What do I most fear? (Repost from March 2019)

The end of life as I have known it.

In recent years, my life has become one where people no longer return my ever-present smile with a smile, but rather respond with a barely disguised look of disgust; where a seemingly growing number of people feel it is acceptable to express - and act upon - racial, ethnic, and religious – even political party - hatred freely, giving no thought to the rights of their fellow citizens to live peacefully.

I have a growing fear that I will have to leave the home I love to live elsewhere, if such a place exists, where I will not have to worry about my husband’s safety, simply because he was not born American but rather proudly chose to become a citizen; or my own, simply because of the color of my skin.

I fear that the term “law and order” is being twisted to mean something very alien to having principles, following rules, acting in a civil manner, protecting our country’s citizens…each and every one of them, regardless of ethnicity, race or religion. Indeed, the catchphrase, as it is invoked by some, seems to have turned into its opposite. For some, “law and order” has become the encouragement of violence and anarchy. It is an example of what Orwell called, “newspeak” in his prescient novel, 1984.

I fear that the words spoken by Abraham Lincoln some 150 years ago are becoming a sad truth:

"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."

The danger has sprung, but it hails not from Russia, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, or China. No, it is domestic. National. American.