Another afternoon in the doctor’s waiting room

“Civilization is built on the practice of keeping promises. It may not sound a high attainment, but if trust in its observance be shaken the whole structure cracks and sinks. Any constructive effort and all human relations – personal, political, and commercial – depend on being able to depend on promises.”

– B.H. Liddell Hart, “Why We Don’t Learn From History”

The massacre of police officers in Dallas late Thursday night, that left 11 police officers shot, 5 fatally, continues to fuel politicians, pundits, political activists and assorted “experts” filling the airwaves and internet with analysis, insights, context, and plenty of SPIN (LIES).  All these public mouthpieces yammer on about how to fix “this problem”.  Politicians make a living  talking about “the problems”, but hardly ever fix any of them.  “This problem”, is not just black and white.

There are politicians fueling BLM, starting with President Obama and his minions at the White House.  There are black grievance industry activists, many whom have become rich off the backs of  “civil rights” activism in America.  There are politicians on the right drawing a red line on the 2nd Amendment.  There are two presidential campaigns trying to capitalize on looking “presidential” in this crisis.  There are police officers across America outraged, saddened and worrying about how to protect their fellow citizens, while feeling under attack and more and more like walking targets wearing their uniforms.   There are many angry black people being encouraged to take to the streets and demand “justice”.  There are many angry white people too…… some racists, some who feel their right to own guns is under attack, some who are outraged about the police being attacked, etc., etc., etc.  Again, “this problem” isn’t just black and white.

There is the Black Lives Matter movement, which at this point should be investigated by federal law enforcement, as to who is funding the movement, who is leading this movement, and determining if this group should be designated a terrorist group.  BLM sure looks like an anarchist organization, working to fuel racial discord, encourage attacks on civil law enforcement and to fuel a breakdown of American society.

Fueling racial tensions in America has been a staple tactic of communist, far-left factions, and it is part of the political playbook of people very close to the Obama administration.  Sorry, that’s the truth.  Van Jones was part of an anarchist movement, an avowed Marxist and an advocate of inciting race wars to advance political change in America.  President Obama follows the Cloward-Piven political strategy.

The mainstream press mentions President Obama’s background as a “community organizer” in Chicago often, but they never really explain the history of  “community organizing”.  Saul Alinksy, an American radical, dedicated to fueling racial tensions for political purposes, founded community organizing and whether you are a leftist who believes, you should never let a crisis go to waste, as Rahm Emmanuel once stated, or a right-winger,  like Rush Limbaugh, who has filled talk radio with warnings about Alinsky, Cloward-Piven and political race hustlers, the fact is community organizing is all about sensationalizing racially charged issues for political purposes.  That’s it in a nutshell.

Now, here’s a small snapshot of race interactions I saw last week.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in my primary care doctor’s waiting room.  I had a bad week with my blood sugar and despite several medication changes in the past year to get my Type 2 diabetes back under control, it’s still not.  Being put on insulin may be in my near future.  Bad week is waking up Monday morning feeling nauseated, with a really bad headache, and feeling like my head was in a fog.  Checked my blood sugar, 350.  It’s down now, but not down where it needs to be.  So, if some of my blog posts this past week were really bad, I’ll use the excuse that my head was in a fog from my diabetes, lol.

So, I was sitting there waiting to see my wonderful, Syrian-born doctor, whom I really think the world of, because beyond being a very good doctor, he always takes the time to talk to me like a person, not just a number.  Some doctors treat you like you’re just a list of symptoms on a page to examine, diagnose and prescribe a remedy.  My doctor looks me in the eye and listens to me.

While in his waiting room, CNN was playing on the TV, with more news on the Dallas massacre.

There were several other patients waiting, some white, some black.  The receptionists were two black ladies.  The receptionists know me as an established patient and they’re always smiling, helpful and wonderful.  The other patients all behaved courteously and as I waited this elderly white lady showed up, walking with a cane.

I don’t know this lady’s name and the next time I see her, I need to get her name, but we know each other from my doctor’s waiting room and my work in a local store, where she shops often.  She sat down next to me and we picked up talking about what’s been going on in our lives since the last time we chatted, without even a moment’s hesitation.

I wrote about this elderly white lady in  a 2013 blog post, “An afternoon in the doctor’s waiting room”, and I’m going to repost the first and last paragraph of that post:

“We’re approaching that American holiday that’s come to symbolize two diverse cultures,  American settlers and American Indians, oops Native Americans or whatever is the PC-approved term, sitting together to share a meal and offer thanks to God for a successful harvest.  Agrarian societies through the ages have held similar celebrations at the end of the harvest season.  The unique component of our Thanksgiving rests heavily on our national self-image of a melting pot of cultures living in harmony, where Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of a place where we will “sit down at a table of brotherhood” evokes a national yearning for the America we hope we can someday be.”

And it ended:

“It’s not about making race the central theme at the dinner table, but to learn to make a seat at the table and feed as many people as possible that will lead us to the fulfillment of Martin Luther King’s dream.  Only by taking the time to get to know people, can you ever find out who they are.  People will surprise you, if you let them.  She told me that she won a motorcycle in a raffle recently, but she traded it in for a new Harley-Davidson trike.  She ended our conversation by telling me, her husband doesn’t have to ask her twice if she wants to ride, because she has always loved to ride motorcycles.”

This lady’s son is a pastor working to build up a congregation for a non-denominational Protestant church and back in 2013 she invited me to her son’s church and yesterday she invited me again.  She wasn’t pushy, but sincere, just as a black lady, who came to my door this week, inviting me to her Jehovah’s Witness church was sincere and seemed to be a very nice lady.  Unlike many people, who get angry at Jehovah’s Witnesses coming to the door, I try always to be polite, because when I was young and newly married, a pair of them showed up at my door and I talked to them.  I wasn’t so much curious about their religion, but why they go door-to-door, despite getting doors slammed in their face often.  So, I asked them.

These two ladies pointed me to a Bible verse, Mark 6:7:

 “And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits”

They explained that they go by twos to spread the Gospel.  Now, I am not going to dissect their entire church doctrine, because I am not qualified, but just having a general understanding about why they do go door-to-door helped me to be more tolerant and respectful when they come to my door.

Last week, my friend, Gladius, a Southern Baptist, emailed me an audio link of a sermon, “The Faith of Our Founding Fathers”, which he gave at his local church last Sunday.  He discussed the Christian faith of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence.  He laid out how much they put on the line by signing that declaration:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Gladius gave the statistics on how much many of the signers sacrificed, with many giving their very lives, during the Revolutionary War, to secure the freedoms most Americans take for granted today.  A goodly number of them died fighting in the Revolutionary War, and while Gladius didn’t go into the grim details, here are a couple examples of what the men and women of the American Revolution sacrificed, from an article by Dr. Harold Pease, “The price paid for your liberty”:

“Unable to capture Abraham Clark, another signatory, the British took their wrath out on his two sons, who were imprisoned on the notorious prison ship Jersey. “Word was sent to Clark that his boys would be freed if he would disown the revolutionary cause and praise the British Crown. At his refusal, his sons were singled out for cruel treatment. One was placed in a tiny cell and given no food. Fellow prisoners kept him alive by laboriously pushing tiny bits of food through a keyhole. Both sons somehow survived their ordeal.””

Here’s another patriot’s sacrifice:

” The British had a particular zeal for destroying the homes and property of the signers. Those suffering this fate included Benjamin Harrison, George Clymer, Dr. John Witherspoon, Philip Livingston, William Hooper and William Floyd. The sacrifices of John Hart and Francis Lewis are particularly noteworthy. “While his wife lay gravely ill, Redcoats destroyed Hart’s growing crops and ripped his many grist mills to pieces. Bent on taking him, they chased him for several days. They almost nabbed him in a wooded area, but he hid in a cave. When he returned home with his health broken, he found his wife dead and their 13 children scattered.””

Dr. Pease states:

“Probably John Quincy Adams, a son of one of the 55 patriots making the above pledge and later a president of the United States, said it best. “Posterity — You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.” Let us never forget that liberty is not free. It was purchased and maintained by the blood of those before us.”

Gladius brought this same question to the forefront, “How much would you sacrifice for liberty?”  It is something all Americans need to think about.

America does need people willing to fight with all their might to preserve our liberty, but truthfully, as one who abhors violence and loves America, perhaps the best way to fight for The Constitution is to quit with the warring  political factions, quit with the endless partisan hot-headed rhetoric, quit with all the pointing fingers, but most of all:

“QUIT TREATING FELLOW AMERICANS AS YOUR ENEMY!”

– Libertybelle, July 9, 2016

It’s time we all work as hard as we can to be Good Citizens.

It’s time for us to fight as hard as we can to unite as one nation dedicated to a common purpose – “Protecting and defending The Constitution”.

Perhaps, if we pledge “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” to preserving our great nation, America can truly fulfill the dream expressed so eloquently by Martin Luther King, Jr. and at long last, “sit down at a  table of brotherhood”

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Filed under American Character, American History, Culture Wars, General Interest, Gladius Maximus, Politics, The Constitution

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