Time To Take A Risk

 

You can't imagine how often, especially over the past year, I have felt almost overwhelmed by the urge to write about politics. Today, just this once, I'm giving in to that urge. 

A few years ago I wrote Unlawful Orders, a biography about an American, a soldier, faced with an illegal order from his commanding officer. Obeying that order would be safe. It would also be wrong. Disobedience meant arrest, prison, possibly even execution. It would also be the right thing to do.

 
I spent long months researching the life story of Dr. James Buchanan Williams, a Tuskegee Airman and Second Lieutenant during World War II who went on to become the chief of surgery in a major Chicago hospital. It’s not often that studying about history inspires me. It’s even rarer that looking at the body politic in today’s world provides any kind of inspiration.

Back when I was young, pennies mattered. I remember searching through the sofa cushions for spare change whenever we heard the sound of the ice cream truck. For some impoverished and desperate people, pennies can be the difference between survival and not. It can also make a difference in how people in other countries view the US. USAID was the sofa cushion where pennies and maybe an occasional nickel could be found to get a cone. Compared to the rest of America’s annual budget, closing that organization that operated on small change cannot give any real savings.

That small change altered the lives of thousands, and helped the US make friends around the world. Right now, some who looked at us with a friendly eye now look at the US and see something untrustworthy. People have already died in areas of the world when the organization was turned down.

I watched Gladiator II the other day, and easily imagined what it must have felt like to live in Rome as emperors like Nero fiddled while Rome burned. While some Romans enjoyed the “eat, drink, and be merry” concept, others rightly feared the vandals hanging around and cringed at the thought of the coming future.

I won’t pretend that any system has ever been perfect. Any system set up by human beings includes the possibility that some shrewd villain might use it to their own benefit. But just because one person might cheat is not a reason to cut off thousands who desperately need the system.

There are plenty of people who will say there is nothing they can do to change anything. They already feel burnt out. Even in novels of dystopian futures, people can feel burnt out. Social media algorithms push the message that “resistance is futile.”

The stand Second Lieutenant James Williams chose to stand on his principles, risking his life like a real life Man Of La Mancha to fight the unbeatable foe, no matter what the cost to himself personally. I enjoyed writing his story and hope I can find the wherewithal to emulate people of principal in my life.