Thank you for returning to read our weekly newsletter.
I’ve been listening to the news as always, but I have changed where and how I consume the news. I don’t want to follow narratives that are handed down from media executives and adopt their views as my own. I want to hear the facts and decide for myself. That is what precipitated our first article below for this newsletter. I hope you are evaluating your news consumption and changing course if necessary. I cancelled one app to pick up a different paid source this week.
Following this first article, you will find a simple explanation of federalism. Seems that many Americans are confused by how federalism in the United States works. I hope you will find this helpful, if not somewhat entertaining. 🙂
Again, thank you for joining us. – Candace
Americans disagree with crime. You and I don’t have to be a victim of crime to sympathize with other victims, right? We want justice for the perpetrators. In fact, I think that most rational, law-abiding citizens of any country on planet earth would agree with us. You don’t have to be a victim of a crime to have your skin crawl at the thought of the unthinkable happening to you.
Some of us can’t even watch movies that portray humans’ inhumanity to other humans. We hear of atrocities. Deep down, we whisper a sigh of relief that it is not us or someone we love. For example, who would choose to live behind the Berlin Wall? The picture attached to this post is of that Wall. If you enlarge the photo, you will see the bullet holes where East Berliners who tried to escape were shot dead immediately. And that’s just a few chunks of the Wall. Imagine your city being surrounded by that Wall, and you are being patrolled day and night to be sure you never escaped to the other side (West Berlin). Ever. Your aging mother is on the other side. Your older teen is over there, and you may never see him or her again. You own nothing now. It all belongs to the State. Your car looks like every other car. It is made of something resembling particleboard.
You don’t have to be a Berliner to understand the horror of such an existence. You “get it.”
Now let me ask this question: If we “get it” without having experienced this horrible existence directly, don’t we think our children would understand it if they had the opportunity to hear about it or read the facts? Or would our nation have to hold seminars in every school, every workplace, at every age, and be shamed into “feeling” how bad it was and being blamed for it, even if we weren’t alive at the time?
While you can’t have justice without the whole truth and nothing but the truth, you also cannot have justice when the wrong people are punished for a crime. That’s choosing emotional winning over truth. So in a choice between winning or truth, choose truth every time.
You will never get justice by perpetuating hatred. It’s been tried, and it has failed.
You will never get justice by simply robbing innocent humans of their innocence. That is subtle revenge. Revenge perpetuates crime.
You will get justice with truth, then lawfully acting on that truth.
This is Common Sense Civics and Citizenship. 🇺🇸