Happy Holidays?

Of all the controversial opinions I hold, one is received with greater shock and horror than all of the rest. For example, most people - Christians included - can hold their composure when they discover that I am an atheist. And that's saying something! Polls consistently find that atheists are more feared by the U.S. electorate than just about any other group. For example, Americans would elect a Mormon, a thrice-married individual, or a HOMOSEXUAL (gasp!) before they would elect an atheist. So what could possibly be more offensive than my devout disbelief in the existence of a sky god?

Brace yourselves. Sit down and take a deep breath. I'm gonna say it, but I need you to stick with me here and try to get through all of my argument before you wage a holy fucking crusade-jihad-fatwa against me. Do you think you can do that? Okay...here goes...

I believe that our Santa Claus tradition is profoundly wrongheaded and damages children for life.

Whew. There it is. When you're ready to hear the rest, proceed...

First of all, I would simply point to the People's Exhibit A: the abundance of seriously fucked up adults in existence today. I mean, how many perfectly well adjusted grown ups do you know? Be honest. Not many, right? The state of things these days is not so hunky dory that we can afford to rule out any common childhood experiences as possible root causes. But this is an admittedly weak correlational supposition, so let's move on.

We tell our children many stories. Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, Where the Wild Things Are, Horton Hears A Who, and so on. We make believe with them, pretending to be people we're not, pretending to talk to people who are not there, imagining things that can never be. These are all wonderful traditions that stimulate a creative and open mind.

What we do not do in the case of any of those activities is insist that they are true and real and possible. They are not. They have elements of real life to which we can relate. They have important lessons about real life to impart. They make real life a little more wonderful than it might be without them. They are not, however, real life. This does not detract from the delightfulness of them.

When our children complain of monsters under their beds, we sensibly tell them that there is no such thing as monsters. We show them that there are no monsters under their bed. When our children tell us that they want to jump off the roof in an effort to fly, we explain that people cannot fly and that if they jump off the roof they are likely to experience a great deal of pain.

In other words, we encourage imagination...not hallucination.

Except when it comes to Santa Claus.

When it comes to Santa Claus, we go to great lengths to deceive our children. We tell them that on the evening of December 24th, a fat man from the North Pole ACTUALLY goes to the home of every child in the world - flown there by reindeer, mind you - slides down their chimneys, eats whatever goodies have been left for him, and leaves presents under the tree.

We engage in elaborate, stealthy tactics to enhance the legitimacy of the charade - taking our children to see Santa in order to deliver their sacred Christmas lists, hiding gifts for weeks or months, signing tags from "SANTA" (all caps to disguise our handwriting), slinking around the house at all hours of the night to plant the evidence, leaving crumbs of cookie and drops of milk on Santa's plate, and feigning surprise at each present that we knew nothing about until the moment our child unwrapped it.

All in all, it is a pretty impressive performance. It has to be...because our children are not stupid. Anything short of absolute dedication to this rigmarole may create an opening for the child to use the brain that we have been otherwise cultivating for the purpose of realizing how absurd the whole thing is. That would be a tragedy. They must not know until...well, until they reach an age at which we might begin to question their intellectual competence if they continued to buy into it.

So it cannot be denied that we perpetrate a massive campaign of deceit against our children every year. You may think "deceit" too strong a word, but we have to begin by calling it what it is. It may be a well-intentioned deceit. It may be a fun family tradition. It is still a deceit. We tell our children that something pretend is, in fact, real. We stage scenes that make it appear to be real.

We embrace books and films that not only corroborate the deceit, but that attempt to induce guilt in anyone who doesn't accept the reality of the falsity. The famous last line of The Polar Express is a perfect example:

At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.

So this boy, now a grown man, apparently continues to believe in Santa Claus. The jaded, joyless adults do not. This is the whole point of the story. (One might speculate that the boy is writing this from a mental hospital or convalescent home.) You might be tempted to accuse me of missing the deeper literary meaning - but I challenge you to tell me what that deeper literary meaning is. What is it that the parents have stopped believing in? In the story, it is Santa Claus. A living, breathing Santa Claus. Once they stopped believing, they were unable to experience the joy of the holiday.

Don't get me wrong...I understand why we feel compelled to reenact this bizarre ritual with our own children. Once a year, throughout our childhood, we were spoiled rotten with visits from beloved relatives, music, decorations, chocolates, and gifts! Piles of delicately wrapped boxes of things we had been yearning for. Reality came to a screeching halt for about a week while we gorged ourselves on happiness and egg nog. Gee, I wonder why we feel so attached to the rituals of the season?

But I also wonder what we lost when we realized that it was all a sham. I can't help but think some part of us broke when we found out that it was all a lie. On the surface, we didn't have to deal with it because the gifts kept coming each year. But somewhere deep down, I wonder if it permanently impaired our trust in others. After all, they'd all been lying to us. Sure, they meant well, but how else might they be deceiving us?

We talk about how impressionable children are. We know how much they perceive of what they experience. We know that they internalize the tiniest signals and stimuli. This is not an insignificant part of the childhood experience. I would suggest that the strength of your reaction against the argument I am making is indicative of the strength of the Santa Claus tradition - and that should tell you something about how strong an impact it might have.

As is often the case, Stephen Sondheim said it best in Into the Woods:

Careful the spell you cast
Not just on children
Sometimes the spell may last
Past what you can see
And turn against you
Careful the tale you tell
That is the spell
Children will listen

Paterno & The Pedophile

First of all, let me say that I've never given two shits about college sports, except perhaps to note that their influence on campuses often seems unhealthily oversized. That said, having spent about a decade in Pennsylvania, I have a passing familiarity with Joe Paterno's legendary stature - and I agree that this is a sad end to his remarkable tenure at Penn State. I understand the feeling that such a career should not be ending on this note, especially given that he did not commit the actual crimes that are being alleged. If, however, the facts comport with the allegations, I would argue that Paterno and any of his colleagues that failed in similar ways are, in a sense, more guilty than Sandusky.

Pedophilia is a mental illness. The revulsion we all feel at the thought of it is a sign that we are mentally healthy (at least with regards to pedophilia). Sexual attraction to prepubescent children is a devastating sickness of the mind. If a thirty year old has consensual sex with a fifteen year old, they are guilty of inappropriately and illegally breaking social norms, but they are not guilty of a crime against nature. Our society has postponed sexual activity beyond the point at which nature makes the body ready for it. The thirty year old has made a very bad choice and should be punished accordingly. The pedophile, on the other hand, is deranged by an attraction to bodies that have not reached sexual maturity. While the consequences are profoundly more tragic, the attraction itself is akin to, say, a sexual attraction to animals. It is unnatural and deviant. It could only exist in a brain that is not wired properly.

All of this confirmed by a simple thought experiment: Honestly rate your level of physical attraction to, let's say Taylor Lautner circa 2008 (when he emerged in the Twilight movies at the age of 16) or Taylor Swift circa 2006 (when she broke out at the age of 16). Your rating has nothing to do with whether or not you would actually engage in sexual activity with anyone this age. Now - attempt for three seconds to consider your level of sexual attraction to a ten year old. If you are sane and mentally stable, you won't even be able to do it. There is no attraction. There is negative attraction. There is only the desire to protect and care for. This establishes the vast psychological chasm that exists between normal people and pedophiles.

Jerry Sandusky is an alleged pedophile. To that end, he is only responsible for his actions to the same extent that a schizophrenic is. This doesn't mean that we can't or shouldn't hold him accountable. To be sure, he needs to be locked away from society for a good long time. (I would argue that he should be in a mental facility, but that is another discussion.) Anyone of sound mind who is aware of his actions is, I think, more responsible for subsequent actions. If your friend tells you that he is going to kill someone, you have a responsibility to report him. If you don't and if he actually kills someone, you bear at least as much responsibility as he does. Those who failed to ensure that Jerry Sandusky was not allowed to rape children after they knew he had done so in the past bear at least as much responsibility as he does.

"Why couldn't they just let him finish out his career with dignity?" That is a ridiculous question. What dignity? Dignity left the building when Sandusky was allowed back in after someone knew what he had done. If a child has been raped in your locker room shower, you don't sleep until you have given a statement to the police - let alone go about coaching football games with the guy.

Them That's Got Shall Get

Conservatives seem to genuinely believe that liberals are profoundly hostile toward the rich and want nothing more than to tear them down, take their money, and become rich people themselves. As far as they are concerned, this is the sole motivator and aim of liberal "redistributionist policies" and of the Occupy Wall Street movement in particular. On the surface, this interpretation makes some kind of sense. People who have less are protesting against people who have more. Liberal politicians are advocating policies that would take something from those who have more and spend on everyone, including those who have less. Conservatives of all socioeconomic stripes buy into this notion. I would like to explain why they are wrong and what this tells us about the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives.

I grew up in a blue collar household. My family was in the heating and air conditioning business. My dad was a union sheet metal worker. We never had a lot of money, but we had the basics required to live a peaceful, middle-class existence: a mortgage in the suburbs, health care, vacation pay (though we couldn't really afford vacations very often), sick pay (though my dad didn't call in sick for over 20 years), and the promise of a retirement pension. My siblings and I were able to attend private Catholic schools (they were abundant and very affordable in the midwest). In other words, while it might not always have felt like it, we were living the American Dream. Not the elusive, anecdotal version where you pull yourself up from poverty by the bootstraps and become a millionaire, but the one where you agree to work hard for 40-60 hours each week in exchange for the opportunity to raise a family and enjoy life a bit.

I'm quite sure that my parents hoped that my siblings and I might live out that other American Dream - the millionaire version. After all, don't all parents hope their children will surpass their own level of success and provide for them in their old age? But I never really had such aspirations. I'm not sure why, but I think it's because the middle class seemed like such a good deal to me that I just didn't feel the need to yearn for more. It's important to note that that doesn't mean I haven't been willing to work every bit as hard as someone who yearns for great wealth - only that great wealth has not been the inspiration for that work.

So wealth has never been a motivating force in my life, but I do not for a moment begrudge others their own wealth. Without the people at the top, there would be no middle for me to belong to.  But the people at the top have forgotten the corollary: Without the people in the middle, there can be no top for them to belong to. It is not their wealth that is a problem. It is the disparity that has been growing for thirty years. A rising tide must lift all boats in order for the social contract to work. If you don't think the growing disparity is a problem, then you must answer these questions: How wide would you allow that gap to grow? Practically speaking, isn't there going to come a point at which the people at the bottom can no longer afford to increase the wealth of the people at the top? And hasn't our monarchical past taught us that concentrated power and wealth will never stand? Isn't that why we came here? They may not call themselves Kings and Queens any longer, but they serve the same function.

But I digress. Allow me to get back on track by proposing the following schema for classifying people on a psycho-financial basis:

a) People who are motivated by a desire for wealth and have it.
b) People who are not motivated by a desire for wealth but have it.
c) People who are motivated by a desire for wealth but do not have it.
d) People who are not motivated by a desire for wealth and do not have it.

This simple schema would explain a few vexing phenomena. Michael Moore, for example, can't get through an interview without someone asking how he can be such a vociferous critic of a system that has benefited him so greatly. The answer is simple - he is a Type B individual. It would be hard to make the case that Michael Moore got into documentary filmmaking with the goal of becoming extraordinarily wealthy - especially when his films have always been brutal attacks on the moneyed elite. He became rich because his own passions resonated with the public - not because he set out to become rich.

Many successful people fall into this category. Consider doctors - good and bad ones alike. Some got into medicine out of a genuine interest in medical science or a passionate desire to heal. Others got into the field because doctors make really good money. I think you would find that conservative doctors fall into the latter group. You are probably more likely to find them on the golf course than volunteering for Doctors Without Borders. Again, either type might turn out to be a brilliant or incompetent physician based on many other factors. The motivation is only important within this schema.

Now let's consider folks like Joe the Plumber. These are the people Thomas Frank wrote about in What's the Matter With Kansas? They present a conundrum in that they appear to be advocating against their own self interests with their votes and voices. I would suggest that these are Type C people. They hope(d) or plan(ned) to be rich one day and are thereby naturally sympathetic to those who have achieved the goal that motivates their own existences, even if their own progress toward that goal is not going as well as they'd hoped.

Type A individuals are easy to spot. Watch the new film Margin Call for a magnificent case study of them. The movie presents a meticulously layered portrayal of the various types of people who fall into this category. They are not simply the gross caricatures of the wholly evil suits that you might expect. They include: Peter (Zachary Quinto), the brilliant and earnest former rocket scientist who stumbles upon the data that is about to bring the economy crashing down in 2008; Eric (Stanley Tucci), the former bridge builder who is laid off unceremoniously at the beginning of the film after 20 years; Sam (Kevin Spacey), the fast talking, fast dealing, show-me-the-money boss who first appalls us when he is more devastated by his dying dog than by the massive number of human beings he just laid off, but later displays the dying remnants of his conscience and humanity but is ultimately unable to redeem himself; John Tuld (Jeremy Irons), the financial automaton (clearly modeled on Dick Fuld), whose only concern in the world is the survival and enrichment of himself and his firm at any cost.

These men could not be more different from each other in their biographical histories and personality types. What they have in common is that each of them chose wealth over everything else, as evidenced by their career choices. They left behind families, careers, passions, and principles to push money around, much of it into their own pockets. The longer they do it, the colder they grow to the world around them. They more money they get their hands on, the less important everything else becomes. You can argue that these are merely fictional characters, but you cannot argue that anyone goes into the money business out of any personal passion other than a passion for money. In fact, you will fail in the financial sector if you are not motivated by the desire to make massive amounts of money. I am not here to make the case that this is or is not a valid passion - I am simply trying to establish that there is a difference between people with that passion and people without it.

Moving on. I suspect that most of us fall into Category D. Sure, maybe we buy a lottery ticket now and again or speculate about what we would do with a million dollars, but our lives are motivated primarily by the desire to live a fulfilling life. Money is a means to an end for us, not the end itself. If we see improvement in our personal wealth, it is generally modest and allows us to pay off a little debt, make a home improvement, save it for a rainy day, or treat ourselves to something nice - like a new television. Or a sweater. So for us, a discussion about the distinction between making, say one million dollars and two million dollars is not something we can really engage in with any degree of seriousness. Whether Albert Pujols will sign a $200 or $300 million dollar contract is sort of an absurd abstraction to us. That would be 4,000 - 6,000 years at my current household income, just to give you some perspective. (Plus, he probably gets health and dental benefits for the whole family. I pay $400/month for my high deductible plan and I spent about $1600 on dental work last month.)

This brings us full circle to the question of disparity. I don't know anyone who really gives a rat's ass how much money rich people make. God speed to them and their money. But that attitude was formed in an environment in which the better off they were, the better off we all were - even if just a tiny, little, eensy-teensy bit. So unless you can explain how this gap could possibly grow unchecked, you have stumbled upon the fundamental complaint of the Occupy movement. And I mean you'd have to explain it in practical, economic terms. You can't just say "It's their money, they earned it, we shouldn't spread the wealth around, stop begging for handouts," etc. You have to explain the difference between the current imbalance and the sort of plutocracy our system was supposed to be an improvement on. You also have to explain why, if business is so oppressed by economy killing regulations and taxes, are the rich still getting richer? That argument might have some credibility if all sectors were suffering equally, but they are not. The folks at the top are still getting wealthier. The rest of us are still out here trying to pull our weight - but the rewards are being funneled to the top.

I would like to be a conservative. I would like to live in a world in which unions are not necessary because employers simply do right by their employees. I would like to live in a world in which we don't need to raise taxes on millionaires because millionaires are fairly distributing the wealth down through the ranks of their companies. Unfortunately, the system has run amok and the guys at the top have grown too disconnected from the real world that the majority of us live in. They've distorted the system so that it is making less and less sense for the rest of us to participate in it. Whereas the Tea Party has an abstract argument about the sustainability of our national debt in the long term, OWS is about something tangible. You can malign the OWS movement all you want for its sloppiness, but is simply a natural, populist reaction to the reality. There is no reason to expect it to be a highly refined movement. It is the stuff of revolutions, not of tidy political calculation. 

Perry's Hope

So this is what Perry prays for at night:

We Are All Polar Bears Now

What do polar bears have in common with the 99%? 

In my mid-life attempt to complete my BA, I find myself required to take Geography 100. While I would never have chosen the class myself, I must admit that I am finding it pretty damn interesting. It's nice to fill in the blanks that have long existed in my vague knowledge about some of these basic concepts. As a non-scientist, I have always held the field and the process in high esteem without feeling compelled to understand it at all. That sort of distance from the actual science has, perhaps, prevented me from realizing just how much is now known about...well, so many things.

For example, I have never questioned the science behind climate change. I have simply accepted the consensus of those who have devoted their lives to studying such things. A week ago, I couldn't have told you any more about climate change than the fact that temperatures are rising and ice caps are melting. I might even have been marginally susceptible to mild skepticism about the overall importance of rising temperatures in the grand scheme of things.

Having just grazed the surface of geographic science - looking at the basics of how Earth functions as a system - it has already become amazingly simple and clear to me, in a way that it was not before, that we are overloading that system, draining its resources, and imperiling the future of all living things on the planet. Paradoxically, it turns out to be much less complicated than I could have imagined before I knew anything about it.

We have managed to construct a conception of our place in the universe that goes something like this:

• The universe, of which Earth is a part, is incomprehensibly immense. 
• We are tiny. 
• Our puny little species couldn't possibly do any real damage to the wider world around us.

The fatal flaw in that schema is the distinction between our puny little species and Earth. Practically speaking, we are quite literally one with the earth. We, along with all living things, are trapped together in an infinitesimally small bubble - a snow globe, in which the glass represents the incredibly thin layer of atmosphere within which all life is possible. That layer extends upward from sea level a mere 480 kilometers. Just to give you an idea of how little space that actually is, the distance through the center of Earth at its widest point (the equator) is 12,756 kilometers. 

Here's what I never realized: Nothing gets into the bubble and nothing leaves the bubble, resource-wise. The only thing that enters the bubble is solar radiation. Yes, we project things out into space and many of them return, but this represents a statistically insignificant variation from the general rule. For all intents and purposes, we may as well have a glass barrier surrounding us. When you think about things this way, you begin to see that we are not puny at all, as far as Earth is concerned. We may be insignificant. It may not matter whether we live or die and kill every other living thing in the process. Either way, it simply cannot be denied that we are having a major impact on the behavior of matter inside this bubble of ours. 

Believe it or not, this piece is not about the environment. Well...it is and it isn't. Bear with me here as I attempt to pivot to the economy and the Occupy Wall Street movement. First, back to the environment for a moment. Look at this:

Source: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/indicators/slideshow.html?

Roughly half of the Arctic sea ice has melted since 1970, with the losses increasing exponentially in more recent years. It is estimated that the remaining 23,000 polar bears will see their numbers dwindle by two-thirds by around 2050. Now those polar bears don't know or care anything about climate change. They don't know why they're nearly extinct. They don't know or care that a considerable number of humans refuse to accept the science supporting the notion that we are contributing to climate change. They don't know or care whether these people are motivated by politics, religion, greed, or all of the above. All they know is that the ice is disappearing from beneath them. Actually, they don't even know that...until they find themselves drowning in the middle of the too-warm Arctic ocean.

This is how we, the 99%, feel at the moment. The relentless pursuit of profit by the corporate sector is the energy that is overheating our financial atmosphere. The solid ground beneath our feet is vanishing, leaving us adrift in an ocean of uncertainty and dimming hope for the future. It doesn't much matter to us whether some deny this reality. The facts and figures speak for themselves: Rising corporate profits and increasing executive compensation for them; stagnating wages, rising unemployment, and increasing costs-of living for us. 

Both of these forms of denial are promulgated as conservative orthodoxy. Actual truth is no competition for their divine truth. If they can feel it, it is so. Reality be damned. This is the chief tactic of the new oligarchy. Just look at how successfully these two disparate issues have been manipulated in precisely the same way: 

• Appeal to the viscera. 
• Vilify science and intellectualism. 
• Deify individualism. 
• Demonize collectivism.
• Connect faith with finance. 

Once those principles have been instilled in the portion of the populace that is susceptible to them, the world is your oyster. You have established a visceral connection to your audience that does not require rationality. You have made them skeptical of anyone who is pompous enough to have become an expert in their field (while remaining free to profit from those people when it is convenient). You have trained them to decline a benefit for themselves in order to prevent others from receiving a benefit. Finally, you have secularized  the prosperity gospel by harnessing faith in the service of justifying selfishness and greed.

Take the polar bears, for example. Climate change deniers have followed these directions carefully and with great success. They viscerally hook their audience with contempt for the sort of hippie intellectuals who think they're smarter than everyone else, disseminating arbitrary factoids that look damn convincing to a layperson but have no scientific credibility when considered in context (if they're even factual to begin with). They incite righteous indigation of the "I'll-be-damned-if-anyone's-gonna-tell-me-what-kind-of-car-I-can-drive"sort, riling up the faux-libertarian that lurks within, as if personal liberty has anything to do with the question of whether or not we are warming the climate. They rally the troops against any notion that we, as individuals, have any responsibility to anyone or anything other than ourselves. Then, wire all of that into their faith system. Sell it like their pastors sell God. Make them feel it deep down in the cockles, where they are unable to think about it.

Our economic oppression has been accomplished and perpetuated using the same framework. They have successfully connected intellectualism to liberalism. (All liberals are high-minded, ivy-league snobs; all conservatives are...what?) They have elevated Ayn Rand to the status of Prophet, lending more credence to her founding principles than they ever have to those of Jesus Christ. Collectivism has been found guilty by association with its worst adherents and summarily executed in the square of public opinion.

We, as reasonable people, have been trained to feel that the use of words like "tyranny" and "oligarchy" and "fascism" is extreme and not applicable to anything that might occur in this great nation of ours. (Note that while socialistic ideas continue to have success in various sectors of economies all over the world, fascism has no corresponding positive associations. So when they call us "socialists," we are offended not at the term itself, but at their ignorance of what the word means and they ways in which they are the daily beneficiaries of socialistic systems. Once again, knowledge be damned. They merely want to tie us to Stalin - in the same way we could connect all Christians to Pope Innocent III.) We have been trained to behave. Revolt is for less civilized peoples. After all, we have iPods and plasma TVs. Why would we ever revolt?

Because the ice is melting out from under us. We were raised to believe that we could stay on solid ground if we played by the rules and worked hard. We grew up in a world in which a person willing to work 40+ hours a week could buy a home, start a family, provide for that family, take a vacation now and then, and retire before death. Pretty basic stuff for the "greatest nation in the history of the world," right? Sure, if you wanted to be a millionaire, you could try to go out and have a great idea and work day and night and build an empire - but ambition of that sort was not required by any means. Ambition is not the same as work ethic. I, for one, have never wanted power or great wealth. I grew up in a blue collar household and as a result I developed very modest expectations and desires. I just want to do something well, contribute my piece to society, and enjoy my family. That's it. Well, that's no longer enough.

The people with ambition decided that their ambition entitled them to a larger and larger piece of the pie. If us little folks can't be bothered to work as hard as them, then screw us. If we don't like it, we can get off our lazy asses and become investment bankers or invent something amazing, like Pillow Pets. Until then, we should take what scraps they're willing to provide in the form of jobs. That's right...they're the "job creators." They seem to think that they are bestowing a great gift by creating these precious jobs. What happened to the notion that employees are the most valuable commodity a company has? How exactly are the job creators going to get filthy fucking rich if we don't honor them with our time and service? If they're doing us such a favor, they should be able to get along without us, right? And who is going to buy their shit? If we don't allow them to pay us for our labor, where are we going to get the money to buy they stuff they're paying us to make?

They need us badly, but they've convinced us that it's the other way around - and they're taking a huge gamble. They're betting that if they pull the rug out just far enough - if they melt just enough ice - we'll all scramble to fit into the tiny space that's left. And we'll be grateful for it. Well maybe we won't. It's beginning to look like our only option is to get vicious on the bastards.  

Source: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Animals/Theories

Welfare For The Wealthy

My wife works in an upscale restaurant these days. We are fortunate that Washington does not allow the draconian wage of $2.13/hour established by federal law. $8/hour, while certainly not generous, makes it easier to endure a slow shift and the miserliness of some patrons. Rich patrons, in particular. She recently had the pleasure of serving, on two different occasions, members of a family that owns a large, well-known, national winery. At the end of one meal, the patriarch pulled her aside and slipped her what he clearly thought was a very generous tip. With a wink and a big-spender smile, he discreetly handed her $20 on his $110 check. Just to be clear, that's 18%. That's not a rude tip, by any means, but it certainly isn't worthy of any ostentatiousness. 


While the tipping behaviors of the wealthy are worthy of much discussion, I have a different point to make. The same gentleman I mentioned above was also treated to complimentary drinks, appetizers, and desserts by the owner of the restaurant. This is customary. A nice couple sitting across the room noticed that night. They were "nobodies" for whom this was probably their big splurge of the month. They were sad to have had their own insignificance affirmed by the comparative treatment of the elite. The still tipped my wife 20%.


Wealth and status are rewarded with free stuff everywhere they go. The more you have, the more you get. This is the great, hidden welfare doled out to the wealthy. Or, if you prefer, it is a tax on the rest of us, as our hard-earned dollars are redistributed upward in the form of complimentary swag. Consider the well-known Oscar bags tucked under the seats of the rich and famous each year. That's just the most conspicuous example. Even when they're not getting shit for free, they're paying less for it. Your mortgage broker is charging you a higher rate of interest so they can charge the rich less. 


I don't point this out because I think this petty little practice should or will stop. I simply want to call bullshit on the notion that wealth is every truly redistributed downward. It isn't. Corporate welfare - in the form of subsidies, tax breaks, and bailouts - has long dwarfed social welfare. The taxes of the middle class have built the infrastructure that has made commerce possible for the "job creators." The small retirement investments of regular people have made it possible for millionaires to make money with money.


Enough pretending that the unwealthy are a drain on wealthy. They have what they have because of us and only because of us. 

Thoughts on the Execution of Troy Davis

The following two observations have been made frequently in the hours leading up to last night's murder of Troy Davis by the state of Georgia.

• It is profoundly hypocritical for "pro-lifers" to be so pro-death with regards to the death penalty.
• Conservatives seem to think that government is terrible at everything except killing people.

It occurs to me that each of these arguments is vulnerable to a simple inversion from the other side of the debate. I think it is worth pointing out why such reversals would not be potent.

A death penalty advocate (the sort that might, for example, cheer at the mere mention of executing 234 people) might ask "How can someone be against the execution of a cold-blooded killer but for the murder of innocent babies in the womb?" This sounds like a valid question. It is not. Here's why: Opposition to abortion is rooted in a mystical belief that a spiritual being is created the moment egg meets sperm and that only God Almighty has the right to take the life of that being. This explains their concomitant opposition to euthanasia, but leaves open the question of why mortals are permitted to make an exception in the case of capital punishment.

Some of us are not burdened by such otherworldly gobbledy-gook. (I won't get into a protracted argument about the ethics of abortion here, but if you're interested, you are invited to read a paper I recently wrote for a course in Biomedical Ethics - The Inherent Mysticism of Arguments Against Abortion.) While there are certainly those who oppose the death penalty on spiritual grounds, one need not have any religious belief to oppose the practice. In the case of Troy Davis, opposition was rooted primarily in concerns about justice. There was simply "too much doubt," as to whether Troy Davis had actually committed the act for which he was ostensibly being murdered by the state of Georgia. Note that in the case of abortion, there is no question of justice. No claim is being made against the fetus that may or may not be true. 


So while it may be incredibly heart-wrenching to consider the possibility of Troy Davis's innocence, legitimate opposition to his execution can be as mechanical as a procedural concern about the functionality of our justice system - or even a selfish desire to protect oneself from a similar fate. One cannot protect oneself from abortion retroactively. One can, however, work to protect oneself from ultimate injustice by opposing the imposition of death by a capricious and fallible system.


The second argument is simpler. A death penalty advocate might wonder "If liberals think the government is so perfect, why don't they trust it to execute murderers?" Whereas today's conservatives argue that government is uniformly incompetent and oppressive, liberals simply believe that government CAN do good. We no more believe that government is perfect than that all corporations are uniformly evil. Government gets lots of things wrong - and we want to fix those things. Corporations do a lot of things well - and we think that's just great. We have no orthodoxy dictating universal truths to us. We just want things to work well and fairly. Many individuals have been convicted of crimes for which they were later exonerated. Some of them have been on death row. Yes, the death penalty takes a life. More importantly though, it eliminates the possibility of righting a wrong.

9/20/11 Miscellany

I'm going to try something new here. In my efforts to absorb as much information as possible, I read a lot and stumble across a lot of great material. My tendency in the past has been to either share full articles via Facebook/Twitter or try to develop one particular thought into a full essay for this blog. Unfortunately, that allows a lot of interesting stuff to slip through the cracks. I would like to try compiling excerpts and miscellaneous personal thoughts into posts and see where that leads. Let me know what you think... 


First, a few interesting tidbits from the October 2011 issue of Harper's: 


Harper's Index 
Percentage of the current U.S. debt that was accumulated during Republican presidential terms: 71
Portion of debt-ceiling elevations since 1960 that have been signed into law by Republican presidents: 2/3
Percentage of profits American corporations paid in taxes in 1961: 40.6 
Today: 10.5


Findings
Narcissists appear to be good leaders but aren't.
That finding was not sourced, but I did a little digging and found this study which says:

Those who love themselves and have vast self-confidence often impress others with their self-belief, dominance and authority, leading them to climb the career ladder effortlessly.

However, scientists have discovered that while narcissists are convincing leaders, they are so consumed by their own brilliance that it actually cripples their creativity and often causes them to make bad decisions.

Pennies From Heaven
There's also a terrifying essay by Chris Lehmann on the influence of the Mormon church on GOP economic policy, particularly with regard to the worship of precious metals. It includes this reality check:

By 1992, in fact, the economy was in a deep recession. In response, the Reagan Administration taxed and spent its way out of that slump via Keynesian-style deficit outlays for ballooning defense budgets and a 1982 tax increase - measures that would make hard-money conservatives woozy with acute cognitive dissonance, if they could bring themselves to acknowledge that they ever took place.

Nausea
An excerpt from Jean-Paul Sartre's seminal novel:

Something is beginning in order to end: adventure does not let itself be drawn out; it only makes sense when dead. I am drawn, irrevocably, towards this death which is perhaps mine as well. Each instant appears only as part of a sequence. I cling to each instant with all my heart: I know that it is unique, irreplacaeble - and yet I would not raise a finger to stop it from being annihilated. This last moment I am spending - in Berlin, in London - in the arms of a woman casually met two days ago - moment I love passionately, woman I may adore - all is going to end, I know it. Soon I shall leave for another country. I shall never rediscover either this woman or this night. I grasp at each second, trying to suck it dry: nothing happens which I do not seize, which I do not fix forever in myself, nothing, neither the fugitive tenderness of those lovely eyes, nor the noises of the street, nor the false dawn of early morning: and even so the minute passes and I do not hold it back, I like to see it pass. 

All of a sudden something breaks off sharply. The adventure is over, time resumes its daily routine. I turn; behind me, this beautiful melodious form sinks entirely into the past. It grows smaller, contracts as it declines, and now the end makes one with the beginning. Following this gold spot with my eyes I think I would accept - even if I had to risk death, lose a fortune, a friend - to live it all over again, in the same circumstances, from end to end. But and adventure never returns nor is prolonged.
...
I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch time by the tail.

Questions
And now a few of my own thoughts:


There was an uproar this week over Dr. Oz's revelation on his show that there is arsenic in apple juice. First, millions of moms all of over America who no longer have Oprah to turn to in the afternoons freaked the hell out and swore to never buy apple juice again. (Kids rejoiced at the replacement drink: Mountain Dew.) Then, the FDA struck back and said they'd been testing apple juice for years and that there is no danger to anyone from drinking the stuff, whether it be from China or the U.S.


This seems to me a striking inversion of the typical government vs. free market debate. After all, Dr. Oz may well, in his capacity as a capitalistic television personality and entrepreneur, have unnecessarily hurt the juice industry, which could easily cause financial harm and job losses. It was the FDA - a government agency - that rose to the defense of the industry, possibly staving off those losses. So what say you, conservatives, to this interesting little switcheroo? Is the government always the bogeyman? Can it, on occasion, do some good and actually help the economy? Can the free market sometimes shoot itself in the foot without the guiding hand of government regulation and oversight?


Also...I was thinking about patents. I can't pretend to understand the system well, but I know that patents do expire, at which point generic imitators are free to storm the barricades and start reaping profits from the ingenuity of others. I'm sincerely wondering how capitalists justify this. Do all of you tea partiers out there refrain from saving money by buying generic products? Ayn Rand would certainly frown upon such looting. Still, it is probably good for the economy, in the sense that jobs are created and money is made by the plagiarists. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the capitalists behind these mimicking corporations are died-in-the-wool fiscal conservatives, in direct contravention of their actions. In any event, I think that all Ron Paul-style conservatives should immediately cease purchasing any product that is not manufactured and sold by the originator of that product. 

The Real Death Panels

There may or may not be atheists in foxholes, but I'm quite sure there are no Republicans among the ranks of the sick and uninsured. Watch this:

Okay, a few things...

First, I'd like to know how it is exactly that churches "take care of" those who are uninsured and sick. Do they use magical Jesus dollars? Do they skip the health care system altogether by performing miracles? No. They use cash that has been tithed by their congregations. A sort of "church tax," if you will. One way or another, cash money is required to provide for those who are in need.

It simply does not make sense to deride the risks taken by someone like the man in Wolf Blitzer's example and say that the government shouldn't take care of them...but churches should. Ron Paul usually has the courage of his convictions, which in this case would dictate an answer of "Yes, he should be left to die." It is the only intellectually consistent position to take. Either fellow citizens should pick up the tab for those who can't or we should not. Churches, governments, whatever. Live free or die. Right?

So let's say you want to take that respectably consistent, hard-line position. There's still a problem: It just doesn't make economic sense, even if it comports with your deepest convictions about liberty. The U.S. now ranks 36th in life expectancy. For that distinction, we pay a whole lot more than countries with higher life expectancies.

Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2010), "OECD Health Data", OECD Health Statistics (database). doi: 10.1787/data-00350-en (Accessed on 14 February 2011).

EVERY country on that chart ranks ahead of us in life expectancy. EVERY country on that chart has a universal health care system of one sort or another. The first four (those who spend the least per capita) have single payer systems. Seven out of the fourteen have single payer systems. So while I understand the foundational principles that form the basis of your ideology on this issue, I cannot understand your willingness to let every single American throw away thousands of dollars each year to uphold those principles.

Then again, maybe I do understand it. Those voices shouting "Yeah!" in response to Blitzer's question about letting the uninsured man die explain everything. The Tea Party movement is not so much about freedom as it is about making sure that no one gets anything they haven't earned through blood, sweat, and tears. They can't stand the thought that anyone is getting anything for "free" - especially people who don't go to their church. In order to make sure that no freeloading son-of-a-bitch ever sees a dime of their hard-earned money, they are actually willing to pay a premium. They would rather go on paying almost three times more for health care than the Japanese, for example, just to guarantee that some downtrodden waste-of-life doesn't get emergency care for free. In a sense, they are willing to pay the health care industry to let needy people die. Their steadfastness would be admirable if it wasn't so fucking stupid and self-defeating.

The Great Republican Victory

Can we all agree that Republicans have had unprecedented success in preventing the Obama administration from achieving most, if not all, of its loftiest aspirations? Even before the 2010 midterms, Republicans were remarkably successful in getting health care reform watered down to a point that one might question whether it was worth the struggle in the first place. Since then...well, we all know what things have been like since then.

Now this all probably sounds a little obvious, but I want to make sure that I'm not making any unilateral presumptions. I don't know many Democrats who aren't frustrated by the repeated capitulations: the abandonment of the public option, the debt ceiling deal, the scheduling of an address to Congress, and so on. So I can only assume that Republicans are proud of their string of defensive victories. After all, John Boehner said he got 98% of what he wanted in the debt ceiling negotiations. It is hard to imagine greater success in blocking the agenda of any president. Right? So, congratulations to the GOP on defending their ideals and preventing President Obama from enacting any meaningful policy during his first term!

So, here's my question for Republicans: How exactly do you get off blaming Barack Obama for the continued stagnation of our economy? After all, none of his socialistic, job-killing ideology has actually been imposed upon the nation. You defended America and made sure of that, right? You've gotten almost everything you've wanted out of nearly every major legislative debate. Of the very few bills you haven't killed outright, you've successfully negotiated the terms down to a version that you might as well have written yourselves. Hell, you even forced a deficit reduction bill by holding the debt ceiling hostage. So how can it possibly be Barack Obama's fault that unemployment remains above nine percent while the economy flounders?

Even if you want to argue that we'd be better off if we passed a conservative's wet dream proposal for pulling us out of this crisis, you cannot rationally argue that liberal policy has failed - because you have successfully prevented the implementation of liberal policy. You have, at the very least, put us in neutral by preventing meaningful action of any sort. It could be argued, however, that you have effectively actuated what would have been the conservative response to this economic crisis, in which case it is your economic policy that has failed, not Barack Obama's. If John Boehner got 98% of what he wanted from a negotiation your party forced, it is hard to draw any other conclusion.

So the best you can do at this point - if you have any interest in remaining the least bit intellectually consistent - is to argue that Barack Obama should have allowed the GOP to guide the ship of state through this crisis, writing all of the pertinent legislation, cutting whatever taxes you deem necessary, eliminating any regulations you deem cumbersome, guiding us to the promised land of renewed economic prosperity. I'm sorry to tell you that government simply doesn't work that way - unless, of course, you want to allow Democrats to take the helm when you're in the White House. You cannot expect an elected Democrat to act like an orthodox Republican (unless he's Ben Nelson). As I often tell my four year old, you don't get whatever you want whenever you want it. Sorry.

In this case, not only have you not gotten whatever you wanted, you have ultimately guaranteed that no one has really gotten anything they wanted. While you may be proud of that, since you imagine liberal policy to be an unimaginable evil that America must be protected from (election results be damned), you have held us in this economic purgatory. Maybe Republican ideals would have improved the situation, but Republicans don't hold the White House or the Senate, so that's a null point. Maybe Democratic ideals would have improved the situation. Who knows? Better yet, maybe true negotiated compromise would have improved the situation. We'll never know. In any event, the one thing you cannot argue is that Barack Obama's policies have failed. What policies? His policy of not letting the GOP rule by fiat?

Again, congratulations on your remarkable political success these last few years. You have spared America the horror of liberal rule. The continued economic calamity being suffered by millions of Americans is a bright, shining testament to your steadfast courageousness.

Could'a, Would'a, Should'a.

The President is not just another man. The presidency is as close to a secular "higher power" as we have. We might even think of it as a trinity, consisting of the Office of the Presidency (the father), the person (the son), and the ineffable and ever-changing nature of the relationship between those three bodies and the nation as a whole (the holy spirit). The person, much like Jesus of Nazareth to the Christians, is both a divine embodiment of the Office of the Presidency and wholly one of us. As such, the President is a reflection of us. He can only give what we are willing to receive. He can only teach us insofar as we are willing to learn. He can only shepherd us where we are willing to go. We may not expect more from him than we have made ourselves worthy of.

I am sympathetic to the views being voiced by many of my fellow liberals and progressives today. I, too, am disappointed. I, too, feel hopeless. I, too, wonder whether I can vote for Obama in 2012 - or whether I will even vote at all. But I do not, for one, single, solitary moment regret my vote, nor any of the time and energy I spent working for the election of Barack Obama in 2008. I do not believe that he has let me down personally just because I haven't gotten everything I wanted when I wanted it. I do not care to Monday-morning quarterback about which candidate may or may not have fared better under these circumstances.

If anything, I blame myself. I, like many, many people I know, did not have our president's back in 2010. We rested on our laurels, content to have put our candidate in the White House two years earlier, somehow believing that our efforts in 2008 would automatically bring about all of the changes we were dreaming of. We were tired. It had been a long eight years and an arduous campaign. We breathed a deep sigh of relief and never reengaged. I, for one, ceased nearly all political activism and awareness for about a year. I barely lifted a finger during the health care debate, except for the occasional futile argument with family and friends on Facebook.

Meanwhile, the President was actually doing shit. For two years he battled the tyranny of the minority in the United States Senate, where the 111th session of Congress set an all-time record for use of the filibuster. Then, in 2010, we let a bunch of ideological extremists infiltrate the halls of Congress. Off-year elections are a pain in the ass to begin with, but this one seemed even more so, what with the proliferation of downright idiotic candidates vomiting whatever inaccurate and irrelevant bullshit about the constitution or the founding fathers that they'd heard from some right-wing radio loony (usually Glenn Beck) that morning. Unfortunately, we let enough of them into office to seriously impact the ability of the president to accomplish anything at all. And now we're all sad and disappointed that Obama didn't find a way to get us what we wanted. Well what a bunch of whiny little bitches we are.

Republicans in the United States Congress have just successfully executed a massive-scale, hostage-taking, extortion scheme. Now you can call that "negotiating" if you want and you can bemoan Obama's failed strategy, but that's a bit like saying you failed at parenting because a gang of thugs just crashed through your door, held their guns to your daughter's head and demanded that you blow each one of them unless you want to clean little Suzy's brains off the floor later. You'd do it. You'd do more than that if need be. No amount of good parenting before the incident could have changed a single thing about the outcome. You were going to blow those fuckers one way or another.

But that's all beside the point. Look...it is our nature, as liberals, to prefer decent human beings over the alternative. When given a choice, we will always choose introspection over bluster, compassion over self-interest, humanity over greed, kindness over toughness, and rationality over insanity. This is who we are. We can't help it. If we changed, we'd be...well, we wouldn't be liberals anymore. This is why we will raise our children to be decent and compassionate human beings even though we know that they'd probably be better off if we raised them to be greedy, self-centered little motherfuckers. We just can't do it.

And so, we cannot turn around and say, "Goddammit, why are you so fucking nice?" to the guy we elected because he represents what's best in us. Even if we pretend for a moment that there was something Obama could have done differently - that he could have played dirtier or focused more on the politics rather than on the reality and on what was best for the nation - we cannot ask him to suddenly become that guy. Every time he stepped up to the mic, I found myself hoping against hope that he would open up a can of whoop-ass and stop trying to be so goddamned reasonable and civilized (in stark contrast to the disingenuous, grandstanding histrionics of the GOP).

But that's exactly what sets him apart from the GOP. He refuses to do it. He refuses to stoop to the level of a retarded chinchilla in order to score a few points. What's more, the only time he is genuinely dishonest is when he's actually trying to give those assholes a little bit of cover by pretending that they aren't completely full of shit and that their positions aren't as harmful as they actually are. Republicans get out there and say that Obama is trying to bring down the Republic with socialism. Obama says, "Well, we have some disagreements, but we're working in good faith to close the gap." He's giving them a chance. He's leading by example. Again, you can call that weak, but I happen to be proud that I helped elect someone who won't actively lower the discourse.

If the nation won't let someone govern with dignity and self-respect, fuck the nation, not the president. We can all tweet and post and blog to our heart's content about what Obama should've, could've done (or what someone else would've done), but maybe we should get off our asses and actively do something about it. We know what's happening to our country, but we don't want to sacrifice a damn thing to stop it. We just want to bitch at the president. We did the right thing in 2008, but an election does not a revolution make. When's the fucking revolution already?

Dick & Harry & The Debt Ceiling

I've been trying to find a way to articulate what is most infuriating about the current debt ceiling debacle. It's not easy because the infuriating element is almost too obvious and yet so absurd that it doesn't seem plausible that this could be what is bringing us to the precipice of possible financial calamity. Now...forget all about the possible financial calamity. It doesn't matter worth a damn what anyone believes about whether or not world markets will meltdown if the United States defaults on its debt for the first time in history. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. The GOP's apparent willingness to test that scenario is not the problem. After all, one should stand on principle regardless of the possible outcomes, right? No, the problem is much, much stupider than that. An analogy is probably the best way to elucidate this...

Let's imagine a newlywed couple...and just because we can, let's imagine they're gay. (This has absolutely no bearing on the analogy.) We'll call them Dick and Harry. Now Harry is a little on the plump side, as he's a bit of a foodie. He's always been a little thick in the middle, including when he met Harry. Harry doesn't eat less or work out more, but he benefits from a faster metabolism. He's that guy that can just eat everything in sight and never gain a pound. Bastard.

So as the years go by, Dick and Harry eat their way through life. Harry appreciates nothing more than a gourmet meal. Dick gorges on bacon cheeseburgers, bacon-wrapped hotdogs, cheese fries with bacon, and so on. Through the years, Dick and Harry feed each other, literally and figuratively. Amazingly, they maintain their height-weight proportionality over time, though they both have slightly elevated cholesterol.

One day, Dick says to Harry, "Look at you. You're a disthgusthting pig. You have GOT to get the eating under control, you." (It's just a mildly sibilant "s," I assure you.)

And Harry is all like, "Um...I've always been this way. Besides, not only do you eat every bit as much as me, but you're the one who always wants shitty greasy food when I let you choose. Now get over here and give papa bear a kiss, you skinny little queen."

Well Harry has just HAD it with Dick. (Lately, he's even found himself thinking about seeing Marcus Bachmann to get cured of his gayness. Again, nothing at all to do with the analogy.) He wants a change and he wants it NOW.

"If you don't sthop eating stho much and losthe 50 poundsth by nextht Friday," Dick says, "I'm going to sthtart breaking and shitting on everything in thisth housth."

Harry is stupefied.

"But Dick...You live here. If you break and shit on everything, you'll be stuck in a house full of broken things that are covered in shit. Why don't you just leave me?"

"Becausthe," says Dick, "that would totally sthcrew up the analogy."

"Oh," says Harry. "Well, don't you think you might have handled this a little differently?"

"Like how?" Asks Dick. Dick asks.

"Well, for starters," says Harry, "you could stop bringing home triple bacon cheeseburgers with extra large milkshakes for dinner every other night. When it's YOUR turn to make food choices for us, try making better choices...if it's so important to you."

"But I'm not the one with the problem," Dick weakly protests. "Thisth isth YOUR problem, Harry. YOUR problem. Not mine."

"But Dick. Dick, dick, dick. Listen to me, Dick," Harry pleads. "I've always been this way. I'm fine with who I am. I never claimed to be anything other than a big guy who loves food. Plus, when I choose the meal, it usually involves something much more healthful for us than war and tax breaks for the rich...um, I mean other than cheese steaks and french fries bathing in sausage gravy. If you want to talk about our long-term health, I'm more than happy to sit down and have a civilized conversation about how we get our cholesterol down. I couldn't agree more that we need to discipline ourselves a bit, but you can't just barge in here and start calling me a disgusting pig and threatening to break and shit all over everything we own unless I change MY ways by next Friday. That's not cool, Dick. Not cool."

Sensing that he has made some headway, Harry coyly approaches Dick and places his open palm on Dick's chest. "Let's sit down, have a nice glass of wine, watch an episode of Glee, and see where the evening takes us. What do you say, sugar bear?"

Dick closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and imagines the deep, hard, unlubricated ass-fucking he's going to give Harry later that night.

"Sthounds great, honey."

[CURTAIN]

The Google Crime Unit

Penn & Teller's Bullshit! somehow escaped my notice for eight straight seasons, so I am catching up on the seasons that are available to stream on Netflix. One of the first episodes I watched was "The Death Penalty." While citing the fallibility of human beings (and the government, in particular, in Penn's view) as a primary concern about putting people to death, Penn makes the following off-handed remark: "Now if Google were in charge of the death penalty...I might consider it. The Google kids don't seem to fuck up much." Now I don't think he'd actually consider changing his anti-death penalty position, but he raises a very interesting point about the criminal justice system in general.

Imagine this: When you are arrested for a crime, you are given a choice. You may proceed through the standard criminal justice system, with prosecutors, defense attorneys, a judge, and a jury of your peers - OR - you can elect to let the new crime unit at Google investigate and hand down a binding verdict. The new crime unit at Google uses the most advanced technology known to man. They don't have elections to worry about. They are paid to get it right - and they always do.

Now, consider the following two questions:

1. You've just been arrested for murder. You are guilty. Which option do you choose?

2. You've just been arrested for murder. You are innocent. Which option do you choose?

If you're like me, you choose Google if you're innocent and the criminal justice system if you're guilty. This is not to criticize the criminal justice system for occasionally failing to convict guilty persons. The system was designed to favor the acquittal of a guilty man over the imprisonment of an innocent one. Sadly, it seems to have swung, in many cases, in the other direction, favoring the conviction of anyone, at any cost. It's not that I think I would have a good chance, as a guilty man, of escaping the criminal justice system - only that I would have A chance. More importantly, the Google option would provide an innocent man with a significantly better chance of being exonerated.

Why Weiner Shouldn't Pull Out...of Office

So Anthony Weiner is going to "seek treatment," huh? For what? The human condition? The most prevalent "disease" known to man? The only treatment I know for a man's raging obsession with pussy is death. When will we learn this? When will we stop pretending to be shocked that a man has gone trolling for some play on the side? Better yet, when will we learn that if we'd just get real and stop pretending that monogamy is sustainable, maybe these guys wouldn't have to be so goddamned creepy in their quest for strange?

The GOP's insistence that he should resign is just plain laughable, so I won't waste much time on it, except for a brief recap: David Vitter, who fucked prostitutes, is still a sitting Senator. (Incidentally, Vitter replaced one of the loudest critics of Bill Clinton's infidelity, Bob Livingston, who then had to resign when it was found out that he had fucked women who were not his wife.) John Ensign, who coerced one of his aides into an extramarital affair and then paid her family $96,000 in hush money, only resigned when it became clear that he would not be re-elected and wanted to ensure that the GOP held the seat. These are just the most recent examples of GOP hypocrisy. The GOP has absolutely zero moral standing to make so much as a peep about Anthony Weiner.

As for the Democrats... What a bunch of spineless cowards. First, there's the chauvinism necessary to be blindly concerned, from a political perspective, about Weiner's wife. You may not immediately jump to the conclusion that she was unaware of her husband's e-philandering, that she necessarily disapproves, or that she hasn't been cruising for cock herself. The terms of his marriage are none of our goddamned business. If Ms. Abedin needs comfort, that's a job for her close friends and family. We are fully entitled to have a good chuckle over the unfortunate coincidence (or self-fulfilling prophecy?) of the Congressman's last name, but that's it.

Congressman Weiner...please, please, please do not resign. Do not succumb to this swirling hysteria of hypocritical prudery. Stand up and say this:

I. Like. Pussy. Like most men, my entire post-pubescent life has essentially been one long, desperate quest to get my dick wet as often as possible, with as many different women as possible. I have attempted to disguise this fact by pretending to have other interests and ambitions, but mostly, I've just been chasing ass. Why do you think we seek wealth and/or power? Because we like working really, really hard? Ha. Ha! Sorry. We're seeking wealth and/or power because wealth and power make it easier to get pussy. (This episode of South Park says it all.)

I am neither proud nor ashamed of this fact, because I know - and YOU know - that it is completely, utterly, exceedingly normal. It is not something that needs to be "cured." In fact, it cannot be "cured." It is only a failing to the extent that our society has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the simple, natural, biological, physiological, evolutionary reality of the situation, forcing people, in many cases, to lie about it.

Let me try an analogy out on you. Is it really so hard to believe that I can love Italian food above all else, but still occasionally want a little Thai? Should I really have to sneak around to get some fucking spicy red curry once in a while? Hell, I'll even bring it home and share it if you want. And if you occasionally need to get some soul food, I can dig that. (The portions are so generous!) Sure...some caution and moderation are required. One should, for example, stay away from undercooked meat. Also, too much spicy food might get the old heartburn acting up. In other words, common sense is required. All I know is that an occasional diversion makes me love and appreciate chicken saltimbocca all the more.

I am a human being who has done nothing worse than quite a large percentage of you all have done. The public at large may not hold me to a higher standard simply because I am a member of congress. My wife is free to exercise her options. My constituents are free to dump me in the next election, if they so choose, but I will not resign.

It is the repression of perfectly natural urges that causes so much unhappiness. We teach young girls to expect a Prince Charming who, upon falling in love, will never want to look at another woman again as long as they both shall live. Not only does this set them up for some serious disappointment, it completely discounts the reality that many of them will also be unhappy with only one sexual partner. Yes, women appear to be better at sexual monogamy, but this does not mean that they are happier with it. If women cheat less, we cannot assume that it is for lack of desire.

Let's end this charade. Let's stop pretending to be shocked and appalled every time we learn that someone has cheated, as if this hasn't been going on for all of recorded time. It's just embarrassing.

Why Obama's Bounce Will Last

I have a proposal. I will stipulate that George W. Bush is single-handedly responsible for the death of Osama Bin Laden if Sarah Palin and her like-minded conservative colleagues will stipulate that he is also single-handedly responsible for the economic calamity of the past few years. Fair enough?

Jesus H. Christ. Really, people? We can't even pull together on this simple moment of national relief? Don't you realize that you'd look better if you could, for a single, solitary moment, set aside the all-consuming hatred you have for the President of the United States enough to just offer an unconditional congratulations and maybe even an iota of gratitude? Hell...that's probably asking too much. I'd settle for a statement that simply thanks the troops. Instead, you've gone out of your way to pull credit away from Obama and heap it onto Bush. By the way, when you insinuate that Bush "set up" the kill, as Sarah Palin did today, you're also contributing evidence to the theory that he had all of the necessary information all along but failed to act on it because, ultimately, it was good politics to have Osama out there. Cheney's military-industrial cronies certainly weren't complaining about your failure to capture or kill him, were they?

If Bush had been in office when Bin Laden was killed, Karl Rove would have had the body stuffed and mounted on the front of the reelection bus and would have pulled over on every main street in America so that Bush could have his picture taken pissing on the corpse. While I think that Obama is being incredibly classy about this, he has no choice but to take a victory lap. The Right has been calling him a foreign-born, anti-American socialist for the last two years. He's earned the right to stuff this down their throats.

I think that this will, in fact, be a turning point. I predict that a good portion of his popularity "bounce" will last. Here's why: A certain segment of the population has been skeptical of Obama all along. These are the people who held their noses and voted for him simply because they couldn't imagine letting Sarah Palin anywhere near the White House. They're good, intelligent people with only vestigial traces of xenophobia and racial discomfort. For the past two years, their sub-conscious fears have been stoked by the non-stop deluge of bile streaming from the Right. Their judgment has been clouded.

This event will snap them out of that haze. This will provide the clarity they've been looking for. There is suddenly a razor-sharp distinction between the petulant histrionics of the GOP and the wonkish maturity of the Obama administration. While the GOP has been busy spewing a stream of baseless, interchangeable, pejoratives at the President, the President has been busy taking care of business. The difference is suddenly crystal clear.

More importantly, this will allow them to feel firm in the conviction they've had all along - that Obama is an American through and through. They can see this now. They're smart enough. They no longer have to give a shit what their redneck neighbor Dell and obnoxious uncle Larry think. They no longer have to feel insecure objecting to that sort of ignorant insanity. Obama gave the order to put a bullet in Osama's head. Hell, even if the conspiracy theories turned out to be true, the man just earned his bona fides by taking down the most notorious villain in U.S. history. If they didn't want him on our team before, they sure do now.

Those people will no longer be susceptible to the dog-whistle politics of today's GOP. They'll finally be able to focus on the real issues and block out all of the peripheral nonsense that isn't going to put food on their tables. They won't always agree with Obama. They might not even vote for him again, but if they don't, it will be because a sensible and sane Republican stepped up and waged a dignified campaign worthy of their vote. The odds of that happening make me feel pretty good about Obama's 2012 prospects.

Atlas Shrugged Review - Part III (of III)

[Read Part I and Part II]

Now that we've gotten the book out of the way, we can get to the pertinent political question: What are we to make of the current attempt to justify conservative economic policy with the writings and beliefs of Ayn Rand?

Notice that I said economic policy. You don't hear the Tea Party ranting and raving about Objectivist-style liberty when it comes to social issues like abortion or gay marriage. You certainly won't find them acknowledging Rand's hard-line atheism. These aspects of their heroine's philosophy simply don't comport with what they're trying to accomplish. So they ignore the implications and the imperatives that would come with being true believers...while claiming to be true believers.

Rand did not write fiction in the style of Camus and Sartre, whose great works were esoteric works of contemplative existentialism with provocatively ambiguous messages and implications. In a brief epigraph at the front of Atlas Shrugged, Rand says, "I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don't exist. That this book has been written - and published - is my proof that they do." Based on this statement, we must first reconsider the existence of Hobbits, the Tin Man, and the virgin birth. Then we must take her at her word and read Atlas Shrugged not as allegory, but as a true depiction of the world as she saw it. In doing so, we are not permitted to dismiss as literary hyperbole the otherworldly perfection of her protagonists or the ghastly degeneracy of her villains. We must hold them up against the corresponding characters of our time and determine whether her prognostications are applicable to the current debate.

This is where Rand's contemporary enthusiasts fail miserably, through some combination of ignorance, misinterpretation, and/or disingenuous misapplication. Whereas I am happy to admit my admiration for the actions and motivations of characters like Hank and Dagny (while admittedly doubting the existence of more than a handful of real-world counterparts), Randians are clearly unable to concede that the antagonists and the motives attributed to them are pure partisan fictions. Indeed, they hold that all opponents [read: liberals] are exactly as Rand describes them. They accept Rand's epigraph at face value as justification for vilifying their ideological opponents. Liberals, they say, will destroy the world as we know it. Ayn Rand said so. "That this book has been written - and published," is all the proof that they need.

Setting aside Rand's vehement and delusional misconceptions about liberals, let's take a moment to consider her virtues. She reserves her most ardent praise for the individual who, by sheer force of his nature, will, intelligence, and determination, devotes his entire existence to the conception and creation of great things. Her heroes are unflinchingly principled when it comes to issues of compensation, refusing to take what they haven't earned as forcefully as they refuse to pay more than the value of what someone else has provided them. They are, truly, great men and women.

I struggle to see how these people bear any resemblance to the bankers, hedge-fund managers, failed-but-richly-compensated CEOs, and corporate con-artists who seem to be the largest beneficiaries of the modern conservative movement. I fail to see, for example, how the health insurance industry - which creates nothing - fits into Rand's worldview. (It seems clear that Rand would prescribe a system in which patients pay doctors directly for the services provided.) I cannot imagine Rand approving of the schemes that debilitated the housing market or the derivatives that decimated the financial sector. All of these seem to be perfect embodiments of Rand's "looters" and "moochers." Yet these are the people that today's conservatives are protecting through their single-minded focus on destroying their opponents. Much like Rand, they are so hysterically fixated on the perceived evils of liberalism that they are unable to think rationally or constructively about the real issues of the day. They have no positive vision to speak of, only a fervent hatred of what they perceive to be the antithesis of their non-philosophy.

Whether they realize it or not, today's conservatives are radical, Kantian Deontologists. That is to say, they judge the morality of an action solely on the motives of the person doing it, irrespective of the consequences. Unfortunately, this particular brand of conservatism bastardizes this legitimate, if problematic, philosophical perspective by also presuming to know the motives of anyone who might be called a liberal. It should come as no surprise that they regard those motives as universally bad ones. Whatever liberals are doing at the moment - even if it's something conservatives have done in the past - can only lead to apocalyptic consequences because when liberals do it, they are acting on bad maxims, whereas when conservatives do it, they are acting on good maxims.

To that extent, modern conservatives are clearly Rand's disciples - and this is why we can't just get along. Liberals have positive ideas about what the world should look like. Conservatives merely detest liberals. Sure, liberals often think that conservatives have a tendency to be motivated by greed, xenophobia, racism, chauvinism, and other forms of ignorance, but conservatives believe that liberals are evil - not misguided, not cut from a different cloth - but motivated by powerful, metaphysical forces of darkness that seek to sew destruction and misery.

I am quite sure that most conservatives have not actually read Atlas Shrugged. It is also obvious that many others misunderstand and misapply what it says. No matter. Understanding the novel would not make their case any more substantive. They have latched onto Rand because somehow, somewhere, it was inserted into the conventional wisdom that Ayn Rand was a serious thinker - a philosopher queen - and that there must be some intellectual credibility behind a movement that claims her as its inspiration. That is why I chose to read Atlas Shrugged. I honestly hoped and sincerely expected that it would provide me with some deeper understanding of the logical basis of current conservative doctrine.

But Ayn Rand was not a serious thinker. Ayn Rand was a marvelous, if verbose, writer of fiction. Her logic is shoddy and her postulations go utterly unchallenged for want of plausibly-written adversaries. Setting up kerosene-soaked straw men, lighting them on fire, stomping on their ashes, and bottling the remains to be mixed into martinis is great fun, I'm sure, but it is not an impressive intellectual feat, to say the least. Adopting her writing as the theoretical basis of a political movement is a recipe for vacuous, counter-productive, and unresolvable conflict.

Atlas Shrugged Review - Part II

[Read Part I HERE.]

"I have never felt guilty of my ability. I have never felt guilty of my mind. I have never felt guilty of being a man. I accepted no unearned guilt, and thus was free to earn and to know my own value. Ever since I can remember, I had felt that I would kill the man who'd claim that I exist for the sake of his need - and I had known that this was the highest moral feeling."

This is the first significant statement of belief that we hear from John Galt ("Who is John Galt?) shortly after we meet him in the Atlantis-like utopia inhabited by industrialists who have abandoned the real world to live lives that accord with their principles (though it's difficult to imagine today's gazillionaires being content with the lives of modest simplicity these folks have accepted). It is a theme that appears throughout the novel, leading up to Galt's consecration of it as the fundamental tenet of Objectivism. It is repeated countless times, as if repetition will make truth of the accusation that liberalism is fundamentally motivated by the belief that the greatest of men exist only for the sake of the least. She successfully tears that notion to shreds over and over again throughout Atlas Shrugged, but to what end?

d'Anconia makes this case early on after intentionally driving a large project into the ground to make a point:

Francisco shook his head regretfully. "I don't know why you should call my behavior rotten. I thought you would recognize it as an honest effort to practice what the whole world is preaching. Doesn't everyone believe that it is evil to be selfish? I was totally selfless in regard to the San Sebastian project. Isn't it evil to pursue a personal interest? I had no personal interest in it whatever. Isn't it evil to work for profit? I did not work for profit - I took a loss. Doesn't everyone agree that the purpose and justification of an industrial enterprise are not production, but the livelihood of it's employees? The San Sebastian Mines were the most eminently successful venture in industrial history: they produced no copper, but they achieved, in a lifetime, the equivalent of what they got for one day's work, which they could not do. Isn't it generally agreed that an owner is a parasite and an exploiter, that it is the employees who do all the work and make the product possible? I did not exploit anyone. I did not burden the San Sebastian Mines with my useless presence; I left them in the hands of the men who count. I did not pass judgment on the value of that property. I turned it over to a mining specialist. He was not a very good specialist, but he needed the job very badly. Isn't it generally conceded that when you hire a man for a job, it is his need that counts, not his ability? Doesn't everyone believe that in order to get the goods, all you have to do is need them? I have carried out every moral precept of our age. I expected gratitude and a citation of honor. I do not understand why I am being damned."

Again, the sophomoric distortion of the other side's ideas make for great lampooning, but not for worthy opposition to any serious statement of philosophy. Francisco would be indisputably correct...in a universe inhabited by people who believe "that it is evil to work for profit," or that owners are, by definition, "parasites and exploiters." The problem is we don't live in that universe. Sure, we live in a universe in which some owners have been known to be parasites and exploiters, but that does not translate into a belief that it is evil to be an owner. It translates into a belief that owners should not be parasites and exploiters.

Rand pulls a similar stunt on two well-known phrases, both of which she nonchalantly presumes to conflate with liberalism. First, she introduces us to Ivy Starnes, one of the two remaining siblings who ran the Twentieth Centry Motor Company into ruins through their implementation of a communistic business structure. In helping her find the Starnes brothers, the local police chief tells Dagny "There's all sorts of human beings to see in the world, there's murderers and criminal maniacs - but, somehow, I think these Starnes persons are what decent people shouldn't have to see." Now that we have a totally unbiased view of the character we're about to meet, Ivy explains: "We put into practice that noble historical precept: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Their plan was "defeated by the greed, the selfishness and the base, animal nature of men." "Things became very ugly indeed and went fouler every year," Ivy says. "It has cost me my faith in human nature. In four years, a plan conceived, not by the cold calculations of the mind, but by the pure love of the heart, was brought to an end in the sordid mess of policemen, lawyers and bankruptcy proceedings."

Rand has accomplished two things here. She has indiscriminately labeled all liberals as Marxists. With that out of the way, she claims to show that enterprises run by liberals according to liberal principles are doomed to failure - by merely recounting the failure of a fictional one. Worse yet, similarly fictional attempts to institute such principles all across the country have brought civilization to the precipice of complete meltdown. (Rand would undoubtedly be surprised to hear of the success of the worker-owned Wisconsin robotics firm and California bakery - to cite just two examples from Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story - that are run according to democratic and collectivist principles.)

And so, her beloved industrialists, so righteous that they could not go on in such a world, leave everything behind and set up a spartan commune in a hidden valley where they build their own humble abodes, barter for services, and basically start a new, ideal civilization from scratch. As hard as I try, it's difficult to imagine Jack Welch or the Koch brothers doing anything as high-minded as walking away from their vast fortune and the luxuries they affords them.

Rand also serves up "Money is the root of all evil," as uttered by the detestable Bertram Scudder (couldn't you tell by his name?), for d'Anconia to slash and burn for five long pages. In this case, not only does she deliberately pervert the spirit of the phrase, she inadvertently argues for its correctness (as properly understood) on both sides of the debate. "You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood - money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor." Both the producers and the looters are after the same thing - money. It is the pursuit of money that is regarded by the expression as the root of all evil, in which case the "moochers" and "looters" can just as easily be called "evil" for their determination to take it from the producers. Her attack of this aphorism has a self-defeating element which she ignores for the purposes of tying it around liberalism's neck.

If some of this is starting to sound redundant, you're getting an idea of what it's like to read this book. In Part III I will tie this all together in an attempt to show how current events are being shaped not only by Rand's shoddy attempt at philosophy, but by conservatives' misunderstanding of the Atlas Shrugged.

Read Part III HERE.

And now, for your entertainment, a little Francis Albert with Count Basie: