In the recent healthcare town halls/9-12 protests/tea party nonsense/etc. there has been a recurring scene, one that was unsurprisingly reprised on Glenn Beck's program last night. There comes the point where, in protesting all the changes being made in our modern world, the protester breaks into tears about losing "their country." Glenn Beck specifically spoke of a simpler time in America, presumably the 1950's that exists only in movies and the imaginations of people who never actually live in 50's. His evidence? A Coca-Cola commerical.
The first fallacy of this argument is its insincerity. No one ever tears up talking about a simpler time when talking about digital cameras or credit cards. There are so many things about the modern world that are, in fact, simpler and easier thanks to all the changes we've made. And when wishing for those bygone eras, no one ever mentions the things that weren't so simple, like trying to guarantee your right to vote.
Which is really what this is about, civil rights. When people like Beck talk about a "simpler" time, they mean a "whiter" time. I'm not saying they are all overt racists, but they prefered the simple dynamic of one group, namely their's, having all the power and not having to worry about including others or competing with others who having to be careful about what you say for fear of offending others. They like when they knew a woman's place and knew that they could say anything except "I love communism" without fear of reproach.
The fact is that the "simpler time" that these people miss was not simpler for everyone, and in fact was pretty horrible for a lot of people. Sure, in the 1950's lots of people were buying homes and automobiles and taking flights to Europe, but a lot of people were also walking miles to work andl living without electricity and sitting in separate sections of restaurants. And during these simpler times, fewer women could go to college or get jobs, and if they did, they were paid far less and respected about as little.
Patton Oswalt has a joke on his new comedy album about people who promote "home birth" like the pioneers did it, commenting that the pioneers would have been thrilled to give birth in a sterile hospital room with specialized electronic equipment and medications that ease the pain and machines that keep your baby from dying immediately. This false nostalgia is the same. Travel back 50 or 100 years, ask any farmer if he'd prefer to have giant combines and automated sorters and he'd probably tell you "yes." Ask any secretary if she'd like a machine that can save documents and print and infinite number of copies, and that she'd make the same money as a man without having those men constantly degrade her, and she'd say the same. And ask any non-white person if they'd prefer a country where they can live anywhere, vote anywhere, attend school anywhere, and one day be President and I think you know what the answer would be.
The times were never simpler, merely different, and the loss of power and benefits in one group is just the result of bringing equality to others. When they say the times were simpler, what they mean is the mindset was simpler. That's not a virtue, and anyone who thinks it is, like Glenn, is simple-minded.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
"Empathy" is a 7-Letter Word
Last week, when laying out his long list of considerations for picking a Supreme Court nominee, President Obama listed "empathy" as an important quality befitting a justice. Of course, he was attacked ad nauseam for having such a ridiculous notion. To them, "empathy" meant "doing whatever the gay, minority, hippie guy in your court wants regardless of what the merits of the case," thus confusing "empathy" with "sympathy" as anyone with a limited understanding of English may. (At this point, they'd be wise to adopt the advice they always give to immigrants: "if you're going to live in America, learn the language.") On the other hand, I assume that to Barack Obama, "empathy" falls somewhere along the lines of "ability to multi-task" and "works well with others" in the Supreme Court help-wanted ad.
More than that, though, I wonder when "empathy" became a negative attribute, one to be mocked or flat-out feared. Then today, as I was reading through the morning news, it occurred to me that empathy is my modus operandi. My first instinct when hearing something or learning something is to try and identify with the people involved; to understand how and why they do or feel what they do. I may not agree or support, but I try to understand.
But for that reason, I often don't feel an important cognitive distinction between things that affect me personally and things that affect others. Injustice is injustice. That, I think, is where it's importance lies as an hallmark of a great Supreme Court Justice. The law may at times be abstract, but it is a construct of human creation, humans who by our nature (and by the things we choose to care about enough to make into laws) are emotional and adaptable. The Supreme Court especially needs judges who can interpret the law, defining the intent and spirit as much as the literal definitions. In order to do this, it helps to not only know the law, but to understand the arguments against that law, arguments that often rely on how it personally affects citizen's lives. If they can't understand where people are coming from, how can they understand why it matters, or whether the law is just?
If the Constitution is the framework for our entire judicial system and the laws within it, and it tries to codify so much that is philosophical such as natural rights and equality, then isn't the ability to empathize with your fellow human beings as equals an essential quality for the highest court in the land? I think there is an important distinction to be made between so-called "activists" who twist the law to their own opinions, and those with "empathy" who are willing to re-examine the law when faced with different or changing circumstances.
More than that, though, I wonder when "empathy" became a negative attribute, one to be mocked or flat-out feared. Then today, as I was reading through the morning news, it occurred to me that empathy is my modus operandi. My first instinct when hearing something or learning something is to try and identify with the people involved; to understand how and why they do or feel what they do. I may not agree or support, but I try to understand.
But for that reason, I often don't feel an important cognitive distinction between things that affect me personally and things that affect others. Injustice is injustice. That, I think, is where it's importance lies as an hallmark of a great Supreme Court Justice. The law may at times be abstract, but it is a construct of human creation, humans who by our nature (and by the things we choose to care about enough to make into laws) are emotional and adaptable. The Supreme Court especially needs judges who can interpret the law, defining the intent and spirit as much as the literal definitions. In order to do this, it helps to not only know the law, but to understand the arguments against that law, arguments that often rely on how it personally affects citizen's lives. If they can't understand where people are coming from, how can they understand why it matters, or whether the law is just?
If the Constitution is the framework for our entire judicial system and the laws within it, and it tries to codify so much that is philosophical such as natural rights and equality, then isn't the ability to empathize with your fellow human beings as equals an essential quality for the highest court in the land? I think there is an important distinction to be made between so-called "activists" who twist the law to their own opinions, and those with "empathy" who are willing to re-examine the law when faced with different or changing circumstances.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
A Decade Under the Influence
If the last ten years have taught me anything, it’s that everything I thought our society had agreed upon had, in fact, not been accepted by everyone. I thought everyone was onboard with evolution, until George Bush enlightened me to creationsim-lite - “Intelligent Design.” I thought that we’d all acknowledged the importance of limiting pollution and protecting the environment, until I’d heard there were people who not merely denied global warming, but even welcomed it.
I don’t think I ever would have thought, though, that I’d discover so many Americans who supported torture. Let me type that again...Torture. Torture. Remember when we invaded Iraq and we were told it was because Saddam Hussein was a despot who tortured his own citizens and had secret detention facilities with rape rooms? He was evil, we were told, because he was a torturer.
Prisoners of War came back from Korea and Vietnam talking about the harsh treatment they received - people like John McCain - and we were told that those people were evil and we were just because we treated people humanely.
And yet, today, there is actual debate over whether it is okay for Americans to commit acts of torture. We’ll skip past the part where it is already illegal, and where it also violates numerous international treaties and agreements, including ones signed by Republicans like Ronald Reagan. We’ll ignore the fact that torture doesn’t produce accurate intel, and that it in reality creates falsh information that we then waste resources checking. Instead, we’ll focus on the moral problem.
The United States, despite all of it’s inevitable failures of judgement, has long touted itself as the moral center of the world: the inevitable pinnacle of reason and justice. For the last half-century, we’ve ridden the wave of having “saved Democracy” in World War II (after which we tried Germans, Italians, and Japanese for war crimes including torture), and acted often as the World’s police. We decry human rights violations in other countries and demand justice when international laws are violated by other nations.
How can we hold the moral high ground and still reserve the right to torture people? When our own Constitution makes the use of “cruel and unusual punishment” a cardinal sin, how can we justify using cruel and unusual means againgst people who haven’t even been convicted of a crime? What morality, what religion, what belief allows anyone to think that it’s okay to cause suffering just because you are afraid?
It offends me as an American, and as a human being, when people say it’s justified because it saves lives. It doesn’t. The time and energy, resources and personell that must be used in first breaking a person down and then following up any leads would be better spent on the actual detective work that has prevented terrorist attacks all over the world, including here in the United States. Keep in mind that the terrorist attack that began the Bush Administration’s road to 2 wars, a prison in Guantanamo, and a secret program of torture didn’t come out of nowhere. We had intelligence on many of the people involved, knew many of their aliases, and the President himself received briefings about the likelihood of an attack. The intelligence community was even aware of the possibility that airplanes could be hijacked and used as projectiles. None of this intelligence was gathered through torture.
Even if torture could be used to gain accurate information on that proverbial ticking timebomb, what would be the end result? One crisis could be averted, but the person being tortured would forever be an enemy of the United States, so our options would be to kill them, detain them forever, or release them with certainty that they would then join a terrorist network. In any of those cases, their friends and family would become our enemies and more easily recruited to terrorist networks. Countries that support our efforts would turn their back on us. In war, the tactics of torture we use would become fair game for others to use on our own troops when captured. The number of terrorists in the world would grow, as would the threat. A war on terrorism can’t be won through escalation.
But mostly, it’s just wrong. Society must protect itself, and when people are criminally dangerous they are locked away or reformed if possible. But torture goes farther. It doesn’t remove threats, it destroys individuals. It breaks them down, destroys their psyches, takes away their free will. Capital punishment takes away a persons life, but torture takes away their humanity. How can that be just? How can that be right? What is the value in saving American lives at the cost of the American soul?
I hear politicians and pundits say, arrogantly but assuredly, that the United States is the greatest nation on Earth. Well, then, we should act like it.
I don’t think I ever would have thought, though, that I’d discover so many Americans who supported torture. Let me type that again...Torture. Torture. Remember when we invaded Iraq and we were told it was because Saddam Hussein was a despot who tortured his own citizens and had secret detention facilities with rape rooms? He was evil, we were told, because he was a torturer.
Prisoners of War came back from Korea and Vietnam talking about the harsh treatment they received - people like John McCain - and we were told that those people were evil and we were just because we treated people humanely.
And yet, today, there is actual debate over whether it is okay for Americans to commit acts of torture. We’ll skip past the part where it is already illegal, and where it also violates numerous international treaties and agreements, including ones signed by Republicans like Ronald Reagan. We’ll ignore the fact that torture doesn’t produce accurate intel, and that it in reality creates falsh information that we then waste resources checking. Instead, we’ll focus on the moral problem.
The United States, despite all of it’s inevitable failures of judgement, has long touted itself as the moral center of the world: the inevitable pinnacle of reason and justice. For the last half-century, we’ve ridden the wave of having “saved Democracy” in World War II (after which we tried Germans, Italians, and Japanese for war crimes including torture), and acted often as the World’s police. We decry human rights violations in other countries and demand justice when international laws are violated by other nations.
How can we hold the moral high ground and still reserve the right to torture people? When our own Constitution makes the use of “cruel and unusual punishment” a cardinal sin, how can we justify using cruel and unusual means againgst people who haven’t even been convicted of a crime? What morality, what religion, what belief allows anyone to think that it’s okay to cause suffering just because you are afraid?
It offends me as an American, and as a human being, when people say it’s justified because it saves lives. It doesn’t. The time and energy, resources and personell that must be used in first breaking a person down and then following up any leads would be better spent on the actual detective work that has prevented terrorist attacks all over the world, including here in the United States. Keep in mind that the terrorist attack that began the Bush Administration’s road to 2 wars, a prison in Guantanamo, and a secret program of torture didn’t come out of nowhere. We had intelligence on many of the people involved, knew many of their aliases, and the President himself received briefings about the likelihood of an attack. The intelligence community was even aware of the possibility that airplanes could be hijacked and used as projectiles. None of this intelligence was gathered through torture.
Even if torture could be used to gain accurate information on that proverbial ticking timebomb, what would be the end result? One crisis could be averted, but the person being tortured would forever be an enemy of the United States, so our options would be to kill them, detain them forever, or release them with certainty that they would then join a terrorist network. In any of those cases, their friends and family would become our enemies and more easily recruited to terrorist networks. Countries that support our efforts would turn their back on us. In war, the tactics of torture we use would become fair game for others to use on our own troops when captured. The number of terrorists in the world would grow, as would the threat. A war on terrorism can’t be won through escalation.
But mostly, it’s just wrong. Society must protect itself, and when people are criminally dangerous they are locked away or reformed if possible. But torture goes farther. It doesn’t remove threats, it destroys individuals. It breaks them down, destroys their psyches, takes away their free will. Capital punishment takes away a persons life, but torture takes away their humanity. How can that be just? How can that be right? What is the value in saving American lives at the cost of the American soul?
I hear politicians and pundits say, arrogantly but assuredly, that the United States is the greatest nation on Earth. Well, then, we should act like it.
Monday, April 27, 2009
There's a Socialist in my Soup!
“The Democrats are indeed marching America toward European-style socialism.”
That was written by the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, a party so inclusive that it even allows anarchists like the Governor of Texas to be a member; a man who clearly is unfamiliar with the actual historical meaning of the word “Republic” since he rejects the sovereignty of a duly elected government that he disagrees with. But yes, Michael Steel is just one of many on the right who are trying to scare the American people with the current fashionable buzzword of misdirection: SOCIALISM. This word has become so overused that some Republicans are even suggesting new labels to be used, like Fascist, because they think people have become desensitized to or may even embrace socialism. Again, though, they seem to be unfamiliar with the fact that all of these words have definitions (in dictionaries and everything!)
Tricking people with names is really the only thing the Republican party is capable of, though. Freedom fries. Death tax. Compassionate conservatism. No Child Left Behind. All of these are entirely meaningless, giving you an impression without actually telling you anything about what they are describing, and upon closer inspection, you learn that their labels are often the opposite of what they pretend to be. It’s like these people have grabbed the English language and will waterboard it until it confesses to whatever definitions they tell it to say. In their minds, you can change names and words and make them mean whatever you want… like MAGIC!
So now, since the Democrat in the White House and the DemocratIC party in the Congress are facing growing public approval, they want to rebrand them. You know, when Blackwater came under fire for shooting civilians in Iraq, they rebranded their own company in the hopes that people wouldn’t notice that this new company was exactly the same as the old one that did all that horrible stuff. It takes an extra layer of gumption to decide that you’re not going to rebrand yourselves when you’re unpopular, and instead try to rebrand your opposition in the hopes of bringing them down with you. The RNC is trying to pass it’s on meaningless, symbolic, internal resolution to rebrand the Democratic Party as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”
First, let’s just get this out of the way: We don’t go around calling them the Bush Party or the White Business Interest Party, yet they constantly try to change the name of the “Democratic Party” to the harsher sounding “Democrat Party.” It’s like when someone gives you a crappy nickname and never calls you by your given name… an experience I’m sure most of them have had, so they really should know better.
But aside from that, why do they keep harping on this? I’d say that it’s not true, that Democrats are not, in fact, leading our country towards socialism, but anyone who thinks that labeling Democrats as “Democrat Socialists” is a valuable contribution to our society is also impervious to reason, so I won’t bother. Let’s pretend for an instant that the Democrats really were going to make our country more like European countries. I certainly don’t want that, but is that really the best argument for evil intent that they have. EUROPE? I could understand if they were saying the Democrats were leading us towards Somalia-style government; that would scare the crap out of people. But European socialism?
Have they been to Europe recently? Some of the strongest economies in the world are in Europe. The average lifespan in most European countries surpasses that in the United States. Europe leads us in renewable energy production, in air and water quality. Their money is worth more than ours. If ever there was a capitalist argument, it’s that one. THEIR MONEY IS MORE VALUABLE. It’s like we are using Pesos, that we cart around in wheelbarrows to buy a loaf of bread.
The fact is that even the so-called European socialist aren’t even socialists. Yes, they do have many social welfare programs, and things like nationalized energy or health care in some places. For the most part, though, they are Democracies and Republics just like ours, with capitalist markets. The only difference is that they tend to regulate these markets more, which is why while we’re in a deep economic depression, some of them are doing fairly well considering.
So stop it, Republicans. You’re embarassing yourselves. Because not only are the Democrats not socialists, but neither are many of the Europeans you’re comparing them to. And if they are, then that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, because we’ve seen what you’re ideology has given us… 2 wars that have outlasted World War II, and the deepest depression we’ve had since World War II. No thanks.
That was written by the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, a party so inclusive that it even allows anarchists like the Governor of Texas to be a member; a man who clearly is unfamiliar with the actual historical meaning of the word “Republic” since he rejects the sovereignty of a duly elected government that he disagrees with. But yes, Michael Steel is just one of many on the right who are trying to scare the American people with the current fashionable buzzword of misdirection: SOCIALISM. This word has become so overused that some Republicans are even suggesting new labels to be used, like Fascist, because they think people have become desensitized to or may even embrace socialism. Again, though, they seem to be unfamiliar with the fact that all of these words have definitions (in dictionaries and everything!)
Tricking people with names is really the only thing the Republican party is capable of, though. Freedom fries. Death tax. Compassionate conservatism. No Child Left Behind. All of these are entirely meaningless, giving you an impression without actually telling you anything about what they are describing, and upon closer inspection, you learn that their labels are often the opposite of what they pretend to be. It’s like these people have grabbed the English language and will waterboard it until it confesses to whatever definitions they tell it to say. In their minds, you can change names and words and make them mean whatever you want… like MAGIC!
So now, since the Democrat in the White House and the DemocratIC party in the Congress are facing growing public approval, they want to rebrand them. You know, when Blackwater came under fire for shooting civilians in Iraq, they rebranded their own company in the hopes that people wouldn’t notice that this new company was exactly the same as the old one that did all that horrible stuff. It takes an extra layer of gumption to decide that you’re not going to rebrand yourselves when you’re unpopular, and instead try to rebrand your opposition in the hopes of bringing them down with you. The RNC is trying to pass it’s on meaningless, symbolic, internal resolution to rebrand the Democratic Party as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”
First, let’s just get this out of the way: We don’t go around calling them the Bush Party or the White Business Interest Party, yet they constantly try to change the name of the “Democratic Party” to the harsher sounding “Democrat Party.” It’s like when someone gives you a crappy nickname and never calls you by your given name… an experience I’m sure most of them have had, so they really should know better.
But aside from that, why do they keep harping on this? I’d say that it’s not true, that Democrats are not, in fact, leading our country towards socialism, but anyone who thinks that labeling Democrats as “Democrat Socialists” is a valuable contribution to our society is also impervious to reason, so I won’t bother. Let’s pretend for an instant that the Democrats really were going to make our country more like European countries. I certainly don’t want that, but is that really the best argument for evil intent that they have. EUROPE? I could understand if they were saying the Democrats were leading us towards Somalia-style government; that would scare the crap out of people. But European socialism?
Have they been to Europe recently? Some of the strongest economies in the world are in Europe. The average lifespan in most European countries surpasses that in the United States. Europe leads us in renewable energy production, in air and water quality. Their money is worth more than ours. If ever there was a capitalist argument, it’s that one. THEIR MONEY IS MORE VALUABLE. It’s like we are using Pesos, that we cart around in wheelbarrows to buy a loaf of bread.
The fact is that even the so-called European socialist aren’t even socialists. Yes, they do have many social welfare programs, and things like nationalized energy or health care in some places. For the most part, though, they are Democracies and Republics just like ours, with capitalist markets. The only difference is that they tend to regulate these markets more, which is why while we’re in a deep economic depression, some of them are doing fairly well considering.
So stop it, Republicans. You’re embarassing yourselves. Because not only are the Democrats not socialists, but neither are many of the Europeans you’re comparing them to. And if they are, then that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, because we’ve seen what you’re ideology has given us… 2 wars that have outlasted World War II, and the deepest depression we’ve had since World War II. No thanks.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Survival of the Dimmest
I grew up Catholic. I went to church every week, nearly all of my friends were Christians, and I eventually went to a Catholic High School. Never, in all that time, did I have a problem reconciling that existence with things like science, evolution, or secular politics. I was even under the impression, one shared by Pope John Paul II, that religion had accepted the validity of scientific discovery over biblical literalism. I felt completely at liberty to recognize the existence of dinosaurs millions of years ago and the gradual evolution of man and still be able to believe that God created all of that and guided that process. Only in the last 10 years have I come to realize that people who avoid the broader world, who shelter themselves in homeschool echo chambers, have no such belief and are only becoming more entrenched.
The scariest part is that as they've moved farther to the fringe, and feel more at odds with the rest of society, the angrier and more aggressive they've become. No longer at peace to have their own beliefs, they've started disinformation campaigns to spread their beliefs under the guise of science and reason, and force it into schools. If their arguments come off sounding ridiculous, though, it's because you can't make an effective counter-argument without understanding the initial argument, and since they avoid science and information, that becomes impossible. I have no such problem since I am secure that my beliefs can stand up to scrutiny and contemplation, so I've often exposed myself to their ideas so that I could understand them, and then effectively counter them. In doing so, I've seen a lot of scary things, like the Creation Museum where animatronic humans ride domesticated Triceratops, or power point presentations where evolution is boiled down to the idea that your grandfather was a monkey.
But the arguments are all flawed for one reason: Creationists don't know what evolution is. Without a science class or a library card to support them, they've only ever gotten the cliff notes version of Darwin, and so think it is laughably ridiculous. That argument about a monkey being your grandfather is laughable, but that is not evolution, it's distortion. No one believes such a thing, and it's a straw-man argument to imply that we do. When you explain that evolutionists believe that millions of years ago we had a common ancestral species where over each generation, some diversified genetically to become humanoid species and eventual homo sapiens while others eventually became chimps and others ape, it makes much more sense and seems more plausible. It's also more complicated, which is why biblical literalists reject it outright.
The other adage that they often latch onto is the concept "survival of the fittest." This isn't a universal property like gravity or the speed of light, nor is it a promotion of an ideology, but merely an accepted concept. It doesn't say that the fittest WILL survive and all else will die, but that the fittest are MOST LIKELY to survive while others may not. Again, ambiguity is not as pleasing to certainty, so that ignore this. A favorite attack of Creationists, often under the auspices of their Intelligent Design monicker, is that a belief in evolution leads to an acceptance of eugenics; i.e. that if you believe the fittest DO survive, that only the fittest SHOULD survive. As the lowest common denominator of all discourse, they compare us to Nazis.
But again, in avoiding knowledge they avoid understanding, and so they don't understand what actually happened during the Holocaust. The Nazis were trying to create what they perceived as a master race, however that does not mean that what they were aiming to create actually WAS a master race. In a way, what they were creating were show dogs: beings that were attractive and fit a certain mold of superiority without regard to actual quality. Dogs that are pure bred win trophies, but they often have shortened life spans, suffer from genetic disease, and are unable to survive in the wild away from constant human intervention. They may be the prettiest, but they are not the fittest, which is precisely what the Aryan race would have been - pretty but dumb. The fallacy is that survival of the fittest led to the holocaust, while really survival of the fittest was the principle that allowed the Jewish people to survive the Holocaust because, in reality, the Jewish were better fit for survival than the Germans.
The Nazis had all the perceived advantages; they had all the political power, the weapons, the money, and far greater numbers. Jewish people were surrounded and at the mercy of the Nazis, who had nothing but hatred for them and a desire to marginalize them and wipe them off the face of the Earth. Yet, despite the odds stacked against them, many Jews survived incredible hardships and went on to prosper, while the Germans lost the war. The Jewish people faced harsh weather, grueling labor, disease, starvation, beatings, distress, and misery. And while millions died, millions survived all of that. When you learn about what occurred during the Holocaust, it is seemingly miraculous that any of them survived, that no human possibly should or could, and yet they did. They were particularly suited to survive, and so they did. The Germans, with all of the advantages they had, were defeated from without as well as within, and were unable to suffer the relatively minor hardships of war compared to the adversity faced by their victims. And now while Germans have carved out a stable place in the world, Jewish people have prosperity and influence disproportionate to their actual numbers. They make up less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, and yet think of how many Jewish politicians, authors, actors, comedians, musicians, business people, lawyers, and journalists you've heard of. Think of how the entire political reality of the Middle East and global foreign relations is affected by Israel. If the Holocaust proved anything it as not that you can or should create a master race fit to survive, but that the Jewish people were uniquely fit for survival, and so they have.
Evolution extends beyond biology and also to ideas, and the fittest ideas survive while others falter. Evolution is a relatively new concept in the history of mankind, yet in that time it has gained critical mass of support. It has faced legal, moral, and philosophical challenges and survived all of them, and only gained in acceptance over time. The concept of evolution is uniquely fit to survive because it has verifiable fact on it's side, and can therefore withstand storms of controversy and disputation. Creationism has had thousands of years to gain power and influence, and yet cannot withstand those same forces. It is an unfit idea with no rational basis or argument to support it, and like the Dinosaurs or the Troglodyte is doomed to fail, eventually.
The scariest part is that as they've moved farther to the fringe, and feel more at odds with the rest of society, the angrier and more aggressive they've become. No longer at peace to have their own beliefs, they've started disinformation campaigns to spread their beliefs under the guise of science and reason, and force it into schools. If their arguments come off sounding ridiculous, though, it's because you can't make an effective counter-argument without understanding the initial argument, and since they avoid science and information, that becomes impossible. I have no such problem since I am secure that my beliefs can stand up to scrutiny and contemplation, so I've often exposed myself to their ideas so that I could understand them, and then effectively counter them. In doing so, I've seen a lot of scary things, like the Creation Museum where animatronic humans ride domesticated Triceratops, or power point presentations where evolution is boiled down to the idea that your grandfather was a monkey.
But the arguments are all flawed for one reason: Creationists don't know what evolution is. Without a science class or a library card to support them, they've only ever gotten the cliff notes version of Darwin, and so think it is laughably ridiculous. That argument about a monkey being your grandfather is laughable, but that is not evolution, it's distortion. No one believes such a thing, and it's a straw-man argument to imply that we do. When you explain that evolutionists believe that millions of years ago we had a common ancestral species where over each generation, some diversified genetically to become humanoid species and eventual homo sapiens while others eventually became chimps and others ape, it makes much more sense and seems more plausible. It's also more complicated, which is why biblical literalists reject it outright.
The other adage that they often latch onto is the concept "survival of the fittest." This isn't a universal property like gravity or the speed of light, nor is it a promotion of an ideology, but merely an accepted concept. It doesn't say that the fittest WILL survive and all else will die, but that the fittest are MOST LIKELY to survive while others may not. Again, ambiguity is not as pleasing to certainty, so that ignore this. A favorite attack of Creationists, often under the auspices of their Intelligent Design monicker, is that a belief in evolution leads to an acceptance of eugenics; i.e. that if you believe the fittest DO survive, that only the fittest SHOULD survive. As the lowest common denominator of all discourse, they compare us to Nazis.
But again, in avoiding knowledge they avoid understanding, and so they don't understand what actually happened during the Holocaust. The Nazis were trying to create what they perceived as a master race, however that does not mean that what they were aiming to create actually WAS a master race. In a way, what they were creating were show dogs: beings that were attractive and fit a certain mold of superiority without regard to actual quality. Dogs that are pure bred win trophies, but they often have shortened life spans, suffer from genetic disease, and are unable to survive in the wild away from constant human intervention. They may be the prettiest, but they are not the fittest, which is precisely what the Aryan race would have been - pretty but dumb. The fallacy is that survival of the fittest led to the holocaust, while really survival of the fittest was the principle that allowed the Jewish people to survive the Holocaust because, in reality, the Jewish were better fit for survival than the Germans.
The Nazis had all the perceived advantages; they had all the political power, the weapons, the money, and far greater numbers. Jewish people were surrounded and at the mercy of the Nazis, who had nothing but hatred for them and a desire to marginalize them and wipe them off the face of the Earth. Yet, despite the odds stacked against them, many Jews survived incredible hardships and went on to prosper, while the Germans lost the war. The Jewish people faced harsh weather, grueling labor, disease, starvation, beatings, distress, and misery. And while millions died, millions survived all of that. When you learn about what occurred during the Holocaust, it is seemingly miraculous that any of them survived, that no human possibly should or could, and yet they did. They were particularly suited to survive, and so they did. The Germans, with all of the advantages they had, were defeated from without as well as within, and were unable to suffer the relatively minor hardships of war compared to the adversity faced by their victims. And now while Germans have carved out a stable place in the world, Jewish people have prosperity and influence disproportionate to their actual numbers. They make up less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, and yet think of how many Jewish politicians, authors, actors, comedians, musicians, business people, lawyers, and journalists you've heard of. Think of how the entire political reality of the Middle East and global foreign relations is affected by Israel. If the Holocaust proved anything it as not that you can or should create a master race fit to survive, but that the Jewish people were uniquely fit for survival, and so they have.
Evolution extends beyond biology and also to ideas, and the fittest ideas survive while others falter. Evolution is a relatively new concept in the history of mankind, yet in that time it has gained critical mass of support. It has faced legal, moral, and philosophical challenges and survived all of them, and only gained in acceptance over time. The concept of evolution is uniquely fit to survive because it has verifiable fact on it's side, and can therefore withstand storms of controversy and disputation. Creationism has had thousands of years to gain power and influence, and yet cannot withstand those same forces. It is an unfit idea with no rational basis or argument to support it, and like the Dinosaurs or the Troglodyte is doomed to fail, eventually.
Friday, April 3, 2009
What's the Big Deal?
Smokers are an interesting group. They have an addiction to an unhealthy substance, but don’t get treated the way drug addicts do, and in fact are often able to make friends based on a shared habit. Yet, whenever something comes along to make smoking less convenient, they act as though they are a brutalized minority. Every tax is viewed as an infringement of civil rights.
What never occurs to them is that there is also the matter of everyone else’s rights. I’ve never been one to demonize smokers or smoking, but still I was glad when smoking was banned in bars and restaurants in my home state of New Jersey and my state of residency, New York. What a person does on their own, unhealthy or not, is largely their concern, but I couldn’t attend a concert, go to a bar, or eat out without being forced against my will to breath second hand smoke. I mean, if the guy sitting next to you is eating a double bacon cheeseburger, you don’t get fatter, and yet it’s considered perfectly acceptable to judge fat people for making bad choices. Smokers, on the other hand, aren’t just making a bad choice for themselves, but for the rest of us. Even now, when smoking is banned in most buildings, I can’t walk the streets of the city without being engulfed in clouds of other people’s smoke. I choose not to smoke, and yet depending on who I end up walking near, I can inhale smoke and smell like cigarettes.
So when smoking is banned in specific places, I don’t see it as an attack on a smoker’s rights but as protecting everyone else’s rights. If you want to smoke, you can do it at home but still go out in the world, whereas if I choose not to smoke at home, I can still be exposed to that secondhand smoke when I go out into the world. Cigarettes also have other effects on people other than those choosing to smoke. Yes, they pollute our air. They also litter our streets, fill our landfills, stain surfaces, clog filters, and then there is the biggest cost: health care. Secondhand smoke can have adverse effects which can cost innocent people more in visits to doctors, but the biggest cost is to people who choose to smoke because they get sick more often, more severely, and can eventually gain debilitating or fatal conditions. If they end up in the emergency room, many of those costs are paid by our taxes and others are added into the costs of everyone else’s health care. If they have insurance, by it’s nature a shared burden, their increase health care costs get spread to everyone else in that plan through higher premiums.
Why shouldn’t we recoup these costs to our health and our environment through taxes? If you are okay with infringing on my health for your own pleasure, then why should I feel bad about taking some of your money for things that we all share? It makes sense to me, yet cigarette smokers complain that now they can’t afford this habit, or that it will hurt businesses that sell cigarettes. What is this prohibitive cost? Well, in New York which just raised their cigarette tax, the cost of a pack of 20 cigarettes is now about 10 dollars, or 50 cents per cigarette. That’s prohibitive?
What if instead of cigarettes, your social habit was smoking marijuana? 50 cents for a joint would be a bargain. Ask any marijuana user and they’d jump at the chance to get 20 joints for only 10 dollars. Some people at work take coffee breaks instead of cigarette breaks; 50 cents for a cup of coffee is amazing. Some people are social smokers. Ask any social drinker in New York if they thought it was cost prohibitive to pay 50 cents for a beer. In a New York City bar, you’d be lucky to get 2 beers for 10 dollars, let alone 20 beers. People with a sweet tooth can hardly even get a donut for 50 cents anymore.
The only reason smoker’s care is because, as time goes on, they feel compelled to smoke more and more, almost uncontrollably, so that what equals a 2 dollar a day habit now could be a 30 dollar a day habit later. Still, that’s the cost of doing business and we all have to make choices. People who like lobster choose not to eat it every day because it’s too expensive, and people who are low on cash cut back on the things they like. Yes, smokers may be addicted, but the fact is they chose to start smoking knowing that they probably would become addicted. Now, they complain because that addiction is compelling them to spend a lot of money on what is actually a low-cost product, and somehow that’s my problem? Would you take me seriously if I was eating three boxes of donuts a day and then said that I think donuts are too expensive because, while the cost of one is only 50 cents, the cost of three boxes is 30? No, you’d tell me I shouldn’t be eating 3 boxes and that if I wanted to that I had to accept the cost, and you’d be right.
People have the right to choose, but all choices have tradeoffs. I could choose to party all night or I could choose to get a full night’s sleep before work, but not both. Smokers can choose to smoke and spend a measly 50 cents for the privilege or to quit and save themselves some money, but they don’t get to smoke, bother other people, and get to do it for free. Taxing cigarettes creates revenue that helps everyone, smokers included, and it also creates a financial incentive to quit and for other people not to start. Even if you’re the type of person who loves smoking and never wants to stop, I’m sure you’d welcome better health and more money in your pocket. If you could smoke and have those benefits that would be great, but with choice comes cost, and in this case, the cost is 50 cents a cigarette. Can anyone actually tell me that your health and convenience aren’t worth that much?
What never occurs to them is that there is also the matter of everyone else’s rights. I’ve never been one to demonize smokers or smoking, but still I was glad when smoking was banned in bars and restaurants in my home state of New Jersey and my state of residency, New York. What a person does on their own, unhealthy or not, is largely their concern, but I couldn’t attend a concert, go to a bar, or eat out without being forced against my will to breath second hand smoke. I mean, if the guy sitting next to you is eating a double bacon cheeseburger, you don’t get fatter, and yet it’s considered perfectly acceptable to judge fat people for making bad choices. Smokers, on the other hand, aren’t just making a bad choice for themselves, but for the rest of us. Even now, when smoking is banned in most buildings, I can’t walk the streets of the city without being engulfed in clouds of other people’s smoke. I choose not to smoke, and yet depending on who I end up walking near, I can inhale smoke and smell like cigarettes.
So when smoking is banned in specific places, I don’t see it as an attack on a smoker’s rights but as protecting everyone else’s rights. If you want to smoke, you can do it at home but still go out in the world, whereas if I choose not to smoke at home, I can still be exposed to that secondhand smoke when I go out into the world. Cigarettes also have other effects on people other than those choosing to smoke. Yes, they pollute our air. They also litter our streets, fill our landfills, stain surfaces, clog filters, and then there is the biggest cost: health care. Secondhand smoke can have adverse effects which can cost innocent people more in visits to doctors, but the biggest cost is to people who choose to smoke because they get sick more often, more severely, and can eventually gain debilitating or fatal conditions. If they end up in the emergency room, many of those costs are paid by our taxes and others are added into the costs of everyone else’s health care. If they have insurance, by it’s nature a shared burden, their increase health care costs get spread to everyone else in that plan through higher premiums.
Why shouldn’t we recoup these costs to our health and our environment through taxes? If you are okay with infringing on my health for your own pleasure, then why should I feel bad about taking some of your money for things that we all share? It makes sense to me, yet cigarette smokers complain that now they can’t afford this habit, or that it will hurt businesses that sell cigarettes. What is this prohibitive cost? Well, in New York which just raised their cigarette tax, the cost of a pack of 20 cigarettes is now about 10 dollars, or 50 cents per cigarette. That’s prohibitive?
What if instead of cigarettes, your social habit was smoking marijuana? 50 cents for a joint would be a bargain. Ask any marijuana user and they’d jump at the chance to get 20 joints for only 10 dollars. Some people at work take coffee breaks instead of cigarette breaks; 50 cents for a cup of coffee is amazing. Some people are social smokers. Ask any social drinker in New York if they thought it was cost prohibitive to pay 50 cents for a beer. In a New York City bar, you’d be lucky to get 2 beers for 10 dollars, let alone 20 beers. People with a sweet tooth can hardly even get a donut for 50 cents anymore.
The only reason smoker’s care is because, as time goes on, they feel compelled to smoke more and more, almost uncontrollably, so that what equals a 2 dollar a day habit now could be a 30 dollar a day habit later. Still, that’s the cost of doing business and we all have to make choices. People who like lobster choose not to eat it every day because it’s too expensive, and people who are low on cash cut back on the things they like. Yes, smokers may be addicted, but the fact is they chose to start smoking knowing that they probably would become addicted. Now, they complain because that addiction is compelling them to spend a lot of money on what is actually a low-cost product, and somehow that’s my problem? Would you take me seriously if I was eating three boxes of donuts a day and then said that I think donuts are too expensive because, while the cost of one is only 50 cents, the cost of three boxes is 30? No, you’d tell me I shouldn’t be eating 3 boxes and that if I wanted to that I had to accept the cost, and you’d be right.
People have the right to choose, but all choices have tradeoffs. I could choose to party all night or I could choose to get a full night’s sleep before work, but not both. Smokers can choose to smoke and spend a measly 50 cents for the privilege or to quit and save themselves some money, but they don’t get to smoke, bother other people, and get to do it for free. Taxing cigarettes creates revenue that helps everyone, smokers included, and it also creates a financial incentive to quit and for other people not to start. Even if you’re the type of person who loves smoking and never wants to stop, I’m sure you’d welcome better health and more money in your pocket. If you could smoke and have those benefits that would be great, but with choice comes cost, and in this case, the cost is 50 cents a cigarette. Can anyone actually tell me that your health and convenience aren’t worth that much?
Monday, March 23, 2009
The Week in Nontroversies
Controversy is an expected part of life in the public sphere, because any life that well-scrutinized is going to show some flaws. It’s even more of a usual occurrence in politics because people are actively looking for weaknesses to exploit. Some politicians make it too easy though, with infidelities or illegal business dealings. Unfortunately, controversy paints with a wide brush, and while a politician may be guilty of an infraction in just one small area of their life, all of their decisions and abilities are called into question by it. With Bill Clinton, a personal abuse of position in regard to marital infidelity and sexual malfeasance in the office was used by his enemies to undermine his legislative efforts across the board.
When political enemies don’t have a leg to stand on, though, they have to dig for nontroversies - controversies stemming from non-issues, distortions, and matters of almost no actual importance. Last week, after a few journalists complained about the President’s teleprompters blocking their camera angles and after a very slight mix-up in the order of speeches at an event, and suddenly Barack Obama’s use of a teleprompter became a major issue. This is a doubly effective tactic of distraction because it goes after one of Barack Obama’s greatest strengths; his strengths as a writer, speaker, and as politician who’s able to control himself from making fatal blunders of speech by staying on message. But since the invention of the technology, every President has used it, as well as actors, journalists, executives, etc. And really, why not, when a teleprompter makes it easier to read prepared remarks and still see your audience without losing your place, unlink printed remarks or note cards. It also ensures that you won’t ramble off on a topic and that you’ll be sure to say everything you want to say. No one has any problem with a President writing a speech, and they’d have no problem with him then reciting it word-for-word, but suddenly through in a teleprompter and make it Barack Obama, and they assume a conspiracy wherein someone is pulling his strings and forcing him at gunpoint to read it. This is even harder to believe about Barack Obama who, unlike his most recent predecessor, is well-known for being actively involved in the formulation of his speeches.
Then Barack Obama went on The Tonight Show, which was certainly unusual, but given that George Bush made appearances on Dr. Phil, did not seem to be a sudden and drastic change in the Presidency. People tried to make a controversy out of this, as though if only he spent that 20 minutes in the oval office instead of on television, that he could turn our economy around once and for all. When that nontroversy failed to capture the public’s rancor, the smear merchants then hooked onto a poorly chosen but innocuous comment. Days later, headlines rang out with faux-outrage about the President disparaging the Special Olympics by comparing his paltry bowling score to that of a handicapped person. Even actual journalists quoted him as saying that his score was like “the special olympics or something.” However, those of us who actually watched AND listened to the interview saw that his comment about the Special Olympics came not immediately after telling us his bowling score, but after Jay Leno applauded sarcastically and gave feigned encouragement saying “that’s very good, Mr. President.” It was to this support, despite his performance, that Barack Obama was comparing the Special Olympics. He wasn’t saying that his bowling skills were those of a Special Olympian, but that Jay Leno was acting towards him the way spectators of the Special Olympics acted towards participant, with positive encouragement even when they are unsuccessful. Was it in bad taste? Yes, maybe a little. Was it offensive? No. Does it say anything bad about his character, his view of the handicapped, or his abilities as President? Most definitely not. So why are we wasting time on it?
Everyday there are new nontroversies to distract or to entertain, to enrage or obfuscate, while elsewhere the real problems and offenses are overlooked and underreported. By focusing on inane minutiae, we make it more difficult to solve real problems, which is of course precisely what some people want. Barack Obama’s political enemies see his popularity, and see that his plans have a chance of succeeding, two things which would spell disaster for their political futures. They could offer better alternatives, or support him in hopes of gaining that same popularity and public trust, but instead they choose to distract and make people forget the reason’s they like Barack Obama by giving them false controversies.
When political enemies don’t have a leg to stand on, though, they have to dig for nontroversies - controversies stemming from non-issues, distortions, and matters of almost no actual importance. Last week, after a few journalists complained about the President’s teleprompters blocking their camera angles and after a very slight mix-up in the order of speeches at an event, and suddenly Barack Obama’s use of a teleprompter became a major issue. This is a doubly effective tactic of distraction because it goes after one of Barack Obama’s greatest strengths; his strengths as a writer, speaker, and as politician who’s able to control himself from making fatal blunders of speech by staying on message. But since the invention of the technology, every President has used it, as well as actors, journalists, executives, etc. And really, why not, when a teleprompter makes it easier to read prepared remarks and still see your audience without losing your place, unlink printed remarks or note cards. It also ensures that you won’t ramble off on a topic and that you’ll be sure to say everything you want to say. No one has any problem with a President writing a speech, and they’d have no problem with him then reciting it word-for-word, but suddenly through in a teleprompter and make it Barack Obama, and they assume a conspiracy wherein someone is pulling his strings and forcing him at gunpoint to read it. This is even harder to believe about Barack Obama who, unlike his most recent predecessor, is well-known for being actively involved in the formulation of his speeches.
Then Barack Obama went on The Tonight Show, which was certainly unusual, but given that George Bush made appearances on Dr. Phil, did not seem to be a sudden and drastic change in the Presidency. People tried to make a controversy out of this, as though if only he spent that 20 minutes in the oval office instead of on television, that he could turn our economy around once and for all. When that nontroversy failed to capture the public’s rancor, the smear merchants then hooked onto a poorly chosen but innocuous comment. Days later, headlines rang out with faux-outrage about the President disparaging the Special Olympics by comparing his paltry bowling score to that of a handicapped person. Even actual journalists quoted him as saying that his score was like “the special olympics or something.” However, those of us who actually watched AND listened to the interview saw that his comment about the Special Olympics came not immediately after telling us his bowling score, but after Jay Leno applauded sarcastically and gave feigned encouragement saying “that’s very good, Mr. President.” It was to this support, despite his performance, that Barack Obama was comparing the Special Olympics. He wasn’t saying that his bowling skills were those of a Special Olympian, but that Jay Leno was acting towards him the way spectators of the Special Olympics acted towards participant, with positive encouragement even when they are unsuccessful. Was it in bad taste? Yes, maybe a little. Was it offensive? No. Does it say anything bad about his character, his view of the handicapped, or his abilities as President? Most definitely not. So why are we wasting time on it?
Everyday there are new nontroversies to distract or to entertain, to enrage or obfuscate, while elsewhere the real problems and offenses are overlooked and underreported. By focusing on inane minutiae, we make it more difficult to solve real problems, which is of course precisely what some people want. Barack Obama’s political enemies see his popularity, and see that his plans have a chance of succeeding, two things which would spell disaster for their political futures. They could offer better alternatives, or support him in hopes of gaining that same popularity and public trust, but instead they choose to distract and make people forget the reason’s they like Barack Obama by giving them false controversies.
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