Month: July 2020

Ever notice when one news station uses what seems a new phrase, every news station picks it up. One of the most recent is “re-imagining’ the police”. Imagine that? Well I imagine this as a call to fictionalize an occupation made up of individuals we call police, an organized multifaceted institution to keep law and order in a town, city, county, state or country. In the history of this law enforcement body there have been times in various places in our country when through the efforts of police and even federal officers themselves, corruption has been brought to light and routed out.

It is true in the human condition nothing is perfect: free of injustice, prejudice, hate; in fact, every inhuman vice we can name. However, what the current and so obviously well organized protests nationwide is not about is routing out such things through reasonable channels but creating more chaos than already exists. Think of spending fifty days camped out on the streets of Seattle: yelling, burning, disrupting the life of innocent citizens, destroying the property and rights of others. And also doing so with the protection of the mayor with the police prevented from restoring peace by arresting law breakers.

There is something going on beneath the surface that is perhaps diabolical fueled by forces concealed and disguised as good deceiving decent altruistic, mostly young people of all races. These are victims of the imagination gone wild. Someone suggested that instead of the Star Spangled Banner we should change our national anthem to John Lennon’s song Imagine. You might want to look up the lyrics. One of the things it imagines is a world without religion. Is this in fact what this whole movement is about after all?

What is liberty? Is it destroying someone else’s peace and freedom because our own is sadly damaged? Is it dividing for any reason: white from black, men from women, rich from poor, young from old etc, etc. No it is not. The division we need to recognize is truth from lies, love from hate. Would any of those who are tearing down the history of our country opt to live in Hong Kong and exchange places with one of its residents as their freedom is being swiftly taken from them against their will? In 1997 after living under British rule Hong Kong officially returned to China with a sort of grace period when they continued to live with freedoms they were accustomed to having.

Now the Chinese government has rescinded those freedoms sending in thousands of military troops. The generation that inhabit the country grew up in a free society where they owned businesses, prospered financially and enjoyed a respected place in the world marketplace. Many saw what was coming under the rule of communism as it exists on mainland China. Their parents and grandparents generation escaped to Hong Kong to avoid what many saw as bondage.

Here in the US there has arisen a kind of liberty that chooses to destroy our history and to forget our country has already passed trough a revolution to become free of British taxation, a civil war to end slavery, and the rise of each new group of immigrants attaining their potential. It used to be said our greatness lie in the idea of a great mix, a melting pot. It still is true. Greatness comes from individuals living and working not in receiving their reward on a silver platter of government handouts. The problem with dependence on government is that dependency limits our liberties; communism is a brand of evening out so that everyone shares equally but in reality the wealth and power is in the hands of a few and liberty is a victim of the systematic removal of rights.