2111 Pass the Hemlock

This bell is meaningless unless you know what it really stands for and how to use it.

Feeling low?  Need a boost?  Someone pass the hemlock.  Wait. What? Isn’t hemlock a deadly poison?  Didn’t that Socrates fella die from a small dose?

Well, yeah. He did.  But he knew what it was going to do.  These days we’ve become convinced to operate against our own best interests.  How’d that happen?  With a long campaign by people who have convinced us to believe that taking poison is “what’s meant to be,” or “God’s will,” or what we need.

Naw, that can’t be. Can it?  Well, look at what the president is doing to the people who were counting on him to save their rumps, their bank accounts and their guns.

Of course, no one’s going to give up their effort to survive without being fed something that’s really better than a washing machine and a Chevrolet as the band Alabama described lovingly in its “Song of the South.”

What’s better than a health insurance policy?  Freedom.  What’s the answer to gun control?  Freedom.  How about laws that favor men who force themselves on women?  

Freedom used to mean a lack of oppression or the ability to do what you want when you wanted.  Not so, anymore.  Now it’s a meaningless one-word cliché that people invoke when they don’t like something and want to be rid of it.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” -- Kris Kristofferson, American songwriter, singer and philosopher -- though not as prominent as Socrates, and probably not as enduring.

“Let Freedom Ring,” another American songwriter, one you might not have heard of, Jackie McLean.  He wasn’t Socrates either. But we get his flag-waving ode.  And what does it mean?  Not much, these days.

We HAVE freedom.  Mainly, we have the freedom to choose our own oppressors.  That’s the big one.  Some say it’s the only real one.

But freedom doesn’t cure your medical conditions.  It doesn’t fill your bank account. It sure is a shiny lure for human fish.  And you don’t even need a rod and reel to use it.  Especially if you’re a politician.

What the Democrats need in this presidential election cycle is moral outrage.  And they’re not doing it. They’re still stuck in the FDR era of granting for the have-nots.  The New Deal and its aftermath was a life saver for both individuals and the country.  Note: there are not as many have nots as there used to be, and many of them don’t vote.

However, there are plenty of used-to-haves who bit at the lure.  Some realize that they made a mistake.  But that was only after the voted in 2016.

But there are a lot of fine, moral people who should be blotto over what’s going on in Washington and in most State Capitals these days.

We’ve picked the wrong oppressor. And we have subjugated our real needs to an empty cliché.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ® 

Comments?  Here’s where to send them: wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2019