There are those of us who might as well submit a blank square of cotton, as white as a chef’s hat, as our entry, joining 2,600 others, to be considered by the State Emblems Redesign Commission for the new Minnesota state flag.
We surrender.
No loons or lakes or walleyes or North Stars or pink lady’s slipper on our flag. Our flag is white, as white as the cloth on the stick that negotiators of the Indian ruler, Zamorin of Calicut, carried as a sign of peace to his enemy, Vasco de Gama.
You must remember de Gama. His pronouns were believed to be they/them.
The St. Paul City Council is firmly left, all female, and with no ideological distinction whatsoever. So much for diversity. Across the river the Minneapolis City Council, which already was solidly left, went further left, because you cannot be left enough. In fact, the only way a Minneapolis or St. Paul city council candidate can win is to be further left than the incumbent.
Melvin Carter, for example, will be compared to Barry Goldwater to whomever might ultimately take the mayor’s job.
There are those of us who don’t understand the fascination with the paltry aspirations of such dominant leftism. Bicycles for all? The kids in schools getting all the slack they need so they can graduate? Another tax, this one ostensibly to finally husband the infrastructure that has been ignored for decades, giving St. Paul the highest sales tax in the state, maybe the world?
And what do the victorious leftists mean by equity? Of no small concern should be the fact that equity and individual freedom cannot co-exist.
At the state level, there is a spending spree of uncontained hedonism. We have to be the only state in the country whose citizens did not demand the return of an $18 billion surplus.
A good friend sent me a text following the election. It read: “For years I said it’s ‘them,’ not me. But, no longer, it has to be me who is irretrievably out of touch, not them. They aren’t the ‘losers.’ I am.”
I am not unaware that my options are virtually non-existent. The state Republican Party has no hope if they maintain even a passing nod to Donald Trump, who would sooner blow up this country than admit a wrongdoing. Put it this way. The state Republican Party could have endorsed Kendall Qualls for governor. They did not. And the Marjorie Taylor Greene/Matt Gaetz grifters following the destructive force of Trump are as confounding to me as any Democratic Socialist of America.
It is a time of profound political loneliness.
And so, I raise the white flag, well, for at least two of us. The white flag, historically, has been a protective sign of peace and truce, a signal to the enemy not to open fire.
You all have won. Good luck and God speed.
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