June 1, Reds and Blues

June 1, Reds and Blues

 

On reproductive freedom, voting rights, and gun control,

On wind and solar power, versus fossil fuels like coal,

On public health, and heeding what a priest or doctor states,

We’re locked in disagreement; we’re not the United States.

 

We can’t be the United States, divided Reds and Blues.

In some states, colored folks and women daily sing the blues,

With voting rights and reproductive rights tightly controlled,

Where power from fossil fuels and old white men are still extolled.

 

Although they spill blood daily, in Red States, guns reign supreme.

We pay a hundred lives a day; gun rights get more extreme.

For, there are profits to be made by making, selling guns

And some of that cash trickles down to right wing campaign funds.

 

Our Blue States are more liberal; they’re governed more by facts.

They take vaccines, control guns better, (and they pay more tax.)

Their average life span’s longer and abortion is a right

And voting rights aren’t squeezed by politicians on the right.

 

It all comes down to freedom; Reds and Blues have different views.

For Reds, it should be absolute; it’s not the same for Blues.

In Blue States, freedom also means responsibility

To guarantee to others justice and equality.

 

And, what is justice?  Simply put, it is the Golden Rule.  (1)

No view of justice can permit us killing kids in school.

You can’t do anything you want if other folks are harmed.

We’ve proven that’s what happens when it’s easy to be armed.

 

  • Rabbi Hillel lived about a generation before Jesus. His life has been heavily mythologized as to his precise dates of birth and death.  One of his most famous sayings occurred when a potential convert to Judaism asked him to explain Jewish law while standing on one foot (in other words, briefly.)  Hillel replied, “What is hateful to you, do not do to any man.  That is the whole law; all the rest is commentary.  Now go study.”  We call this the Golden Rule.  Jesus quoted a version of this in Matthew 7: 12 but he left out, “Now go study.”