How To React To Tragedy

After reading a few of the comments after the stories on the Boston bombing it seems like more than a few folks have to be reminded how to react to a tragedy.  First, you mourn the dead and feel sympathy for all who have been personally impacted.  That is where you should be now.  Then, you take time to digest the facts of the matter.  Lastly, you begin to engage in rational dialogue about what happened, why, and how we should react to it.  You save the hate and fear mongering for those moments when you are alone and no one else can hear or read your petty ugliness.  Just so you know, we are still on that first step ...

Monday Musings: Focus on Romance

In honor of Valentine’s Day, Walgreens wants me to ”focus on romance,” and get in right away to take advantage of 50% or more off on condoms and a “doctor developed male enhancement” called “Libido-Max.”  If Republicans admitted they engaged in sex that wasn’t intended to result in conception, I would have concluded that Walgreens was run by Republicans.  The fixation with a result awkwardly and obviously divorced from the process of achieving it, as well as reality in general, just seems so early twenty-first century Republican.  Forget conversation, connection, or even dinner … just get naked and give me some “romance!”  Forget compromise and collaboration or anything remotely like a conversation about the issues, just give me a smaller government and lower taxes, and do it now!  And I don’t care if I even know what romance or small government is!!  Call me crazy, but not only do I like to know something about my goal I actually enjoy the process of getting there.  I think that’s what Walgreens and the closeted Republicans that run it have forgotten … often the journey is as important than the destination … and damn it, you can’t get there without it.  

W-etiquette Wednesday: The NRA's List

The NRA has a list of people and organizations that are “anti-gun.”  It includes such radical leftist organizations as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Mennonite Central Committee-Washington Office, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the YWCA, A & M Records, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Sara Lee Corporation, St. Louis University, and the Christian Science Monitor.  Also on the list are opponents of the Constitution and America like C. Everett Koop, Vinny Testaverde, and Christie Brinkley.  In the eyes of the NRA these are radicals, presumably because that gun control legislation is important and should be enforced.  Either you see the right to have a gun as an absolute right, never to be meaningfully regulated, or you are the enemy.  This is an unfortunate position, and one that has no grounding in the Constitution, the rulings of the Supreme Court, or common sense.  This you’re with us or you’re against us mentality works in Westerns, but it doesn’t work in real life in the year 2013.  We need to come together and work to make school shootings less common, gun deaths in our cities a rarity, and suicides using firearms uncommon.  We can only do that if we see ourselves as working together to solve these problems, as opposed to lining up for a shootout at the O.K. Corral.  We can only do this if we recognize that gun control is one part of the solutions we are looking for.  We can only do this if we stop listing our enemies, and start listing our suggestions and the premises which support our conclusions.  

Tuneful Tuesday: I'm not crazy and I don't think you are either

“Well, you've gotta be crazy, baby to want a guy like me.  Yeah, you've gotta be out of your mind … crazy.”  Crazy - Icehouse

The protagonist in the Icehouse song thinks that this woman must be crazy to like him.  If he were in her shoes, it sounds like he would not make the same choice.  Of course, he probably doesn’t really think she’s crazy.  He just doesn’t understand her decision making process and is exaggerating for effect.  Which, I suppose, is what a person is doing when they say another person must be crazy to think the earth was created in six days, to really believe homosexuals are a threat to America, to vote for Obama, to try to take away people’s guns because of one school shooting, to try to blame the financial crisis on unions, etc. etc.  The problem is that this sort of exaggeration has an effect, and it is pretty negative.  The effect is that the person being called crazy is less likely to listen to, agree with, work with, and even compromise with the person calling them crazy.  This crazy person isn’t really crazy.  They have reasons for believing what they believe in.  They may not be good reasons.  They may not be well thought out reasons.  But, they are still reasons.  Their positions are not the result of actual psychosis.  Rather than calling them crazy, which is the easy way out, us ‘sane’ folks should try to figure out why the ‘crazy’ people think the way they do and try to explain to them why we don’t think that way.  “You gotta think differently baby” doesn’t capture the confusion of love nor does it make for catchy song lyrics, but it works better in politics.  

Monday Musings: Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Here is my new test for political arguments.  Go into the bathroom, turn the light on, and shut the door.   Find the mirror and look into it.  Distill the argument down to a sentence and say it out loud.  If you turn red, laugh out loud, or feel ashamed … never say, write, or think it ever again.  Here are some arguments, distilled to their essential elements, which do not pass the mirror laugh test.  “I was created by God on one of six days, along with grass, water, trees, and a lot of evidence of evolutionary change that God planted there to throw us off.”  “If two men get married, it would mean the death of Western culture as we know it.”  “Requiring people to prove that they are not criminals, insane, or criminally insane before they buy a gun puts us all at risk of a gun tax and/or having all our guns taken away.”  “The free market solves everything, and I yearn for the days of child labor, sweat shop fires, and rat feces in my food.”  “I oppose abortion because it is killing and I support war and the death penalty, but not just because they are killing … see the difference?”  “When people succeed, they do it on their own and you are a socialist if you think that roads, telephone service, the internet, mail service, employees, partners, police protection, teachers, or parents made any difference at all.”  Now, try this one: “Everyone deserves an equal shot at success, something that can only be done if we come together under the leadership we ourselves elect to provide everyone with meaningful education.”  How about this: “Government can be inefficient, but it isn’t evil and if I take a few minutes I can think of quite a few benefits I derive from the existence of a strong central government which I would not be interested in giving up.”  Or this: “the goal of the Constitution was to strengthen the federal government.”  See the difference.  See how well it works?  So, why don’t you use it?  Before you try out your arguments on other people, try them, out on yourself.  The rest of us would really appreciate it.

Thankful Thursday: Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mother’s birthday, and a great day to ponder a fact that influences nearly all of my political beliefs.  That fact is that I lucked out in the mother sweepstakes.  Not only has my mother has given me unquestioned love and support for thirty nine years.  She also was hands on in my education ... which by the way was not at all limited to school hours.  She helped me when she could, argued on my behalf when she had to, encouraged me to follow my interests when the opportunity arose, and gave me an  open minded, loving, and curious role model.  The fact that my father did many of the same things makes me doubly lucky.  Not everyone’s parents are like that.  I try to keep that in mind when I consider issues like school reform, gun control, the future of welfare, and the role of the Government.  I think if more people thought like this we would not be as far apart as we are on the big problems facing this country and as far away as we all are from solving them.  I am an incredibly lucky person.  I wish everyone could be so lucky, and I can't help but think it's worth doing whatever we can to make that wish a reality.  Today, what I'm going to do is thank someone who has done and continues to do her part.  Thank You Mom.  And ... Happy Birthday!

W-etiquette Wednesday: Don't Lie

Lying is bad, unless you are being confronted by homicidal maniacs regarding the whereabouts of your children.  I think a lot of folks (Tea Party organizers, Republicans in Congress, and the leadership of the NRA) think the rest of us are homicidal maniacs asking about their children.  Otherwise, how do you explain all the lying they are doing.  Now, they will say that they aren’t lying, but if you aren’t telling the truth what are you doing?  A simple way of demonstrating that the answer in this case is lying is to look at some of the fun graphics the Tea Party and affiliated groups post on Facebook.  Almost every one of them involves a lie.

Example one is right on the front of the Tea Party Facebook page.  The quote is: “When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.”  It is attributed to Thomas Jefferson.  The problem is that there isn't a shred of evidence that those words ever came out of Thomas Jefferson's mouth.  (for the proof, check out the Monticello Website).  These words actually seem to come out of debates about socialism in 1914, and were not attributed to Jefferson until 1994.  When you lay them over top of an image of the Constitution and in front of Thomas Jefferson’s name on the front page of your Facebook page, that is a lie. 

Example two is a wonderful little portrait of George Washington, underneath of which is a great quote.  You can see it below.  The problem here is the same as above.  George Washington said this in the same way that he chopped down that cherry tree.  Here is what he actually said: “A free people ought not only be armed but disciplined; to which end, a uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies."  Just in case it needs to be said, when you change the words someone actually said or wrote to suit your purposes you no longer have a quote.  What you have is a lie.

I love example three, because it is funny, sarcastic, and anti-elitist.  Now, Jefferson actually did write the words attributed to him in the cartoon below.  They appeared in three drafts of the Virginia Constitution  but not in the final draft.  Nowhere on here, however, are we told that these words hit the cutting room floor.  Plus, in the background we have three snooty Supreme Court Justices promising to go against these words.  It is a great way to stir up anti-elitist sentiment, but doesn’t quite jibe with the fact that these same gun hating justices recently recognized an individual right in the Second Amendment that no one had ever found there before.  So, when you misrepresent quotes and suggest things that aren’t true in order to rouse people’s anger, you lie.

Example four is a great one too.  It connects the people opposing a ban on assault rifles with the founding fathers and the people supporting such a ban with the British oppressors.  It is brilliant, but ridiculously misleading at best.  First of all, a musket is an assault rifle just like a bang snap is a nuclear missile.  I mean, if you can’t see the difference you shouldn’t be allowed to have a gun.  Second, there are a few differences between the British Monarchy and the way it ruled its colonies during the second half of the eighteenth century and the Obama administration.  Third, to suggest that there is reason for revolution now is absurd.  In short, what we have here is not a lie … but a couple of lies.

Examples five, six, and seven aren’t great at all.  The idea that world leaders are either Stalin or Jefferson is idiotic.  The idea that there is something that connects Hitler, Stalin, and Mao to Obama is not only idiotic and patently false, it is offensive.  Is the suggestion that after banning assault rifles and mandating background checks Obama will round up and kill millions of people? This isn’t only a lie, it is a disgusting slap in the face to the millions of people the world over who have faced real oppression at the hands of real life brutal tyrants.  Maybe some folks should spend a month in Afghanistan or the Congo.

Example eight is not as hideous, but it is still silly and it is still a lie.  In what way would Obama qualify as a king?  Really.  If you are going to say it, let’s hear some support.  Are we talking about a constitutional monarchy?  Are even those kings elected?  Do kings risk falling off of fiscal cliffs?  You don’t have to agree with the president, but when you disagree and spout lies I assume you don’t have a real position and are just being obnoxious.

Example nine is catchy, but still false.  The Second Amendment is not a permit.  It doesn’t take the place of a permit.  It doesn’t permit you to avoid having your gun registered or having a background check done before you purchase a gun.  If you don’t believe me, pull out a few Supreme Court cases and a glass of lemonade and have a look see.  In the meantime, delete this one.

Example ten is intriguing.  This picture includes the claim that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican.  The proof for this is that his niece said so in one interview.  There is no other proof of this.  None.  None at all.  Most scholars dismiss the claim.  It is worth noting that the Republican party of MLK’s time was not the party of Lincoln anymore, as the Republicans had assumed the support of the formerly Democratic white southern establishment.  So, this would be a lie.

I think you are getting the idea, so we can move into rapid fire mode.  Here we have a catchy phrase you hear all the time.  Of course, in real life lots of things stop bad guys with guns.  A working education system stops them from appearing.  So do jobs.  Rehabilitation in prisons stops them from reappearing.  Active community groups do wonders too.  Of course, finding bad guys and good guys isn’t easy since they don’t walk around wearing black and white respectively, and probably don’t even exist.  Plus, it doesn’t take a bad guy with a gun to take a life, unless every person who has accidentally shot someone or killed themselves was bad. 

 This is beyond silly.  Think maybe the President presents an exceptional case?  Maybe?

Yes, there is just one reason.  Keeping track of guns wouldn’t be a reason.  Keeping them out of the hands of the mentally ill wouldn’t be a reason.  Besides, it totally makes sense to argue that guns shouldn’t be registered because bad things might be done with such a list.  We’d better get rid of car registration.  And that whole social security number thing …

So, Obama’s supporters are all unemployed.  Are we still saying this after Romney trotted it out?  Really?

Yeah.  Sure.  All those scientists, every last one of them, is in on it.  Them and the thermometers and the glaciers too.

Let’s review.  No one is trying to take away hand guns and shot guns.  Are we good now?

Yes, the only alternative to owning a gun is to huddle in a corner and wait to be raped.  

So, what we have here is a lot of lying.  To those who post these lies, I don’t see any people asking about the whereabouts of your sister while holding a gun to your throat, so can you cut it out?