Keep America Great

Donald Trump's website says, "Make America Great again."  Since when did America stop being great?  For those of you familiar with the science fiction TV series "Babylon 5", this quote is almost exactly what Ambassador Mollari said about his people, the Centauri, just before he got involved in a plot that put a tyrannical emperor on the throne, invaded the planets of another alien species (the Narns), enslaved them, tortured them and put those who resisted in death camps.  Trump's tagline reeks to me of Fascist, even Naziesque rhetoric to me.

I woke up this morning and realized, "wait a second, there are a lot of things wrong in America, but I never stopped loving America.  When did America stop being great?"  His tagline devilishly twists are perceptions to instill fear in us that somehow America is no longer great.  In fact, if anything, it's people like Trump we need to resist in order to protect American greatness.   His rhetoric is meant to reduce our self-esteem, and that worries me, because that's often the first move tyrants use to take over.   We need to swap out this negative slogan with a positive one:

Keep America great!

What I mean by this is that the founding values of America are under attack by exactly people like Donald Trump.  We need to defend our core values from him and people like him.

America has more problems than I can count.  I'm constantly embarrassed by our leaders and even by my fellow citizens, but I've always known that America has always been, and continues to be great.  This is not because of its rather nasty actions over the centuries, but rather because we, the People, still, for the most part, affirm the basic founding values that make me and many of us remain patriots.  That's why I'm calling on my fellow Americans to resist this sort of Fascist double speak.  Let me explain.

As I read about ISIL's terrors in the Middle East, I'm reminded that Europe was at one time much worse.  It's a piece of history rarely studied any more, but which should be top priority in our history classrooms.  From the mid 16th Century to the mid 18th Century (the mid 1500's to the mid 1700's), Europe was racked by some of the bloodiest and most terrifying warfare in human history.  Protestant countries warred with Catholic countries.  Protestants warred with Protestants.  Each side believed that its denomination was the "one, right, true and only way".  Each believed that its members were going to Heaven and that members of the other sides were going to Hell.  The victors burned the vanquished alive: the traditional punishment for so-called "heretics".  Does this sound like the west or like the Middle East?  The West we know today hadn't arrived yet.

Then, in the late 18th Century, a school of philosophy, called Enlightenment Philosophy, emerged.  While the individual philosophers in this movement varied from one another, the movement itself can be characterized by saying things that most of us now take for granted.  They pointed out that none of us knows the Truth well enough to judge others and that, therefore, we should have freedom of religion and a separation of Church and State.  They pointed out that cruel and unusual punishments are wrong, that the only rational and just way for the state to behave toward the accused is to presume that people are innocent until proven guilty.  They also believed that all human beings are equal.

If this sounds familiar, it's only because America was founded by revolutionaries who were part of the Enlightenment movement.  They founded America to serve a new purpose.  Rather than to serve the barbaric superstitions of judgmental religious denominations, it was to serve the goal of Liberty.  Under Lady Liberty, all religions are free.  In the Light of Her torch, everybody has the right to free expression.  In Her Light, everybody has the right to a fair trial and to be held innocent until proven guilty.  As opposed to the Divine Right of Kings concept of a pre-Enlightened past, which held that kings and lords were made superior to other people by God, we can now see clearly that all people are created equal.  These ideals not only form the founding values of America, but were held as values that transcend all political divisions and shine out to all of the peoples of the world.  The Enlightenment philosophers spoke of Human Rights.  These rights exist to all people.  They can be oppressed by tyrannical governments, but people still have them at some spiritual level.  So, it's not just citizens of America or the First World to whom these rights extend but to every person on the planet.  Any people or government that defies these rights defies a fundamental, universal Law and, in doing so, is tyrannical.  Our Founders encoded these inalienable rights into the U.S. Constitution as the Highest Law of the Land.

These values are why I'm a true patriot and I think it's why so many of my fellow liberals and fellow Americans are so loyal to our country, even when our leaders and fellow citizens embarrass us.  These values lead to the following social covenant which is set in stone.  Follow it and you're a good American, defy it and you're an anti-American, anti-Liberty tyrant.

What follows from this social covenant is uncompromisable and it is as follows:

• Freedom of religion, a separation of Church and State and a lack of national religion.  
• All religions are free to worship as they think best, provided that their worship is peaceable.
• The phrase "wall of separation of Church and State" comes from Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, in which he wrote, "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should [quoting the First Amendment] 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."  
• So, separation of Church and State is just a rephrasing of a part of the First Amendment that says that the government can't declare a national religion.  
• Separation of Church and State is part and parcel of freedom of religion.  If you allow, say, public schools to teach religious teachings, you allow the government to indoctrinate our children with a particular religion's teachings and you then have an N-run around freedom of religion.
• The Treaty of Tripoli, voted for unanimously by Congress in 1796 and signed into law by President John Adams (one of America's Founders) says, "the United States of America is in no way a Christian nation."  George Washington said the same thing in a letter responding to some Jews in Rhode Island who asked if it was alright to be Jewish.  If you have a national religion, you've again made an N-run around freedom of religion.  So, this is also part of the package.  
• So, let me reiterate this: Freedom of Religion, Separation of Church and State, and An Absence of National Religion all go together into one package deal.  Be against one and you're against all!
• What this means is that people need to be able to make their own decisions about ethics, the nature of the soul, interpretation of holy texts, etc.
• This impacts the issue of women's reproductive rights.
• Many religious conservatives work to oppress women's reproductive rights on the grounds that zygotes (fertilized eggs in the womb), blastocysts (microscopic bundles of multiplied cells) and fetuses have souls.  
• This is a religious argument!
• Anyone who believes in freedom of religion would defend the right of women to make their own determinations about when the soul enters and whether it's within the bounds of their own religion's ethics to terminate a pregnancy or else make a non-religious argument as to why terminating pregnancy should be illegal.
• Regardless of any other stance on this issue, we should keep religion out of it.
• The same holds true for numerous other issues, such as gay marriage.  The argument that "homosexuality is an abomination against God, because the Bible says so," is a religious argument!  It should be completely cast out of our political rhetoric for that reason.  Religion has no place in politics.
• Freedom of Expression
• Part of living in a civilized society means that we tolerate other people's expression, even when we disagree with it.  Just because someone says something we disagree with, doesn't mean that we get to lash out in anger at them, must less become violent toward them.  We can and should expect and demand the same of any other civilized person who believes in these rights.
• The Right to a Fair Trial
• This includes that people are innocent until proven guilty,
• Have the right to be accused of a crime.
• Have the right to an attorney.
• Have the right to keep their person and property from illegal search and seizure.
• Have the right to, even if found guilty, receive a punishment that is neither cruel nor unusual.
• Equal Opportunity
• If all people are created equal, it's a mandatory role of government that it ensures equal opportunity to all.  This means that some kid who just turned 18 in the hood should ideally have exactly the same opportunity as some rich kid whose parents have political connections.  Obviously, it's hard to achieve this in the real world, but we should at least strive toward that ideal.
• Unless any of us think that the two kids in the example above have even the same basic level of opportunity, we should conclude that it's the role of government to take active measures to ensure that the kid from the hood's opportunity level is raised to the level of the rich kid's.
• One thing this means is that every child in America should receive the best education that money can buy.
• If their parents are rich enough to send them to the best private schools and on to college and graduate school, great.
• However, for the bottom 99%, this means that the government needs to provide the best public education money can buy.
• While our government revenue could come in many forms, if this means tax money, so be it.  If this means that rich people and corporations pay higher taxes than poor people, that's the price they pay for living in a society in which we have equal opportunity.
• It's all of our civic duty to ensure equal opportunity for all.
• Another thing this means is that everybody should be kept healthy.
• Unless anyone thinks that a poor person without health insurance can keep themselves as healthy as a rich person with the best health insurance money can buy, this means that it's the duty of government to ensure that all people receive the best health insurance money can buy.
• Again, if this means tax dollars, so be it.
• If this means that the rich pay more for universal healthcare, that's the price they pay for living in a world with equal opportunity.
• All of this goes double for children, since they have no means of controlling the healthcare they receive growing up.  Children who received poor healthcare will start their adult lives with less opportunity than children who received good healthcare.
• Ensuring equal opportunity also means having really good public transportation so that people who can't yet afford cars can go to work on their own.  What does it matter if people can get jobs, if they can't get to them?  In order to level the playing field, poor people who are struggling to make it, but who don't have cars, need another way.  The government should empower them to get to work.
• While I hesitate to weigh in on affirmative action itself, I'll also note that equal opportunity must empower groups who have been oppressed.  We need some way of insuring that they have opportunity in spite of prejudice and systems in place that go against them.
• I want to make something totally clear here, because it's importan.  Equal opportunity, and everything that supports it, works perfectly well within a capitalist economy.  As such, it would merely serve to level a capitalist playing field.  
• Finally, this means that one of the top, if not the top economic priority of government should be jobs.  In order for people to have equal opportunity, they need access to jobs.  If there aren't enough jobs to go around, it makes it that much harder for people who were born poor to pull themselves up.  They could be as smart as the rich kids, but they'll be more likely to fail, because they'll have less access to jobs.
• This also includes small businesses.  Small businesses are one significant way that families make it.  However, many large corporations deliberately open branches in areas where they know they'll compete with small businesses in order to destroy them.  They then hire back the former small business owners at minimum wage.  Thus, it can seem things are good in terms of number of job, but not if people who once owned their own businesses have been reduced to working minimum wage for a large corporation.
• All People are Created Equal
• This includes men and women, whites and non-white, gays and straights, etc.  In other words, it encompasses all colors of the rainbow of humanity.  
• Prejudice and oppressive systems have kept certain groups of people down for far too long.  Those people need to be treated as equal to hetero, white, Christian men at every level including their levels of intelligence, capacity for excellence and morality.
• A Functioning Government
• Finally, in order for all of the above to work affectively, the government must function affectively.
• Any dissidents who try to shut down the government are anti-American tyrants!
• Obviously, there are multiple ways to accomplish these goals in our society and part of good citizenship in a democracy having an open dialog on how best to accomplish all of this.

All of this is under attack!

It has been for the last several decades and it has been by conservatives just like Donald Trump.'

Conservatives have pushed as hard as they can to put the Ten Commandments (which is a piece of religious scripture) in courts and public squares, to have prayer in our public schools and to legislate their religious beliefs on issues such as women's reproductive rights.  Another issue they've tried to legislate is gay marriage, based what their Bible says about it.  This violates freedom of religion and the wall of separation of Church and State.  It's the first step in imposing a national religion on everyone.

Religious conservatives have denied that separation of Church and State is a fundamental American value and have repeatedly and deliberately ignored and dishonored the clause in the First Amendment that says that Congress can't establish any religion.  They have even gone so far as to claim that America is somehow a "Christian country", in direct contradiction of many of our founders who said just the opposite and in direct defiance of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

The George W. Bush administration threw suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay without a trial.  This denied them just about every portion of the foundational American concept of justice and a fair trial that I can think of.  It denied them the right to be accused of crimes.  It denied them the right to even have a trial.  It treated them as guilty until proven innocent.  It denied them due process of law.  It denied them the right to be represented by lawyers.  It denied them the right to a trial by jury.  By every measure, this is a denial of justice and a fair trial.  This act goes straight against an entire set of foundational American values.  It's un-American to the core!

The only defenses of this act that I've ever heard are that the people so imprisoned were not U.S. citizens and that it was necessary for the defense of our nation.  Both of these are empty arguments.  The Declaration of Independence speaks of "inalienable right".  The right to a fair trial is more than just the highest law in the land for our own people, it's a foundational value of America that applies to everybody on earth.  If you're against it, you're against America!  Guantanamo Bay is a gross human rights violation!

Now, I have friends who have agreed with that part, but told me that we "have" to do it, rights or no rights, in order to keep America safe.  I have two responses to that.

First, no we don't.  If the suspected terrorists really did it, why are we afraid of going to trial?  If our government can't prove that they did what they're accused of, maybe we got the wrong people.  The only way to tell for sure would be to take them out of Guantanamo Bay long enough put them on trial and find out.  What my conservative friends are supporting, whether they realize it or not, is burying the truth rather than revealing it.  Rather than being something that a government regime would do to keep us safe, it seems a lot more likely that it's something they'd do to make us think they're keeping us safe.

Secondly, there's something much more important than our security.  That's foundational American values.  If we put security before those values, we're undermining America, in which case, why defend it?  It's only when we put those values first that we have a country worth defending.

Conservatives have, for the last several decades, systematically attacked every social program designed to ensure equal opportunity.  They've attacked education, universal healthcare, worker's rights, public transportation, and gender, racial, religious and sexual orientation equality.  In every way, conservatives are fundamentally opposed to equal opportunity.

Finally, they've disrupted and blocked our government, keeping our elected officials from even being able create a budget, much less provide all of the functions that it's our government's role to perform.

American is great and what makes it great is its founding values.  As I see the Middle East playing out much the same story that Europe played out hundreds of years ago, I realize just how much it is a miracle that our nation still stands for these values as much as it does.  But, these values must be protected and we must start by protecting it from those politicians and political movements inside our nation who would tear them down.

Donald Trump's conservative rhetoric is meant to scare people into thinking that America has, at some core level, lost its greatness.  Worse, it's meant to trick people into thinking that some false, delusive "greatness" is what makes America great rather than our nation's true greatness.  What is this false greatness?  Perhaps it's directors and CEO's of corporations who try to crush the bottom 99% of the people beneath their heals so that they can keep most of America's wealth, rather than allowing equal opportunity.  Perhaps it's the military that, for so long, has been used as a tool to encourage tyranny and chaos in other parts of the world in order to keep these robber barons wealthy by lining their pockets with government contracts.  I have no doubt that, in an attempt to gain support, Donald Trump will appeal to the Christian extremists who are striving to destroy freedom of religion in America and replace democracy with theocracy.

Why does Donald Trump sound Fascist to me?  Because he's using his propaganda to make a slight of hand, hiding what makes America truly great, while waving around a false sense of greatness, ultimately tied up with richest people in America, who have often gotten rich through dishonesty and shady dealing.  Fascism is the most extreme end of the Conservative spectrum.  The very name means hard-coupling government with corporations.  But, understand that you should read "corporations" as the rich people who run them.  Somewhere along this path, it seems that Fascist regimes end up going to war to rape other countries of their resources, rather than gaining wealth honestly (however much they may preach about the virtues of honest business in their double speak).  It becomes a never-ending war march.

He and conservative politicians like him are the very people that we good Americans need to protect America from in order to keep it great.  It's tragic to watch Londo Mollari on "Babylon 5" start the Centauri people on a downward spiral toward degradation and ruin.  What Londo realizes too late is that the Centauri had always been great.  It's its wonderful culture and civilization, rather than its conquest and rape of other planets, that makes it great.  What we see in Fascist regimes is the true greatness of the nations they rule are discarded in favor of vacuous, and ultimately self-destructive fake values: greed dressed up as goodness.

I call on all Americans to keep America great by defying this conservative insurgency and reaffirming our age old American values of Liberty and civility, as I've outlined them above.