Stop Signs
As I was driving on unfamiliar streets on a recent trip, I thought about how much I rely on other drivers to follow the same traffic rules that I do. I assume, as I approach a 4-way stop, that almost all of the time, the other cars will also stop and let whoever got there first go through in an orderly manner. I realize I still have to look both ways and check, but I have a fair degree of confidence that I will be safe if I proceed as I have been taught.
We have certain societal and cultural norms that make life safer and more pleasant. If every car drove at whatever speed the driver wanted, and used whichever lane they liked best, and approached intersections in unpredictable ways, I would be terrified to go out. It helps all drivers, as well as pedestrians and cyclists, to have some predictability in our behavior. For my life so far, this has been a given. People who drive have to pass a written and a road test and have a valid license to operate safely in a community. While not 100% reliable, and while there are some bad drivers who are inattentive or under the influence of alcohol or illness, these are the exceptions.
Likewise, air safety relies on pilots understanding and obeying air traffic controllers. If planes tried to take off and land wherever and however they chose, air travel would be extremely unsafe and impractical. .jpg)
But now, with the Trump administration in office, many of my assumptions about societal norms have been challenged. I thought it was not acceptable to use certain words in public, especially if one is a public figure. When I see the president saying “F* you” to a heckler, and then White House press office saying it was an appropriate response, it bothers me. I could go through a litany of norm-shattering incidents in the past year, from Cabinet officers lying to members of House and the Senate during formal hearings; to pardoning convicted violent criminals and drug smugglers; to removing historically accurate information from official websites and museums; to destroying public health protections and undermining safe medical practices.
The current administration is so far removed from the realities of day-to-day life that they can’t see the damage they are doing. The president’s motorcade can ignore traffic signals. He travels in an armored limousine with Secret Service vehicles surrounding it. He doesn’t have to worry about someone running a red light. When Air Force One or the government planes used by senior officials take flight, they get priority over everyone else and can operate on their own schedule and with their own rules. They don’t have to endure flight delays or circling an airport waiting for a gate to become available.
Each individual act has consequences that I don’t like. Together they undermine our fundamental societal structure. Our governmental system operates based, in principle, on the people giving consent to chosen individuals to wield power on our behalf – of the people, for the people. When those in power recognize or fear that the people no longer consent or support the actions they are taking, they resort to lying, misinformation, withholding files, stonewalling court orders, and ultimately violence against citizens, in order to hold onto the power they were initially granted. This is very dangerous.
And so, on MLK Day, I express gratitude to all who are standing up for what is real, for what is right, and using what power and privilege we have to push back on these dangerous behaviors, policies, and practices. We still have power. We need to use it to vote, but that isn’t enough. We need to step up now, to keep stepping up now, before it gets worse. Kudos to those in frigid Minnesota who are resisting illegal ICE kidnappings and violence. Kudos to all of us who have stood on street corners with signs and slogans and chants. Kudos to all who have been able to provide funding to legal resistance efforts and to provide food and support to families impacted by ICE raids. We need to keep it up, make it bigger, and just say “NO” as loudly as we can to so-called leaders who are putting their personal insecurities, dementia, power lust, and egos above the needs of the people they purport to serve. May it be so.
It is not a new idea. But it matters now more than ever. WE THE PEOPLE hold the power. We can run for office, we can educate ourselves about who is running for office at every level – school boards, local government, all the way up the chain. We can get involved in political party bureaucracy and try to influence the choices of who runs and who gets funding and other types of support.
There may not be many Republicans who read this blog, but I wish there were more courageous Republicans who would work to take back the reins of their party. It would be good for the country to have a diversity of viewpoints within the fundamental framework of our constitutional democracy. How can we engage and empower all eligible voters to have their views and values represented and their rights protected? We need to offer more choices across the political spectrum. I’m not anti-Republican as I used to understand the Republican Party. I disagreed with many of their positions, but as President Biden said in the State of the Union address, “you can’t love your country only when you win.” I’m proud to have been a civil servant in both Democratic and Republican administrations in my years in Washington.
What to do? It takes leadership and time to move us into more productive waters. We first need to do everything possible to make voting safe and secure; to support and protect election officials who are essential in performing this sacred duty. Then we need to encourage and support good candidates from both parties who demonstrate integrity and a commitment to serve for the common good, not for personal power.
Help register people to vote. Offer to work at voting centers. Join a civic organization and learn about the role of different offices and work to elect people you trust. Donate money to candidates and organizations that are working to promote your views and values. Among other things, I have written over 3000 postcards to voters across the country in elections at all levels of government to encourage them to vote. It is vital to VOTE in every election you are eligible for. You vote is your voice. It matters. For the sake of my granddaughter, I have to believe it’s not too late!
I slightly modified this quote from Robert F. Kennedy (not junior) to be more inclusive. He said, “Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
The service featured a talk by the leader of a local social service agency that supports victims of domestic violence, homelessness, and food insecurity. We talked about how this leader, and front-line social service workers in general, sustain their mental, physical, and spiritual health while working every day with people who are struggling, and the role that faith plays.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
Wendell Berry said, “The old and honorable idea of ‘vocation’ is simply that we each are called, by God, or by our gifts, or by our preference, to a kind of good work for which we are particularly fitted.”
And the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
I just spent a lovely week at a health resort in Tecate, Mexico, with 50 or 60 other guests. One of the people I met early in the week was a recently first-time elected official I’ll call Serena. We bonded/commiserated over the privilege and challenge of public service and shared some of the high and low points in our political journeys.
When I revealed that I had been elected to public office and served for four years, or when Serena shared her job title, people were very interested, very concerned about the state of our democracy, and very appreciative of our having stepped up to run for office. But most were not at all engaged themselves, other than keeping up with the news. While it has been more than a decade since I was elected, and I have done many other things since then, this piece of my resume seemed of most interest. And I still feel the need and desire to continue advocating for greater civic engagement from everyone. My new friend and I probably said to someone at every single meal, or to the whole table if they were listening, that they should get involved, run for office, volunteer for a commission, or at least actively support good candidates, including after they get elected.
Another rule is to have each other’s back. If a scene is floundering, someone else can step in and support the storyline, or redirect it so it works. In public office, this is also essential. Most people only speak out when they’re unhappy about a situation. They write angry letters to the editor or post comments on social media or just gripe to their friends. That’s ok, but it’s also important to acknowledge what is going well. Let an elected official know that you appreciate their vote on that issue you care about. Write an op-ed supporting your local government when they fix a problem. If there is unfair criticism in a community paper or public social media site, chime in and set the record straight, or at least offer a different point of view.
In fact, if this website designer specialized in messaging that reflected her conservative evangelical “Christian” views, she would be an unlikely choice for a same-sex couple seeking a wedding website. And in fact, the case was basically made up. The plaintiff had not started her website business nor turned down any same-sex clients. Nobody was trying to force her to offer messages she disagreed with. All she would have been required to do, before this ruling, was to offer whatever business she was in to anyone who chose to hire her. So if she only offered websites strewn with messages about love between a man and a woman, and only had designs that showed heterosexual couples, no existing law would have required her to change her artistic offerings. Clearly the Supreme Court majority was just looking for an excuse to undo existing precedent about nondiscrimination in public accommodations. So sad, so unnecessary.
I am glad to see challenges to abortion restrictions based on Jewish teachings, and I was amused when parents in Utah objected to the Bible being in school libraries because it contained lewd and violent content that violated restrictions intended to ban books with more progressive content. [That decision was quickly reversed after parent protests … hypocrisy is alive and thriving …]
But all of this is a huge waste of time and money, to say nothing of the suffering of people who just want to live their lives, get an education, plan a wedding, and read books of their choice. We don’t live in a zero-sum game, despite many folks acting like we do. Helping those in need does not diminish the rest of us – it makes all of us better. Making books available that represent the diversity of our society helps everyone feel seen and respected. Parents still get to choose what books their young children check out, and they can choose whether or not to bring their children to a drag show.
So I return to my main message, my perpetual message: we get the kind of government and the kind of society that we choose, either by our action or our inaction. If you think these issues are important, please get involved. Find out who’s on your local school board and work to elect those who support your values. Get involved in local, state, and national campaigns. Contact current elected officials, and work to get good people into office. We can change course. We can make reforms to the Supreme Court like term limits, and we can do better if we work together.
I learned in school that our system of government is based on the idea that we grant power through our electoral system. Every citizen is entitled to vote for the candidates that best represent that voter’s preferences, and the candidates who earn the most votes are entrusted with certain powers according to the office to which they were elected. In the legislative bodies, whether a local city council or the US Senate, laws are enacted and policies adopted based on majority rule – the ideas that have the support of the majority of elected officials in that body become part of our societal and legal framework. When I was on the city council in my town, I could vote on budgets and zoning changes and capital investments within the limits of my city. I did not have the authority to intervene in school board, county, state, or national level issues other than expressing support or opposition. The power to act at those levels of government were reserved to the people elected to those offices.
I am deeply troubled these days by the increasingly frequent attempts by elected officials to intervene way outside the boundaries of their authority. Whether it’s congressional committees threatening state prosecutors or senators threatening judges, it’s not acceptable. What’s even worse is when elected officials, once they get into power, try to change the system and replace or undermine legitimate opposition so they can hold onto power even when they would lose a fair and open contest of ideas in a free and open election.
It is hard work. It is dangerous work. But I refuse to accept that we have to keep giving power to people who consistently block sensible gun safety measures, like a ban on assault-style weapons and large ammunition sales and universal background checks. This is not what the people want. We know that most people want better gun safety. Nobody wants to fear sending their children to school. The majority see the folly of expecting teachers to take on police responsibilities when we have seen even trained police officers failing to protect school children from armed shooters.
It’s tax time, and I think we need to understand that our tax payments are an investment in a well-run public sector (some of which operates well today, and some of which is in need of significant reform). Without an effective government, we would not have measurement standards, for example. I could claim that my package weighs a pound whether or not it conformed to an official definition of a pound, and you, as a consumer, would have no way of knowing. You could not enforce a contract without a court system to hold signatories accountable. I could make a competing product using your corporate name and logo if there were no trademark protections. All of these things matter.
If we only apply the laws that we like, and if we spew lies and make threats against the legal system when they hold people accountable who we want to protect, we damage our whole society. We know there are imperfections everywhere. We know that systemic bias exists. It has been well documented. We need better education and systemic reforms that are based in reality – not imaginary problems created by space lasers or dead people. Everyone’s rights deserve to be equally protected. There is much work that is needed. Violence is not the answer.
This weekend I participated in a march and rally, one of many “Bans Off Our Bodies” events to protest the anticipated Supreme Court ruling to overturn women’s right to privacy and to control of their bodies. And then I heard the news about an 18-year-old boy who was able to acquire body armor and tactical weapons and target Black shoppers in Buffalo, killing at least ten people.
I honestly just don’t understand how anyone can see all the tragic gun deaths and injuries, and still insist that anyone, regardless of age or mental health, should be able to get any type of weapon and ammunition and tactical gear without limit. Most gun violence prevention advocates do not call for taking away legitimately obtained small-scale guns. They argue for sensible regulations – background checks, licensing, mandatory safety training, and a ban on assault weapons. I just don’t understand why that should be a problem. I don’t know how many more innocent people have to die before we can take action at the national level.
What we need is not for more people to die – we need more living people to VOTE for candidates who WILL do the sensible thing. The Congress is dysfunctional because voters elected those people and citizens who could have voted but didn’t allowed the elections to go without their input. We DO have the power if we will just use it.