No qualified voter should be prevented from registering and voting in an election because getting required identification is too difficult or costly.  

My kids could get an ID card in 30 minutes and for $5 while registering for classes at the beginning of each school year. Why can’t we provide the same option to those needing a photo ID for voting, without making it difficult and overwhelming to those with limited income and transportation options? Setting up temporary stations at high schools in areas most affected for a few days a year to offer that option doesn’t seem as though it should be that complicated or expensive.  Regardless, there have to be ways to make getting photo ID easier and less expensive if it is going to be a voting requirement.

I am a Conservative because I do not believe that government should intrude upon religious freedom. I believe that anyone and everyone should be allowed to worship how and who they desire, according to the dictates of their own conscience. I am a Liberal because I believe that laws should not be formed nor government administered that favor one religion above another, Christian, Muslim, Judaism, Wicca, whatever. I believe that religion has absolutely no place in government or law, except in the absolute refusal to give preference to any particular religion and that laws should apply to all equally.

I am a Liberal, because I do not believe that anyone’s personal religious views should affect the way others are allowed to live their lives or exercise their civil rights. Specifically, I find it heinous that a large number of people really believe that they have the right, because of their religious views, to determine who should and should not marry. I am astounded that these people somehow see their bigotry and intolerance of anyone who identifies as different from themselves as anything other than bigotry. I am completely unable to understand how they believe this different from the prejudices and resulting injustices which have affected African Americans, Women, Muslims, Asians, Catholics, Mormons and every other minority group that has ever been affected by prejudice and intolerance.

I also find it quite ironic that some of the worst offenders are members of groups, religious and otherwise, who once suffered from extreme prejudice and intolerance themselves. While these people see the persecution of their own group as just that, persecution; they somehow see their persecution of other groups different from themselves as justified. It really boggles my mind. I also believe that women and minorities deserve to be paid equally for the same job as a white man and cannot begin to understand how anyone could think anything different is acceptable, somehow this makes me a Liberal.

I am a Conservative because I believe that life is sacred. I am not in favor of abortion; in fact I think it is wrong.  I am a Liberal because I am pro-choice. No, they are not mutually exclusive. I know dozens of people who are pro-choice and not a single one who is pro-abortion.  I believe that the life of the woman who is faced with an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy for whatever reason is every bit as important as that of the fetus residing in her body.

 I do not believe that I, or anyone else, has the right to make such an intimate, incredibly difficult choice for any woman finding herself in an untenable situation and I find it unbelievably arrogant that anyone should believe that they do have the right to make that decision for someone else. That being said, late term abortion is just another term for murder in my view. If an embryo is far enough along to survive outside the womb, it is a baby.

My purpose here is not to debate abortion, however, I have known a few women, several quite well, who have had an abortion at some time and this has colored my views. A couple of girls I knew when we were teenagers found themselves in a terrible situation, one of them was a victim of rape. Having a baby would have literally ruined their lives. Some parents are more understanding than others; not every teenage girl or single woman has a supportive and loving family to turn to for support.

I know a few women who had an abortion in their twenties or thirties, for different reasons. I know a woman who had a much wanted pregnancy and then found out the child was so severely deformed she and her husband were told there was no possibility the child would survive birth and would quite possibly die during the pregnancy. This was a decision she agonized over, along with her husband and in the end, they decided that it would be best for them, their two already existing children and for the child who would never live. I have known this woman now for over ten years and she still believes they made the right choice.

Every single woman I have known who chose to have an abortion agonized over making the decision. None of them took it lightly but all believed it was the best decision under the circumstances they were in, circumstances no one who hadn’t been in them could possibly understand. So no, I do not believe that taking away the right to choose is justifiable. Abortion is a tragedy, but it is a choice that should be made between a woman, her family if applicable, her doctor and her God.

I am a Conservative because I believe in the right to bear arms as specified in the Bill of Rights. I don’t believe that all guns should be outlawed and I don’t believe that obtaining ownership and a license should be so difficult it is almost impossible. I believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

 I am a Liberal because I believe there should be limits placed on gun ownership. I believe that anyone wanting to buy a gun should be subject to a criminal background check and a Psych Evaluation. I do not believe that anyone should be able to buy a gun at a gun show and disappear.  After all, the people we trust to carry guns professionally, Law Enforcement and the Military are subject to both criminal background checks and psychological evaluations.

So why on earth would we let any nut job off the street walk in and buy a gun and enough ammunition to say, oh, attack a Congresswoman speaking at a Mall, or shoot down classmates, or shoot random strangers driving on a freeway? Additionally, I have a vivid imagination and cannot come up with any reason a private citizen here in the United States needs to own a machine gun. Neither can I conceive of a reason an ordinary citizen would need to carry a gun into a church, a school, a library or any other public place where one has no reasonable expectation of being in a dangerous situation.

I am a Liberal because I do believe that Government has a responsibility to ensure its’ Citizens are cared for and have food and shelter, as a last resort in case of poverty and in cases of disaster. We have all seen the need for a Federal Government to provide help and leadership in emergencies all too vividly in the past couple of weeks. While I do believe that some things should be decided and administered at the State level, is there really anyone who thinks that New Jersey and New York should have been forced to take care of the effects of Hurricane Sandy on their own?

I am a Conservative because I believe that things like educational structure, local taxes, public education and administration of welfare funds should be left up to the States to decide. I believe States should come up with their own budgets and local municipalities should do the same. I believe that too much interference in private business is detrimental. I believe that taxes should be kept as low as possible, while still maintaining essential services.

I am a Liberal because I believe the Federal Government is necessary for oversight. Does anyone remember what happened just a few short years ago with our banking system and then the Economy due to lack of regulation (or enforcement)? How about going back a little further to the Stock Market Crash of 1929? Not many people still around who lived through it, but surely “The Great Depression,” rings a bell. The regulations enacted after the Great Depression were enacted to prevent it from happening again. These are the same regulations the Bush Administration, heeding the pleas of those looking to make money, proceeded to weaken and take apart, which made this latest banking crisis possible. 

Does anyone really believe that manufacturers can be trusted to look out for the public good without oversight and being held to standards on a Federal level? Think about the public safety issues we have now as it is; tainted spinach, tainted peanut butter and numerous other contamination outbreaks over the past few years alone.  Would you want to eat food canned and produced under a system with State controls over food safety? If so,  perhaps you should go back and re-read The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair.

 Currently we have an outbreak of meningitis killing people due to infected steroid injections. The contaminant has been traced back to a specialty pharmacy which has been cited before for quality control problems. In spite of warnings by many experts in the field, this is an area that has managed to escape oversight due to loopholes in the law. Thus far 30 people are dead, over 400 infected and it’s hard to argue that this is an area that should not be subject to federal inspections and practice guidelines in the future.

Think about how quickly the CDC has worked to track down and find the root causes of these problems. Does anyone really believe that is something that a state government, or several states governments if distribution has crossed state lines, could do anywhere near as effectively? So yes, I do believe we need a Federal Government and that there is a need for some regulation and oversight.

The issues above are just a few of those that divide and define Liberals and Conservatives, the list could go on and on. What’s important is that we’re all human beings, and that we all remember that. I’ll let you in on a little secret which probably isn’t much of a secret. I personally hope that President Obama wins re-election for several reasons. First, because I believe that Romney’s vague economic promises are just that, vague promises. I find Paul Ryan’s extreme and cold right wing version of conservative Catholicism and lack of empathy for others frightening. I do not believe that either of them has any understanding of what it’s like to live below the poverty level or for those who are struggling desperately to survive. I fear what a Romney/Ryan Administration would do to Civil Rights. I find their entire campaign’s disregard for facts and the truth troubling, to say the least. 

What I think doesn’t matter anymore, if it ever did, to anyone but me. Honestly though, I must say I really don’t think that the country will fall apart if Romney wins.  I think that we, as US Citizens, are fortunate to have two basically good, not perfect, but good, people who want to be the President of the United States (which frankly, I think is nuts, talk about a thankless job!) and I am grateful.

My hope and prayer is that our horribly dysfunctional Legislative Bodies can overcome their imbecilic partisanship and work together and with whomever the President ends up being, to find a way to work together and do what is best for the Country. The United States of America will go on. I believe that we will pick ourselves up from whatever knocks us down, we will persevere, we will innovate and we will figure out a way to make things work. Because that is what we do, it’s what we’ve always done and what we always will do, regardless of who is named as the next President of the United States.  

Politics, Games & Shades of Gray. Not Red or Blue.

I actually wrote this essay a few days after the first Presidential debate of 2012, but life became hectic and I never edited and posted it. So this essay is coming way after the fact. After going through it again though, I still believe it’s relevant, just bear in mind it is a couple of weeks old.. : )  This is not a partisan essay, it’s more about the US as a whole and what has happened to the political process.

Politics are not a game. It's about people, real people, something that seems to be lost.

I do have a tendency to be cynical about politics; it comes from my time working for a politician when I was young and naive and has only been amplified by the years I have spent closely following the workings of our elected officials since. In spite of that, I believe that voting is a near sacred responsibility. I have ancestors and family members who have participated in every conflict the United States of America has been involved in starting with the Revolutionary War and continuing to current engagements. I take their service and sacrifices seriously. 

My seventeen year old daughter is extremely disappointed that she will miss being old enough to vote in the upcoming election by a few months. My almost 21 year old son is excited to be voting in his first Presidential election. It is a big deal and it should be. 

Recruiting Poster, WWII

As US citizens who are eligible to vote, it is our responsibility to educate ourselves and vote for the person/s we believe will be best for the future of the United States.  Sometimes digging through the "political polish" to find substantive information can be a frustrating experience. The constant truth twisting and cherry picking of facts and numbers by virtually everyone running for office can be demoralizing, but we can't give in to lethargy and cynicism. In the immortal words of Winston Churchill, "Never, never, never give in!" We must persevere and do our part to require integrity from our political leaders and we must vote.

So if you are eligible to vote but not registered yet, although it is probably too late for this next election, go register so you can vote next time. Go, now (or when the Sec of State is open, that might work better)! Then vote, in every election. I am assuming that anyone reading this essay has a basic familiarity with the US Constitution and governmental history. If you don’t, well, hopefully you’ll get motivated to do get it.

Along with approximately 67 million other Americans, I watched the first Presidential debate. It left me feeling somewhat sick to my stomach. Not because Obama seemed to have his mind on something else the entire time and was strangely meek, not because Romney was overbearing and rude and not because the moderator was totally and disappointingly ineffective, although all of those things happened.

President Obama & Potential President Mitt Romney at 1st Debate

 What left me feeling slightly ill was the twisting of the truth and outright misleading statements made by both candidates, with the balance of untruths leaning slightly more towards Romney (oh, come on, no matter how vehement of a Romney supporter you are, his own campaign staffers – not just independent fact checkers – were making corrections and doing damage control for the next several days, for goodness sake!). The President, however, certainly didn’t have a corner on the truth either.  Yes, they were both going for the quick sound bite, the “zinger” that would catch the attention of the voters and the media. That’s what debates have turned into and that’s what we expect.

Funny & Frighteningly Accurate

No longer do we expect substantive discussions about specific problems and fixes by candidates who treat each other with dignity and respect. In this age of reality TV, we expect entertainment and for each candidate to go for the jugular of their opponent. The only problem is, contrary to the comforting assurances of “fixing things,” that each vaguely promised then and continue to promise now; none of the issues being discussed and facing our country are simple. No sound bite, however “zingy” can fix the very real problems facing the United States right now and continued polarity of the political parties just worsens the problem.

When did we, as a people, decide to just accept that our political leaders and potential political leaders are going spout half truths, twist around reality and outright lie to us? When did this become all right and why do we just sit back and take it? I find it disturbing and I hope that you do too. What we as an electorate have done and allowed to be done to ourselves and our government frightens me.  

 I know, this has been happening for a while. I go back though, to our first leaders. 

Painting by Junius Brutus Stearns

This isn’t about political parties and it isn’t about conservative or liberal. It is about the truth and our lack of expectations that we will get it from our politicians. I am quite certain that political leaders disconnected from the people, who twist and hide the truth from the citizens of this great country was not what the Founding Fathers intended when they seceded from Great Britain. In fact, records show that honesty and fairness along with direct representation figured fairly strongly when they established the foundations of our current system of government.

Does he look unhappy? Maybe it's because George Washington never wanted to be the President!

Our first President didn’t want to be the President. George Washington became the first President of the United States of America under duress. He saw his service as a huge sacrifice he and his family were making for the good of the nation. His fellow law makers envisioned a government where competent and responsible citizens sacrificed a few years of their lives in order to move the government forward, and then returned to their normal lives. They never intended or foresaw congressional service becoming a lifelong career. That it has become so is to the detriment of our nation, in my opinion, one I suspect would be shared by our Founding Fathers.  

Money buys elections and has for some time now.

The idea that men would compete to serve as President of the United States, an office of serious and stressful responsibility requiring insane hours and loss of privacy was most likely something our first President would not believe. That corporations, private individuals and organizations would donate millions of dollars to elect the candidate of their choice was so far outside of reality it was never imagined. To quote George Washington, in a letter to his friend Edward Rutledge, he made it seem as if the presidency was little short of a death sentence and that, in accepting it, he had given up “all expectations of private happiness in this world.”

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/George-Washington-The-Reluctant-President.html#ixzz29WqSzGof

Somewhere along the line we shifted from expecting our elected representatives to be people who were sacrificing to do what was best for the country to people who expected the country to sacrifice to do what was best for them. Somewhere along the line, it became normal for us to elect political leaders who are so self-absorbed that normal, everyday citizens like you and I don't register as real. Somewhere along the line, politics became a game of status, not a sacrifice for the common good. This travesty starts at the State level and continues to the federal, unfortunately. 

So where does personal responsibility come in? Anyone who works with children or teens knows that you get what you expect. If you set your expectations low, that’s what you’ll get. On the other hand, for the most part, if you expect more of them, you’ll get more. This is true of people in general and of politicians as well, as long as we hold them accountable, it is human nature to either rise or sink according to expectations.

So who bears the blame for the current situation? We do. We get what we expect and accept. Here in the United States, where we actually get to have a say in our government, where millions served and died to give us that right, where millions today continue to serve and give their lives to preserve it; a 42% turnout of registered voters is considered normal. This is 42% out of the 29% of the population who are even registered to vote, according to US Census figures from 2010, when there were approximately 311 million American citizens, of whom 59% are eligible to register to vote. 

A Voting Location

Looking at those rather depressing figures, I have to ask, why? Why do so many people choose not to vote, not even to register to vote? Do they not care, do they not understand? Why? I wish I had the answers, but I don’t.

I do believe part of it has to do with education, a whole 'nother can of worms I am not going to address here. Instead, let's talk about those who actually do vote. Why, though, of the relatively small proportion who choose to exercise their right to vote, do so many choose the easy way, the quick answer, the best sound bite? I have to believe they mean well, otherwise, why bother?

We (using the royal “we” here) Americans like absolutes. They are comforting. Things are easier when you’re only deciding between black and white, right and wrong. We want simple, we want easy and we want uncomplicated. So that’s what we get because that's what we insist upon, regardless of whether it fits. We tend to surround ourselves with people who are like us. People who live like us, people who think like us. It makes it easier to dehumanize “the other ones," which makes it easier to dismiss their viewpoints. We have the equivalent of a fast food diet going for our political system and eventually it’s going to kill us if we don’t make some changes. 

Does that sound drastic to you? Maybe so, but consider the inevitable outcome of a diet of nothing but fast food. Remember the documentary Michael Moore made about living off McDonalds food a few years ago? Ask any doctor what they think about eating nothing but fast food as a health choice, if your common sense can’t answer that question already.

Our Fast Food options are many.

 As a country, the United States is dealing with an out of control physical obesity problem which costs us millions upon millions of dollars and any number of early deaths.  This is a problem which actually does have a simple fix. Eat less junk, more fruits and vegetables and smaller portions; exercise. We all know that is true; mostly we just don’t want to do it. We want easy.  

So, if something that clear cut is difficult for us to embrace, how do we feel about the murkier waters of politics and cause and effect? The political answers aren’t quite as simple although the long term results are just as damaging. Unfortunately, we continue to live in denial, in more than one way.

People are complicated. Life is complicated, messy and difficult sometimes. We all know this, we all live it. Obviously, a system of government that works for these complicated, messy and difficult lives won’t be simple and it won’t be static. It will have to change, to evolve and to grow, be a living system of government. More stuff we don’t like. We don’t like change in general. 

This is part of the problem, because things change, people change, situations change. I am paraphrasing here, so bear with me. Nothing in the universe is static. A basic law of physics which applies as well to human beings and everything we’re involved in, anything in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon; human life is definitely in motion and is constantly being acted upon at the same time. Life is not black and white, no matter how much we would like it to be. Life is full of various shades of gray (no reference to the recent best-seller, this particular phrase has been around quite a bit longer, thank you!). 

Shades of Gray in Life are Reality.

Until we can recognize this the constant state of flux that humanity dwells within, until we recognize that there are no quick, easy fixes for the state our country is in. We are just going to continue to gain weight, in metaphorical terms. 

We have to cut out the fast food and start dealing in specific realities, the hard stuff. We need to exercise and we need to pay attention and demand the truth. As long as we continue to punish any politician or governmental appointee who tells us hard truths and reward those who give us the easy, greasy answers, it doesn’t matter who the President is; nothing is going to change and our country, which I love; and believe that you do to, will continue to become less than it should be.

This recent statement by Detroit Free Press writer Julie Hinds highlights the problem: "The political reality in our age of partisan blogs, vitriolic columnists and fair and UN-balanced cable news channels is that potential voters never have to consume any information with which they'd potentially disagree."

Different folks, different views, different realities.

What can we do? Let's start by taking baby steps; starting by not demonizing anyone who looks at things differently than we do.

Acknowledge that usually there is more than one right way to do things. Someone believing differently than you or I does not make them evil, or wrong. It just makes them different. Life is not made of just black and white, no matter how much easier that would make things. Reality contains many, many shades of gray.

I personally have many friends, as well as family members who believe differently than I do, spiritually, politically and economically, for whom I give thanks regularly. Knowing them keeps me from become insulated and, hopefully, from becoming a self-righteous bigot because I know and care about these people. My friends of other political and religious views are intelligent, educated people who think deeply about issues.

Knowing this requires that I respect their views and give them serious thought, often this has caused me to adjust my opinions and beliefs. I am grateful for friends and family with different views because this makes me look at other points of view and think about other interpretations of fact and practice. Acknowledging different views and options makes me a better, more open minded and reality driven person. It is far too easy to surround ourselves with those who share and parrot our own views and when we do that it makes our country weaker, not stronger.

Different Races, Religions, Ethnic Groups and Cultures Coming Together., what makes us strong as a nation.

 Is it frustrating sometimes? Yes, of course, sometimes it is when I can’t for the life of me figure out how they could see a particular issue in the way they do (I’m sure they feel the same way about my views!). I believe though, that it is good for us to be able to respectfully acknowledge and discuss differences with people who see things differently than we do. It is also a good thing to learn how to compromise, something our congress no longer seems to know how to do. Compromise is necessary for people to work together and for our country to move forward. The first step in that direction is recognizing the rights of others to have different views and to acknowledge their validity.

A result of everyone thinking (or pretending to) the same.

Opening our minds to different points of view and belief systems does not make us weak, it makes us strong. History is rife with examples of the horror that ensues when different views aren’t tolerated. Nazi Germany and the USSR are just a couple of easy examples that come to mind. 

It is the differences and strengths of all its citizens that have traditionally made the United States of America, the great “Melting Pot,” one of the greatest nations on earth. So I ask you to open your mind. Let’s not let the partisanship, exclusion-ism, myopia and low expectations, which have been ruling our government lately, destroy everything that has made the United States of America great. We, as American Citizens, can demand better. Let’s do it, because until we do, we are going to continue to get what we deserve, what we settle for.