Results AND Resistance
What do we resist? We resist job losses. We resist wage stagnation. We resist corporate welfare. We resist corruption. We resist cruelty. We resist dictators.
We resist Republicans.
What do we resist? We resist job losses. We resist wage stagnation. We resist corporate welfare. We resist corruption. We resist cruelty. We resist dictators.
We resist Republicans.
In liberal views, if people donʻt benefit – if wages donʻt go up with productivity, if houses arenʻt affordable, if medical bankruptcies are rising, if school debt is crushing, if lives are lost – then the economy is failing.
The story of America cannot be told in terms of what we are or what we have been. The American story is that we are a people in motion – we are going someplace. Someplace better than where we are or where we were. It’s not about where we are, it’s about the journey we are on.
It’s not about what we are, it’s about what we are trying to become.
There’s money to be made, and there are jobs to be created, by imprisoning people. And there are many private, for-profit companies feeding at that trough.
Is that a Michigan Value?
Our democracy doesn’t just permit you to speak freely, but it requires it. It’s through the freedoms of speech and press that our democracy defends itself, strengthens itself, and grows itself.
A favorite quotation from American founding documents is this partial quote: “We, the people.” Taken from the Preamble (and thus the first words) of the U.S. Constitution, “We, the people” is meant to illustrate the primacy of the people of the United States over other powers, especially the powers of the government formed by that same Constitution.
But this reading misses the mark. I take those opening words to reflect that the people and the government are one and the same.
This seems like an important point in the discussion of 2nd Amendment rights. It is also an important point in many other aspects of how the people and the government relate to one another. And understanding that point drives many of the policies we operate under, and advocate for or against, today.
If we hold that “the government” is some entity that exists outside of, separate from, and in enmity against, the people, then many of the policies of the Republican party follow quite naturally.
It plays on your sense of guilt that you missed an email, that you rudely ignored an email, that the sender is really interested in helping you – when, in fact, this email is just a pretense.
This chaos, this havoc, this loss of reliability and stability proves the foregone conclusion: that government doesn’t work, cannot work. So chaos, incompetence, corruption, havoc all play into driving this message. So all of this havoc, all of this chaos, all of this pain may be “proving” that government isn’t needed at all. This has all been part of a well-crafted plan, then?
A wall is a nightmare. A wall is the opposite of what America offers the world. A wall says:
America is Closed
America must never be closed.
We trust in the institution of government, a government that is, in the end, made up of all of us, all of the people, a government that creates the law by which we agree to be governed.