(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . My Thoughts on America Today [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-09-03 Sunday in Maryland. We are apparently approaching what the forecasters say will be the hottest week of the year. In September. Wow. In the meantime, insurance companies are reworking their risk profiles and a lot of people are going to be surprised by the loss of coverage for natural events, increased premiums, or the complete loss of coverage for auto and home insurance. Hmmm. Climate change anyone? The West coast no longer has a fire season – it is year-round. Tornado alley is moving east. The southwest is turning into a furnace. Flooding is becoming a new normal for many areas. Florida is having manhole covers popping out of the streets as high tides back up storm drains. Areas thought to be out of flood zones are now in new ones that have not been mapped yet. Trump is running neck and neck with Biden in polls despite the fact that extremely strong evidence points to him committing multiple criminal felonies. Does that mean people don’t believe he is a criminal or that they literally don’t care? In either case this is a serious problem for everyone in the US. I for one do not want to see him in any public office, he is unfit mentally, emotionally, and morally. The GOP has seemingly convinced a great many people, with the support of the heavily biased Supreme Court, that freedom of religion means they get to enforce their religious beliefs on people who don’t share those beliefs. Another group of MAGA believers think that violence and threats are appropriate means of changing the way society operates. Public Health measures are fought tooth and nail as an issue of personal freedom over trivial measures such as asking and vaccinations. This occurs on both sides of the political aisles. Science and actual history are denigrated. Universities are encouraged to support political beliefs not espoused by the majority of Americans. Some colleges are being pushed to eliminate liberal arts, in order to drive their students towards being nothing more than drone-like job seekers. The MAGA GOP has a political agenda that will turn the minimal safety net created by the Roosevelt and Johnson administrations into a government for the public good “in name only”. Agencies such as the EPA, OSHA, and FDA, created to protect the US from the secondary impacts of corporate greed such as food safety issues, environmental destruction and rampant safety or civil rights violations would be gutted. In the meantime, the rest of the Western world looks on in wonder as the GOP appears willing to turn its back on them in isolationism and attempt to recreate an American society that never really existed. I remember people being terrified by the social changes wrought in the 1960’s by the civil rights movement, the “free love” culture and the anti-war movement. The US came out of that era with some valuable lessons that created both positive and negative effects on the country. It was largely a net positive. Extending those positive lessons to become more inclusive have created another backlash similar to the KKK, White Citizen Councils, John Birchers, and McCarthy anti-communists. The difference that I can see is that the 50’s and 60’s backlash appeared to be a genuine, if misguided, concern over the welfare of the country being, while today’s backlash appears driven by purely personal political motives. The same tactics used by the KKK, WCC, Birchers are being employed today by the extreme conservative movement, given new life by the GOP and Donald Trump. Referring to Democrats as “Communists” or Socialists implies that the average person does not know the difference between the mildly liberal movement in this country vs. actual communists. Even Europe can scarcely be defined as communist. It is at best an area of social democracy. Further areas of concern are outright lies fostered by the extreme right. No one on the left is asking people to have abortions, not worship at their institution of choice, take birth control pills, read books they don’t want to, keep their children in non-religious schools or even join a union. They have a choice. Unlike the GOP which wants to take that same choice away from people who may share their beliefs. The approach to taking America back on track for everyone’s’ freedom of choice remains available to all now. If you don’t want to have an abortion – don’t. If you don’t want to read a specific book – don’t. If you want your child educated religiously – send them to a private school or educate them at home. Public schools are for everyone and are not supposed to espouse a religious point of view. If you don’t believe in birth control – don’t use it. Do not use the false equivalence that the availability of choice denies your personal freedom to act as you see fit in these matters. It does not. But attempting to force your views on others does deny people freedom of choice. You do have the right to persuade people to your point of view in a non-violent way. If they choose otherwise, it is not your right to force them to think or worse, pretend to think the way you do. The idea that there is a “right way” to think and feel leads to dictatorship, pogroms, holy wars, inquisitions, and similar atrocities. Remember that the shoe could always fall the other way as many have discovered to their own self-destruction. Tolerance and forbearance have always been an ideal of this country. We have seldom met those ideals, but that fact should never stop us from trying. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/3/2191338/-My-Thoughts-on-America-Today Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/