My alma mater, The University of Nevada, Reno, recently sponsored a so-called Day of Rage to commemorate the election of Donald Trump. Yes, a major University, at taxpayer expense, took a day off from schooling to protest an election. Rather than simply live with it, UNR’s students felt they needed a day of rage to bray at the moon. So embarrassed was I, that I committed to my own act of rage: Now, when the alumni magazine arrives in the mail, I don’t recycle it – I send it directly to the deepest part of the local landfill where it belongs. I can imagine it moldering away with Coke cans and banana peels.
In my own way, I was raging.
That got me to wondering: Was there a better way? IS there a better way?
The answer is yes. There are better ways and we have them in our back pocket as Americans – or, at least, we used to. We have what is called “freedom to choose,” to choose to do something the next time. To leverage our God-given personal agency as human beings and be the change we want to see in the world.
The following list is loosely based on something that comedian Jeff Foxworthy, he of Red Neck fame, purportedly said several years ago. I have edited it for my purposes and claim no ownership.
- If you don’t like an election’s outcome, save your money and next time support a candidate of your choosing. Wait – you already did that? Well, tough luck. There is no need to take a day off, at taxpayers’ expense, or throw rocks, or burn down a Starbucks. Whatever. Just live with it. Truly, there are worse things in life than an election that didn’t go your way.
- How about guns? If you don’t like guns, then vote with your wallet and don’t buy one. Simple. No matter how much you bray at the moon, guns will forever be produced. After all, there is a Hollywood starlet somewhere who needs to outfit her personal bodyguards with weapons (not to mention the wholly frightening prospect of a police officer arriving at your 911 call armed only with nice words and bubble gum).
- Good old red meat seems to get people’s blood boiling. A LOT of people. Not happy with simply railing against the evils of cholesterol and the slaughtering of innocent cows, these idiots now attribute Global Warming to the evils of meat consumption. How about this: Simply stop eating meat, and don’t tell me what I should eat.
- Want equal rights for everyone? Check the American Constitution. It’s in there. Yes, it has been ignored and many people suffered an ostensible loss of rights over the years. But in the end, it was corrected through reasonable and non-violent means. There is no need to – again – burn down buildings.
- Is life not treating you fairly? Get over it. As many great leaders have pointed out, life is not fair and never will be. John Kennedy of all people had this to say: “There is always inequity in life,”he said. “It’s very hard in in personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.” Live the life you were given and get on with it. Stop asking everyone around you to somehow make it right. Think about how YOU can make YOUR LIFE better. I’ll worry about mine, thank you very much.
- What about the television or radio talk-show host you don’t like? There is a simple answer: stop listening! Change the channel! Don’t demand that he be taken off the air. Don’t demand that Cheerios stop sponsoring him. You know, we could get very good at removing voices we don’t agree with. Hitler, for example, was quite good at it. Or Putin. Or what they are doing in China now.
- How about God? Don’t like Him? How about this: Don’t go to church. Quietly live out your beliefs, and do not demand that everyone around you agree with you. Most of us are quite happy with “In God We Trust” on our currency. Many of us DO believe. Stop militating for a change which results in everyone’s thinking as you do. Most of us “believers” quietly go about our faith without demanding that you do the same. (By the way, I am not sure I like having those things on my currency either. But really, it isn’t worth it trying to change it. There are more important things.)
- Got bad health? See the entry above about life not treating anyone fairly. Stop smoking, avoid those foods which make you sick, stop inhaling marijuana like it was pure oxygen. Take better care of yourself and stop asking everyone around you to pay for YOUR misdeeds.
- Are you especially mad about capitalism? I don’t blame you. It quietly demands that everyone pull their own weight. It has resulted in incredible wealth concentrations. It has made the rich richer. But … as Hans Rosling has pointed out in his wonderful book, Factfulness, capitalism has resulted in a gradual and inescapable rise in the standards of living for virtually everyone on the planet. After all, it wasn’t the Soviet Union or Castro’s Cuba that gave you the Internet or your mobile phone. It was a capitalist mentality that gave you, and gives you, virtually everything you take for granted. If you want socialism, then quietly go about supporting people like Bernie Sanders. Then wait for the outcome. And then … live with it. Live to fight another day.
- Want open borders? Mad about the fence? Are you increasingly sad about the plight of the poor in Honduras, Syria, or some other country? Good. It means you have empathy. But some of us – and not just a few of us – know that an open borders policy will result in a killing of the goose that laid the golden egg. People want to be in America because of what it has accomplished. This is true. But we exist to serve others because of what we have built and tearing it down to accommodate millions of the dispossessed is a pipe dream. How about this: Demand that those countries step up their game and solve the problems they have created. Support a foreign policy that punishes the idiots like Rocket Man in North Korea and engenders change in those countries where people would rather live. After all, it is their home and ought to be a place where they too can live out their lives in pursuit of their own brand of happiness.
Stop demanding that I think the way you think. Be the change you want to see in the world and stop militating for a change in my thinking. Stop spending my tax money on what you want me to think. Win me over with your words and thoughtful, non-violent deeds. I promise: if you do, then the resulting change will be far more lasting.
