We need some perspective. Perhaps (hopefully), by this point, you’ve realized that most are unsure of what we are even fighting about. What better day, than the 4th of July to remind ourselves what this is all about.
Has anything changed since 1776. In many ways, no. The struggle is the same. To this day, the divide is about freedom versus tyranny. That’s it! Seems simple enough.
How did the pursuit of freedom get so convoluted? That is an ongoing, in-depth, never-ending research project, which, I highly suggest you start to undertake immediately, if you haven’t already. Aside from civic duty, it is imperative to understand what has happened, if you dare open your mouth. I’m not here to tell you my current understanding of history; we all have to come to an understanding ourselves. We are each writing our own narrative. Chances are, you are misinformed. How can I think I know the truth? I absolutely do not. That is my point. We just don’t know. This is information warfare. It's nothing new. From the moment that your parents turned on PBS for you, as a toddler, you have been inundated. The onslaught has continued every moment of everyday. Until you go down every rabbit hole, you think you disagree with, and you are completely confused because your entire paradigm has been shaken, and you come to the realization that you actually can’t be sure of anything, you should assume, you are misinformed. This awareness, alone could fix most of our fighting.
As you wade through the mire, on the battlefield for your attention, it's important to keep your head up, as to not lose sight of the divide: freedom versus tyranny. I will continue to repeat this, because that is the trick. Those who wish to limit our freedom have imposed a fake divide on us. This hoodwink worked too well. Seriously. They are clever motherfuckers! I am of course talking about ideology. The ideological divide, otherwise known as the culture war, is a fake divide imposed on us, to prevent us from seeing what is really at stake.
When we acknowledge what is really at stake, things don’t seem so divided. Who isn’t for freedom? If you claim not to be, I would suggest that are you trapped in the fake divide. See how tricky it is? Perhaps when I ask, “who isn’t for freedom”, your first thought is, yeah but everyone is not free so I can’t enjoy my freedom until we all have equal freedom. A classic trick of the tyrannical. Freedom begets more freedom. Tyranny begets tyranny. Tyranny never begets freedom. Ever. Thinking you have to give up your freedoms, to free someone else is a misunderstanding of how the world works. It’s a trap. An easy one to fall into, when one is ensnared in identity politics.
Have you fallen for that trick? Identity politics? Don’t be ashamed, that was the point. It’s a divide and conquer tactic. It worked too well. Get everyone to identify with groups and then set these groups against each other. Once you fall into the trap, you lose sight of the real divide: FREEDOM versus TYRANNY.
The fake divides are peaking (I hope and pray). Race, sexual preference, gender, class and political affiliation are characteristics, not identities. When you start identifying yourself by one of your characteristics you see yourself as separate from those who don’t share your characteristic or from those who choose not to identify themselves based on a characteristic. You are creating or perpetuating a fake divide. This is all on purpose. Once someone is made to be a victim based on one of these characteristics, that makes everyone else an oppressor. Why is this bad? Look at current events. It's not hard to see how far people will take the fake divide.
Please don’t confuse my claim that we are really all on the same side (freedom) as a mono-ideology. I want and love pluralism. Diversity of ideas is essential to a healthy republic. But we must understand the parameters of the field we are playing on, before we can play the game. Since the game didn’t come with a set of instructions and we can’t trust anyone to inform us of the rules or even how the game is set up, we first must quest to understand the reality of the situation. Not an easy task, but necessary if one is to participate in the discourse.
Consensus is the goal. That is consensus on the scope and parameters and perhaps even the rules. (oh wait, we already have that...the Constitution. Take a lesson.) Then, we can disagree our little hearts out on the content. Until then, this is all just a bunch of instigated nonsense. Once we realize the game we are in, there will be healthy division, but the lines will be drawn much differently than they are now. We’ll realize we agree on much more than not, and the disagreements are profound and important and the real challenges the American ideal was set up to grapple with.
America. Fuck Yeah.
