Imagine your community in splinters
Imagine your community in splinters or ashes. (Many of us can.) Where to turn when everything you’ve known and loved is gone; your home and memorabilia, your church, your business, your main street, your fire station, parks and a family member? Wiped out. People reach deep for courage, strength and the will to go on. People help one another. And communities without the means and resources turn to FEMA and the National Guard to begin the massive recovery that wouldn’t be possible without it.
Because in the end, the political strife being created over whether the government has the right to tell us what to do, has nothing to do with the real reasons why we have a government. Our government as an institution creates structure and organization with rules and legislation. Our Constitution is a social contract that enables us to function as a civilized whole. Anything less, whether in times of tragedy or everyday life in our communities, threatens a daily way of life that every one of us either cherishes or has forgotten to appreciate.
Cherishing the institutions of family, church, the military, our police force and our country is the common ground upon which we all stand; regardless of any rhetoric trying to claim otherwise.
President Eisenhower was the last Republican who stood for those values before moneyed Super PAC influence, internal power struggles and biased media shifted party emphasis. Republicans launched a seductive campaign to get people to resent paying common taxes contributing to hundreds of agencies like FEMA or Social Security which help them when they fall on hard times, to rebel against being told what to do by entities such as our respected military and to distrust our DOJ, FBI or election system when the results weren’t what they wanted.
But there’s common ground in moderate Republicans and Democrats alike supporting the functionality of a democratic government that works to safeguard peace, stability and brotherly love every day in ways big and small. Politicians and voters crying out for anarchy forget that most of us believe in the sacred American institutions built on foundations of inter-cooperation.
If you’re standing in front of your devastated community or watching a government coup upend the order necessary for a democratic nation to function, I think you’ll pause and remember how precious is our way of life and how much resolve we must have to protect against any anarchy intent on destroying it.
Martha Hodges
Kailua-Kona
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