Welcome to My America
I have a simple view of America. It means that we do the right thing. Far too often, that hasn’t been the case. We have police officers who abuse their authority to rule over the people they are supposed to protect. We have elected officials who lie to their constituents to suit their own political and personal agenda. Certainly, this isn’t the case with all people in authority, but it happens often enough that we accept it as normal. That’s not the American Way.
What I propose is rather simple – vigilance. Do not let that be confused with becoming a vigilante. We watch. When we see something wrong, we shine a light on it for all to see. We do this with words, not self-appointed acts outside the law. The United States Constitution affords us one of the most powerful charters of self-government ever created. It is also a call to responsibility. For thousands of years, human history shows us that people in power are tempted. When the population fails its responsibility to oversee those we put in power to serve us, we risk allowing them to abuse us. It can happen to anyone from your local cop to the President of the United States.
In addition to vigilance, we also need to understand temperance. In too many cases, we’ve seen a cry for termination of someone who faltered. That’s not always the solution. We can’t expect perfection of anyone. A person can’t learn from a mistake if they’re never given an opportunity to correct their ways. If we expect fair treatment for our own lapses, we have to give it to others.
Vigilance does not mean spying on your neighbor, though. It simply means being aware of your surroundings and paying attention when something isn’t right. If necessary, it means speaking up to address a problem, rather than just accepting it. Complacency is our enemy.
I built this site as a platform to speak up. The idea to use a pseudonym was simple – to keep personal distractions away from the message. People use labels to diminish those they oppose, and too easily oppose those with labels they don’t like. Conservative, Liberal, Atheist, Tree Hugger. The list goes on ad infinitum so people can skip the process of thinking for themselves and just ignore the ideas being discussed.
Of course, I can’t escape one label that people will use to dismiss me – I’m a blogger. Lawyers, doctors and other professionals will immediately attack someone who doesn’t have the label of their credentials. That’s easier than actually addressing the points of an issue. It’s time to stop taking such shortcuts and think for ourselves. Trusting others to do it for us has lead us into a mess.
I have my opinions and this is my soapbox. I’d be interested to hear your opinion on issues, too. When I see something that isn’t right, then I’ll share it here as a place to add my voice to the national discussion. I invite you to do the same.
I love this. “It is also a call to responsibility.” Absolutely agree with you.
This is very important. We all have a responsibility to shine a light on wrong acts and allow those who commit them to also repent and make amends. When someone does this, he will experience relief and usually does learn a lesson. When he continuously betrays our trust, he is in treason, thus, justice will be served upon him.
We can all do with some good ethics and justice lessons as they are not the same thing. But, oftentimes we are see no evil, hear no evil, or we “wrong target” non-offenders and put them in front of public eye for lashings.
Sad really.
I vow to keep my eyes open to what is actually in front of me and say what I actually see and what is actually there and ignore what is not.
Aleisha