There’s a tactic of discussion that drives me nuts. Take any social topic, and start out with name-calling against your opposition.
“So and so is a bigot.”
“She’s a racist.”
“He’s a misogynist.”
Because clearly any difference of opinion is exactly the same thing as hatred (animosity, hostility) and intolerance (an unwillingness to endure without repugnance the existence of something).
It’s an incredibly lazy way to approach social issues. It’s judgmental, it’s making assumptions about the motivations and the thoughts of another person – something we cannot accurately and objectively determine – and treating those assumptions as fact. It’s the pot calling the kettle black.
When you call folks out on this disparity, they love to declare “I won’t be tolerant of intolerance.” It’s ok to judge the judgmental. Disregard the fact that almost all virtues are revealed when we demonstrate them toward others, and especially regardless of how the other party behaves. Compassion is no virtue if I’m only concerned about those who are concerned about me. Integrity is useless if I’m only honest with those who have been faithfully honest. If you love only those who love you, what’s special about that?
Call these folks out (or just wait a minute while they sputter in self-righteous rage) and then you’ll hear “I don’t want to debate beliefs. Everyone can feel the way they feel. I just wish people wouldn’t shove their beliefs in other people’s faces.” (Right, like when you claimed anyone who disagrees with you is a bigot/racist/misogynist/ignoramus.)
So in other words, don’t discuss ideas. Even though these differences of opinion form the foundation of multiple debates on social and political policy in our country, let’s not “shove our beliefs in anyone’s face” or discuss our differing perspectives.
Just close off in your little bubble, surrounded by the comfort of assenting voices, hearing only the praises of those who would have you conform to their view. Never let an outside opinion challenge your ideal world, and advocate the value of standing up for nothing, since apparently there’s no topic worth discussing, no argument worth making or defending, no person worth persuading to your cause.
People today — not all, but far too many — are content to live in a cozy little isolated fortress of solitude. Let not some strange concept or disagreeable thought intrude upon this idyllic fantasy! There is no need for dialogue! It would be a shame to have to think.
Added to the lists of conversations I’m sad to have heard:
Person 1 – So George Zimmerman is not guilty.
Person 2 – Really! How long do you think he has to live?
I suppose someone could say they’re sad to have heard any conversation that begins with the first line. I have not an overabundance of faith in the criminal justice system, so I can’t fault those who have less faith than me.
I just played a pretty cool game on the iPad. What do you think of it?
Silly question, eh? First you have to know what the game was, so that you could go play it yourself. Only then could we have a meaningful conversation about the game in question.
Let’s try a different one:
What’s your opinion of the first draft of my fantasy novel?
I know you’ve never read it, but I’m looking for meaningful critique. I need to know where I’m messing up and where I’ve got things right. So I’m eager to hear your point of view.
Ridiculous, isn’t it? Not if you’re the government.
Since government collection of data is all over the news this week, I’m going to assume your Google Fu is sufficient to find the applicable news stories.
I wish this was a surprise. The disclosure of information – that was a surprise, of course. But the idea that the government might be looking closely at the online activities of its citizens? Sadly, no, that’s no great shock in post 9/11 land. Everyone’s a potential threat, so everyone has to get monitored, because we MUST be secure, at any cost. Or so goes the logic, it would seem.
In response to the leaked information and the explosion of the story in the news media, the current administration’s answer is that they “welcome debate on these challenging issues” or something similar.
Well, that’s great.
But you can’t debate what you don’t know about, so that’s a pretty empty statement. Sure, our elected Congressmen get to discuss it (at least some small number of them do), but again, we’ll never know what gets decided and what points are made or left unsaid.
Given some quotes by Congressmen about seemingly basic subjects (i.e. “Guam might capsize if we put too many Marines on it” and “women can shut down pregnancy from rape” and so on), let’s just say I’m not so sure that a good sensible discussion will take place. But I’ll never know, so now I’m even more unsettled about it.
I get why. If we have a public debate about the means we use to collect intelligence on possible threats to American interests, those people are going to change their tactics. Now we’ll have no information instead of whatever we might have gained, and they’ll still be just as committed to their efforts against us, with little to stand in their way. So we really can’t just call some town hall meetings to figure out what level and methods of intelligence collection John Q Public is going to approve.
And maybe to some extent it’s our fault as a nation. When any terror event happens, there’s an outcry asking why we didn’t see it coming, why we didn’t prevent it.
You can only do that with information, so you have to collect lots of information in the hopes of getting the little pieces of the puzzle that you need. But then you’re treating the average American like a potential terrorist, in the hopes of preventing potential terrorism.
CNN featured a blog that referred to this newest round of scandal. It included a quote about this dilemma from former Director of NSA Michael Hayden:
Hayden went on to chastise what he called the “political elites” who criticize the intelligence community for not doing enough, but as soon as they feel safe, “pontificate that we’re doing too much.”
Reminds me of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. “On the other side of that firewall are Chinese hackers looking to damage American interests and terrorists looking to kill American civilians. Someone needs to be watching your chat with your wife on Facebook… someone needs to be looking at every video posted to YouTube… someone needs to read through those e-mails. You want NSA on that firewall. You need NSA on that firewall. You go to sleep under the blanket of freedom they provide and then have the audacity to question the manner in which they provide it?”
Yeah, I guess we do.
I know very few people who trusted the government even a couple years ago. And then there’s all the Patriot Act style concessions, trading small liberties for a hoped-for but hard-to-prove increase in security. Plus there’s incompetence like Fast and Furious, followed by the appearance of political targeting of American citizens in the IRS scandal. Add to that the appropriation of phone records and such by the Department of Justice against reporters. And now this.
Is it government of the people, by the people, for the people? Or is it government of the potential terrorists, against the potential terrorists?
Uncle Sam is quickly becoming the creepy old man that I wouldn’t want anywhere near my kids. Too bad he has keys to all the locks on the house.
I had the privilege of watching Star Trek Into Darkness last weekend. Without getting too far into spoiler territory, the opening scene puts Zachary Quinto’s fantastic Spock into a deadly situation, freezing a volcano in order to save a planet from certain doom. Things go wrong, as they always must, and Spock is trapped. He chooses to stay and do the job, but he cannot be rescued.
He calls back to the Enterprise and explains his logic. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
Chris Pine’s Kirk has a differing view about that.
But in that moment, we see the heroism of Spock’s selfless and practical decision. One man can die to save a population from destruction. If you’ve got to go, that’s not a bad achievement to take from your death.
Now imagine the scene from another angle. Kirk lines up a few “red shirts” and says, “I am going to choose one of you for a suicide mission. You’ll save the planet, but you’ll die in the process.” And then he covers his eyes and points, or plays eenie-meenie-miney-moe, or whatever Kirkly method he chooses, and he selects his crewman. “Lieutenant Jones, it’s you.”
Jones goes to the transporter crying, screaming, fighting until he is restrained. And then he gets beamed down to the planet, ordered to ensure the detonation of a device that will kill him in the process of saving many others. Instead, he scrambles to deactivate the device, like a time bomb. Spock’s voice echoes in Jones’ ears. “It is the logical decision, Lieutenant. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of you.” And Jones fails to stop the device, it goes off, and the day is saved at the cost of Lieutenant Jones’ unwilling sacrifice.
That doesn’t play so well, does it?
Sacrifice is heroic when individuals are free to take that burden upon themselves. The man who jumps on a grenade to save his friends, the medic who pulls his comrades to safety at great risk under heavy fire, the fireman who races into the burning building to save the missing child knowing the structure may collapse at any moment… we see these as heroes and rightly so.
It’s not so moving when someone chooses to sacrifice others against their will. The leader who sends his soldiers into pointless battle for an impossible objective, the criminal who makes his fortune by deception, the deadbeat who takes care of himself while neglecting the basic needs of his children… no one views the sacrifice imposed on the victims as a heroic or praiseworthy situation.
This is what comes to mind for me when I think about “reproductive rights” and abortion in the West.
I thought of this as I was attending a Chinese class. In China, the population lives under the “One Child Policy,” the rule that only the first child receives benefits from the Communist government. I discussed this with my Chinese teacher, along with Spock’s logic. And she confirmed that Chinese society has pretty much accepted this population control as a sacrifice made for the good of the nation. The nation trumps the individual, hands down.
Not so much here. We’re very much about the individual, and their freedom and right to self-determination. Don’t impose your beliefs or values on someone else, and don’t act like there’s some universal values all should esteem. We each have the right to choose!
Yet in the case of abortion, we praise “freedom of choice” when the human beings who make the greatest sacrifice have this burden thrust upon them unwillingly. The fetus does not choose, it is chosen–or rather, unchosen. We are Kirk, sending a red shirt to their death.
I know, I’m a man, so there’s a sense that I’m automatically disqualified from speaking about a woman’s right. But I’m also a human being (as are the victims of abortion). I am also aware of the basic fundamentals of biology which reaffirm that we’re talking about ending the development of human beings during these protected procedures. We may claim that a fetus is not a “person” yet, but it is a human being at a particular stage in development.
I won’t go into the graphic details of how that development is terminated, because it is disturbing. If you so desire, google Gosnell or read about the other similar cases coming to light. Then google or wiki up some abortion procedures. Then ask yourself how it is that what Gosnell did is illegal, but when he did it to a fetus inside a womb, it’s all good.
This is a complex issue, no doubt. I don’t want women in alleys with coat-hangers, to borrow from the Planned Paranoia debate playbook. I’m not keen on abstinence-only education because it seems to me like having information is a general plus. An informed decision about contraceptives might very well prevent an informed (or uninformed) decision about abortion, so I don’t know why many of us aren’t all for that.
I also don’t much like how the Pro-Life movement comes across. Opponents rightly ask, “If you’re all for saving these unborn children and bringing them into the world, who is going to take care of them?” The implication, borne out in reality, is that as much as Pro-Lifers love charity and adoption, there’s not enough of either going on to cover the needs of all the unborn children we might have saved if Roe v. Wade was overturned. Government may be the worst at welfare programs, but if they’re the only player in the game, people take what they can get.
And there are more nuances to consider, no doubt.
I simply want to express how tiresome it is to hear the praises of “choice” in this debate. It’s like generals and politicians exercising choice to send waves of young men and women into combat.
Not quite, though.
The soldier got to raise his or her right hand and volunteer.
Ancient Greece had four cardinal virtues: temperance, prudence, courage, and justice.
The Church has three: faith, hope, and love. Alternatively, some look at “the fruit of the Spirit” Paul put down in his epistles: love, joy, peace, patience, kindess, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Buddhism has its Noble Eightfold Path, Hinduism its Dharma or moral duty, Islam has a long list derived from the Quran, and so on.
Even Ben Franklin, no particular bastion of religious devotion, had his own list of moral virtues.
The key to virtues is that, without fail, they are meant to be practiced regardless of how someone else behaves.
We treat others with love even if they are hateful. We respond with kindness when someone snaps at us. When others would be arrogant, we strive to be humble; when others prove unreliable, we demonstrate diligence and faithfulness. Self-control and temperance do not depend on how wild or disciplined someone else may be.
We practice these virtues because they help us be our best selves. They give us the tools to respond to life’s struggles and difficulties with grace, maintaining dignity in spite of opposition.
Now our society is dealing with the debate over same-sex marriage and whether to recognize it as a right in America. Pitting long-standing religious traditions against the ability to openly express love and fidelity – that’s not just a spark near the fireworks. That’s a nuclear meltdown in progress. The trouble is there’s also a lot of prejudice and ignorance on the religious side, and there’s a lot of defensive lashing out due to past hurt on the same-sex marriage side – understandably so. On top of all that, there seems to be enough hate on both sides to go around.
Which is especially sad since we’re all supposedly talking about expressions of love.
There will always be political disputes and debates, but there doesn’t have to be so much vitriol in our rhetoric.
That brings me to this popular virtue I keep hearing about, called Tolerance.
Tolerance has come to mean that we must not only accept differences in others but also approve of them. When we speak of tolerating a thing, we simply mean acknowledging it, accepting the fact of its existence. I have pain in my foot following surgery. I can tolerate the pain. That doesn’t mean I approve of it. Even the term “acceptance” gets used as if to say “endorsement.” I accept marijuana is used throughout the United States and is even legal in some states. I do not endorse its use.
Equality means treating everyone with respect.
Treating each other as equals means tolerance is not a one way street.
If tolerance is indeed a virtue to which we should aspire, then it cannot be limited to those with whom we agree. We cannot demonize the other side as if everyone is either Westboro Baptist Church or NAMBLA. We cannot jump to conclusions and rush to judgment about what motivates supporters or opponents of same-sex marriage.
No, I don’t believe the activists are out to destroy the families. Most of them are just trying to have a family of their own. And no, I don’t believe most of the opponents think anyone is less than human or not worthy of dignity and respect, contrary to popular belief. Yes, there are too many bad apples. We tolerate their right to speech, even ignorant speech. And we counter their ignorance with prudence, temperance, and respectful disagreement.
We cannot justify intolerance and hatred toward others because “they were intolerant first.”
That’s not how virtues work.
“Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?”
Likewise, if we only tolerate the tolerant, then what sort of virtue is it?
We’re always going to have important discussions in America, on subjects where both sides are very passionate. We owe it to ourselves to focus our energy on the viewpoints, not the participants… on virtue, not venom.
Here are some words you probably didn’t hear in the news recently:
“Some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need.” – First Lady Michelle Obama
The quote comes from an unedited version of an ABC interview. In context, she’s talking about the tragic death of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendelton in Chicago.
This sounds like a problem! Good lord, why would we leave automatic weapons in the hands of children? Isn’t there a law against that? Can’t we do something to stem the tide of automatic weapons flowing into the hands of our sweet children?
Thankfully, ABC was helpful (like all good unbiased media should be, right?). They edited the interview “for time” before airing it on Good Morning America. By “edited for time” I mean that they took out seven seconds of words from two segments lasting over eight and a half minutes. And the seven seconds were the quote you see in italics above, helpfully removed mid-sentence with a visual cutaway to cover the edit for viewers at home.
Ain’t technology grand?
The context of the quote, from the Fox article: “She was absolutely right. She did everything she was supposed to do. She was standing in a park, with her friends, in a neighborhood blocks away from where my kids grew up, where our house is. And she was caught in the line of fire. I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.”
The original unedited quote was “she was caught in the line of fire because some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need.”
First off, yes, it’s a Fox News article that’s drawing on a piece from the Washington Times. I can guess what my liberal friends are thinking. “Right wing agenda! Tea Party propaganda!” And I fell for it! Oh noes!
Wait, how is it a Right wing agenda to point out that ABC happily covered up a glaring error in the First Lady’s understanding of this tragedy? Was it Right wing propaganda to point out edits made to Romney campaign speeches in order to paint him as an out-of-touch buffoon? Were we falling for the deceptions of the Right when we learned about NBC editing the 911 call made by George Zimmerman?
And isn’t the whole point of the media (of whatever stripe) to report the actual facts (as if there are other kinds of facts), not their particular slant and their edited made-for-target-audience version of events?
Is Fox guilty of stuff like this? Probably. I’m sure they like making the Right look good, just like ABC and others try to put the Left in a positive light. I’m no Fox clone, unable to see their position and their bias in reporting. You’ll note that I also linked to a CNN political article in this post.
What I’m saying is, I expect it to be a rule of media that they report what actually happened. If the facts and the tapes don’t tell the story you want, that’s too bad. You don’t get to edit the evidence to paint the picture of reality you want.
(Likewise, dear White House, you don’t get to threaten the press when they report the facts. I guess I can see why ABC would be so eager to edit the interview and help the First Lady save face.)
Technology gives us tremendous tools to get the word out about a given event at unprecedented speeds compared to how news traveled throughout history. But with that power comes responsibility to stick to the truth, not edit it to suit our whims.
You too can create an artistic masterpiece… or not.
A while back, my wife was buying arts and crafts supplies for our children, and she found a Paint By Numbers kit that lets the user create a rough copy of a famous artist’s masterpiece. It was an interesting project for my daughter, who loves all sorts of art. And I appreciate the idea – you can enjoy painting without requiring amazing skill as an artist. Paint By Numbers isn’t “real” art in the sense of something the artist completely creates. Everyone knows that, so no one minds.
But if you try to pass off a Paint By Numbers project as indicative of your artistic talent and creativity, now we have a problem.
A former Air Force intel officer and a current economist, Kane looks at what the military does right in developing leaders, and what it does wrong in managing its people. The basic point is that the best and brightest of the military officer corps are leaving at higher rates than anyone expects, and the assumption is that the same is true of the enlisted. Kane makes the case that while the military is attracting better recruits than ever, it is at the same time hemorrhaging them out as soon as the minimum commitment is up.
I can’t imagine why.
There are two problems with the sort of “leadership” that often gets promoted in today’s military. We emphasize big numbers over real accomplishments, and we demand that future leaders conform to the mold of the past. Paint inside the pre-made lines, please. Don’t worry, we gave you 100% more paint colors than you had before.
We look for metrics and spreadsheets to tell the story of our success, which inherently leads to quantity over quality. Everything must be quantifiable. A “smart” leader knows this, and does whatever it takes to improve key numbers, even at the expense of quality. An upwardly mobile leader knows how to walk the fine line of avoiding by any documented decline in quality while doing everything possible to increase the numbers further. I don’t want to rehash old posts, so… moving on.
Performance reports are functionally useless. The smallest effort can be spun into an amazing “accomplishment” in a report, painting the required pretty picture even though everyone involved knows the individual has no actual talent.
We have a system that encourages checking boxes and telling a good story more than actual decisive leadership and management. There’s a “right” career path, and our young enlisted and officer personnel are told that if you do these things, you will be on the track to swift promotion. We don’t always look back to see the actual performance of the individual. We just look for those key achievements and milestones.
Leaders are judged based on these inflated reports and one-dimensional metrics, but no one considers the human cost involved. Three of the four folks who do my job practically live on painkillers to keep working, because they genuinely love our job. And yet we push harder and try to do more with less. We break individuals because we know we can pull another individual from somewhere else in order to keep getting our quantity and our high rates. Or we ignore people’s needs to meet the mission goal, without realizing that the people are the ones that make the mission successful.
None of this is surprising or new.
And yet the military continues to hang up Paint By Numbers leaders on prominent display in the art gallery. Too often, we reward and promote the managers who do the most harm to their people, because the story the numbers tell looks so good on paper. When the news of an award or promotion creates audible anguish in the form of screams and cries of “WTF” from offices, when individuals at every level question what’s happening and shake their heads in secret, then maybe something important is missing.
Leadership is not a science. There’s no equation for it, no perfect recipe to bake the “leadership” cake. You cannot measure out two cups of reward, plus one cup of discipline, three ounces of compassion and one pinch tenacity.
Leading people is an art form. It takes time and effort to improve. More importantly, it takes compassion for those we lead, and passion for the goal we’re leading them to achieve. Leadership requires vision.
Don’t hang up a Paint By Numbers picture in an art gallery and call it a masterpiece. Likewise, please don’t lead by numbers and call it visionary.
One of my atheist friends on FB shared a powerful and challenging picture.
It’s a challenging question, but “the problem of suffering” is not my point today.
The obvious question is, “Where’s God in the despair and devastation that affects so many in the world? And why do we think God is concerned with petty details of our lives while we ignore human tragedy?”
Here’s a bit of an answer to that.
For a few weeks in a row, I’ve been playing the keys for our church band. It’s something I love to do, because 1) I’m good at it, 2) I enjoy it, and 3) helping the congregation worship is exciting. The practice and the early showtime to get ready for two Sunday services means a bit of extra effort during the week. Sunday becomes a long day, almost a day of “work” when everything in me wants a weekend to relax before returning to the office grind on Monday.
The joy of being part of something greater in the band is well worth the hard work. The impact of seeing people abandoned in worship is even more fulfilling. It’s pretty awesome.
But this Sunday, I was reminded how small my focus can be.
We had a guest from India, a missionary who has lived most of his life as an offering for the benefit of others. He shared some powerful stories of how difficult circumstances have brought about tremendous change in the churches of India and in their relationship to their own culture. He talked about God’s heart for the widow and the orphan, and how the Church-at-large has been able to positively touch the lives of those the Indian caste system considers untouchable.
Then he recounted the unexpected events which led to the start of an unconventional ministry. About 15 years ago, one of his associates happened to lead a group of believers into a red light district in their city. The response from the “working women” was overwhelming. But more than commitments and conversions, these women sought assistance that the Christians were not prepared to provide.
The women were victims of human trafficking and the sex trade. They were not in their situation by choice, nor were they free to leave. But they brought out their daughters, small children and infants living in the brothels. The women begged, “Can you take my child away to a safe place? If she stays here, she will grow up as a slave and will be treated the way we have been. Please help us. Please take our children out of here.”
That day, 37 children were brought out of the red light district, and the missionaries started a makeshift shelter with no plan and no idea how to proceed. All they had was the firm conviction that this act of compassion was what God would desire of them.
Soon, they learned the extent of the slavery in the sex trade around them. They learned that in the city there were perhaps two thousand more children just like those they rescued. They discovered that across the country, there are approximately one million young women and children connected to the sex trade as slaves or victims. Their mission focus changed in a flash from simply “reaching the nation” to extending a hand to those in such deplorable conditions.
15 years later, Project Rescue is spread over 6 nations ministering to thousands of victims. At first they tried to buy some of the women out of these brothels, but very quickly saw that the money was going to bring in more young girls. So now, they reach out a hand to HIV positive women and children, providing shelter and recovery, or providing compassion and care to those not yet freed. They have established churches outside the traditional comfort zones of Western Christianity, and they hold Bible studies right in the midst of the red light district. They’ve taken in women who have been mentally and emotionally shattered by daily sexual brutality and physical abuse. Those women are learning job skills and getting new opportunities to escape the hell they’ve known most of their lives.
The small amount of money given by some in our church provides for many of the needs of this ministry and others like it around the world. A mere $20 bought a cheap t-shirt advertising the project website, but that money also paid for the expense of putting one of these women through a college program. I sat overwhelmed next to my teenage daughter, considering that there are a million more young women just as precious and valuable as her, who are suffering abuse and abandonment.
There are a million girls in India not much different from my daughter who are in terrible situations and desperate need.
I didn’t have much at the moment, but giving up a $20 bill meant impacting someone’s life around the world in a positive way. The deep need and the vast challenge posed by international sex slavery is beyond me, beyond my church, beyond a logical approach or easy fix. But we must respond as best as we are able, for religious reasons or for simple human compassion.
I was reminded of my time on a medical mission in a rural area of the Philippines, and the poverty and need that I witnessed first-hand. I thought of the streets of Thailand, and the desperation I saw there. I remember the homeless in California and Okinawa, and my wife’s efforts to provide food and warmth where we could.
Some of my atheist friends have discussed this with me in the past. “Why do these missionaries have to go do all this with the religion sales pitch? Why not just do it for the sake of helping out?”
Maybe they’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t need a book to tell me to love others as I love myself or to do for them what I’d want done for me if our situation was reversed. Perhaps I shouldn’t need the excuse that “God said to go.”
Then I look for the massive efforts of atheists and agnostics to reach the poor and needy around the world, and I find them severely lacking. There are organizations, yes. There are people far more compassionate than me, no doubt. But there is not an effort on the scale of the charity work being done by churches around the world to reach into the darkness and pull a hurting soul into the light of day.
Jesus taught that His people would be judged based on their response to Him:
“I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.” (Matthew 25, MSG)
They ask, “Where were You? When did we see You? When did we do this?” He responds, “Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.”
And the converse is true. When we’re the ones doing the overlooking, when we’re turning our eyes from the need and ignoring them, He says we’re ignoring Him.
Should I need this reminder, this solemn warning? I suppose not. But the point is that I am interested in being a part of reaching the overlooked and ignored with practical love that meets their real needs. Can we help everyone and rescue all who suffer? No. But we’ll try, and we’ll reach as many as we can.
When people are suffering, I’m not surprised by the question of “Where was God?” But when people are suffering, for those not doing anything to help, don’t be surprised when I ask “Where were you?”
I try to be fair and balanced in my news sources. Haha, no, that means I don’t just look at whatever’s on Fox. I also enjoy CNN and BBC and a variety of reputable news sites because I know that a lot of what comes across as “news” comes with an intended message I’m expected to accept. It’s also instructive when two generally-opposed news agencies are telling essentially the same story about a given issue or event.
CNN and Fox are literally sitting next to each other on my Favorites bar… the closest the two will ever likely get in this day and age.
And this day and age of politics is what’s frustrating me today.
Because apparently it’s important that people drink water.
Yes, he’s clearly done. Also we’re looking into whether President Obama eats (gasp) FOOD.
I understand that the State of the Union response is not the best time to grab a sip. In our political theater, we want stoic and powerful speakers who can stare into the teleprompter, feign concern, and deliver a stunning performance. If a guy starts getting cotton-mouth when he speaks, if he takes an awkward pause to chug some water… well, that’s it, the fourth wall is broken for me and now I start thinking I’m watching news coverage of someone debating American policy decisions and promises made by the current Administration.
You mean this isn’t a remake of West Wing? What the heck! I’ve been lied to!
This Rubio water thing is on the front page of CNN. It says “Sen. Rubio drowning in ‘water-gate.'” In other words, we’re equating this to a President being implicated in directing breaking and entering to conduct illegal wire-tapping to collect information about political foes.
A bottle of water.
Look, we have enough problems in America that deserve some attention. We don’t need to make crap up and call it news.
Maybe we can talk about our spiralling debt and our inability to turn this titanic government away from a looming fiscal iceberg. We are halfway to $17 trillion dollars of debt from the $16 trillion I ranted about a few months ago. For a refresher, $16.5 trillion means:
$16,500,000,000,000. Big number. This big number is almost $1 trillion more than the big number that represents everything our country produces within an entire year. We could put an entire year of American production right into the black hole of debt and still owe just about a trillion dollars. Maybe that’s a bigger problem than a drink of water in a very public speech.
Popular scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted that we [planet Earth’s inhabitants as a whole… he’s very inclusive like that] have a high-rise building-sized chunk of rock hurtling toward our planet with no existing ability to deflect it. Bill Nye (the Science Guy) was on the news talking about Earth missing an impact from that asteroid by a mere fifteen minutes. There is no silver Space Shuttle, no Bruce Willis waiting to detonate a nuke deep in an oncoming asteroid to save humanity from extinction. Since that asteroid is passing by today, maybe that’s something to think about at a higher priority than Marco Rubio’s water bottle.
Tyson also commented on the scientific ignorance afflicting the majority of Americans. Maybe that’s an issue worthy of attention.
Speaking of big numbers, abortion (always hoped to be “safe, private, and rare” by its supporters) has claimed 55 million babies / fetuses since Roe v. Wade. 55 million is pretty big. That’s over one sixth of the population of the USA. Some people think that’s a pretty big deal.
Some people probably consider the population of the US and the world as a whole to be a big deal. 7 billion people on this planet need a lot of resources, and resources in some cases are finite. 7 billion people also use a lot of stuff and leave behind a lot of trash, some of which isn’t going to biodegrade anytime soon. Kind of a big deal.
Ooh, CNN, maybe you should find out whether that water bottle in Rubio’s hand was really biodegradable. That might be another angle you can use to really focus on the key issues in the news today.
Unemployment is still higher than anyone wants it to be. Gun violence is still more rampant than anyone wants it to be. Healthcare in America is probably still more expensive than anyone wants it to be, despite the influence of Obamacare. People in America are fighting for “marriage equality” so that they can love the person they choose. Maybe you’re for that. Maybe it’s a bigger issue than Rubio taking a drink. People in America are fighting to keep their right to express their religious beliefs about marriage and abortion and birth-control. Maybe you’re on their side of the fence. You probably also think it’s a bigger deal than a water bottle during the response to the State of the Union.
Our government recently said, “Trust us when we kill American citizens, we’re totally legit and not shady at all.” And they expected the American public to buy it. Maybe that’s a big deal worth some attention and thought. Marco Rubio took a drink of water, but there’s a 16 year old American kid who got hit by an American Hellfire missile launched off the wing of an American drone flying over a foreign country, and the government can say, “No, really, it’s ok, he was a bad teenager. This is national security stuff, you wouldn’t understand. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” Kind of a big deal.
Heck, maybe that “pilot” can get himself a Distinguished Warfare Medal out of the event. We’re willing to recognize pilots flying drones from around the world as more worthy of respect and admiration than servicemembers dodging (or taking) enemy fire while performing valorous deeds in combat on the battlefield. That’s a big deal too.
If politics means looking pretty and delivering a performance worthy of an Oscar or a Nobel prize, then maybe our society is going the wrong direction. Maybe we’re missing the point, forsaking a discussion and debate of the myriad issues facing our country, and allowing people to frame political issues as a pageant where appearance is all that matters. We’re expected to tune in for the next episode in our favorite political reality show, and chuckle when the laugh track CNN provides tells us the joke is funny.
Sorry, I’m not laughing.
The home of David M. Williamson, writer of fantasy, sci-fi, short stories, and cultural rants.
