Unburdened by what has been

What can be?

Kamala Harris has been called out many times over for her word salads and nonsensical ramblings. She has, of late, trotted out a trope that some have in the past noted was used by her rather repetitively. This particular Pecksniffian platitude she parrots entails envisioning “what can be, unburdened by what has been.” 

I challenge you to get through four minutes of her banally babbling this bromide without blood exuding from your ears:

While the sentiment ensconced in her statement is noble, and I dare say, was at one time the direction we as a country were headed, it is little more than hypocrisy coming from this hyenoid harlot.

This is the same woman who lectures us on the difference between equality and equity, telling us that equality is not good enough because some start in a place of disadvantage due to the past. Harris clings to concepts that intentionally encumber us with the burdens of the past.

DEI is based on the past. DEI is, on its face, racist and sexist. It requires hiring practices based on race and sex (among other things). This is because of the way people were treated in the past, or shall we say, “what has been.” Harris promotes DEI, which makes race and sex specific criteria for hiring (violating EEOC regulations which forbid favoring or disfavoring a candidate based on race, sex, and other “protected” criteria). How is this looking to “what can be, unburdened by what has been”?

Harris, when campaigning in 2019, also talked of reparations. Now, for her, the idea reparations wasn’t just about writing checks. It was about looking at all the history and its impact, because just writing a check and then being quiet isn’t enough. We need to uncover all the trauma and (non-existent) systemic racism (I’ve written about systemic racism here)so we can base policy off the findings. You can read a bit about her ideas on reparations here, here, and here. How does focusing on these things of the past help us to see “what can be, unburdened by what has been”?

Blaming issues on “white supremacy” is holding on to the past. Everything is now deemed to be white supremacy - from being on time, to correct answers in math class, to fitness, and just about any other topic you can name. “White supremacy” is a prevailing narrative in America. Why take personal responsibility when one can simply blame white supremacy? One might question whether white supremacy has ever truly been a problem for America, and it could be argued that slavery (committed by Democrats) and the KKK (also Democrats) are incontrovertible evidence. That was, however, the past. That is not the present (except maybe that Democrats still see blacks as inferior and merely as political playthings). How can blaming white supremacy for the current ills of society aid us in visualizing “what can be, unburdened by what has been”?

Shall I continue? BLM, which enjoyed hearty supported by Harris, also blamed systemic racism for the problems plaguing much of our population. Yes, I know, I’m back to racism. But this time from a different source. BLM was (and, to some degree remains) quite a popular movement/organization. The Vice President supported BLM rioters and helped raise bail funds for them. She even claimed, in the wake of the Kenosha riots, that “the reality is that the life of a black person in America has never been treated as fully human” (beginning at 4:06):

I have been around long enough to have seen a time when I thought most people treated each other pretty equally, and most of any color would be appalled at another embracing any type of racism. Now the racism of the past is pushed as a political agenda. How will holding onto America’s past sins progress us toward “what can be, unburdened by what has been”?

Yet this is where we are. We have a party that touts itself as “progressive,” but ironically pushes the problems of the past, regressing America into a time-gone-by era of renewed racism. They project and call those on the right “racists,” though they are the party of segregation. They ran a presidential candidate whom Harris herself, in primary debates, called out as racist based on his prior aversion to integrated school buses. The hypocrisy is heavy with this one, and with her whole party.

Would that they could actually rise above their power lust and try to bring back the unity we had in the 1980s and 1990s. From there, we could move forward on a new path, truly putting the past behind us, and finding how great we can be when we lay aside the burden of the sins of our fathers.