For Crying Out Loud!

When confronted with the character flaws of the person she supported for president in the 2024 election, one person I know replied that we are all sinners, all flawed. Equally flawed? Does character not matter then in elected officials? Do past acts committed not matter? Then anyone might as well be considered “qualified,” and we might as well draw names at random to fill government offices. Why bother with campaigns and voting? 

Several months into the administration led by one of us flawed sinners, we now have unidentified men, masked and armed, abducting people off the streets in the name of the United States government and transporting them to prisons and/or detention facilities without due process. We are told that these men must be masked to protect their identities because threats have been made against their lives. By this logic, state governors, members of Congress, governors of states, judges in courtrooms, journalists—there is no end to the people whose identities should be hidden because threats have been made against their lives! 

People who go into law enforcement or into the military choose careers that involve risk. If we are to know and trust them, we need to know who they are. We need to be able to see them--as fellow human beings. And they need to see others as fellow human beings, also. Do they? 

A friend retired from law enforcement downstate says he cannot imagine how the public would have reacted if he and fellow police officers had initiated traffic stops wearing face masks rather than badges. A certain public person objecting to the new practice (and sorry, I can’t remember who it was) said the ICE officers looked as if they were setting out to rob liquor stores. Sure does! And it makes sense that people doing that want to hide their faces. 

Bank robberies, liquor store robberies, etc. are “traditionally” performed with faces hidden. Are these government employees and their bosses all too well aware that they are the serious law-breakers?

If You Must Tell Lies –

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The other day I went down a rabbit hole, as people say these days, chasing the ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” That’s the wording I remember from Sunday school days, the explanation we were given simply that lying was wrong. 

 

Newer translations online give the Biblical text as “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” and while some internet sites read the commandment as forbidding any false statement, others, even religious ones, claim that the commandment is not about lying in general but only requires that we refrain from giving false testimony about another. I’ll leave it to you to go down your own rabbit hole(s), if you find the prospect inviting.

 

For the moment, however, for the sake of discussion, let us accept the narrower interpretation. I have personal misgivings about allowing even “harmless” falsehoods, as in ordinary situations, dishonesty does nothing good for relationships, but for now, let that go and agree – for the sake of argument or discussion -- that I can lie about my age with impunity, and you can lie about your natural hair color, but we are all forbidden by the commandment to speak falsehoods against our neighbors. 

 

The next obvious question becomes, Who is to count as my neighbor? Only someone who lives in my immediate neighborhood? Someone I know? Someone I like?

 

The Jewish people are told in Leviticus to remember always that they were once slaves in Egypt and should therefore treat “the stranger among you” as one born in their land, a neighbor, while anyone who claims to be Christian and a follower of Jesus should recall the parable of the Good Samaritan and its message that even our enemies are our neighbors and should be loved as we love ourselves. 

 

Telling harmful lies about another person is slander, defamation of character, and constitutes grounds for lawsuit, whether the words are spoken on the witness stand or in the street. (On the witness stand, it is also perjury.) And when such lies – about entire groups of people -- are spoken publicly and widely disseminated, putting the slandered at risk for their very lives, how can a candidate for any public office, how can any public person whatsoever, claim justification for such lies because, for instance, lies about Haitian immigrants in this country legally “brought attention to the legitimate issue of illegal migration”? No!  

 

No! The Republican candidate for vice president claims to be a Catholic and has borne false witness against his neighbors. He also possesses a degree in law and is guilty of slander. This is not a matter of taking something out of context, as the context is public and broad, and his attempted justification has been publicly given. Going to confession does not undo the harm he has caused. He is unfit for any public office at any level. 

 

Moral of my story: If you must lie, lie about your age, your weight, your hair color – in short, lie about yourself, not someone else, and keep your lies trivial, please, IF YOU MUST LIE AT ALL. -- But really, is it necessary? Is it good for you? Do your words and actions align with what you claim are your beliefs? At issue is what is called character.

We Should Not Be Wall-Builders, Either

[What do you do when you can't sleep? I read and write.]

Saturday Morning Reflections

We who do not want to see a physical wall built between our country and Mexico must be careful not to build a social wall between ourselves and the Americans whose different views and votes carried the day on Tuesday, because “They” are not a homogeneous block but a diverse group, with diverse reasons for voting as they did.

·     Some are party loyalists and would have voted for the Republican candidate whoever he or she had been, and a certain segment of Republican party loyalists are of the all-government-is-bad stripe. (Ideologically, they are libertarians.) This group will always vote their ideology.

·     Others are one-issue voters (e.g., anti-abortion). One friend told me her group of Catholic women friends fall into this camp. All other issues, all other statements were unimportant to them.

·     Some “liked some of what he had to say” (e.g., “he talked about jobs”) enough that they could somehow set aside the rest. One woman told me she tried, in looking at both candidates, to set aside personality and character and look only at issues. Apparently there were people who could do that.

·     A very large segment flocked to the Republican Party because they had been feeling invisible and the Republican candidate paid attention to them. Most of the people in this group (amazingly! This came out in post-election coverage) won’t even care all that much if he fails to make good on his promises. Mobilization of the overlooked (overlooked by media and by mainstream politicos alike) is the #1 explanation favored by mainstream journalists in the election aftermath. I say it is significant, but it can only serve, in my view, as one explanation among others. We human beings crave simple explanations, but life is not always simple. Yes, this is an important factor (and we must all draw a lesson from it), but it is not the only factor.

·     Don’t forget that many who supported Bernie Sanders in the primary voted Republican in the election! Crossover vote from Democrat to Republican accounts for people (1) who believe that American workers have not benefited from trade agreements (I did NOT cross over, but I also believe that the agreements have benefited corporations at the expense of workers both at home and abroad; NAFTA was my biggest disappointment of the Bill Clinton administration) and (2) who want a president not beholden to the status quo.

·     Even the anti-Hillary contingent cannot be dismissed simply as anti-woman or anti-feminist. I voted for her but have never fully trusted either of the Clintons since NAFTA. Be honest, my dear fellow feminists: was she your ideal candidate? Not mine, but I voted for her because I mistrusted her opponent far, far more on almost every issue and could not stomach his behavior or rhetoric.

·     This brings us to racism and sexism and bigotry of all kinds. Undoubtedly, those played a part, and undoubtedly racism persists in this country, as does sexism and homophobia and xenophobia, etc. Unfortunately, too, the worst segment of that contingent now feels it has a mandate to act out its hate. And no, we cannot stand back in silence, and we cannot hide fearfully in our homes. We must oppose hatred and bigotry and persecution wherever we find them. But it’s important we not characterize half our country’s population on the basis of what I have to believe is a minority splinter contingent.

Nothing in my list above is meant to excuse odious speech or behavior on the part of the candidate or any of his supporters.

But now, two conclusions I hope you will share with me: First, supporters of the new president-elect cannot be dismissed as a monolithic demonic army of hate-mongers. And second, to prevent the social disintegration we so deeply fear it is important that we not build walls that would escalate divisions and turn our beloved country into warring camps.

President Obama never fails to amaze me, and he and the First Lady, Michelle, are the examples I would have us take for our own. We need to do as they have always done and continue to do: to oppose bigotry and hatred at every opportunity, to continue to listen to others, to demand and bestow respect for and on human beings, and to model the behavior we want to see surrounding us. I hope and fervently pray that the hour and a half the president-elect spent with the president the other day will have a lasting and beneficial effect on the future behavior of the man who will next inhabit the White House. I also hope, (somewhat desperately, I must admit: these are ugly, frightening times) that the president-elect will be inspired speak out publicly to rein in the worst behavior of his supporters. The sooner, the better. In fact, I hope it will have already happened before this post goes online.