The Preamble We Used to Know

The Preamble to the Constitution Reads:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Wow, that’s pretty. What we are living might go like this:

We the people of the Not-So-United-States, in order to form blocks of coercion, get justice for those we like, fight with whomever we want while armed to the teeth, promote ourselves by destruction of lives and property, and make ourselves free to be hurtful, do insist and pound on the Constitution of the United States of America.

One look at comments on the most innocuous post on Facebook proves the point. Read several comments and it will sound like I am underselling it.

I don’t know how we changed. I have some ideas, because I am old and have seen far too much. I think one thing is television. In order to be bigger than life, television became ugly. Norman Lear said, “Watch me destroy old white men,” before putting “All in the Family” on the small screen. Archie Bunker was brash, stupid, and insulting on purpose. Situation Comedies wanted to be “edgy.” They do shows back to back working long hours to fit show time schedules. They gave up their goal for screaming trite insults. The laugh track loved it, so they did more. And more. And More. Until people thought it was perfectly okay to be insulting. It’s funny. Don’t take offense that I destroyed you with my bon mot—it’s a joke! No, it isn’t. A cheap shot is a cheap shot and we should avoid people who enjoy them.

Now, we have no idea how to use discussion and discourse. And, sadly, I see this just as much among the faithful as I do among the general population. Just because you are not dropping F-bombs does not mean you are speaking with grace. You are not. Not if you use your words to coerce someone into following your politics. Let me see if I can give some examples:

If you vote for someone who is not pro-life, you are sinning.

If you do not vote God will be displeased that you did not use the blessing we have in the democratic process. (These two are from THIS MORING.)

One of my favorites is a long discourse that begins with the warning, “I don’t want any comments, I just want you to read this.” I will speak, you will not because that’s how I want to do this? You do realize that is saying I don’t trust your opinion and don’t care what you think.

What if you said instead:

I choose to vote for pro-life candidates because I feel so strongly about that issue, others just drop away.

I think voting is a great privilege, but I understand that some people do not see a candidate they can support.

Or, I would appreciate it if you would read this but I am too fragile for a discourse, so if you cannot read something and not talk about it, I understand.

NO! NO! GOODNESS NO! We cannot do things like that! We must speak our angry little minds. We must rail against others. We must convince by coercion!

There is another factor, here, and that factor is science. For years and years and years of my life people who did not hold with evolution were shouted down. It was not a “theory,” it was truth. So much so that it was the only way science was allowed to be taught in schools. There was a Big Bang. And, somewhere in that, there was a cell we know as life. And that cell took all the time it wanted to make another one. And another. And another. Add as many billion years as you need to believe that life came from nothing, that it once crossed species lines to go from a cell to all we know of it, that mutants once were not sterile and changed all that came after them; that life put out half an eye not knowing where it would lead or what sight was, that life needing a complex of things in order to live did so once a cell at a time, and other questions we were not allowed to pose. Posing questions in the search for truth might lead to truths the scientists did not want to discuss, so we just wouldn’t be allowed to ask them.

And we wonder why our citizens think that science is a choice. We should not. It was taught to them. Over and over they were told this is truth and you can’t question it. So, they go out and find the truth they want instead of asking questions and finding the truth that is real. And I feel for them. They were set up on this one by years of silencing disagreement or even discourse. If someone managed to comment that they did not think we came from apes, they were quickly told that we may have come from Mars and to sit down and shut up. And, now, they can talk and talk and talk and they do not have to base it on anything. Maybe it happened their way over billions of years. Maybe it happened their way because the other side is holding out for political reasons. Maybe it happened their way because they sense it from the universe. Maybe it happened their way because some idiot managed to get it on Youtube.

I know I am not speaking only for myself in saying I am ready for a more graceful way to live. One with kinder language that is longer on thought and shorter on anger. Lives that not only want grace but that know how to extend it to others. I don’t have a clue how we can get there, but we could begin by reading the Preamble to our own Constitution.