Most of you will know exactly where that came from which is the Robin Williams line in what otherwise was a sad, tragic movie but through his comic genius made the watchers, like me, forget the gore that was abounding lifted us for a few precious moments. For some strange reason when the world saw the video of Bernie Sanders going to Al Sharpton, I refuse to use the title Sharpton likes which is Reverend, that movie line came back to me. A Liberal voter I am not but then I am not necessarily an assigned voter and never have been. My voting life I have sought to vote my heart for the office seeker, referendum, etc and not align solely to a party. Sanders, at best, I guess, is less bad than his competitor Hillary and believe me, that is a really sad state of affairs in a nation and a world blowing up around us daily.
I believe my greatest worry or concern about this nation resides in the angst and ever-fueled issue of race. Never in my lifetime do I recall that divide being wider and the deeper I search to understand why it is so bad, the trail of crumbs seems to always lead back to Washington DC and the period of worsening seems to be almost to the date of the swearing in of our POTUS. There are those that will criticize my comment as me hating Obama or being a racist but those that know me know that is not a proper description of my heart and beliefs.
The sheer use of the term "race" changes the coloration of processing what is trying to be expressed. Having been a child of the 1960s in Alabama, I saw first hand racism in its raw and ugly form. Having spent considerable time in South Africa post apartheid, I had another dose of racism unfolded before me so I am certainly no virgin on the matter. But what has been allowed, encouraged, celebrated and fueled in our nation by an array of politicians, celebrities, entertainers, events causes me to really fear a race-driven insurrection feasibility in our nation.
Last night as I was driving to church, I saw a billboard that stated ..." real love is having a CCW" which, of course, means encouraging citizens to seek a concealed weapons certification. What hit me was using the term "love" in such a way was a total turn off to me in that moment. But then I read the statistics of gun sales gun ownership, CCW applications all linked to more and more violent killings robberies, etc perpetrated usually by African Americans, the calculus incites me deeply. My thought is that in working with well over three hundred thousands prison inmates in the last several years of my life conducting worship services and seeking to get to know each of these men and women at a spiritual level, my sensitivities are biased in favor of these poor souls. You never, however can forget, that it is they that put themselves behind those bars by bad choice and most times drug and alcohol fueled and gang driven.
I have said all of that to get to my point. America has lost our smile, our desire to belly laugh for fear to offending, being on the wrong side of a reality or being accused of racism. Terminologies change from some source and thus today what you say is accepted and the next you are a racist if you use the same term. Hearing the deafening sounds of my childhood such a Black Panthers, watching on global television such as the Super Bowl, an array of black entertainers we know now with songs and subliminal messages on these caustic, unproductive movements all serve to cause me to want to just turn up my music on my laptop and ignore the whole mess for a mess is preciously what it is.
Ferguson, for me, is a class example of what I am so frustrated about. Endless protests burning, always looting, police hating and killing all, ALL fueled from an over sized videoed thug robbing and assaulting the store owner and then blatantly not acting as a responsible citizen by not following a policeman's order to get out of the middle of the street and then attacking the policeman in being the well known bully Mike Brown was known to be and voila, it is all the policeman's fault, is it society's fault; it is everybody's except where the real culprit resides, Mike Brown. Again, this incident is a microcosm and a sad metaphor as to where our nation as arrived and I strongly believe its root of the insurrection resides in the White House.
Here is where my heart is this early morning ... I want America, my nation, to be comfortable and to be able to smile about life, about hope, about investing a person's life into something good. Where we are, however, is the enveloping Entitlement mentality and Big, Overreaching Government. It is that term that causes me more and more concern now with Sanders, a proclaimed Socialist, the front runner to replace Obama on the Democratic side. Then there is Clinton that is, well, not worth my time to write words to describe my dislike for the very name Clinton, the Machine.
Then I look at the continuing GOP posturing and jockeying with seemingly every pundit and talking head tearing away at Trump, the overwhelming GOP ticket front runner and you wonder why as we see the flocking, finally, away of the lower level candidates to the exit door. Whether you like Trump or not, whether you believe a word he says or not; one thing is for sure, his numbers do not lie. He has tapped into the long silent majority of Americans are fed up with the American this POTUS has led us to be which filled with anger, distrust and shadows of darkness about the future. That is sinister, sinful and scary; and it is all in a master Liberal plan I am convinced. And please know that I am not nor have I ever been a conspiracy theory nut job.
Our nation is sick, broken, broke! Those can will lead the nation to the sunlight are challenged to look beyond the rhetoric of hate and discord so abundantly being cast on We the People. It is not about the number of CCW applications, guns owned and desired, it is not about beating up on people that even smile or question the Second Amendment; it is about somebody having the courage to step up and lead, make tough decisions, implement the decisions through a convoluted legislative system fueled by special interests and money.
I want to laugh again as to Americans!
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