You can't always get what you want

Most of us learn early on that we don't always get what we want. Part of growing up is bumping up against our own limits, discovering that no matter how much we try and want, no matter what the inspirational posters and the Hollywood movies tell us, there are some things we can never achieve. We can only run so fast, jump so high or think so deep.

I cannot compel you to believe this. You might choose to believe that all things are possible through the intercession of a supernatural power, or that there are chambers in your mind that, when unlocked, might provide you with powers far beyond those of mortal men. You can buy books and books on tape and videos and seminars to buttress your belief in your own perfectibility and it is quite possible that you will realize some benefit from absorbing all this positivity. I do not doubt that. I am not interested in dissuading you from thinking as you think, believing as you believe. I just ask you to consider that almost everyone around you is similarly convinced of their own specialness and inner beauty.

It is interesting to consider how little politics means to most of us. I vote against my own financial interest at least as often as I vote for it, but I can't imagine that the way I live will be more than incrementally affected by the people we send to Washington or to the statehouse. They might embarrass me or offend my sense of fair play or even make me feel proud to live in a country where some people insist on doing what's right regardless of the prevailing sentiment of the mob. But I don't worry that they will cause me much real pain. If taxes go up, I can pay them. If they go down, I doubt I'll be allowed to buy a Lamborghini or a Collings CJ35 (a handmade acoustic guitar) anyway.

But I'm privileged--I don't have to worry about how I'm going to feed and clothe myself, and I don't share most of the problems that many contend with on a daily basis. I can pretty much type any fool thing I please and expect to be allowed to try again next week. The checks come regularly and they don't bounce.

That doesn't mean I'm not interested in what politicians do and in what they try to do, only that I find myself more interested in philosophy than in retail politics. Newspapers pay a lot of attention to the latter and not much to the former, and that's probably the way it ought to be. Facts and statements are fairly easy to harvest; the truth is more elusive and cannot always be apprehended head on. Sometimes you have to catch it out of the corner of your eye. Sometimes it teases you. Sometimes it really is just something you feel in your heart, that you have to take on faith.

I don't doubt that. But I also know that not everything I believe is true, that I'm fallible and can be mistaken. Most of us probably have a small still voice inside to which we attend. We might identify this as our conscience or intuition, an instinct that grinds the known variables in the background to manufacture our beliefs. Whatever it is, it is a wondrous organ to have. But it is a mistake to accept this as the voice of God, for that small still voice can be wrong.

It can lead you to strap on a suicide vest and blow up a pharmacy in Tel Aviv. It can put you in a Bible class in a church in South Carolina with a .45 in your fanny pack. It can lead you to hate people who mean you no harm, who aren't even aware of your existence. It can make you believe that you know--and should give voice to--the mind of God.

I admit to a certain cynicism. Whenever anyone starts talking about what God wants America to do, I tend to think they've got an ulterior motive, or at the very least they can't make a compelling secular case. I very much suspect that Jason Rapert's and Mike Huckabee's small still voice inside aligns itself with their narrow self-interest pretty much every time. Neither one of them much resembles Gandhi.

(I accept that I could be wrong about that, and that I ought to give them the benefit of the doubt. They may very well be doing the best they can.)

On the other hand, I accept as sincere and heartfelt the resignation of any county clerk who can't perform her job because it doesn't align with her conception of morality. That's the sort of private decision that should be respected, because it actually cost her something to make it.

But let's be clear, the clerk does not have a First Amendment right to refuse to do her job based on her private beliefs or prejudices. To suggest that public officials who practice civil disobedience are exercising constitutionally protected speech is a silly and insupportable canard. You can't serve two masters. If you want a government paycheck, you follow the rules. Find a job that isn't inconsistent with your principles. (Or walk the earth. Like Caine in Kung Fu.)

Part of what is great about America is that it's a big country that accommodates all sorts of different people and cultures who sometimes have competing interests and who may believe all sorts of different and often contradictory things. Not all those beliefs are created equal, not all of those beliefs conform to generally accepted facts or make everyone feel good about themselves, but we are free to hold them and to express them so long as that expression does not impinge on the safety of others.

Maybe our version of America isn't exactly what the founding fathers envisioned, but despite the wishfulness of certain majoritarian politicians there is scant evidence they intended it as an evangelical Christian bulwark either. "The legitimate powers of government," Thomas Jefferson wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia, "extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

We flatter our politicians when we call them "leaders"--there is invariably a lag between societal evolution and the reflection of that evolution in law. So it wasn't so long ago that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama felt they had to express their personal disapproval of same-sex marriage. Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law almost 20 years ago.

I don't necessarily hold this against them. We all have our limitations. We are all susceptible to errors in judgment. And we'll all able to recognize our mistakes and move forward.

pmartin@arkansasonline.com

Read more at

www.blooddirtangels.com

Editorial on 07/02/2015

Upcoming Events