Moral, Duty, Honor

     Firstly, I feel the need to apologize for all of the political references.  Political frustration is what has been fueling my brain into this week or so of writing frenzy.  I listen to the radio, hear people talk about things in the office, watch videos on the internet... and my brain just goes to work.  Words rapidly pop into my head unlike I've experienced in many years.  It starts with a sentence that runs through the back of my eyeballs like a teleprompter stuck on repeat.  Before you know it, a second sentence crawls into the bottom of the picture.  By the time a third sentence is ready, words are pushing the sides of my skull in an attempt to escape.  It hurts, but it's closer to ecstasy than it is pain.

     There was an interview with a woman who once worked for NATO on NPR this morning.  I'm not going into great detail on what the conversation was about, but it was political in nature and most of, if not all of, the questions were in regards to her opinion on Trump as the new president.  The part of the interview that really sent my teleprompter on the fritz was at the very end.  This woman, and I apologize for not remembering her name or being able to quickly Google it successfully, her final words of the interview were something along the lines of "We have both a moral and civic duty to get 100% behind or president-elect."  Honestly, I'm not sure I could disagree more, and if I could disagree more, I can't even begin to imagine what that might look like.

     If it were me being interviewed, I probably would have said something more along the lines of "We as Americans have both a moral and civic duty to stand against that which infringes on or has the great potential to infringe on the freedoms that we hold so dear."  I have to wonder why these voices are being played to us in nearly every medium I allow into my ears.  What is the end game here?  If citizens disagree with policy, is it not our moral and civic duty to protest in the physical streets as well as the digital highway?  I know that I've said all of this before, but what I haven't mentioned is how scary it is that even NPR is sending these messages, unapologetically, unequivocally, repeatedly.

     There are so many examples in history, American history, where no change would have happened if the people hadn't voiced their opinions, some even sacrificing their lives.  How crazy is it to think that human-beings had to give their lives in order to be free, in order to be treated equally, in order to vote... and it's still not enough.  It's even crazier to think that they were fighting for these freedoms not from a dictatorship, not from a caesar,  but from a community of people who didn't like the color of the skin they were born with or the gender they were born as.  Those wars are still being waged, and it's difficult for me not to draw a direct connection to LGTB struggles of today as well.  Freedom to practice religion should not mean freedom to discriminate based on beliefs --> opinion or fact?

     A common saying in the United States is that people have the right to their own opinion.  I'd really like to talk more about what that really means, so let's talk more soon.