The Big Divide

Right or Wrong

ACES

The Big Divide

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            After witnessing what can only be described as a senatorial sucker punch party, there were other, more civil topics that could have been considered for today. What must be said about the whole sorry state of this phase of third American civil war is that there are several senatorial office holders who have no idea what their staff direction is. They operate only on the basis of the notes that are placed in front of them to read. That was clearly seen when the ranking minority leader turned to her staff to ask if they had leaked the letter.

            Who’s kidding who!

            ACES

            Out of that little reader circle of 1957 first graders at the Lab School on the campus of what became Western New Mexico University, at least four are now gone. Liz, Webb, David, and Paul are no longer with us. What was so special about that small class, though, was we were united as friends with no preconceived notions or biases. We were just little kids tossed into an environment that was foreign to each of us. We found ourselves clinging to each other because there was no one else.

            We got to know each other in the most fundamental way. To the child, we learned our ABC’s from scratch. We watched each other disciplined, taught, rewarded, struggle, and survive that first year. For some it was easy. For others it was hard, but every one of us was accepted in the group. It was only later after we were corrupted by influences, interaction with older kids, antics of parents, and response mechanisms of making our way did we witness divide and polarization.

            As long as it was just us, we maintained a cohesive, closed enclave. We were children of our time and our place. We were girls and we were boys. There was simply no emphasis or qualifier of anything else.

            We were friends … first friends.

            The Big Divide

            Political parties divide America.

            They always have, and they always will. They are predicated on differences. They are not constitutional in that the idea is silent in the document, but they are a force today. Arguably, they are the form and function of our government. Yes, it can be argued this nation is a democratic republic, but it is also arguable that that is simply a time tested, generous pledge not a fact.

            The question must be asked. What would happen if any elected representative was allowed to caucus only with himself? In that circumstance, the reliance of instruction from the majority or minority headquarters would be abolished. Votes would be cast without mob control or the general orders of the day. The idea would be that the individual must be elevated both on the basis of the citizen and the elected representative.

            We have entered a time and a place where the bricks and mortar of Washington, DC are truly antiquated. If we knew what it cost to run our government on the basis of dollars per elected representative, somebody ought to at least gasp and cough. The arrival of real time IFeatures also contributes to the suggestion that the occupation of DC is outdated. What if every representative remained at home in his or her state and each vote cast was done in full view of his electorate from a glass box in his state capital rather than in the sanctity of the governing chambers of the capital where each vote is followed by a crony gathering at Charlie Palmer Steak House or Bullfeathers where the day’s coups are counted, compared, and debated?

            For that matter, make the glass box a camp trailer to be pulled by a pickup with the requirement that each day the single vehicle caravan must arrive at the next town on the map of each congressional district so that the locals can look the character in the eye and demand to know how that vote impacted his or her future.

            The display of events this week should be recognized as a microcosm of the treatment of the greater American citizenry in the fiduciary irresponsibility of the nation’s Treasury as well as the sacrifice of lives for political cause.

            Indeed, Washington is a swamp.

            Right or Wrong

            Most will say Roe v. Wade is the accelerator of this uber political hate. Isn’t that the real basis of the Senate Judicial Committee hearing this week?

            Whether it is or is not what can be argued is that this age is no different from any other previous time when childhood was such a precarious and dangerous time to survive much less thrive. Studies promoted by social scientists have demonstrated that children have historically been victims as much or more than they have been treated as a protected treasure.

            As a nation, they certainly are not treated as a treasure. The proof is found in the number of fatal terminations since the case was argued in front of the Supreme Court. At the hour this was written, the estimated aborted fetuses stood at 60,757,770.

            Comparisons are superfluous.

            Casualties within wars are fractions of that total. Combined casualties of war don’t equate, and, yet, we describe ourselves as civilized. Proponents rationalize the legal standards for the barbaric and horrific savagery.

            The case in point might as well be that 1957 class of first graders. If Roe v. Wade had been the law of the land by the Supreme Court in 1950 or 1951, the four names mentioned may not even have been born. They may have been legal takings in the form of aborted fetuses.

            Indeed, we were first friends. We were innocent and tentative in our first independent foray into an uncivilized world, but we didn’t face the wrath of the unborn today.

We don’t know how lucky we were.

            Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “We’d better hope we are judged as individuals rather than a society!”