In my last post, I mentioned that I wasn’t overly fond of using this space for political commentary, but that it sometimes falls under the “culture” part of my “faith, art, and culture” focus. Perhaps this connects the dots from my previous post to a cultural commentary.
We let things go on because we’re exhausted.
Wait. Re-read it. I think it’s an epiphany (I’ve been using that word a lot lately). Actually, it was Karen’s epiphany yesterday morning while we were driving to Starbucks way too early because I woke up with no coffee in the house…anyway, I digress. She made the point that we let things go on in our government that are contrary to what we ethically understand to be “okay” (or morally understand, depending on your view), because we have so much stuff going on (and, honestly, we just have so much stuff), that our brains are full and we’re just too exhausted to take a stand. It’s not that the American public doesn’t care, it’s just that we don’t have any energy left to say anything except, “okay, Bush, whatever you think is best. That’s why we pay you the big bucks.”
Perhaps we should stop rolling over and have the energy to insist that our government is, in fact, by us and for us? Perhaps we should challenge the garbage going on in our governmental machine while we still legally can, before there is a secret police that will drag us out of our homes in the middle of the night if we do. Perhaps we should trim some responsibilities and re-prioritize? At least be aware of the problems and have a voice?
Perhaps we should.
Our future may just depend on it.