Anyone who has traveled with a child, or took a long trip, knows that question. It is annoying. It is repetitive. It is without any satisfactory answer. However, all that irritation goes by the board when we ask ourselves that very same question re the status of this country. 'Are we there yet' in this case must be a repetitive question if we are ever to be able to not just paper over the divisive chasms, but rather to eliminate much of those chasms in a permanent manner. Unfortunately, we appear to be going about it in the worst way, enabling, even encouraging, the deepening of these chasms rather than filling them up, closing them off.
Are we there yet? Have we crossed the point of no return? Are we all to become a Wrong Way Corrigan, contributing in an evil synergy to our country's demise? That is a question that has become imperative to answer. Are we there yet and will we ever be? Or, more optimistically, are we there yet in terms of saving our Republic.
False claims of systemic fraud in the 2020 election will result in blood being spilled, a Republican congressman warned Thursday.
Originalism is the legal philosophy arguing that the U.S. Constitution should be understood by its public meaning at the time it became law, as opposed to the idea of a living Constitution.
- the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage."through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us"
- the country's top general had to rebuff then-President Donald Trump's desire to order military intervention as a response to civil unrest several times, as the former president's manner grew more volatile in his final months in power,
- "That's how you're supposed to handle these people," Trump told top officials. "Crack their skulls!" shoot them in the leg - or maybe the foot," Trump reportedly said. "But be hard on them!"
A Hill-HarrisX poll released last week found that 30 percent of Republican voters believe Trump will be reinstated in August, though there is no legal or constitutional maneuver that could feasibly return the former U.S. president to office in the midst of President Biden's own term.
Trump himself has reportedly told acquaintances that he expects to be reinstated in August.
Having read those pieces from our country today, well, are we there yet and which there is it? The degree of demonization of the opposition, the shrieking and shouting from both side of extremists, the dialing up of irresponsible behavior - and I, for one, along with many others, fear the wrong there, two wrong 'there's and we must be so careful, ever vigilant in our defense of true democracy, of a 'there' that is a good place to be.
Are we going to be a country where the middle is overrun by the outliers? In fact, are these outliers to become the norm? If we are ever to avoid or back out of the pathways leading to one wrong there or another, we must, absolutely must, make it clear that there will be no tolerance of illegal actions, particularly those leading to the overthrow of the legal government. On the other hand, while openly waging war on intolerable behavior by some law enforcement personnel, it cannot be used as an excuse, a get out of jail card, to commit a crime, defy legal orders to cooperate, and then claim innocence. That, too, leads to a wrong there and invalidates real and intolerable actions.
We must look for ways to forge a unity, a true country of united states. We must acknowledge past errors and work to make those errors only the past and nevermore to be part of the present and the future, at least as much as we can, given the human tendency to embrace the wrong, fight progress at times when it needs to be embraced.
That ruinous stubbornness, obstinacy, comes from both sides. Cruz and others of his ilk rant and rave about communism. Hello, not the problem today, is it? Rather it is the usurpation by dictators of their respective countries, call it whatever name you wish. It is all dictatorship, fascism in its every format and attempted disguise. Making the Constitution a hidebound document, unable to be a living, growing, set of route markers for our nation, is to negate the forward thinking of our Founders, miring our country in some of the limitations of thought of the times. It precludes positive, peaceful progress. Definitely then we will reach a wrong, so wrong, there.
Yet look at the other extreme. This intersectionality, which emphasizes differences, establishing differences where previously there had been none, particularly among the younger members of society, trying to inculcate feelings of guilt and shame for birth into a certain skin color, or religion, or gender or whatever - wrong, wrong, wrong. Most emphatically yet another wrong 'there'.
The correct 'there' will be reached when we emphasize the unities, the commonalities and celebrate the differences that enrich this country, giving it a sense of optimism, an American manner strictly its own. At times arrogant seeming, yet always willing, albeit reluctantly at times, to move forward, leaving behind false, outdated, outmoded ideas, attitudes and laws.
We are definitely on a journey. As Americans, as human beings, we must choose the road carefully, stay in the middle lane, avoiding the pitfalls and possibilities of increased danger along the edges. We must be aware, pay attention, correct the veering too much in either direction, but most of all, remember that we are Americans, one and all, and are to set the standards for the world who look upon us to lead, to set a pace. Then, and only then, can we make this journey's destination the correct, dazzling with possibilities, 'there'.
Are we there yet? Where is there? Are we there yet?
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