Striving to be human (LTE)
Editor, Gettysburg Times,
During the decade of the 1850s, tensions were high in America. Slavery was nudging the country to its edges, and everyone knew war was inevitable. By mid-century, our Anglo-American forefathers successfully annihilated Indian tribes from Florida to Maine while the greed for more Western land humiliated Mexico, setting it up for greater instability for years ahead. But, America expanded by a third. Further stirring the pot was the Fugitive Slave Act and the execution of John Brown. Not satisfied to look at events as they are, Henry David Thoreau asked the tough question from his paradise outside of Boston: how shall we live our lives in a society that makes being human more and more difficult?
How difficult will it be to be human when our courts eviscerate the laws and the standards that have nurtured our stability for decades? Just this week, an Appellate Court put the last knife into the heart of the Civil Rights Act, making it nearly impossible to fulfill the promise of justice for all. Or, when we need models of valor, the Supreme Court issues its own Codes of Ethics with the teeth of a newborn. The Courts have interpreted the Constitution’s Second Amendment with a cold-hearted disregard for public safety and replaced it with a search for irrelevant historical analogs.
How difficult will it be to be human when one of our two political parties surrenders its soul for electoral victories at the expense of our cherished civil virtues? When the head of this party now schemes to incarcerate his political enemies, how can we not call it anything other than raw retribution? When the newly elected Speaker of the House – third in line from the presidency – travels to Mar-a-Lago to pledge fealty to the Trumpian cult? How many military families’ lives will be thrown into chaos for the sake of a football coach masquerading as a US Senator?
How difficult will it be to be human when the world’s waters boil, and the land denies its benefits to trees, animals, insects, and us? How often were we told that more carbon is not to our benefit? How much science was too much science for us to ignore its warnings?
Thoreau got to the heart of things, but we seem to miss it at our peril. We find it difficult to be human.
Tony McNevin
Gettysburg