On Suing the President: US versus US

We have plenty of critical issues on the table as it is: immigration, a crumbling infrastructure, a severe drought in the Southwest, a potentially explosive international crisis in Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel/Palestine.  And what!  Instead of rolling up their sleeves to cooperatively work towards finding positive solutions in the face of these challenges, the big people in congress are busy trying to work up enough steam and momentum to sue the President.  This is our government hard at work!?

Suing President Obama is NOT a political move, says Boehner.  How about those calling for the impeachment of Obama?  Are we to believe that the call to impeach Obama is also neutral, unbiased, and objective—a nonpolitical move as well?  Really!  Are we idiots?  Is that what our political leaders think of the American people?

We have a lot of politics with little substance, much posturing with little real work getting done.  Aren’t you tired of this?  I am.  How is it that we cannot seem to decide what is best for America in the face of the many local and global crises that confront us?

What will unite us?  Do we have a common purpose?  Is there a common cause we can rally around?  Do we no longer share a common vision or destiny?  If we do, what is it?  Where exactly are we heading?  And, wherever it is, do we see ourselves getting there together… in one piece?

We’re splitting apart at the seams.  What is the big picture here, the overarching vision that holds us together as a people?  We are fracturing: Red States, Blue States, North and South, the Haves and the Have-nots, Black and White!  We are divided by varying cultural values (hence the term “culture wars”), divided by race, social-economic class, religious faith (or lack thereof), and ideology—to name a few obvious dividing lines.

So, what unifies us?  Well, we all seem to have the same materialistic goal: obtaining the American dream—the Almighty Dollar!  That is what brings, and has brought, immigrants from all over the world to America—the promise of economic prosperity.

However, the desire for prosperity, the Almighty Dollar, is actually our greatest divider.  How so?  Because, at the national level, we are immediately divided by questions of who shall control the national coffers, by how and who shall be taxed, by how it is to be distributed, by who gets to keep most of it, by how and where it is to be spent, and by how it is to be sourced and resourced.  All special-interest groups want the biggest and best piece of the American pie, while at the same time no special-interest group wants to pay for the rest of America’s needs or interests at the national level.

We have become a nation of personal self-interest, seeking to satisfy personal wants and desires.  As a nation we no longer seem to have a collective interest, seeking to do what is best for the whole, the collective US—so we are fracturing and dividing and fighting among ourselves.  And we are forgetting that a house divided against its self will not stand.  These are old wise words, now a cliché, but still truer than ever.