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“liberty, equality, fraternity.“
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“liberty and justice for all.”
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So. I just spoke with a good friend in France and we ended up discussing politics. Ok. Not politics, per se, but rather how politics is conducted and how the ones trying to get elected tell everyone not to be confused on the issues … then proceed to tell everyone shit that confuses the real issues <and us> … and then people who are, in general, confused about what the people they are voting for really stand on some issues as they duel each other with tactics <but smear each other with overarching lies>.
That is par for the course in every election these days.
Someone can be called racist … and they are not.
Someone can be claimed to “let anyone across the border” and they have no plans to do that.
Someone can be called a liar … and they actually stretch the truth less than the one making the claim.
Someone can … well … let’s just say … excepting an ardent, focused, few … for the everyday schmuck it can be really quite confusing.
Unfortunately, all the confusion does is mask the truly important decision.
For France it is the doctrine of ‘liberty, equality, fraternity.’
For USA … despite Thomas Jefferson and other’s temptation to head down the same path … we settled on the doctrine of liberty and justice for all.
Yet. It never seems like we talk about this enough.
Politics seem to revolve around what I, as a business person, would call tactics. Immigration, health, jobs, security, etc. Yeah. Important shit, but tactics to meet the objective. And all this talk about the tactics truly seems to confuse us, the voters & citizens, about the overarching objective.
And politicians shamelessly use and stretch the meaning of tactics to morph them into something that the objective demands when, in reality, it does no such thing.
That may be the most heinous thing a politician does these days.
We should almost demand each of them to put up the objective — what the country, the ‘one nation’ <not “under God” … just ‘one nation’> stands for and demand that every time they make some ludicrous claim or offer some distorted thought about past country behavior that they explain to us how it meets the objective. In other words. Tie all the tactics to the grander idea that all the people really believe in.
Uhm. Oh yeah. Just a quick reminder to my American readers on the whole “under God” aside I just offered.
The US founding fathers centered everything, Constitution and Bill of Rights, on one core idea — liberty and justice for all. While some important stuff surrounds that core, they are the trappings of what makes up the core.
I say that because our founding fathers did not write the pledge of allegiance. Nor did the pledge we all stood up and speak in our childhood schoolrooms originally include “under God” <even though the original was created by an ordained minister in 1892>. It was only in the spring of 1954, after US Congress had voted with some controversy, to insert the phrase into the Pledge of Allegiance — partly as a cold war tactic against “godless” communism.
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The original Pledge read as follows:
‘I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to*) the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’ He considered placing the word, ‘equality,’ in his Pledge, but knew that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans.
[ * ‘to’ added in October, 1892 ]
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All Americans should remember that core of the pledge of allegiance is the ‘republic for which it stands,’ which, I could argue, is the concise phrase for One Nation – an ‘’executive summary’ if you will of the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. The pledge unequivocally states that to make that One Nation idea viable we must specify that it is indivisible. This is a word, and a thought, used by Jefferson, other founding fathers, Daniel Webster, Lincoln and almost every visionary leader the country has ever had throughout speeches & writing.
No one should be confused by what the core of the country doctrine is … nor what the Founding Fathers desired … liberty & justice for all … one nation … indivisible.
<and shame on any politician who suggests otherwise>
Anyway. About the only thing I am sure of during an election is that there will be rampant confusion among those who are actually voting and unrelenting adamant fervor of what everyone should not be confused about <tactics>.
As a nation France stands square on the doctrine of ‘liberty, equality, fraternity.’ Until someone comes along and says “no, that’s not right, lets change it to bla bla bla …” that is what makes France ‘One Nation’.
Not baguettes.
Not great coffee.
Not mastering the art of wearing a scarf.
Not even a semi-haughty attitude on occasion.
One nation.
The moment a country ignores that which makes it one and gets confused by what some politician suggests is an important tactic that doesn’t really match up with ‘oneness’ it no longer is a country with a doctrine or a soul. It remains divided by tactics and empty of an objective.
As a business guy. As I read that last sentence, for a business, I hear the tolling of the death knell.
Without oneness a nation is no longer a nation. And a tactic, NO tactic, will never insure oneness … only an idea can.
Outside of America, France is my favorite country in the world. I always think, and wish for them, liberty, honor and lack of confusion … because clarity is the path to oneness.
And be clear … the idea which makes France one is ‘liberty, equality, fraternity.’
And be clear … the idea which makes USA one is liberty and justice for all or, if you would prefer, e pluribus unim (out of many one). Don’t let any tactic or any blowhard promise take your focus off of that. In the end the one thing we should demand of any politician, any leader, is to attain the objective of oneness, of unity, of liberty for all. Absent that we are just talking tactics. And, in business, that’s a fool’s errand and we are not a nation of fools.