In 1987 I was in the beginning of high school and the world was changing quickly. Ronald Reagan made his famous speech in West Berlin, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," and we were off to the races. Perestroika and glasnost followed as the Soviet Union splintered, giving the perception of openness and restructuring. It was a worldwide scary optimism I've seen only once since in the Arab spring in 2011.
Reagan was a Republican celebrity. He introduced optimism and patriotism again. His supply side economics were infused with hope and his administration's decisive and clear foreign policy seemed to put America in a better global position than we had been in before as the sole superpower. I'm not a political scientist nor a historian, but I lived through that time and remember it. We believed America had won the cold war, Afghanistan was an ally against the USSR, all military engagements were short and decisive like Grenada, and Greenpeace was pretty cool because REM liked them.
That Reagan era didn't really bring about the peace we had hoped for. The cold war didn't warm. It just got colder, subtler, and introduced more divisions. Abandoned Afghanistan became a harbinger of the splintered grabs for power that would destroy the hopefulness of the Arab spring 25 years later. Our world would descend into political, economic, and racial divisions displayed by our growing media capabilities and terrible fear and terror campaigns waged by the likes of the Islamic State and Osama Bin Laden. The USSR would fall apart, descend into economic insecurity, and the KGB would go underground to take advantage of a growing crime mob mentality. Wars and rumors of wars.
Supposedly strong leaders, new players, have risen from those ashes like Putin, who is a mirror to our new Republican front runner Donald Trump. North Korea grows colder as its nuclear reactors heat up. Trump wants to control the borders, build walls, and "make America great again." It's a promise of power, security, and implicit wealth that is nonexistent. And his conservatism has no compassion. What happened to compassionate conservatism? What happened to morality derived from character? Where are those leaders who lead from sacrifice rather than from ego?
You know why supply side economics failed along with glasnost and perestroika? It is because we are a world of kingdoms driven by greed and selfishness. People hoard wealth. We can never trust in government to bring about general peace and prosperity. That is where our classic liberal mindsets fail us as well. Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama sell a different dream. It's the dream of government as savior. Socialism, new liberalism, gets bogged down in inefficiency and the immorality of its leaders. It falls prey to factions that benefit as well from the expense to the many on the inside as government begins to exist to sustain itself. The dependent organism grows larger than its host and the host dies, depleted and weak. I don't believe Clinton, nor trust her heart to have true compassion, any more than I trust Trump's heart. They both caved in long ago to a cynical pragmatism that drives them to power.
And so I sit here trying to voice something of my angst and my sadness over my country. I acknowledge my perspective. I am white male from a southern state. I am educated and work hard to provide for my family along with my wife. I follow Jesus as wholeheartedly as any man born into this fallen world and made of dirt can follow him. I have a criminal record that has changed me and made me categorically unsafe. I have unfair damaging rules to follow that seriously affect my family and hurts them in ways every day. Hell, I can't even vote in this or any election. I have no silver spoon, but I am blessed beyond many. I cannot separate myself from the blessings and the hurts in this country.
What candidate is willing to do that? Who will reach out to own both sides of the coin? Who believes in marriage between a man and a woman and honors God-given gender? Who cares for the poor? Who believes in fiscal responsibility for the government as well as the private sector? Who believes that foreign policy cannot be all big stick but must also speak softly? Who loves the hearts and minds of all people worldwide and cares for their bodies as well? Who believes in clear and fair laws enforced fairly for all people? Who understands that we must offer those rights and privileges we enjoy to those we may not understand or with whom we may not agree? Who believes that we all gain from restoration and all lose from punishment? Who cares for the unborn as well as the born?
Maybe this voice is mine only and the positions are a confused mess of ideas that cannot be sustained. But I believe wholeheartedly there are others like me that are are tired of the rhetoric and the pretense. Besides, this is my blog and so I'll just say what I think. That's what it's here for. I'm ready to tear down some walls. And I still think Greenpeace and REM are pretty cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment