Some Thoughts on the Election

Apparently I never published the below - so here it is:

Last night, Barack Hussein Obama was reelected for his second term as our President.  Leading up this election, I have felt a great deal of sorrow, anger, disillusionment and overall cycism with regard to our political system and our prospects for the future as a nation.  I had formerly been an avid supporter of Obama, but watching him fight to win this election...the ads, the debates, the manipulations...I found myself deeply disappointed in him and I wondered if he wasn't just like all the rest, just with darker skin and better rhetoric.  I considered not voting at all.  And if after I went to the polls and cast my vote for Obama, I was still unclear as to my reasons for even going, being that a) I live in one of the 41 states where my vote doesn't matter (it's a Blue state, period) and b) I think our whole political system is so broken that it doesn't really matter who wins, and c) I believe that until there is a massive paradigm shift in the way we relate to one another as individuals, diverse peoples, and nations politics are pretty much irrelevant because the government will continue to be a reflection of "Me! Me! Me!" ideology.  I just knew that Mitt Romney struck me as another arrogant, self-righteous, money-centered, and narrow-minded (did I mention arrogant?) and I would be sad to see America fall back into that tired, stagnant mindset - so for whatever it was worth, I cast my vote against it.

But as I sat watching the election coverage (hours after our power had finally been restored - a whole 9 days after hurricane sandy!), I started to read about Obama, more than I ever had before.  I voted for the first time around, but truth be told, when he won that election the most meaningful aspect of it for me at the time was what it meant for America to be able to elect a black president.  I also believed he was a man of real integrity - but that was most of what I knew about him.

I wont go into all the things I learned about him both biographically and policy-wise, but I will see that between what I read and his beautiful acceptance speech, I found myself once again hopeful for this nation.  It is one thing to elect someone like Obama once; but is another to confirm, with a considerable majority, that he is the direction this country wants to continue to move in - despite a still very sick economy.

So I sit here and I reflect about what has changed in America since George Bush Jr. was elected 12 years ago, when I was not yet old enough to vote.  I think I had just recently gotten my first cell phone at that time.  People were just starting to get DSL internet, changing over from the old dial-up modems.  Dawson's Creek was still on - which I'm pretty sure was the first show for teenagers that portrayed teenagers living in a world where teen sex, masturbation, and homosexuality were no longer taboo.  And now here we are, 12 years later, and we live in a world where everyone has a smart phone, there is at least one personal of color on every sitcom, and gay marriage and medical marajuana are now legal in several states.  By the time the next presidential election comes around, my niece, who has never known a world without lightning fast internet, who's generations biggest heartthrob is somewhat racially ambiguous (I'm talking about Taylor Lautner here), and who will have grown up with a black president, will be old enough to vote.

So what is my point with all of this?  Well, maybe this age of Information that we live in now will lead to more than just narcissitic, social media addicted fat kids who never go outside to play.  Maybe the fact that the internet and all its knowledge and exposure it provides is so accessible, even in Kansas, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Mississippi (and all those other bright Red states), is causing a real change in those spending the first 1/3 of their lives in the U.S.  Maybe the Mitt Romney's of the world really are a dying breed because when they are gone, the children/grandchildren will know too much to follow blindly in their footsteps.  I'm not talking here about fiscal policy, I'm talking about a vision for the future.  A generation that considers diversity perfectly natural.  Maybe even one that views education and (dare I say) healthcare, as necissities that should be available to everyone.  Maybe they will be a generation who will have witnessed a deep recession and the mistrust of financial instituitions that resulted, as well movements like Occupy Wall Street, and they will have a different point of view about greed and America's class system then those before them.

Maybe, just maybe, we are on the verge of that massive paradigm shift so many of us have been dreaming of...

Inauguration Day & MLK's Bible

Cornell West is a professor at Union Theological Seminary (where I recently applied to get my Masters). He was a professor at Harvard before that, and for various reasons, he's kind of a BIG deal. Below he eloquently and passionately states the opinion of many true Martin followers on the president's inaugural move to be sworn in on MLK's bible. And I get it - I really do - and the sentiment is reasonable and understandable...

However, I think it's very easy to sit in a classroom or in front of one's computer and criticize the president in his ivory house, but the fact of the matter is we don't know exactly what motivated this move from President Obama. Sure, it could be just a political ploy. Or, it could be because he is the first black president, and he feels a responsibility to try to do his best to help this country move towards Martin's dream. He is a president, not a king though, so he cannot wake up one day and stop the war immediately. He cannot wake up, and all by himself, end poverty in America right here, right now. Maybe he wishes he could. Maybe he doesn't. And furthermore, what would people say about the first black president sworn in on MLK day that chose NOT to use Martin's bible? What? He doesn't think racism is an issue in this country anymore? He's gonna use some rich white guy's bible and not Martin's? Just because he's president, he thinks he's too good for Martin? So in a sense, he's damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't. I'm not saying that Obama's motivations were pure in choosing to use Martin's bible - only he and God know that. I'm just saying that maybe we could reserve our own judgment a little because maybe, just maybe, it's not exactly what Brother West thinks it is.

On Gun Control (with apologies)

Well, now i'm heated, and i'm gonna go ahead and do what i said i wasn't - i'm gonna talk about gun control (which is a merely a band aid, for a much bigger problem, but it's better than "bleeding" all over the place). You may want to abort reading this status now... 

COMMENCE RANT:
I hear a lot of people talking about how this country is founded on personal freedom and liberty, and they say that means a private citizen should have the freedom to protect themselves, their families, and their property from anyone that may want to take them by force - hence, the right to bear arms.

So first off, let's talk about that big buzzword "Freedom" for a minute. "Land of the Free", as the U.S. is called. What does it really mean to be free? I will tell you what it does not mean first: it does not mean ABSOLUTE freedom - not in this context. Absolute freedom means you can do whatever you want. Clearly this is not the case. You are not free to run naked through the streets. You are not free to play your music as loud as you want. You are not free to yell "fire" in a movie theater, etc. ...and these are just laws. I won't even go in to all the normative limitations we have on freedom. So you are not free - not really - sorry if I've bursted anyone's bubbles. But it's OK, because part of living in community and society is that it doesn't allow for absolute freedom. If you want total freedom, you can [theoretically] go into the woods, live by yourself, and do whatever the hell you want - but as long as you want the benefits of living with others, you will need to surrender a number of personal freedoms for the society to function.

The concept of "freedom" that our forefathers believed in was NOT of the absolute kind; it was freedom from OPPRESSION. It was about an individual being free to be themselves (have opinions and voice them, practice their own religion, etc.), and to reach their own potential (the pursuit of happiness). These freedoms differentiate us from oppressed nations, like Vietnam, where they cannot speak out against their corrupt government in public without fear of retaliation.

The "Bill of Rights", lists in the first amendment these freedoms which they believed to be inalienable (that is, we as human beings have a right to them by our very nature). The rest of the document contains a number of rights to protect citizens against a tyrannical or OPPRESSIVE government (including the right to bear arms). Our forefathers came from a monarchy (a dictatorship, in essence), and it was extremely important to them to ensure that the U.S. government would never be able wield its power on the people in an oppressive fashion. They were terrified of tyranny and put laws in place to protect them against their biggest fear. 

So here we are approx 250 years later, and by the grace of God, we still live in a country where we are relatively free from oppression. And there is no longer a general fear of our government changing and becoming a dictatorship. Is it possible? Sure. But not likely. And thank God that's true, because considering the size of our military, the existence of nuclear weapons, biological weapons, etc., if our government wanted to turn against the people, they are perfectly capable of doing so, regardless of how many guns our private citizens carry - we'd be screwed.

So what is our biggest fear now as a society? Probably something along of the lines of getting mugged, murdered, raped, etc. or having one of those things happen to the people we love. That is, WE ARE NOW MUCH MORE AFRAID OF EACH OTHER, THAN WE ARE OF THE GOVERNMENT. We are now looking to the government to protect us from each other. Ironic, no? 

The idea of limitations on guns is protect us from each other (sad but true). Does this also leave us unprotected against our government, should they try to oppress us? Yes. But this is a risk that is worth taking, since there is a far greater chance that one of us will be killed by a gun that at some point was legally bought and sold (making it's way into the hands of a criminal from there), than that our government will turn oppressive... want proof? Just wait 18 minutes. (That's the time between gun related deaths in the U.S. every day, on average.)

END RANT