We hold these Truths

My whole life I’ve had a deep love of reading and writing. Reading took me to far away places when I was stuck in my room and sometimes answered the questions of life’s mysteries. Writing helped me sort through the many voices conversing in my head - don’t judge me, you hear voices too. The following is just as much meant to be read as it is therapy for my broken heart.

Over the past year as I’ve read so many of the different posts on facebook, I couldn’t help but want to craft a response. A few times I did and it was received at times with light banter and others intense debate. Some of you even contacted me privately to ask - How could you? So for the most part, I exited the world of FB, no longer wanting to see my friends and family argue with one another or watch as the rhetoric devolved into calling names, and ultimately labeling one another with terms that at a minimum showed disregard and a lack or respect and at worse identified one another as the enemy. My heart was broken.

On Wednesday, our nation’s capital was attacked, that hasn’t happened since the War of 1812 - an attack that gave us our national anthem. It was during that attack in August of 1814 that Dolly Madison repeatedly ran inside a burning White House to save some of our nation’s most precious artifacts and documents. Among them is the 8 foot iconic portrait of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart. (I’ll wait while you Google) As of yet, no song has been written to commemorate or denounce Wednesday’s attack but the photos of the items taken and how the mele all played out will become equally iconic, but in a sad kind of way.

What happened on Wednesday the 6th of January 2021 was no minor incident, it was as equally a threat to our nation’s peace, security and democracy as was the attack during the War of 1812. As a member of City Council, I feel like maybe I should say something to my community, yet I’m hesitant as I don’t ever want it to come across as “She thinks she knows more or better than us, just because she serves on the council”. Nor do I want to breach the unwritten oath of non-partisan representation So my heart feels conflicted.

As a teacher who teaches history and government, I feel a strong urge to share what I know and understand not only about the events of the day but the long and complicated history that led up to it. I feel I might be able to offer some context and clarity. But even in this arena, I am hesitant to speak. In fact we’ve been told as teachers, we need to stay off social media with regards to school and hot topic issues - There’s a First Amendment debate topic for you - Complicating the issue further is, if my views or opinions differ from others, I’m accused of indoctrinating the children and preaching a false narrative, filling their head with lies. Those accusations cut deep.

I am a very proud and patriotic American who each and every day knows just how blessed I am to have had both the fortune and the privilege to have been born and raised in America. Like me and you however, our country was not and is not perfect and to ignore those imperfections and not have honest discussion about them is where the true indoctrination lays. To me it is the most unpatriotic thing one can do. My heart tells me to speak up.

Imagine a parent only telling their child what they do right and not bringing up areas they needed to work on. Imagine a coach telling their player all the great things they do and not explaining where the defense is breaking down and allowing the opposition to score. Imagine a commanding officer only telling the troops what they did right in battle and not where they made their mistakes leading to the loss of their brother in arms. Truth sometimes hurts, but it is usually when we are most uncomfortable that we seize the opportunity to grow and improve. My heart tells me to speak the truth.

Usually when America faces a crisis we rally together and provide aid and comfort to one another. Yet after the attack on our country by our own citizens, an attack that is being talked about world wide and will surely go down in the books as a most historical event, we as Americans seem further apart than ever. We are not here comforting one another and trying to heal. We are instead, engaged in more attacks, inflammatory remarks, spreading propaganda from extremists sites without fact checking or verifying their authenticity. My heart is troubled.

I guess the short version of what I am trying to say is this. The events of this past Wednesday shook me. They shook me because as a government and history teacher, I’ve seen all the warning signs coming. As a member of the City Council, I know people that were in that building hiding as an armed and violent mob attacked their chamber. The representatives of our State of Nevada that I know and have met, by all accounts are good people. Even the ones with whose political ideology I disagree with. I consider them my friends and colleagues. But what has me shaken the most is that We the People are less united today than we were the day of the attack.

The revered phrase, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident” were once words that bound us together and united us in a common cause. Those words however, no longer unite us, but divide us because there are no Truths that we hold to be self -evident. Everyone seems to now have their own Truth. We allowed social media and the irresponsible use of 1st amendment platforms to run unchecked and without accountability, or consequence. And make no mistake I fully support all of our 10 amendment freedoms, but there are people among us with bad intentions.

They have seized upon the wide freedoms that we have and have weaponized them and used them against us. They have circulated among us a false narrative through meme’s, photos, videos and click-bait articles. We as people post those pictures and stories without verifying they haven’t been photoshopped or if they have merit. We share clickbait headlines without reading the full story. Had we read beyond the headline, we would have seen that the headline was misleading and the narrative mostly opinion and not a fact based story with verifiable sources. We have through our own culpability, ignorance and desire to consume what reaffirms what we want to believe, divided ourselves into factions far beyond those that George Washington, warned us about in his farewell address.

Now we are spiralling into a country that holds these truths to be self fulfilling but not self evident. My heart is broken, my country is fractured, Thank God my Faith is still in tact - but even there the Truth is debated. So my heart is broken.

So may we all just adhere to a tenant that seems to resonate across all lands and all cultures and all faiths. Love One Another. So that our hearts may be healed.

With Best of intentions