First of all, skim this sad story on child laborers in Kenya.
I read this recently and it got me thinking about our priorities in birth, sustaining life, education, and general health. Why, for example, do some conservatives care so much about the life of a "child" (better known by its actual name: Mr. Fetus) before it is born, and then cease to care about it the moment it emerges from the birth canal? We will force you to have that thing, lady! But, oh, you wanted some health care for it now that it's breathing on its own? Um, sorry, that's socialist.
Why do doctors spend dozens of hours separating conjoined twins while half a world away children die because they can't get clean drinking water? We know the answer: prestige. But cast that aside and the operation seems like a strange way to prioritize.
And let's say we do bring those poor third-world children clean drinking water. We'd be hailed as heroes. Look at all the lives we're saving! But that begs the question: are they "lives"? So the children with the swollen bellies live to see another day. That's a start. Can we give them an education? Or will they--like the kids in the article--end up slave laborers and selling goats for a penny. Is that a life? Even if you answer "yes," is that a life worth living?
Rationing Uteruses
So how do we address the problem? Do we institute a "one child per family" rule like China? That seems unthinkable in fiercely independently minded America. But when world overpopulation starts to ration even our Big Macs and drinking water (used to make fatty fat soda, obviously), someone is going to have to start limiting childbirths.
Can we expect people to do it on their own? Doubtful. Even if the Kenyan parents in the article had an unlimited supply of condoms and exquisite sex education, one suspects they still would have reproduced. And why not? It's natural. It's instinctual. And, heck, people get horny. Not to mention that in many cultures, couples have children because they know the kids may be the only ones who will take care of them when they're old. Should the Kenyan parents sit down, take a look around, and say, "Honey, we can't bring a child into this world. It's not kind. It's not right."? One could argue that they should... but that's asking too much, particularly without other governmental or social support systems in place to ensure the elders' care when they become frail.
Perhaps we turn to the government. Is it fair to impose an across-the-board "one child" policy like China? Perhaps. But imagine a world stuffed full of people and only needing enough new births to sustain an already overloaded planet. Shouldn't we make good choices? Should the smart people be allowed to reproduce? The attractive people? The athletic people? Will there be a quota for all the above in order to sustain industry, Hollywood, and sports? Won't the lower classes mount a fierce defense that even an Einstein or a Michael Jordan could come from their midst?
Eugenics is an awfully dangerous road to go down. Even before Hitler taught us the unthinkable depths of its horrors, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the forced sterilization of a poor woman on the grounds that she was an "imbecile," though researchers later showed that she was--if anything--a quite average student in school. (See Buck v. Bell.) Perhaps the mere suggestion that it might be legal to keep certain people from reproducing is far too great of a temptation for bureaucrats to administer the challenge without prejudice.
Life... at Any Cost
The end of life presents the same problem. I read once that one-third of all Medicare payments go toward sustaining patients in their last year of life, barely prolonging the inevitable. Recently, I've begun to see articles in the mainstream media about how doctors may encourage patients too hard to fight, fight, fight against their cancer rather than accept palliative care and slip away in peace and comfort. As one doctor aptly put it: through medical advancements, we've expanded our ability to prolong life but not our ability to make life more livable.
For the present, a majority of people are opposed to euthanasia. Though I could find no statistics, I strongly suspect a majority would likewise be opposed to any law that would prohibit most people's right to reproduce. We comfort ourselves by thinking morality is largely static. Indeed, it has a way of bending and even breaking when times get tough. It will be interesting to see what the general consensus becomes on limiting childbirths and pulling the plug on grandma when overpopulation and fiscal pressures are brought to bear in the not-so-distant future.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
How to Win Friends and Influence People(?)
Last week, the Republicans in the U.S. Senate (joined by two Dems plus Harry Reid for procedural reasons) filibustered an attempt to debate the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell. My lawyer friend Donnie posted a comment on his Facebook wall about it. A charming stay-at-home mom from Louisiana posted a grammatically horrid response along the lines of "AS A PROUD MARINE WIFE it ain't right that my husband has to pee and sh*t next to gay guys. Gays shouldn't hit on straight people, it makes them uncomfortable!" She then proceeded to call some of the responders to her ignorant message some, ahem, choice words for gay people.
So I took a deep breath and decided I'd try to use a little polite logic with her. I wrote her the following:
--------------
Good evening. You don't know me. I'm a lawyer and a friend of Donnie's. I saw your posts today and understand you defriended Donnie. I also understand someone sent you a message, which I assume wasn't very nice. I was just hoping to respond in a more calm, rational way and then leave it at that.
To start off, I wanted to point out that my father, my uncle, and both grandfathers proudly fought in Vietnam and World War II respectively. I have deep respect for your husband's service and thank him for all he's doing for our country and our security. And I honor your service by raising children while your husband is deployed, which I'm sure is far more difficult than most people can possibly imagine.
I grew up in a rural town in PA where most people still think about gay people the way you do. I was gay. I got out, went to college and law school and now live in Chicago. I realize our worlds are very different. But I completely understand your mindset and your discomfort with gay people. I see it in old friends and family members. When you're not used to gay people, it's a lot like not being used to black people or any other group of people that seem a bit weird to you. I was 11 when I first shook a black person's hand... and I looked down to see if the color rubbed off onto mine. I look back at that now and laugh (and my black friends think I'm retarded), but I had never met a black person before 11 years-old so it seemed like a natural reaction. So, believe me, I get your frustration.
And for the record, if a gay dude did made an unwanted advance on your husband, I apologize on behalf of the gays. No one should ever try to make others uncomfortable when they know the other person isn't interested. Rest assured, it happens to gay guys all the time too. A few weeks ago, I was at a birthday party at a straight bar when I eventually had to tell a drunk female that I was gay and therefore not interested. "Are you sure you don't just want to go in the alley and make out?" she asked. I suppose I could have been upset at her persistence--as though she was forcing her heterosexuality onto me--but instead I took it as a compliment that she thought I was good looking enough to keep pestering after I had told her I didn't like girls.
Along those lines, I had a really (self-proclaimed) ugly straight professor in college. He told our class of 500 students the one day that the first time anyone ever hit on him was in college and that it was a gay guy. Rather than get upset, he thought to himself, "Gee, at least someone thinks I'm attractive." So if a gay soldier ever does hit on your husband, perhaps he could laugh it off as a compliment. Cause let's face it, one day we'll ALL be old and ugly and no one will think we're attractive except our spouses (and our children when they want to ask us for money).
Gay people in the military live in constant fear that they cannot speak about their personal lives or they risk being discharged. Male soldiers make up fake girlfriends and female soldiers make up fake boyfriends. It's hard to explain to someone who has never had to go through it, but it takes a tremendous emotional toll to hide a huge part of your identity--to be unable to share that amazing letter you just received, or that heartfelt and much needed phone call. And it's also hard to believe that lying to your fellow soldiers--the brave warriors you're supposed to depend on to have your back in battle--is something that somehow fosters unit cohesion and trust. Every single Western ally we have has ended their gay bans in the military. And all have seen no bad effects from doing so.
I hope at the end of the day you do realize that someone being uncomfortable is neither a reason to treat another person differently nor violate the Constitution's Freedom of Association and Equal Protection guarantees. Using your logic, President Eisenhower should not have integrated the Armed Services to allow Blacks to serve alongside Whites because it made some white soldiers uncomfortable. We look back at Eisenhower's decision now and realize it was the right--if unpopular--thing to do.
At the end of the day, gay and lesbian people just want to serve their country, pay their taxes, and suffer through their miserable jobs like everyone else. It may be hard to see that when all you see on the news are angry people with piercings and multi-colored hair shouting with protest signs. But for every angry protester there's a hundred regular people like me and Donnie who just want to live boring, pleasant lives.
If you got to the end of this, thank you. And again, thank your husband and all our brave men and women who fight so that we can have the freedom to have discussions like these safely at home.
God bless you and your family
--------------
Now, you'd think a lovely little e-mail like that would tear at the heart strings. You'd be wrong. I received a short, rude response that indicated she hadn't even read it. And she wrote another of Donnie's friends the following: "U r a FAGGET! U need to sit back and look at ur fucking self! Its b/c of ppl like u yall get yalls asses kicked! Yall need to keep to ur fucking selves and live in ur own village! One thing u DO NOT DO IS PISS ME OFF! My HUSBAND protects ur gay ass! It does become a BIG DEAL with gay ppl do hit on straight ppl! Ive seen it for myself! It honestly does make ppl un comfortable! So don't send me another mesg like u did!"
My first instinct was to call her fat, ugly, and stupid. But I composed myself a moment and managed the following, "Your response was so Christian. Bless you and your tiny mind and inability to use grammar. I forgive you for your multitude of sins, my child. I doubt Jesus will be so generous." Condescending to be sure, but avoiding the fat-ugly-stupid triumvirate. At this point I realized that I'd spent over an hour dealing with a redneck who most likely lacked both the mental capacity to listen as well as the desire to learn. And I felt stupid for even having tried.
But redneck lady aside, I continued my long struggle with one of life's most perplexing questions: After you've offered up a polite, logical argument and have been shot down by malice, what is the appropriate response? And this, dear reader, is where I'd like your help.
Carrot... Then Stick
You see, I learned long ago not to initially fight fire with fire. Ms. Redneck was already fired up and if I had come at her with some rude words right off the bat, she'd have just dismissed me as an angry homo. "Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." Rom 12:20. But what happens when even kindness fails? What if you realize you're never going to get through to her? What if you realize that the only satisfying response would be to resort to 5th grade recess tactics and call her fat not only to make her angry and soothe your own soul but also to let her know you're not going to take any more of her crap? Is that acceptable?
History has chosen to remember Martin Luther King, Jr. for his non-violent protesting in this regard. But I've always, always thought that it was a combination of the tactics of Dr. King combined with people like Malcolm X and the Black Panthers who got sh*t done. Let's face it, some white folk were going to be swayed by Dr. King's peaceful ways and wise words, while others needed a big scary Black Panther with a giant afro and a machine gun. Carrot... then stick. And heck, even Dr. King famously said the night before his death, "And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent."
No Stick? How 'Bout an Insult?
When the carrot fails (and you can't use a stick because battery is illegal), is an insult the next best thing? At first, you want to persuade with your logic to get the person on your side. But when you see the person cannot be convinced, I think your motivation changes. If you can't change her mind, shouldn't you at least get some satisfaction out of making her feel bad? Lest we call such tactics petty, let's remember Dr. King. A man can't ride your back unless it's bent. A redneck shouldn't get to call you a "fagget," reject your polite arguments, and then you just stand there and take it. At some point you have to straighten your back and call out the meth-faced creature for what it is. To do otherwise would encourage future hatred on her part.
Or am I being too harsh? The Bible would have instructed us: "But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles." Matt 5:39-41. Can such vile submission be justified in 2010 when people are as callous as ever? The New Testament's "turn the other cheek" was supposed to be the new, hip version of the Old Testament's "an eye for an eye." Because as the writers of the New Testament must have realized, and Gandhi has said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Frankly, I'm not sure either approach would work 100% of the time.
It seems to me, MLK and Jesus are in direct conflict here. And I'm inclined to go with my buddy Dr. King: logic, peace, kindness... but if that fails, straighten up your back and call a b*tch out. Does this further our cause, or am I letting emotions get the better of me?
So I took a deep breath and decided I'd try to use a little polite logic with her. I wrote her the following:
--------------
Good evening. You don't know me. I'm a lawyer and a friend of Donnie's. I saw your posts today and understand you defriended Donnie. I also understand someone sent you a message, which I assume wasn't very nice. I was just hoping to respond in a more calm, rational way and then leave it at that.
To start off, I wanted to point out that my father, my uncle, and both grandfathers proudly fought in Vietnam and World War II respectively. I have deep respect for your husband's service and thank him for all he's doing for our country and our security. And I honor your service by raising children while your husband is deployed, which I'm sure is far more difficult than most people can possibly imagine.
I grew up in a rural town in PA where most people still think about gay people the way you do. I was gay. I got out, went to college and law school and now live in Chicago. I realize our worlds are very different. But I completely understand your mindset and your discomfort with gay people. I see it in old friends and family members. When you're not used to gay people, it's a lot like not being used to black people or any other group of people that seem a bit weird to you. I was 11 when I first shook a black person's hand... and I looked down to see if the color rubbed off onto mine. I look back at that now and laugh (and my black friends think I'm retarded), but I had never met a black person before 11 years-old so it seemed like a natural reaction. So, believe me, I get your frustration.
And for the record, if a gay dude did made an unwanted advance on your husband, I apologize on behalf of the gays. No one should ever try to make others uncomfortable when they know the other person isn't interested. Rest assured, it happens to gay guys all the time too. A few weeks ago, I was at a birthday party at a straight bar when I eventually had to tell a drunk female that I was gay and therefore not interested. "Are you sure you don't just want to go in the alley and make out?" she asked. I suppose I could have been upset at her persistence--as though she was forcing her heterosexuality onto me--but instead I took it as a compliment that she thought I was good looking enough to keep pestering after I had told her I didn't like girls.
Along those lines, I had a really (self-proclaimed) ugly straight professor in college. He told our class of 500 students the one day that the first time anyone ever hit on him was in college and that it was a gay guy. Rather than get upset, he thought to himself, "Gee, at least someone thinks I'm attractive." So if a gay soldier ever does hit on your husband, perhaps he could laugh it off as a compliment. Cause let's face it, one day we'll ALL be old and ugly and no one will think we're attractive except our spouses (and our children when they want to ask us for money).
Gay people in the military live in constant fear that they cannot speak about their personal lives or they risk being discharged. Male soldiers make up fake girlfriends and female soldiers make up fake boyfriends. It's hard to explain to someone who has never had to go through it, but it takes a tremendous emotional toll to hide a huge part of your identity--to be unable to share that amazing letter you just received, or that heartfelt and much needed phone call. And it's also hard to believe that lying to your fellow soldiers--the brave warriors you're supposed to depend on to have your back in battle--is something that somehow fosters unit cohesion and trust. Every single Western ally we have has ended their gay bans in the military. And all have seen no bad effects from doing so.
I hope at the end of the day you do realize that someone being uncomfortable is neither a reason to treat another person differently nor violate the Constitution's Freedom of Association and Equal Protection guarantees. Using your logic, President Eisenhower should not have integrated the Armed Services to allow Blacks to serve alongside Whites because it made some white soldiers uncomfortable. We look back at Eisenhower's decision now and realize it was the right--if unpopular--thing to do.
At the end of the day, gay and lesbian people just want to serve their country, pay their taxes, and suffer through their miserable jobs like everyone else. It may be hard to see that when all you see on the news are angry people with piercings and multi-colored hair shouting with protest signs. But for every angry protester there's a hundred regular people like me and Donnie who just want to live boring, pleasant lives.
If you got to the end of this, thank you. And again, thank your husband and all our brave men and women who fight so that we can have the freedom to have discussions like these safely at home.
God bless you and your family
--------------
Now, you'd think a lovely little e-mail like that would tear at the heart strings. You'd be wrong. I received a short, rude response that indicated she hadn't even read it. And she wrote another of Donnie's friends the following: "U r a FAGGET! U need to sit back and look at ur fucking self! Its b/c of ppl like u yall get yalls asses kicked! Yall need to keep to ur fucking selves and live in ur own village! One thing u DO NOT DO IS PISS ME OFF! My HUSBAND protects ur gay ass! It does become a BIG DEAL with gay ppl do hit on straight ppl! Ive seen it for myself! It honestly does make ppl un comfortable! So don't send me another mesg like u did!"
My first instinct was to call her fat, ugly, and stupid. But I composed myself a moment and managed the following, "Your response was so Christian. Bless you and your tiny mind and inability to use grammar. I forgive you for your multitude of sins, my child. I doubt Jesus will be so generous." Condescending to be sure, but avoiding the fat-ugly-stupid triumvirate. At this point I realized that I'd spent over an hour dealing with a redneck who most likely lacked both the mental capacity to listen as well as the desire to learn. And I felt stupid for even having tried.
But redneck lady aside, I continued my long struggle with one of life's most perplexing questions: After you've offered up a polite, logical argument and have been shot down by malice, what is the appropriate response? And this, dear reader, is where I'd like your help.
Carrot... Then Stick
You see, I learned long ago not to initially fight fire with fire. Ms. Redneck was already fired up and if I had come at her with some rude words right off the bat, she'd have just dismissed me as an angry homo. "Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." Rom 12:20. But what happens when even kindness fails? What if you realize you're never going to get through to her? What if you realize that the only satisfying response would be to resort to 5th grade recess tactics and call her fat not only to make her angry and soothe your own soul but also to let her know you're not going to take any more of her crap? Is that acceptable?
History has chosen to remember Martin Luther King, Jr. for his non-violent protesting in this regard. But I've always, always thought that it was a combination of the tactics of Dr. King combined with people like Malcolm X and the Black Panthers who got sh*t done. Let's face it, some white folk were going to be swayed by Dr. King's peaceful ways and wise words, while others needed a big scary Black Panther with a giant afro and a machine gun. Carrot... then stick. And heck, even Dr. King famously said the night before his death, "And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent."
No Stick? How 'Bout an Insult?
When the carrot fails (and you can't use a stick because battery is illegal), is an insult the next best thing? At first, you want to persuade with your logic to get the person on your side. But when you see the person cannot be convinced, I think your motivation changes. If you can't change her mind, shouldn't you at least get some satisfaction out of making her feel bad? Lest we call such tactics petty, let's remember Dr. King. A man can't ride your back unless it's bent. A redneck shouldn't get to call you a "fagget," reject your polite arguments, and then you just stand there and take it. At some point you have to straighten your back and call out the meth-faced creature for what it is. To do otherwise would encourage future hatred on her part.
Or am I being too harsh? The Bible would have instructed us: "But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles." Matt 5:39-41. Can such vile submission be justified in 2010 when people are as callous as ever? The New Testament's "turn the other cheek" was supposed to be the new, hip version of the Old Testament's "an eye for an eye." Because as the writers of the New Testament must have realized, and Gandhi has said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Frankly, I'm not sure either approach would work 100% of the time.
It seems to me, MLK and Jesus are in direct conflict here. And I'm inclined to go with my buddy Dr. King: logic, peace, kindness... but if that fails, straighten up your back and call a b*tch out. Does this further our cause, or am I letting emotions get the better of me?
Morality in the "Me" Generation
Being laid off does strange things to your mind. You can be a little proud of your accomplishments when you work hard and land a good job at a firm. You simmer with anger as you pay your taxes and watch social degenerates popping out child after child whom you know they cannot support. But then the bell tolls for you, too. And you collect some unemployment. And you struggle. And you hear Republicans in Congress say that extended unemployment just makes people lazy (despite the fact that the number of people competing for the same job has reached record numbers). And you hear wacko economist Ben Stein say that most people who got laid off are "unpleasant personalities... who do not know how to do a day's work." Yeah, Ben, I sure asked for all my firm's clients to stop sending us business. That was all me. You pompous ass.
Both parties are good at pointing out the extremes: liberals can righteously point to the stingy heiress who earned her money by virtue of the lottery we call "birth" and never contributes a dime to charity. Conservatives can equally as righteously point to the patient with gold teeth, brand new clothes, a shiny cell phone, and a BMW in the hospital parking lot... who is paying her bill with Medicaid. (In college, I once saw a woman in very nice clothes pay with food stamps and then jump in her Lexus.) But what about that massive gray middle which--especially in a recession--includes plenty of hardworking people who just got screwed over?
Objectivism: Greed Is Good
So with this in mind, I stumbled upon this brief article, which you really must read. Mr. Brook and Mr. Ghates are advocating Ayn Rand's philosophy--objectivism, which essentially holds that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self interest. Objectivism meshes awfully well with popular megachurch preacher Joel Osteen's message that "God wants you to be rich," which, oddly, I couldn't find in my Bible--King James or NIV. But it doesn't take a genius to see why materialist Americans are flocking to someone who is giving them a "religious" way to justify their lifestyle. (As it shouldn't surprise anyone that Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is listed as the second most influential book by business leaders, as it gives them a philosophical way to justify their selfish lifestyle. The most influential book, of course, is the Bible, because, well, you just have to say that before you list a book advocating ruthless capitalism.)
So is this good advice for the 21st Century? Do we need to strip charity and the communal good from our concept of modern morality? Should those unemployed people just starve, cause, after all, they're just lazy sons of beeyatches? I guess we have to step back and ask ourselves: What do we value? Prosperity? New gadgets? Or just kindness, charity, and merely sustaining life (life being defined as: the act of breathing, sleeping and pooping)? On one hand, as the article points out, people like Steve Jobs do create a lot of jobs. But if he failed to donate a penny to charity, would we still consider him a "moral" person?
Jesus once said, "The poor you have with you always." Matt 26:11. Though the point of the verse was for Jesus to show that He was the sh*t and people should honor Him during His brief time on Earth, the passage is also remembered because Jesus, who preached charity and helping the poor, admitted we'd always have the poor around. He's right, of course. There will always be have-nots. But my fear is that as religion is on the decline (over 16% of Americans now claim no religion and numbers are higher in the rest of the Western world), if there aren't good non-religious moral (and by moral I mean: charitable) social structures in place, what happens to the people who aren't as ______ as the authors in the CNN article with their MBAs, Ph.D.s, and money? And here you would fill in the blank with the word: "fortunate" if you were an ultra-liberal or a generous Christian (i.e. "people who aren't as fortunate as the authors") or with the word "industrious" if you were a capitalist/Objectivist (i.e. "people who aren't as industrious as the authors"--and therefore less deserving).
Religion--for all of its faults--at least instructs us that there is something bigger than us, judging us, and watching to see if we treat others with kindness. What happens when God disappears and Ayn Rand's objectivism meshes with the easy-to-love message of preachers like Joel Osteen? "God wants you to be rich! No, really, people! Put down the Book and listen to me. And as you do we're just gonna begin passing that collection basket on the left... Remember: give till it hurts!"
Or if/when Objectivism takes hold, and we blink while the masses die because our morality instructs us that they just must have not worked hard enough or else they too would be awesome and industrious like us, will our morality have been so rampaged so that we will cease to care? Or worse: will we not even know that we were supposed to care?
Capitalism and Charity: What a Wonderful World It Could Be
Perhaps a third option, which the authors do not consider, is (and always has been) the workable answer: combine the two paradigms. Why isn't it possible to encourage people to be industrious like Bill Gates, build empires, create jobs, invent things that improve our lives... and then give your money to charity to help those who weren't as _______ as he? And here, again, you would fill in the blank with the word: "fortunate" if you were a bleeding heart liberal/generous Christian or with the word "industrious" if you were a capitalist/Objectivist. Regardless of how you view the charity, at the end of the day the world's poor would get some freakin' soup.
Maybe a healthy balance of Bible mixed with a little Objectivism has always been the solution for a workable equilibrium in the world--where the rich can thrive and advance society while the poor can merely endeavor to survive. If that's the case, we should be suspicious of both the Jewish carpenter from Galilee who said, "Give up all your riches and follow me" (Luke 18:22) and of the creepy Ayn Rand devotees who essentially say, "Discard your millenia-old definition of 'morality,' let the poor die, and follow me."
Both parties are good at pointing out the extremes: liberals can righteously point to the stingy heiress who earned her money by virtue of the lottery we call "birth" and never contributes a dime to charity. Conservatives can equally as righteously point to the patient with gold teeth, brand new clothes, a shiny cell phone, and a BMW in the hospital parking lot... who is paying her bill with Medicaid. (In college, I once saw a woman in very nice clothes pay with food stamps and then jump in her Lexus.) But what about that massive gray middle which--especially in a recession--includes plenty of hardworking people who just got screwed over?
Objectivism: Greed Is Good
So with this in mind, I stumbled upon this brief article, which you really must read. Mr. Brook and Mr. Ghates are advocating Ayn Rand's philosophy--objectivism, which essentially holds that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self interest. Objectivism meshes awfully well with popular megachurch preacher Joel Osteen's message that "God wants you to be rich," which, oddly, I couldn't find in my Bible--King James or NIV. But it doesn't take a genius to see why materialist Americans are flocking to someone who is giving them a "religious" way to justify their lifestyle. (As it shouldn't surprise anyone that Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is listed as the second most influential book by business leaders, as it gives them a philosophical way to justify their selfish lifestyle. The most influential book, of course, is the Bible, because, well, you just have to say that before you list a book advocating ruthless capitalism.)
So is this good advice for the 21st Century? Do we need to strip charity and the communal good from our concept of modern morality? Should those unemployed people just starve, cause, after all, they're just lazy sons of beeyatches? I guess we have to step back and ask ourselves: What do we value? Prosperity? New gadgets? Or just kindness, charity, and merely sustaining life (life being defined as: the act of breathing, sleeping and pooping)? On one hand, as the article points out, people like Steve Jobs do create a lot of jobs. But if he failed to donate a penny to charity, would we still consider him a "moral" person?
Jesus once said, "The poor you have with you always." Matt 26:11. Though the point of the verse was for Jesus to show that He was the sh*t and people should honor Him during His brief time on Earth, the passage is also remembered because Jesus, who preached charity and helping the poor, admitted we'd always have the poor around. He's right, of course. There will always be have-nots. But my fear is that as religion is on the decline (over 16% of Americans now claim no religion and numbers are higher in the rest of the Western world), if there aren't good non-religious moral (and by moral I mean: charitable) social structures in place, what happens to the people who aren't as ______ as the authors in the CNN article with their MBAs, Ph.D.s, and money? And here you would fill in the blank with the word: "fortunate" if you were an ultra-liberal or a generous Christian (i.e. "people who aren't as fortunate as the authors") or with the word "industrious" if you were a capitalist/Objectivist (i.e. "people who aren't as industrious as the authors"--and therefore less deserving).
Religion--for all of its faults--at least instructs us that there is something bigger than us, judging us, and watching to see if we treat others with kindness. What happens when God disappears and Ayn Rand's objectivism meshes with the easy-to-love message of preachers like Joel Osteen? "God wants you to be rich! No, really, people! Put down the Book and listen to me. And as you do we're just gonna begin passing that collection basket on the left... Remember: give till it hurts!"
Or if/when Objectivism takes hold, and we blink while the masses die because our morality instructs us that they just must have not worked hard enough or else they too would be awesome and industrious like us, will our morality have been so rampaged so that we will cease to care? Or worse: will we not even know that we were supposed to care?
Capitalism and Charity: What a Wonderful World It Could Be
Perhaps a third option, which the authors do not consider, is (and always has been) the workable answer: combine the two paradigms. Why isn't it possible to encourage people to be industrious like Bill Gates, build empires, create jobs, invent things that improve our lives... and then give your money to charity to help those who weren't as _______ as he? And here, again, you would fill in the blank with the word: "fortunate" if you were a bleeding heart liberal/generous Christian or with the word "industrious" if you were a capitalist/Objectivist. Regardless of how you view the charity, at the end of the day the world's poor would get some freakin' soup.
Maybe a healthy balance of Bible mixed with a little Objectivism has always been the solution for a workable equilibrium in the world--where the rich can thrive and advance society while the poor can merely endeavor to survive. If that's the case, we should be suspicious of both the Jewish carpenter from Galilee who said, "Give up all your riches and follow me" (Luke 18:22) and of the creepy Ayn Rand devotees who essentially say, "Discard your millenia-old definition of 'morality,' let the poor die, and follow me."
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Devil Made Me Do It!
It's been a few months since the Catholic Church child molestation scandal (re-)erupted. And I was going to write earlier, but I was waiting to see how long Benedict would keep up his nonsense. He has finally apologized for the actions of his priests. Ya know, the ones he shuffled around from parish to parish, told to keep quiet past the statute of limitations, and whom he ordered--upon pain of excommunication--to conduct child molestation investigations "in the most secretive way, restrained by perpetual silence." (If you haven't seen this, it's 20 minutes well spent: Stephen Fry eviscerating the Church and arguing that it is not a force for moral good in the world: Part 1, Part 2).
But if you're left feeling a little unfulfilled by Benedict's apology, you're in good company. You see, he didn't really ask the offending priests to come clean with their crimes. Why? Well, the Devil made them do it. That's right, kids. The man in red with the pitchfork and horns--he who tempts us all--he's the one to blame. Oh, and the gays. Nevermind that pedophilia is entirely separate from homosexuality, but it's far easier to blame a group you've already branded as sinful than it is to accept that perhaps your ridiculous requirements that priests cannot marry--which by the way have no basis in scripture--is what is actually spawning sexually dysfunctional priests who do horrible things to kids.
So, yes, it is indeed part of Christian dogma that Satan tempts all of us, just as surely as he tempted Jesus on the mountain. But even if you buy into such a canard, you must at some level address the issue of free will. Philosophers and theologians have made free will one of those topics that torture philosophy students unnecessarily. Unless you're a hardcore determinist (and therefore retarded), it matters not whether the Devil tempts us or not. In every potentially sinful act, the human actor is still the one pulling the moral lever.
Accordingly, it should make the religious and irreligious alike wince when the Pope or his minions fall back on "the Devil made me do it" defense. It's too easy of a cop-out, particularly for a generation of Americans who seem to have an almost constitutional inability to accept responsibility for their actions. What's that you say? I can blame my shortcomings on something other than my own sloth and ineptitude? Score!
I have written in the past about how a reliance on God and prayer causes people to pause and kneel when they should be jumping up and working to solve the problems in their lives. Tis better to call the police when your husband beats you than it is to pray for him to stop hitting you. But until this child rape scandal re-emerged in the press, I had underestimated just how much religious people still rely on God's nemesis to excuse (or at least cushion) their horrific actions.
What a remarkable message it would have sent if the Pope had cleaned house from top to bottom and reminded his followers that the Church was--instead of an ole boys club that protects one another--an institution that valued the sanctity of an unmolested little kid.
Call me cynical, but because Benedict (while he was merely Ratzinger) shuffled priests around and ordered bishops to keep child abuse secret from civil authorities, his apology rings a bit hollow. Real men don't blame child rape on a scary guy with a pitchfork. Real men report child rapists to the police.
...But what do we expect out of a religion that still, in 2010, employs a Chief Exorcist?...
But if you're left feeling a little unfulfilled by Benedict's apology, you're in good company. You see, he didn't really ask the offending priests to come clean with their crimes. Why? Well, the Devil made them do it. That's right, kids. The man in red with the pitchfork and horns--he who tempts us all--he's the one to blame. Oh, and the gays. Nevermind that pedophilia is entirely separate from homosexuality, but it's far easier to blame a group you've already branded as sinful than it is to accept that perhaps your ridiculous requirements that priests cannot marry--which by the way have no basis in scripture--is what is actually spawning sexually dysfunctional priests who do horrible things to kids.
So, yes, it is indeed part of Christian dogma that Satan tempts all of us, just as surely as he tempted Jesus on the mountain. But even if you buy into such a canard, you must at some level address the issue of free will. Philosophers and theologians have made free will one of those topics that torture philosophy students unnecessarily. Unless you're a hardcore determinist (and therefore retarded), it matters not whether the Devil tempts us or not. In every potentially sinful act, the human actor is still the one pulling the moral lever.
Accordingly, it should make the religious and irreligious alike wince when the Pope or his minions fall back on "the Devil made me do it" defense. It's too easy of a cop-out, particularly for a generation of Americans who seem to have an almost constitutional inability to accept responsibility for their actions. What's that you say? I can blame my shortcomings on something other than my own sloth and ineptitude? Score!
I have written in the past about how a reliance on God and prayer causes people to pause and kneel when they should be jumping up and working to solve the problems in their lives. Tis better to call the police when your husband beats you than it is to pray for him to stop hitting you. But until this child rape scandal re-emerged in the press, I had underestimated just how much religious people still rely on God's nemesis to excuse (or at least cushion) their horrific actions.
What a remarkable message it would have sent if the Pope had cleaned house from top to bottom and reminded his followers that the Church was--instead of an ole boys club that protects one another--an institution that valued the sanctity of an unmolested little kid.
Call me cynical, but because Benedict (while he was merely Ratzinger) shuffled priests around and ordered bishops to keep child abuse secret from civil authorities, his apology rings a bit hollow. Real men don't blame child rape on a scary guy with a pitchfork. Real men report child rapists to the police.
...But what do we expect out of a religion that still, in 2010, employs a Chief Exorcist?...
Friday, March 26, 2010
Tax Me to Death So That Others May Live?
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” Thus spake the alleged first child of the alleged first couple of the world. Apparently, even then, kids were shitheads. But more to the point at hand, as far back as Christian recorded time goes, we weren’t quite sure how much we owed one another.
The recent healthcare debate has centered around two ideas on which the left and the right disagree. One of them is a matter of difference and one merely of degree. The first is whether one believes more in the power of unrestrained markets or in the power of government. The second is the Cain & Abel problem: am I my brother’s keeper?
Do You Want the Invisible Hand or Big Brother?
As to the first problem: Democrats look at Republicans and think they must be insane to believe that markets can regulate themselves. The idea that for-profit industries could possibly have something in mind other than their stockholders seems odd to them. And, indeed, as we have seen with the Savings and Loan scandal, the housing crash, the banking collapse, and anyone who has ever dealt with a large company’s customer service hotline, unfettered capitalism doesn’t always give people the best bang for their buck. (Though to be fair, uneducated and greedy non-rich people who maxed out their credit cards and bought houses they couldn’t afford do share in the blame for the housing/banking woes.)
Republicans, on the other hand, look at slothful, gargantuan government agencies and see nothing but waste and inefficiencies. Anyone who has ever stepped foot in a DMV or a large city’s post office instantly becomes a bit more Republican. Except Bill Maher who aptly pointed out that he would prefer if the government were in charge of more things because, honestly, who else charges you 42 cents to ship a letter from Bar Harbor, Maine to Los Angeles… and generally gets it there in one piece? (Statistics God Nate Silver also had an interesting take on why conservatives hate government that merits reading. See “Why does a Person Become a Republican?”) By their very public nature, government agencies suffer from the lack of a “fire under the ass” that the cruel but sometimes effective business world can provide. I’m reminded of a story of a beer bottling factory in China, a country where the government has tried to shift its economic model from communist toward capitalist. A Western observer was shocked when he saw bottles going down the production line with leaves inside… and no one cared. When one’s job is guaranteed, obviously there’s little incentive to do one’s job right. If Karl Marx was woefully wrong about anything, he was woefully wrong that in a communist society people would be, to use his words, spontaneously fond of work. Um… yeah. It wasn’t true then, it certainly isn’t true in the Age of Entitlement.
Where the Democrats might hold the upper hand in this argument, in my humble opinion, is that even if government’s slothful heart isn’t in the right place, at least it’s not in the wrong place. I have no doubt that in future centuries, people will look back on a for-profit healthcare system whose obvious goal was to exclude the sick and thereby drive up stock prices and wonder, “WTF were these people thinking?” Bureaucrats undoubtedly suck… but at least they don’t truly want to pull the plug on grandma by denying her care.
“If You Bring Gum to Class, You Must Bring Enough For Everyone.” Um, Why? It's My Gum.
But if the first point (government vs. free market) is the intractable point that separates the two political parties into well-defined camps, then the second point is at least one where people can begin to find common ground: just how much do we owe to our common man?
We see this argument played out in law over the centuries. All law students must learn something called the Rule Against Perpetuities (“RAP”) . RAP, in a nutshell, is a way to make it much harder for people to pass down all their wealth to distant descendants under the theory that people should work for their money and if they’re spoiled rich brats who inherit everything, they won’t work. (Think: Paris Hilton, although I guess she does pull her own weight by doing reality shows and “designing” expensive purses.) RAP, however, is nearly gone. Most states in the U.S. have done away with it (as has the U.K., where it originated). Nowadays we tend to think: if you’ve earned it, you can keep it. Which begs the big question, “What does ‘earned’ mean?”
President Obama got a lot of shit when he was on the campaign trail and used the unfortunate phrase “spread the wealth” around. Honestly, at that moment, I thought his goose was cooked. But people tend to forget that taxes—all taxes—are form of wealth redistribution. My grandparents in rural Pennsylvania piss and moan that all the state’s taxes go to Pittsburgh and Philly. “Yes,” I reply, “but that’s where all the money and most of the people are. Are there any people making seven figures in your small town?” They also moan about money going toward public transportation systems since they have cars. Why should they have to pay for someone’s bus? “Yes,” I reply, “but if fewer people in Philly drive and take SEPTA instead, that means fewer cars on those roads. Fewer cars on the roads mean fewer repairs and fewer expansions of Philadelphia-area highways. Less money spent on Philly roads means more money can be spent on your roads in rural PA. Not to mention the valuable time lost in traffic jams that lowers economic productivity and hence lowers tax receipts.” But I digress. All taxes inconvenience some people more than others. Taxes will never be “fair” because we will never all agree on what “fair” means.
If we’re going to “spread the wealth,” how much is too much to spread, without getting into Laffer curves and all that theory? Part of the doctrine of being a conservative is generally to view the status quo as not-so-bad and to view change as scary. Part of the doctrine of being a liberal is to see the inequities in the world (social and financial) and consequently view change as quickly needed. So it makes sense that today—in an era of historically very low tax rates for wealthy people—conservatives tend to think the status quo is the appropriately place to be. But not too very long ago, the wealthy in this country paid over 70% of their money in taxes. The middle class was stronger. And a CEO made roughly 20 times what an average worker in that company made as opposed to the 160+ times the worker’s salary he makes now. To Democrats, this disparity is unacceptable.
To Republicans, income disparity tends to be seen as a function of effort: work more, get paid more. But not even the most diehard conservative can truly believe that preferential tax treatment, inflated wages, and undeserved nepotism don’t have something to do with high wages. Though, still, conservatives do have an excellent point, according to a recent Wall Street Journal piece, that when you raise taxes on the rich, the rich will (1) work less (because they can), (2) evade more (because they can), and (3) move out of the country (because they can). We can see this in states that have high tax rates: rich people leave and go to Texas. Which never made sense to me because you’re rich but then… you fucking live in Texas.
WWJD?
What would Jesus say about all this? What’s “fair”? In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus teaches, “And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. And He said, ‘Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on.’” Luke 14:1-4.
Jesus also said “render unto Caesar what is Caesar and unto God what is God’s.” Mark 12:17. In other words, pay your damn taxes and then devote your spiritual self to the Lord. Finally, Jesus also said, “Sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven.” Luke 18:22. Greek philosophers (I’m straining to remember which ones) weren’t quite so extreme. They tended to believe one should live simply but still retain enough to get by comfortably. What remains mindboggling to me, however, is that a large portion of conservative voters can attend a rally on Saturday about how they deserve to keep all their money from those evil people in Washington who want to give their money to the poor. And then on Sunday they attend a sermon where the minister quotes verses about living humbly and… giving money to the poor.
What Would the Commonwealth Do?
When does giving more money to others actually help society and, in turn, help you? I, after all, attended two state universities. My education was subsidized by the taxpayers of Pennsylvania and Ohio. We have state universities because we generally believe that a more educated citizen will be a more productive member of society (and a higher earning taxpayer). Most people seem to agree that that expense is worthwhile, though when times get tough, state money for those pesky kids always seems to be first on the chopping block because we forget its long-term taxable value.
Virtue Itself Turns Vice Being Misapplied, and Vice--By Its Action--Sometimes Dignified
But what about more controversial government programs? What about needle exchanges for heroin addicts? The city of Vancouver runs a needle exchange program where addicts can not only go to a government building, not only get a clean needle, but there’s also a nurse there to watch them shoot up and make sure they don’t die. Amazingly to many Americans, even the local police force in Vancouver favors the program. While it’s easy to think such a program is a horrible waste of money because people shouldn’t be doing heroin anyway (or, if you’re a bit more—shall we say, opinionated—heroin addicts don’t deserve to live because they’re not contributing anything to society), the counterargument is persuasive too: at least they’re not getting dirty needles, getting AIDS, infecting others, and dying in the streets. Garbage men dislike collecting corpses, I’m told.
What about giving prisoners access to education? I used to be vehemently against this. Hell, I pay for my education (well, most of it), why should lawbreakers get it for free? But then I learned about recidivism rates and how they are tied to the ability of ex-prisoners to return to the workforce upon release. Honestly, we have these people locked up with nothing to do, we might as well get them some books and some teachers so they believe that they have choices other than a life of crime when they get out of the clink. If it keeps them from coming back and turns them into taxpaying citizens, it was money well spent. And, forgive me for being a tad cheesy here, but… it shows them that someone cared.
I Keep Bleeding, Keep Keep Bleeding Love
Maybe this is where the “bleeding heart” liberal moniker comes from. But I’ve known some downtrodden people in my life. And many of them didn’t want a handout… but they needed a handout. Even a small one. A little unemployment. A smile. A mentor. Maybe even a little healthcare.
It’s remarkable that when you ask most non-poor people what is important in their lives, they rattle off the predictable list: education, money, wife/husband, kids, nice house, a car or three… but so few ever say “health.” Why? Because health is a given. It’s expected for so many people. But when you don’t have it, nothing else matters. Companies don’t hire sick people. Sick people don’t get out of bed to put on a suit for an interview. Sick people rack up medical bills instead of working and paying taxes. Yes, I know I’m overgeneralizing here, but you see my point: if someone doesn’t have his health, he’s got nothing. The least we can do as a society is to help give someone that without which they can do nothing else.
But Does the Fat, Smoking Baby Mama Really Deserve My Money?
“But it’s not my problem he smoked two packs a day!” the response will come. Well, no, it’s not. And this is a problem for which I do not think anyone has a good answer. We can discourage bad behaviors, like taxing the shit out of cigarettes and soda. We could ban things entirely like illegal drugs if we think they’re really harmful. And we can tell people to use condoms. But if someone gets HIV, do we tell her that it’s her fault and she’s on her own? What if she was raped? Can she get government-sporsored treatment then? Do we need to set up rape panels to determine who was innocent and therefore “deserving” of life-saving medications? Who sits on the panels? A good mixture of left and right, Christian and athiest? Do we need an economist on there to see if she could really afford to raise the child?...
Putting aside the religious part of the “I don’t want to pay for your abortion with my federal tax dollars” argument, look at the other part of that sentiment that’s often bubbling with venom underneath: “You slut, you should have known better.” Should we make someone have a child that she cannot support? As the book Freakonomics teaches us, women who tend to have abortions are women who would tend to have the types of children that grow up to be lawbreakers and end up in jail: single, poor, uneducated. That’s certainly not a moral argument for abortion because I do realize how powerful the religious objection is, but it is, at least, an economic argument. And no matter how strong your religious hatred for abortion, an unwanted child punishes not only the mother, but more importantly, that poor child suffers. That’s not love.
Greed: Among the Gravest of Sins
The Bible lists greed among the gravest of sins. Mark 7:22; I Cor. 6:10. I recall a story a few years ago about a bitter fight between Taco Bell and the providers of its tomatoes. The migrant farmers wanted a penny-per-pound raise because, well, they were paid like shit and their working conditions sucked. (Side note: does it astonish anyone else that one of the very few exceptions to the minimum wage laws are seasonal farm workers? The people who do the hardest, backbreaking work can be paid less than a kid selling V-necks in an air-conditioned Abercrombie?) Anyway, back to the story. Taco Bell resisted the meager raise. It was only after Taco Bell got negative press and some groups began to boycott them, that they relented. You see the problem with ruthless capitalism is simple: It’s all about the stockholders… until you piss people off so royally that the customers stop coming in, and then that affects your bottom line and you have to behave like humans instead of board members.
Can Ruthless Enforcement Be Common Ground?
I don’t want lazy pieces of shit taking my tax dollars either. And, recall, the poor were already taken care of via Medicaid. Thus, the benefits of the new healthcare law accrue mainly to the middle class. But in the end, I don’t mind if the single mother of three who suddenly finds herself unemployed gets some of my tax money. Many conservatives I’ve spoken with in the past few days seem to agree. It seems, then, that the left and the right are truly arguing over a matter of degree: who is deserving, and how much do they deserve? One way to meet on this issue would be to combat fraud.
Medicaid—I think we all can agree—is a horribly monitored fraud. I once saw a woman wearing a fur coat use food stamps at a grocery store and then hop into a waiting Lexus in the parking lot. These are the stories Republicans like to focus on when they decry the government taking “your” money, while Democrats focus on that single mother who lost her job. The truth is, of course, that both types exist in our system. Why not spend more money—a lot more money—rooting out fraud? Every dollar spent on an investigator could save untold money over the lifetime of a fraudulent recipient. And why not stiffen penalties? If you’re caught committing fraud when receiving access to any government program, you lose all assistance… forever. Might that send a chill down the spine of anyone wanting to fleece the government? I’d sure think so.
Republicans and Democrats may never see eye-to-eye on the government vs. unregulated markets theories of enterprise, but we can at least come together to agree that some people sometimes need help. I think both sides should push for more enforcement and Draconian punishments for those who abuse the systems. I’d love for such a program to be so effective that one day a far, far right politician will attempt to use a story about some lowlife who defrauded the system… and he will be laughed at. Because fraud will have been eliminated and the idea of pulling a fast one on the government will be laughable. Wishful thinking, I know, but an admirable goal to aspire toward.
Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls. It Tolls For Thee. Eventually.
The press reported this week that if you make more than a million dollars a year, your taxes might go up $46,000 to help pay for healthcare. Stop and think about that. And your response will say a lot about yourself. I hope to make more than a million per year eventually. And to me, if I’m making that much, if I must pay an “extra” $46,000 in taxes so that someone who can’t see a doctor can get healthy on my dime, well, that’s OK with me. But if you think the millionaire “earned” all of that money fair and square, and you view those trying to take it away from him as freeloading sloths, then you’d naturally be up in arms about this new healthcare law.
One of President Kennedy’s many memorable quotations is “For those to whom much is given, much is required.” And when you’re middle class and struggling to make ends meet, it might not seem like you have very much. And I get that. I’ve been there. Hell, I’m there now. My student loans cost more than the value of my parents’ house. (My five pounds of grey matter costs more than a three-bedroom ranch in economically depressed Pennsylvania!) But if you’re reading this, you have a computer and Internet access, and that means you have more than a lot of people. Take a minute and truly think about that before you gripe about your taxes the next time: “For those to whom much is given, much is required.” Somber words. And they ring just as true today as when Kennedy spoke them. And just as true when Kennedy spoke them as when the original speaker first uttered them two thousand years prior. Jesus. Luke 12:48.
The recent healthcare debate has centered around two ideas on which the left and the right disagree. One of them is a matter of difference and one merely of degree. The first is whether one believes more in the power of unrestrained markets or in the power of government. The second is the Cain & Abel problem: am I my brother’s keeper?
Do You Want the Invisible Hand or Big Brother?
As to the first problem: Democrats look at Republicans and think they must be insane to believe that markets can regulate themselves. The idea that for-profit industries could possibly have something in mind other than their stockholders seems odd to them. And, indeed, as we have seen with the Savings and Loan scandal, the housing crash, the banking collapse, and anyone who has ever dealt with a large company’s customer service hotline, unfettered capitalism doesn’t always give people the best bang for their buck. (Though to be fair, uneducated and greedy non-rich people who maxed out their credit cards and bought houses they couldn’t afford do share in the blame for the housing/banking woes.)
Republicans, on the other hand, look at slothful, gargantuan government agencies and see nothing but waste and inefficiencies. Anyone who has ever stepped foot in a DMV or a large city’s post office instantly becomes a bit more Republican. Except Bill Maher who aptly pointed out that he would prefer if the government were in charge of more things because, honestly, who else charges you 42 cents to ship a letter from Bar Harbor, Maine to Los Angeles… and generally gets it there in one piece? (Statistics God Nate Silver also had an interesting take on why conservatives hate government that merits reading. See “Why does a Person Become a Republican?”) By their very public nature, government agencies suffer from the lack of a “fire under the ass” that the cruel but sometimes effective business world can provide. I’m reminded of a story of a beer bottling factory in China, a country where the government has tried to shift its economic model from communist toward capitalist. A Western observer was shocked when he saw bottles going down the production line with leaves inside… and no one cared. When one’s job is guaranteed, obviously there’s little incentive to do one’s job right. If Karl Marx was woefully wrong about anything, he was woefully wrong that in a communist society people would be, to use his words, spontaneously fond of work. Um… yeah. It wasn’t true then, it certainly isn’t true in the Age of Entitlement.
Where the Democrats might hold the upper hand in this argument, in my humble opinion, is that even if government’s slothful heart isn’t in the right place, at least it’s not in the wrong place. I have no doubt that in future centuries, people will look back on a for-profit healthcare system whose obvious goal was to exclude the sick and thereby drive up stock prices and wonder, “WTF were these people thinking?” Bureaucrats undoubtedly suck… but at least they don’t truly want to pull the plug on grandma by denying her care.
“If You Bring Gum to Class, You Must Bring Enough For Everyone.” Um, Why? It's My Gum.
But if the first point (government vs. free market) is the intractable point that separates the two political parties into well-defined camps, then the second point is at least one where people can begin to find common ground: just how much do we owe to our common man?
We see this argument played out in law over the centuries. All law students must learn something called the Rule Against Perpetuities (“RAP”) . RAP, in a nutshell, is a way to make it much harder for people to pass down all their wealth to distant descendants under the theory that people should work for their money and if they’re spoiled rich brats who inherit everything, they won’t work. (Think: Paris Hilton, although I guess she does pull her own weight by doing reality shows and “designing” expensive purses.) RAP, however, is nearly gone. Most states in the U.S. have done away with it (as has the U.K., where it originated). Nowadays we tend to think: if you’ve earned it, you can keep it. Which begs the big question, “What does ‘earned’ mean?”
President Obama got a lot of shit when he was on the campaign trail and used the unfortunate phrase “spread the wealth” around. Honestly, at that moment, I thought his goose was cooked. But people tend to forget that taxes—all taxes—are form of wealth redistribution. My grandparents in rural Pennsylvania piss and moan that all the state’s taxes go to Pittsburgh and Philly. “Yes,” I reply, “but that’s where all the money and most of the people are. Are there any people making seven figures in your small town?” They also moan about money going toward public transportation systems since they have cars. Why should they have to pay for someone’s bus? “Yes,” I reply, “but if fewer people in Philly drive and take SEPTA instead, that means fewer cars on those roads. Fewer cars on the roads mean fewer repairs and fewer expansions of Philadelphia-area highways. Less money spent on Philly roads means more money can be spent on your roads in rural PA. Not to mention the valuable time lost in traffic jams that lowers economic productivity and hence lowers tax receipts.” But I digress. All taxes inconvenience some people more than others. Taxes will never be “fair” because we will never all agree on what “fair” means.
If we’re going to “spread the wealth,” how much is too much to spread, without getting into Laffer curves and all that theory? Part of the doctrine of being a conservative is generally to view the status quo as not-so-bad and to view change as scary. Part of the doctrine of being a liberal is to see the inequities in the world (social and financial) and consequently view change as quickly needed. So it makes sense that today—in an era of historically very low tax rates for wealthy people—conservatives tend to think the status quo is the appropriately place to be. But not too very long ago, the wealthy in this country paid over 70% of their money in taxes. The middle class was stronger. And a CEO made roughly 20 times what an average worker in that company made as opposed to the 160+ times the worker’s salary he makes now. To Democrats, this disparity is unacceptable.
To Republicans, income disparity tends to be seen as a function of effort: work more, get paid more. But not even the most diehard conservative can truly believe that preferential tax treatment, inflated wages, and undeserved nepotism don’t have something to do with high wages. Though, still, conservatives do have an excellent point, according to a recent Wall Street Journal piece, that when you raise taxes on the rich, the rich will (1) work less (because they can), (2) evade more (because they can), and (3) move out of the country (because they can). We can see this in states that have high tax rates: rich people leave and go to Texas. Which never made sense to me because you’re rich but then… you fucking live in Texas.
WWJD?
What would Jesus say about all this? What’s “fair”? In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus teaches, “And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. And He said, ‘Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on.’” Luke 14:1-4.
Jesus also said “render unto Caesar what is Caesar and unto God what is God’s.” Mark 12:17. In other words, pay your damn taxes and then devote your spiritual self to the Lord. Finally, Jesus also said, “Sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven.” Luke 18:22. Greek philosophers (I’m straining to remember which ones) weren’t quite so extreme. They tended to believe one should live simply but still retain enough to get by comfortably. What remains mindboggling to me, however, is that a large portion of conservative voters can attend a rally on Saturday about how they deserve to keep all their money from those evil people in Washington who want to give their money to the poor. And then on Sunday they attend a sermon where the minister quotes verses about living humbly and… giving money to the poor.
What Would the Commonwealth Do?
When does giving more money to others actually help society and, in turn, help you? I, after all, attended two state universities. My education was subsidized by the taxpayers of Pennsylvania and Ohio. We have state universities because we generally believe that a more educated citizen will be a more productive member of society (and a higher earning taxpayer). Most people seem to agree that that expense is worthwhile, though when times get tough, state money for those pesky kids always seems to be first on the chopping block because we forget its long-term taxable value.
Virtue Itself Turns Vice Being Misapplied, and Vice--By Its Action--Sometimes Dignified
But what about more controversial government programs? What about needle exchanges for heroin addicts? The city of Vancouver runs a needle exchange program where addicts can not only go to a government building, not only get a clean needle, but there’s also a nurse there to watch them shoot up and make sure they don’t die. Amazingly to many Americans, even the local police force in Vancouver favors the program. While it’s easy to think such a program is a horrible waste of money because people shouldn’t be doing heroin anyway (or, if you’re a bit more—shall we say, opinionated—heroin addicts don’t deserve to live because they’re not contributing anything to society), the counterargument is persuasive too: at least they’re not getting dirty needles, getting AIDS, infecting others, and dying in the streets. Garbage men dislike collecting corpses, I’m told.
What about giving prisoners access to education? I used to be vehemently against this. Hell, I pay for my education (well, most of it), why should lawbreakers get it for free? But then I learned about recidivism rates and how they are tied to the ability of ex-prisoners to return to the workforce upon release. Honestly, we have these people locked up with nothing to do, we might as well get them some books and some teachers so they believe that they have choices other than a life of crime when they get out of the clink. If it keeps them from coming back and turns them into taxpaying citizens, it was money well spent. And, forgive me for being a tad cheesy here, but… it shows them that someone cared.
I Keep Bleeding, Keep Keep Bleeding Love
Maybe this is where the “bleeding heart” liberal moniker comes from. But I’ve known some downtrodden people in my life. And many of them didn’t want a handout… but they needed a handout. Even a small one. A little unemployment. A smile. A mentor. Maybe even a little healthcare.
It’s remarkable that when you ask most non-poor people what is important in their lives, they rattle off the predictable list: education, money, wife/husband, kids, nice house, a car or three… but so few ever say “health.” Why? Because health is a given. It’s expected for so many people. But when you don’t have it, nothing else matters. Companies don’t hire sick people. Sick people don’t get out of bed to put on a suit for an interview. Sick people rack up medical bills instead of working and paying taxes. Yes, I know I’m overgeneralizing here, but you see my point: if someone doesn’t have his health, he’s got nothing. The least we can do as a society is to help give someone that without which they can do nothing else.
But Does the Fat, Smoking Baby Mama Really Deserve My Money?
“But it’s not my problem he smoked two packs a day!” the response will come. Well, no, it’s not. And this is a problem for which I do not think anyone has a good answer. We can discourage bad behaviors, like taxing the shit out of cigarettes and soda. We could ban things entirely like illegal drugs if we think they’re really harmful. And we can tell people to use condoms. But if someone gets HIV, do we tell her that it’s her fault and she’s on her own? What if she was raped? Can she get government-sporsored treatment then? Do we need to set up rape panels to determine who was innocent and therefore “deserving” of life-saving medications? Who sits on the panels? A good mixture of left and right, Christian and athiest? Do we need an economist on there to see if she could really afford to raise the child?...
Putting aside the religious part of the “I don’t want to pay for your abortion with my federal tax dollars” argument, look at the other part of that sentiment that’s often bubbling with venom underneath: “You slut, you should have known better.” Should we make someone have a child that she cannot support? As the book Freakonomics teaches us, women who tend to have abortions are women who would tend to have the types of children that grow up to be lawbreakers and end up in jail: single, poor, uneducated. That’s certainly not a moral argument for abortion because I do realize how powerful the religious objection is, but it is, at least, an economic argument. And no matter how strong your religious hatred for abortion, an unwanted child punishes not only the mother, but more importantly, that poor child suffers. That’s not love.
Greed: Among the Gravest of Sins
The Bible lists greed among the gravest of sins. Mark 7:22; I Cor. 6:10. I recall a story a few years ago about a bitter fight between Taco Bell and the providers of its tomatoes. The migrant farmers wanted a penny-per-pound raise because, well, they were paid like shit and their working conditions sucked. (Side note: does it astonish anyone else that one of the very few exceptions to the minimum wage laws are seasonal farm workers? The people who do the hardest, backbreaking work can be paid less than a kid selling V-necks in an air-conditioned Abercrombie?) Anyway, back to the story. Taco Bell resisted the meager raise. It was only after Taco Bell got negative press and some groups began to boycott them, that they relented. You see the problem with ruthless capitalism is simple: It’s all about the stockholders… until you piss people off so royally that the customers stop coming in, and then that affects your bottom line and you have to behave like humans instead of board members.
Can Ruthless Enforcement Be Common Ground?
I don’t want lazy pieces of shit taking my tax dollars either. And, recall, the poor were already taken care of via Medicaid. Thus, the benefits of the new healthcare law accrue mainly to the middle class. But in the end, I don’t mind if the single mother of three who suddenly finds herself unemployed gets some of my tax money. Many conservatives I’ve spoken with in the past few days seem to agree. It seems, then, that the left and the right are truly arguing over a matter of degree: who is deserving, and how much do they deserve? One way to meet on this issue would be to combat fraud.
Medicaid—I think we all can agree—is a horribly monitored fraud. I once saw a woman wearing a fur coat use food stamps at a grocery store and then hop into a waiting Lexus in the parking lot. These are the stories Republicans like to focus on when they decry the government taking “your” money, while Democrats focus on that single mother who lost her job. The truth is, of course, that both types exist in our system. Why not spend more money—a lot more money—rooting out fraud? Every dollar spent on an investigator could save untold money over the lifetime of a fraudulent recipient. And why not stiffen penalties? If you’re caught committing fraud when receiving access to any government program, you lose all assistance… forever. Might that send a chill down the spine of anyone wanting to fleece the government? I’d sure think so.
Republicans and Democrats may never see eye-to-eye on the government vs. unregulated markets theories of enterprise, but we can at least come together to agree that some people sometimes need help. I think both sides should push for more enforcement and Draconian punishments for those who abuse the systems. I’d love for such a program to be so effective that one day a far, far right politician will attempt to use a story about some lowlife who defrauded the system… and he will be laughed at. Because fraud will have been eliminated and the idea of pulling a fast one on the government will be laughable. Wishful thinking, I know, but an admirable goal to aspire toward.
Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls. It Tolls For Thee. Eventually.
The press reported this week that if you make more than a million dollars a year, your taxes might go up $46,000 to help pay for healthcare. Stop and think about that. And your response will say a lot about yourself. I hope to make more than a million per year eventually. And to me, if I’m making that much, if I must pay an “extra” $46,000 in taxes so that someone who can’t see a doctor can get healthy on my dime, well, that’s OK with me. But if you think the millionaire “earned” all of that money fair and square, and you view those trying to take it away from him as freeloading sloths, then you’d naturally be up in arms about this new healthcare law.
One of President Kennedy’s many memorable quotations is “For those to whom much is given, much is required.” And when you’re middle class and struggling to make ends meet, it might not seem like you have very much. And I get that. I’ve been there. Hell, I’m there now. My student loans cost more than the value of my parents’ house. (My five pounds of grey matter costs more than a three-bedroom ranch in economically depressed Pennsylvania!) But if you’re reading this, you have a computer and Internet access, and that means you have more than a lot of people. Take a minute and truly think about that before you gripe about your taxes the next time: “For those to whom much is given, much is required.” Somber words. And they ring just as true today as when Kennedy spoke them. And just as true when Kennedy spoke them as when the original speaker first uttered them two thousand years prior. Jesus. Luke 12:48.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Sinning with a Mouse Click
My mom sent me an e-mail forward today and asked if it was true. She does this often. On one hand, I think it's kind of cute that she thinks I'm the expert on everything. On the other hand, I wish she'd spend a few minutes on Google and figure out that a handful of her friends are mildly retarded and shouldn't be allowed within 15 feet of a computer.
Below is the forward she sent me, followed by my response. The original forward was drafted in multiple colors, multiple font sizes, random CAPITAL letters, and--of course--in that dreadful curvy font that you'd use on your five year-old's birthday invitation. You know--the same way scholarly journals are drafted, right? :-/ I won't attempt to recreate the crappy font choices, as I do not want to assault your senses.
----------------
Joys of Muslim Women by Nonie Darwish
In the Muslim faith a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old and have sexual intimacy with this child. Consummating the marriage by 9.
The dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman (who becomes his slave) and for the purchase of the private parts of the woman, to use her as a toy.
Even though a woman is abused she can not obtain a divorce.
To prove rape, the woman must have (4) male witnesses.
Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry. The family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family.
Husbands can beat their wives 'at will' and he does not have to say why he has beaten her.
The husband is permitted to have (4 wives) and a temporary wife for an hour (prostitute) at his discretion.
The Shariah Muslim law controls the private as well as the public life of the woman.
In the West World ( America ) Muslim men are starting to demand Shariah Law so the wife can not obtain a divorce and he can have full and complete control of her. It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American Universities are now marrying Muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shariah law.
By passing this on, enlightened American women may avoid becoming a slave under Shariah Law.
--Snip--
In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President by themselves!
I think everyone in the U.S. should be required to read this, but with the ACLU, there is no way
this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on! This is your chance to make a difference...!
--------------------
My response to mom:
Mom,
Admittedly I don't know enough about Sharia law to answer this completely definitively, but whenever someone makes such sweeping accusations, it should cause you to raise an eyebrow. Here is a website purporting to debunk most of that forward's claims: http://hatesermons.blogspot.com/2009/08/nonie-darwish-hate-monger.html.
If you Google the author, the first hit you receive is the Wikipedia page about her. (Remember, Wikipedia has been shown to be more accurate than encyclopedias in print form because it is edited by the world and then fact-checked by the rest of the world.) Here is the Wikipedia page on Nonie Darwish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonie_Darwish. You can see that Nonie used to be a Muslim and converted to Christianity. She also founded "Arabs for Israel." She is not a religious scholar. She clearly has a bit of an axe to grind, which doesn't discredit her outright, but let's just keep that in mind.
So let's pick apart the email a bit, shall we?
1. First, forwards that are drafted in curvy fonts, different colors, different text sizes, which conclude in CAPS, and which issue a warning about the ACLU repressing your speech are never true. Never. Such forwards are about as useless as tits on a nun.
2. Islam is not uniform... nor is Christianity. There are radicals in every group. That's not to say that some sects of Islam don't have some serious, serious problems. A sizable chunk of Muslim men in places like Saudi Arabia still beat the crap out of their wives. But on the flip side, you wouldn't want your church associated with the lunatics who bomb abortion clinics, would you? It's fair to criticize another's religion--and we should be pointing out human rights abuses and never excusing them under the guise of religion--but it's always important to separate what really is "the religion" from what is some radical sect that is using a religious text to do things that rational people would never consider holy.
3. The ACLU is the American Civil Liberties Union. They protect people from religion just as they protect people's right to practice religion. When a town tries to put a cross on public land--such as the courthouse lawn--the ACLU sues because that's a government endorsement of religion. (I know some people won't like that, but that's what living in a country that respects the separation of Church and State is all about: it doesn't mean we suppress your Christianity, it just means you don't get to force your Christianity upon anyone else. Live and let live.) But the ACLU also sticks up for people when their religious rights are trampled. Check out this long list of pro-religious court cases the ACLU has recently brought on behalf of religious people and groups: http://www.aclu.org/aclu-defense-religious-practice-and-expression.
Recall that Rush Limbaugh hates the ACLU. But when Rush got in trouble for illegally "doctor shopping" and getting multiple prescriptions for pain killers, who came to his defense? The ACLU. Why? Because the prosecutor was trying to illegally publish parts of Limbaugh's medical records, and the ACLU knew this violated his right to medical privacy.
4. The number of U.S. Muslims is impossible to pin down, but reputable organizations put the estimates between 2.5 million and 7 million. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States). The current U.S. population is over 307 million people. (http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html). Assuming that different groups of people vote in roughly the same percentages, we'll even take the high number and divide: so 7 million Muslims divided by 307 million people in America is 2.28% of the population.
Will someone please, please explain to me how in just twenty years' time, 2.28% of the population (and that's using the high estimate) will produce enough children to elect a president that will impose Sharia law upon the U.S.? Are all Muslim women going to start having 100 babies a piece starting today? Because, remember, the kids can't vote until they're 18, and it takes 9 months for a baby to gestate, so that's almost 19 years right there. Are all non-Muslim women in the U.S. going to stop having children? The whole thing idea that Muslims will be a majority soon and will be able to elect a president is retarded--even with immigration and converts. Not gonna happen. Period.
Furthermore, the idea that a Muslim president who wanted to impose Sharia law could even do so without overturning the constitution we've had for over 200 years is even more retarded and shows a complete lack of knowledge regarding how our government really works. (Are two-thirds of Congress going to go along with this? Are three-fourths of all the state legislatures, as is required for amendments? Would the Supreme Court even allow the First Amendment to be stricken, as would have to happen for Sharia law to replace freedom of religion? Is the author of this forward smoking crack, and, if so, where can I get some?) Anyone who forwards such numerical nonsense should be ashamed of their math skills, their U.S. history skills, and their inability to spend two minutes on Google.
5. Finally, remember that your son worked at Target in college. There is an old e-mail forward that still circulates asking people to protest Target because it's allegedly anti-veteran and French-owned. Aunt Jackie even forwarded it to you, as I recall. In truth, Target is neither anti-veteran nor foreign-owned. The truth may be found here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/target.asp.
Think about the consequences of sending the Target forward. I only got to work when Target needed me. Target needed me when the store sold enough merchandise to justify giving me more hours. So for each idiot that sends that forward and stops coming to Target, Target loses business, and I don't work. My life is therefore harmed not by anything bad that Target actually did, but by the harmful, childish, unintelligent lies that some half-wit has spread from the comfort of his or her computer chair.
And make no mistake about it: it's a lie. A lie is something that is not the truth; we all know this, but somehow when it's just something we shuffle along with a few mouse clicks it seems less offensive. But it isn't less of a lie because you sent the e-mail along not knowing if it was true or not. Gossiping--if untrue--is still lying.
If your religion holds that all sins are equal (or at least all sins besides blaspheming God), then lying is as bad as rape. If lying is as bad as rape, then the person who sent you this ridiculous e-mail is as bad as the Muslim man who just brutally raped his wife. Think about that: by clicking "send," your friend just committed the sinful equivalent of rape. Gee, all the sudden sending this crap over the Internet doesn't seem so Christian, does it?
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, your friend should think of whom she is hurting when she sends out lies. Think of the poor, peaceful Muslim immigrant who moves into her neighborhood. If all her other neighbors got this e-mail, how do you think they would treat that immigrant? (Again, this isn't to say that some Muslims aren't violent. That's a national conversation we need to have: how to allow religious freedom while at the same time protecting against terrorists and extremists. But there is a difference between Islamic terrorists and the little old lady named Fatima who moved here so she and her family could have a better life.) Better yet, turn the tables: if you suddenly had to relocate to Indonesia and were the only Christian in the neighborhood, how would you feel about someone who was spreading lies about Christianity in your new village?
Sending forwards like this without fact checking is cruel, it's immature, and it's woefully un-Christian.
But if you remember nothing else, remember this: whenever you see forwards written in crazy colors, different sized fonts, and with the word "ACLU" thrown in... it's gonna be bullshit. Every time.
Love - your liberally educated devil child,
Paul
Below is the forward she sent me, followed by my response. The original forward was drafted in multiple colors, multiple font sizes, random CAPITAL letters, and--of course--in that dreadful curvy font that you'd use on your five year-old's birthday invitation. You know--the same way scholarly journals are drafted, right? :-/ I won't attempt to recreate the crappy font choices, as I do not want to assault your senses.
----------------
Joys of Muslim Women by Nonie Darwish
In the Muslim faith a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old and have sexual intimacy with this child. Consummating the marriage by 9.
The dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman (who becomes his slave) and for the purchase of the private parts of the woman, to use her as a toy.
Even though a woman is abused she can not obtain a divorce.
To prove rape, the woman must have (4) male witnesses.
Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry. The family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family.
Husbands can beat their wives 'at will' and he does not have to say why he has beaten her.
The husband is permitted to have (4 wives) and a temporary wife for an hour (prostitute) at his discretion.
The Shariah Muslim law controls the private as well as the public life of the woman.
In the West World ( America ) Muslim men are starting to demand Shariah Law so the wife can not obtain a divorce and he can have full and complete control of her. It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American Universities are now marrying Muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shariah law.
By passing this on, enlightened American women may avoid becoming a slave under Shariah Law.
In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President by themselves!
I think everyone in the U.S. should be required to read this, but with the ACLU, there is no way
this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on! This is your chance to make a difference...!
--------------------
My response to mom:
Mom,
Admittedly I don't know enough about Sharia law to answer this completely definitively, but whenever someone makes such sweeping accusations, it should cause you to raise an eyebrow. Here is a website purporting to debunk most of that forward's claims: http://hatesermons.blogspot.com/2009/08/nonie-darwish-hate-monger.html.
If you Google the author, the first hit you receive is the Wikipedia page about her. (Remember, Wikipedia has been shown to be more accurate than encyclopedias in print form because it is edited by the world and then fact-checked by the rest of the world.) Here is the Wikipedia page on Nonie Darwish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonie_Darwish. You can see that Nonie used to be a Muslim and converted to Christianity. She also founded "Arabs for Israel." She is not a religious scholar. She clearly has a bit of an axe to grind, which doesn't discredit her outright, but let's just keep that in mind.
So let's pick apart the email a bit, shall we?
1. First, forwards that are drafted in curvy fonts, different colors, different text sizes, which conclude in CAPS, and which issue a warning about the ACLU repressing your speech are never true. Never. Such forwards are about as useless as tits on a nun.
2. Islam is not uniform... nor is Christianity. There are radicals in every group. That's not to say that some sects of Islam don't have some serious, serious problems. A sizable chunk of Muslim men in places like Saudi Arabia still beat the crap out of their wives. But on the flip side, you wouldn't want your church associated with the lunatics who bomb abortion clinics, would you? It's fair to criticize another's religion--and we should be pointing out human rights abuses and never excusing them under the guise of religion--but it's always important to separate what really is "the religion" from what is some radical sect that is using a religious text to do things that rational people would never consider holy.
3. The ACLU is the American Civil Liberties Union. They protect people from religion just as they protect people's right to practice religion. When a town tries to put a cross on public land--such as the courthouse lawn--the ACLU sues because that's a government endorsement of religion. (I know some people won't like that, but that's what living in a country that respects the separation of Church and State is all about: it doesn't mean we suppress your Christianity, it just means you don't get to force your Christianity upon anyone else. Live and let live.) But the ACLU also sticks up for people when their religious rights are trampled. Check out this long list of pro-religious court cases the ACLU has recently brought on behalf of religious people and groups: http://www.aclu.org/aclu-defense-religious-practice-and-expression.
Recall that Rush Limbaugh hates the ACLU. But when Rush got in trouble for illegally "doctor shopping" and getting multiple prescriptions for pain killers, who came to his defense? The ACLU. Why? Because the prosecutor was trying to illegally publish parts of Limbaugh's medical records, and the ACLU knew this violated his right to medical privacy.
4. The number of U.S. Muslims is impossible to pin down, but reputable organizations put the estimates between 2.5 million and 7 million. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States). The current U.S. population is over 307 million people. (http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html). Assuming that different groups of people vote in roughly the same percentages, we'll even take the high number and divide: so 7 million Muslims divided by 307 million people in America is 2.28% of the population.
Will someone please, please explain to me how in just twenty years' time, 2.28% of the population (and that's using the high estimate) will produce enough children to elect a president that will impose Sharia law upon the U.S.? Are all Muslim women going to start having 100 babies a piece starting today? Because, remember, the kids can't vote until they're 18, and it takes 9 months for a baby to gestate, so that's almost 19 years right there. Are all non-Muslim women in the U.S. going to stop having children? The whole thing idea that Muslims will be a majority soon and will be able to elect a president is retarded--even with immigration and converts. Not gonna happen. Period.
Furthermore, the idea that a Muslim president who wanted to impose Sharia law could even do so without overturning the constitution we've had for over 200 years is even more retarded and shows a complete lack of knowledge regarding how our government really works. (Are two-thirds of Congress going to go along with this? Are three-fourths of all the state legislatures, as is required for amendments? Would the Supreme Court even allow the First Amendment to be stricken, as would have to happen for Sharia law to replace freedom of religion? Is the author of this forward smoking crack, and, if so, where can I get some?) Anyone who forwards such numerical nonsense should be ashamed of their math skills, their U.S. history skills, and their inability to spend two minutes on Google.
5. Finally, remember that your son worked at Target in college. There is an old e-mail forward that still circulates asking people to protest Target because it's allegedly anti-veteran and French-owned. Aunt Jackie even forwarded it to you, as I recall. In truth, Target is neither anti-veteran nor foreign-owned. The truth may be found here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/target.asp.
Think about the consequences of sending the Target forward. I only got to work when Target needed me. Target needed me when the store sold enough merchandise to justify giving me more hours. So for each idiot that sends that forward and stops coming to Target, Target loses business, and I don't work. My life is therefore harmed not by anything bad that Target actually did, but by the harmful, childish, unintelligent lies that some half-wit has spread from the comfort of his or her computer chair.
And make no mistake about it: it's a lie. A lie is something that is not the truth; we all know this, but somehow when it's just something we shuffle along with a few mouse clicks it seems less offensive. But it isn't less of a lie because you sent the e-mail along not knowing if it was true or not. Gossiping--if untrue--is still lying.
If your religion holds that all sins are equal (or at least all sins besides blaspheming God), then lying is as bad as rape. If lying is as bad as rape, then the person who sent you this ridiculous e-mail is as bad as the Muslim man who just brutally raped his wife. Think about that: by clicking "send," your friend just committed the sinful equivalent of rape. Gee, all the sudden sending this crap over the Internet doesn't seem so Christian, does it?
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, your friend should think of whom she is hurting when she sends out lies. Think of the poor, peaceful Muslim immigrant who moves into her neighborhood. If all her other neighbors got this e-mail, how do you think they would treat that immigrant? (Again, this isn't to say that some Muslims aren't violent. That's a national conversation we need to have: how to allow religious freedom while at the same time protecting against terrorists and extremists. But there is a difference between Islamic terrorists and the little old lady named Fatima who moved here so she and her family could have a better life.) Better yet, turn the tables: if you suddenly had to relocate to Indonesia and were the only Christian in the neighborhood, how would you feel about someone who was spreading lies about Christianity in your new village?
Sending forwards like this without fact checking is cruel, it's immature, and it's woefully un-Christian.
But if you remember nothing else, remember this: whenever you see forwards written in crazy colors, different sized fonts, and with the word "ACLU" thrown in... it's gonna be bullshit. Every time.
Love - your liberally educated devil child,
Paul
Friday, November 6, 2009
Prostitution... It's All About the Timing
Prostitution should be legalized. Why? Because in most situations, it's already legal... it's just overlooked. (I'll leave others to debate the moral consequences and the subjugation of women issue, which are perfectly valid points. Personally, I think prostitution is a tad creepy for the same reason I find selling one's organs creepy: it's just horrible to think that this is the only way some people think they can make a living.) For my purposes, though, I think a good argument for legalization can be made just for the sake of consistency in the law. Let's be honest about what makes a prostitute a prostitute: it's when you hand over the dough.
If you pick up a hooker on the street, take her back to a hotel, bang her, and give her a few benjamins, she is a prostitute. If you pick her up in a strip club while she's working, take her out to dinner, buy her jewelry, bang her, and marry her, she is Anna Nicole Smith. (Note that just because you're married doesn't mean you're not still a hooker.)
Gay men are no different. If you're a hot, young 20-something and your boyfriend is much older, wealthier, and saggy, spare me the crap about liking older men because they're "mature." Watch the elder's stock options evaporate and see how long Junior sticks around. Junior, you're a prostitute.
So the next time you see the brightly painted women or "women" on Halsted in Chicago or Jarvis in Toronto or wherever hos may be found, before you cast a stone, remember this: just because your "payment" comes in the form of a BMW or a Tiffany's diamond band or even five free drinks at the bar, if you wouldn't have hooked up with the guy without that extra sumthin sumthin, you're doing it for the money. In short, you're a ho.
If you pick up a hooker on the street, take her back to a hotel, bang her, and give her a few benjamins, she is a prostitute. If you pick her up in a strip club while she's working, take her out to dinner, buy her jewelry, bang her, and marry her, she is Anna Nicole Smith. (Note that just because you're married doesn't mean you're not still a hooker.)
Gay men are no different. If you're a hot, young 20-something and your boyfriend is much older, wealthier, and saggy, spare me the crap about liking older men because they're "mature." Watch the elder's stock options evaporate and see how long Junior sticks around. Junior, you're a prostitute.
So the next time you see the brightly painted women or "women" on Halsted in Chicago or Jarvis in Toronto or wherever hos may be found, before you cast a stone, remember this: just because your "payment" comes in the form of a BMW or a Tiffany's diamond band or even five free drinks at the bar, if you wouldn't have hooked up with the guy without that extra sumthin sumthin, you're doing it for the money. In short, you're a ho.
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