My Stubborn Ounces

Choosing Where to Put My Weight

A few lines from Bonaro Overstreet became a guidepost for my life decades ago.

Stubborn Ounces
(To One Who Doubts the Worth of
Doing Anything If You Can’t Do Everything)

You say the Little efforts that I make
will do no good: they never will prevail
to tip the hovering scale
where Justice hangs in balance.

I don’t think I ever thought they would.
But I am prejudiced beyond debate
in favor of my right to choose which side
shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.

So, here are my “stubborn ounces” as we enter the most decisive election of our lifetime.

I Choose the Side of Truth

Donald Trump is an inveterate (“having a particular habit, activity, or interest that is long-established and unlikely to change”) liar. I’m not sure he chooses to lie; it’s just his life-long pattern. He actually seems to believe that anything he says is reality.

The fire hose of lies in the Trump businesses have been proven fraudulent in the courts. His step into politics began with the racist lie of “birtherism.”  It led to the “Big Lie” about his loss in 2020 election and culminated in the Trump-inspired insurrection on January 6. It continues with vile and vicious lies about immigrants eating pets and FEMA not showing up after the hurricanes. As he becomes more obviously unhinged the lies become even more devoid of any relationship with reality.

As a result, MAGA movement has become a fact-free zone where lies, repeated often and loudly enough, become what some people believe to be true. It doesn’t matter how often the lies are refuted by scientific and historical facts or judged to be false in the courts.

I’m old enough to remember Groucho Marx who said, “My brother thinks he’s a chicken. We don’t talk him out of it because we need the eggs.” Trump’s minions in Congress told the truth after the insurrection. But they preferred the eggs of political power and squeezed the truth until they broke the opposition and pushed truth-tellers like Cheney and Romney out of power.

But John Adams said: “Facts are stubborn things.” I’m worn out with the lies and put my ounces on the side of truth. 

I Choose the Side of “Liberty and Justice for All.”

Authoritarian leaders always need a scapegoat to blame for the problems and grievances of their followers. The problems are real. The grievances need to be heard. But the injustice comes when a power-hungry leader blames every problem on a clearly-defined “other” which ends up being people who are “other than” the dominant race, religion, or color. Then the leader declares that he alone can fix it. And his followers believe it!

I recently heard a faithful Christian person say we need a dictator to straighten things out. That’s exactly what faithful Christians in Germany said about Hitler.

Hitler’s scapegoat was the Jews. For Trump it’s non-white immigrants from what he referred to as “shithole countries.” Trump’s claim that immigrants are “poisoning the blood our (white, male-controlled, conservative Christian) nation” along with his promise of mass deportation and “deportation camps” is frighteningly similar to the Nazi purge of the European Jews . 

The Declaration of Independence still declares the “self-evident” truth that all people are “created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” I put my ounces on the side of “liberty and justice for all.”

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I Choose the Side of Non-Violence

Authoritarian and fascist leaders encourage violence to disrupt the existing system and attack their opponents. General Mark Milly declared, ” I had suspicions about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.” 

Violence has been a part of the Trump playbook since his early rallies when he told the crowd to beat up a protester. He has continued to stir up violence ever since. This week FEMA evacuated emergency workers from Rutherford County, North Carolina, after National Guard troops encountered armed militia saying they were “hunting FEMA.” A man was arrested and charged with threatening FEMA workers.

Trump lies about a lot of things, but I take him deadly seriously when he names the way he would use the Justice Department and the military to go after his political opponents whom he calls “the enemy within.” I cast my ounces with our American tradition of free elections, acceptance of results, and the peaceful transfer of power.

I Choose the Side of Christian Faithfulness

One of the most tragic stories of 20th Century history is the way the German church fell in line with Hitler. I’m convinced that historians will look back the same way on “evangelical” churches in America that have become a stable part of the MAGA movement. Many have traded the gospel for the heresy of “Christian nationalism.” The term itself is a bold-faced contradiction of the New Testament vision of the Body of Christ.

Project 2025 sets out a detailed plan “to impose a form of Christian nationalism on the United States.” Don’t miss that J.D. Vance wrote the introduction to the project and has promoted the plan for the entire government to be taken of over by people who vow their loyalty to Trump rather than to the Constitution.

I put my ounces on the side of what Adam Russell Taylor described as “a moral vision … rooted in our common civic and religious values, and is capable of bringing people from across political and cultural persuasions together as one nation.” He reminds us of the vision of “the Beloved Community … a nation in which our promise of ‘liberty and justice for all’becomes a reality for all.” 

I Choose the Side of Joy and Hope

I’m tired of the MAGA movement dragging us into the dark shadows of racism, mysogny, greed, and old-fashioned meanness. When you think Trump and Vance can’t go any lower, they aways find a way.

No politician is perfect, including Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. But instead of constantly telling us bad we are, they are lifting a hopeful vision of who we can still become. And they are doing it with a note of joy; not silly, shallow “happiness,” but deep joy that emerges from within a hopeful heart.

Sadly, Trump appears to be a person who is totally devoid of joy. But I choose to put my stubborn ounces on the side of a joyful hope that, in Lincoln’s hopeful words, “the mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

I have no illusions that my “little “efforts will prevail/to tip the hovering scale /where Justice hangs in balance.” I respect your freedom to see things differently than I do. But in the urgency of this historical moment, this is where I choose the place “the stubborn ounces of my weight.“

Grace and peace,

Jim