Our disappearing rules

By JoAnne Young

We are seeing every day, and everywhere around us, the rules we have lived by for so long are changing, disappearing. And what can happen when we live without rules: People act in their own self-interests. Order breaks down. Conflict occurs, and a general lack of fairness, safety, and predictability results.

 

Consider for a moment ... our laws violated by our leaders, the power of Congress usurped, authoritarian tactics employed, masked men in our streets, dissent challenged, our cost of living climbing. 

 

It’s frightening, this no rules thing, this new disorder. Rules of privacy of our personal information have been changed. Our personal information is in danger. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs are ending or at risk. Schools have been restricted from lessons on gender identification, racial issues. An executive order has also tried to end birthright citizenship. Free speech is being challenged. 

 

This is the kind of speech we are hearing from our leaders. 

 

* Secretary of Defense? War? Pete Hegseth, calling generals and military leaders to Washington from across the world to tell them: “Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision and ferocity of the War Department. In other words, to our enemies, FAFO.” 

 

* Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and the United States homeland security advisor, speaking at Charlie Kirk’s funeral: “And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing.” 

 

* Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney General: “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech. And there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie in our society, we will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything.” 

 

It’s hard to listen to what people who lead our federal government are saying these days that sounds violent, sounds hate-filled and illegal, and seems to go against our Constitution. I’m so nostalgic for our former leaders, in that time not too long past, when the people of this country elected heads of state who had their better angels in mind when they addressed the American people, the people of the world. It’s how this country became a world leader. 

 

In a speech last year, Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah talked about his “Disagree Better” campaign. He said, “The good news is that there is a market for something different. Seventy percent of Americans — the exhausted majority — hate what is happening in politics and media today. It’s not too late to find our better angels.” 

 

After Charlie Kirk’s death in September, a New York Times reporter wrote: “It is far from clear whether the country’s better angels can still be reached.” 

 

I’ve been reading a book I bought a couple of years ago at a wonderful Jackson, Mississippi, bookstore, Lemuria Books. It’s a heavy one called “The Book of the Dead,” and contains 320 obituaries of “extraordinary people,” that ran in the New York Times. It includes some of our dead presidents, including President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who I learned a lot about from his obit. 

 

He was an Army general and a World War II hero, said to be in all corners of the world associated with victory in war and a tireless crusader for peace. He had a devotion to duty, and was somewhat of a visionary. He famously said in his 1961 farewell address: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” 

 

I truly respect that, coming especially from a man who rose through the ranks to be a commanding war general. It shows, by comparison, the lack of experience and reason of Hegseth in his speech to generals and military leaders.

 

Another of our former leaders, President Jimmy Carter: “The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to work together for peace. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can make these changes and we must remember that there are many ways to accomplish our goals, together.” 

 

Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) approached his presidency with humility: “There are probably a million people who could have done the job better than I did, but I had the job ...” 

 

And this by Lyndon B. Johnson, who was thrust into the presidency on the death by assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, and became the leader of a nation divided by the Vietnam war. 

In a speech in 1965 to Congress, he said: “This is the richest and most powerful country which ever occupied this globe. ... But I do not want to be the president who built empires or sought grandeur or extended dominion. I want to be the president who educated young children to the wonders of their world. I want to be the president who helped to feed the hungry and to prepare them to be taxpayers instead of tax-eaters. I want to be the president who helped the poor to find their own way and who protected the right of every citizen to vote in every election. I want to be the president who helped to end hatred among his fellow men and who promoted love among the people of all races ... .” 

 

And can I speak to at least one former Supreme Court justice. In a 1943 Supreme Court case on compelling school children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, Justice Robert H. Jackson said: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

 

We have been confronted this month by the deaths of good people. I can’t leave this writing without mentioning anthropologist Jane Goodall. 

 

“Somehow we must keep hope alive -- a hope that we can find a way to educate all, alleviate poverty, assuage anger, and live in harmony with the environment, with animals, and with each other.” 

 

This member of the exhausted majority misses our past leaders, and longs for the return of our better angels.