Opinion/Editorial
IT’S ALL ABOUT PERSPECTIVE
Firefighters, EMT medical personnel, Police Officers, doctors, nurses, and military men and women have all experienced the problem with perspective. I, myself, the person writing this opinion piece, was once a police officer. When struck on the right ear by a kid throwing a great tomato through the open window of my police car, I gave chase and pursued the boy and his two buddies on foot for almost a mile before they gave up, after trying to hide inside an open garage. I came upon them and, feeling threatened in the bad light, heavy wind, and feeling some exhaustion, I pulled my .44 magnum hand cannon and pointed it at them. The three, all in their early teens, held their hands up and looked out at me with terrified eyes. I replaced my revolver in its holster, turned, holding one hand to my hurting ear, and walked the mile slowly back to my police cruiser. The boys followed me, apologizing to me all the way, and offering to help me. I felt like a total idiot.
When I later sat at a parking lot looking out over the white spume flying up from the wind driving over the tops of the surf, I thought about perspective. I’d done everything right, from the viewpoint of a tired, scared, and hurt cop, except for getting the perspective of the situation firmly in my grip before committing nearly fatal action. Would I have really shot them? Could I have? Was the Vietnam combat still so fresh in my mind that I might have? Time is the essence of almost everything. All these classifications of career-servers I began this article with, have, or will, all go through events wherein their perspective was or is required to be firmed up and decided upon in mere parts of seconds.
Perspectives can be funny things. Today, with the divisions that have been driven like sharp triangular wedges between our belief systems, perspective has evermore become less of a product of fleeting time-demanding decisions into sweeping beliefs where perspective has no place in them at all. A great part of the society we inhabit has come to believe in whatever it wants to believe, regardless of perspective, scientific conclusion, or good sense. There was once a Navajo Chief in New Mexico who was charged with stealing all of the tribe’s money. He was tried and then acquitted in the tribal court. When the foreman of the tribe’s jury was queried about the unbelievable verdict, he gave a simple answer which fits right in with this opinion/editorial article. He said, “yes, he’s a thief and took all our money, but we’ve decided that he’s, our thief.” His logic-defying answer was tinged by something of a belief that the Indian tribe had been held hostage for far too long and that rather than seek ‘white man’s justice or intervention, the tribe would endure and deal with it on its own.
Would such depth of wounded and history-laden thinking be at the bottom of today’s logic structure when it comes to selecting leadership in all the vital and necessary leadership positions that must be filled?
Back when I was that police officer in California, the Supreme Court of the U.S. hadn’t yet decided that it would be okay for a police officer to kill anyone, armed or not, adult or not, as long as the officer was afraid for his own safety. In today’s world of lost perspective, those three boys might be shot out of hand. Since the Supreme Court has lost its perspective, much more wrongful decisions are going to be made. The leader of the right-wing majority of that court said a few days ago that the time of considering precedents (decisions that had gone before through the years) was over. He was really saying, for all to hear, that perspective will be exactly what someone in his powerful position decides it to be. If it’s all about perspective, and rationally conducted social structures are built upon that word, then those social structures cannot stand over time. I wonder if everyone is ready for what that means.
If you are wondering, then maybe you should. The danger to America today is not coming from Russia, China, or even terrorists. It’s coming from those who want to control others (and also get their stuff) and they will bring no criticism or opposition in moving right in and taking whatever they want.
