On the Record

 1.  Why do I support President Biden?

President Biden embodies the "servant-leader," whose rarity and worth are characterized by his desire to support the self-determination of the American people -- and of democratic nations around the world.

It is his compassion, his magnanimous spirit, his belief in the fundamental dignity and sovereignty of mankind that have defined his leadership and that continue to do so. 

In an era when the far right is spreading an ever-increasing tide of disinformation to the American electorate, President Biden holds back that attempt by speaking the truth that Americans' civil liberties and human rights are under threat.

Having been given the keys to the kingdom as holder of the highest office in the free world, he strives to hand those keys back to the people.

That's true nobility, in my opinion.  That's the height of leadership.

2.  What do I view as President Biden's most significant contribution as President so far?

President Biden's fierce defense of the civil liberties and human rights of the American electorate, as well as his defense of democracies under threat the world over, has represented more than an abstract gift for many.  For significant numbers of people, President Biden's commitment to their freedom has meant the survival of their hope, their freedom, and their very lives.  The American people would benefit from an elucidation of these truths.  President Biden does not consider the freedom of mankind a luxury reserved for a select few.  Rather, he strives for all men and women to preserve their dignity, their privacy, their safety and their rights in the face of autocracy's encroachments.  Americans are not immune from the "insider threat" represented by recent years' ascendancy of the far right.  Rather, the struggle for democracy is an international one, in which all freedom-loving nations and all freedom-loving people must support one another.  If the United States can lead in its addressal of the far right's violations of the liberties of virtuous people -- and we can -- it is because President Biden has never taken his eyes off of that goal.

3.  What do I believe are three of the most important foci for President Biden over the coming year?

Foreign relations (Ukraine and Israel in particular), voting rights, and illumination of the far right's perpetration of falsified law enforcement reporting -- and related harms -- for anti-democratic objectives.

All three of these concerns relate to our ability to support the elemental architecture of democracy.  Other critical issues -- and climate change is immensely important in all considerations of the future -- are dependent upon the support of democratic governance in maintaining the sovereignty and self-determination of voters, gifts we hold as essential to the freedom of mankind.

I would highly the public revelation of the far right's reach for totalitarian control over the American public and the electorates of other nations as central to the ability of the American electorate to make an informed choice in November of 2024.

The American electorate as a whole does not yet understand what is meant when we say that "Democracy is on the ballot" for the simple reason that the means and methods of the far right's reach for autocracy have been concealed from them.  The public needs to see the terrible cost of autocracy in terms of its impact on human lives -- on real human beings with undeniable human rights -- in order to comprehend the choice between autocracy and democracy is not a trivial, tribal or affiliative decision.  No.  The choice between autocracy and democracy as presented to us in November of 2023 is a decision that will determine mankind's access to self-determination for all foreseeable generations. As such, it is a choice that requires of us our greatest wisdom, our most engaged compassion, our most unyielding integrity, and our most heartfelt insistence that the soul of the nation is a benevolent one.

4.  Why is it important to you that President Biden win re-election in 2024?

Falsified law enforcement reporting does not constitute an end unto itself.  Rather, it stands as a prelude, accompaniment, and postlude to human atrocities.  All autocratic governance depends upon the victimization of a portion of the law-abiding public as a cautionary example of the harms that will be perpetrated against anyone who raises his or her voice to object to violations of the civil liberties and human rights of others.  The far right has likely planned mass arrests connected to its falsified law enforcement reporting at a time the movement deems favorable to its aims.  These plans need to be explained to the American people in detail.  When QAnon announced, prior to the 2020 election, that mass arrests would follow Trump's re-election, (which thankfully never transpired) the far right was likely telegraphing tangible plans.  Yet, real people would have had their lives defamed, derailed, and foreshortened through such acts.  The American public would benefit from an understanding of who those real people are.  Those real people are the American public's family members, friends, and neighbors -- and they deserve the American public's ready defense just as does democracy itself.

It is important to me that President Biden win re-election next year for the same reason that the freedom of mankind is important to me, for the same reason that the sovereignty of nations is important to me, for the same reason that the sanctity of the human spirit is important to me.

We hold self-determination as an inviolable human right.  The United States has served as a beacon for democracies and hoped-for democracies the world over for the very reason that we have been conscientious about upholding one another's human rights.

Let us not now fail in this worthy endeavor.

Martin Luther King, Jr. asserted that the "arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Humanity as a whole longs for fairness, justice, truth, equality, and the sanctity of the human spirit.

When certain Americans have made mistakes in the past such as those connected to voter supporession in the South leading up to the Civil Rights struggle in the 1960's, Watergate in the 1970's, and even the insurrection of January 6th, our country as a whole has demonstrated the courage to bring these events into alignment with the rule of law.

In this way, the arc of our nation's moral universe has bent toward justice until now.

Do we have the courage to now address other facets of the far right's bid for autocracy within the United States?

Our confrontation with the specter of autocracy is not our choice.  But the integrity with which we face it is.

If we can succeed in defending democracy within the United States, we may also offer transformative support to the democracies of countless other nations.  In this way, our own future may influence a multitude of others.  And the fellowship of free nations is not ancillary to our most meaningful human endeavors.  In an ever-increasingly connected world, it is foundational to them.

To whom does a man belong?  On whose ledger does his soul appear?

The founders of our nation believed that a man, endowed by his "Creator with certain inalienable rights," belonged to himself -- that his choices, his works, his spoken word, his friends, his home and his faith were his own.  That his right to his life, his liberty, and his pursuit of happiness could not be taken from him by others.  That whenever any part of government became "destructive of these ends," it was the right of the people "to alter it" by organizing its powers in such a form as to ensure their "safety and happiness."

I believe the American people still hold these truths to be self-evident.

And while the founders did not foresee the imbalance of power that might result form an overzealous military/industrial/intelligence arm of government, they did provide us with a Constitution that could evolve to address over-reach.

As it stands, the American people as a whole, while capable of insisting on new Constitutional provisions to protect their inalienable rights, are not informed of the repeated source of violations of those rights.  As such, the usurpation of their sovereignty confuses them, as its true point of origin is unknown.

In order for autocracy to be defeated in November of 2024, the proven character of the "insider threat" to our democracy must be illuminated for the American public.

Only then, with a fully informed electorate, can we as Americans defend our "safety and happiness" in the way the founders desired for us.

The benevolence of the American spirit must be decisively reclaimed in that process.

The soul of the nation cannot be sold, bartered or traded.  It cannot be ransomed or held hostage, deceived or diminished.

And, good people, the soul of the nation cannot be killed.

The soul of the nation belongs to Americans themselves as an unassailable and irreplaceable gift.

If I am fortunate enough to remind them of the rarity and pricelessness of that gift, I will be honored to do so.

Lane MacWilliams