How About A New Mantra: Business Before Bashing

Conflict: Internal. External. Societal. (Taylor Swank)

The election is over and no one is contesting the results. Win! 

There is not a bring-your-own gun group vacay being planned for the inaguration. Win! This victory made actual  history, so there’s no longer a need to push false narratives. Win! 

(Dear God: Please make this one be true moving forward. Thank you in advance!)

Admittedly, this last one may not seem like a full Win!, but please allow me a little slack to draw a point here. Observe what happens within your body, and then your mind as you create the mental space to take it in: 

We don’t have to experience the messy disaster that would come with pursuing punishment for DJT’s felony convictions. Win?!

Big Exhale. This next part is intentionally meditative:

Take a few seconds to wrap your mind around the amount of energy that it would actually take to push those 34 convictions through our ill-prepared court system. It’s almost unimaginable, right? Think about how our time, money and resources would be tapped and taxed in a way that would make the money we owe to China seem like chump change. Honestly, could we even afford to try? I’m not convinced.

As much as some of us wanted to see our hopes for that particular justice fulfilled, we simply aren’t structurally equipped, judicially-speaking, to make that happen. Our dockets are bursting. It is nearly impossible to find a court date within the same year that a case is filed, and the more cases we file, the less space we have available to hear them. Our courts literally can’t handle the truth…  I’m going to double down on this opinion in a minute, but first:

Please Note: I am aware that my opinions aren’t always well-received, and this one is sensitively-timed to boot. Also, I am unable to ‘prove’ my claim about our battered legal system with concrete evidence: that is because we have never encountered this level of institutional mistrust on such a public scale. There is simply no modern precedent for doing so. What I can do is pose this hypothetically existential question from a perspective that is outside the regular box. Practically, so that we consider alternatives. Ideally, so that we can be finding more gratitude for where we are, even when we don’t like it. Taking it in, our perceptions expand, naturally.

By bringing our awareness to the would-be outcomes for this daunting legal endeavor, we can anticipate a little of what might go down around it. The ideal scenarios from our wildest fantasies aren’t very plausible when applied to real life conditions. It’s the difference between stark reality v. the movie version. Spoiler alert: We already know how he looks in orange, and deep down, we must know that attempting to put him behind bars would incite the right in all the worst ways. It’s not a stretch to imagine another fight-or flight free-for-all, bearing on the brink of our sanity. Upon consideration, it ought to be easy to see that this would be a hot fucking mess for both our people and the integrity of our court system. An epic fail one way or another.

So how do you think this legal scenario might actually play out across our country? Try to estimate and evaluate the magnitude of costs that would come with seeing 34 felony convictions through to sentencing? Exhale. Don’t forget to calculate the cost of all of the lawyers, pleadings, briefs, motions, counter-motions, expert opinions, appeals, procedural arguments, hearings, research, meetings, emails, etc that goes into every single charge. Of course we can’t know exactly what would happen if Jack Smith had a green light. We won’t be experiencing the negative effects of that inevitably ugly court battle, and I’m asking that we view that as a positive – if not a full Win!. 

Upon further reflection, we might just find blue sky right where we are standing. Is it possible that The Universe did us a collective solid by not going all in on further division? It’s a definite maybe. Lack of experience (ignorance) makes it easy to take it for granted that the outcome would have been satisfying and worth the effort. That’s just how our brains work unless they are offered a different pattern of thinking. Chances are, even when we think together, we still won’t be in full agreement about anything. Still, I  thank you for indulging me in the realm of possibilities for a few paragraphs. It’s our hesitation and stagnation that get in the way of habitually looking at things from ever-larger perspectives. It leaves us stuck in critic mode.  

The actions and behaviors of Donald J Trump have moved the needle of what is decent, acceptable, sane, and true beyond the point of common agreement, but he’s not the root cause of our “common” collapse. He’s a symbol for our ego energies, and the final straw in a hushed history of covering up bad behavior in our Government. He is a symbol of ego, but there is no doubt that his approach is preferred by a majority of us right now. Transparency is not our enemy. In fact, it makes us more whole with each new awareness. Our president-elect is real-time proof.

Eight years ago, he said he would drain the swamp, and that was the one idea he presented that I was on board with  – and I still am. We aren’t to the bottom of it yet, but we can finally see who is holding hands with whom, and that is promising for everyone. DJT has never seen himself as part of the swamp, but I hope he realizes that we all are – including him – simply because we are citizens of this country. He is not above the law, but the law of our land is shifting under the weight of its decisions. We will all learn from watching this term play out if we are creating methods of personal representation, rather than complaining that we don’t have them.

If my Courts can’t handle the truth argument doesn’t sway you, here’s one final bid: The Supreme Court, which is where these cases would eventually find themselves after every possible appeal, contains three members who DJT appointed the last time he was in office. This crew has barely gained footing as a bench, but their decisions resonate deep into the swampy landscape. 

Is there any way this wouldn’t be challenged at every possible opportunity, given the course of current events? The seams of justice were not built to accommodate this type of case. Full stop. Our court system doesn't have the strength to gather and hold all of the evidence for proper evaluation. And who would we ask to investigate when we can’t even agree on what makes a good investigator? 

No candy-coating here: Our collective nervous systems would be as frazzled as the court’s. We disagree, fundamentally, about the “proper” focus and direction our government “should” be taking. These are personal opinions, and it is important to remember that while we serve as the perfect judge and jury in our own minds. Judgement, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. We all draw disgusting metaphors and give certain compliments the side-eye when we don’t agree with what is being said. 

Right now, the differences in our value systems are being exploited, yes, but that is mainly because they are visible. Can we flip the script and use those measures to seek compromise? Ideally, yes we can! We’ll each know when we are ready to drop our swords and spend some time in the Ideal Playground, imagining ways that things could be good, despite whatever fears, real or imagined, lie ahead on our journey. 

When we were bothered by the results in 2016, we didn’t know Covid was waiting in the wings. From the soul’s perspective, that experience served two purposes: (1) it made us all instantly aware of our bodies in a way that we couldn’t have achieved through any other means, and (2) it gave a lot of us the time and space to evaluate what was really important to us. (The rest of us are still wondering when our opportunity to stay home and learn to play guitar is coming). 

That’s a joke, but I think it closes my point with an eye on a simple truth: we don't share the same experience as others, so expecting them to react as we do has become part of our patterned habit. With intention, these can be undone just as surely as our courts can be unburdened with an increasing effort to use them for the greater good, and not for personal gain. My opinion. Not expecting most lawyers to agree – yet.

The morning after the election, I heard a simple mantra playing in the back of my thoughts: It’s for me, for you, for our President, for our pundits, for our media, for our critics, and for our children. It supports our ability to work together for the future of our country by acknowledging the will of the people, even when we vehemently disagree. As Americans, our Consitution calls on us to be aware of the differences and nuances that exist between freedom and liberty,  and I invite us all to participate.

This mantra is simple: Business before Bashing. Practice and repeat.