- …..there’s a giant invisible gorilla in the room as I write this, and the menacing creature is growing larger by the minute. The time is coming—Soon now!—when everyone will have to choose up sides. You can either be on the side of right or on the side of wrong. One or the other. Black or white. North or south. East or west. Inside or outside. A premium on the truth or a penchant for egregious dishonesty. Scruples or a wanton indifference to morality. An eye on the future or an eye on the past. Renounce criminal behavior or continue rabidly supporting a loudmouthed lawbreaker. Gratefully endorse our long-running, highly successful form of republican government or stand idly by—cheering actually—while some dishonest, feckless megalomaniac takes a wrecking ball to it. A society struggling to improve itself by looking to the days ahead or Donald Trump and more hideously blind addiction to those not-so-perfect days of yore. You cannot straddle the fence on this transcendent issue; that is no longer possible, if in fact it ever was. So where will YOU stand, Reader? Where does your fealty lie? Do you want posterity to remember you as a principled, noble patriot…..or as a spineless, hypocritical enabler? When all is said and done, these are THE only two options open to you when you render your character-defining decision. You can either stand stalwartly behind a cowardly, chronically lying, immoral bigot or you can cast your lot with legions of true patriots who do appreciate our country’s rich heritage but, more importantly, embrace the diverse, enlightened society we are in the process of attempting to improve and henceforth maintain for those who come after us. That is what this whole stinky situation distills down to in the end: Are your eyes trained on the past (“Let’s make America great again!” as you frantically wave your stupid red ball cap high in the air above your head as though that’s somehow synonymous with concrete constructive action) or on the future and your children’s future and your grandchildren’s future. You’ll have to look inside your heart and make this seminal decision all by yourself and then live with the consequences afterwards, since you only get one chance to cast your vote on the immediate future and the direction it will take. Correction: Time moves in only one direction and that is unceasingly forward; it is humanity’s mindset which is the single variable in this basic equation governing progress. Yet remember above all else, the future does not belong solely to you and hence should NEVER be treated as an obsequiously indentured servant just dying to wait on you at your personal beck and call. Instead, the future belongs to ALL of us, but undoubtedly more so to the youthful members of society who still have the lion’s share of their lives to live. In that respect, the future logically belongs more to them than it does to older members of a society, many of whom seem to harbor this peculiar sense that their accrued time on Earth bestows upon them special rights and privileges that younger co-habitants for some reason are required to earn. Why?! Their argument makes no sense, is inane, is not tethered to any chain of logic. I’m afraid life in the guise of fate doesn’t work this way, namely playing favorites along strict generational lines, nor should it. Youngsters, given tragic circumstances, can die just as easily as oldsters. Youngsters’ sentience is no less miraculous than individuals thrice their age. Youngsters harbor the same hopes and dreams and aspirations—More, surely, given their reduced age!—than persons who are long in years and long in the tooth. The constitution of DNA in both the young and the old is exactly the same. Advancing age does not—And more importantly SHOULD not!—confer greater stature and privileges on certain members of a society. Thus do not allow anyone to pretend and arrogantly trumpet that it should and that their importance to society exceeds certain other members’. The young have just as many chips invested in that massive kitty sitting in the middle of the poker table as do the oldsters and MAGA impostors. More, actually, as I previously elucidated. So, yes, Reader, ominous, sinister clouds darken the horizon now and the day of reckoning is swiftly approaching, a reckoning that will irrefutably be the greatest societal decision that any of us will be asked to make in our lifetimes. You can either side up with a dishonest, serially corrupt tyrant, or you can join throngs of others in casting a vote for the young people of today, for newness and optimism, for hope and compassion—for the future, for God’s sake! How will you decide? At the risk of belaboring this fundamental point, you will only get one opportunity to choose, hence choose wisely, My Friend, and be advised of the fact your legacy can never be changed or varnished once you leave this earthly domain. Let’s face reality here: Donald Trump is no more reflective of the beliefs and values that made America great in the first place—courage, honesty, sympathy, empathy, fairmindedness, humility, compassion, tolerance, starting at the bottom and gradually working your way up—than a skunk makes a credible ambassador for the perfume industry. To suggest anything else is embarrassingly disingenuous. History WILL judge you, and don’t expect that judgment to be kind if you error on the side of tyranny. Regrets are permanent, as will be your unsavory standing and posthumous reputation in the eyes of any and all successors on the face of this only planet known to definitively support life as we Homo sapiens know it, and who (most of us, at least) appreciate and exalt in that singular privilege and strongly desire for those who follow in our footsteps to reap the same benefits and rewards as have been bestowed upon us by thoughtful, unselfish predecessors…..
Skip to content
Fred's Soapbox 