Commentary: For many Americans, recent days may seem pretty normal in the course of their lives. We are going to work or school, trying to pay our bills, and looking for ways to sneak in some fun time along the way. For the President of the United States, he’s been busy getting America into a trade war with a huge nation to whom we owe a fortune of money, risking a new dangerous war with a big nuclear power, denying charges of a relationship with someone from his past, and having a schoolyard-style spat with a former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
And as for that media fencing duel that’s taking place between the President and the former FBI Chief, how does that look on the world stage? Our nation once had towering figures who gave powerful, eloquent speeches proposing bold ideas for a growing nation trying a new experiment of government. Some of these figures have been called Statesmen. Now, respectful debate and oratory can be traded for name-calling and accusations about the size of someone’s hands or how big a liar the other person is.
Whether you side with either of these men or not, these are not the makings of a normal week or period in our nation’s history. Turmoil has always been part of world events. But dangers have been ramped up all over the world in recent weeks to the point where they are noticeably intruding into our daily lives and our routine conversations with those around us.
World leaders all live within their own bubble. They move people and events around like pieces on a chessboard. They routinely make decisions affecting billions of people. They always strive to appear as strong and wise as they can on the world stage. They all pursue self-interests without compromise or apology. They all seek to get the edge on their counterparts. While they often appear as adversaries, in many ways they are birds of the same feather and members of the same club. Compromise, deliberation, and reason are not always the first things on their minds. Not a lot of evidence of those things in world events anymore.
As for the rest of us, what do we want? Most of the billions of people on this earth just want to be left alone to pursue their lives and live them out in peace. We want security for our families. We want a future for our children. We want to make a livable wage at a job we can live with. We don’t want our job to disappear off-shore or to be taken over by some robot. But all these things seem to be at odds with many in the other bubble, especially in times like our current age.
We are all being taken for a ride. Let me rephrase. We are all going on a trip together. We have a ship of state, and that ship is sailing into unknown waters. In order to arrive at your destination, don’t you have to know where you’re going? Isn’t it useful to have a desirable destination and a coherent plan on how to get there? Where are we headed as a nation?
Do we hear anything about that?
What are our useful goals and dreams? Do we even dream about such things anymore? What do our national neighbors want? If dreams are too ambitious, how about we start by staying alive. We can work to reduce world tensions instead of escalating them. We can stop looking for reasons to strike out against others. We can stop trying to be victims or on the defensive all the time. We can stop ordering others to think as we do and act as we command. We can live and let live. There is nothing - repeat, nothing - that rises to the level of needing to risk blowing up the entire world. No issue, no event, no reason, no justification. Whether you side with the Red Team or the Blue Team or no team at all, everybody loses if someone wipes out the whole game.
If it’s too trite to say let’s all just get along, how about we just stop trying to antagonize each other so much? Is it too much to ask our world leaders that they tone down their words and actions a bit? In America we are taught to have Life, Liberty, and the right to Pursue Happiness. Instead of threatening life on the entire planet, maybe these world leaders could think back to what they wanted from life for themselves and their families before they entered that bubble they live in now. That would be doing themselves, and us, a great big favor.