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The Soul of a Nation
Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. asked us to cast a vote for him rather than Donald John Trump because, he said, the soul of America is at stake.
That’s a scary argument on many levels, not the least of which is the implied threat to suck us back before the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, when rulers were thought to be anointed by God. Scary or not, it might be true.
I tried to teach my undergraduate students that it takes more than a correct choice between legal and illegal to make a correct choice between right and wrong but the latter choice must still be made. If you are a police officer, authorized by the law to deploy deadly force, making an unwise choice between right and wrong will lose you more than your job.
If you whine and cry about the unfairness of being impaled on the horns of a complicated dilemma with life and death in the balance and mere seconds to decide, somebody is sure to remind you that you applied for the job, tested for the job, and you were in my class to prepare yourself for the competition you had to win to find yourself alone on a dark street with a fistful of 9 mm justice.
The decision you make about the use of that pistol is a decision of government. At the moment of the decision, you are the government.
