A Progressive Liberal Reclaiming the Flag and the Constitution!
My heart is glad to be an American. On this day I am grateful for and celebrate this land, this nation, our Constitution, free enterprise, but not financial and corporate capitalism. Today, I reassert that these are the values that make America great, not Walmart, not nukes, nor financial dominance. I claim the American Flag for Liberal values!
Flags and banners have always been calling card symbols advancing some statement about the nature of the nation they represent. Being Liberal used to mean desiring to have individual freedom to contribute to the common good. Now it seems to mean, “I’ll take mine, hands off, and screw you.” Am I cynical? Is that what the new individualism looks like? It reminds me of the old feudalism, or barbarism, or worse yet, social Darwinism. Not for me thanks.
So called Conservatives, especially those claiming Jesus to be a Republican, assume the flag is theirs. Sorry folks, it does not belong to Wall Street, or the Protestant Religion, or General Motors. Nope, the flag belongs to its citizens, all of them, which means Liberals too! At least under the American form of government it does. We have the freedom to disagree, but entitlement does not come with that right; rather, duties, responsibilities, and participation.
The Mature Soul Era, if we allow it to come to fruition, will call upon us to remember that individual action for the common good is the seeming paradox of our times. Individual contribution and, on occasion, sacrifice, creates benefit and abundance for the many. The Young Soul mentality of the current era reverses this equation with a self-evident result: individual enrichment causes hardship and scarcity for the many. Seldom can anyone “self regulate” when there is no incentive or penalty to do so. The lust for power runs down ethical behavior like a joy rider crushing small animals under its wheels and laughing at the thrill of their death. Can you say Wall Street bankers?
What passes as individualism and freedom of expression in modern America – whomever shouts the most inflammatory cliches the loudest and with the most vitriol – is nothing more than fashion trending. If that is liberty, it will soon be transformed into the a perverse right to lynch those we fear. NOT IN MY MOVIE, however.
As an Idealist, reviewing my deepest motives and vision for the future is vital to directing my behavior in the coming months, years, and decades. Only genuine heartfelt principles, what Michael might call “Higher Centered” values, ones that are based in profound love and devotion, will sustain the buoyancy necessary to endure some of the travails to come. Not everyone will experience them the same way or encounter the same scenarios, but everyone will feel, as they are currently feeling, the many currents of change running simultaneously, yet in often divergent directions or on a collision course.
Pluralism is a word defined to acknowledge many social currents flowing together and apart, but at the same time, in the same country. The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights were the first Old Soul documents enshrined as a system of government and jurisprudence that assured the possibility of Pluralism to flourish. Its flexibility even provides for us to make the choice to implode in our own stupidity.
The Mature Soul era began with the American and French Revolutions. Let not another Civil War, this one about fear and greed, now tear us asunder. Or as Abraham Lincoln, our oldest Soul and wisest President said, ” that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Amen!
Carpe Libertas!
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