I am one of those “put your money where your mouth is” kind of guys. Sadly, these are not easy times for folks like me.
For example, if you really respect the service and sacrifice of our military, don’t call them “suckers and losers.” Hey, that’s just me. You can fondle the flag and Ms. Liberty all you want, but when you disparage those whose lives represented the ultimate sacrifice a person can make for their country, don’t try to sell me the silliness that you respect our soldiers.
If you respect our law enforcement, don’t do everything you can to obstruct, obfuscate, object, misdirect and accuse others who were not involved in storming the Capitol Jan. 6. Don’t you dare. How deeply hypocritical can you be? Apparently, such hypocrisy knows no depths; it is a bottomless pit.
And, apparently there are no depths to the hypocrisy defenders of the mad king and his insurrection-fueled mob can sink.
What exactly are you afraid of? What do you think will be the outcome of an investigation of the events and participants in one of the most shameful moments in our national life?
Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone, Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges and U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Harry Dunn testify before the House select committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 27, 2021.(Brendan Smialowski/Pool via AP)
We all know. Up to this point, the opinionists have used misdirection, misinformation, conspiracy theories and lies to try to convince a nation the guilty were not — well, guilty. Which they were, and most of us know they were because we have seen the footage and heard the reports and the first-person accounts of that day.
Opinionists of the extreme right wing of America believe everyone who does not agree with them is stupid. More than that, such people don’t love America. Moreover, those they call “the left” are trying to sabotage democracy, the rule of law, the Constitution, the institutions of that Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Such reasoning is really not reasoning. Rather it is weaponized stupidity. Sorry, it just is. There really is no other word for it unless you want to refer to the “vessel” of the stupidity, then you would call that vessel a fool.
That is where we are. It doesn’t take an astrophysicist to discern that to the left of the rigid, extreme, right wing of America, is well — left. Simple directions. When the right-wing corner is fully occupied by the extreme right wing, well, everyone and everything is going to be left because that is all that is left.
Thinking Americans, of which I would occasionally position myself, know the history of the United States is not pristine virtue. The relics of our failures are all around us if we would take the time to look. The people we are today is shaped by the people we have been in the past.
“When the right-wing corner is fully occupied by the extreme right wing, well, everyone and everything is going to be left because that is all that is left.”
The injustices of the past are still alive in the present. Thinking people know this.
Thinking people also know the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were aspirational at best and unrealized at that time and now.
That is why we need government — because, frankly, we are prone not to play nice together. We need law enforcement because we don’t play nice together. We need armies because in the world, we don’t play nice together. And, we need halls of justice because — well you get the idea.
Yet all these declarations, foundations, institutions are tainted with the weaknesses of the people who write out the aspirational documents, who put on the uniform, who carry the badge, who robe up or suit up or rise up or step up or speak up to make it possible for us to live more peaceably together.
All those people who never have stopped working for justice in our economics, in our educational systems, in our law enforcement, in our criminal justice are not our enemies but rather people emboldened by the magnificent visionary statements that have moved this nation forward again and again.
I would even suggest that the rigid extreme right wing politically, religiously, socially have a death wish for America. They want to ignore, dismiss, minimize and marginalize millions of people who are not like them. Their privilege and entitlement are delusions they refuse to surrender or share.
If they had their way, only the white, religiously Christian or secular, right-wing conservatives would have any right to live in the United States let alone participate in the national life.
Beyond that, because of the toxicity of those views, leaders of this group never would stop moving rightward, all the time tearing to pieces those who disagree with them. As there is no end to “East,” there is no end to such fanatical nonsense.
“As there is no end to ‘East,’ there is no end to such fanatical nonsense.”
The problem with tyranny is like the poorly made souffle, such movements will always end in collapse. It has an inevitability about it.
Even if there were no history written before the 20th century, such lessons are too numerous to miss. Nations, bodies, the debris of civilizations, all are testimony to the rise and fall of conquest and tyranny.
So, I have every confidence that when the investigation focused on the events of Jan. 6 is concluded, we will know what we always have known, and that is a mad king, enabled by a political party that has lost its way, turned loose a murderous crowd fueled by misinformation, conspiracy theories and lies to storm the Capitol. And as a result, five died, many more were wounded, and for a brief, frightening moment, the United States shook to its core not because of the action of patriots but because of anger and hatred of some of the darkest forces in this nation.
Sadly, tragically, some of those opinionists are still screeching into their microphones peddling their poison to anyone who will listen.
I would say it is Jim Jones on a grander scale, and Fox News, NewsMax, and One America are supplying the Kool-Aid.
Michael Chancellor
Michael Chancellor served 33 years as pastor of four Baptist churches in Texas, seven years as a mental health manager in a maximum-security Texas prison and now is a therapist in private practice in Round Rock, Texas.
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Trying to make sense of January 6: Jesus wept | Opinion by Alan Bean
Toxic masculinity, 24-hour news and complacency fed the Jan. 6 riots | Opinion by John Jay Alvaro
We knew there would be a reckoning for religious leaders enabling Trumpism, we just didn’t know it would be today | Opinion by Mark Wingfield
