Laws Cannot Change the World

On Thursday September 13, just one day after the anonymous op-ed was published in the New York Times, I was in my room filling out a bank form online when Mom knocked on my door. “Just a minute,” I said politely, but a little flustered. This was my second attempt filling out the form. The first time after working for nearly an hour, I lost everything I had entered when I spent too long on one page and my 15-minute web session expired and I had to start all over. I had almost reached where I was before, so had come too far to be interrupted now. “No hurry,” she said, “when you get to a good stopping spot, I just have something I want to show you.” I could tell by the tone of her voice that it must be something juicy. Mom and I have really bonded over politics this past year and a half. Speaking of which, in my next post I will update you on our experience with the League of Women Voters. Anyway, I finished the form quickly and hurried downstairs.

“What did you want to show me?” I asked eagerly. “Did we need another reason to despise Donald Trump”? she asked rhetorically. “No, why?” I asked. “Well listen to this!” she said. She had been listening to a podcast called Stay Tuned with Preet published by NPR. The podcast was hosted by Preet Bharara, a former attorney with the Justice Department. I don’t listen to this podcast on a regular basis simply because when Mom is listening to podcasts, I am often at work or up in my room writing, and I just enjoy listening to podcasts with her more than alone. But she will re-play podcasts for me that she found particularly interesting, and enjoys listening to them a second time herself. One week, he featured a cop from the New York Police Department. Just a couple weeks ago, he had Cyrus Habib, the lieutenant governor of Washington who also happens to be totally blind. But on September 13, while I am sure his guest was someone intelligent and interesting, the guest was overshadowed by the end of the podcast which Mom had cued up and ready to re-play for me. At the end of this podcast, Preet drew attention to an article in the New York Daily News written by Barbara Res, someone who used to work for Donald Trump when he was in real estate. The premise of the article, which I found and read in full after the podcast, was that no one is standing up to Trump. The writer of the op-ed says there are adults in the room, but what are they really doing to stop Donald Trump. Sure, there was the incident when the memo was removed from the president’s desk so he wouldn’t sign it, but why was the memo even created to begin with. She said Trump bullied people, told lies and behaved recklessly when she worked with him in real estate, but now the stakes are a lot higher. But what really shocked Preet, my mom and I was the beginning of the article where Res recounts one particular incident. An architectural Engineer was showing Trump photos of what the elevators in Trump tower would look like, and when Trump saw little dots next to the buttons for each floor on the elevator, he asked “what are those?” “Braille,” the engineer answered. “Get rid of it,” Trump reportedly said. “We can’t. It’s the law,” the engineer replied, to which Trump said, “No blind people are going to live in Trump Tower. Get rid of the (expletive) braille.”

I should not have been surprised that Donald Trump would say something like this. When he mocked the disabled reporter with Cerebral Palsy during the campaign, I knew he would not be a president who respected people with disabilities, and at the time, I remember fanticizing vengefully about how he is lucky I wasn’t the reporter interviewing him because if he mocked me, I would have made sure to purposely trip him with my cane, not to cause him serious harm, just enough to temporarily bruise his ego as footage of him tripping over my cane was broadcast all over the world. But after hearing this “get rid of the (expletive) braille” story, my shock and disgust over our president’s attitude toward people with disabilities became a lot more personal, and this vengeful fantacy returned. People who commented on the article did one even better, expressing the hope that Trump would someday be struck blind!

But in all seriousness, I have no desire to meet Donald Trump, and if I got close enough to trip Donald Trump with my cane, I wouldn’t actually do so. I also was taught never to wish misfortune on anyone, even our enemies. It is God’s job, not ours to judge and mete out justice. I think for me at least, these vengeful thoughts were a result of simply not knowing how to process the fact that the President of the United States has such disdain for people with disabilities. The dark humor of imagining Donald Trump tripping over my cane, and then fuming with anger as he watches it over and over on the news was comforting when I felt powerless and discouraged at the state of our society. But a few days later, one of my Jehovah’s Witness friends commented on my previous post, and although my post and her comment never mentioned Donald Trump, I sensed God speaking to me through this comment, and it was just the comfort and bit of perspective I needed.

In her comment, my friend mentioned she had recently done a study on the difference between laws and principles. The two points in her comment that stood out most for me and got me thinking about Donald Trump were when she points out that God gives us more principles than laws so we can exercise our conscience and demonstrate our love by wanting to obey from our heart, and that we have laws for a particular time or situation, but principles are timeless. As I have mentioned before, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not run for political office, or even vote. At this point in my life journey, I am not ready to go so far as to not vote, but with this comment, I can kind of understand their reasoning. I plan to vote because at this particular moment in history, I think if we can get some Democrats into office, we can steer this country in a slightly better direction as Democrats will be a check on Trump which I think would result in an improved standard of living for the poor, minorities and people with disabilities whom the bible commands us to treat with compassion. But I recognize that even if Democrats took control of the house, senate, and every state legislature in the country, we will still live in a broken world. While the conduct of Donald Trump and the alt-right movement is particularly egregious right now, in this current world where no one is without sin, I am well aware that Democrats have a history of immoral conduct, corruption and dishonesty as well. I also recognize that the hunger for power leads many candidates to take positions not because they believe them in their heart but because they are politically advantageous. Right now, Democrats advocate for helping immigrants seeking asylum, justice reform for minorities, gun control and coverage for people with pre-existing conditions to contrast themselves with the alt-right, and I would like to believe that most people are good, and really do hold these positions in their hearts. But in just my 28 years of life, I have seen candidates’ views change every election cycle, so I am not pinning all my hopes on any politician. But more importantly, this world will still be broken because the only power man-made government has is to make laws. Since anyone with a conscience recognizes that murder and sex trafficking are horrendous crimes, there are legal consequences if convicted of these crimes. But laws alone cannot change hearts, and thus murder and sex trafficking still occur regularly.

There are still unfortunately misconceptions about the capabilities of people with disabilities, exemplified by the high unemployment rate that persists for this segment of society. I have personally witnessed this kind of ignorance, and while it is annoying, it is forgivable, especially for blindness, a condition so rare many people have told me I am the first blind person they have ever met. But progress was made in 1990 with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act which included the requirement for braille on elevators. I think ultimately, the conscience, or at least the respect for the law on the part of the architectural engineer won out, and there is braille on the elevators of Trump tower. But the point is the strongest laws in the world are powerless when it comes to changing the hearts of people like Donald Trump who is not just ignorant of the capabilities of people with disabilities, but has outright disdain for people with disabilities. So even if our legislative bodies are filled with people possessing pure hearts who pass laws that reflect Godly principles, this world will still be broken as long as there are people who have no interest in living by these principles themselves. The bible commands us to respect the authority of earthly governments, so long as the nation’s laws don’t conflict with God’s laws. We need laws in this period of time to keep some degree of peace and order until Christ returns. But only when Christ returns and restores the world to one where everyone is willing to live by Godly principles will this broken world truly be healed. But due to many sightings of the world shall in passages regarding Christ’s return, I am confident this restoration will happen, and this thought is way more comforting than the image of Trump tripping over my cane.