When a lie is exposed so everyone can easily see it, it is discarded wholesale. When confidence in the “currency of the day” evaporates, the system which perpetuated it is in dire straits. When a king debases the coin which bears his likeness so much that the cladding is rubbed off and exposes the underlying base metal, it is understood as worthless and ridiculed, hence the name Old Coppernose.
Today, October 27, is the day when Israel holds its election to determine the makeup of its government…and its future. In one week, November 3, the US will follow suit. There is no clear outcome predicted in either case, except that turmoil and trouble will continue to wreak havoc on local economies and the world. Yeah, I’ll go out on a limb and make that projection, but everything might just turn up roses. Or maybe we’ll be pushing up daisies.
You know the state of geopolitics so there is no reason for me to dredge up the same old, same old in a vain attempt to change your mind. Trump. Netanyahu. Iran. China. Oil. Ukraine. Economic collapse. Putin. WWIII. Emerging pandemics. Et cetera, and forever. Amen! The narrative never changes, or if it does, it only shifts from one disastrous, doomsday scenario to another which society didn’t foresee and isn’t prepared for.
All right, then, now that we understand our situation, I’ll make another prediction which, while vague and indefinite, will hit like a lightening bolt. Something is going to break. What that “something” is exactly, I don’t know, but I will recognize it when it happens…and so will you. Will it change anything for the better for the average person? Almost certainly, no, and this will hold true regardless who you are or where you live. All we can do as individuals to protect ourselves is to go to the polls and vote harder. Harder, I say, and more often. In fact, if you can vote more than once, so much the better. Vote early, and vote often!
Just so you don’t miss the sarcasm, I have included this emoji.
Ahhhhh! Now that I have that off my chest, let’s move on.
I was taking my usual walk around the neighborhood a few days ago and stopped to talk with a neighbor for a few minutes. She mentioned the need to vote and asked me point-blank if I had voted yet or was planning to. I told her (I am an honest man, after all, and don’t lie for no good reason) that I hadn’t voted since 2004 and didn’t intend to begin the habit again. She responded by making an analogy in which ten people were on a bus which was driving at top speed toward a cliff. The passengers decided to take a vote to change the driver in an effort to avoid the certain calamity coming up. Three voted to remove the driver and replace him. Two voted to keep him. Five didn’t vote at all. Since there was no overwhelming consensus, nothing was changed and the bus drove over the cliff edge at top speed.
At that point, her dog tried to attack mine and the conversation fell apart. I did not get an opportunity to explain that changing the driver would not make any difference unless the driver took his foot off the gas pedal and put it on the brake, while at the same time, changing the direction of travel away from the cliff edge. That probably wouldn’t have registered anyway. My neighbor, a fiercely independent old woman, has put her faith in a bus driver who would recognize the danger ahead and take corrective action. In other words, trust Dear Leader and the Experts1 to solve the problem even though it is those same people who have been driving the bus forward all along.
Changing the man (or woman) at the top and/or the less-elevated men and women is not going to correct anything when society, like that bus, is on a headlong collision course with reality. In fact, to carry the analogy forward, the only solution to the dilemma facing the passengers would be to open the rear emergency door and jump out. Sort of like getting into the boats instead of dancing on the increasingly steep decks of the Titanic. Trading certain death and destruction for a remote possibility that you might live, banged-up and dirty, perhaps with broken bones from the impact with the hard road, but still alive and able to live a little longer.
The analogy is imperfect, but it draws a picture as any analogy should. The bus we are riding on is heading for a fall. The Titanic drove at top speed into an iceberg and 1517 people died because they trusted the captain and the ship. Bailing out the emergency door before the crash is realistically comparable to withdrawing your support from the System, refusing to endorse it any more, placing your trust (and your life) in something different. Blind and willful confidence in a failing operation will only get you dead. Voting is nothing more than rearranging deck chairs. Jumping may kill you, but it might save your life.
Withdrawing from the system we have lived in our whole life (jumping from the bus) is a matter of trust, knowing that there is no guarantee we will survive, but jumping anyway. Trusting the powers-that-be (and their governments) to work things out for our good is like riding in the back of the bus, unable, perhaps unwilling, to take any personal initiative to escape. It’s easier to sit and do nothing than it is to take a chance which might succeed. Or fail.
Where, then, do we put our trust? Good question, and there is only one good answer–truth, that is, Truth. We have the ability to choose to believe the lie, that everything is under control, that there is nothing to be afraid of, that we will be taken care of, or to believe that Almighty God, the Spirit of God, and the Word of God, which is truth, will hold us secure, even if we die in the process.
“You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.” — John 8:32
Unlike the bus which Paul Simon sang about2, putting your faith in God instead of government really will set you free, provided that you are willing to jump with 100% knowledge that your situation will be altered irrevocably. It’s not a matter of trust vs. no trust, it’s a matter of who you trust and if you’re willing to take a leap of faith.
- Where is Big Brother and the Holding Company when they’re needed? ↩︎
- “Slip out the back, Jack. Make a new plan, Stan…” Which only referred to leaving one bad situation for a different one. Like frequenting a strip joint without getting any satisfaction, which I call an exercise in frustration. ↩︎
