2.1 - We do not deserve to be a free people

We do not deserve to be a free people

We do not deserve to be a free people.

We don't care about being a free people. Too many of us care too little about the effect we and our decisions have on others.

Too many of us are too easily taken in by a line of patter and bilge that appeals to the worst in us, the the basest of our fears and the deepest our prejudices, too easily taken in no matter how transparently vacuous that patter and bilge is. That is, too many of us, not to put too fine a point on it, are racist, sexist, xenophobic, ignorant, know-nothing mouth-breathers.

Exit polls the day of the election said a top concern of people was wanting "change" and of those people, an overwhelming number said they thought that TheRump, not Clinton, was the one to bring it.

Which is probably true, but the unasked question was what sort of change?

"I don't know what sort of change. I just want it to be the way it used to be."

And what way was that?

"I dunno. It just used to be better."

Ask would TheRump do that, make it all better, as they stand there like some 6-year-old waiting for mommy to kiss the boo-boo; ask can TheRump do that; ask how would he do that and the answer you'll get is either "I dunno. He just will." Or "I don't care. Just not the way it is."

Which means not only are too many of us racist, sexist, xenophobic, ignorant, know-nothing mouth-breathers, too many of us are too damned intellectually lazy to even figure out just what it is we want if it takes up more space than a bumpersticker or time than a sound bite, too easily manipulated to see through the empty platitudes of a flim-flam artist real-estate salesman, and, based on the fact that turnout for a presidential election has not even reached 60% in 38 years, apparently too physically lazy even to care.

In 1811, a French philosopher named Joseph de Maistre wrote that "Every nation gets the government it deserves." If that's true, then we do not deserve the one we have. We, too many of us, just want our prejudices catered to and approved of by a strong leader who relives us of the responsibility of figuring out what is best for the society or even the responsibility of looking beyond our own immediate desires.

We do not deserve to be a free people.

And if I'm starting to sound like Ambrose Bierce here, I don't care.

We do not deserve to be a free people.