Watershed Events in History Are Not Opportunities for Silence
I thought I’d comment on another excellent conversation I had with my mother last night. As a conservative, she is understandably perturbed by my anti-Trump position, and she asked if it wouldn’t be prudent for me to remain quiet and not rush to judgement while the evidence against him, if there is any, is gathered and analyzed.
At the time, that seemed a reasonable thing to do, but having “slept on it” I feel as follows:
It can’t be any more clear that Trump is, if nothing else, a pathological liar, that his words and that his deeds represent a clear and present danger to everyone on this planet, and that his combination of desperation and mental illness is driving him to obstruct our justice system’s attempts to remove him from office, legally and methodically, according to the mandates of the U.S. Constitution. Calling for the Chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who is heading the investigation, to be arrested for treason is an act of a frenzied would-be-dictator, and is just one more reason that no American, whether he’s a environmentalist author/consultant, or a shoe salesman or a pastry chef, should be silent at this horrific moment in U.S. history.
I should add that there are Republicans who feel just as strongly on this issue as I do. If you listen to the campaign rhetoric of people like Bill Weld and the other GOP presidential candidates, running against Trump in the primaries, it’s quite similar to my own.
At this point, Trump is no longer covert about committing felonies, e.g., asking foreign governments like the U.K., China, and Australia, as well as Ukraine for political help. He’s announcing these crimes on television and daring us to impeach him.
Sitting by and watching this happen isn’t an option for me. Whether you’re a patriotic American, or just a fair and just person, you don’t do that.
I only wish I had one tenth the intelligence and fortitude of the late Christopher Hitchens, whose thoughts on the matter are provided above.
Craig,
Whew, I bet you felt better after that rant!
But, sorry to interrupt a really hysterical tirade of abuse, however nothing you have written has any basis in reality, nor is even close to resembling evidence of any “crime’.
That’s the danger of ranting. Sure you get to vent your frustration against the elected President you dislike, but you give yourself permission to behave badly.
This is the first step down a slippery slope.
The process is quite common , used by politicians, orators etc, and even the military when training people to hate and kill.
The method is both simple and effective. First, you must convince yourself the victim of your abuse must be totally morally depraved and venal. You must “de-humanize’ your victim in order to justify your own behavior. You enemy is no longer a human being, a person like yourself, just in a different uniform, but inherently “deplorable” and unworthy of sympathy, respect or any human regard.
Once the person(or people) becomes (in your mind) “sub-human’ or without redeeming qualities, you can easily justify the most extreme persecution or violence toward them as, the rules that would normally form your moral compass , no longer apply.
This also allows you to excuse the behaviour of your comrades and fellow lynch mob hysterics. Indeed, you can even blame your victim for your own lapses in moral judgement. “The victim asked for it” you can say, or “The victim forced me, I had no alternative”.
Soon, you find yourself among pretty dubious company.
You can be ‘outraged’ by any investigation of Joe Biden and son’s corrupt activities, praise violent, racist, hooded Anti-fa thugs beating up journalists, remain silent and secretly cheer extremist fanatics like Maxine Waters, excuse Elizabeth Warren for her endless lies and deceptions,……
The list goes on, and on.
Once you have lost any sense of of objectivity, you quickly become the worst kind of dishonest advocate, a hypocrite. You now subscribe that most bankrupt of philosophies “the end justifies the means”.
You need to keep exaggerating and distorting, because once you reject objectivity, it becomes easy to lie to yourself. You may kid yourself you are a reasonable person, but once having drunk from the heady fountain of fanaticism, you are addicted.
You can no longer be satisfied with mere reality or commonsense.
Craig, I don’t write these lines with they intention to wound or insult, I write these observations in the hope my words may inspire you to return to the middle ground. Back to the garden of commonsense and objectivity.
” Abraham Lincoln said, ” Our ‘enemies’ don’t force us to become monsters, that beast lies inside every man, just waiting for an excuse to become unleashed”.
The President is not “a clear and present danger to everyone on this planet”, well not the planet the rest of us live on! (you seem to have invented your own private planet with a separate reality).
President Trump has his flaws. However, there no can be no question that a number of officials in government agencies have taken it upon themselves to covertly “resist the President and undermine his hold on office”.
These government employees are not “heroes”. Their actions are morally wrong and legally unconstitutional. Public servants must not allow an allegiance to the Democrat Party to affect their performance in public service.
The current “whistle-blower” is a registered Democrat and strong ant-Trump activist. Unfortunately, when serving the United States as a public servant, he doesn’t get a choice to serve only “democrat” Presidents. He must serve faithfully and impartially, leaving politics and policy to elected officials.
The President has broken no law. I’m the first agree his phone call was crude and direct, very undiplomatic, but it wasn’t illegal.
Rightly or wrongly, this President feels he has been unfairly persecuted by current and former government officials to force him from office by illegal means. It’s not illegal for him to use the facilities of his office to discover and expose the conspirators, in fact, it maybe his duty.
The President’s behavior may be highly unusual, and certainly not within the bounds of accepted Washington protocol, but so what? As long as his behaviour doesn’t breach the Constitution, his conduct and manners are a matter for the American people on election day.
When you continue to rant about the inequities of President Trump, while ignoring and condoning the bad behaviour of his enemies, you lose credibility.
Your other “hero’ the traitor Edward Snowden, also points to Joe Biden as a conspirator involve in a ‘cover up’ on behalf pf the Obama administration’s use foreign of governments and intelligence agents to undermine Donald Trump’s elction campaign and aid Hilary Clinton.
Why was it acceptable for Obama, Biden and Clinton, but wrong for President Trump to investigate if it occurred ?
(Perhaps you should listen more to your mother)