By Edwin Cooney
Those of you who regularly read these musings know that I've often confessed to liking politics and yes, even politicians. After all, they're a vital factor in the exercise of liberty! Their greatest value lies in their capacity to represent us by reflecting our values as well as our senses of proportion. Their greatest fault is in their unwillingness to deviate from socio-political ideology. As the late, great GOP Senator Everett Dirksen used to say: "There comes a time when all of us must rise above our principles!"
Thus, I offer the following set of truths for your consideration:
(1.) The rich have always and will always run every society!
(2.) The poor may always be with us, but they love money as much as do the rich!
(3.) Social and political ideology may arrange our thoughts and even our priorities, but ideologies are primarily mere illusions!
(4.) Pro-life advocates can never and will never end abortion. They can only end abortion for the poor. The rich have sufficient money to go places where abortion is legal and return safely home again!
(5.) Pro-choice advocates who claim to possess the right to govern their own bodies invariably are more about peace of mind than they are about responsibility and accountability!
(6.) One can't be an advocate of capital punishment and claim to be “pro-life!"
(7.) Freedom of speech is and ought to continue to be constitutional, but its value must be both useful and truthful!
(8.) Money and religion are the two greatest causes of war. Agnostics and atheists rant and rave about religion, but they certainly love money!
(9.) Criminality must be controlled via punishment, but to believe we can scare potential criminals with threats of imprisonment shows our ignorance about the criminal mind. Criminals already consider themselves victims of society; you can hardly frighten someone who is already scared!
(10.) One of the major myths conservatives insist upon is the myth of the "free market." The "free" market costs a lot of money!
(11.) Liberals possess no monopoly on either charity or generosity!
(12.) The main value of government lies in its capacity to overcome the greed of the rich and powerful. However, the rich and the powerful have no monopoly on greed!
(13.) That which is logical or reasonable isn't automatically rightful. Both reason and logic depend on what is fed into them.
(14.) As President Kennedy told us 58 years ago, "The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, but the myth." A lie is both naked and thus vulnerable. A myth is very often clothed hopes, fears and good wishes!
(15.) I think I can define what our capacity for love is all about. When the welfare of someone is equal or even more important than your own welfare is to you, that's when you know you love them!
Okay, all things whether they be boring or bothersome, relevant or irrelevant, detrimental or helpful must come to an end. Presumptive or worthwhile as the above may be, I hope some of them may be instructive at the outset of perhaps the most critical election season we've ever faced.
We who would comment or persuade may wrap ourselves in the Bible, the Constitution or "Old Glory," but your vote is your business.
As author Teddy White observed back in 1960 about a people and their elected president: "When he, in lonely responsibility seeks to create or destroy he speaks his conscience and theirs, for they have freely chosen him!"
Your choice may well be more significant than either your wishes, or your hopes. It may well be your fate!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
No comments:
Post a Comment