How America Forgot It Had Choices

The election is over, and, yet again, we’ve made a choice to accept that we only have one of two choices—as the media and the rest of corporate America wants us to believe.  Rather than breaking the mold; rather than acting like mature, educated, and intelligent people, we chose to act like confused, hormonal teenagers.

We’ve compromised our values—the things we hold most dear, in order to make a “lesser of two evils” choice.  (For those of you who actually voted for a third party this election—Thank You!  You took the road less traveled, and while you may not see it, …that has made all the difference.  For those of you who didn’t, though….)

This country was created to promote the idea of choice—choice of religion, choice of leaders—CHOICE!  We chose to govern ourselves—to elect people who represented us rather than be served by nobles and kings.  We -chose- to flee oppressive governments that told us what we had to believe in order to be able to follow our own beliefs—without fear of repression or repercussion.  And a few days ago, I realized that we had forgotten that this is a land of choice.

It’s easy to control an outcome that is only between two choices.  It’s something we’re used to—likely something we‘re predisposed toward as human beings.  We prefer it when things are simple, but if we choose to limit ourselves in that fashion, we are actually working against our best interests—and that of America, itself.

So where did all this thought about choices come from?  Well, I was reading a book called Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work.  While reading, it occurred to me that we, as Americans, have forgotten that we come from a long legacy of people who made choices to create more choices for those who came after them.

We are a country of innovators and creators.  We are a country where it’s okay to worship as a Catholic or a Muslim.  We are a country where it’s okay to be white, black, hispanic, or disabled.  We believe that we are all created equal—with inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Go into any grocery store, and you will have hundreds of choices of cereal, drinks, fruits, and vegetables.  You go to the car lot and you have hundreds of different choices on what kind of car to buy and what to have in your car.  You can choose to send your children to public school, private school, home school, or even magnet schools.  You can find schools that cater to various methods of education, and you can find within them people from all sorts of backgrounds.

And yeah…there are bullies.  There are people who feel the need to belittle others in order to make themselves feel better. There are people who believe what you have to say doesn’t matter.  And there are people who feel they have the right to disrespect those rights that our Constitution and Founding Fathers believed were our -right- as human beings.  But 240 years ago, we made a choice to reject those ideals.  We left behind kings and governments that oppressed us.  We left behind a world where our religion was dictated to us in order to follow our dreams.  We chose freedom of choice.

So why, then, when it comes to our elections have we forgotten that principle that makes our nation great?  Maybe Trump -was- right.  Maybe we -do- need to make our country great again—but it wasn’t by electing people most of us didn’t like or didn’t trust.

We need to found parties that reflect our desires—not that of corporate sponsors.  We need to reject the idea that we can have this or that rather than “the things I actually believe and care about.”

And I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be compromises, but when we find ourselves talking about having to choose between the lesser of evils, I have to wonder if maybe we’ve forgotten the hallmark of what makes this country great.

And that is the power of choice.

Make your voice heard, America.  Break out of the mold of Republican and Democrat.  Become something better—something smarter, more mature, and more true to your beliefs.  If the Republicans and Democrats aren’t really speaking to you, …find and nominate someone who does.  Create a new party.  Start a moment.  Broaden your choices rather than limiting yourself to the same old status quo.

Don’t forget what makes us great.