Tag: stupidity

The Stupid Factor

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When, in the course of human history, people coalesce around a cause, invariably, it is the fringe and fanatical that visit shame and derision on said cause.

Case in point:

Climate change is real. To assume otherwise is to ignore both established science and our own eyes. Further, and this is also beyond argument, climate change is linked to humans—the extent to which that link is made, whether larger or smaller, can be debated. The fact remains that human action has influenced our climate; our climate is changing, and barring any technological leap in space travel, we have but this one planet on which to live.

There are several sources to this statement (Indian and Greek, among others), but the sentiment is the same:

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they will never sit.”

Whether it is the group Just Stop Oil or Riposte Alimentaire, I believe in their causes. However, I also know that while fossil fuels are limited in their amount worldwide and the cause of enormous amounts of pollution, I also know that neither Van Gough, Da Vinci, nor Monet will be painting anything ever again. Throwing paint or soup at these masterpieces does two things.

First, it brings attention to the cause. I would argue in the wrong way. Again, I believe in their cause. However, their cause, while not getting nearly enough meaningful action from politicians and nations, is not a generally unknown niche item. Everyone has heard about climate change. You don’t need to draw attention to it as if it’s been wallowing in a distant dark corner. You are turning millions of like-minded individuals from standing with you. They want to crawl into a hole to avoid being associated with you and your idiotic stunt.

Second, I believe the attention you ultimately sought with your stunt had less to do with your cause and more to do with you having your picture taken standing next to a disfigured masterpiece covered in paint or soup while you gloomily pose, maybe glued to the frame.

Grassroots activism takes organization and time. It takes determination and persistence. Ultimately, it takes moving the Overton Window so politicians feel they must be part of your movement. And that comes from the inside. It comes from boldly participating in legislative hearings. It comes from lobbying legislators at all levels repeatedly. It does not come from petitions or stunts.

We need change on many social issues, not the least of which are climate change for the planet and gun violence in America. Mothers Against Drunk Driving set the template for success. Moms Demand Action, Everytown, and other gun violence groups have adopted that template. Just Stop Oil and Riposte Alimentaire may have arms of their organizations that attempt the same measures as these more successful organizations. All I know is what I see on the news. And the photos I see on the news, especially as an art lover, make me cringe. The tiny conspiracy theorist in the back of my head wonders whether these stunts because they are so antithetical to the genuinely just cause, are backed by the petroleum industry to discredit all climate change activists. I hope I’m wrong.

Either way, stop gluing yourself to paintings, throwing paint on masterpieces, and throwing food at art. You look like an idiot and damage your supposed cause. These masterpieces have survived (so far) because art restoration professionals consider it an honor and duty to protect and preserve the art. The activists should adopt that level of care and dedication, again, in whose cause I believe, before a masterpiece is lost because of their stunts. Passion alone will not win the day. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. One cannot plant a tree tomorrow morning and expect to sit in its shade in the afternoon.  

My Generational Fallacy

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Maxwell and Finnegan

I am a middle-aged white man. And I can recognize some, but not all, of the societal privileges afforded to me for no other reason than I am a white man. I feel it is important to establish that upfront. I have accomplished things in life partly due to my efforts and partly because of my accident of birth. Accident of birth. What else can I call it? In addition to being born a white male, I was also born in the United States. Again, not of my choosing. But here I am, and I accept the failings in my life as my burden, my fault. I take full ownership of my failures but share my victories as being due to my efforts, others’ efforts, white privilege, and the combination of those factors occurring here in the United States.

The paragraph above is enough to exclude me from the Libertarian party, who believe they alone are responsible for the air they breathe, and they’d like you to thank them for making enough for you like it’s Reardon Steel.

With that backdrop established, let me tell you a little about my upbringing. My first best friend was black. We shared the same first name. When he or I moved away, I’m not sure what happened (I was young and cursed with a terrible memory), my next best friend was Jewish. And the thing is, it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. Or I hadn’t learned from society to hate yet. The only thing I now hate is willful ignorance. I learned so much from my friend about Judaism, its holidays, and the amazing food! I was raised Catholic (as was most of the state in which I was raised). I assumed everyone was Catholic. It wasn’t until much later that I learned Catholicism was itself but a branch of Christianity and Christianity a branch of organized religion.

Throughout my life, until I was probably 30 years old, I assumed that the problems of the past were destined to be solved by my generation. Racism being foremost in my mind and the easiest to solve. It was just wrong! That’s easy to fix, I thought. It was, I thought, the low-hanging fruit of justice, and I assumed I no longer lived in a country responsible for strange fruit (listen to the song). I also thought later in life that gun violence in America would be easily fixed after 26 first and second-graders (and educators) were slaughtered at Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT. In both situations, I learned there was a generational fallacy in my thinking. I assumed my and subsequent cohorts, armed with better information, compassion, and the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, would see the obvious path to social justice. How I was wrong! Chronological snobbery? Maybe. I now believe it is a combination of regional biases and willful intransigence that prevents solving society’s problems.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be 94 years old now if he had not been murdered at age 39 in 1968. What he did, what all who fought for civil rights in America in the 1950s and 1960s, and accomplished, cannot be appreciated using today’s time prism. The Overton Window has undoubtedly shifted on civil rights and many other topics.  What they accomplished then, at great personal risk and, for some, with their lives, is monumental. However, the Overton Window is not a slider moving in one direction but a pendulum constantly swinging between the warmth of progress and the cold intransigence of those benefiting from the status quo. “Make America Great Again” is the most recent example of this philosophical ossification. “Progress” is seen as a threat to their privilege. Equity and equality are, ironically, seen as unfair. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs are seen as nefarious as Affirmative Action. After George Floyd was murdered by the police, DE&I programs blossomed nationwide, and workplaces and communities benefited from new thinking. Unfortunately, today we see the pendulum swinging the other way and DE&I programs being cut in red states all across an even more divided America.

I saw an interview with Martin Sheen recently. He has been arrested for protesting more times than he can count. And it has cost him roles. He said, “If what you believe doesn’t cost you anything, then you’re left to question its value.” He is 83 years old now. And I couldn’t help but appreciate his passion.

I confess to being a West Wing fanatic. I adored that show (especially the first four seasons written by Aaron Sorkin). I think the season finale of the second season (Two Cathedrals) is the best episode of television ever created. That said, and while I remain a devout fan, I also think it ruined politics for me and a generation of those like me. I assumed life was a meritocracy and not the plutocracy and cleptocracy it truly is. I appreciated the sincere debate depicted in the show and assumed that was how politics worked. Today, there is no debate, only sound bites, social media gotcha’s, net zero wins, and tribalism, where a foundation of facts cannot be agreed upon. We can’t even agree on what is a fact!

Martin Sheen lives how Aaron Sorkin writes.

Contrast that with today’s news that 25-year-old NASCAR driver Noah Gragson was suspended indefinitely for liking a disgusting meme laughing about George Floyd’s death. He’s 25 years old. So, no, I no longer believe my generation will solve society’s ills no more than I think my children’s generation (or Noah Gragson’s) will move us forward.

They say the first step in solving a problem is acknowledging there is a problem. We haven’t graduated from that simple first step.  There is no low-hanging fruit when those on the other side will embrace any atrocity rather than let you “win.” And for that, society loses.

My generational fallacy has cost me. Not as much as those in the fight every day. It is a cost for which I feel the need to apologize. It has cost me from seeing the issues clearer. Evidence of that is easy to see. Reread this and count the number of times I say a version of “assume.” However, contrary to the familiar American saying, in this case, it has only made an ass out of me.  I hope to do better. I dream of our country doing better. And now, not generationally.

One Thing

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One thing. Name one thing great about America? One thing? Name one thing we all agree is great about America. I’ll wait.

I went to the grocery store again. And, again, over 90% of people were not wearing masks. Why? Because we got bored, we’re selfish, and we all know better. Except boredom is not an excuse, narcissism is ignorance, and we don’t know better. Madison Cawthorn, the moronic Ken doll in a wheelchair from North Carolina, said as soon as the Republicans regain control of Congress, he’ll bring Dr. Fauci up on charges. Republicans aren’t bored; they’re ignorant, dangerous, and vindictive—freedom at any cost, including the labored death of 700,000 Americans.

One thing. I’m still waiting.

There are parts of the world dying for the vaccine. And yet we have 70 million self-appointed physicians in America who have decided, based on their evidence-based research, that COVID-19 is a hoax, the vaccine makes you magnetic, contains a microchip, and is part of a globalist control program. The virus is ravaging parts of Africa. Our federal government is sending millions of doses of the vaccine across the globe because our citizens are too stupid to help themselves.

Do you know what Americans send to Africa? Bibles. Do you know what corporate America sees Africa as? A market. The problem is Africans can’t afford to buy anything we want to sell them. Do you know what China thinks of Africa? They think of them as resource-rich partners. All our cell phones, televisions, talking refrigerators, and sentient washing machines require minerals and raw materials found in Africa. Guess where all these products America craves are made? China. China buys the resources from Africa. With money. China gives cash to Africa. Not bibles. The people of Africa can purchase food with cash. They can’t eat bibles.

The asshole carrying his boom-boom stick AR-15 in Starbucks is the “good guy with a gun,” he’ll tell us. Except there’s no flashing purple light over his head or a vaccine card to verify it for those of us who just see a weapon of war in a coffee shop. It’s the same with masks. Maybe everyone in the grocery store is double vaccinated and has qualified for the booster. But there’s no flashing purple light over their head. I don’t trust you. Sorry. I wear a mask to protect those too stupid to believe in science and their fellow neighbors and family members. And for those under 12 unable to be vaccinated yet. And for those with compromised immune systems leaving them vulnerable. You’re not because why? Oh, you know better? No. You don’t care.

What constitutes American exceptionalism? Still waiting. Oh, I know what they’ll say. “If it’s so bad, why don’t you leave? America is the home of the free because of the brave!” Fuck you. If people like me leave, that only lowers the national IQ and it’s already hovering dangerously close to the floor. So, no, I’m not going.

And stop taxing your tiny brains. There is no one great thing about America. American exceptionalism is a fantasy broadcast by the right and the ignorant to cover up an infantile worldview and those with an absolute abdication of responsibility. American exceptionalism isn’t a reality. It’s a goal. But goals cannot be achieved if the lowest common denominators make policy in the absence of fact, truth, and understanding and in the presence of fantasy, jingoism, and malice.

One thing. Couldn’t do it.

Freedom…

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The First Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Can someone, perhaps a Constitutional scholar (or someone who attended the University of Hard Knocks because, apparently, that’s the same thing), explain to me how these “rights” as written by James Monroe came to be interpreted as freedom from responsibility? Please?

Reeling from a global pandemic, science handed us a way out. And it was made free and accessible to everyone! And yet, after sitting on our asses for a year, we cannot be bothered to get vaccinated. We can’t be bothered to do what is right for our family, our neighbors, our nation, the world. Because FREEDOM! But freedom from what? Can someone answer that question? What’s the end of that phrase? Freedom from what? 

I see yard signs now saying UNMASK OUR CHILDREN! Unmask? Oh, you mean to leave the decision to protect your child, my family, and everyone too stupid to vaccinate themselves to you and your internet search medical degree?

I still wear a mask inside stores. Do you know why? I’m vaccinated! The CDC says I no longer need to wear a mask indoors. I wear the mask indoors for two reasons. First, because the vaccine has provided cover for those too selfish to vaccinate themselves; in other words, those unvaccinated can claim to be vaccinated and therefore no longer need to wear a mask indoors. I wear a mask indoors with those I do not know because I do not trust them. Their freedom from responsibility leaves them vulnerable to the virus and a prime candidate to join 600,000 other dead Americans. And, honestly, I’m done worrying about their lives. If they’re too selfish and cloaked in the wisdom granted by the Fox News science and medical experts Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity, I don’t care if they live or die. Just as they have rid themselves of caring whether I live or die. Second, I wear the mask because I could be carrying the virus and be asymptomatic due to the vaccine. Despite my anger at the unvaccinated, I wear it to protect them from me.

 Freedom from responsibility has replaced both the first and second Amendments. We have the freedom to say and do anything we want, but we now assume it was granted without responsibility. No blowback is expected or appreciated. We have been locked indoors for a year. And when finally bored enough, we ventured out. Some of us were vaccinated. But the bored move about freely. And as soon as we ventured out of our homes, we did so, not with the vaccine, but with our guns. Free to leave our homes, Americans are now subjected to multiple mass shootings a day. Because Freedom! But, again, no one finishes that phrase. Freedom from what, if not responsibility?

I weigh too much. Guess what? It’s because I overeat. Not because of my boss, my spouse, my government, or my family. And guess what? When I take responsibility for my weight and eat better foods and less of it, I lose weight! If I eat red meat, there is a chance my heart will suffer, or my cells may rebel in cancer. The danger I am subjecting others to is limited. My family will suffer my loss. But my job will be filled within a week, and the world will carry on. However, not vaccinating myself leaves me vulnerable, along with everyone with whom I come in contact. The danger is expanded exponentially—the exposed beyond just me. And to do that to others is selfish and devoid of responsibility. 

The irony of this situation is that those refusing to be vaccinated directly infringe on my freedoms! I may soon be required to wear a mask everywhere again because the unvaccinated will drive us back into restrictions and lockdowns. I did the right thing for everyone, but I may soon be restricted from moving about freely because of the unvaccinated.

The first definition of socialism in the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines socialism as:

Any of the various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Can we agree that seatbelts are a socialistic response to automobile injuries and deaths? Can we agree that highways are a socialistic response to bad roads being too expensive for each of us to build alone? Can we agree that the military that the right fawns over and spends almost a trillion dollars on a year is a socialistic response to existential or dogmatic geopolitical threats? If so, can we not also agree that solutions to problems need to be made on a granular level exclusive of a nation’s political definition? Can we agree that it is possible and appropriate to have a socialistic response to a problem within a democratic republic? That perhaps reductio ad absurdum or ad hominem arguments against proper answers to issues are simpleminded, foolhardy, and just plain wrong?   

 My rights are being infringed as a vaccinated citizen both by those who will not vaccinate themselves and those who think a gun gives them power and absolution. Freedom from responsibility is now the American creed. 

2022

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Winston Smith awoke from his nap, the tattered science textbook still resting on his chest. It rose and fell with his breathing, the paper-thin book jacket waving in time with his exhalations.

It was dangerous enough to be napping during the day, especially this day, but to have been caught with that volume in his possession would have been personally devastating. Fortunately, it was still mid-morning, and the Happiness Squads hadn’t begun their daily sweeps. He hadn’t slept well the previous night, and it had caught up with him after his breakfast sank into his belly.

Today was the anniversary of the rebellion, a day when “spontaneous” celebrations and protests erupted across the new nation in honor of the heroes of the previous year. The migration and funerals paused on this day. Everything paused.

Winston looked at his upper arm. The redness had subsided from the previous day. In another day or so, there would be no evidence of his insubordination, no way to identify him as one of “them.”

It still struck him as strange. He thought again of the science textbook now safely tucked under the floorboards in the bedroom. Cancer, he had read, was the process of mass replication of mindless cells with the ultimate, suicidal goal of killing its host. His mind made the connection before he had the chance to consider it. How similar was that metaphor to what had happened over the past few years, but especially the past year?

He looked at the paperboard flyer everyone had received in the mail still sitting on his kitchen table. The Happiness Squad would be by shortly to ensure it had been placed in a prominent place. He thought of the mantle, the refrigerator, the door. Getting up, he picked up the placard and decided on the door. That way, he could see it both when passing by the door and, especially, as the last thing before leaving his apartment. He read the words out loud to himself:

Science is fiction.
Freedom is ignorance.
Ignorance is strength.
God trumps all.
Trump is God.

Following last year’s purge (or emergency recall elections, as they were called), evangelicals, once a fringe group of mystics and non-taxed mass delusion peddlers, now comprised 100% of the Senate following last Spring’s purge. Since then, the nation had fallen further as the emergence of the epsilon variant to coronavirus had risen. First, it infected the young and the unvaccinated (or Insubordinate as they were now called). Then the evangelicals had seized control as the moral arm of MAGA nation under Trump.

They first convinced the country that a cloud shaped like a fist with the index finger pointing skyward was the sign God was with them and the solution finally at hand (pun intended). They said the reason for the epsilon variant’s rise was because the vaccinated, the Insubordinates, were emitting undetectable, demonic microwaves infecting the unvaccinated. Science is fiction, we were told. Freedom is ignorance. Absolution walked hand in hand with willful ignorance. Those (scientists) claiming to have an answer (the vaccine) were the first sacrifices to the purge. God would show the way. Trump would lead the way. He was the only one who could solve it.

The death toll from the previous day had topped 500,000 for the sixteenth day in a row. What remained of the South were pockets of the Insubordinate and the Happiness Squads rounding them up. Winston thought of the press conference held last year when Trump told them to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was his final, most essential command. It was then that the evangelicals began to set a firm date for His return to the White House. On the same date, the cloud showed them God was manifestly on Trump’s side.

The Happiness Squads protected themselves, as had the evangelicals, with aluminum foil hats. They believed the metal prevented the transmission of the demonic microwaves and saved them from the epsilon variant. Still, with a 63% failure rate, there were rumblings of its protective properties. Thicker sheets of aluminum foil would soon be produced through the Insubordination Distribution Incentive Output Taskforce recently passed by the reconstituted Senate. The bill’s negotiations had proven difficult to conclude as senators were constantly being replaced, either through epsilon variant deaths or the recently imposed three-week term limits.

The press conference presented evidence supporting the purge. Two maps of the United States were overlaid on one another. The first showed the results of the 2020 election by county. The second showed the death rate by county. With near perfect uniformity, the maps coalesced. This was proof, they were told of the microwave’s effective dissemination of the virus targeting only those who voted for Trump. The Happiness Squads were formed the next day under Generals Sebastian Gorka, Stephen Miller, and Stephen Bannon.

Winston had just secured the placard to his front door when the knock came.

“Happiness Squad, open up in the name of Trump,” said the voice.

Winston hesitated a second, pulled the short sleeve of his shirt over his underground obtained vaccination site, and opened the door.

O’Brien entered first, followed by three camouflaged troopers wearing their officially sanctioned “tactical” aluminum foil hats and toting “recreational, modern sporting” AR-15’s.
“Why are you not mustering for your parade position yet, Smith?” said O’Brien.
“I did not sleep well last night and fell asleep on the couch this morning after breakfast,” explained Winston.
“There have been reports of mask-wearing in this neighborhood, Smith. Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” asked O’Brien, squinting his eyes as though that allowed him to see inside Winston.
“No,” said Winston, “I saw one in the gutter last week, but given its condition, I’m sure it hadn’t been worn since the purge.”

“Sweep the apartment,” O’Brien barked to the Happiness Squad. “You know we’re only here to ensure your happiness, don’t you, Winston?”
“Of course!” answered Winston. His eyes stole a glance at the bedroom into which the Happiness Squad had entered. His pulse quickened when he heard their footfalls on his floor, hoping the loose boards hiding his science textbook would not betray him.
“Sir, we’ve found something,” said the leader of the Happiness Squad. O’Brien stared intently at Winston for what seemed a minute before heading into the bedroom.

Muffled voices emanated from the bedroom. Orders were given.
O’Brien emerged from the bedroom with the tattered textbook raised before him, looking so much like President Trump holding the bible outside the church in Lafayette Square years earlier in his famous photo op that Winston giggled. He was in trouble, and he knew it.

“Yours, Winston?” asked O’Brien.

“Can I ask you a question, O’Brien?” posited Winston, suddenly freed by the truth and warmed by fact.

“What is it?” an annoyed O’Brien asked.

“That book describes cancer as the mass replication of mindless cells with the ultimate, suicidal goal of killing its host,” began Winston. Behind him, one of the Happiness Squad lowered his Happy Gun to clear a nagging cough. “Today is the day of celebration for the beginning of the overthrow of a tyrannical government. January 6th is celebrated today and will be on every January 6th after that. So, my question is: Without the Insubordinates, without the vaccine, without science, who would He blame? Science created the vaccine, and the old government offered it free(!) to its people. Isn’t it possible, just possible, that disinformation, doublespeak, and idolatry have acted as the catalyst for a population ready to mass replicate, through force, if necessary, with the ultimate, suicidal goal of killing this nation? Isn’t it possible?”

The blow to his head came from behind. The Happiness Squad leader provided the final insult. The vaccine would not save Winston now, nor, did it seem, could science and facts save the nation.

The history books would never mention Winston Smith, and his tattered science textbook would disappear in a burst of bright fire along with so many others on a night later that summer named Fahrenheit 452 Night.

Stupidity Fatigue

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Head in HandsThere is a saying in the lottery industry when the public will not purchase tickets for a seemingly high jackpot called “jackpot fatigue.” It is caused by the ever increasing and ever publicized jackpots always available to the public. The public has seen it all before and heard it all before and nothing new can be said about the jackpot total to get them to the convenience store to purchase a ticket. It’s all been done before.

I find myself suffering a similar kind of fate lately regarding the public at large. Events that used to anger me now no longer pique my interest or at least no longer send me to my computer and my Twitter feed where I would once fire off a pithy comment. Twitter especially has become the bastion of trolls ready to engage in bumper sticker based retorts and troglodyte tantrums rather than the necessary thought out debates. It is the AM radio of the internet.

I feel guilty for abandoning those things about which I am still passionately concerned: gun violence prevention, women’s rights, protecting my children from all manner of political stupidity, animal welfare, etc., etc, but I know that there are still those out there whom I trust to carry the ball downfield while I suffer this miasmatic ennui. I still read and I still write, just not at the same temperature as before.

Right now there are about 300 GOP candidates running for president, so there is still time for me to come out of this spin and focus the laser. Right now the moms and dads of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America are meeting in Minneapolis to discuss next steps. In another universe, a universe where I wasn’t working with hospice to care for my dying wife, I would have joined them to learn what I could do to better fight gun violence in blood soaked America. But that is not the universe in which I currently reside. I do not make excuses, but only present facts. I am tired, physically and mentally.

I am tired of the stupidity of the southern white male with his pickup truck emblazoned with hunting decals and NRA stickers, tired of the stupidity of religious hypocrites festooned with Christian stickers on their cars and quick to criticize anyone not their mirror image. I am tired of the stupidity of the 300 GOP candidates running for president who are fighting for air time by reaching for the lowest common denominator in their demographic and ultimately the shallowest of the public gene pool. I am tired of cancer and the stupidity of its suicidal march toward the murder of its host. I am tired of the stupidity. I am suffering from stupidity fatigue.

Intolerant

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Orwell warning

At fifty years of age, having now buried my father and father-in-law due to lung cancer, and caring every day for my wife as she suffers the effects of breast cancer, and having just learned of the cancer diagnosis of another friend, I find my tolerance for what I call “manufactured drama,” those ultimately insignificant (or moderately annoying at most) parts of life rapidly subsiding.

I find it hard to believe that there are those among us who have not been touched by cancer’s reach or violence’s wound or any of the other catastrophic events we usually associate with prioritizing life’s other goals and worries in a hurry, but I am told they exist and society seems to function as if it were so. In fact, society not only seems to function as if it were this way, but it seems that these escapees dictate the course of public discourse, politics, religion, entertainment, sport, in short, lead society as a whole. How can this be?

We live in a society where, while 90% of climatologists not only agree that global warming is real, but that humans are a significant cause of the rising temperatures, and yet a United States Senator can stand in the well of the Senate with a snowball in February and claim that as proof that global warming is a hoax. When the House of Representatives can pass legislation prohibiting those same expert climatologists from presenting testimony in favor of House members standing on their soapbox, clutching their bible denying global warming, evolution, homosexuality, a woman’s right to her own body, and any other matter they choose with a 14% approval rating but with a 95% reelection rate.

We live in a society where we are addicted to fossil fuels and any attempt to move away from them is met with skepticism and outright contempt. Wind energy is deemed too inefficient, solar energy is deemed too expensive. Hydrogen fuel cell technology doesn’t exist to the point of viability yet. Hydroelectric energy, nuclear energy? Old and dangerous. And who deems it so? The ossified and incentivized. The only source of energy we are told we can readily “enjoy” is coal and oil. Just run that Keystone pipeline down from Canada to the Gulf. There will be thousands of new jobs. Well, temporary jobs. Thirty-five to 50 permanent jobs, but we’ll forget that part. Don’t read the fine print, America. In fact, don’t read anything at all. As usual. Ah, but there’s “clean” burning coal now! And “clean” burning diesel engines! Problem solved, go back to watching the Kardashians, America. Who will The Bachelor pick? Where did Honey Boo Boo go?

And that is the problem. We allow ourselves to be manipulated, misdirected. It is the obfuscation, the sleight of hand that lulls us into concern for our favorite sports team or the comings and goings of the latest person famous for being famous that allows us to ignore those larger issues. We watch a never ending series of awards shows on television. To the point where if we watch the Oscars and the Emmys, we will see the Oscars beat out the Grammys at the Emmys for Best Variety show. When does the celebrity sit and watch the awards show for best gardener? Why do we allow this? Because we’ve allowed the unaffected to dictate the agenda. We have allowed the simpleminded to lead the vacant; we have allowed those with one agenda item to lead all of us down their primrose path and away from what matters because it is easier for us, faster for us, cheaper for us, and allows us not to have to do that hardest of all things – think. Shame on us.

The NFL satiates the American male’s need for machismo. It is why pickup trucks are the number one selling vehicle in America. It satisfies the easy, fast, cheap manhood we have abdicated. We embrace half of the Second Amendment, hug our guns instead of our children, grow beards instead of tomatoes, ignore what concussions do to our children and heroes, turn a blind eye to a billion dollar, tax-exempt industry which ignores domestic abuse, turn an even blinder eye to the athletes cast aside who do not hit the NFL lottery and are left broken, broke and uneducated, and we call it sport.

We preach tolerance in our churches but forget those teachings as soon as we pass through the doors. Our politicians stand up at rallies clamoring for religious freedom in an effort to quash other’s religious inroads because what they really intend is Christian freedom, Christian law. In fact, the “tolerance” being taught, the politician’s speech, the political correctness of the 1990’s has been bastardized now into code. Political correctness is now nothing but code words. We don’t say black. We say thug. Both sides somehow claim to be fighting against a “war on women.” One side is correct. How did this come to be? Because we allowed it. Because it is easier for us to let someone else to think for us. Because we don’t read. Orwell would be horrified to know how right he was.

And so, I am left intolerant of those I should educate or pity. Intolerant of the dead eyes in the expressionless people of Wal-Mart. Intolerant of the manipulative politicians beating war drums for Eisenhower’s feared military industrial complex who must continue to churn out “product,” needed or not because Wall Street demands dividends even if enemy combatants do not yet exist. Intolerant of gun fanatics clutching their arsenals, crying over nonexistent government tyranny and confiscation and patriotically accepting the 30,000 we bury every year in the name of “freedom.” Intolerant of the ignorant who remain so in an age when information is so readily available. I am intolerant of those exorcized by the minutia because they are incapable of handling (or wholly unaware of) the important.

And yet, I cannot. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “It’s an universal law– intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.” My parents raised me to think. Education is my religion. I will try to remain humble because I know I am not alone. I will try to always learn. I will always continue reading. As those of us in the gun violence prevention movement, with whom I am so honored to surround myself so frequently say, I choose love. Intolerance is too heavy a burden. But so, too, is silence. I love my wife, my children, and my world too much.

Ideology

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Ideology, like religion, demands one abandon critical reasoning and doubt. By another name, faith leads one to the comfortable conclusion that one’s position is unalterably correct, thus removing the prickly questioning normally associated with sentient thought. However, this relinquishment of critical analysis leads to ever more epistemic closure in a death spiral toward absolutism. In fact, absolutes invariably vanish the closer one gets to the issue. There is no “pure evil” just as there is no “pure good.” Humans comprise both ends and all intermediate places on the spectrum. To assume otherwise is to deny one’s own personality while subjecting others to an unnatural status. If the “devil is in the details,” then, by definition, any god is too far removed from the issue to offer alms.

Ideology, in its most rabid form, invariably leads to hatred, racism, subjugation or war. Consider the fundamentalists associated with White Pride or Black Power, xenophobia or nationalism, misogyny or homophobia. These “phobias” are, of course, mislabeled. They do not indicate a “fear of,” but rather a “hatred of” someone different than oneself. Simplistic by design, anyone with an opposing view is deemed ignorant or irrational and easily dismissed. Living in a black or white world (I mean this in terms of absolutism and not race) may be reassuring but it is most certainly delusional.

Current events supply two readily available examples of this: Ted Cruz’s 21-hour temper tantrum on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, and those exorcised individuals “defending” the Second Amendment over the past nine months since Newtown.

Senator Cruz’s marathon speech, performed for no discernible purpose but to garner personal attention, was presumably conducted in an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), although that possibility was only ever a Tea Party fantasy. Along party lines, the ACA was passed by both Houses of Congress in 2009 and signed by this Democratic president. Subsequent judicial challenges have validated the legality of the law. Whatever your thoughts are on our two party system, just like the odd sibling out in a family of three children, two against one will almost always prevail. Thus, for better or worse, a Republican controlled House will typically lose out to a Democratic controlled Senate and White House. This is not always the case, but in our ever increasingly polarized, and by extension, paralyzed Congress, petty party politics triumph where wisdom and governance is required. Ted Cruz personifies Tea Party doctrine and Washington grandstanding over negotiation and solutions.

In contrast to most gun control activists who feel obligated to include a blanket caveat of supporting the Second Amendment in every discussion, gun rights activists convey an ideology so absolute it crosses into militantism. Hatred and dogma preclude any discussion or negotiation. Their circular logic of I-need-my-gun-because-I’m-a-good-guy-and-the-guy-next-to-me-might-be-a-bad-guy (with no explanation of how we are to know he is a good guy other than faith) is the precursor to Hammurabi’s code, but in this case America is left with bullet riddled school children and paranoid gunslingers rather than someone simply losing an eye or a tooth.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, to learn that most gun rights activists are also members of the Tea Party. Nothing says “America” like an Austrian Glock and Chinese oolong.

Syriasly?

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chemweapon

Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare.  Signed at Geneva, June 17, 1925.

French and English official texts communicated by the President of the Council, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the French Republic.  The registration of this Protocol took place September 7, 1929.

THE UNDERSIGNED PLENIPOTENTIARIES, in the name of their respective Governments :

Whereas the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilised world; and

Whereas the prohibition of such use has been declared in Treaties to which the majority of Powers of the world are Parties; and

To the end that this prohibition shall be universally accepted as a part of International Law, binding alike the conscience and the practice of nations;

DECLARE:

That the High Contracting Parties, so far as they are not already Parties to Treaties prohibiting such use, accept this prohibition, agree to extend this prohibition to the use of bacteriological methods of warfare and agree to be bound as between themselves according to the terms of this declaration.

The High Contracting Parties will exert every effort to induce other States to accede to the present Protocol. Such accession will be notified to the Government of the French Republic, and by the latter to all signatory and acceding Powers, and will take effect on the date of the notification by the Government of the French Republic.

The present Protocol, of which the French and English texts are both authentic, shall be ratified as soon as possible. It shall bear today’s date.

The ratification of the present Protocol shall be addressed to the Government of the French Republic, which will at once notify the deposit of such ratification to each of the signatory and acceding Powers.

The instruments of ratification of and accession to the present Protocol will remain deposited in the archives of the Government of the French Republic.

The present Protocol will come into force for each signatory Power as from the date of deposit of its ratification, and, from that moment, each Power will be bound as regards other Powers which have already deposited their ratifications.

Signed by 138 countries. Signed by United States 6/17/1925. Signed by Syria 12/17/1968

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

Chemical Weapons Convention

Articles

Article I. General Obligations

1. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes never under any circumstances:

(a) To develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons, or transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons to anyone;

(b) To use chemical weapons;

(c) To engage in any military preparations to use chemical weapons;

(d) To assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.

2. Each State Party undertakes to destroy chemical weapons it owns or possesses, or that are located in any place under its jurisdiction or control, in accordance with the provisions of this Convention.

3. Each State Party undertakes to destroy all chemical weapons it abandoned on the territory of another State Party, in accordance with the provisions of this Convention.

4. Each State Party undertakes to destroy any chemical weapons production facilities it owns or possesses, or that are located in any place under its jurisdiction or control, in accordance with the provisions of this Convention.

5. Each State Party undertakes not to use riot control agents as a method of warfare.

Signed by 189 countries. Signed by United States 1/13/1993 Syria has not signed.

As a critic of the sea of steel the United States finds itself drowning in, namely the 310,000,000 firearms flooding society, I find the current debate regarding the potential use of military force in Syria to be humorous if it weren’t, like the gun debate, so deadly serious.

One of the arguments I hear all too often by the gun-hugging, “patriot” crowd (other than the banal argument that toting an arsenal around to get a skinny latte at Starbucks is a “God given right”), is the equally numb “criminals don’t follow the law” line. Because “they” don’t, these “patriots” argue, there is no sense in having common sense gun legislation such as universal background checks. This simplistic argument, if taken to its logical conclusion would suggest that we abolish all laws because, by definition, criminals don’t follow the law. Indeed, the Tea Party would suggest that we abolish the IRS, the Department of Education and the… uh, um, what’s the third one there? Let’s see… Oops. Of course, it is always every other department, other than the one which constitutes 20% of the federal budget, defense. When you spend $718 billion a year on defense, it becomes reasonable to want to play with the toys that Santa War brought you.

Which brings me to Syria and the mirror-image response many Americans have to Syria versus the gun debate. The United States and its citizens have assumed the mantle of “the world’s policeman” bestowed upon itself through the confluence of being the “victor” of the Cold War and the permanent paralysis of the UN to act. Unfortunately, one cannot be the policeman of the world with its altruistic, justice-seeking mandate and be a world power with “national interests” flavoring every decision. “Rescuing” Kuwait from Saddam’s clutches followed by two Gulf wars to “free” Iraq and another war  to “stabilize” Afghanistan have done little to convince the rest of the world that we are not just another mammoth imperial entity trying to dictate our ethos (and capitalism couched as democracy) on a misguided world. Our blind eye to the people suffering in Sudan, Congo, Somalia, Kashmir, Darfur notwithstanding, we are on the side of right; God is on our side. And therein lays the problem.

President Obama said in Stockholm today, “I didn’t set a red line — the world set a red line.” If that is the case, then the UN should handle the investigation and response. Of course, it might be faster to watch the polar ice caps melt than wait for the UN to act. If the world set the red line, then where is the international outrage and rush to punishment some Americans are salivating for? The UK listened to David Cameron’s position and said, no thanks. Where is the coalition of forces massing on the border to overthrow Assad and bring him to The Hague for crimes against humanity? I’ll wait.

The suffering of the people in Syria is horrific. The videos leaked on social media of the chemical attack show unconscionable pain. But being a country that suffered through its own civil war (has there ever been a more oxymoronic phrase in the English language?), imagine the headlines had France or Russia bombed Washington, D.C. in 1863 because Union forces were using steel ships. Why didn’t England bomb Paris in 1789 because French troops were busy shooting Gavroche? Why didn’t the United States bomb Pretoria or Cape Town when apartheid kept 85% of the population under the control of the white 15%?

Why? Because there is law; because if we ignore the law we are the criminals. Laws without punishment are impotent. The answer is not to abolish the laws, but to enforce them. If they have no teeth, change them. This is neither earth-shaking nor “God given”, but merely common sense. If Syria has chemical weapons in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, the UN should send in inspectors to confiscate them under the tip of a multilateral UN-backed coalition of forces. Again, law with consequences. If the “good guy” with a gun suddenly becomes the “bad guy” with a gun, he should have his gun taken away from him under the tip of US-backed law enforcement. Laws must have consequences when violated. Unfortunately, the Congress will likely authorize “surgical strikes” (another military oxymoron) on Syria and continue to ignore the blood stained streets of America under a hail of gunfire and simple-minded patriotism. God bless the USA.

Character Candling

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candling egg

From Merriam Webster:

candle (transitive verb): to examine by holding between the eye and a light; especially : to test (eggs) in this way for staleness, blood clots, fertility, and growth

Have you ever looked at a word you’ve written a thousand times as though it couldn’t possibly be spelled that way? You doubt yourself, double check it in the dictionary and carry on. I have recently had the opportunity to reassess personal relationships I’ve held sacred, but upon examination found I have done so without a compelling reason.  No longer a child, I held up these individuals to the same light of reason, logic, compassion and magnanimity  to which I would hope to be judged, not unlike candling an egg. Rather than record my observations, I sought insight from those more intelligent. Here are my thoughts via their appropriated words, alpha by author:

“Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.”     Maya Angelou

“Beware the man of a single book.”     St. Thomas Aquinas

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”     Isaac Asimov

“The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.”     W.H. Auden

“I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance.”     Reuben Blades

“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”     Derek Bok

“There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.”     Robert Burns

“The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.”     Albert Camus

“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”     George Carlin

“The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other in opposite directions.”     George Carlin

“I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.”     Marcus Tullius Cicero

“I am not ashamed to confess I am ignorant of what I do not know.”     Marcus Tullius Cicero

“He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.”     Marcus Tullius Cicero

“To live is to think.”     Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Confidence is ignorance. If you’re feeling cocky, it’s because there’s something you don’t know.”     Eoin Colfer

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”     Confucius

“Ignorance is the night of the mind, a night without moon or star.”     Confucius

“The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance.”     Confucius

“He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.”     Confucius

“Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.”     Dalai Lama

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”     Charles Darwin

“And, in fine, of false sciences I thought I knew the worth sufficiently to escape being deceived by the professions of an alchemist, the predictions of an astrologer, the impostures of a magician, or by the artifices and boasting of any of those who profess to know things of which they are ignorant.”     René Descartes

“Military guys are rarely as smart as they think they are, and they’ve never gotten over the fact that civilians run the military.”     Maureen Dowd

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.”     Albert Einstein

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”     Albert Einstein

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.”     Harlan Ellison

“Fear always springs from ignorance.”     Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.”     Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”     Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”     Euripides

“Anger exceeding limits causes fear and excessive kindness eliminates respect.”     Euripides

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”     F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Stupidity lies in wanting to draw conclusions.”     Gustave Flaubert

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.”     Benjamin Franklin

“The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.”     Benjamin Franklin

“The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.”     Benjamin Franklin

“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”     Benjamin Franklin

“I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.”     Kahlil Gibran

“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”     Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, selfishness, evil — or else an absolute ignorance.”     Graham Greene

“If you’re gonna be stupid you gotta be tough.”     John Grisham

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”     Stephen Hawking

“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”     Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

“The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.”     Elbert Hubbard

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.”     Elbert Hubbard

“The learned man knows that he is ignorant.”     Victor Hugo

“The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.”     Thomas Jefferson

“Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth.”     Joseph Joubert

“The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing — to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.”     John Keats

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”     Søren Kierkegaard

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”     Martin Luther King, Jr.

“A fool can easily be known by what proceeds from his or her mouth.”     Adedayo Kingjerry

“Living is easy with eyes closed.”     John Lennon

“Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.”     Michael Levine

“I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”     Abraham Lincoln

“A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.”     Nelson Mandela

“Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.”     Groucho Marx

“A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.”     Henry Miller

“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”     George Orwell

“I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.”     Blaise Pascal

“And whenever anyone informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man –whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyze the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.”     Plato

“A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.”     Alexander Pope

“There is no reply to the ignorant like keeping silence.”     Proverb

“Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; an argument an exchange of ignorance.”     Robert Quillen

“When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds.”     Will Rogers

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”     Bertrand Russell

“A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”     Bertrand Russell

“Two things are to be remembered: that a man whose opinions and theories are worth studying may be presumed to have had some intelligence, but that no man is likely to have arrived at complete and final truth on any subject whatever. When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd, we should not attempt to prove that it is somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true. This exercise of historical and psychological imagination at once enlarges the scope of our thinking, and helps us to realize how foolish many of our own cherished prejudices will seem to an age which has a different temper of mind.”     Bertrand Russell

“Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.”     Seneca

“There is no darkness but ignorance.”     William Shakespeare

“A knavish speech sleeps in a fool’s ear.”     William Shakespeare

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”     William Shakespeare

“The shortest route to courage is absolute ignorance.”     Dan Simmons

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”     Socrates

“It’s an universal law– intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.”     Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”     Maurice Switzer

“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”     Thomas Stephen Szasz

“Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.”     John Tillotson

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”     Leo Tolstoy

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”     Mark Twain

“Ignorance is a virus. Once it starts spreading, it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.”     Neil deGrasse Tyson

“He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.”     Voltaire

“The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.”     Voltaire

“If your brains were dynamite there wouldn’t be enough to blow your hat off.”     Kurt Vonnegut

“Irony is wasted on the stupid.”     Oscar Wilde

“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”     Oscar Wilde

“He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more.”     P.G. Wodehouse

“Ignorance is not bliss – it is oblivion.”     Philip Wylie

“Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.”     Zig Ziglar

Which quote is your favorite?

Mine?

“Many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills.”     William Shakespeare.

Although you may recognize it as:

“The pen is mightier than the sword (or gun).”