Distribution Of Power
As individuals and as people we have many vital concerns. Among the daily ones are finances, health, transportation, communication, education, etc. Some of our critical, long-term collective concerns are climate change, air pollution, water contamination, ecology, safe food, “natural” disasters, politics, etc.
Here is a purely rhetorical question: should any ONE person have the absolute power to decide about your personal or our collective concerns? Think about it: ONE PERSON deciding about everyone’s life or death and the quality of their lives in between.
How would you feel if I told you that from now on I’ll decide about all your personal concerns? Would you be OK with it? How would you feel if I told you that from now on I’ll decide about all our collective concerns? Wouldn’t you object?
There are – and were – many notable individuals who influenced our lives. Many changed the way we live by introducing technologies that made our lives better, easier, safer, or more comfortable. These individuals didn’t force us to change, they influenced the way we think and convinced us to embrace the new and better. They didn’t seek to impose their arbitrary decisions on us.
Right now we live in a strange time, with many still unaware of the impending impact of the changes we’re witnessing. The potential consequences of these changes are scary. They may be catastrophic.
Here are a few examples of the changes we’re witnessing in the United States now:
- United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement
- The resurrection of fossil fuel industries.
- The removal of many environmental protections
- Massive tax breaks for the rich
- Dismantling of the healthcare system
- Attempts at restructuring schools
- Attempts at privatizing veterans’ healthcare
- The demise of retail
- The removal of financial consumer protections (the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform)
- Introduction of trade tariffs which may lead to a trade war (Incidentally, Smoot-Hawley Tariff is cited by economists as one of the main causes of the Great Depression!)
- Construction of the Wall (which was to be paid for Mexico, but will cost American taxpayers twice: first to build and then to dismantle it)
- The prospect of a nuclear conflict with North Korea
- Our betrayal of our Kurdish allies in Syria
- Inhumane treatment of undocumented immigrants (including, the beneficiaries of DACA)
In post WW2 Eastern Europe the elders used to say that the world sacrificed generations of Eastern Europeans to appease the Soviet Union. At the time, the culprits were powerful foreign governments. Today, ONE individual who wasn’t elected by a popular vote and has no moral authority jeopardizes the future of the United States and to a large degree, the world.
It’s perplexing to watch – in a democracy! – how so many wise people who know and understand what’s happening and foresee future consequences of today’s changes seem unable to moderate or stop the ONE person for whose actions we’ll all pay.
[bctt tweet=”I always believed that the structure of a democratic government is designed with controlled distribution of power in mind” username=”HolisticChurch1″]
and for the purpose of preventing any ONE individual from controlling all aspects of our Country and – by extension – our lives. I was obviously mistaken.
As a Holistic / Humanist Reverend I find it morally abhorrent that any ONE individual alone is allowed to wield such an enormous power over a whole Country and to some extent (as the currently second largest polluter; we were the number one until 2012) the world. How could this have happened – and continues to happen – in a Country that for hundreds of years represented HOPE?
