Where we are....

"I will say something even more different - been there done that. Anyone who lived through the sixties have very vivid memories of the social discontent we had."

I was in a parade yesterday. It is an annual event in the town that I live in. One of the questions which seemed to come up more than any other is, "where are we right now?" Not as a location - we all knew the location of the parade. But where are we as a country? As a community. As a town. As a state. And as a country. This is a very good question for the very troubling times we find ourselves in.

After this past week, is it no wonder why so many of us do wonder? One of my friends said, "We now live in a world gone mad." Another said, "We have slid into anarchy." I will say something even more different - been there done that. Anyone who lived through the sixties have very vivid memories of the social discontent we had back then. How that discontent often poured out into the streets. How race riots set large areas of some of our larger cities on fire. How some people died. Lots of memories, most of them bad.

One of our biggest challenges since we first became a country, was to shape our pluralism into our nation's motto - e pluribus unum. Many times it has not been easy. In fact, we came very close to dissolving as a country over slavery. We fought a civil war with ourselves and hundreds of thousands died at the hands of their own countrymen. But we survived that. Decades later we emerged as the richest and the strongest country on Earth.

Today we have leaders at all levels of our government who love to remind us of the sins of our past. Not the promise of our future, rather the sins of slavery, Jim Crow laws and whatever else can be conjured up. Because of this "leadership" we have, all it takes is one small match to ignite our communities into something just short of anarchy. And that is exactly what happened last week.

Last week it got so bad, a veteran of Afghanistan decided to go on a killing spree. Not just to kill anybody - it was to kill cops. If possible, only white cops. One of the police officers he shot was a fellow veteran, recently home from Iraq. Fellow veterans with one difference - the victim was white and the shooter was black. 

So this is where we are. On the verge of sliding into a place which would be bad beyond comprehension. A race war. Something which would tear the fabric of our country even deeper than our Civil War did. 

Good, make that great, leadership could help bring us back from this brink. Poor leadership like we have now, is pushing us closer to the cliff. White folks are being reminded by Democrats how evil being white in America is. Black folks are being reminded by Democrats of our nation's past sins. The lesson being taught is not to forgive and move forward, but to remember with recrimination.

These are scary times folks. Dangerous times. Stay close to your friends and families. Be ready to try to explain this insanity to your young people who are confused and scared. To quote Thomas Paine, "These are the times which try men's souls." Amen Mr. Paine, amen.