Dear Absentee Parents (you know, the ones always there for all the recitals but never the actual child-rearing, discipline, or corrective behavior):
The rest of us are tired of your offspring.
After having an opportunity to process the absolutely maddening, diabolical and chilling terrorist insurrection on the U.S. Capitol last week (that ended with the majority of the mutineers meandering back to their normal lives as if they hadn’t just waged war on the foundations of American democracy), I took to social media to express some very blatant takeaways.
As a follow-up to those thoughts, I’d just like to know from one alarmed and frustrated citizen of this Republic to another, who among us:
- Didn’t see this coming?
- Is shocked to learn that some members of law enforcement allegedly participated in the mob riots?
- Understands that far too many people don’t know the difference between religion and idolatry?
- Knows that no matter how allied they may sound, God and demagogue do not mean the same things?
- Is painfully aware that police officers can exhibit herculean restraint whenever they so choose?
To those for whom these notions may seem foreign, where have you been?
We have BEEN saying that this would be the end result of unchecked white nationalism masked as conservatism. And because a deaf ear was turned in response, we will not be simply moving on for the sake of a disingenuous unity. Especially when those asking for this premature fast-forward have not been willing to acknowledge longstanding, historical state-sanctioned terror against American citizens (of a different hue), are actively glossing over these present aggressions and criminality, and don’t see the value in the obligatory accountability for the same unity and healing they are so reactively professing to seek.
Perhaps it is time for them to stop asking everyone else to meet them in the middle. Perhaps it is time to take a long, hard look at the values they ascribe to that those unrepentant terrorist proclaim to hold dear as well. Perhaps instead of repeating Dear Leader’s fanciful talking points, it is time to be truly patriotic; to wake up and ascend from the utopian echo-chamber that has led them to believe that it is the “others” and not the “familiar”, who have always been the greatest terror threats to this country.
