A More Perfect Union

I hate that I’m pretty much only thinking about the election these days. Hopefully you can forgive me. I get like this every four years when it’s crunch time and the stakes seem so high. I’m not going to say “it’s the most important election of our lifetimes,” because I have no idea what’s going to happen in our lifetimes, but I can say with some confidence that we’re on the verge of either keeping our normal streak alive by electing Kamala or we’re going to enter a dark time for American democracy by electing Trump.

One four-year term could be chalked up to as an aberration. Another, particularly after his horrendous first term, would be an obscenity. I don’t use that word lightly. He is an obscene figure devoted to desecrating a foundational document that has served us pretty well over the last couple hundred years. I have my problems with the Constitution (I’m looking at you, Second Amendment) and I have some problems with the way the Constitution has been interpreted at times (I’m looking at you Dred Scott, Heller, and Dobbs), but by and large, we’ve done a fairly good job of slowly working towards that opening promise:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Pictured: the original Broadway cast of “Hamilton.”

It's an honorable aspiration, one, as Barack Obama is fond of reminding us, that we still haven’t achieved. But at least I used to have confidence that most of us wanted to move in the direction of a more perfect union. Now, I’m not so sure. Or, rather, I’m no longer convinced that the union I would like bears any relationship to the union my political opposites prefer.

To me, a more perfect union is one in which every citizen is treated with dignity and respect. It’s a union in which each person gets a vote, and is able to cast that vote without undue strain: ie, standing on line for five hours, as so many are forced to do, particularly in poor communities and communities which are heavily populated by people of color. It’s a union that aspires to lift all people up; if that means those among us with the most have to pay more than people who have the least in order to ensure greater prosperity for all, that’s fine by me. A more perfect union is one which does not demonize others based on nation of origin, preferred language, skin color, gender, sexual identity, or religion. It’s one in which we assume other Americans to be our equals. Ask yourself if Donald Trump represents these ideals.

To establish justice, we must have a legal system that serves all of its people equally, not just those with enough money to afford the best lawyers. It means that incarceration be a last resort, and that once incarceration is instituted, that the incarceration itself be the punishment, not the conditions within the prison. It means lengthy prison sentences should be rare. It means that we should treat inmates as fellow citizens who will day return to society, instead of as garbage to be shunned. And it means we abolish the death penalty, which disproportionately affects people of color, is sometimes falsely applied, and does nothing to reduce crime. It means taking the prison system out of for-profit corporations who have a monied interest in seeing evermore people incarcerated at the lowest possible price.

Ensuring domestic tranquility goes hand-in-hand with an equitable justice system. People take to the streets when they feel they can no longer trust the justice system to do what is right, or they feel that their government isn’t listening to their grievances. Of course, you’ve also got that one time not too long ago when a sitting President of the United States encouraged his voters to protest in front of the Capitol and then watched them enter said Capitol and wreak havoc within. Of course “ensuring domestic tranquility” can go too far, which means it always has to be balanced against “the right to peacefully assemble.” I think you can guess how I feel about the two candidates and their positions on “domestic tranquility.” If not, I’ll give you a hint: it’s not the one who asked the Secretary of Defense to shoot the Washington BLM protestors in the legs.

Obviously, we need to provide for the common defense. My question: do we need to go quite so hard on that front? Why do we need an American military several times larger and more lethal than any other country’s? Deterrence is a good thing. Wanton spending is not. We’re currently spending close to two trillion dollars overhauling our nuclear weapon program. That’s two trillion dollars to modernize a fleet of nuclear warheads, submarines, missiles, and other delivery systems which have the potential to wipe out humanity. Maybe we would be better off spending less on fewer nukes? We’ve created a military-industrial-welfare state, which provides a lot of jobs and a lot of money to a lot of people. I bet we could find a better use for that cash. Both candidates are beholden to this military-industrial-complex, so I guess the question is, which of the two will use this awesome power more sensibly?

Promoting the general welfare, whether Republicans like it or not, means promoting what is best for the greatest number of people. Making access to healthcare, for example, easy and affordable. What could be more “welfare” than faring well? It means making sure that we have roads and bridges and tunnels. It means schools. It means libraries. It means all the things that Republicans don’t want to spend a nickel on because that’s one more nickel out of their pockets. But the general welfare is what makes a country into a nation. The general welfare is the furniture in a home. And, as somebody who is married to an interior designer, I can tell you that the quality of furniture varies greatly from home to home. When we spend more to get the higher quality stuff, we end up saving money over the long run because we don’t have to keep replacing and upgrading. The same is true for our country.

As for securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity, I’m not sure what this means. What is liberty? What is freedom? Where does your liberty end and my freedom begin? Must your freedom be secured at the barrel of a gun? If, so, I question how free you really are. Regardless, which of the two candidates understands that the blessing of liberty is not an excuse to grab everything you can, no matter who you screw over. Liberty isn’t simply the ability to do what you want; it’s also the maturity to wield that liberty with thoughtfulness and compassion. Freedom for all isn’t freedom for me and fuck all y’all. It’s collective. The blessings of liberty may bump up against “ensuring domestic tranquility” from time to time, and part of our job as Americans is to strike the proper balance between freedom and anarchy. Certain freedoms, however, harm no one. The freedom to love who you love, the freedom to live as your authentic self, freedom of expression, freedom to worship as you please, freedom to peacefully address your legislators, freedom to walk down the street without getting shot.

I apologize again for annoying you with so many election posts. With luck, we’ll be through this chapter in our history in short order. Without luck, I expect much darker days ahead.