So Small

Daily Note

Every day, a photograph, a poem.

I love the view on the road home as we left Odessa, WA in early October. The winding road through the rolling hills of wheat, the soil of which was created tens of thousands of years ago from the dust of glaciers [loess of the Palouse]. I wanted to capture the atmosphere, the sky in its ocean of air above us with the small, winding road through the wheat fields, and we, in the car, are just a dot on road near Odessa, Wa, USA, NorthAmerica, Western / Northern Hemispheres, Earth. How small we are.

Yes, how small we are. We elect representatives to our government who call others out to fight. Such small minds. [NBC News]. Former president of the United States who called other Americans vermin and worse, words used by Hitler. [Vanity Fair]. At least the two about to fist fight agreed to have coffee together. But will they?

Such small minds who cannot see the beauty in our wondrous diversity. Who, instead of working together to solve so many issues we have on our blue marble in space, instead divide us, dehumanize us, and seek to harm other human beings. Such small minds. And it is these hateful minds who destroy our democracy.

Judge Luttig, expert on the Constitution and defender of democracy, shared on Twitter [now X] the words of Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, words of men with minds as large as the universe, in conversation with one another to meet agreements. That’s governing. Alexander Hamilton wrote about the largest danger to our new democracy: the populist and demagogue:

A people so enlightened and so diversified as the people of this Country can surely never be brought to it, but from convulsions and disorders, in consequence of the acts of popular demagogues.

The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.

Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy—not that this is the intention of the generality of them. Yet it would not be difficult to lay the finger upon some of their party who may justly be suspected. When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”
Alexander Hamilton, Letter to George Washington
August 18, 1792

The people who helped found our governmental structure and philosophy were inclusive of differing opinions and able to work together to create a new world for people through a new government, which was modeled after the confederacies formed by Native American tribes at the time. [See The Native American Roots to Our Constitution from WNYC Studios]

The small minds of today ignore the idea of the common good, of the duty to the whole community, which means working with, not against one another. I was impressed by law professor Robert J Miller’s reference to another tenet of Native cultures that we could learn from– more “great minds.” He said:

…most tribal cultures talk more about their duties as an individual than as their rights. Now, that is an entirely different way of looking at governance and an individual’s relationship to the community at large and the government.
Robert J Miller, Interview WNYC Studios on Native Roots to the US Constitution

I’m hoping we begin to elect these larger minded people, who see that others have insights to offer and will enhance our communities when we work together. To be a great nation, we need great minds such as these.

We may just be a dot on the road to the future, but we could be intellectually great minded dots. Live and let live.

And so, a poem…