Logical Consequences

If it's a rain river, some roads are going to wash out.

If there's not a proper culvert, roads may be impossible to ford.

 If you ignore abuse and violence or minimize them it only gets worse.

If we neglect education and caring for our children we'll have uneducated and impoverished adults.

If we allow the huge inequality in housing, food, and voting the consequences are angrier adults seeking more authoritarianism.  

Democracy is currently at stake. How can anyone who witnessed the brutality, disrespect and lawlessness of 1/6/21--- by an angry Trump mob--- not be concerned about this country?  They sought to overturn our democratically elected president by force, after it was encouraged by the ex president.

I have been increasingly worried about the state of our democracy and democracy in the world. Here in the USof A there are obvious crimes being committed on a daily basis by the previous president, his administration and his followers that are acknowledged but so far have suffered few to no consequences for the crimes. They are hoping the clock is going to run out on their illegal actions.  When and how can this be rectified? How can we at last punish sufficiently these egregious offenders? 

When I was raising my sons a sentence that reverberated for me was 'raise your children by having reasonable, logical consequences' for their behavior. If they spilled the milk by fooling around at the dinner table they were to clean up the mess. If they were fighting with each other they were to sit in separate chairs until they calmed down. If they avoided curfew, they were restricted for one night at home. Logical, the consequence made into sense for their behavior as a repercussion. Yet there is a vast difference in who gets the consequence for bad, illegal behavior in our country. We all have witnessed that and it is beyond frustrating.

I figured most people knew that logical consequences made sense in life, but found out this is just not true. At first this was brought home to me when I was working as a psychotherapist. I worked with people from all walks of life and with numerous kinds of families. In one family the step Mom was very authoritarian. When her step daughters didn't do whatever she wanted, [get all A's on their report card, keep their room tidy at all times, no disagreements or arguing with their parents] she came down--- overly harsh.  The Dad was fairly ineffectual and would not intervene on his daughter's behalf. The step Mom had some wildly unhelpful consequences for the daughters: no dinner and do all the dishes for a week; confinement to the house for a month; no socializing with their friends. This woman was so ill prepared to be a parent and no one had told her that her punishments were outrageously overboard. 'Let the punishment fit the crime' I pleaded. To my surprise at this suggestion she started crying because 'that's how I was treated as a child' and figured she had turned out alright. I took a deep breath and I told her I was sorry she was treated that way and she needed to lighten up considerably on the daughters [who were teens]. A sad situation all the way around.  

Then there were the other extremes, the sons who had been caught drinking and driving by the parents with the evidence of a car accident. These were the parents who would then help hide the dented car from the cops. The parents who provided beer for their teenagers parties with the idea that drinking at home would be better than being out drinking at someone else's house. Mind you they were hosting other people's teens.  Parents who regularly were called to school because their child was bullying other children and these parents would vehemently defend their son. They falsely believed their progeny walked on water and could do no wrong. They most probably continued to be abusive as adults. No consequences.

What is this world coming to if big businesses don't clean up their messes and there are no consequences for their bad behavior? What is this world coming to if people are told obvious falsehoods by their "news" station, then their viewers die of the virus and there are no consequences? What is this world coming to if a young man is allowed to walk around with an AK17, kills a few people because he is frightened and there are no consequences. I heard that he recently got a standing ovation at a conservative rally. Bullying and murder rewarded.

How is this doing unto others? How are these loving acts? What can we do about it? 

• Vote the perpetrators of falsehoods out of office.
• Vote out the ones who side with the bullying and abuse and excuse this behavior.
• Speak up to the ones who've been told falsehoods about accurate science.
• Work for the Democrats, I don't see many Republicans championing truth these days
• Run for office, there are people running for school board and volunteering at polling offices who's soul purpose is to intimidate and bully.
• Buy newspapers! it costs far less than daily coffee out
• Be willing to volunteer for causes you care about.
• Put your money where your heart is,  make donations to good candidates, environmental causes, local food banks, etc.

susansmagicfeather 2022 Susan R. Grout