WE THE PEOPLE
DRAPER’S PAPER ROUTE
WE THE PEOPLE
by Adam Carroll Draper
On most Fridays, I go to lunch with a bunch of lawyers. I love all of them, and they are some of my closest friends. In times of greater sanity, Stef and I hang out with them on weekends. So why am I writing about this? They are all Democrats.
I know, right?
The guest on some show I was quasi-dosing through the other night cited a survey showing that 64% of Democrats say they have few or no close Republican friends and that 55% of Republicans have few or no Democrat friends. I did a search for this survey. It was by published by Pew Research Center on October 5, 2017.
Here is the site if you want to read it:
https://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/8-partisan-animosity-personal-politics-views-of-trump/
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not normal. This is particularly true when it comes to how I associate with people. I love people. If I were a dog, I’d be something like a mutt-labrador (mutt because there is not much pure bred about me). I love being around people. My daughter, Jordan, is just like me. Stef likes small groups and close conversation. Jordan and I like a party. The more the merrier. Jordan is even more drawn to that than I am. My general outlook is that as long as someone is not openly hostile to me, we are cool. In fact, I’m OK in general with people who don’t like me as long as they are not all up in my face. So this is somewhat of a disclaimer preceding an expression of disappointment that things are getting out of hand between us all.
The sad truth is that we are collecting into groups that don’t seem to want to get along. What each group really wants is for the other group to go away and shut the @#%* up! This will shock some of you who have known me for a long time (particularly if your association with me was during my loud, political stage), but I tend to avoid talking politics in groups now. When the Friday luncheon gang gets going with their democratness, I tend to start looking at my phone. I can talk to them individually just fine, but they tend to collectively be… well, not so nice. My Republican friends don’t seem to have a problem savaging liberals who stray among them either.
Come to think of it, I end up taking the brunt of the assault from both groups. Arguing against an entire room of people has not tended to phase me in the past, but there is something different now. That is why I have backed away from the fray. It may have something to do with aging. Yikes! But I think it’s more than that.
I am going to just say it. I suspect that we are heading for a civil war if things don’t change!
Things have turned serious. We the people are in dire need of divine mercy.
Social salivators clamor about tolerance from deplorable baskets of bitter clingers, while violently (in some cases) inflicting a zero-tolerance policy of dissent themselves. Civility has become a code word. Racism (or any other …ism) is a slander used cavalierly to identify the opposition, but it is overlooked and excused in allies. At the same time, there is no denying that “us and them” is dangerously in vogue. There is something sinister going on. We are being groomed to become members of a hive, a collective of consumers. It is not exactly communist or capitalist. We are becoming slaves to money and those who provide it. We are becoming accustomed to being spied upon and cowed into submissiveness in the name of tolerance, which actually requires us to turn a blind eye to the absurd. But all this preparation is leading to violent civil strife and war, creating the need for the Maoist techno-harmony to come.
It is dangerous not to be able to talk. A kind of Orwellian doublespeak (pronounced: pə-ˈli-ti-kəl kə-ˈrekt - nəss) has replaced honest, frank discussion and even humor because we woke – or some such inane banality. Most of this is deliberate, arrived at with great effort on the part of those who hate western civilization in general and its Christian moral code in particular. George Bernard Shaw was not at all reticent to discuss this. In order to change the West, its moral code had to be changed, which required an assault upon the basis of that moral code – Christianity. Enter Nietzche, Heidegger, Fouccault and Derrida.
Civil war is the occasion for totalitarianism. Does it really matter what form that totalitarianism takes. Left or right, does it not remain tyranny and anathema to freedom of conscience?
Since we are here, I am just going to call out to my Christian brothers and sisters of all political stripes. We must not become slaves to Mammon. If we surrender, we are lost. Now is the time for unity in peace and love and joy. I saw this on a bumper sticker: “What if they held a war and no one came?”
Love cannot fail. We must walk in peace. We must sing in joy. We give it away, whether the rest of the world wants it or not! We must not shy away from the truth. Jesus is the truth. But he is expressed in love and peace and joy and kindness and gentleness… and in patience.
There is a mighty wave coming, a Great Awakening. We live in joyful hope of the day when our King returns. Love will rule – and there will be no debate about who he is. The darkness will flee in terror on that great day.
Until then, we must keep oil in our lamps.
The Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is dispair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Innocence Mission has a wonderful song of this prayer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvmxyY2BjH8
If you got anything out of this missive, please give it a thumbs up, comment and/or share it. It helps. I sincerely appreciate that you took the time to read this.