Housekeeping

I am cleaning my house at the moment,  because,  after many months spent in isolation as a whistleblower of FBI malfeasance within the agency's unconstitutional "target of interest" program, it seems I may welcome a few more people into it.

The vitamins are finding homes in the cupboards, the flashlights are lining up dutifully in the pantry, the books are lovingly leaning on the bookshelves of my library -- with their conclusions reflecting on the past and their searchlights cast toward the future.

This morning, I was carrying a glass lantern in my hands when I told my husband, "I have become Diogenes."

Diogenes, for those who remember, was the man who carried a lantern before him while searching the paths and byways of Athens for an honest man.

I didn't have far to look.

My husband was, at that moment, readying his coffee in preparation for the earnest day's labors ahead of him at work.

Having been married for thirty-three years, he has borne the role of being the husband of a whistleblower with courage and fortitude, and now, with a well-earned air of noble exhaustion.  Yet, we don't need one another to be perfect.

Machines can be perfect.

From human beings, we need something more.  We need compassion, bravery, integrity, loyalty, dedication, good faith, and the love for one another that renders possible the freedom of mankind.

I believe that President Joseph Robinette Biden is such a man.

If I held my lantern high enough to shine all the way to Washington, D.C., I believe it would shine on him.

Again, we don't need our leaders to be manufactured figureheads of control over the American electorate.

We need them to tell us the truth when our freedoms are under threat. 

We need them to sound the call for all of us to work together to defend the civil liberties and human rights that render our nation, in its entirely, a sovereign and democratic endeavor.

President Biden has chosen to sound this call, and that's why his leadership is a rare and invaluable gift equal to this historical moment.

Democracy needs its champions, its heroes, its leaders and its citizens who will not be silent, even in the face of immense pressure to do so.

Without these people, the future will become a landscape in which our human endeavors serve an autocratic civilization, where constant surveillance is the norm, freedom of speech is forfeit, and "the powers that be" have little relationship to the concerned voter.

The means by which the far right intends to unmake our democracy cannot remain concealed from the public if our freedoms are to survive.

Instead, we must illuminate them, investigate them, reckon with them in a manner that allows us to sustain democracy's most necessary dialogue -- a truthful and civil exchange, predicated on good will toward one another, and bound by the rule of law.

This is the moment that our humanity toward one another must take precedence over our capacity for surveillance, disinformation, and control.

President Biden embodies that humanity.  His compassion and good faith insist that we face democracy's foes by joining our efforts, not that we stoke unnecessary and distracting divisions from the task at hand.

Does our nation have the courage for democracy's housekeeping?  For the inquiry and the truthfulness to address what the far right has concealed from the public view?

I believe we do.

Our honorable President Biden believes it, too.

Lane MacWilliams