The Radical Centrist™

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Archives for July 2016

How do you choose for whom to vote?

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This is a much debated topic every election, but it’s even more serious this current election.  Do you have a standard method of making your choice?  There are several options, and one must certainly not be wedded to any one of them.  I make my choice based upon the particular of the situation placed before me.  What applies as important to me in one election may be outweighed by something else in the next election.  What are some common voting strategies?…

Straight party ticket:  You have your party, your ideology, and you will support that no matter what.  There’s nothing wrong with that, per se, but to me… which shouldn’t come as a surprise coming from a Centrist… it’s lazy.  The candidates mean nothing to you, only the ideology.  Obviously, this would appeal to people who are farther to the extreme of their particular party.

Your conscience:  Most commonly, people in this category are willing to vote third party even though they know their candidate has pretty much zero chance of winning.  Unfortunately, a great many people reject this option precisely because the person has pretty much zero chance of winning, which tells me they’re shallow and have an insecure need to identify with the winning side, even if the winner is not their ideal.  In a perfect world, we would ALL vote our conscience, then maybe there would be some greater variety in our leadership.  Greater variety might give us better and more thoughtful governing.

The “Lesser of Two Evils”:  We’ve all heard this phrase, and most people will deny they do this, though in my opinion many of these same people still do it for the reason I mentioned above… they feel the need to be identified with the winner.  Personally, I don’t think this is automatically the negative strategy that it is portrayed to be.  There are times where, when one candidate is so repugnant, that you feel the need to vote for the other person who might actually win to try and keep the repugnant person out.  Not that you are enamored with the person you voted for, of course.  I have used this tactic from time to time when it was really important to me, and in this scenario it is a variation of the “conscience” vote, though I try to use it sparingly.

I have never *purposely* voted straight party line, though a few times it ended up working out that way.  The “lesser of two evils” is legit, in limited circumstances, and this year I can absolutely see why someone might pick Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump simply because they loathe the other one.  I understand that option more for this election.  But for me, the conscience has to win out the vast majority of the time.  That means I vote third party a lot, but not exclusively.  If nothing else, when all the business-as-usual political crap happens… again…, you can’t blame me because I didn’t vote a known schmuck into office.

What would happen if everyone voted what they really believed?

Race: Can we talk about it?

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I feel like I’m treading into dangerous waters here, because no matter what I say I’ll be slammed and ridiculed by somebody for something. As I say in my Position Papers, race has become “the new abortion” in the sense that rational and adult discussion is simply impossible. Emotions on both sides run way too high for people to slow down and think objectively and rationally.

Of course one can never truly know what it’s like to be someone else. A non-black person cannot truly know the full depth of what it is like to live black in today’s United States. No quibbles about that. But that goes for sex/gender, social status, upbringing, intelligence, and a slew of other factors, too, not only race. And while experience (“been there, done that”, so to speak) is indeed important, it’s not the be-all-and-end-all of situational assessment. Sometimes the person with the experience is *too close*, too emotionally involved, to a situation and is thus unable to remain objective. Said person is prone to give too much weight to their own anecdotal experience and/or whatever triggers their emotions. Sometimes it’s the outside observer, the one who is emotionally uninvolved, who is better able to step back and see where the experienced person is overlooking an important aspect.

Ideally, we should bring together the emotion and closeness of experience, and the unattached objectivity of outside observation, to gain the best possible assessments so that we can move forward, but from reading comments the last several days from several different resources and angles, I still don’t think that’s possible, and that saddens me. Way too many people are only interested in blaming the other side and absolving themselves (or their chosen side) of any part in the situation.

Some examples of emotional hyperbole and contradictions…

Example #1: I’m tired off all the implications, and sometimes outright accusations, that white Americans are the only ones who are responsible for, and have ever engaged in, racism… especially where the history of slavery is concerned. People of all races and ethnicity have enslaved each other since the beginning of time. Shoot, Russians once enslaved their own people (I consider serfdom a form of slavery). To hear some tell it, you’d swear slavery is a purely American-born concept and institution. It’s not.

Example #2:  Solving race issues isn’t as simple as “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”.  It’s dishonest to put roadblocks in the way of an entire group, then act as if the roadblocks aren’t there.  This is one aspect where some whites fall off the boat, and where honest reassessment is needed.

Example #3: Any black person who has ever referred to another black person as an “Oreo”, or “Uncle Tom”, or other similar pejorative… the clear implication being said black person isn’t black enough and/or is “too white”… is part of the problem. They are actively cultivating the seeds of division. They are encouraging a form of segregation in their own right. Preaching integration one moment, then turning around and encouraging segregation, is not a recipe for success, it’s inconsistent and counterproductive. Trying to have both is a form of “separate but equal”, and I thought that was soundly rejected as a concept decades ago. We can’t have both.

As I am sitting here proofreading this it occurs to me that it is weighted to what blacks needs to do, and less what whites need to do.  That’s not my intent nor my full thoughts, but if that has been your feeling as you read it, that’s a fair call.  I guess I’m getting tired of what I’m seeing as the overwhelming blame being cast in only one direction.  I see many people, both black and white, claim that racism is purely a white problem, and hence it can only be fixed by white people.  I’m sorry, but I see it as a two-way street, and… well, maybe that’s a topic for a future post.

Anyway, the bottom line from all of this is that nothing will ever be solved, nor even any progress made, until we can ALL slow down and speak rationally. Emotion is the *why*, objectivity is the *how*, and taken together we might actually get somewhere.

Is this the coming “civil war” I’ve been hearing about?

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Last week we had three incidents in quick order… We had a police shooting of a black man, Alton Sterling, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We had another shooting of another black man, Philando Castile, in St. Paul, Minnesota. And, finally, we had a large-scale multiple shooting In Dallas, Texas, where a black man, Micah Johnson, killed five police officers (and wounded two others, one officer, one civilian) during an otherwise peaceful demonstration to protest unwarranted police shootings of black people. Johnson specifically targeted police only, and white police specifically, it should be noted.

These three events left me somewhat bewildered for a few days. I needed time to collect my thoughts. I refrained from jumping in the fray too soon.

I want to say upfront that I do not condone, or approve of, any of the shootings/killings in any way, shape, or form. I feel for the families and loved ones of the victims. I do not wish this on anyone.  However, having said that, intellectually I can understand the Dallas incident. At least he was targeting only the specific group for which he placed blame. There is an aspect of legitimacy in that.

There is a part of me that says the Dallas police killings was a “chickens coming home to roost” scenario. When a person or group of people, in this case black men, feel pushed into a corner, and they keep seeing instance after instance of police killing black men… and, to make it worse, getting away with it in a majority of the most egregious circumstances… then what are said black men supposed to think and feel, or even do?

I’m sorry if that seems heartless, but the justice system is failing not just the black community, but especially the black community. It’s human nature that people have a breaking point.

To go off on something of a tangent, what I will never understand, and what I will always utterly reject as a valid response, is wanton rioting and looting. At that point you’re not targeting what you perceive as the ‘bad guy’. No, all you’re doing is destroying the lives and livelihoods of innocent and otherwise uninvolved people who are not related to your alleged cause. Many times, the people you’re hurting are your own friends and neighbors. In other words, you’re just being an asshole.

Anyway, back on point: What makes this particular incident even more tragic is that the Dallas Police Department is actually at the forefront in the nation for legitimate reform, and has made honest and positive strides in that regard.  Unfortunately, now, those reforms may very well take a back seat, and possibly even regress. That’s a sad development for all of us.

Was Micah Johnson even aware of these reforms? Did he know that the police he was targeting was one of the better departments? I do not know the answer to that, so I cannot make a judgment in that regard, but in a sense… does it matter? It should matter, but in the overall grand scheme of things, perception often trumps reality.

As much as I feel for the victims and their families, I also feel that this should be a “wake-up call” to law enforcement all over the nation. They still need to do their job, of course, but they also need to stop arrogantly and reflexively protecting people within their own ranks when they’re bad cops. As a long-term solution, that’s what it’s going to take to earn some semblance of trust and respect back.

Until then, it’s only going to get worse.

Nationalism

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MW-4-128Today is July 4th, or Independence Day in the United States, one of our most important and revered holidays. So it seems appropriate to pontificate on nationalism.

What is nationalism? The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it thus…

The term “nationalism” is generally used to describe two phenomena: (1) the attitude that the members of a nation have when they care about their national identity, and (2) the actions that the members of a nation take when seeking to achieve (or sustain) self-determination.

…and that seems pretty accurate, albeit in something of a sterile aspect.  It doesn’t address the individual mindset, the *why*.

There is certainly nothing wrong with pride. Pride in who you are, pride in your Nation or “tribe”, and so on. The US certainly has a lot to be proud for. That doesn’t mean we don’t have areas for improvement, of course, we certainly do. In spite of all our faults, people the world over still have historically emigrated here instead of other countries in overwhelming numbers. My opinion on this is not always popular, but emigration/immigration is a measure of the relative worth of two countries.  In other words, people emigrate from where they are to another place because, simply put, they view the place they’re going to be better than the place they are. America must be a good place in a relative sense if it is here so many people are choosing over other options, and that make me just a bit proud of what opportunities our nation has to offer.

That ties in, of course, with the attitudes of people and their nationalism, as I’ve already hinted. I do not view nationalism or pride in one’s country as necessarily a bad thing, but it can be taken too far.

Donald Trump’s current anti-immigrant rantings and the mindset of many Brits over the recent Brexit vote notwithstanding, I’m going to go a little deeper, to a more personal and individual level… war and the infantryman.

In the movie Saving Private Ryan there is a scene where a wall collapses and Americans and Germans are suddenly facing each other. There’s a great deal of yelling and shouting and gun pointing, followed closely by shooting and killing.

Why did these lower-level soldiers hate each other so? As individuals, if they had met at some social gathering in peacetime they’d have likely shared a beer and maybe even become friends. They all have families and dreams and desires and fears that aren’t all that disimilar. They are more alike than they are different. So, back to the question, why do they hate each other so? Is it because their leaders told them to?

I think that’s pretty much it. The enemy is demonized… not unlike current politics, but I digress… and the rank-and-file is sold a bill of goods that says the “enemy” is not like us, is not to be trusted, and is to be thwarted at all turns.

Now, to be fair, if I were in a battle situation, I would try to kill the enemy as well, but primarily out of a personal survival interest, kill or be killed, not because I have any animosity against that individual.

This is where nationalism goes too far, in my opinion. If you sit down and look at it rationally, it is really absurd. Which leads to my final question, something that I have always pondered…

…What if they held a war and nobody came?

Are you an adult?

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Are you an adult?

Do you call Hillary Clinton “Shillary” or “Crooked Hillary”?

Do you call Donald Trump “tRump”?

Did you call George Bush “shrub”?

Have you ever called Elizabeth Warren “Fauxcahontas”, or Mitt Romney “Mittens”?

Do you refer to President Obama as “Barack HUSSEIN Obama”? (Yes, it is his name, but with the emphasis on his middle name the implication is, of course, that he is a Muslim and/or Muslim sympathizer.)

If you do this or anything similar you are part of the problem…. the problem of petty hyper-partisan politics that has been infecting America for the past 20-ish years. Prior to that there was some humor in politics, and name calling wasn’t necessarily intended to be as deep and cutting as it is today. People, as in average voters and constituents, also weren’t as thin-skinned and didn’t take such personal offense then as they do today. You’d almost think it were an attack on them.

We can’t even treat people within our own political cliques with respect anymore. You may not be a “true-<whatever>” in the eyes of some conservatives and progressives if you’re not as uber-partisan as they are. Even being a moderate is now analogous to being a traitor.

Considering our new-found hyper-sensitivity, indicating that we’re no longer capable of acting as adults, maybe we should start on a road back to civility by not name calling anymore. We need to get back to a less absurdly partisan political atmosphere in this country, and a good place to start would be an adult-like civil discourse.

We… and I mean to say each and every one of us… need to set the tone and get back to a respectful discourse if we ever hope to move it further into adult-like politics where something meaningful might actually get done. As much as it pains us to do so, the woman’s name is Hillary Clinton, and the men’s names are Donald Trump, George Bush, and Barack Obama.

Small steps, and this is the first one. Can we do it?