Liberty and License...

 

"Rolling Coal," David Weigel, Slate

© August 8, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

There is confusion between “liberty and license.”

 

Yes, The Constitution says:

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

 

You are not being tormented when asked to put on a mask,

 

Any more than “no shirt, no shoes, no service,”

Was any worse

For your self-worth,

Your civil liberties,

Or against your “freedoms,”

 

Are you confusing freedom with privilege?

Are you so enamored with the occurrences,

Of every hero narrative looking like,

A fifties version of Charlton Heston,

In “Ben Hurr,” or “The Ten Commandments,”

You question whether it’s “fair.”

That a movie like “Black Panther” by Marvel should air?

 

Speaking of air:

We were talking about smokestacks in the 1970s,

Before you tricked out your gas-guzzling trucks,

To “own the libs,”

We pointed out,

How toxic landfills

Were located by Native Americans and people of color,

Before coining the words “environmental racism,”

The fossil fuels industry knew in the 1970s,

About climate change,

So instead of building battery-powered cars,

And the infrastructure to support it,

We got more of a disinformation campaign,

Using the same law firms that obfuscated,

The dangers of cigarette smoking,

Now, people ignore the warning labels,

Ticking off minutes they have on the planet,

With each drag and toke,

Ask the CEO of RJ Reynolds if he smokes?

Rule of thumb,

From every drug dealer:

“Never get high on your [own] supply,

That’s for the patsies you got hooked!

 

Each day,

We tick off minutes,

To life on the planet,

With climate change,

Negotiating with the same industry,

That placed us in this position in the first place,

 

Here’s a physics test:

Why is Venus so much hotter than Mercury,

Yet physically further from the sun?

Carbon dioxide and methane dragons,

Trapped heat,

Superheated the surface,

Boiling off the water,

Average temperature: nine-hundred degrees Fahrenheit,

“Once upon a time,”

Before this,

The planet named for the Goddess of Love,

[Kind of] looked like us,

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

 

You are not being tormented when asked to put on a mask,

You are not being tortured when asked,

To take a shot of a free vaccine,

That will NOT make you magnetic,

Or place chips inside your bodies to track you,

You’re confusing that with Lays and Doritos!

They’re already using your cell phones for that!

 

The shot might save your life,

Against the Delta variant,

And the other mutations left in the Greek alphabet,

 

You are not a communist, a Marxist, or a socialist to give a tinkering damn about the planet!

We’re not in “Lord of the Rings,”

Gandalf the Grey with a “planet B,”

The day saved by Bilbo Baggins,

I’m not pointing out these things to cause strife,

 

Civil Liberations should note that before the second (liberty), and the latter, happiness,

There is the prerequisite of LIFE.