Gaither Campaign for Rural America

Whatever insane soul designed and directed the heartless and bizarre, definitively out of touch closing to the Republican National Convention . . .

• The remnants of Hurricane Laura are continuing to tear across our nation.
• Fires rage across the west.
• Social unrest continues because reforms are nowhere, and the killing is not going to stop. We know it because we’ve lived through it.
• The COVID-19 response has not just been a death chamber. Now, they are doubling down on the mistakes that we already should have learned from throughout this tortured year brought to you by a failed President of the United States.

As insane as the Trump party has been this week on our federal lands, as disrespectful as it is, what’s worse are all the people that allow their own lack of capacity to analyze facts fairly continue to enable this failure. They do this to sustain their beliefs that they ‘know better’ to light that self-righteous fire they’ve thrived on for the last 4 years.

It wouldn’t matter if their best friends died. At least they felt like they stuck it to every person who they felt knew more than they did. Knowing more than someone to this specific type of person is an insult.

When our culture decided to demonize and beat up ourselves when we didn’t know enough as someone else, we should have opened ourselves up to learning. I often wonder why we decided as a region to go the lower route.

I’ve always wanted to learn what I didn’t know, and I’ve never cared if others knew that I didn’t know something. Once I discover I don’t know, that’s just the beginning, because I have to know more.

How did our culture decide to treat others in this horrible fashion?

No one is expecting people to understand the complexities of viral statistics and how different diseases require different approaches to safeguard the public health and our economy.

I would think that people who have no background in these issues at all wouldn’t be so self-righteous as if they do. Maybe, they lack any capacity for insight and empathy. I don’t know.

Constantly, I’m wondering, is this accurate? Is this theory? I don’t want to spread misinformation, falsehoods or provide anything that is misleading. Public health is difficult terrain, especially since it’s become so politically charged in a partisan way.

Accuracy is so vital. I explore every position I come across from as many angles as I can with as many sources as I can find. It’s exciting. I realize that’s not the same for everyone.

I wonder what compels others to choose “I know best” when on some level they have to know they don’t know ****. The lives of neighbors and family are on the line. Is this why they don’t consider what they actually know when they claim that they do? They really can’t face what they’re actively doing so they don’t even bother to examine the consequences?

If I had lived my life like that, I would be dead. I’ve been blessed to have gone so many times right to the edge and survived. If I had not listened to my body, to my mind and to the right health professionals, I wouldn’t be here. And, some doctors have made massive mistakes that have cost me so much. That doesn’t mean I don’t continue to listen to doctors, I just need to be a better patient.

The times we are enduring right now are requiring us to be better citizens. We must live up to these times.

We shouldn’t have to make the choice between saving ourselves and putting others or ourselves at risk simultaneously. Unfortunately, that is the America President Trump delivered to us as “Victory.”

For some, they have the ease of not caring if what they do hurts others or our economy. They’re not going to blame President Trump or their own decisions.

I’ll always care. It means I’m never giving up in this fight.

We cannot go quietly. The alternative is something worse than we can imagine, because no one imagined this disaster.

I’m with Building Back Better with Biden and Harris. Those are two people you know aren’t going to back down until they get the job done for the American people. We don’t have to agree on everything to agree we’re going nowhere better with the guy in charge now.

Let’s get this job done!

(Image: CNN)