We are truly living in strange times.
By this time next year we will have elected a new president. Somehow, right now it doesn’t seem like anyone currently on the trail is a fit for the office.
How is it the most powerful job in the world attracts such a motley collection of has-beens, never-was’s, and bald-faced liars to contend for it? It’s astonishing really.
We seem to have entered a strange, warped reality where actual facts are about as effective as the just throw crap against the wall and go with what sticks approach.
The latest crap sandwich to be served up is Donald Trump’s suggestion we establish a national registry for Muslims, just so we know who the terrorists are.
This is a incredibly bad idea, not least because it’s un-American and blatantly unconstitutional. Then too, as others have pointed out, Trump’s suggestion plays to the worst fears of some voters.
We are surprised those who make a habit of comparing everything they don’t like to Adolf Hitler didn’t treat Trump’s comments like the red meat that it was. In point of fact, creating a specific legal designation for a select group of citizens was exactly what Hitler did when he passed the Nuremberg laws in 1935.
The next thing you know we’ll be passing laws ordering Muslims to sew religious insignia on their clothes, also something Hitler did. At that point it will be easy enough to separate them out for the trains.
We have complained in this very space about the danger of easy Hitler comparisons. Comparing every hangnail to a broken neck downplays the significance of a broken neck.
The same is true here.
This is particularly dangerous because we are America, a country that is supposed to welcome the poor, the downtrodden … the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Freedom of religion is one of the first things mandated in our Constitution.
It is truly disturbing to see how many people are so quick to throw the very things they claim to cherish about this country under the bus the second they believe it suits their interests, and at the moment that includes much of our current crop of presidential contenders.
This is important because one of these jokers may well win this thing and we have already proven we can be led down a dark path.
The great Sinclair Lewis is credited with coining the phrase “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible.” It is not, in fact, a direct quote, but surely no truer sentiment on the subject has ever been offered.
Ironic then that we consider the future with some trepidation even as we approach Thanksgiving, a holiday intended to celebrate and savor the blessings we have.
We are blessed to live in this country, a country made great by all of the flawed men and women who came before us. We live in the kind of country that values free speech so much, people can and do make a very good living trafficking in the kind of vitriol that would get you jailed or shot in other countries.
This is still America, where it still possible to start with a little and make a lot.
Thanksgiving is a great American holiday. It’s a chance to take stock of all the good things in your life, family, friends, and food, and be grateful for it.
Give thanks for today.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
