Welcome to the Third Degree: Tough, Brief, Weekly Interrogations that force thinking and response. This Sunday we target: Inquisition
Is the holiday tomorrow, President’s Day or, officially, just Washington’s Birthday?
If yes, why does Lincoln get to blow out candles too?
By what marks do we hold President’s (and their policies) in esteem?
Does the Edgar Allen Poe short story, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, provide political inquisitional imagery, symbology and double speak language prevalent today?
Do the exhortations and forced repentance recitations relying upon distant, future year economic, energy and equity gospels accompanied by expected (normal) dismal governmental execution aid anyone’s beliefs or true faith except those in and clinging to power?
Does the deep pit of forgotten history await those confined and stumbling in the dark?
Can the ever-descending swing of the sharpened policy pendulum wound or kill unless freedom is gained from restraining ties that bind?
Will market forces attenuate better than the fervor of pendulum pushing political reformists?
Regardless, should extant and proposed policies be understood, affordable, worthy of the effort in terms of outcomes, and, if not, then subject to sunset?
Does selective review shed light: “Laws made by common consent should not be trampled upon by individuals”(Washington)? Is a current coda: “Unless justified by inequity and systemic racism then it’s OK”?
If “government should only do for the people that which they cannot do for themselves” (Lincoln), are there too many support mechanisms in place for millions of Americans (including non-citizens)? Is their vote affected by such largess?
Should support mechanisms have restrictions on duration, conduct required, and amounts? How to take away that which is given, expected, relied upon?
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent, we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” (Washington). Another coda: Unless I don’t agree with what you are saying or even thinking and will threaten you with government and social media supported power and cancellation?
“At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected?” Lincoln asks and answers: “If it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. We must live through all time, or die by suicide.” Agreed or not?
Is the American experiment, like the Poe inquisition cell, closing in, crushing with a burning intensity and offering, at the end, only the pit or the sweeping pendulum. Wherein deliverance?
Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living. The answers and actions remain yours.See the new, www.third-degreeUS.com, providing, after sign in, view of selected, previous inquiries for sponsors and subscribers.