Storms are coming. So says the meteorologist. The risk is high. Remember they tell us that it is highly unlikely a tornado will hit your home but be ready. So it goes with us in our present distress. In the midst of work and child care responsibilities to aged parents and finding a family moment we are numb to what others are going through. Somewhere we decided along the way that freedom was for only a select few. Kings are good although we fled one when we became a nation. We did not want a sovereign telling us what to do. We wanted to make our own decisions and breathe the rarified air of freedom. We fought and died for the concept of democracy. Rule by the people we proclaimed. Our President was one equal branch of our goverment containing Congress and the Judiciary. Checks and balances we sought. Monarchy bad…democracy good. Well we must be Suckers to have believed that we were the country who said to, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-most to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’

Perhaps we should remove the lamp from the Statue of Liberty’s hand. The President is getting a 400 million dollar plane from Qatar and his Secretary of Homeland Security wants a new plane as well. The rest of us feel fortunate to arrive at our flight destination safe and well.

We seek the promise of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not that we will find these jewels we simply are happy to be in the game. We have been the envy of the world. We have been the golden example. Oppressive governments have feared us. We were the Promise. As a school boy I was taught the United States was founded on religious freedom. This includes having no religion which is becoming increasingly popular.

Dictators are venal. They are transactional. Kings are set apart they are special they are better than the people. Their rulings are capricious. Their motivations are self serving. Kings kill those who disagree with them. Autocrats ship innocent people to gulags and prisons in foreign countries. I worked for a narcissist and found that one day I was in favor with him and the next day I had fallen out of grace. This is life without the rule of law.

Leaders have chaotic minds. In the bubble they live in and the sycophants who advise them they have an altered view of reality. King Henry XIII loved his wives until he did not…ask Anne Boleyn.