SOLA VIRTUS INVICTUS

   Translation: Bravery alone is invincible.
     I would rather have liked to think that truth and honor are the virtues that are invincible in the long run, but perhaps it is still so. Link those virtues with that of bravery and one gets the road signs to a better world. We sure as heck need that right now. Desperately so.
     Bravery has certainly lost its way somewhere along the way. It has apparently morphed into the charge of militarily armed police who then resign with the cry that they are underequipped, unable to insure their own safety. Yet not since 9/11 can any police force claim to be under equipped. Not with it being impossible to distinguish them from the National Guard that has been called out upon their fellow citizens so often as of late.
     Approximately a two thirds majority of the protesters or those who crowd into that population are there for protest alone. It is the "bad crowd" that causes the troubles. But it is not those about whom we have to worry. Rather it is about the summary judgement passed on people for minor offenses. Annoying ones - yes. Dangerous ones - no. Police should have been trained as to how to defuse situations of minor offenses without the use of lethal force and certainly a person can be brought down by a non lethal wounding rather than a shot to a vital organ. It is just wrong.
     It is truly a scary job, to be part of the police. One can get killed while doing one's job, but apparently today, anyone can get killed while doing his/her job or exercising rights guaranteed to all citizens. They are compensated well, with heavy overtime, good health benefits, unlimited sick days, and they signed up for it all - protect, serve, defend and the consequences that might arise. I am not demeaning nor denigrating the risks, but today we all have risks and there must be better ways to subdue individuals who pose little risk. Sitting on necks. Violent takedowns to the ground for walking in an empty country road with no sidewalk does not merit that. Sleeping in a car does not either and if the taser had not been pulled, it would not have gotten into the hands of the 'offender'. Our primary first responders are on the whole wonderful at doing their job and are now being placed in situations fraught with danger. Apparently their training has been lacking. This cannot be allowed to continue. Bad for all sides in this mess.
     A character in a novel said so aptly for our times, that we appear to be "human tumbleweeds moving with the winds of hate." This is a statement crafted for our times, for the truth of it all. Watch the faces, check the videos, return back to hearings in the Senate and the House and cringe as you see the ugliness of hate projected on the faces of the committee members. See the ugliness of the winds of hate appear on the outside.
     Or attend a Trump rally. See the hate on the faces, in the shouts of the attendees. In the incitements to violence and growing hatred by Trump. See the growing numbers of extremist right wing groups, fine people all, who attach themselves to his campaign and spout his words, or in fact, place them in his very mouth. And see the lack of bravery in the lack of response, or flimsy, meaningless responses that say nothing, made by our apparent representatives - on all levels of government. 
     Now, only apparently after the violence of the riots, of the continued kangaroo justice, of the very real actions of Trump in bringing our military to fire on our citizens - echoes of China, Hungary,  Russia and when it was the USSR, Bolivia, Venezuela - and on and on. WE DO NOT DO THAT. NOT HERE IN THE USA. And yet, there it is. In the open. Cheered on by that hateful human directed by his own waves of hate, placing our military in situations where the choice to obey orders or the demands that they ignore patently illegal ones, immoral ones, well, we are in major trouble. And I am not confident of our ability to fix this mess, so deeply are we mired down in its poisonous muck.
     We have lost respect for one another. We see the opponent as an enemy, rather than as one who thinks differently, but not worthy of hate. Yet, this school of thought is growing in numbers every day. We have lost our dignity, our humanity. I wonder; do these Johnny come lately members of Congress actually dare to question, to wonder, as to why Trump is throwing down on so many outlandish and dangerous matters, why he rules by fiat,  by Executive Orders, why almost every move of his is one of hate, of limitations of rights, of insensitivity to historic wrongs.
     His actions reek of evil, of his intense mad drive to negate Congress, corrupt the judiciary and run this country as a puppet state of The Dictator, of the President for Life. Just read his statements over the years and see the egregious growth of paranoia and megalomania, in the explosive usage of words and tropes, sad memes of hate, of evil. Truly, Congress wonders how it reached this point? Look in the mirror. Read the Congressional Record. Check their own words and deeds. Learn to check their craven cowardly behavior at the door and stand up for America. Have a little dignity. Remember the virtue of bravery and defy the temptation to forget one's duties, all in the name of fear and cowardice.
      We have done, and are doing, what every conqueror wants to do - to strip the population of its humanity, of its dignity, of forcing them into places where no human should be. Yet, check these prisoners. Check the dignity with which they conduct themselves, despite all odds, more than one would think. The Prisoners of Conscience of Russia. The protesters of Tiananmen Square and Hong Kong, the mothers of the Desaparecidos of Argentina, the concentration camp prisoners, and protesters of all kinds and causes who quietly lay down in the streets or sit at a counter, or try to buy a home in restricted areas. There is dignity in their faces, in their actions. 
     "One required an extraordinary moral force to teeter on the brink of the Nazi infamy and not plunge into the pit. Yet I saw many internees cling to their human dignity to the very end. The Nazis succeeded in degrading them physically, but they could not debase them morally." Olga Lengyel
     Surely we can use them as our role models. Surely we can learn from history. Surely we do not want to repeat it, in any form, with glimmers and streaks of growing hate and violence. Most certainly, this is manifestly not the way to Be Well and Stay Safe. Instead, it will force those two concepts into the category of impossible dreams. Instead, let us be brave, follow the truth, and always act with dignity.