Were you someone who felt irked that the call on your humanity interfered with your antipathy?
Did you feel that you had to ensure that people knew that they could still hate this human, could still cast him as evil even though there was a human being who had been shot with a family, children, and grandchildren?
Did you imagine what it would have been like if, instead, it had been someone you believed in—a liberal or a progressive?
Did you rush to reassert your againstness rather than sink into the grief of what it means that a human being was shot in a public arena, something that goes below partisanship, to the marrow of our existence?
Did you ever consider the mirroring of what one side says about the other and the fact that manipulation might be happening by the ones who benefit from opposition and hatred?
Now before you say, “She’s an apologist,” or that I am naive or defending Trump, I’ve spent years studying the algorithms, not only of both sides, but of the nature of bias and “taking sides.” I wrote a book on the subject. I am neither naive nor reckless—not that this matters to Trump, Biden, or the system that produces them or props them up. I do have a candidate that I stand for, and it is neither of them. This may be why I can see that while people consider themselves free thinkers, their hate and aggression are justified and self-generated. I can see the machinery that produces them.
A good litmus test is this:
– Do you have a strong moral compass?
– Does that compass include both liberty (the right) and justice (the left)?
– Can you see the benefits and failings of both “sides”?
– Can you stand with whichever side you choose in response, not reactivity, so that you are smart and ethical in a way that does not have you abandon the only thing that will bring us all we seek?
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the ability to see clearly, engage powerfully (preferably in person and action), and contribute universally, meaning for the benefit of “all” sentient beings.
There was a time when social justice was a righteous arm used to carry out the deeper truths of divine justice. However, as activists became adept at using the master’s tools, we lost the heart of divine justice, and became the very embodiment of the system we wanted to replace. Erotic justice combines divine justice and social justice, and its essence is love in all its aspects.
That snag of “my people” and “my party” is the source of all suffering. It is literally “taking what is not yours.” This does not mean we do not fight passionately and righteously for the dharma or deeper truth, but that truth has no party. It is self-evident. It does not need to stoop to ego politics or identify with the “salvation party.” There is no human being or party that can save us. There’s only us chickens.
I wish peace and safety to us all—to the family of those impacted by this shooting, Trump’s family, and those who were re-activated by the activity of gun violence—those whose egos ran amok that any human being would “deserve this.” And who suffered the klesha of hatred and those who cannot find a center amid the chaos of this time.