WHAT ARE WE

Now in the aftermath of the shutdown of our government and the threatened denial of the ability to pay our national debts we must ask ourselves not only how we can avoid such crises in the future but what kind of nation we choose to be. In this brief time before the storm returns to unsettle our public affairs we should look back at the desolation wrought by a few angry zealots and decide whether we are a people of dignity, compassion, and reason, or a disunited collection of states and voters quivering before the shrill voices of nihilism.

Crying out in anger and resentment, the voices of right-wing bitterness would have the world believe that there is something weak and tired about liberalism, something pathetic about the belief that government has a duty not only to protect its people but to support them in their quest for a better life. Those voices would allow the children of the poor among us suffer from hunger and disease, rather than let them benefit from our government’s ability to ease their suffering.

We need to decide whether to allow those voices to overwhelm our national discourse or to stand-up against them and speak-out for the brotherhood and decency we are supposed to represent. They would have us believe that there is something shameful in our desire to provide medical care and medicine for the poor among us, ease the financial burden of older citizens, free women to control their own bodies and assume their rightful equality in all phases of our public life, give citizenship and dignity to people who come here from other nations, grant respect and civil rights to gays and transgender populations, and do the many other things called for by liberalism.

There is something about the Tea Party people that is more than just narrow, provincial, or hidebound. There is something vicious and cruel. I believe that the Tea Party extremists in the House of Representatives, and the people who have elected and supported them, have wanted not only to shut-down the government, but to cause it to fail. The scenario they favor is like that of some European or South American country where internal pressure from political extremists causes the downfall of the government. They would have welcomed a default by America on its debt and they would have cheered an economic collapse. They believe that only such a catastrophe would open the way for the take-over of the government by right-wing forces favorable to their cause. In this respect they are the opposite of patriots.

             They realize that they cannot achieve their aims by way of elections, so they want to do it by way of political terrorism. They represent a minority in Congress, so they do not have the votes to accomplish their goals. Their hope is that by gumming-up the works they can force the leadership to avoid the time-tested method of compromise. They prefer the fanatical methods of confrontation , conflict, and defiance. They intimidate the “moderate” Republicans by threatening to have more extreme candidates defeat them in the primaries.

            The time has finally come for ordinary Americans to recognize the threat provided by these extremists and vote them out of office. The time has come for all fair-minded Americans to speak-out against the malice these people represent, and to brush them off the table of our national discourse.