As we grow up we are taught right from wrong. We are also taught that if something is legal we can do it and if it isn’t we shouldn’t. Most of us, as adults, understand that there is a grey area in this line of thinking. Unsurprisingly for most of us, we recognize that what’s legal is not always moral.  We recognize when our actions have repercussions and harm others and we act in a moral manner first. Just because you can legally do something doesn’t mean you should or that it’s a moral decision. I know that and most decent people know that. One of my pet peeves are people who declare that they have the “right” to take an action without any thought or care as to the morality of the action.  They think legal is the same as moral.  This occurs all the time in the business world; especially with the elite businessman or woman.  Trump is a perfect example of this.  He had a legal right to file multiple bankruptcies whenever he got himself into a monetary bind and so he did.  He sees nothing wrong with that no matter how many people were hurt by it. After all, it was “legal” therefore, to him,  it was his right to do it.  Every action he takes relates directly to his well-being and only that. He lies to everyone but feels no remorse because it’s legal to lie and if people are dumb enough to fall for it then it’s not his fault, right?  He told blatant lies throughout his campaign about other people, namely Hillary Clinton and he goaded people into revealing their racism without so much as a tingle of conscience because he had a “legal” right to do it.  To him, it doesn’t matter that he indirectly caused the deaths of multiple people by inciting or legitimizing violence and hate. It was also “legal” to frivolously send multiple young soldiers to their deaths right after he was elected, so he did.  I doubt he gave it much thought except as to how powerful it would make him look. He needs money for his wall so he gets rid of Meals-On-Wheels for the elderly, the NEA and school lunches for poor kids while his wife and daughter parade around in jackets and dresses that cost the equivalent of a year’s salary for one family. He puts haters and bigots by his side and billionaires in charge of departments he knows they will destroy.  It’s not illegal after all. He hates Democrats at the moment, so he destroys all the programs they think is important. He can’t STAND the thought of a non-white person outdoing him so he takes apart the ACA no matter how many people get hurt and replaces it with..well, nothing. But hey, it’s legal so it must be moral, yes?  His budget will tax the rich less and raise taxes on the poor, but it’s legal. We have to keep the wife happy in her $54,000.00 jacket while we cheat on her behind closed doors, but that’s legal too.  Sadly there are many people in this world who think like this, most of them are either wildly financially successful or in prison. There isn’t a whole lot of difference in their characters. Trump has gotten away with this sick behavior his whole life by “playing” the legal game through the benefit of being born to a family with money who can buy their way out of trouble.  When he is caught, he buys people off. One thing he can’t buy is integrity, honor or any semblance of humanity.  He, legal or not, belongs in prison where he can’t kill or hurt any more people. Let’s make that happen and soon; it’s the moral thing to do and you know it.

Let’s start today with some literary wisdom:

“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” — Joseph Heller, Catch-22

In many parts of this country, ignorance isn’t stupidity, ignorance is a choice. Sometimes it’s a community “mindset”. Sometimes it’s an individual decision. Willful ignorance isn’t born of lack of resources, its a product of laziness, fear and a desire to fit in. While lack of education feeds ignorance, the decision to stay ignorant is a personal one. We all have choices no matter how limited our resources. Ultimately, we can choose to be intellectually curious or we can choose to be lazy. We can choose to rise above our current station in life or we can choose to stay there. We can choose to learn about the world or we can choose to sit back and let the world take care of us and complain about our situation in life. We can blame the government or we can stand up to our communities and make changes. No matter our economic and educational level, we can drift along and pretend that everything will be alright and make bad choices or we can take action and educate ourselves on the issues. We can willfully believe fake internet sites because they fit our comfort zones or we can learn to Google facts. Our ignorance today is tomorrow’s future and tomorrow’s future is the future of our children. Do you care? It seems to me that those who stay willfully ignorant are the real traitors to this great country. They are the one’s who got us into this mess. Let’s fix it. Call Congress and let them know that the masses still have plenty of Americans who reject willful ignorance and are not going to let them get away with suppression of us or our freedoms. This is not a partisan issue, this is a human issue, a rights issue, a cake baked of complacency, denial and fear with a huge dose of bigotry for icing that is the foundation for suppression of human freedoms for those in power. Believe me, those in power know it and they will use it. Let’s not let them.