In the Face of Truth

Truth be told, our country finds itself again at a crossroads. The crossroads of fear and faith. Fear of something new and different vs. our faith in an anomalous status quo.

We know that conservatism is usually associated with the status quo --- the way things are that are supposed to be good and honorable. This brand has a peculiar habit of bringing on more trouble than it should. Maybe it's because too many so-called "conservatives" are afraid of confronting a new and inevitable future.

Progressivism is usually associated with the struggle to make things different. Oh, what a frightful idea! Many so-called "liberals", so accursed, press forward to a new and brighter future. How dare them. In the past, these folk have been accused of wanting change that would destroy the so-called conservative values of America while sacrificing their comfort for the very values we enjoy. It's understandable based on their scope.

Ironically, it is the imperative to retain the hubris surrounding so-called conservative values that causes conservatives to wallow in their parochial approaches to God, Country, State, and Family. The hubris of isolationism and protectionism (there go those "isms" again!) that applies to a long since changed social paradigm. So much for open-mindedness.

This is the time for caution, not cynicism. The wedge issues that led to this country's greatest war --- the Civil War --- are no longer appropriate or sensible. Furthermore, they are not cost effective. Nevertheless, they seem to remain incorrigibly in good operating condition. This begs the questions: "Who is our enemy"? "What are we fighting for"? "How do we fight and win?"

Our enemy is the dark force of world domination. We are somehow left fighting a social plethora of lies, half-truths, and hypocritically ignorant declarations of "freedom and justice for all". Our wrong-headed quest leaves us imprisoned by a nascent ignorance of who controls and operates the levers of life in this world. Freedom for whom? Justice for whom? Who are the "all"? Is it really ". . . in God we trust"?

We have been made to believe that we are each others' enemies, when the reality is that we cannot easily see who our real enemy is . . . we are deceived into false conflicts that strengthen the hold of the enemy on our individualism, social collectivism, and human rights in every respect. Each of us therefore fights for our own convenient cause while missing the objective and strategies of the true enemy. No doubt, we must fight. But our struggle must be effective against the right enemy, for the right reasons, and with the correct strategy. We need to appropriate new technologies that give us a psychoscopic view of the marginalized minority that sees only the perestroika of power to prompt human action towards its own ends.

Because we cannot know the truth as it truly is, we see only what we are allowed to see through a purposefully blurred lens. This, in the face of the truth about our shared misgivings, our seemingly causeless and endless pain, and our reality denied.