A Letter to My Tea Party Friends

  Reading and watching the media the past few months when the federal government began to shutdown, I was more mindful than ever that many of you who I care for are “Tea Partiers”, or close kin of the same.

 I must say that I became concerned over your letters to the editors and posts. I may care for you but can no longer be silent. Let me here and now expose the elephant in the room.

 I have begun to suspect that you would cast aside your morality for fear that you will become a minority and people of color and or American citizens of foreign origin will erode your way of life.

  This country is based in a messy dynamic of checks and balances. Regardless it has, with the exception of the Civil War, functioned. The government, whether correct in their actions or not, has moved forward and sought on a functional level to represent their constituents in a reasonable fashion.

  I won’t quote numbers and statistics but rather ask if you believe it is the job of any segment of our legislature to put forth their ideology by any means at risk of the well being of the governed?

  Do you support the hijacking of the legislative process by a select few who have gained office through gerrymander and recent stilted campaign laws favoring corporate interests?

  Are you even aware that this is what is happening? I know you support family values, free enterprise, religious freedom, the right to bear arms and the rights of a human fetus among other things. I know you believe in the U.S. constitution yet suspect by your rhetoric and voting history that you have not studied or even read it.

  Do you believe it is right to refuse to compromise with others for the sake of our country and the world? Can you possibly believe that it is acceptable to put thousands out of work and knowingly damage the economy in order to force your minority opinion on the populace?

  I know you and when I am alone with my thoughts I fear that you will answer yes to these questions. I fear that you would isolate yourself in a cocoon of mistrust and prejudice until your ship has foundered and the only salvation are those that you would deny.

  In the end I will say that I agree with you on some issues and do not on others. All I know for sure is that we are fortunate enough to live in a country where we can disagree yet continue to seek harmony through a tried and true process of government. I can only hope and pray that you will ultimately believe in that process and that when you stand in that voting booth you will vote from the heart of your freedom rather than the fog of your fear. 

More Inconvenient Truths

                                                   

  Recently I once again heard the term, “inconvenient truths.” It has troubled me since. I am awed by our propensity to avoid moral responsibility in the face of these truths.

  Anyone or anything different from us is foreign and therefore bad. Is not the truth that we are afraid to allow change because it will somehow dilute who we are? How weak must be our core if change would destroy us?

  Our youth are maimed and die on foreign soil because we disagree with the ruling elite when all that truly exists is something different than what we choose. We are somehow threatened by the presence of conflicting ideas and government process.

   We bathe daily in the fear of immigration because zealots would attack our home ground. As that fear dries, our minds harden to common sense and decency for those who seek the same goals as us, freedom to work and worship and pursue happiness without oppression.

  Innocent people lie sick on the doorstep of medicine. Yet many of us would deny them basic care.

  Our youth fall in the educational ranking of a changing world yet we ignore the reality that we have handcuffed our teachers. Rather than educate, we would test, ever checking on our failure.

  We deny loving, law abiding, productive couples the same rights as ourselves avoiding reality for the sake of our own self-centered fear.

  When we stand in that voting booth we prove time and again that our driving force is what government can do for us or ours. We speak clearly of our disdain for those who have not risen to our “level” yet would do nothing to lift them up.

  Some have said that this is a Christian nation. Having grown up in the Christian faith, the message that I received as a child has held steady.  That message is that we should love our brothers and sisters as ourselves.

   The only fuel that “hate” needs is fear and ignorance. Love requires courage. Love demands sacrifice. Love lifts us above our petty groveling into the air of saints and Saviors.

  Each day, as we rise, I believe that if our most ardent prayer is to find love for all mankind in our hearts then we might find the cure for a poison that would destroy us all.

  We must always be guided by prudence and common sense. It is our duty to protect and defend against all evil. Even still, when we direct our energy at seeing evil through the lens of reality rather than fear our path will be true.

  In our deepest heart we know our fear rules most of what we do and say. I can only hope and pray that in the end we will accept the most inconvenient truth of all; we as humans have let fear win out over love and for that we must often live in turmoil of our own making.