Hard to believe after two years of debating, accusing, shrieking and smears, this election day has mercifully dawned. And none too soon for all of us.
This time tomorrow, we will have elected a president and all the rancor, resentment, hostility and broken relationships will be behind us. Sadly, my wish is as vaporous as the cirrus clouds that drift overhead.
Whoever wins will have one long, challenging row to hoe when it comes to gaining widespread moral authority and international respect as a leader.
The way I see things, 2016 America has pretty much divided into camps with strong convictions, not unlike during the Civil War. A deep hostility and disrespect for conflicting viewpoints runs rampant.
Friendships have been severed over preferred political parties and candidates, as have some family bonds, split between our need to preserve individual liberties and freedoms or continue along the path toward increasing "redistribution" socialism we've been led down for eight years. As for me, I'll always choose liberty and individual freedoms over government mandates and control over our lives.
Today Americans must choose between their beliefs in serious pressing matters: Supreme Court appointments, a lagging economy, abortion, national security, health-care costs, immigration control, the First and Second Amendments and accepting hordes of Islamic faithful into our largely Christian communities.
Choosing between two far-from-ideal candidates with opposite views also ensures we'll continue to experience inflamed and sustained animosities from the losing side.
I believe this drift into division began several decades back when it was decided by the powers that be to infuse increasing amounts of the people's money into advancing political agendas while forcing expanding governmental regulations and controls over freedom of choice.
The past eight years have seethed with divisiveness, both politically and personally. Partisan defiance led to the administration pursuing its goals through the use of "a phone and a pen," as the nation's debt soared toward $20 trillion.
And so the divisions have gone until this day when Americans decide at the polls where they want the nation to head for their children's and grandchildren's sake.
Truth is, there are many today who believe because of the corruptive influences within the self-serving, two-party political system, we've already morphed into an oligarchy form of government Greek philosopher Plato described way back in 340 B.C.
I read the other day that Plato is said to have defined an oligarchy as an insider clique that seeks money to get into office. Once elected they funnel money and favors to family, friends, constituents and supporters who in turn help them stay in power. They raise taxes on everyone but themselves, and pass laws, but exempt themselves.
"They invent illegal modes of expenditures: for what do they or their wives care about the law?" Plato wrote. "... And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune, the less they think of virtue ... virtue and the virtuous are dishonored. ... Insatiable avarice is the ruling passion of an oligarchy."
Eventually, oligarchies lead to tyranny. Here is what James Madison is said to have written about that in Federalist No. 47 on Feb. 1, 1788: "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
Interesting stuff to ponder this morning on what strikes me as the most significant election day in our country's history. So please don't sit it out thinking your voice doesn't matter. Not voting is a big reason for where we are in this troubled home of the free and land of the brave.
(Incidentally, I still stand with my hand over my heart for our National Anthem. It's a sincere and richly deserved tribute to our freedoms and those who died to protect them.)
As for what follows in our United States after tomorrow considering the stakes? Well, that's the very question, amid considerable angst, we are all considering, isn't it?
Recall Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee's classic line from the film All the President's Men as he admonished reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about their Watergate investigation? "Nothing's riding on this except the First Amendment of the Constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters."
Sure wish I could have written thumb-sucking, election-day sweetness about carrying on another remarkably peaceful and accepting transition of power in the United States. Yet wishing that were the case won't make it so, will it?
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial on 11/08/2016