Who's Got Your Back? Day 2- Not Law, Rights, Morality, or Truth

Trump talks a lot about us feeling safer within the United States but the truth is that we are very much at danger now if we travel abroad.  For one thing, some of us are afraid that we won't get back into the country.  This is the case of my almost 80 year-old mother-in-law, a U.S. permanent resident for over 50 years and an Austrian citizen, by every means a law-abiding, peaceful, Christian but one who has always harbored some fear of this country because of her immigrant status. 

But we should all feel less safe traveling abroad because we have put ourselves at odds with every other country with our "America First" doctrine, and Trump's pernicious comments about life in Paris et. al.   By banning Muslims and asserting that a state of war exists with Islam, Trump has made our American passports endanger us wherever we go.

If something does happen to us overseas, we cannot claim that our rights were violated.  This is because since the 1990's, the United States has rejected the idea that we are bound by international law based on human rights, thus depriving us of the protections as well as the limitations that such law provides.  We were one of only 7 countries to vote against ratifying the International Criminal Court which would have granted us a procedure for grievances outside the U.S.

Then there was U.S. Representative Dick Gephardt's famous debate where he advocated for permanent removal of Most Favored Nation trading status for China because of human rights violations and the assertion, framed in our Constitution, that there are human rights by which all people should abide.  Gephardt was voted down.

The same refusal to acknowledge human rights abroad has come home to roost stateside.  Rights are being disavowed at every level of government.  Freedom of Speech, the hallmark of a democracy, has been under extreme siege.  Property rights, privacy rights, consumer rights, to not be illegally detained & tortured are all on the chopping block.  Federal courts have upheld rights on principle but pending appointments jeopardize that.

Impacting the loss of rights in our country is the erosion of belief in morality over all, and the sense that nothing is good or bad independent of what each of us claims is good or bad.  This sentiment (not really a thought-out position) has enabled demagogues to get away with murder (as Trump famously claimed for himself).  In this unmoored liminal space, we can be swept off our feet by a strong man who knows where he is going. 

By far the biggest loss is that of truth itself.  Since Trump ran for office, Truth has been beaten down, corrupted, and tossed away like a useless corpse.  Recourse to it is no longer of any avail.  Trump's repeated, unabashed lies, his disregard for finding the truth whether through his own effort or those of others, his disdain for alternative viewpoints, his tirades over truth that leaks out, his sophistry aimed at what his adherents want to believe rather than what they need to know. All of this has resulted in alt-speak and all manner of disqualifying behavior becoming normalized.