I spend far too much time watching science fiction and fantasy. In Star Wars, the evil Empire is destroyed, but they keep coming back. In Star Trek, no matter how effectively we think we have destroyed The Borg, they return. I just finished watching Stranger Things, and they’ve burned Vecna up completely, and he will still be back for the fifth season.
I used to look at these facts a bit cynically. Once you beat the Bad Guys, that should be it. But the truth is you can never stop it.
We won The Civil War. The Confederacy continues to clamor for attention; and it’s getting it.
We beat the Nazis in World War II. They are still on our streets, and people cheer for them as much as they sneer at them.
We won The Cold War, but Russia continues to attempt world domination. And the world waits nervously.
Someone once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing.” This is commonly attributed to Edmund Burke. It turns out he never said that. John Stuart Mill, in his 1867 Inaugural Address said something similar, though: “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”
The evil of fascism can, it appears, never be destroyed. It will build another Death Star. It will assimilate another culture. Vecna will force The Upside Down back into our world.
And so, we must continue to fight for our Freedom. We must continue to vote, to protest, and to protect our poor, our disenfranchised, our disabled, and our unrepresented.
Our rights and our freedom are under a clear and obvious attack now. I did an episode about that last week. One of the most brutal attacks was against women. Half of the population has been stripped of bodily autonomy, and some defend this on religious grounds. I think that’s a misuse of religion.
One of the reasons America has survived as long as it has is that we have specifically avoided becoming a theocracy. We have recognized there are few things as personal or individual as our relationship with the Universe. Whether it’s God, or Vishnu, or Zeus, or Allah, or simply the Vast Nothingness, we get to decide those things for ourselves. One can be coerced into claiming to have beliefs, but, finally, they are our own deep inside ourselves. We can change them only by choosing to do so, and by a careful reflection that shows us something new.
Those who claim (falsely, I believe) to be Christians of 21st Century America love to decide they’re being oppressed when they aren’t allowed to make their religious views the law. I’m unaware of any successful free country that has worked as a theocracy. I’m unaware of any theocracy in which I would choose to live.
I did a Google Search for theocracies in the world today. Only 6 came up. They are the following:
- Afghanistan.
- Iran.
- Mauritania.
- Saudi Arabia.
- Vatican City.
- Yemen.
In which of those places would you wish to live?
What Evangelical American Christians fail to recognize is that bodily autonomy isn’t a religious issue. It’s a question of personal freedom. It’s about owning oneself.
And I don’t think most of the people restricting freedom are doing it due to any deeply held beliefs about God or the Universe. I believe they’re doing it because they want to have the power to tell others what to do with their lives. It’s the Need of the Narcissist. It’s the Sustenance of the Psychopath. It’s saying I’m in control. It’s saying, basically, “I’m God. I know what God, who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent and has the power to create an entire universe, wants. So just listen to me. And, God wants me to control everyone. God wants everyone to obey me.” Doesn’t that idea seem startlingly arrogant to you? Someone really claims to understand what an almighty being, capable of everything you can imagine, wants us to do? That sounds pathological to me. Actually, I should say a God who can do almost anything you can imagine. There’s always the example of the first paradox I ever learned. When I was 12, my father the philosopher asked me, “If God can do anything, can He create a rock so large that He can’t lift it?”
The attack on freedom is a contempt for individuality. It’s an attack against your free will. It’s dark. It’s dangerous. It’s destructive.
I am on the record repeatedly in favor of freedom of religion. I can think of few places that are more deeply personal than how you view your relationship with the universe. Most of my friends have some form of Christian view. They believe in a God who created the universe and is deeply concerned about what we do with the Free Will He gave us. They may well be right. I certainly can’t prove they’re wrong. I want them to have the freedom to explore that idea, and to live by the beliefs that spring from it, in every way possible. I want them to be allowed to worship in the ways they choose. I want them to be allowed to express their beliefs whenever they choose, wherever they choose, and to whomever wants to hear them. I just don’t want them to make their beliefs the only ones allowed. I don’t want them to decide our government must reflect those beliefs. That’s what happens in a theocracy. That’s how planes get flown into The World Trade Center.
“No it’s not! Those were Muslims, and they are evil!”
Those were people who were raised believing that theirs, and only theirs, is the correct view of the universe. They’ve been taught, since birth, that those who believe something different are evil, and they must be destroyed as enemies of Allah. This isn’t inherent in Islam. It’s inherent in a theocracy.
The overwhelming majority of Muslims are not evil, just as the overwhelming majority of Christians are not evil. It was Christian theocracy that led to The Salem Witch Trials. It was Christian theocracy that led to The Spanish Inquisition, which, Monty Python aside, was entirely expected. It was Christian theocracy that tried for centuries to end any scientific progress, as both Galileo and Copernicus learned. Christian theocracy has no better history than Islamic theocracy.
Outside of Vatican City, Christian theocracies are few and far between. I believe you can find Mormon settlements that have managed it. It doesn’t go well for them. You can ask Warren Jeffs, the former President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints, about this. You can ask those children he was convicted of raping. You can ask the same question to those who have been raped by Catholic Priests.
The Republican party has aligned itself with Evangelical American Christianity, and, in my view, corrupted it for its own ends. They have used fear of “The Other” to band people together to oppose those who are different from them.
They have taught homophobia, although no homosexual represents any threat to anyone simply by being homosexual. I remember when I was 9 years old, a furious parent at a PTA meeting was talking to my father about the fact that the school was allowed even to mention homosexuality. “How would you feel,” he asked furiously, “if a homosexual raped your son in the bathroom of the school?” My father replied, “Probably about the same as I would feel if a heterosexual raped my daughter.” “Oh my God!” shouted the man. “Are they teaching that now, too??” Ignorance breeds fear.
And fascists know that. It’s why they want to decide which books we can and can’t read. It’s why they oppose teaching a complete history of our country. And it’s why they tell us to watch out for liberal, commie, socialists who are coming to destroy us all. They know that most people don’t really understand what it means to be a liberal, a communist, or a socialist, and they use those words to frighten the willfully ignorant. They pass out cherry-picked information that is just enough to frighten people, but not sufficient for true understanding. “A little knowledge,” as Einstein purportedly told us, “is a dangerous thing.” (Alexander Pope said it first, but he used the word “learning” in place of “knowledge.”)
So, I’ll say this again, and I will be grateful to the person who can tell me to whom I can reliably attribute it. “Education is the journey from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.” Let’s allow our minds to be open to different ideas. I recognize an open mind is not the same as an empty one. I don’t advocate abandoning all of your beliefs. I would like you to be able to question them.
Why do fascists do encourage hatred? Hitler was incredibly successful at it in the 20th Century. He got Germany to blame “The Other” for its horrendous situation following World War I, and the results are one of the most infamous chapters in world history. Those who are different, he taught, are a threat to be eliminated. I believe we’re all more enlightened than that now.
Fascism has infected the Republican Party. And Democrats are either unwilling or unable to do much about it. We had nearly 50 years to codify Roe, and ensure women are in control of their own bodies. We dropped the ball. Republicans actually wanted to pass a Universal Basic Income during the Nixon Administration. Democrats dropped the ball. Reagan told us that “Trickle Down Economics” would help the whole country. We’ve had more than 40 years to see it didn’t work. And Democrats have been unwilling or unable to do anything about it.
Republicans have done all of this under the guise of following the Constitution. The Senate, for example, may have been a good idea when it was created. It was an effort to ensure those in rural communities would be represented in government. Now, however, it has made citizens of one state vastly more powerful than citizens of another. California has nearly 70 times as many people as Wyoming, and they each get two Senators. A citizen of Wyoming has nearly 70 times the power to control the government as one in California.
What we are seeing is the efforts of The Few to control the lives of The Many. They want to maximize their freedom by restricting ours. We’re choosing to let them because they have embedded their ideas so deeply in our culture that any others are unthinkable. Except, all ideas can be thought. Everything begins with a thought. Let’s try some new ones. Let’s imagine a better world.
Here are some unthinkable thoughts. Let’s change the Senate so that it represents people equally. I know that’s how The House of Representatives is supposed to work, but due to the obvious gerrymandering of voting districts, it rarely does. How do we change it? I don’t know. I leave that to better minds than mine. I’m simply offering the thought.
Here’s another unthinkable thought. Let’s give everyone enough money to survive, so we can all decide how to live, for ourselves. I know this is unthinkable because this will mean prices go up, and we’ll never be able to keep up with the inflation. I don’t know anything about Economics, so I should probably just shut up. I was told that frequently when I lived in my little trailer in California. I live alone with Speedy Shine, now, so I’ll say it anyway. How do we work out the details? I have no clue. Anthony is right. I know nothing about Economics. Fortunately, there are many people who do. I leave it them to figure out how that’s done.
The final thought comes from the best writer with whom I have ever occupied a room, Mark Rozema. It’s from a brilliant essay he wrote on Facebook:
It is time to jettison the politics of domination. It is also time to stop treating one another (and the rest of nature) as commodities to be exploited. There is a better way. The transformation to this better way will not occur without a visceral, muscular rejection of the injustice of unfair representation and the various wrongs that stem from it.
- Mark Rozema
I believe part of the reason we leap for excuses to avoid finding the better way is because we have been taught all our lives that nothing can be done to help people. That’s helpful to us if we can disregard our empathy and compassion. We’re taught to think of Us and forget about Them. Nothing needs to be done to help Them. And I have rent to pay next month. I can’t be bothered to think about it.
We see too small a picture of the world. There was a shooting last week in Phoenix, but I live at least 20 miles from there, so it’s not my problem. 21 people were killed in Uvalde, Texas, but that’s another state, so it’s not my problem. Ukraine is under attack, but that’s not my country, so it’s not my problem. It’s happening to Them. But on The Front Porch, we know There is no Them; we are all Us.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
| John Donne |
We’ve defeated the Republican effort to make us into a dictatorship before. We must find a way to do it again.
As Princess Leia said, “It’s not over yet.”
Fred's Thoughts 