I originally planned to write a little something about the disturbing events that took place at the Capitol the other day. However, the more I tried, the more vitriolic I became, and that was not my intention.
As I put pen to paper, I thought about my childhood. How boundaries, rules and limits are integral to everything we do in life from scheduling a calendar, to managing a business, raising a child and the running of a government. An overgrown garden, like an indulged child, can destroy the most beautiful landscape, and an undisciplined government can ruin a country.
Many people of late have been behaving like bratty children running wild with with their foul mouths and unruly behavior. I was disgusted to see rioters the other day wearing shirts imprinted with Nazi slogans. I think the idea of Freedom has been bastardized. It reminds me of horrid little children who cried ‘child abuse’ back in the 1990s and stripped teachers of their livelihood for patting a child’s shoulder to express encouragement. (Yes, I know people that happened to!)
To allow someone to drag our flag upside down and across the floor, to speak the most horrible, defamatory words to our elected government officials, to desecrate our hallowed halls with excrement-this boggles my mind. I lived in a time when Playboy magazine had to be wrapped in brown paper, men didn’t curse in front of ladies, and I could not wear a skirt to school if the length was above my knee! We didn’t whine about it or take it to court. We just tucked in our chins and saved the ire for the things that really mattered.
We have been shocked for decades about school shootings, but what have we done about it? We lamented police brutality even as we looked away because it didn’t affect us directly. We allowed pharmaceutical companies to peddle their poisons and destroy millions of lives because our ‘markets’ were producing as a result of their profits. We allowed corporations to dictate policy as if they were people. I could go on and on. We say we’ve worked hard to erase prejudice, but one of the biggest dividers of our country is now embodied in a couple of primary colors.
We lie like a rug-to our country, to one another, and to ourselves. Some of our media outlets lie because of the sponsors that support them. The lies beget misinformation, confusion, and distrust.
Our Congress lies because they are beholden to large corporations and lobbyists. They’re not all like that, thank goodness. They try to get their bills passed and support their constituents, but they are forced to accept a patchwork quilt of compromises. The ones that tell the truth and fight for the American people are either newly elected, threatened with harm, unable to raise capital for their election, vilified for their courage, forced to flee like rats off a sinking ship or resign because they just can’t take it anymore.
Our elected officials debate the Constitution ad nauseum as if they are asking it permission to do their jobs and when they do not like the answer, they debate some more. Or write another report. Or create another committee. They are not acting like the leaders we need them to be but rather like the permissive parents of unruly children who wring their hands and lament that if they are the ones to dole out the punishment, no one will love (donate to/vote for) them.
And now they are afraid. The little lion cub has grown up. The rest of the world doesn’t look at us with the same tolerance because we are only 244 years old.
We are two-hundred and forty-four years old!
We are not babies anymore.
Hillary Volk, Invoking the Muse 