Simply and Satirically Me

In ninth grade, I had to write a paper about Shakespeare’s play Julius Caeser. In it, I had to analyze the character of Brutus—the friend of Caesar who agrees that the leader’s ambition is faulty to the nation. With regret almost from the outset, he helps in the brutal assassination of his former friend. In one of the most memorable lines, the dying Ceasar cries out in shock. “Et tu, Brute?” Meaning, of course, “You too, Brutus?” The betrayal of Caesar, while perhaps nobly inspired, does not bring rewards for the tormented Brutus. Instead, he watches the system crumble before his eyes as the eloquent Marc Antony masterfully convinces the crowd that the murderers must be held accountable. In the end, the balance of power leads Caesar’s adopted son Octavius to become the new leader. And Brutus? Well, let’s just say he kills himself in the end. So, what was the theory of my paper? Ends don’t always justify the means. In fact, they may be destroyed by them. That is to say,

Always Remember. Never Forget. They say it so many times. So many different ways. Remember the Alamo! Remember the Maine! Pearl Harbor has melded into our hearts. 9/11 was imprinted on our souls. Is it an event, a place, a memory? Should we hold onto the pain, the sadness, the tragedy? Is there salvation in loss, healing in agony? Faces, names. I don’t even know them all. What would they want me to remember? The last seconds of life? The moment of death? Burning embers of destruction. That can’t be the truth. It’s not reality. The meaning of such a phrase. They say move on. Let it go. Don’t look back. But never forget. You can’t afford to repeat the past. Because the meaning builds on the future. The aftermath of embers is life. There is healing in pain. There is hope in destruction. Every life lived and lost is worth a better future. We build that future. We become that hope. Goodness. Unity.

I am no liberal. If anything I am one of the staunchest critics of liberal-progressive political theory. I have devoted hours of my time and schooling into pouring over just what makes it such a flimsy ideology, prone to exploitation and contradiction. My skepticism had led me to hold firmly to the Republican Party. This because I recognize that a self-gratifying world of eternally contrived rights will inherently lead to chaos. Because I see that moral ambiguity also leads to political ambiguity and the justification of oppression in the name of order. There can be no individual truth or liberty if there is not a universal one. The appeal of the Republican Party for years, then, was its hold on the idea of a universal truth. I’m less interested in whether this is based in God, religion, natural law, or even historical precedence. The acceptance of a standard allowed them the freedom to make rational adjustments to policy. It created its own sphere of order not likely to fall into

If Hillary got indicted by that right-wing FBI And good ole Bernie’s heart had him lying down to die If all the other candidates were thrown into a ring, And killed each other off with straw-man weaponry If that thing called ‘foreign policy’ was really just a game And experience was more about reality tv show fame If Muslims were all evil and the refugees a scam Or the terrorist threats a joke and the Arab Spring a sham If Americans were morons, duped on marijuana dreams Or Mexicans were rapists, building our walls to stop their schemes If the poor could be delivered by a real estate tycoon And illegals could be rounded up, like animals two by two If truth were merely relative and anything could fly And insults were called speeches—substantive, not denied If the moral compass of the land were broken right in two And intellectuals deported for revealing what is true If the world became a fantasy shrouded in lies and sin,

I sat in the back of the lecture hall, only mildly interested in what I suspected was about to be a long-winded monologue on a subject that held little relevance to me personally. If I remember correctly, it was a guest speaker in a career series course I was taking at BYU. The class emphasis was careers for political scientists like me who haven't ever considered how to use our unusual affinity for thinking to actual make a living. Or maybe I just needed an easy A -- calculating the benefit of maintaining my full-ride scholarship and avoiding student debt. No matter the reason, I had subjected myself to a class of lectures. Again if I remember right, the guest was a political theorist. But what surprised me, was the direction he took. He had hardly even began the discourse when suddenly, he started talking about Mormons. This isn't entirely unusual. When visiting BYU, speakers often like to comment on some sort of interaction they've had with Mormons in the past--a