The USA *Is* Great

[James E. White]

So many people want to get into the USA precisely because it is the greatest and most equitable country in the world at the moment. Yes, we (meaning Congress) need to implement a better immigration system and perhaps find some way (other than going in with guns blazing) of getting other countries on board. For a while trade was doing the job to a fairly large extent then people like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping decided that they wanted military might and power accumulated to themselves rather than trade and sound economics to be what defined importance in the world.

Why there is so much lingering prejudice from prior to the Civil War I cannot easily imagine unless it be the simple desire for power over others that many people seem to hold with no intelligent desire to suppress it. "Make America Great Again" means what to Trump and (many of) his supporters? "Great" by demonstrating that we as a nation are willing to subject some (or many) residents of our country to less than full human status? I don't see how that makes sense (or makes "Great"). What if the time comes when "they" can do that to "us" (whatever those groups might be)? Would that make the USA "greater" or what? My thinking is that it will make us far less both then and now!

MAGA is almost certainly a "Dog Whistle" but if you believe it, can you be sure that what it might mean to you is exactly what it means to all others that believe they hear it? I'd wager "No." It's rather the Putin autocrat call to "do it my way or go to jail or die." Your belief in what hearing the ultrasonic notes means to you doesn't actually make it so. Anarchy or autocracy are far more likely and you won't like either one. When your rights are fully gone, not just to the extent the judiciary has stolen them now, there won't be any rights left for you. Everyone must have the same rights as you or anyone can take them away.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Unfortunately Martin Niemöller didn't have this epiphany until after Hitler (and his "go along" Germans) lost World War II. In his lectures after the war, Niemöller publicly confessed his own inaction and indifference to the fate of many of the Nazis' victims (of which he became one). Who would be the MAGA victims? Perhaps you, even if, as the Nazis did, you joined MAGA because you thought it would benefit you to have unequal power and law on "your" side? Exactly what the USA founders feared from their knowledge of history but had to allow concessions for in the Constitution given the then "southern" states' predilection for their economic benefits from slavery.