What If…
Jan 22, 2021 Commentary, General, Immigration, Law Enforcement, Opinion, Political
If you are like me, and you probably sometimes are, you go thru life with many preconceived notions and assumptions. Introduced by friends and family, reinforced by school, TV, movies, and our own experiences, we have certain ‘givens’ in life that we rely upon to try to understand a very complicated world. But what if they are all or mostly wrong? Let’s dig.
What we are taught in elementary school is likely our bedrock for more assumptions. Our history, how current events impact us, the roles of many people in society, all have the opportunity to be learned here. What do police do? Firemen? Doctors? Congressmen and Presidents? Judges? Lawyers? While some of these may be discussed at home (depending upon the home), most are introduced in school, in one form or another. If your teacher or teachers were pro-cop, you would get entirely different views than if your instructor(s) were anti-cop. And so on.
Some of my assumptions were about how systems work in the US: police, law, courts, elections, military, Congress, virtually everyone in elected or appointed roles in US society. Speaking entirely for myself, I always assumed that checks and balances were in place in ALL of these systems to prevent criminal behavior by those folks in those roles. Sure, some folks of every position stretched the rules, and benefited personally by those stretches. But I always assumed that the overwhelming majority were honorable people, doing their part in society to keep things running. But what if ALL of those assumptions are flat-out wrong? What if the systems are inherently broken, by the past and present office holders, and because of their control over those systems, they will NEVER be fixed?
What if Congress has nothing to do with representing ANYONE but Congressmen? The rest is pure marketing. What if the courts are so complicit in the malfeasance, that they rule however they want, to protect the entire elected and appointed class? Boat rockers and folks with integrity are shooed away, or absorbed into the cabal. Once elected, they are shown the REAL deal: do it our way, or you will be an army of one, with zero assistance from anyone in the system. What if the police only superficially enforce the law, and only how and where their chain of command dictates? The same may hold true for the military, just on a much larger scale. What if wars are fought just to advance the fortunes of the defense contracting companies, with appropriate kickbacks to those elected folks again?
You may ask: Dude, what makes you think so negatively about these things? The riots and mayhem over the Summer started the crack in my mental veneer. Then, the recent elections process, coupled by the omnibus spending bill, made me think that no systems appear to be working as advertised—certainly not to the benefit of the taxpaying citizen.
Tags: Systems