Dear Editor,
In a recent conversation with my long- time friend and spiritual advisor, Skip Church, we discussed the problems facing America these days. Skip says this would be funny if it were happening somewhere else.
The mayor of Atlanta wanted to charge the president of the United States with a crime because he wasn’t wearing a facemask. In return, the Governor said those laws requiring facemasks are unenforceable.
Skip is of the opinion that requiring facemasks is an extreme case of government over-reach. In the past, the government has taken steps to protect us from ourselves and our lack of what Skip calls “good walking around sense.”
Wearing seat belts, helmets for motorcycle riders, and those impossible to open medicine bottles are examples that came to mind. But those were all designed to help protect us.
This face mask thing is just outrageous. Government tells us that wearing a mask will not prevent us from getting Covid-19, but it will help prevent us from infecting someone else.
How dare they? In today’s climate of “whose life matters” how do they expect us to show concern and compassion for someone who isn’t me? After all, isn’t life in community divided up into “us” versus “them.”
And they tell us that the masks won’t protect “us” but may protect “them.” Skip says if we all took a step back, and just watched the situation like a spectator, most of us should be ashamed. Except for the fact that the first casualty of this age of “enlightenment” is our ability to feel shame about anything.
Skip talks a lot about that. It’s an easy thing for “us” to look at “them” and “see a basket of deplorables.”
The truth of the matter seems to be that we all have the capacity to be deplorable. I believe that it was James T. Adams who said, “There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behooves any of us to find fault in the rest of us.”
The sad part of the story is that politicians think it’s their job to “run” the country. There is a difference between running the country and leading the country.
The lack of leadership among our politicians is shameful. Political debate is nothing more that partisan bickering and petty back-biting.
In the absence of effective leadership, responsibility rests with the individual. Kick the political nonsense to the curb, get past the “us” versus “them” mentality.
Let’s do the right thing. No, I am not going to tell you what the right thing is. You are smart enough to figure that out. You don’t need anyone to do your thinking for you.
Greg Loskoski
Midway