One State, Two States, Red States, Blue States

I walked into the classroom for my University 101 class at the University of South Carolina and sat down. A few minutes later, another student walked in and announced that the World Trade Center was on fire and it was on the news. We turned on the console tv in the classroom and switched to the channel showing the news. The rest of the day is a blur, but very vivid at the same time. I went to every single class on my schedule, but we did nothing in any of them but watch the news for updates as it unfolded.

2,977 people died that day, from all walks of life and multiple nationalities. It was a day that shocked the world as a whole, but most specifically the United States. It was an utter shock to the system for most Americans who didn’t experience Pearl Harbor in 1941. It was evidence that showed we could be attacked on our own soil, in one of the largest cities in the world. It was very eye-opening for most generations born after 1975, whose parents may not have been alive to experience Pearl Harbor and pass on that feeling. It was gut-wrenching. It was terrifying. It was surreal, almost unbelievable, except it was happening before our eyes.

What followed was confusion, sadness, bouts of despair, and outright anger. Anger at the terrorists who committed the act. Anger at the government for not stopping it. Anger at the rest of the world for not stopping it. Anger was the initial reaction once we realized what actually happened, as should have been expected. It was a true American tragedy, and no one would be satisfied until vengeance was served, which wouldn’t happen until 10 years later when Osama Bin Laden would be killed by Seal Team Six.

However, despite all the sadness and utter anguish felt by the vast majority of Americans, something pretty good did come from it: Unity. It’s pretty much the modis operandi for the United States throughout our brief history (as compared to other nations of older stature). We tend to find our greatest moments of unity through tragedy. The Boston Massacre was the first instance. It happened again in the War of 1812. Then again after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Then when the Lusitania was sunk in World War 1. Then of course Pearl Harbor. Unity in times of agony is one thing this nation has always been good at.

The next morning, we all woke up as the same thing: Americans. Nothing more, nothing less. For a moment, nothing else mattered. Skin color was nonexistent. Religious differences went away (at least momentarily). Economic differences were forgotten. It was the most united I’ve seen this nation in my entire life to that point, and that’s still true today. It’s just sad that it takes a tragedy of mass proportions to bring us together like that.

Since that time however, the nation has become much more divided than it’s been since the Civil War 160 years ago. Economically speaking, the richest man in the United States in 1990 was media mogul John Kluge worth $5.9 billion. Today, just 30 years later, Jeff Bezos is worth $204.6 billion. He and his ex-wife recently finalized their divorce and she instantly became the richest woman in the world. The average American household makes about $75,000 per year. The chasm between the two is insane.

The racial divide is by far the largest it’s been since the 1960s civil rights era. Years of alleged systemic racism as a result of the civil rights movement is coming to the surface and bubbling into protests and even riots in cities across the nation. The far right movement has made itself known on a much grander scale since that time, openly declaring their ideals and wishes with virtually no repercussions from anyone with the ability to quell their advancement of their radical ideas. The left has their movements as well that are controversial, especially the Black Lives Matters movement, which constantly gets blasted by those in charge for being divisive and blamed for violence that, time and time again, has been shown to be started by far right provocateurs. By no means and I claiming that one movement is innocent and the other is not, but one is mostly made up of peaceful protestors, whereas the other one openly hates people because of the color of their skin. The blame absolutely lies on both sides though, and until they can figure out a way to compromise, it will continue to be this way.

The religious differences in this country have also come to a boiling point a lot lately as well, with evangelicals clamoring to take this country in the direction of being a pseudo-theocracy, despite the fact that the forefathers clearly laid out that the nation should have an absolute separation of church and state. The problem is that those who believe are trying to use their personal beliefs to try to run the lives of everyone else, whether they believe or not. That’s actually the subject of my next blog, so I’ll cover that more then.

We are in trying times for sure. There isn’t one grand solution that can get us back to being united, but there is a place we can absolutely start. First of all, we need a government that is less divisive. When you have a leader that consistently puts down one side while failing to condemn the other, it creates division instead of unity, or even cooperation. The next step is dialogue. We have to have a dialogue between groups if we ever hope to advance. Constant bickering will get us no real solutions. Lastly, we need for people to learn empathy. That’s one of the greatest things lacking right now. No one is willing to try to understand how the other side is thinking because they all want to play the pissing game of who has it worse. This is probably the most key element, because it can lead to the others being sought once it is present.

I don’t claim to be a know it all by any means. I like to think I’m fairly intelligent, but I certainly don’t have all the answers. The one thing I do know is that, while I abhor the reason we were so united on 9/12, I miss the America we became that day, even for a short while. We had one of the worst tragedies in this nation’s history, followed by one of the best moments of unity in it as well. We are one nation, regardless of everything else. Most of us are Americans by birth, and many others are by choice, but we are all still Americans. Maybe it’s about time we come together and started acting like it.

It’s no secret that police brutality has had a heavy presence in the news over the last several years. In the age of instant information and cell phones with high definition cameras, anyone can be a reporter of sorts at any given moment. Guerilla “journalists” are everywhere and they use the weapons they have at hand to show what is really happening in the world instead of everyone just getting second hand accounts of whatever madness is happening in the world. Before anyone makes any inferences, I want to declare that this post has nothing specifically to do with race, as there are numerous examples of police brutality and excessive force used on people of all races and nationalities. Likely there is a disproportionate number of African American victims of police brutality as compared to those who are of other races and nationalities, but it has been shown time and time again that black people tend to face more police scrutiny, as well as scrutiny from civilian “neighborhood watch” individuals as well. However, that is a discussion for another day. Today is all about the epidemic at hand and how we can try to change the situation for the better.

The biggest problem I can see with what’s happening is that there is no accountability for when something like this happens, or at the very least, it is extremely rare. Police officers may get suspended, and sometimes even arrested, but very rarely are they ever held accountable with convictions for whatever they may have done. This unfortunate circumstance has led to a quasi-invincibility among police officers that they are somewhat untouchable no matter how they act. Is that entirely true? Not at all. In an article from July 18th, 2019 ( https://time.com/5628206/police-shooting-trial-knowlton-garner/ ), Time magazine states that, out of 104 police officers who faced trial for killing civilians since 2005, only 36 were convicted of the crime. That seems like a decent percentage, right? That’s roughly 30% of trials ending with a conviction. Doesn’t seem too shabby. However, in the same article, it states that “According to Mapping Police Violence—one of the few groups that tracks deadly police encounters in the absence of a comprehensive national database—law enforcement officers in the U.S. intentionally or accidentally killed more than 6,800 civilians between 2013 and 2018.” Among those shootings, a police officer was only charged with a crime 1.7% of the time. So if you take a correlation (may not be exact, but is being used as a reference point) of roughly 30% of police officers who face trial for and are convicted for the killing, only about 0.6% of police killings end in a conviction.

Now this is not to say that a majority of police killings aren’t justified for the most part, but there are certainly instanced where excessive force was used that did not end in a conviction, as we have seen many times over the last decade or so. In fact, just yesterday I saw a body camera video where a man was shot because he was actively attacking officers and I one hundred percent agree with what happened in that instance. At the same time, there have been several instances where cameras have shown to be complying with police, or actively running or walking way from them when they were shot. The most recent of these instances is the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha. Most people I see that are justifying what happened are stating that he had a knife and he was going to his car to get a gun. Two things stick out to me: First of all, he dd not have a gun in his vehicle, so that is a blatant lie. No gun was found at the scene, so he obviously did not have one. Secondly, they state that he had a knife. One was found in the floorboard of his car, so that part is true, but is that really a crime worth being shot in the back 7 times and paralyzed over? I have a knife in my car also, just in case I need it in an emergency. I know dozens of men who regularly carry a knife in their pocket. It’s a lame excuse at best for the brutality that took place. The police officers involved have not been arrested yet.

Sadly, this is just the most recent example of how this can happen. There is also the case of Daniel Shaver, a white man who was laying on the floor of a hotel hallway, crying and crawling to comply with officers when he was shot and killed by police officer Philip Brailsford. Brailsford was recently found not guilty of his murder. In this instance, there was no reason to shoot the unarmed man who was laying on the floor, and yet the officer was not held accountable for what he did. He literally got away with murder. These are the types of cases that have bred an atmosphere of distrust with the justice system we currently have. There need to be some reforms, and I’m going to try to make some suggestions for where we might be able to go from here.

My first suggestion is that ever civilian death at the hands of police should be reviewed by a local board of mixed experts to determine justification. This is something that happens to an extent in many parts of the country, but most review boards are made up of police officers and city officials. I suggest they add lawyers, criminal psychologists, and even behavioral scientists to the boards that can better analyze the situation through perspectives that police officers and city officials may not have the knowledge to apply. I don’t agree with non-expert civilian review boards as civilians generally lack the knowledge and analytical ability to ascertain the nuances of a situation well enough to make a clear judgement without emotion being involved. The same goes for a police only review board.

The next suggestion I have is that I feel police forces should be required to employ social workers who have better knowledge of crisis intervention tactics. I think a lot of times, situations get out of hand simply because the person the police are dealing with is someone who has issues that they are simply not equipped to handle, whether it be due to lack of training or education. I understand that police go through seminars and training for this, but that does not make them experts in the field. I can read a book on how to perform an appendectomy, but I’d be willing to bet you’d still rather have a board certified surgeon perform it on you, right? Obviously there are several cases where social workers are employed on the aftermath of an event, but I truly think that they can help defuse events as well if allowed to and if used appropriately. This is most applicable in cases that involve mental illness, drug use, domestic disputes, child endangerment, as well as many other situations.

The third idea I have is for there to be better tactics for crime prevention. One main example pf this is to have better public outreach programs in high crime areas. A lot of the time, most police forces respond to higher crime areas with more patrols. Sometimes they go a step further and perform raids in neighborhoods. These are tactics that are meant to instill a fear of police in the residents. They are a show of force. It’s the same thing that happens at peaceful protests. Police show up in riot gear and stay ready to provide violence at a moments notice, and use crowd control tactics on peaceful groups of people, who then become violent in response. Does this happen all the time? No, it does not, but it happens a large percentage of the time when certain types of protests are involved. However, there are other types of protests where there are no cops with riot gear, yet the protesters involved are carrying weapons. For the life of me, I can not figure out why there are two different types of responses to these two vastly different situations. Well, I have an idea, but they would never admit to their reasoning. The response ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I literally can not decipher how no police force has figured this out yet. In this case, maybe the local police forces just need to adjust how they deal with certain parts of their precincts. When you create an atmosphere of fear, you breed an atmosphere of defensive reaction to your presence. The patrols are understandable to a point, but by only reacting to the possibility crime rather than actively trying to prevent it, you’re not going to convince the public you’re there to help. And when you respond with brutality, especially if it’s unjustified, you dissolve trust between the police and the public, which causes even more friction. It’s a vicious cycle. Community outreach programs need to be put into place. Maybe have meetings once a month to address concerns of the citizens. Open up community centers in neighborhoods to perhaps keep kids and teenagers busy and out of crime. Form police led sports leagues or throw picnics for the public. It needs to be things to build trust between the two, because the more friction there is, the more likely this unfortunate trend is going to continue.

Obviously I don’t have all of the answers, and I’m sure there are plenty of other ideas out there that would be helpful in fostering a culture of trust. If you have any, please let me know in the comments and we can discuss them. I’m very open to discussion about anything. All I ask is that it remains civil. We all have our opinions about certain subjects, but if we can’t discuss them without getting vulgar, we can never find a way to come together to find a solution. There isn’t an easy answer about what’s happening right now for sure, but I can say that the way we’re going about it is probably not the best route. I support police officers and I know they have a hard job and they just want to go home at night, but that doesn’t meant they don’t have to be just as responsible as everyone else when it comes to how they react in stressful situations. I don’t know if it’s simply a lack of training, or a nonchalant apathy to their approach, but some kind of middle ground has to be found. People who don’t need to die are being killed, and it has to end. Justice has to be allowed for both sides. If only one side is serving up justice without being held accountable for the times they can’t justify it, then the other side will eventually fight back, and that’s what we want to prevent, right? There definitely needs to be a give and take here, but what’s most important is that the side with the power needs to understand how to use it appropriately or everything they work for can be dismantled in a single moment. That one moment can tear down several lives. It certainly can’t hurt to try to keep it from ever happening in the first place, can it?

I want to preface this by saying that I abhor the idea of political parties in general. I am not a member of either of the two main parties, and in 2016, I voted for a third party candidate that better fit my personal values overall. Being that I live in South Carolina, I do not have to register under a specific party. The only limitation I really have is that I can only vote in one party’s primary. In that case, I vote in the primary that has the candidate I want to support the most, regardless of which party it is. I have been old enough to vote since 2000, and in that time I have voted for the Republican candidate twice, Democratic candidate twice, and third party once. I make my decision based solely on my personal opinion of the candidates who are running. I personally lean more liberal mostly, but there are some issues that I will lean more conservatively on. That being said, no one came here to read about how I vote, or even how I choose to. At least not for now. The future is yet untold.

The truth of it is that I’m not alone in these thoughts. While there are certainly plenty of people who vote straight Democrat or straight Republican when they vote, no matter who the candidate is, there are also many others that are more like me in the sense that one party does not necessarily check all of the boxes in every single election cycle. This leads to an entire group of people who may not feel intrinsically unrepresented, but feel, at the very least, UNDER represented by those in office, or by those running for office.

These thoughts are the main catalyst for my stance that the United States needs viable third, and even fourth party options in order to better represent the diversity of this nation. Personally, I know people and are friendly with people from all ends of the spectrum. I know hardcore Democrats who vote Blue no matter what, and I know hardcore Republicans who do the same for their side. However, I’d venture to day that most of my friends fall somewhere in the middle. While they may identify better with one side of the aisle over the other in most things, they don’t necessarily agree on all things that side represents. I have heard from them that they feel, as I often do, that their voice can’t properly be heard because they hate voting for a candidate they only partially support.

The biggest issue present is the system that is in place. The current system in place is built to support two main parties, and does itself best to relegate any other parties to sideshow status. The Commission on Presidential Debates is the best known use of this political oppression. It’s a nonprofit group that was created in 1987 and co-sponsored by the Democratic and Republican parties in order to suppress the ability of third parties to be able to take part in Presidential Debates without meeting several conditions in fundraising, as well as poll percentage. The last time a third party candidate was able to take part in any Presidential debate was in 1992 when Ross Perot was allowed to as an independent candidate, not one sponsored by any particular party. He did, however, create the Reform Party in 1996 as the flag under which his campaign resided. In the 1992 election, he garnered 18% of the popular vote, showing that a third party could be relevant. He was most popular with moderates from both sides, which is to say he was essentially the guy in the middle of both ideologies.

I think the success that Perot had in 1992 (and somewhat in 1996) was very telling, and since then, the rules for debate have been changed in response. It wasn’t until the 2000 election that a third party candidate was required to have 15% polling percentage from 5 major polls before being allowed to debate. The major parties fear their loss of control so much that they won’t even allow other ideologies to be spoken of. This has forced candidates who would be viable third party candidates to have to run for President under the guise of the two parties because they would not be allowed to get out there any other way. This includes such candidates as Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, Elizabeth Warren (who has oddly been both a Republican and Democrat in her career), Herman Cain, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina. There has also been support for third party candidates at the state level. Jesse Ventura won the governorship of Minnesota in 1998 under the Reform Party. Gary Johnson was a two term governor of New Mexico from the Libertarian Party.

The political atmosphere as of late has become a breeding ground for new ideals in politics, as most young voters have grown tired of the system they feel forced to take part of. The amount of distrust that younger generations (mostly people born in the 1980s and later) have in the government to do the right thing is astronomical. Of course, there are absolutely people on both sides who staunchly support the two major parties, but I would be willing to bet that most of them only do so because they feel there is not a better option available. Fringe politicians are running more often than they used to and even getting elected sometimes, including Alexendria Ocasio-Cortez and Roy Moore, The truth is that there are about 58 political parties currently active in the United States, including the Democrat, Republican, Green, and Libertarian parties. Now in a nation of 328.2 million people, they’re telling us that the best options to lead this nation can only come from two ideologies.

I personally don’t know what the best solution is, but I would advocate for a ranked choice voting system where voters get to rank their choices in order of preference, and to declare a winner, a clear majority (50 percent plus 1) must be earned by that candidate. It’s a system that is being used in several municipalities in this country, and has been gaining favor as of late. One person, one vote forces people to make a singular choice that is supposed to represent their entire belief system. Quite honestly, it’s a corrupt system that is used to push specific agendas from the two main parties with very little input from anyone else, including the populace that elected them. It’s become nothing more than a power struggle between the two parties for control, no matter what the cost ends up being in the long run. The problem is that the cost is one paid by the citizens of the United States. As unfortunate as it is, I feel that the government in general has lost touch with the needs and desires of the common man, and they say the things they have to in order to try to convince us otherwise. Ultimately though, there are not many who are true to their word about helping their constituents once they get into office. It’s all about progressing the party agenda.

Personally I would be happiest if political parties were banned in general, but we know that will never happen. There’s too much greed and power at stake. The right solution is out there, somewhere in between where we are, and what we have the potential to be. It’s definitely a liquid situation, and maybe one day we can get out of the funk we’re currently in. I believe in the American people that we can find a solution that works, but there will definitely have to be trial and error involved. All I know is, where we are right now, is not where most people truly want to be.