I can respect that, it was a good speech. Never mind that Congressional Republicans are in it up to their eyeballs, regarding the creation of this mess.
Matthew 27New American Standard Bible (NASB)
Judas’s Remorse
27 Now when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus to put Him to death; 2 and they bound Him, and led Him away and delivered Him to Pilate the governor.
3 Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? See to that yourself!”5 And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself. 6 The chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury, since it is the price of blood.” 7 And they conferred together and with the money bought the Potter’s Field as a burial place for strangers. 8 For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9 Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “And [c]they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel; 10 and they gave them for the Potter’s Field, as the Lord directed me.”
But not long after Senator Flake's speech, the Senate voted to gut consumer protections, particularly in finance.
I have been saying for a long time now, that these people...old, rich supposedly-conservative white men who claim to be religious and whose power-base by and large is rooted in the Baby Boomer generation, people now in their 60's and 70's...know that they are on their way out. So, they have decided as a group that they are going to steal as much money as they can on the way out the door.
Hence the fact that Republicans are putting up with Donald Trump and with Trump's making a mess of our country, our international relations, and our politics in general. They are holding out for more tax cuts for the wealthy, even as the political situation makes passing any major legislation less likely, even as the Far-right (and a sector of it which really doesn't give a shit about rich people or tax cuts beyond possibly for their own funders, preferring a much more ideological, and ultimately racist agenda. Come on, you don't think "Economic Nationalism" really has anything to do with the good of the nation...or for that matter economics...do you? We'll get to that later) plots their destruction and a hostile takeover of the Republican Party.
What do they intend to replace it with?
First, let me fill in a basic definition of Republican values as I learned them:
The basic values of conservatism as I was taught it could be summed up as "Personal responsibility, free enterprise, limited government and human dignity." Diversity was always considered kind of a default setting, other people's sexuality was none of my business. Religion was important on a personal level...but it was well understood that people had their own beliefs and that wasn't any of my business either. In fact, learning about other beliefs and cultures in order to properly understand people was considered important. Doing things right, keeping one's word, paying the bills, telling the truth...all these things rounded out a secular philosophy that had no small amount of grounding in the teachings of Christianity, but that accepted the validity of other faiths and their traditions.
A person who knows what they believe and is grounded in the practice and spiritual Truth of it is not threatened by other people's beliefs.
That is conservatism as I was taught it. Ironically, most of those same beliefs underpin modern Center-Left liberalism. That's basically why I'm a Democrat, although still on good terms with what old-school Republicans are still around.
Now, on to the meat of the matter;
There was something else I read last night, on a later break, that stated that a lot of conservative white Americans believe that white people are being discriminated against. In the specific example that one of the people quoted in the article gave...they complained that, basically, a Black person got the job and they didn't. There was no thought given to whether or not that Black person was more qualified, or had more relevant experience or skills, or other factors (such as being a college graduate or military veteran) that might have influenced the decision of whom to hire. Simply the fact that an African American got hired and they didn't was considered "discrimination against white people" by this white man.
Sorry, dude, but black folks need jobs too. If you didn't get the job, you didn't get the job. Maybe you should look at your own qualifications? Maybe give another line of work a try?
I'm sorry, but according to what I was taught, nobody should be entitled to just have stuff handed to them. No one is entitled to just get a job...least of all because of the color of their skin or some other ascribed status. If you don't have the education, experience, or whatever other qualifications are needed...you're not going to get the job.
So, try again, try harder. The agency is on you, here. Go to school, join the Army and learn a trade, whatever. You will (usually) have at least some control over your own life, use it.
The fact is that as time has gone on, over the course of the last century and a half, or so...and most particularly in the latter half of that time period, African Americans, women, and various other ethnic (and social, such as disabled people) minority groups have gained access to the needed education, governmental participation, increasing (though still not on a par with white folks) material wealth, social freedoms, and work experience needed to raise their own collective status in our society.
How did they do this? They fought for it, they worked for it, many people in all of these various groups were engaged and responsible citizens who petitioned the government for redress of grievances as the Constitution states that they have a right to...and in all of these streams of action no small percentage of these various peoples died for their rights or the rights of future generations to have everything that white men take for granted.
(...And no, they're still not all the way there yet.)
Some people have a problem with that, and think that the State should intervene on their behalf, to provide for them while denying others their opportunities and rights, on the basis of often-arbitrary, usually-ascribed status...and it is not just people of color, religious or sexual minorities or women that these people seek to Other. It's also white people...including white men, even conservative white men...who disagree with them, that are ending up on the hit list.
In effect, these people, whether they are Alt-right Nazis or just plain grievance-driven angry old white people, want the government to preserve...if not expand...their white (and often, male) privilege while allowing them to trample on the rights of others no matter how basic or hard-earned or inalienable under the Constitution, nor whether or not those other people have always had those rights nor how hard they had to fight to get to exercise them nor whether that fighting was in the streets of Alabama, the skies over Germany, or the jungles of Vietnam.
They just. Plain. Don't. Care.
Perhaps more to the point...these people, whether they're some angry, frustrated, virginal young fat dude who sits behind a computer all day and doesn't work or some grizzled old coal miner who worked for decades, owns their own house and just wants a good-paying job again on their own terms...they actively want their success to come at the expense of other people.
I don't see how that's fair. I don't see how that's right. I don't see how that could ever be considered Christian, and I absolutely do not think that fits in with "Personal responsibility, free enterprise, limited government and human dignity" as I was taught the meanings of those words.
Hell, an awful lot of these people don't care if they get anything, or if they are successful, they just want to see somebody else suffer.
And that is just plain Wrong.
But, That is the exact nature of the political movement that is swallowing up the Republican Party and that's what people like Bob Corker, Jeff Flake and John McCain...whatever their faults or screwed-up politics...don't want to be a part of. They seem to have reconciled themselves to being unable to stop this garbage, at least on some level. They appear to be unafraid to be seen grabbing hand-fulls of cash on the way out the door...never mind the discredit such may do to their own words, later on. Never mind the damage it may do to the fortunes of the average citizen, or the nation as a whole.
This is the end result of 40 years of "Fuck you, I've got mine" and 50 years of stirring up racist sentiment...mostly with the aim of (in the long term) securing tax cuts for the wealthy and other gains for business and corporations at the expense of the common person.
...And now, they can't even get that done.
But they can sure as hell give contracts to fix Puerto Rico's electrical grid to some podunk tiny Montana town's little power company...never mind that that company doesn't have the capability, logistics or personnel to get a job of that scale done in any timely fashion whatsoever. But hey, some Trump donor gets a big paycheck, so it's all good, right?
Somehow, none of these people care that the people of Puerto Rico (the ones who still live there, at least) are struggling to survive, many with none of the basics of modern civilization that their fellow Americans on the mainland take for granted.
...And
Like I said, these "Conservatives" know their day is done soon, demographics and diversity, health problems and the simple tick-tock, tick-tock of the clock will see to that soon enough. If the President's garbled speeches and apparent mental problems (which suggest worsening dementia) are any indication, probably sooner.
The Republican Party...indeed...the entire Conservative movement, has changed from being a party of convictions and values to being the Party of A Man. When he goes...by whatever means...so do they.
As for what may replace them? Well, unless somebody comes up with something real fast it's probably going to be the idiots marching around with torches and shouting racist propaganda...and in a chilling development...a very large percentage of United States Armed Forces personnel, when polled, cited those people...not Muslims, not North Koreans, not Russians, and sure as hell not Terrorists...or at least as how that term is currently politically defined, as the gravest threat to our nation. If the military is damned well worried about White Nationalists, maybe the rest of us had best be on our guard?
(If you want a better country, you have to be better citizens. If you want to keep these assholes from taking power after the current batch of assholes goes down, you're going to have to work for it. As I have said...these nuts are organizing for next year's election. We'd best get busy and keep at it. The alternative could make The Handmaid's Tale or the Chinese Communist surveillance state in Xinjiang look tame by comparison...remember, American fanatics are almost never happy with anything. Imagine what such people will do with an ideology that's based around the idea that Other People don't have an inherent right to exist.)
But it's all good as long as Bob Corker, Jeff Flake and John McCain get that one last payday from their connections in the banking industry on the way out the door, right?
Just give the mess these assholes are leaving us some thought, will you? And I say that as somebody who respects these guys, at least a little bit...and who used to have some points of agreement with them.
If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen. If the line on what constitutes being a decent person moves, so that you have to switch political parties or vote for somebody that you may not have 20 years ago, you do that. The line on what is right and what is wrong has not moved. How ever we may individually interpret that line...there have to be some things we all can agree on.
Otherwise, we don't have a civilization.
(...And you don't try to grab one more handful of cash on the way out the door. Sometimes, the proper thing to do is just leave...)
Oh, and the title?
A Potter's Field is defined in American and European Christian tradition as a place of burial for indigent or unknown people or those who lack relatives able to care for the disposition of their remains postmortem. The term is of Biblical origin, referring to a ground that was dug for clay used in making pottery, later purchased by the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem for the burial of criminals, the poor, and strangers.
I think the mental image of the desolation and emptiness that such a term or its description conjures up is oddly fitting in describing what has become of the soul of our nation right now.
Either we bury the Nazis there, or they will bury us there.
Beyond even that, how do we fix it? That's on us.
It's worth remembering that much of the American church is more synonymous with money and power and privilege than with being in opposition to such things and caring for the poor and the stranger, which is what Christ commanded of His believers.
Politics and religion are about ideas. The Truth is most often about people.
Jesus Christ knew that. Why don't we?
Jesus Christ knew that. Why don't we?
Matthew 6:24King James Version (KJV)
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
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