OPINION: Indifference is no answer

For better or maybe for worse, the Mueller Report is now out.

Regardless of an individual citizen’s point of view, there is data within this Report that cannot be ignored.

Years ago when I was practicing law (in Connecticut before moving to Virginia), my job was to make people (jurors or judges) believe my client’s point of view. If it was a civil case, I had to make them accept my position “by a preponderance of the evidence.” If a criminal case, my challenge as counsel was to protect my client from a finding of guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” This was a fact-based system with a “search for truth.”

After I moved to Virginia in 1988, I had given up lawyering and became a mediator and trainer. No longer was I advocating for “the Truth” of a matter; rather I was advocating for “Resolution” of differences. I was a neutral, not an advocate. I even wrote a well-received little book called “Ironing It Out: Seven Simple Steps for Resolving Conflict.” I also spent several years as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Shenandoah University in Winchester. While there, I taught courses in Conflict Resolution, American Politics and the Presidency. Since then, I fashion myself as an amateur “expert” in Presidential History.

August 18, 2019 was an historical day in both American Political History and in the history of the institution we have come to acknowledge and appreciate – called “the American Presidency.”

I said earlier that now I was interested in finding Resolution as opposed to establishing the Truth, but that does not mean that facts don’t count. We know that a number of Presidents got themselves or their administration in trouble because they discounted the facts of the situation. This has led to several scandals (almost every Presidential administration has had at least one), censure, impeachment or resignation (only once so far).

Which brings me back to the present… There are those who fervently support President Trump. They may not like his “style,” but they like what his administration has done or hopes to do. On the other hand, there are those who cannot stand him or what the Presidency has become. I tell people who ask me, from both sides, what will happen. I always give the same answer I gave years ago during the Nixon Watergate years, ‘TRUST THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF DEMOCRACY.’

FACTS that we have now learned in the Mueller Report have got to count for something. They cannot be ignored. Indifference is not an option. Indifference is a vote for what the FACTS show has happened and may continue. There comes a time when one must take action. Whether it is in support of what has now been disclosed or it is in opposition within our system. The time to make one’s voice heard is NOW!

Charles “Chips” Lickson, JD, Ph.D.
Front Royal, Virginia

Former practicing, lawyer, mediator, teacher and Associate Professor of Political Science at Shenandoah University. Lickson is the author of eight previous non-fiction books including Ethics for Government Employees. He is currently finishing a fact-based novel, Refuge for a Scoundrel, due out in fall, 2019. Lickson will teach an upcoming class “Scandals in the Presidency” at Westminster Canterbury, in Winchester, VA.