Insurrection Consequences

 It is imperative that Donald Trump be impeached in order that it be so recorded in history books.  There are some people who seek it for vengeance or retribution; but that is not the central issue; It is a matter of consequences.

 

What we experienced was an insurrection—no greater crime can be committed against an established government.  This cannot be swept away or minimized, it is a sacrilege that puts a dark stamp on our history, and its author must suffer consequences.

 

Trump has lied relentlessly throughout his term of office.  He was fact-checked in the media and it made no difference to him and each time, the news went on to other things.  But his last ‘Big Lie’ of a rigged election that stole the votes from him—a lie he repeated over and over—incited an insurrection.  The Capital was stormed by a raging mob sweeping through it, hunting congressmen, destroying sacred property and inflicting destruction, pain and death.

 

Throughout his presidency Trump had played loose with laws and established order.  He has no respect for truth and made grandiose claims of his superior intellect, exhibited obsessive-compulsive behavior (endless tweets) and is paranoid, claiming that the press and all but his ‘base’ is prejudices against him.  Prejudice is defined as: ‘a perceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience’.  The strong anti-Trump opinions that came to light were not due to prejudice but to his exhibited attitudes and behaviors—that does not constitute prejudice.

 

In his earlier trial for unlawful acts and abuse of power, he was impeached by the House but exonerated by a Republican Senate more concerned with retaining power than doing what was right.

 

What happened January 6, 2021 is too consequential to treat it as ‘another one of Trump’s blunders’.  Our nation’s image was damaged as the whole world watched.  It would be unjust if the perpetrator of such a heinous crime suffered no consequences.

Legal System vs Justice System

America has a legal system, not a justice system.  A legal system is tied to the letter of the law; the goal of a legal system is to win.  A justice system resides in the spirit of the law; the goal of a justice system is to reach the truth.

The impeachment trial of Donald Trump exemplifies the difference.  Everyone agrees about what he did and most agree that it was wrong; but the specific word to fit what he did was not in the constitution so he was acquitted . . . his side won!  If it had been a justice system and the goal were to reach truth; the impeachment would have been upheld.  

The letter of the law is absolute and seems to be unbendable, yet it is subject to manipulation by clever minds seeking to win at all costs.  When winning becomes the primary goal, truth and justice suffer.

In day to day living there are few if any absolutes.  Life is infinitely complex and variables effect how actions are viewed.  In this case, the actions of Donald Trump seen through the eyes of justice were wrong.  It was not merely an impulsive misjudgment on his part, it was an elaborate and long-term plan to entice a young newly elected leader, who had pledged to fight corruption, to be led—forced by circumstances—into participating in corruption.  The financial aid desperately needed by his country was being with withheld.  The truth is that this action alone is worth impeachment.

But looking further into the truth-justice issue: Trump operates as a con-man without a conscience;  his personal views alone guide his actions.  His history shows numerous unethical business deals.  Among others are those involving bankruptcy in which he protected his money while all others, from investors to the cleaning people, lost.  His misogynistic attitude was clearly captured on TV.  He blatantly lies about everything and anything and repeats the lies over and over until some folks come to believe him.  He unconscionably hurls insults and slander at anyone who opposes him.  In short, he acts more like a dictator than a president.  A democracy requires that a person of honor and integrity lead it.

Since he took office, the U.S. world standing has steadily gone down.  He disparages allies and embraces dictators.  He single-handedly has withdrawn our country from international treaties that were years in preparation.  All the world now recognizes the Climate Crisis but he denies it.  He has defamed the reputation of all institutions supporting our democracy from our intelligence agencies to the free press.

Our legal system has enabled Donald Trump to continue to ravage our country’s reputation,  there seems to be no more constraints on his behavior.  I believe it was Stephen Collins of CNN who said he has weaponized the Presidency by punishing his ‘enemies’—anyone who spoke against him.  Now he is freeing ‘criminal friends’ from their legal sentences.

It has been said by many Republicans that the Democrats have been prejudice against Trump since his inauguration.  It isn’t prejudice that motivates them but recognition that the man in power is unfit to rule.  His ‘winning’ frees him to continue to damage our Democracy.

   

Detriment to Democracy

I strongly take the position that Donald Trump is detrimental to democracy and to America.  Politically I am and have always been an independent voter.  Although I lean toward the democratic side I have voted republican at times and on two occasions wrote in a different name on presidential choice when I could not fully support either candidate.  I state this to emphasize that there are ways to evaluate other than through partisan lenses.

Trump accuses others of being prejudice, partisan and bias or on a witch-hunt to deflect from the fact that there are true reasons for opposing his presidency.  Obscuring facts is Trump’s way to confuse, distort and distract from reasonable analysis.

Prior to the 2016 election I wrote a blog titled ‘The Danger of Donald’ (11/5/16).  In it I stated: “The office of the Presidency can help or hinder the nation’s progress . . . I see the character of the one seeking office to be of prime importance . . . I looked up the word megalomaniac and found ‘delusion about one’s own power and importance and obsession with grandiose or extravagant things’ . . . Donald Trump is only after his own aggrandizement and seeks to undermine public trust in the democratic system that has led our country to greatness.  If you listen to the undertones of his rhetoric you will hear the heartbeat of a dictator.”

Now, three years later, I stand by those words.  I’ve worked in psychiatric hospitals and clinics and have encountered certifiable megalomaniacs—they believe themselves to be superior to everyone else.  They lie with impunity and have unshakable belief that their interpretation is THE truth and no factual evidence will dissuade them.  They know more than the doctors and councilors and know they are beyond all laws and normal justice, for they are a law unto themselves.  People are only pawns for their purposes.  Their skill at manipulation leaves people of normal intelligence confused and sometimes doubting themselves.  

Think of some of Trumps public statements—about his knowing more that anyone else (diplomats, lawyers, military officers).  He brags about his own superlative intelligence and impeccable wisdom, of his being the only one who can ‘fix it’ (broken America), that he is the country’s greatest president and has done more good than anyone else in office.  (Google 50 outrageous Trump quotes)  Those kinds of statements don’t come from the mouth of a normal intelligent and respected man.

This man is a compulsive liar, he is incapable of apologizing, he lack integrity, and he is both amoral and immoral.  He insults and degrades anyone who questions or challenges him, he lack restraint and regularly and maliciously libels his perceived enemies.

A president carries the image of America to the greater world—he has sullied the image of our nation.  He has made concerted efforts to denigrate all of the institutions that underpin our democracy, beginning with our free press (fake news), other aspects of governing (FBI, CIA, etc.), the military (he knows more than the generals), our form of voting (it’s rigged).  He has withdrawn our nation from signed treaties agreed upon with other nations for global protection, and his most recent outrageous single handed decision was to withdraw protection from the Kurds—our strongest ally in the fight against ISIS—leaving them to be slaughtered by the Turks and ceding control to Russia.

To say this man, Donald Trump, is a danger is an understatement.  This is not a partisan issue; this is a problem we all must open our eyes to regardless of political party.  

This is a quote from Time Magazine (7/8/19); from the Southern Baptist Convention 1998: ‘Resolution on Moral Character by leaders of Public office:  . . . Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawn unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in society . . .” 

I am not a Baptist but I commend that statement and suggest everyone read it carefully.

Of Morality

There is much talk these days about our nation having lost its moral authority—of abandoning the ideals that made this nation great.  A threatened loss of something taken for granted makes us realize its importance.

Our previous administration was clearly focused upon what is commonly called the ‘greater good’—that which benefits the greatest number of people or the human race in general.  The current administration has systematically reversed almost every prior initiative taken in health care, climate change, immigration reform, clean energy, involvement with international organizations, and the use of diplomacy in conflict resolution.  How is that NOT shocking?

A few brave Republicans have put principles above party and spoken out against Donald Trump’s fitness to be president and proclaimed him a danger to our democracy.  There is a new book out to which 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts have contributed, titled The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump has no respect for truth, he lies uncontrollably and winning by whatever means is the only value he holds.  He gives all indications of being amoral.  Amoral is defined as: lacking a moral sense; one unconcerned with rightness or wrongness of something.  --This also is the definition of a sociopath.

In our secular world we don’t talk too much about morality any more, but I want to make some comments about morality.  First, a few definitions:

     --principles concerning the distinction between right & wrong, good & bad

     --values and principles of conduct/behavior

     --the extent to which an action is right or wrong.

Morality is uniquely human.  We share many qualities with other animals, but morality is the hallmark of the human species.  It arises from reflective awareness, the highest level of consciousness.  It is the expression of the god quality inherent in us.  We can only be fully human when morality becomes central to our choice making.  We have the great gift of free will and that means equal access to good and evil.  We are called to make the free choice for the good—therein do we approach God.

The secular society has tried to regulate behavior through legality.  The law is necessary as foundational to civilization but without the injection of morality into the decision-making, legality dissolves into nit-picking fine points of laws and manipulating them to win a dispute.  Law is of the ‘without’, morality is of ‘the within’; both must be considered to arrive at justice.

Anyone without a sense of moral order is unfit to lead a nation.

Women's March 2017

This past weekend I drove 200+ miles from mid-Florida to Atlanta Georgia and back again, for the privilege of taking part in the Women’s March of 2017.

The initial plan for this event was to protest the election of Donald Trump—who for many reasons is seen to be the wrong person to lead our country—it grew to become the awakened voice of women around the world calling for peace and justice.  It was a phenomenon of epic proportions: an estimated five million people from around the world took to the streets on all seven continents in peaceful demonstrations of solidarity for human rights, women’s rights and justice—such had never happened before.

For centuries the voice of women has been silenced and the world order has been held firmly in the hands of strong aggressive males—which had led us here and now to the brink of possible world annihilation.  Trump’s hyperbolic male approach that dictates winning at any cost through force and aggression, using crude and malicious insults, divisive dark threats and lies, continuous self-aggrandizement . . . women rose up to say with their presence, “wait a minute, this is wrong, Trump wants to lead the nation and world in a direction we don’t want to go”.

This was not a march just of women, not only for women, but a show of solidarity among women, men and children of all races and creeds to insist that our leaders make choices for a better, more sustainable and peaceful world for all people. 

In 2017 women found their voice on the world stage, “it is time to acknowledge we ARE One World!”

Our Global World

The Age of Nations is past, the task before us now,

If we would not perish, is to build the earth.

                                                                                                      Teilhard de Chardin

It is not easy to see and acknowledge that we are one world, interconnected and interdependent, but that IS the reality: earth is one tiny unit in this vast universe that will survive or perish by the human choices made.  To say we live in a global world is somehow threatening because it has political connotations which can be used divisively to make people want to retreat to ‘their own corner’ and protect themselves against ‘other’.

That protectionism is the strategy that was used successfully by Donald Trump to win the election.  His slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ has a subtly implied anti-world view, a nationalism that sets us apart at the ‘top of the heap’.  Throughout the campaign he carried a slightly different message to each group, bringing their fears and prejudices forward invoking a ‘them’ as enemy, saying he alone held the answer.  There was no message of unity or hope, no strategic plan, just fabricated lies about the opposition (the ‘enemy’, “lock her up”) and the fantasy that, given the power and authority, he could/would ‘fix it’.

There are reasons for the alarm being felt by many in this country and around the world—Trump has duped the American public.  While claiming to be for the average working citizen he was primarily in it for his own aggrandizement.  He is now building his cabinet with billionaires and planning to tear down the advances made for improvements in our country’s health care system and reverse the steps taken to improve the environment of the planet.  Without providing an alternate plan, Trump’s expressed intent is to repeal Obama care, and consider privatizing Medicare.  His choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is Scott Pruitt a fierce EPA critic, climate change denier, and is closely linked to the oil industry.

Trump’s multiple real-estate holdings all over the world makes conflict of interest unavoidable and that is not amended by appointing his children to run the business.  He has been openly disdainful of: government (“the system is broken”), our voting system (“its rigged”), studied intelligence (“I know more than the generals”)—undermining the public’s faith in our democracy.  Beyond that he is also disdainful of verbal restraint, diplomacy and protocol, as well as facts and honesty.  As president, Trump’s cavalier attitude toward truth weakens the moral fiber of our country.  His arrogance is astounding!  His expressed admiration for Putin as a “strong leader” gives evidence to his penchant for authoritarianism.

Everything about Trump’s approach is a step backwards to less enlightened times.  All scientific evidence confirms Global Warming and warns of the advancing unprecedented crisis that can only be averted by unified action; yet he claims climate change is a hoax and plans to curtail green energy development while expanding reliance upon fossil fuel.

The human species has developed the ability to destroy our world in many ways, the most catastrophic way being with atomic weapons . . . those weapons have already been produced and awaiting the finger willing to push the button—that specter makes working toward cooperation between nations a necessity.  These are perilous times.  Cooperative interaction used to be optional, but daunting though it may be, in the 21^st Century it is mandatory. 

Earth, the common home to us all is the only world we’ve got, protecting it is paramount for continuation of the human species.  To ignore the perils facing it is blasphemy.  Stirring divisive nationalism and shamelessly promoting exclusive self-interest above global concerns while justifying withdrawal of support from international globally conscious organizations is heresy!

It may not be easy to accept that planet earth is one interconnected, interacting, interdepended world, but that is the reality . . . and its survival as a habitable planet depends upon our recognition of that.   

Election 2016 -- appraisal

I’ve not been able to simply put election 2016 aside.  I’ve been feeling alternately agitated, tearful or numb.  My sleep is erratic.  Surely this is not the first time the candidate I favored lost the election—but this time it is different.  It feels as if some deep dark covered-over menace has been unleashed . . . as if we’ve lived behind pleasant-faced masks that have suddenly been ripped off to expose ugliness.  I know from others that the unrest I speak of is widespread.  Whatever this is, it didn’t begin with the primaries—but the vicious campaign brought it fully to light.  As I look back I ask, “How did it show itself before the campaign?”  “What is the bigger underlying flaw?” 

The most recent indicator was congress’ refusal to bring a vote forward for the Supreme Court nominee in spite of the Constitutional requirement to do so.  It was the culmination of the Republican’s having made it a policy to oppose anything coming out of Obama’s White House.  Prior to the last election, the Republican Party had avowed that its main goal was to make sure Obama didn’t win a second term—when they didn’t achieve that goal but won a majority in Congress, they set out to block every initiative of his.  It was total disrespect of him, the country’s first black president, and so too for the office of president.  A conscious decision to stop our government from functioning for partisan and/or prejudicial reasons is evil.

The wisdom of two-party governance is to insure that extremes are curtailed by the necessity of compromise.  Stonewalling disabled the system, resulting in extreme polarization that paralyzed government.  Attitudes in high places have a way of spreading.  More and more people became dissatisfied with their lot and looked for a scapegoat, slipping into an ‘us vs. them’ mentality.

From the very beginning of the primaries, Donald Trump took the position of all-out no-holds-barred attacks with personal insults, innuendoes, bear-faced lies and bombastic proclamations.  Clearly he believed ‘the ends justify the means’—utterly defying decorum, truth, and human decency—because for him, winning is all that matters!  His theatrics won media attention, and ultimately the nomination.

As candidate his cry became, “The system is broken!”  Without analysis of the roots of the problem he pointed a finger of blame at the opposition while making the outrageous claim, “Only I can fix it!”  Then appealing to every prejudice and issue of unease throughout the country, he fanned the fires of unrest, resulting in much vengeance voting, not a vote for something but against someone.

But why was the country ripe for such blatant manipulation? 

There are numerous outside forces that contribute to the unrest and anxiety: near national financial disaster (from which Obama saved us), the Middle East chaos causing a refugee crisis, global terrorism, climate anomalies reeking death and destruction—yes, but those are the outside factors; something within our culture has gone awry . . .  To even the most casual observer above the age of 40, there seems to be agreement that in the last half century, society has exhibited moral decline; erasing the lines between good & bad, right & wrong, virtue & evil.

You cannot successfully run a country (or a family) without having an identifiable standard of acceptable behavior.  Throughout time, regardless of the name assigned to the deity, it was understood that a god-principle set standards of behavior and the standards were rooted in morality. 

As America was being formed, religion was an important element of social order.  There were many different beliefs and practices, but the concept of ‘a God’ was common to all.  Our nation was founded on moral principles and the belief that God underscored the rights and freedoms we possess . . . ‘endowed by the Creator with certain Unalienable Rights’ . . . The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson.  References to God were prominent as the elements of governing were worked out—even the money minted carries the words “In God We Trust”.  In schools it was traditional to begin each day with a simple prayer.

In 1962 a law was passed to ban prayer from public schools.  There followed the removal of any religious symbols from government buildings (i.e. The Ten Commandments from courthouses), and prayer was eliminated at official gatherings.  The Constitution guaranteed the freedom of religious worship but the new interpretation became freedom from rather than freedom of.  Amendment 1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

To prohibit public prayer by law is to give a message of denial of value, maybe even to suggest negative value.  In its wake, for many, God faded, became irrelevent and was ignored. Religion has provided the foundation of moral order and prayer is a means to remind us.  It was denied by the state without providing another identifiable standard of acceptable behavior—and that is the flaw that opened the door to moral decline—and Trump was waiting to walk through it.

The Danger of Donald

I begin by stating: “Donald Trump is dangerous”.

I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican—rather, a life-long Independent who has voted both ways depending on the candidate.  In past campaigns I have sometimes felt relatively neutral and sometimes vigorously supportive toward a candidate, but I have never before experienced this intense negative visceral reaction that I have toward Donald Trump.  I set out to try to understand why, listening to every debate, looking up information and reading widely about each candidate.

The office of the presidency can help or hinder the nation’s progress, but in the system of Democracy it cannot single-handedly impose personal control.  Not total control, but the single greatest personal influence possible.  Because it exerts such influence, I see the character of the one seeking office to be of prime importance.  Character is what shows over a lifetime—the focus of one’s passion.

All institutions, including those of government, are not without flaws—yet it is through institutions that the mass of humanity can be ordered, producing civilization.  Remove systems of order and we have chaos.  When the basic institution is solid (as with Democracy) the call is to amend the flaws that become obvious, not disparage the system and insight overthrow.

Donald Trump is dangerous.  He gives no plan for improving the system of government; he beats his chest and says, “Only I can fix it!”  He insults the military and says, “I know more than the generals”.  He expresses admiration for Russia’s Putin saying, “He is a strong leader!”

I looked up the word ‘megalomaniac’ and found: ‘obsession with exercise of power, especially in the dominance of others’, and ‘delusion about one’s own power or importance’, and ‘obsession with grandiose or extravagant things.’

Donald Trump has already done damage to the American psyche . . . He has lowered the standard of public debate with blatant insults and unfounded accusations, slandering his opponents and leading to an overall coarsening of the dialogue.  While other candidates too have sunk to a lower lever, he unquestionably ‘led the charge’.  He has fanned hatred and discrimination and engendered doubt in our governing and voting systems with, “The system is broken” followed by the claim, “Only I can fix it” and shouting over and over “it is rigged, it is a rigged system” preparing an excuse for himself should he lose.  His hunger for personal power is a danger to Democracy.

Donald Trump is only after his own aggrandizement and seeks to undermine public trust in the democratic system that has led our country to greatness.  If you listen to the undertones of his rhetoric you will hear the heartbeat of a dictator.

Please give careful thought before you vote—Donald Trump is dangerous!