I’ve been asked for my opinion about the Republican Party’s candidate for president from an interesting source. A retired Austrian physician, whose family welcomed me into their home for one summer 66 years ago. Minus his father, whose life ended in the Crimea during WWII while serving with the Wehrmacht.
In one of our conversations I couldn’t imagine that my country, a Democracy, would ever fall to National Socialism. Not if we stayed true to the ideals expressed in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and I was sure we would. My friend disagreed. Quietly but firmly.
Times have changed. The Gettysburg Address is being drowned out by hucksters infesting our Democratic institutions with nihilistic cackling. Like birds of prey waiting to feed on carrion, the remnants of Mr. Lincoln’s ideal and the Spirit of ’76.
I’ve taken note and so has my Austrian friend. Could this witness to his country’s and Germany’s self-debasement be sensing something familiar? I’ve given him my opinion. But if what was unthinkable 66 years ago is now thinkable, maybe it’s more important that I have his.
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Dear Hermann,
So, you were planning to vote for Mr. Trump* but wanted my opinion first. Do not vote for Mr. Trump! Here’s why.
Before anything can exist, it must first be a thought or an idea.
Before an idea can exist, there must be a Mind to think it.
The Mind that’s thinking our animal kingdom, its inhabitants — including
human-apes — and its universe, is the Child of its Parents, Self-
Awareness. Love inseparable from Logic.
Given responsibility for authenticating the character, integrity, and Worth
of Creativity by being earned and freely chosen.
Requiring that it first freely choose to earn its own Worth where it will
gain first-hand experience with Creation’s “alternative.”
Its reverse-opposite: a hierarchy of competition among human-animal
tribes for supremacy alone at the top.
For “winning,” “number one,” “perfection,” “supreme being,” “god.”
For the authoritarian “ideal:” wildness without definition.
Willfulness beyond questioning, beyond opposition.
Absolute arrogance.
The idea that Choice to be Free must part with all limits including
Definition and Guidance from any other perspective.
A “paradise” of anything-goes, “promised” by its opposite, a reverse-
mirror-image reflection mistaken for an “other.”
“Persuading” Mind-Child, by its own reflection, to welcome its “savior” into
its thinking.
Thus splitting Mind into two opposing parts.
- One part choice moving forward to recover Freedom through Self- Awareness
- The other part the enemy of choice, pulling backward.
Moving forward with Guidance available to human-ape through mind’s
sixth sense. Our intuition.
From Love inseparable from Logic. Spontaneity inseparable from Order.
Essential to understanding context and therefore essential to
rational Choice.
Its insights arriving spontaneously so that Guidance cannot compromise
Free Choice with willfulness.
The mistake that caused Mind-Child to lose Self-Awareness and descend
into “life” on earth was likely the very same idea that Mr. Trump and his
ass-kissing Republican party are now peddling.
That Choice to be Free must part with all limits including Definition and
Guidance from any other perspective.
The authoritarian “ideal” from the beginning: wildness without definition.
Seated in human-ape’s animal brain, an unevolved, one-perspective beast.
Unlimited “freedom,” unlimited “authority.”
Their campaign slogan: “Kiss my ass.”
Their goal: Triumph of the Will. Absolute willfulness.
Absolute cruelty stamped with an obscenity: a swastika.
Sound familiar?
Until now, you’ve preferred silence about your ancestors’ experience with the same phenomenon. Nietzsche’s “superman.”
What can you tell me about how my country can prevent this calamity?
Electing the embodiment of an insane, self-destructive idea, that
Democracy’s hard-won freedoms, our prosperity and our lives, can be
safely entrusted to character that’s worthless — without integrity,
conscience, sensitivity, reason, or accountability.
Who has what was handed to him or what he’s taken, but never earned.
To an exact replica of Mind-Child’s reverse mirror-image reflection.
A tribal-beast impersonating a human.
Dependent on predatory animal instinct instead of humane intuition.
The enemy of choice, pulling backward.
The narcissistic nihilist. Self-centered and self-eliminating. “Winning” in reverse.
I attended a campaign rally for Kamala Harris four years ago, never
expecting that history would join hers with our country’s fate with so
much at stake. Or that so much would depend on one person’s sixth sense.
Pray for us!
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* “Planning to vote for Mr. Trump” is facetious. My Austrian friend isn’t eligible and would likely prefer another candidate if he were.