I am one of those people stricken with the unfortunate malady of being overwhelmed by my powerlessness to fix the world’s problems. Especially when those problems require such a simple solution. I know the debate of defunding the police or a nationwide shutdown feel complex but they are not. They boil down to the same simple solution of everyone loving their neighbor. Treating people how you wish to be treated, and in that last statement is where we find the problem. It is like Annie Lennox said, “Some of them want to be abused.”
Look at the current state of our nation and I can find no other reason for the complete lack of empathy. What is so hard about caring about fellow humans unless you’re trapped in the cycle of abuse and have confused pain with love. I can find no other explanation other than some of our countrymen have confused abuse with love. That they look at the 14 million Americans currently out of work and blame them for being lazy and irresponsible; that they look at the people dying of covid, throw their hands up, and exclaim it is what it is; that they look at soldiers fighting for our freedom that have bounties on their heads and say they knew what they signed up for; that they look at the people protesting, in pain, crying out fr help, and say they are rioters, looters, and thugs. There is no logical explanation other than a wounded heart that a person could look at a world in such turmoil, such pain, and reach the conclusion that the solution is anything other than empathy and a helping hand.
When James Madison said, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” he could have been talking about our current times. We are seeing the worst of humanity in charge. Hell is indeed empty because all the devils are here. They are on social media spreading words of hate and division in a time when it should not be difficult for us to come together as a nation. There should be no controversy about issues like covid, the economy, Russian bounties, and police brutality. They fact hat these have been turned into political and divisive issues is the work of tricksters, goblins, and devils. I do not know what causes people to be the way they are. To have emptied their heart of love and filled it up with hate. Our current state of affairs reminds me of another James Madison quote. A dire warning if you will.
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
James madison; federalist 10
If that doesn’t define the current passionate intensity felt by the worst of us in 2020 America then I don’t know what does. Just the other day Tucker Carlson stood on his soapbox on TV and said a young white supremacist was driven to homicide because he was trying to protect his community. The truth is men like Tucker Carlson represent the worst of humanity. They use their platform to spread hate. They show images of the rioting and looting that is happening as a rare occurrence among largely peaceful protests. They paint it as the norm, and they call the protesters thugs and criminals. They open the deep wounds of hate and stir their base into harmful and malicious action.
I have long ago lost my understanding and my patience for those that think the cure for pain is hate. I cannot fathom how anyone can look at the 180,000+ that have died from covid and think it’s just the flu or not as bad as a disease that killed 12,469 in 2009. That look at kids in cages an respond with but Obama made the law instead of wanting them released. In a world that demands togetherness and empathy these people turn the other cheek away from love and towards hate. These times are hard. They demand we be the best of ourselves, but I no longer have any tolerance, understanding, or patience for the people that only wish to abuse their fellow people and I am damn near out of hope. The sliver of hope I have left knows that we can be better because we must be better. If America is going to survive as the America that was promised then we need to, all of us, come together, and reach out to one another with love, be willing to listen to and heal those that struggle, and show empathy and compassion where it is needed.
David Huzzard Writes 