As a pacifist, I have had to endure an inane question from people who rouse to violence instead of courage when provoked or incited to hate someone else for no other reason than that that other person is an object of derision instead of a living, breathing fellow passenger on this small planet. So many times, especially when our nation is “at war” with someone or another over oil or religion or greed, the retort to my saying I am against, not only this “war”, but war itself often has been, “what if a madman came into your house and killed your family, would you be a pacifist then?”.
Now We The People live in a time when such madmen are coming into Our house — the United States of America: a pact among citizens to rise to the mutual defense of one another against threats to our peace, our prosperity or our privacy to live in freedom. The Constitution is the cumulation of centuries of attempts, and failures, to achieve such a circle of trust and mutual power. Perfect? Hell, no. An amazing scientific experiment in self-government which has managed to survive two centuries and change? Hell, yes. So far, the attempts have gained over the failures. We have a long way to go, but the way is clear.
What is a pacifist to do?
Stand.
Stand up and look the madness in the eye. Not the person in whom it is manifest, for they are human and swayed by human emotions and and the seduction of evil intent by aspiring tyrants. THE madness. Of Tyranny itself. Invading Our Place, Our Home, with impunity and guile. To lord some sort of imagined Power over Us. There is no such power. It is the idea of power which dies when the infected one dies or wakes up from the miasma and decides to stand themselves. One thing We the People can now see, looking back over centuries of holding forth Our ideals, is that the only source of lasting power in history is the Will of the People when They stand up together against tyranny.
When an American citizen stands to post or stands to protest, that citizen stops running from the threat and turns to face it. Our public servants stand to post when war, famine, disease, ignorance or injustice swells up and threatens to become a tide.
Reagan’s Curse:
The ten most dangerous words in the English language are "Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
Ronald Reagan
remarks to Future Farmers of America,
July 28, 1988
Each and every one of our neighbors who embrace the life of public service works for little pay, and less respect, since Reagan’s Curse. Reagan did not invent that curse — it has always been with us. But he and his successors have baptized themselves in it and allowed it to addle their minds. They are sick. They are weak. They need Us to stand against them for their own good, as well as Ours. This madness comes in each generation, and it is Our struggle to suffer each time that corrupt meme gains agency and evinces a cynical nihilism that spreads to infect everyone around them.
Against that constant oozing of evil ideas, our public servants stand. As our law enforcement servants this week rise again to stand against madmen with bombs and guns and guile. Along with thousands of other public servants, they are standing to post in Our defense.
When We stand to protest, each of Us, public servant or private citizen, work against the tides of emotion due to madness, or bigotry, or a hunger for wealth and power. These tides must come, unfortunately, because all of us are free to speak and associate as we choose unimpeded by Our Government — Ourselves, the People of the United States of America.
Our public servants can patch the dykes against the tide, but they cannot remake those dykes anew and better and last generations into the future. Only those who stand in protest en masse can turn back such a tide.
This week the tide came in, as it has before. But it comes in against another tide — a tsunami. A tsunami of people who stand to the ultimate mechanism for protest in the Constitutional system: voting. These bombers; these gun men; these preachers of false religion; these moneychangers in the temple or Our common weal, as a nation — these mad citizens are in the house, and they are killing members of Our family.
We must stand. We must vote to turn back the tide. We must defy when We are told to behave in ways which betray Our nature. We must tend the wounds of fellow citizens injured by this violence and evil — even if they themselves became agents of it. We can always pray that they will find it within themselves to stand. We must baptize Ourselves with mercy: relentless, uncompromising, unblinking mercy. We aspire to perfection over the whole arc of Our common history, and We stand to reach out together, grab onto that arc and, with a mighty common Will, bend it back from madness enough that Our children and Our children’s children can do the rest.
We the People can find our common Will by finding Our Voice -- by not flinching when the evil touches Us and not looking away when others visit evil on Our fellow citizens. We stand and look madness in the eye. The only answer to that inane question I could find, over the years, is “stand in front of my family and look them in the eye. At least I can take it first.” And what I do every election to push such a threat away is vote for public servants who will do the dirty, mundane, thankless work for me and my family and my fellow citizens: to choose those who will truly stand to post on the battlements of Our Constitution protecting Us from tyranny’s ever-present danger. Every day. For as long as it takes for that arc of history to bend enough that all of Us are safe and free from tyranny and injustice.
Stand. Now is the time.
Stand. Today is the day.
Stand now — Our future and that of our Constitution is at sake in this election.
Vote as soon as you can and get everyone around you to the polls for this election. The tide of evil is rising, but the tsunami of Our common Will is rising as well. It must be enough. It’s all We have. But it is the same, and only, real defense Our forebears have ever had. Our only real weapon is Our common pact: the Constitution. It’s time to do its work and marvel at its power: power no tyrant can ever wield because it comes from the rising of the People and nowhere else. Wield that power with the rest of Us. Share it with everyone you touch and marvel at how many will stand with you when asked. Be the change We are waiting for.
Stand.