THREE QUESTIONS

  

After waking from surgery. a patient is almost always asked three questions. These questions relate to orientation of self, of time, of place. Apparently, if you do not answer correctly, steps need to be taken. From more time to sleep off the anesthesia to more serious steps, the problem will be addressed. However, these three questions are actually quite appropriate for the general public at large today. Our rather thick-headed species refuses to learn, to take instruction, or how to place more weight on the right, perhaps the more difficult to achieve, rather than on the momentarily liberating incorrect. All along, as choices are made, very few follow the thread of that choice to its consequences. Hence, the great shock and confusion when these consequences do take place. 

The first question usually refers to self, Asking for name and date of birth. Pretty simple. Second question generally refers to a specific date, week or month and year. The specific date can be a tad more 'challenging' as so many of us often ask of others, “What's today's date?”  The third question refers to orientation to and within life itself.  "Who is the president?" Shortly after Trump achieved office, I was asked that very question. My answer, delivered in sleepy tones, was “Don't make me say it.”  That answer was deemed acceptable.

What would be the proper answer to that question if asked in 2025? Who will be the president? With both candidates unfit for office, we must, nevertheless, make a choice. Two tired old men. One has served his nation well. The other has served only himself with nary a thought for anyone other than himself. One can continue to steer the ship of state with a good crew beside him. The other will remain alone at the helm, accompanied by a groveling, frightened coterie of enablers and sycophants. 

His plans, should he be elected, are to follow the plan book so graciously laid out for him by the Heritage Foundation, so conservative they are encased in old rock! It is a 922-page tome entitled Project 2025. Contained within is his detailed plan to morph this nation, to wrench this nation, from a troubled democratic one to a dystopian troubled nation. If we indeed have a nation remaining. An   example of the violence which will prevail, which will ramp up sharply even more than in present times, is the attempted assassination of Trump and the ever-growing numbers of mass shootings. 

When violence is used as a tool, a political tool, when the system of justice is perverted, with judges egregiously partisan or ill-educated, incompetent, greedy, we had better understand that this is a precursor to an even more violent future, a future nearly upon us. "What goes around comes around." If one advocates violence, violence will inevitably nip at them, perhaps even bite. It behooves all of us particularly the champions of violence to understand that truth.  

The perpetration of that violence is part and parcel of the plans of the GOP. They rabidly oppose any form of gun reform and gun control. Telling one and all that our pistols will be confiscated; our homes will be invaded. Our pistols are safe. It is the assault   rifles. It is the semi assault rifles. It is the bump stock. It is the target of gun control. Why is there such opposition to it? This confusion as the motivation can be addressed and understood upon reading Project 2025. It sends shivers down my spine. One can easily see ahead of us a grossly dystopian future.  It is described by a strong opponent of it.

"Under the leadership of Kevin Howard, the Heritage Foundation created an ultraconservative guide for building a dystopian future life in the United States. The document takes the US way back to a time when white males were the only power, women were barefoot, pregnant, only speaking when spoken to, and any minority or racial groups were discriminated against, persecuted, and resigned to living in racial ghettos."

While that may sound extreme, it is simplified, though not grossly overly much. It may not happen overnight, though the plans are that it will happen as of Trump's Day of Rage, Revenge, and Retribution, the first day in office, G-d forbid. It is a planned ugliness which will develop a deadly momentum of its own and where it will stop - if it will stop - is anyone's guess.  

We are at a crossroads. A most crucial one which demands careful thought before embarking on the one fork or the other. Thus, for now, when asked who you are. and when you were born and who your leader is, think carefully. Who are you exactly? Are you true to the values we were taught as children, to be loyal to the nation, to do right rather than wrong, to work for fairness and rights for all? Or have you chosen otherwise for whatever reason. Please think things through. We have a rotten choice, but one is worse than the other and bodes no good for our future as a nation, as Americans, for that concept will disappear. Look around, think. How could the extreme right and the extreme left find beliefs in common? Something very rotten here! When that inevitable alien comes along and asks to be taken to our leader, who will that leader be?     

People, we all need to be better. We need to stop sniping at each other. We need to stop designing programs and speeches to appeal to the level of the lowest common denominator. We must stop shrieking and shouting so we can hear each other and our inner selves cautioning us. We must put out the fires rather than feed them. Oppose, but properly, civilly, with respect. With good intentions. 

Three questions, folks. Three questions of a lifetime. What are your answers?