Melissa Harris-Perry, a weekend talk show host on MSNBC, who could have the victim of the politics of bullying. Recently, some cretin approached her at the Iowa caucuses and started acting in a threatening way. Although the situation had a "happy ending", one can easily understand why people live in fear when they are in the minority. (And in this case, I do not refer to color, as much as I refer to being in ANY minority.) Bullying people is a tactic which has been used since time immemorial, and will continue to be used until potential victims have ALL the tools to resist bullying.
Compare today's positions of the two major political parties. The Democrats are the more pacifistic party, seeking greater "gun control'. The GOP is the more bellicose party, defending "gun rights" every chance they get. So the supporters of our political left and its positions that are more likely to be bullied by people who are a few french fries short of a "Happy Meal". And, for the most part, we tolerate that.
Why do potential victims tolerate bullying? There are many reasons. For some, they do not wish to stoop to the level of the intellectually incompetent. For others, they are afraid of being chosen to be sacrificial lambs for the sake of social cohesion. As I said, there are many reasons, none of them good. It would make more sense for people to stand up to bullies and "go 'all in'". Yet, this goes against a primal instinct to run in the face of danger.
Recently, a different cretin barged into the offices of a Texas state legislator. Texas has both open carry and concealed carry. And there are no provisions to keep firearms out of the state capitol, where a few deranged madmen could take down the entire legislative branch of government, as well as its executive, if done at the right time. As much as I believe that the people must preserve the right and ability to rebel against a tyrannical government, this was hardly the time and place where that right was needed. This lawmaker had real reason to fear for his life. And all Texas is doing in response is to put "panic buttons" in legislators' offices - a potential case of "too little, too late."
Sadly, it looks like we're letting the bullies control us. Hopefully, we won't go down without a good fight....
I'll bet that most police officers hope that all encounters go as smoothly as this one appears to have gone. Sadly, this is not the case - and we have had an incident in the news as of late, where one driver apparently pulled over to let a police car go by, and it turned into an escalated incident where the driver was arrested, placed in jail, and found dead in her jail cell.
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As I read about Sandra Bland's incident with the police, I was appalled that the police department didn't bother to follow proper procedures in this case. And then, seeing the video of her arrest, I was further appalled by (what appears to be) a cop who was looking for an excuse to hassle a person, simply because he had a bug up his ass.
The initial incident could have been handled with much more diplomacy, if the police officer had been properly trained in tools of easing tension and had used those tools properly. Could you imagine if someone had been with her in the car and was carrying a legal handgun, as is common in Texas? Would there have been as much a commotion about a questionable death in a jail cell had someone in the car been armed?
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To me, Sandra Bland's arrest and later death was a crime, but what really did happen? I can not trust the police - the video seems to indicate that the police officer was being overly aggressive, while Bland was simply trying to exercise her rights. Does any police authority have the automatic right to arrest someone without telling that person why he/she is being arrested? Something is very wrong here. And to make things even worse, she died in the jail - with the autopsy showing results that could have been caused by a death other than suicide.
Thanks to the internet, we are finding out about much more abuse of power by police forces over the past year or two. And this is a good thing. When the police and government have lost the trust of the average person, authoritarianism can't be far behind. Let's pray that I am wrong about this....
For the most part, I don't give a hoot about my neighbor's religion, save a small number of things:
- What holidays does he/she celebrate, so that I can give them friendly greetings on those days?
- Does the practice of that neighbor's religion interfere with my life?
- Is my neighbor's practice of religion causing direct harm to others?
If a neighbor is Jewish, I might wish him/her a happy Chaunnakah. If a neighbor is Muslim, I might wish him a happy end to fasting after Ramadan. But sometimes people of my own Christian faith can be the most perplexing.
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Recently, there has been a lot of press discussing the alleged sexual abuse by one of the Duggar sons upon several girls - including his sisters. Normally, this would be a story confined to the back pages of most newspapers, save for one thing - the Duggar family has become extremely visible because of their "reality" TV show.
The Duggars are evangelical fundamentalists who have a very strict code of behavior - boys and girls must not touch each other (kissing, holding hands, etc.) until they are betrothed or married. This implies that there is a lot of sexual repression going on. In one report that I heard (I can't remember where), the children did not know that the son's sexual touching was inappropriate behavior. And when discussed in their local church, a goodly many people as well didn't realize that this behavior was inappropriate. In short, the way to prevent sin, ignorance, had failed to protect a family from evil....
If we take a step back, and recall the story of Adam and Eve, the one commandment given to the two people was to NOT eat from the tree of knowledge. In short, ignorance was bliss. Gain useful knowledge, and one can see that life was not heavenly, but hellish instead.
In the case of the Duggars, the only way to prevent disaster was to promote ignorance. Any break in the pattern of their lives, and people would find out something was seriously wrong. To distract others from seeing this family for what it is, the Matriarch slandered the transgender community - saying that transgenders are out to molest young girls. Do they not see the motes in their own family's eyes?
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If the Duggars were a small group of crackpots, like the people from the Westboro Baptist Church, this would not be a problem. But we're seeing this this kind of transphobia, hatred of gays, and hypocrisy runs deep in the bible belt. In a recent interview on Fox News, one pastor was ranting that it was no one's affair about what the Duggars did - even when molestation took place. Dr. Drew stated that anyone with children (especially 19 of them) should supervise their kids well - and the evangelical pastor went nuts! The pastor was defending a member of his tribe, no matter how much evil had to be covered up. Can you imagine what is going on in other evangelical households where ignorance is preached and sexuality is repressed instead of being dealt with in a healthy way?
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Right now, the GOP is beholden to a large number of crack pots like this family - who get the vote out, and keep the Red States glowing a bright red. But how long can this last? The mainstream party bosses know this is a problem, but don't know how to solve it. They are afraid of losing to a demographically superior Democratic party. So they won't risk anything that would lose the Red States, in order to flip more "middle of the road" states from Blue to Red.
This wouldn't be so bad if the damage these people cause were limited to their own states. But they have taken an "opposition for the sake of opposition" approach to politics - they refuse to make trade offs with people on the other side of the political aisle. (I'm not sure if I can say that the Democrats are much better. What I can say is that the GOP is inconsistent in their areas of hypocrisy, while the Democrats are consistent in their areas of hypocrisy.)
Although I am a registered Republican, I haven't voted their way in ages - there is a consistency in bills they'd enact if voted into power, and I don't want to see that happen. (I prefer the devil I know, to the one I don't.). Now that the public sees income and wealth distribution as a problem, the GOP is jumping on this cause - something the Democrats have talked about for ages. Both sides are BSing the public. But only one flip flops as quickly as the GOP.
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I fear what will happen if crackpots like the Duggars gain political power. We already have one member of the Supreme Court who has hinted that he believes in short term creation. What would this do to Science and Mathematics education in this country? We've already seen Texas consider the prophet Moses to be one of our "founding fathers". What's next? How ignorant can we become? How much further can we fall behind our global competition?
Although I don't like the idea of a Republican Party who openly supports a Plutocracy, I am even more against a party who combines that with religious litmus testing. There were valid economic points being made by many in the GOP in their political discussions, and they were being lost because of this unholy arrangement with religious fundamentalists. To me, the one thing that has helped make this country great is the separation of church and state - allowing everyone to be free to practice their faith as they please - even the Duggars. Take away that separation, and watch America relearn the lessons Europe learned hundreds of years ago. Do we want to go through that process ...again?
