There have always been troubled human beings in power for the simple reason power for the individual seems an easier consoling alternative to the hard difficult work of returning to health. What history can’t teach us is how important it is in this age to elect balanced, healthy human beings to power in order that we can live in a peaceful world. “Peaceful” though the world eventually could be, it is still hard work to do good, be good, and decide for the good of peace. Our current leadership seems to treat international law with all the sophistication of a Risk game and flings his presumed military prerogatives around like the White House is a hard wired Play Station. This morning we find ourselves one step closer to something terrible in our daily lives. The current situation was pretty streamlined and efficient. Forget Congress, Forget our Allies. Forget International law, Forget the consequences. Forget anything in the way. The one thing 2025 taught us is that if your leadership is faltering and justice seems to be remembering itself in your nation, start a war. A power addict in public office has similarities to the addict on the street exploring the bottom of the proverbial barrel. The main difference is the leadership version of public power addiction is wrapped in flags, luxury, and covered by the honor of the historic, military culture of this nation.

This administration is lead by someone with no actual military experience. That means our leader does not have the hard combat experience to serve as a cautionary tale that our true veterans tend to have to serve as brakes. The absence of the burden of those memories is significant when it comes to deciding for the horrors of war. This nation’s true heroic leaders either had first person combat experience or at least the imagination to respect what they couldn’t know. Despite the divisions in this country we have lived more in peace than in the kinds of violent conflict we see erupting around this planet. We must not let our lives become the pieces in someone else’s two dimensional war games. 

Urgent Plea for Good

Violence is always a violation. The words are linked in every way. War is not a game. War is a primitive response and not a strategy. War is violent. As in WWII, war can become necessary, but the rules of this time in which we live include the instruction that with the nuclear age we cannot survive a global WWIII. If life is good, then peace is necessary and for real peace we must commit to international law. The skills and diplomacy of a peacemaker are a hard course for the leader. War is by comparison a devastating kindergarten. Leaders like Gandhi, Tutu, King, and Mandela knew this and took the hard course of true peaceful negotiation. Every citizen of this country holds a nano-piece of power called the vote. While the vote seems like nothing in one person’s hands, in the community it becomes an exponential collective power as people form community around the value of life. Good today is collecting community committed to peace and justice. We have no time for public individuals to work out their self-esteem issues with our lives. Despite everything said above, the peaceful vote is really the only sustainable resolution to what we see happening this day.