Or risk losing it

The photo shows the front of our house, yesterday.

And the front of Hazel’s house, our 90 year old neighbor.

You can see Hazel down the sidewalk, with her little dog.

America’s midterm elections are next week and so there are political signs all over town including in front of both houses.

The five signs planted in our yard support candidates and an issue that align with our interests, values, and world views.

The two signs residing in Hazel’s yard do the same for her.

Hazel and I have never talked politics in the 15 years we have been neighbors.

But our signs tell us of us and the 100s of cars, walkers, and bikers that travel by our houses each day on our city’s Main Street that we support different sides.

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In this photo, you can see another sign announcing the academic Department I taught in for 33 years.

When I think about Politics, I begin with two people.

Not Donald and Joe.

Hazel and me.

We each have different interests, values, and world view.

The reasons for our differences like include: personality, upbringing and parental influence, religion, income, gender, education, occupation, marital status, ethnicity, race and sexual orientation.

I’m sure you can add several I missed. That might account for your own Politics.

Last fall my partner Rebecca and I lived in Romania for four months.

For almost 40 years, until 1989, Romanians lived under Communist dictators.

Politics died under Communism because freedom died.

The freedom to form different interests, values and world views.

The freedom protected in the American Constitution’s Bill of Rights and the 1991 Romanian Constitution.

Freedom means nothing if we can’t express our interests through support for candidates and issues that are extensions of us.

Hazel’s and my freedom require more than signs. It mandates a ballot.

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The photo above shows the new Winneshiek County Veterans Memorial at 4 AM across from our houses and signs.

The central idea of the Memorial is that force is sometimes necessary to protect freedom.

The Memorial’s eternal light guards our signs which express our differences which are a manifestation of our freedom.

It doesn’t protect just my freedom. But also Hazel’s.

Freedom’s value is best understood when absent, by those who don’t have it.

Hazel’s mother and my grandmothers could not express their interests through a vote until 1920.

It was not until 1965 that America’s Black citizens across the country could cast a ballot.

About the franchise, Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

As long as I am unable to exercise my Constitutional Right to vote I do not have command of my own life. I cannot determine my own destiny for it is determined for me by people who would rather see me suffer than succeed.

America’s true Politics is only two generations old.

One generation older than Romania’s.

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Politics honors freedom, difference and voice.

It is built upon a moral idea about the equality of all citizens.

Hazel might be richer, smarter, or more moral than me, but Politics sees both of us as precious and unique.

Our outer differences melt away to expose what the late Political Scientist E.E. Schattschneider referred to as “the warm, breathing, feeling, hungering, loving, hating, aspiring, living being with whom we identify ourselves.”

During the summer of 1968, I heard for the first time, my father express doubt about America. I was 18.

Martin Luther King ,Jr. had been assassinated on April 4, Bobby Kennedy on June 6.

Assassination is a form of anti-Politics, as is a dictator like Romania’s Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Those who assaulted (not the protestors) America’s Capital on January 6, 2021 rejected Politics.

Those who rioted (not the protesters) in American cities after George Floyd’s murder rejected Politics.

My father’s lament in 1968: what is happening to America?

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Like my father 50 years ago, today, I am often discouraged about the particularities of America’s Politics. The Romanians we met last year felt the same about Romania’s Politics.

It is hard to love the Politics we see around us, particularly the nastiness.

But it is impossible to love the anti-Politics. And that is good. Some things are worthy of hatred.

Remember that Politics gives us an honest reflection of who we are, as a People.

The mirror does not lie; that makes it valuable.

Recall the alternatives to Politics: Ceaușescu in Romania, in America, assassinations, the assault against the Capital and counting of votes, and riots.

I must love Politics or risk losing it.