Rubber Band

Daily onslaughts of absolute insanity slammed in our faces every day.

You must get rid of your gas stove to save the environment.

All vehicles in California will be electric by 2030.

We need windmills in the ocean to generate our needed electricity and save the environment, but we know they kill fish and wildlife.

African children as young as eight work twelve hour days in horrid slave labor conditions to mine cobalt so we can make lithium batteries for all those electric vehicles we will force on you.

There is no such thing as male and female, gender is fluid and subjective.

Rioters destroy Atlanta, Georgia because they are Anti-Facist.

Black conservative television reporter forced to leave restaurant because the owner doesn’t like his conservative conversation.

School children exposed to porn by local School Board.

Teenage girls raped in the school bathroom by boy who dressed like a female.

Thousands of migrants pour over the border because of President’s policies.

Overdose deaths skyrocket because the border is not secure.

Criminals should not be held on bail.

Children of color cannot succeed as students so we’ll just stop issuing grades or diplomas.

Successful students will have their Merit Scholarships kept secret and withheld from them.

Major pipeline and supplier of oil is shut down causing gas prices to skyrocket.

We shouldn’t demonize grown adults who want to have sex with children.

Use the proper pro-nouns or risk losing your job.

Get the jab or risk losing your job.

You will get banned on social media for stating the obvious.

Businesses cannot find employees who want to work.

Taco Bell pays $22 an hour just to have someone sit at the drive-through.

Your energy bill is set to double or even triple.

Eggs prices have skyrocketed 400%.

The Biden’s are deeply embroiled in and subject to bribery by the Chinese Communist government.

The son of the President had to be sued to provide child care to an ex-stripper he impregnated.

The Biden’s refuse to acknowledge their grandchild or grant their grandchild the privilege of using their last name.

Classified documents found in D.C.’s Chinatown.

We may end up in a nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine.

We may end up in a nuclear war with China over Taiwan.

Every day we are cruelly reminded that the President of the United States is deep in Dementia.

The “National Debt” is soaring and it will bankrupt our children and grandchildren.

Five million dollars in “reparations” will be paid to Black San Franciscans for “slavery” even though California was a “free state” and the only slaves that California ever had were Native Americans who were enslaved by Junipero Serra on the Mission Plantations. Adding to that were the Chinese workers on the railroads, the Mexican workers who picked the crops up and down California and the Okies, Texans and Kansans, who migrated to California to avoid starving to death back home and were also paid slave wages to plant and pick the crops.

Just reading headlines and getting some t.v. news…could actually drive you insane, that’s a fact. It drives my husband insane, he’d always rather watch football and I don’t blame him.

But here is the truth. Our country is a “Rubber Band.” It only can get stretched so far and then it bounces and snaps back, usually at the thumbs of the people stretching it and hurting them so bad they collectively decide they won’t be doing that again. At least not for a while.

I am reminded of the reported question Elizabeth Powell asked Benjamin Franklin as he exited the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1779. "Well, doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin responded, "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

At the time of that reported question, England was primarily a monarchy, with some minor checks here and there by the Parliament. So Franklin’s response to the woman was probably quite assuring. My own maternal Great Grandfather (seven times removed) had to sign a “loyalty oath” to King George in order to maintain his farmland. And in the colonies, the British had been cruel occupiers. It was farmers in Lexington and Concord that rose up against them to kick off the Revolutionary War. That’s how much they wanted their freedom from tyranny.

And, by and large, a majority of people in this country “get it” that in order to be free, you must rise up once in a while. That’s the Rubber Band effect.

When BLM and Anti-fa began their charades, I reminded friends and family that I’d been there and done that. I grew up in the 60’s and the tumult of demonstrations and riots, some of which were righteous and others that were pure folly and others were just evil.

People cannot stay in a state of grievance forever, it’s tiring.

Nor can they stay in a state of debauchery forever, it wears out the body and soul.

Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” puts a great emphasis on physical comfort such as food, housing, health and then a great emphasis on relationships such as family, love and community. The latter suggests that once your creature comforts, even your survival, can be sustained; you are compelled to seek out relationships.

And most people will find themselves in a place of recognizing that chaos is not conducive to relationships of any kind. And human beings are basically relational animals, we have to have comfort of body and comfort of friendship and love.

None of the headlines mentioned above contribute to comfort of friendship and comfort of love. They just don’t. And we have been created in such a way, comfort of friendship and comfort of love are as valuable to us and even more, than having a full belly and a roof over our heads.

Thus, my theory of the Rubber Band. Human beings cannot live in chaos and societal breakdown for long periods of time and after a while they long for quiet and comfort. Even the youngest among us.

The Riots of the 60’s gave way to Disco and Disco gave way to guys in Izod shirts and girls with pastel sweaters showing up on college campuses my last year of college in 1979. I took note, thinking “Well, this is interesting…”

I took note because for a great deal of my childhood even into high school, our country was a mess. And then it just all disappeared. And sanity was restored to a certain extent. Then the nuclear race was on but then treaties were signed and people jumped on trains to escape to freedom and the Berlin Wall came down and Democracy and order won the day. And we had a period of relative peace, for a while.

I am convinced via lived experience that we are the Rubber Band that can keep our Republic, because we, all of us, are America