Right is right, and wrong is wrong

Have you seen a child pitch a fit in a store because his mom wouldn’t let him get the toy or cereal he wanted. It can get ugly. The child throws himself to the floor, kicking and screaming.  Have you seen that?

Mom can either walk away and ignore it – and usually the kiddo will get up and go after mom, maybe still whiney but likely a bit more reserved -- or she can give in, allowing the behavior to be rewarded. Repeated performances on future shopping trips are pretty much guaranteed.

Our president’s demands for a Nobel Peace Prize remind me of this full-on tantrum. He even said the quiet part out loud, admitting that because he didn’t get the award, he wasn’t so invested in being peaceful. Meanwhile, Europe and other countries are closing their minds and doors to the U.S. They’ve had enough of this haranguing and penalizing from this administration. They’ve begun making trade deals with other countries, bypassing the U.S. altogether. The trust and investment the U.S. spent decades building with the Western World are crumbling away. You really can’t blame them. It’s simple. You don’t give in to a bully. You walk away.

Our government has gone off the rails. The Constitution has lost its relevance with these leaders. We’re now a rogue nation, illustrated by several actions: Attacking Venezuela and taking control of their oil. Threatening to take Greenland by force. U.S. citizens are being dragged from their homes, their cars and their schools, including children, without any due process. People are afraid to leave their homes and are carrying proof of U.S. citizenship with them. And now people are being shot and killed in the streets. Arrests of these citizens isn’t about extracting the worst of the worst illegal aliens anymore. This is about the morality, or rather the immorality, of the powers behind all of these acts.

On Monday, Jan 19, three archbishops from Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Newark released a rare joint statement regarding the morality of U.S. foreign policy. In it they state: “As pastors and (U.S.) citizens, we embrace this vision for the establishment of a genuinely moral foreign policy for our nation. Our country’s moral role in confronting evil around the world, sustaining the right to life and human dignity and supporting religious liberty are all under examination.”

Here’s another passage that sings out: “Terrible things are happening outside. ... Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.” This is from the Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank, written in January 1943 during the Holocaust -- a haunting image from 73 years ago coming to life once again.

All of this brings to mind cartoonist Walt Kelly’s character Pogo’s quote: “We have met the enemy and it is us.”

Here in Wyoming, we’re pretty insulated from the confrontation of U.S. federal agents and U.S. citizens as experienced in other states. Though ICE is here. Two agents pulled over my son this fall while he was driving a beet truck between Cody and Powell. They didn’t have a reason for stopping him, just doing a “routine inspection.” He is pretty tanned. Once he started talking (with no accent), they sent him on his way.

But maybe you have family and friends in the midst of this in a blue state (that this is happening exclusively in blue states should concern you). It’s been implied that all of this, foreign and domestic, turmoil is being generated to deflect attention from the Epstein files mess our president and other high-profile people are embroiled in. Maybe. Probably. It’s an age-old trick. Magicians incorporate the distraction strategy all the time. Look here, not over there.

Another quote from Anne Frank’s diary: “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”  Such hope for a young girl living in silence with seven people, concealed in an attic for 761 days before Nazis caught them and sent them to concentration camps. But good words. Wise words.

I think a large majority of us have good hearts. We’ve just been focused too much on the magicians telling us what to think, where to look. We need to get our feet under us again. Engage our hearts and reach out to people in our orbits with kindness instead of judgement.

I recently posted a simple plea on each of Wyoming’s congress members’ websites, requesting they do whatever they are able to bring relief to the discord in Minnesota and other states. I urged them: “Please do the right thing. You know what that is. Lead with your soul.”

I’ll close with this quote attributed to St. Augustine: “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”

OK, one more from Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.”