Oh for men like Washington, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Kennedy, Eisenhower, the Bushes and Obama. Oh for the time when embarrassment existed and men would resign when their honor was impugned, when character and self esteem were self-imposed qualifications for leadership.
There was also a time when the electorate as a whole analyzed matters, weighed policies, tested them against the national interest, and recognized charlatans and poseurs early in the game. A time when folks didn’t follow like lemmings over the cliff.
There was also a time when competitors in sports or politics accepted the referees’ decisions, shook hands and walked away, planning to fight another day. Alas, no more.
Now we threaten to beat up the referee, to tear up the field and the pavilions, to desecrate the hallowed halls, to search for our opponents, and when we can’t locate them, we pose like Neanderthals in their chairs after defecating in corners.
It’s unfortunate that so few of us grew up not learning about Guy Fawkes. Perhaps that’s not too bad, for our behavior might have been the same, thus making us more culpable.
And after it all, the foot soldiers when cornered like rats, and have to face the constitutional consequences, beg like pitiless fools for clemency, trying to tell us that they didn’t know that what they were engaged in was grave, actually pleading to the sentencing judges not to deny them the opportunity to take their young children to school and to meet them in the afternoon when they are dropped off by the school bus. Can you imagine that we are producing folks who literally would try to disrupt and prevent the peaceful transfer of power in the fountain spring of modern democracy and not expect to receive the full brunt of the law?
Those were the foot soldiers, but who were leading these underlings. The courts are now trying to sort this out, but this will be no easy task. The purported leaders are lawyering up with the best and brightest legal minds available, and are presenting every legal maneuver in the game, to obfuscate and delay their day in court and at what level of the legal system they will be tried. Isn’t it instructive that the accused are now using all the identifiable constitutional protections for the “innocent until proven guilty”, trying to defend themselves against attempting to subvert that very system?
In the face of all this only a handful of elected Republicans are willing to denounce President 45. The leaders of this Grand Old Party have chosen to stand idly by and watch their Party fall into oblivion for at least the next twenty years in spite of their awareness that our democracy needs two parties to function efficiently. For some reason they are scared to death of opposing President 45.
Irvine Weekes.
09/01/2023.
Comments