#the status quo than solving problems and caring about others as fellow human beings

[isfjmel-phleg]

This is a personal post.

so many people I know are burned out I am burned out and I want to fix that but can't

why must everything be so stressful. for everyone.

[dukeofriven]

Wait, I don't pay any attention to the Harry Potter EU, but are the American Wizards that awful?

All wizards are awful. The wizarding community is isolationist, xenophobic, and cruel - with or without Voldemort, with or without Grindewald. At best they are patronizingly indifferent, with the same supercilious air that let the rest of the UK brutalize Africa and Asia for several centuries. At best the tone around Muggles is always ‘poor, helpless dears who don’t have magic like we do.’ I find this most striking in the fields of healing and food scarcity - the amount that wizards withhold from the rest of the world is astounding, all in the name of preserving their own way of life. It is driven home in the first book when Hagrid tells Harry that wizards hide their magic from muggles because if they didn’t then muggles would always be asking wizards to use magic to help them solve their problems - and in seven books, two spin-off guides, nine movies thus-far, and one utterly gonzo play nobody ever says ‘But Hagrid, we literally do nothing other than solve all of our problems with magic.” In Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, the Wizards of the Discworld are very powerful indeed - and they almost never do anything with magic, because they know that the most important lesson about magic is when not to use it. Yes you could solve all your problems by expending vast amounts of power, but if you do that once you’re going to have to do it every time, and where does that end? It is understood that constant displays of power - that total reliance on magic - has led to some of the worst, most-destructive periods in their world’s history. In Diane Duane’s incredible, underrated, deserves-to-be-Harry-Potter-far-more-than-Harry-Potter series Young Wizards, those with magic are servants of life, servants of the universe, servants of all. In exchange for unimaginable power they take an oath to use it the service of others:In Life’s name and for Life’s sake,I assert that I will employ the Art which is its gift in Life’s service alone, rejecting all other usages. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so —till Universe’s end.Such respect for wizardry - a respect for the sobering responsibility of magic, recurs again and again in fiction. Tolkien’s Istari are cast down when they use magic for their own ends. Ursula Le Guin’s wizards of Earthsea are, like Diane Duane’s, servants of the people. Robert Jordan’s Aes Sedai were once an entire class of people devoted to the benefits of others.The Harry Potter Wizarding World uses magic solely for its own benefit - and in ways that are downright quotidian. “Magic makes [[coffee]] perfect every time” Ron Weasley exclaims at one point in book seven - appalled that savage muggles must live in a  world where perfection is not instantly at one fingertips. Like every libertarian fantasy come to life magic is for your own use, and your own benefit, and the laws that surround it almost always protect nothing other than wizardly privilege. Those muggles who find themselves with magic are either swiftly absorbed into wizarding culture or persecuted to death, depending on the time. The books never cover what happens to muggle wizards who reject being inducted into a community they never wanted to join, but w all know what happens - a muggle who wanted to go public with magic is arrested and jailed, or memory wiped, and so on. Magic Is Might. Magic Makes Right.There’s a line from a wizarding history book about the Salem witch trials that notes that wizards were never in any danger from the burning because they jsut used a spell that made the fire tickle. It notes that they laughed and pretend to scream.People died in those trials. Wizards’ neighbours were were burned alive - accused of wizardry - and the wizarding world treats it as funny historical trivia. No, don’t worry students - the wizards were all fine! Nobody who mattered died. The wizarding world’s response to the Salem trials was to do nothing. Their response is always protect themselves first regardless of circumstance - the wizarding world is without charity, and is without compassion for those outside its clique.There’s a rebuttal you could make that it’s not like we muggles are all that great on the charity front - wealthy nations could solve world hunger in a day if they chose to, and that’s true. But I’d counter that counter with a  point that plenty of people in wealthy countries do try. It’s often not the elite but the downtrodden who do their best to change an unfair system. Poor people give a higher percentage of their income to charity than the wealthy do. Plenty of people protest against the status quo, and demand change for how globalism is bing applied so unevenly.But the wizarding world is monolithic - Hermione, a muggle, never talks of muggle rights. Ron Weasley, allegedly ‘poor,’ never shows solidarity with the destitute. The one goddamn person in the whole serious who seems to care about Muggles - Arthur Weasley - is a buffoon who treats his fellow human beings like aliens. (He also doesn’t study very hard - it’s supposed to be funny when he asks Harry about mundane muggle shit but dude, there’s nothing stopping you from walking to a muggle library and picking up a muggle encyclopedia. What’s an electric plug? Oh look, an entire fourteen pages on electricity. There’s fifty public libraries in Devon and, in the time this book takes place, over five hundred in London where Mr. Weasley worked. I think his befuddlement is supposed to be charming, but as a muggle it’s frankly offensive  - he’s the wizarding world equivalent of a weeaboo who thinks he knows Japan because he can tell you every plot point in Bleach but if you ask him about the Diet he’ll tell you he isn’t on one. ARTHUR WEASLEY IS A CULTURE TOURIST AND IT”S OFFENSIVE.Most works of fiction argue that great power brings with it great responsibility, but that isn’t true of Harry Potter. I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: the series single biggest moral failing is that Voldemort’s philosophy is never disproven. He believes Magic Is Might, and Magic Makes Right, He’s correct - forget whatever bafflegab Dumbledore drones on about Harry’s bravery and courage, or the importance of love. Turn on the news, flip to Syria, read about dead children, and your response shouldn’t be ‘well Syrian mothers don’t love their children as much as Lilly Potter did” because it’ nonsense. Lilly Potter loved her son - and also could use magic and had as pell. The series argues that Voldemort underestimated love - but while that’s true, it also disingenuous. He didn’t know there was a goddamn super-crazy-powerful-spell that could use love. I think if he’d known before-hand he’d have been a lot more cautious. I underestimate the power of laughter as a literally fatal weapon, for example, but if it turns out that you can power a cannon with it I’m sure as heck going to reconsider that stance. It’s sounds poetic and meaningful to say that HArry was saved by love - but he was really saved by a spell. The closest the series comes to making good on it power of love is when Narcissa lies about Harry’s death to Voldemort - out of a love for her son - but if some other random Death had done the deed love wouldn’t have meant squat. (That scene always feels so contrived. I love in TLJ when Kylo Ren has his army fire repeatedly on a hated enemy - and he keeps them firing and firing and firing and firing until he’s damn-sure he’s got a corpse on his hand. I think Voldy really should have just been dumping spells on Harry’s prone body - really give into his rage.)For Harry to beat Voldemort, he would have had to prove that Voldemort that he was wrong - that there is a force more powerful than magic. But there isn’t. All the mothers’ love in the world didn’t stop one of the Creevy’s from dying, or one of the Weasleys, and so on. Add magic, though, and shit suddenly love is more than jsut an abstract concept - but what makes it so is magic. Voldemort claim that magic makes wizard’s superior to muggles - and nothing ever proves him wrong. (I don’t want to get into here because this is too long already, but Squibs and social ostracism also feed into that - if you’re a squib, you’re equally inferior. Nobody ever says “Filch is a squib, no wonder he despises the privilege class he has to look over all the time and that all his years here have made him very bitter’ but god damn.)The Second Wizarding War is about a war between two belief systems - not good and evil, but violence and the status quo. Voldemort believes that magic is powerful and that it gives its users the right to rule over the rest of the world. Dumbledor, the Order of the Phoenix, and everyone else who fights for returning the Wizarding World to the status quo believe that magic is powerful and that its gives it users the right to ignore the rest of the world. If you’re a farm child and you got your arm caught in a combine harvester and you lost it, the wizarding world wouldn’t care. It doesn’t matter that, unlike most other fiction, magic doesn’t seem to have any sort of equivalent exchange most of the time - magic doesn’t seem to cost wizards anything other than the few seconds it takes to cast a spell. Wizards can regrow the bones of an arm - probably the whole arm - but do they share it? No. They don’t even capitalize on it - selling it, demanding trade for it. They hide away completely, helping no-on ever.So when I say American Wizards would be Trump supporters if they were paying attention, I don’t say it because I believe that American Wizards canonically denounce Muslims or are big supporters of sexual harassment. I say it because what Trump stands for is what they stand for - isolationism, selfishness, self-absorption, a cutting off of the world and helping only your own. A morality system that treats altruism as morally indefensible. There’s a Bioshock AU out there where Rapture was populated entirely by Potter wizards - is a wizard’s not entitled to the sweat of his brow?Harry Potter is a wizarding hero, but is he everyone’s hero? Is his support for the Wizarding World’s status quo much more laudable that support for Voldemort - or is it a case of lesser evil, of choosing the uncaring over the actively aggressive? Why are wizards any better than Jeff Bezos, say - unimaginably powerful, utterly self-serving. ‘Muggles would want wizards to use magic to make their lives better’ - why is that a bad thing? Why is magic only for the benefit of those born into magical privilege?In conclusion, Arthur Weasley needs to check his privileged wizardboo ass and not treat my magic-less culture like its goddamn quaint and charming.

[connorsaturday]

White Liberal America: The Ultimate Hypocrite

[SEPTEMBER 18, 2017]

             I often tell people that I am always looking for perspective. I tell them that I work in these underprivileged neighborhoods, and that I enjoy putting myself into environments where I am not the majority. The thing is, that statement is flawed at a meta-level. Let me explain: Physically I can be in situations where I am racially the minority. That is true. Socially and psychologically, however, this environment doesn’t exist. In this nation, in this culture, in this current sociopolitical state of the union, I can never be in a place where I am a minority. When you have a skin color like mine and an ethnic background that is whiter than whipped cream itself, you will always be on top of the socio-racial hierarchy. So long as I have my white privilege, I will always, unfortunately, be the majority.

      Of the two articles my professor, Ms. Calamari gave us – a news article on Michael Bennett’s encounter with the LVPD, and a much longer article on Colin Kaepernick - I started with the news article on Michael Bennett. It is MUCH shorter, and when faced with multiple tasks – and ample hours to complete them – my ADD will always force me to choose the easiest task first. So, as I drew the concentration from deep within my mind to read this, I was left with a feeling of neutrality, like I was in the same place that I started. It’s easy to feel this way when the news cycle flip-flops between racist police shootings one day and President Trump passively supporting racist motions the next day; the stories of oppressive, systemic racism blur together after a while. America wakes up day after day to see a tweet from our President saying that there is “blame on both sides” during the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, or that the man brutally shot by a white policeman at a traffic stop, who then bled to death next to his girlfriend and child in their car, was reaching for the gun that he warned the officer about in advance. Ironically, the group in our country with arguably the most influence and power in society – liberal white Americans – see this and think, “Jesus, look what’s happened now. How can something like this happen? I can’t believe this, I am appalled.” We go on and on about how awful the news is, but eventually the dust settles. The chatter ceases. We go back to the quiet before the storm, waiting on the next terrible thing to happen. But in the middle of all the chaos, the shootings and the government instability, in the middle of the habitual action-reaction response of White Liberal America, do we ever stop and think to ourselves about the next step?

     In Rembert Browne’s article for the Bleacher Report, Colin Kaepernick Has a Job, Browne quotes a line from Michael Bennett during a conversation they had in relation to the article. Bennett tells Browne, “Boycotting is a form of protest. I think if there is a boycott, it kind of shows that the consumer has power. But then it’s like: What’s the next step?” And that’s the question: what is the next step for White Liberal America? When’s the last time you checked in on the conclusion to a cop killing an innocent minority? Do you know what happened to Michael Brown’s killer? Eric Garner’s? Philando Castile’s? Trayvon Martin’s? My guess is you probably don’t. For no other reason than you probably just don’t know any of those people personally, and therefore (as awful as it may sound), just don’t care enough to check in and see what happened; that’s just basic psychology.

      Human psychology is one of the most complex and intricate topics in science to have ever existed. Not only does it explain so much of the most basic and advanced human behaviors, it is also at the same time something that we know so little about. New discoveries and hypotheses are made every day, stacked on top of each other like software updates on an iPhone. The psychology behind Rembert Browne’s article really left me in a different state than the much shorter news article did. While I still cannot see the full picture of the intricacies of racism in America today, I feel that I have gained a broader and deeper understanding of where we are, where we need to be, and why we aren’t there yet. It is truly amazing how all of this – the backlash, the criticism, the discussion made in this article – all stemmed from a simple act of passive resistance from one man.

       A common term thrown around the race topic today is institutional racism. However, this term – like GMOs – is something people tend to speak very much of, yet unfortunately know very little about (my rant on GMOs is a topic for another time, though). White Liberal America thinks they know institutional racism, but they don’t. They think they’ve seen the dirty and disgusting, but watching footage of a black man being shot by cops on CNN does not count as exposure to the repulsive reality of our country. White Liberal America has a set of beliefs about racism and equality, but abides by none of them. The second anyone’s wallet starts to feel light or anyone’s circle of comfort gets to thin, they all drop the façade and scatter like rats at the first sign of trouble. Why? Because they can. Because they’re not on the chopping block. They’re not the ones being held against the ground at gunpoint being told not to move or “I will blow your head off”, like Michael Bennett was. No, White Liberal America would rather just watch and support from a Starbucks, far, far away from the danger and the battle. White Liberal America would rather just stay inside and lock the door during a protest, but put a Black Lives Matter sign in the window to tell the world they aren’t racist, like a streak of blood above their doors so that the angel of death passes by their homes.

      White Liberal Americans are superficial; their beliefs and opinions on race only go skin-deep. They preach for change and progress, but give up and retreat as soon as faced with the guillotine. To advocate for change means that White Liberal America must not run from adversity and use their fellow African-Americans as a metaphorical meat-shield once people start taking jabs at them. To represent equality means that White Liberal America must put on the gloves and do the dirty work, even if it’s scary. Even if you feel uncomfortable. Even if you feel endangered and unsafe. African-Americans and minorities all over the nation have been feeling this way not because they’re choosing to take a stand, but because they have to take a stand. They are trapped in their battle, and they need our help. Only once we, White Liberal Americans, stop letting others fight these battles for us, will we be able to achieve a post-racial society. The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is one; this, we have achieved a long time ago. It is time that we realize the next step and take action to achieve it. But what is the next step? How can we figure that out?

      Racism is a fire that is fueled by two things: ignorance and a lack of the truth. Like how water defeats fire, perspective and objectivity are the tools to unlock the passageway to the door – the door that Langston Hughes speaks of when talking with Nina Simone before her death:

One of these days

When you made it

And the doors are open wide

Make sure you tell them exactly where it’s at

So they have no place to hide

      And so, while I continue seeking to inject perspective and objectivity into my own life, I invite White Liberal America to do the same. Don’t just let the police shootings and the passive racism of our government become the status quo. Override your human tendency to act in self-preservation. Learn and be woke, and once you have seen the truth, do not run in fear. Stand in the rain and let the storm hit you in full force. Only witches melt from water, after all.

---

Works Cited:

Browne, R. (2017, September 12). Colin Kaepernick Has a Job. Retrieved from http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2732670-colin-kaepernick-anthem-race-in-america

CBS Crimesider Staff. (2017, September 6). Seahawks' Michael Bennett says police officer held gun to his head. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seahawks-michael-bennett-says-police-officer-held-gun-to-his-head/

[lewepstein]

Just Plain Wrong

Picture an early morning scene in which a four year old boy is sitting alone in a large sandbox at a local playground.  His father is watching from a bench close by while his son surrounds himself with all of the many toys provided by the community to those who come there to play.  Since the child has arrived first, he has taken two tricycles and parked them in his imaginary “garage.”  He has also grabbed all of the sand toys- plastic trucks, shovels and pails - and placed them around himself in a large semi-circle.  Within the next half hour other adults and children arrive.  But the little boy doesn’t want to relinquish what he now sees as his possessions.  He refuses to share the tricycles, pails and shovels with the other children.  He believes that because he got there first he is entitled to keep everything for himself.  But even the five and six year olds who have just entered the playground are saying to their caregivers that what the boy is doing is “unfair.”

Most of us would agree that it would be just plain wrong for the father of the little boy to not insist that his son share with the other children.  It is obvious to all that the child  cannot use all of his accumulated playthings at once, and that his hoarding denies others the opportunity to enjoy their time at the playground.

The scene that I have just described is a pretty good description of economic life in America today and what we tolerate in our political culture.  You could say that we have been brainwashed to believe that society must be organized around the principle that whoever comes up with a scheme to grab all the toys for himself has the right to hold onto them forever.  But, isn’t the playground scene that I am describing also an apt metaphor for the three richest men in the United States having the combined wealth of the lower-earning hundred eighty million of our fellow citizens?  And is it really OK that a number of the corporations that these billionaires own and control pay no taxes, while some of their lower paid employees have to choose between spending their meager salaries on either prescribed medications or food?  This may sound a little like Charles Dickens’ nineteenth century novel, “ A Tale of Two Cities,” but it is also a portrait of America in the year 2019.  

Many of us have taught our children the virtues of sharing and even the four year old in the sandbox soon learns that it is just plain wrong to keep all of the toys for himself when there are others present who would enjoy using them.  In a similar vein, anyone who sees himself as an even modestly spiritual and moral human being or attends any church, synagogue or mosque is instructed to be generous and kind to others - nothing more than charity and compassion 101.  And yet, we as a nation tolerate fabulously wealthy drug companies getting away with a five fold mark-up of survival items, like epipens.  And as yet there has been no popular revolt against a health care system that allows insurance companies to use a business model designed to either deny or limit payments for treatments that they deem “too expensive,” “too experimental” or simply “unnecessary.”  In fact, it is the “fiduciary responsibility” to shareholders of those who work for these companies to maximize profits by offering less - not more - to those of us who are suffering from disease and are in desperate need of healing and support.  It doesn’t take a great ethicist or moralist to see that these practices are just plain wrong.

When and where did we lose our moral compass and come to justify this kind of greed?  Was it in the days of the American frontier when every male settler believed he could become a wealthy rancher, and to hell with everybody else?  Or is it in the still prevalent cowboy myth revived by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s that enshrines the notion that the only person I really need to look after is “number one” -  namely me - and that others must fend for themselves.  To me, this sounds like the type of “rugged individualism” that refuses to embrace an even bare-bones awareness that we are all in this together - each a part of a family, a community and a nation - every one of us a cog in a complex and interdependent multitude of connections, interests and needs.

Most of us get it that it would be wrong to start a bonfire on our front lawns even though it would be a quick and cheap way to dispose of garbage and old furniture and to avoid paying the fees of a pick up service.  And yet, we as a society tolerate one corporation or an entire industry’s decision to dump its sulphuric waste into the atmosphere which then dramatically affects the acidity of the rain needed to irrigate the crops that we all depend upon for our food supply.  We observe this same attitude with gun owners and the National Rifle Association when they demand and defend unlimited access to firearms even as our children are mowed down by deranged shooters who should never have been allowed to acquire that type of firepower in the first place.  It is this selfish, privileged and arrogant worldview that is so malignant when applied to our global village where everything and everyone is so profoundly connected - where global warming is threatening life on our planet and wealth inequality along with climate based crop failure is producing mass migrations of people of a magnitude that we have never seen before and leaving war, terrorism and political upheaval in its wake.

The American “four year olds” who are monopolizing the  toys in our collective playground have names.  They are  Jeff Bezos, Charles and David Koch, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg, among others.  They hide behind their corporate identities named Amazon, Exxon Mobil, Eli Lily, Lockheed Martin and Monsanto.  They are part of a powerful and privileged class of individuals and cartels who, in the short run are reaping tremendous benefits from capitalism’s cruelty, inequality and environmental degradation.  They will argue that they are charitable and willing to share, and they will occasionally even throw a toy or two to others, when it suits them.  But woe to anyone who actually says that society’s wealth and resources belong to everyone and that their hoarding must come to an end.

In terms of equity and sharing it would make sense that the privileged and the powerful would be reined in by true adults who had the interests of everyone in mind and saw fairness as their mission.  But, what we are getting today from those who are supposed to be representing us is  mostly complicity and compliance with what the wealthiest one percent want.  The most infamous of the complicit is named Mitch McConnell, a senator from Kentucky. But he is just one patriarch in two large families called the Republicans and the Democrats who both, insanely, take bribes from the privileged and powerful few they are supposed to be monitoring and are therefore completely beholden to them. Call them the billionaire class or the wealthiest one percent - they have come to hold tremendous authority over those who should be reining them in and leveling the playing field so that the rest of us can also have access to all that our wealthiest society in human history has to offer.    

Where once there was a counsel of wise adults who ruled judiciously on challenges to wealth and power, there are now a majority of  billionaire class collaborators whose names are Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. They give their stamps of approval to the status quo and cloak the power and privilege of the entitled one per cent  in the language of law.  Sadly, these biased arbiters of right and wrong get to occupy the same benches for the rest of their lives.  But the most pernicious and cruelest irony of all is that the current director of the playground is incapable of fairly monitoring those he is in charge of because he is a functional four year old himself.  The grasping and greedy Donald Trump lies constantly, operates without even the pretense of a moral code and is incapable of seeing the world beyond his own shallow self interest.   Like most children, he views any questioning of his ideas or actions as hostile acts and calls those who challenge him his “enemies.”  

If so much of what I have just described is just plain wrong, then how do we as a people make it right?  The answer begins with turning our moral outrage into energy and not being deterred by the predictable attacks that the playground bullies will level against anyone who insists that they share their wealth and privilege.  Bold, common sense programs like “The Green New Deal,” “Medicare for All,”  universal pre-kindergarten and childcare” an annual wealth tax and free tuition at public universities not only demand that wealth and resources be shared, but provide solutions for problems that our gilded age, laissez faire, market based system of economics has not been able to solve.  

The first major obstacle to introducing these types of programs into our current system is the tantrum that the one percenters have when asked to share their wealth - they will do anything and everything in their power to scare the hell out of us so that we reject any progressive programs along with the politicians who are trying to level the playing field:  This is what you can expect to hear:

“That program will be a job killer.”

“Don’t engage in ‘class warfare’”

“Beware of ‘too much government.’”

“You never want to lose your freedom of choice.”

“Just allow the ‘free market’ to do its thing.”

“Big government programs are too expensive.”

“Only the private sector ever gets things right.”

“Do you want to live in a ‘welfare state?’”

“Why tax the rich? We give millions to charity.”

“It will all ‘trickle down.’”

These arguments appeal to our fears and are not about facts.  Working class families are not free when they are struggling to pay for healthcare.  The so called “free market” is rigged and does not promote freedom when monopolies are driving the planet to extinction.  The much maligned “Welfare State” is now mostly about corporate welfare - the Medicaid, food stamps and other benefits  that we, the taxpayers pay to Walmart and McDonald workers who are not receiving a living wage.    

The bogeyman of  “too much government,” is really fear mongering about the government controls, oversight, regulations and taxation needed to rein in the excesses and dangerous practices of the  healthcare, pharmaceutical and energy cartels.  And to the argument that the Federal government never gets it right, I would argue: What about The W.P.A. in the 1930s that rebuilt our infrastructure and put the country back to work?  How about Social Security - called “creeping socialism” by the millionaire class of that era - and  Disability and Medicaid that even the conservative Tea Party members don’t want to give up?  And have you considered our Interstate Highway System and our National Park System, one built under Eisenhower and the other begun under Teddy Roosevelt? - both massive, big-government programs.  And what about our National Space Program that placed a man on the moon in the 1960s and Medicare, a government run health program for those over 65 that most people highly value?

When all else fails, the message from the  billionaires  and the politicians who are in their pockets is, “Watch out! Those who are pushing for Medicare for All and taxing our wealth  are socialists”.  Beware of the “red menace” and “don’t risk losing what you have.”  But, the reality is that only through massive, socialist, government sponsored programs like “The Green New Deal” and “Medicare for All” will the playground that we all live in become livable for all.    

Time is no longer on our side and a window is rapidly closing as the free market four year olds and their representatives continue trying to convince us that capitalism is freedom and that any and all attempts to redistribute and regulate their wealth and power is tyranny.  Unfortunately, the word “Socialism” may still be scary to many.  Perhaps, too revolutionary to view as a realistic solution.  But it is becoming increasingly clear to many of us with each climate disaster and mass migration that we may be facing a choice between Socialism and barbarism.

So let’s not allow the entitled and their hired hands to frighten us into believing that large common sense government programs cannot work in the United States.  And let’s not be scared off again by the words “Socialism” or “Revolution.”  It is Democratic Socialism that has provided a way of life that most European citizens swear by and are not willing to give up and it was a revolution against tyranny and unfair taxation that gave birth to our nation.  An unwillingness to uphold our country’s proud, revolutionary tradition in these critical times could turn out to be just plain wrong.