If America Were to Wake Up Tomorrow

If America were to wake up tomorrow—
Suddenly under the reign
Of a righteous and powerful king,
Having been charged by God himself
To set things straight without partiality—

And if, by some chance, that king were me—
God having somehow figured me righteous enough
For such an undertaking, and having given me
No other instructions but to do what seems best
In view of what I have learned so far from the Bible
And from my study of history and of our Constitution—

It would be difficult to know where to begin—
Our current mess being so far beyond
The mechanisms of the Constitution for wrangling—
And all the more with our institutions now in the hands
Of such corrupt and incorrigible people.

I suppose I would have to call up the military,
Summarily executing any officer who would
Fail to comply with my orders.
I would send them to take over all the media
In every city, so that I could ensure that the truth
Of my intentions was getting out to everyone.

And I would execute a march on Washington,
Arresting, to be sorted out later,
Everyone in all three branches of government—
And publicly executing justice on any of them who
Had violated that very Constitution that they themselves
Had voluntarily sworn the oath to uphold—the traitors.

I would seize the Federal Reserve,
Summarily executing all its directors,
Past and present, for crimes against humanity.

I would seize the leaders of big tech and big pharma
And big food and big money and big healthcare,
Trying them for crimes against humanity,
And dispatching accordingly those found guilty.

And for this much, I suppose I would be the hero of many,
Though surely not of all.

And from there, I would invade the state governments,
Liberating the peoples from their local tyrannies.
And then I would do the same with their cities,
Starting with the biggest ones.

I would abolish many federal departments, including
The Department of Education, setting the schools free
From the tyranny and the wanton stupidity
Under which so many live today.
And I would abolish the state departments of education
So that the local people everywhere had to take up
Their own educational business again,
As is proper for people whose brains God gave them
For searching out and recognizing the wisdom of the ages.

I would prosecute the media for every lie,
And for every act of negligence,
As this wickedly corrupts so many people.

And all these things I would do,
Thinking it nothing more than
The obvious work of proper reform.

And I know I’d have to kill a great many of these people,
Both as they are bent on evil, and
As they could not be afforded as wards of the state—
Supplanting their previous injuries to the society
With that of room and board and security.

Even so, I’m sure that many who were generally in favor
Of the reforms would draw a sentimental line
At the death sentence, as pragmatic and efficient as it may be.

And though some might not like it, who could rightly argue
That it is not just and reasonable—
And that these people had had it coming?
And who could argue that in so doing,
We had somehow robbed God of his ability
To judge the wrongdoers properly for eternity?

And the country would be divided
Over what to think about the new king,
With many liking the improvements,
Even if thinking the costs too high.

But as the reformer, it would be obvious to me
That there was still work to be done,
For there still would be the religious
And the churches they have made for themselves—
Whether at home or in the public square—
The vast majority of which have fashioned themselves
Into sanctuaries for the immoral—
Where they learn (falsely) that they are,
And of right ought to be,
Unaccountable for themselves,
Having somehow been pardoned by God
For their ongoing and willful sins—
Sins of the very sort that had led the whole country
Into such corruption in the first place—
Voting known criminals into office again and again,
And voting themselves funds from the public treasury—
Voting themselves freedoms and rights of which
Jesus himself would surely not approve—
Perverting true religion in deference to ungodly living—
All in the name of Truth, Justice, and the American Way—
One Nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all—
The hypocrisy of it all oozing from their very pores.

Why should the execution of justice upon the religious
Be any different from all the justice I have planned out
So far in this thought experiment?
How is their corruption of heart any different?
By what principle should their lying, cheating, and stealing
Be pardoned when the national quagmire had been brought about
By the lying, cheating, and stealing of those
They had previously supported, bringing about the need
For such an expansive purging in the first place?
How are these any less responsible for the corruption
Than those they had elected and hired and supported
To do run it all for them?

Should a just king view them as mere victims—
Them having been merely and innocently
Used by the real bad guys?—
Having realized the half of it, and yet
Not being really responsible themselves
For letting it go on anyway?

Indeed, this is the way they view themselves, is it not?—
Even as they keep voting the wicked back in
And supporting businesses they know are doing wicked things?—
Even though they know as well as I do that the scripture says,
“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness,
But rather, expose them.”?

Do the religious people not cling to the make-believe
That they can yet be Burke’s “good men“,
Even though they “do nothing”* to stop evil? *
Do they not take solace in Thoreau’s
“Hacking at the branches of evil”, while being
Fully aware that they themselves will not lift a finger
To hack at the root of it?

And really, if you want to get down to
The heart of my conundrum, it is this:
Are they not the root of the problem themselves?—
With their unwillingness to clean their own society’s house
And see that it stays that way?

I ask again: Are they not the root of the evil themselves?

In a system that is misleadingly identified by her own tyrant as
“Of the people, by the people, and for the people“—
How can the people be let off the hook for the outcome of it all?

Yet even though it seems reasonable and just to prosecute them—
It gives me pause to consider executing justice
On the people and the leaders of the churches.

And I wonder at an alternative.
I wonder at what might happen
If the wisdom of the ages were taught again—
If a banquet were spread for the people—
A banquet of knowledge and sound reason—
Of principle and history and goodness—
Of scripture and story—
Of justice in the local market
And in the school
And the courthouse.

And I wonder at what might happen—
At how many would eat from such a table
And count it good—
At how many would reject it outright—
And, of course, at how many, who not loving it,
Would pretend to love it, for whatever their twisted reasons,
Cheating it where they could—just as they do today.

But even this very day—before I become king tomorrow
In this morning make-believe session of mine—
There are some teachers of these things here and there,
Maintaining small audiences and getting little attention.
And the masses don’t seem very interested in learning.

I must ask, then, whether it is proper for a king to make them
Do what they are not willing to do on their own.

Many today will argue that such tyranny—if tyranny it be—
Is not even proper for a parent overseeing his or her own child!—
This idea having surely been promoted heavily
By some of the very tyrants and scoundrels
I will have arrested starting tomorrow
For their other crimes—
For which this laissez-faire paradigm
Surely greases the skids.

And the whole thing ultimately insists
On an answer to the question:
What is the purpose of life on this Earth?

From what I observe, the many will think
That it is to find their own way
(To wherever they want to go, I suppose,
Given their apparent options.)
While the few will think it is to find the Way of God
And to follow it to where God wants them to go.
And each will judge this as he sees fit—
Even from the pews of the churches,
Where they should certainly know better,
One might assume, than to think the former.

Yet let us notice, and with all the weight of its import,
That God does not come down to straighten them out.

He sees it, but does not come down.

Selah.

And having acknowledged that stark fact,
This whole scenario presented herein
Seems quite unlikely to me—
As fascinating as it might be to imagine—
That God would now appoint someone to clean house.
For where could such a king stop?
And whose fault could rightly be dismissed,
So as to keep from killing the lot of us?

Shall preserving the human race
Become the impediment to an impartial rule?

And what person among us has the wisdom
For such an undertaking?

Surely, not I.

And I think I am thinking right so far—
Though as a younger man, I would have
Thought myself qualified.
(And this I admit with shame.)

But as obvious as any of this might be,
It is equally obvious that there are
Some among us in this country
Who, on account of their great wickedness,
And having violated not only the letter
But the very spirit of the laws—
Both heavenly and earthly—
And having injured the hundreds
Of millions, simply need killing,
The sooner, the better.

And there is no indication that God
Is going to do that for us—
Wish as we may—
For while in ancient times Korah
And Nadab and Abihu
And Uzzah and Herod
And Ananias and Sapphira and the like
Were judged by God while still alive,
We see no such justice attested to
By prophets today.

And while God may or may not
Have built for us a civic model of some sort
By way of his camp in ancient Israel,
It would still fall to us to decide
Just how much righteousness and justice
We would want to incorporate into our laws
And how much we would want to enforce it.

But have we not already spoken on this?
Can’t it be seen simply by observing
What goes on here?

And if this is what the masses want,
What can we conclude, then,
About that small number of us who
Are tormented in our longing for a better country?
Shall they simply have to long for
A country not their own until they have at last
Been taken there?

Or might they, by reasonable and manageable efforts
Make this present country appreciably better
While on their watch?

This, I think, is the necessary dilemma of the few righteous—
Always too few in number ever to wield much power.

And still it raises the question of whether it is
The purpose of life on Earth
To turn Earth into another Heaven,
Or is it simply for the willing here to prepare ourselves
For life in that Heaven when we are done here.

And clearly the latter is right,
Though it is not clear to me
How far we might get with the former,
And how much it is prudent to try.

But sadly, I can tell you this:

I have tried somewhat here and there,
And have generally found very little support—
With very few seeming to understand why anyone
Would want to exert himself toward such ends—
Toward righteousness and justice on this Earth—
Or even in his own heart, for that matter—
And hardly a soul finds it curious enough
To bother asking me about it.

And what a sad life this is—
This being the state of things.

And after we have sat here together like this,
I should tell you that I am no more settled
About any of this than when I sat down to write—
Except for the part where I said I should not be the king.

And the older I get—
And the longer I study and ponder such things,
The more it seems that God put us in this world
So that those who want to can reach out for him
And perhaps find him—philosophically, that is—
So as to be invited by him to join his family
In that next world, where we really belong,
When our time here is done—
Whereupon we will be healed
From the scars and bruises,
And have our tears wiped dry—
And wonder at length at how short
Our time here had really been,
As well as at how we did not
Figure all this out sooner.

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*I know that the quotation, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men to do nothing” is misattributed to Edmund Burke, but as most people who are familiar the saying don’t seem to know this yet, I wrote the line as I did, with high hopes that my readers are the sort to notice footnotes!