Parallel Lives

The challenge today is to describe my life in a parallel universe. I can do better than that. How about three parallel lives?

Number One is a life here on earth, but idyllic. The main character is a fifty something perfect body specimen who lives with several women, and partakes of bodily pleasure often. Enough said about number one.

Number Two is about a man who loses his wife, and is living through deep grief. In this grief he gets an idea to find his wife in heaven. He truly believes that heaven is real and exists somewhere in the universe. In the meantime, the widower meets a stranger while transporting his newfound dream truck home to Illinois from upper Michigan. His mission is to rebuild the new-old truck into a modern street rod. The stranger learns of his dream to convert the truck, and also to find his wife. The two of them become fast friends and agree to allow a third man to build this truck into a vehicle that can help lead them to find find heaven.

This story jumps into the universe outside the realm of planet earth, and as one might guess the lonely man gets involved in many outer space skirmishes as he tries in vain to find his dead wife’s soul in heaven.

Number Three is an alternate-history tale which takes place in the 1776-1976 time period. America loses the revolution and remains under the rule of the English king, and the U.S.A. as we know it today has never existed. England loses World War Two to Germany. Life is very different in Europe and in North America. The story tells the tale of a single family from Illinois who refuse to give up on the dream of Washington from 1776. The father of this family finds a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, and decides to rekindle the flames of revolution but this time against Germany. The story is complicated, intriguing, and suspenseful. The ending leaves the reader thirsting for more, and the writer contemplating a series.

Too many ideas, too little time.

The Sequel to 1776

Six years ago I began writing a book in the alternate history genre. The theme is based on patriots losing the Revolution in 1776 and not gaining independence from Britain. I stopped at 80,000 words because I didn’t know how to end the story. One way would have left me open to continue writing several more books on the story. Another way was to end it abruptly thus dashing the dreams and aspirations of all the characters in the story. This last week’s attempt by we the people to make ourselves heard by the Congress have signaled how the latter ending would turn out.

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation’s capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

In analyzing the events leading up to the attack on the Capitol Building I have put together a series of steps that may be the underlying reasons. I will try to list them and rationalize my thinking as I proceed.

  1. In 2016 Democrats speak about impeaching Trump a week before his inauguration. They rejected his legitimacy, and boldly proclaimed that he was not their president.
  2. Democrats, namely Hillary Clinton used a false narrative of Russian collusion in her campaign against Trump. Then, when it failed the Democrats used the Clinton narrative by blaming Trump for said collusion.
  3. Several FBI employees ran a campaign against the President in an attempt to delegitimize his presidency. One of them, Peter Stzrok was fired. As far as I can remember he is the only one who was punished for his actions against the President.
  4. Democrats led an abusive campaign against the confirmation of Brett Cavanaugh for the Supreme Court.
  5. Democrats were slow to react to the President’s actions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and then used his actions against him in the campaign. I’m waiting for Biden’s miracle to stop the spread. God love him, if he does he will be my hero.
  6. The press has conducted a non-stop assault on the president via false narratives in their reporting. Currently, there is talk of social media companies colluding to prevent Parler a Twitter competitor from doing business, proclaiming it is an anti-trust situation. Isn’t this exactly the same thing the news companies did throughout the last five years?
  7. Two years ago, there was a rumble about inconsistencies within our election process, but since there wasn’t a major candidate running, nothing was done.
  8. Democrats desperate to eliminate Trump proceeded with an impeachment proceeding on a the basis of minuscule phone call with a newly elected Ukrainian leader. During this proceeding they used all manner of debate to sway members of Congress and public opinion. Thankfully, the arguments failed.
  9. COVID-19 made people wonder how they could vote with the need to social distance, to wear masks, and to avoid crowds. A new election process was quickly implemented in many states. All of them ignored their own laws dictating how the process can be changed. Aren’t we a Nation of Laws? The vote by mail system was proposed and implemented illegally against the recommendations of the President and millions of voters.
  10. During the election and the counting process numerous infractions and violations were reported by the election judges. Coincidentally, most infractions were in four states that Trump needed to win. Thousands of election judges filed sworn statements of their observations of illegal actions. Every challenge against the validity of the count was ruefully dismissed by democrat judges. They didn’t offer any valid reason for their decision. They did claim that there wasn’t enough fraud to make a difference in the outcome. Since when does fraud have an allowable limit? Isn’t any infraction of the law to be met with equal judicial concern? This inaction by the courts and States involved were a thorn in the side of most voters, but the courts did not give a hoots-ass about examining or investigating the process.
  11. Finally, the election arrived in the Senate for the official count to declare a winner. In the course of history, there have been challenges to the accuracy of the Electoral College results. This time was to be no different, Several Senators declared they would challenge the votes of several states. To my knowledge only Senator Cruz made such a challenge before hell broke loose.
  12. It is my contention that had the Senate given the challengers some time to debate as is the custom the invasion may have been avoided. All they would have had to do is to listen to the arguments and then decide whether it made sense to allow the electoral votes to be counted. The Senate did not act that way. Instead they chose to ignore the challenge and to impeach the President for inciting a riot.

I stopped at twelve because my feeble old brain is nearing exhaustion. There are scores more reasons why we the people have witnessed a committed, organized, planned take down of a legally elected president of the United States. I guess these reasons are called politics.

If there is any one theme throughout this scenario it has been to avoid listening to the other side. The Congress was designed to allow dispute to be settled civilly using debate as the tool for convincing the sides how to make up their minds to what is best for the country.

I suspect that the process has evolved from using civil debate and sound arguments as a method to the twenty-first century method of using polls and media to sway public opinion. What seems to be most important to the Congress is not what is best for the country but what is best for their re-election prospects.

In the beginning of this I wrote about the dilemma of my unfinished book. In my story, the British American Colonists are on the rise and trying to secede from British rule. The colonists are ill equipped, and undermanned, but determined to stand up to the mighty British Empire in North America. The easiest end to write will be to put down the uprising in a manner similar to what happened last week. Except, I would make it a whole lot bloodier with many bodies left dead on the battlefield.