They Say Christmas Is About Jesus

On my way down Conner Street, a man standing on the corner in front of the Judicial Center was illuminated in my headlights. He held a sign that read, “Christmas is about Jesus.”

I smiled sadly. I’ve grown cynical about those trying to enforce what this time of year is “really all about.” But I also realize it’s no small matter to stand in the rain in the dark flashing a religious placard at people, so I want to think he’s sincere. Yet, what he means by “Jesus” may not be what I’m thinking of.

As I drove on, the man and his sign disappearing in the rear view mirror, I thought about the self-satisfied Christians I see around me, those who want to talk endlessly about Jesus and yet eagerly and smugly spout half-truths and myths about the poor. That hateful disconnect gnaws at me this time of year.

A lot of people want to talk about Jesus but aren’t much interested in his teachings about the poor. It’s an inconvenient truth to be glossed over while we think about redemption.

Scanning the talking heads on 24-hour news channels in recent years it was easy to find the indignant, teeth-gritting insistence that welfare recipients be drug-tested. The underlying suggestion: “They’re all lazy drug users, right? They’re not getting my money to spend on drugs!” Never mind that states that have tested found relatively few drug abusers and cost taxpayers far more than was saved by creating a bureaucracy to administer the tests.

Yet, another class of welfare recipient is let off the hook. Every time you buy food or drink in a restaurant in the greater Indianapolis area you’re paying a tax for Lucas Oil Stadium. Do we drug test the millionaires profiting from those government handouts? Jim Irsay? Andrew Luck? The Lucas family? Our farmers also take welfare checks, the checks we’ve given the clean name, “farm subsidy.” Why aren’t we drug testing all of these people? They take government handouts just as surely as welfare recipients.

We might have scared Jim Irsay straight and actually saved taxpayers some money if he were forced to reimburse us some of our tax dollars with his millions.

Funny that once somebody has money in their pocket we stop asking questions. The Jesus I read about didn’t. He started by doubting the people with money. I’m disheartened that our secular impulse to hate the poor gets disconnected from our belief that Christmas needs to be about a guy who urged us to love the poor.

Maybe it’s because most people don’t know that the average family taking government assistance has at least one adult working full time – but that job doesn’t pay enough to live on. Yet we feel free to hold their feet to the fire, casting them as lazy and suspected drug users while ignoring our farming and football welfare queens.

In the angry, carefully manufactured political emails that slither into my inbox, I still hear welfare recipients stereotyped as the black inner city welfare queen who wears a fur and drives to the grocery in her Cadillac to buy cigarettes, booze and birth control with her food stamps.

When you discover how easy it is to prove so many of these stereotypes wrong, you realize that people don’t believe it accidentally, they’re not simply mistaken, they WANT to believe these things. I guess most of the white, middle class Christians sending me these hateful emails don’t realize that the average welfare recipient isn’t black and inner city, but in fact white and rural.

Hoosier humorist Kin Hubbard once wrote, “It’s no disgrace to be poor; but it might as well be.” If Jesus was on Twitter, I bet he’d sound a lot like Kin Hubbard.

Of course most Christians care about the needy, offering assistance through their churches, Habitat for Humanity, and many, many other organizations. Still I puzzle over the anti-poor undercurrent found mostly in our political debates.

As I scan social media, I routinely find little memes like the one at right posted by good Christian folks. It’s got about it what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness;” sounds like it’s true, but it isn’t.

For over 30 years America has been redistributing wealth – from low and middle-income workers to those at the top.

Those at the top of U.S companies – who in most cases do not own the companies they work for, continue to pay themselves and their colleagues more and more and more, while whittling away at pay and benefits for those at the bottom, lobbying against unions, and against having to pay their fair share of taxes. And this is so enshrined as a supposed moral foundation, if point it out you’ll be accused of class warfare.

You can’t multiply wealth by dividing it? That’s precisely what America did in the 1950s – you know, in the “good ‘ol days,” when the wealthy paid more than 90% of their income in taxes and union membership was high. It was a time when the difference between a CEO’s income and that of an entry-level worker was much smaller than it is today. Much, much smaller.

And the economy boomed. And the middle class grew.

The author of this twisted list of 5 “truths,” and the endless number of folks who shared it on their Facebook walls must not be aware that the average welfare recipient takes welfare for a relatively short period of time and doesn’t in fact live on it their whole life. Some do, but that’s not the norm.

And the notion that half of the public believes, “they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them,” is astonishing in its arrogance. In that 50% of Americans are the elderly who spent their lives paying into social security and are now drawing it (and still paying taxes), active duty soldiers and vets getting promised pay their earned by protecting us (and still paying taxes), and people getting unemployment benefits after paying unemployment insurance taxes for years (and still paying taxes).

I was told once that figures can lie and liars can figure. It’s one of the truest things I ever heard.

When your hatred gets so strong you lump the elderly, the soldier and the laid-off worker into a bundle with the few who truly scam the system, well, you’re an overachiever, though not a very admirable one.

But, don’t forget, “Jesus is the reason for the season!”

This blind hatred of the poor is what makes me sad when people say, “Christmas is about Jesus,” because so many of them also refuse to embrace Jesus’ message about the poor, instead happy to cast the poor in the ugliest of lights, holding up the extreme worst and pretending it’s the norm.

In a graduation speech in 1978, Hoosier bard Kurt Vonnegut said, “It is a tragedy, perhaps, that human beings can get so much energy and enthusiasm from hate. If you want to feel ten feet tall and as though you could run a hundred miles without stopping, hate beats pure cocaine any day. Hitler resurrected a beaten, bankrupt, half-starved nation with pure hatred and nothing more. Imagine that.”

It is not helping the poor that will be the end of any nation, it is hatred.

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Seeking Social Justice: Social Darwinism vs. Occupy Wall Street, Part 2

The pro-wealth, anti-working class rhetoric I’ve heard in response to the Occupy Wall Street movement is startling, at times sounding like lines from a Dicken’s villain or an 1880s letter to the editor bemoaning hobos. From facebook chats to local coffee shop conversations, from Fox News pundits to “Let it Out” comments in the Indianapolis Star, I’m told the poor are lazy and that the rich are “job creators” whose wealth is inevitable. I hear that any tax increase on the wealthy will kill jobs, and any efforts to limit the power of wealth or the widening gap between rich and poor in this country amount to socialist redistributions of wealth.

You have to want to believe that kind of meanness to hang onto it in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, not to mention the opposing moral codes most of us were raised to believe in.

For instance, there has been a redistribution of wealth going on in America, but it’s not going in the direction most people think.

In 1980, at the dawn of the Reagan revolution, the average America CEO earned approximately 42 times as much as the average worker in their company. Today the average CEO earns about 325 times as much as much as his company’s average pay check.

Complain about that staggering pay inequity and the, “You’re a socialist who wants to redistribute wealth,” attack won’t be far behind. It’s a funny claim when you consider that most CEOs don’t own what they manage, they’re hired by their corporation just like the average worker. It’s actually the CEOs and their boards of directors who are redirecting the company’s wealth and hording it. Massive executive pay has become a cultural peculiarity in corporate American, at dramatic odds with pay levels at successful corporations in other industrialized nations.

You won’t hear much talk about this on the political right. Instead they’re busy attacking “overpaid” union workers – you know, the ones making 1/135th what the CEO is earning.

That “excuse the rich/blame the rest” mentality help’s explain growing income disparity in the U.S.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2009 the income gap between rich and poor Americans grew to its greatest level since household income was tracked, nearly double what it was in 1968, giving America the greatest income disparity of any industrialized western nation.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported last year that the disparity between the after-tax income of low and middle class Americans and the wealthiest 1% of the population is the greatest in 80 years. The CBPP attributed this largely to the Bush tax cuts. The wealthiest 10% of Americans got 53% of the total financial benefit of the tax cuts. It’s interesting to note that while Bush and then Republican majorities in the House and Senate were passing these tax cuts in 2001, they were opposing an increase in the minimum wage.

A political mass-email I received recently argued yet again that this income disparity exists because typical Americans are lazy. Hardly.

According to the Center For American Progress, nearly 89% of working American men and 66.5% of women work more than 40 hours a week. And though the Japanese are perceived as very hard workers, the International Labor Organization finds that Americans work 137 hours more a year than the Japanese. The productivity of American workers has increased 400% since 1950. What’s more, American workers take less vacation time than workers in any other western, industrialized nation.

So why do Occupy Wall Street haters continue to argue that people who want more pay equity are lazy bums who want everything handed to them?

In the past year we’ve been inspired by foreign street protesters who built encampments in cities across the world, from Egypt to Libya. But when Occupy protesters used the same tactics to protest for social justice in America, they were labeled lazy troublemakers. I saw a facebook post that pictured a group of American soldiers holding up a sign that reads, “Quit your bitching and get back to work.”

Really? In a nation with an actual (not official) unemployment rate above 10%, you’re gonna call unemployed people lazy? Really?

How about a little “peace on earth, good will toward men?”

And it gets even uglier. Recently on facebook I saw a post showing an image of a group of Occupy protesters set beside an image of flag draped coffins. A caption read, “Some want all. Some gave all. See the difference?” This is the cruelest cheap shot I’ve seen in politics in a long time. It didn’t just claim that people fighting for social justice want handouts for doing nothing, it suggested that fighting for it was some sort of insult to our fallen soldiers. And yet, approving comments accumulated for that hateful message.

I sat in the IRT last Sunday night with my family watching a marvelous stage version of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” As Scrooge went on his rants about the lazy poor who have too many children (lines written in 1843), as we watched the struggles of the hard-working, but poverty-stricken Cratchit family, who needed but couldn’t get health care for Tiny Tim, I got to wondering who’s side Occupy Wall Street haters would be on. What Scrooge was mouthing was only a slightly meaner version of what I hear regularly in political discourse about wealth and poverty in present-day America.

The Occupy Wall Street movement isn’t about socialism. It’s about social justice. Which is ironic, because I so often hear conservatives talk about the “good ol’ days.” But America of 40, 50 or 60 years ago was a time when the wealthy made less and paid far higher taxes, and when common workers made more and union membership was far more common. I guess some people are a little forgetful about what the good ol’ days were really like.

The data make it pretty clear, on economic terms, the good ol’ days America is now evolving toward isn’t like the ‘40s, ‘50s, or ‘60s, but more like Victorian-era America, when the poor made up the largest share of the population, the middle class was relatively small, and the wealthy controlled a staggering percentage of the national wealth and used it to utterly control the political system.

Social justice is something most of us believe in. And we didn’t learn it from an ACLU pamphlet or a socialist manifesto. We learned it on Sunday mornings in church as children.

What record we have of the life of Jesus reveals a man who spent most of his days preaching in favor of social justice – love your neighbor, help those who have less than you. So why is it such a threatening message when it’s voiced in the political arena?

Blind Rage

A lot of angry Americans are heading to the polls this November. Problem is, a lot of what their anger is based upon is utterly false. Below are some of the things voters believe – and are mad as hell over, that aren’t actually true. Because The Contrarian hates the political smear emails that fill our inboxes masquerading as fact, I have footnoted this post using a wide variety of respected sources.

Claim #1: Taxes are out of control. Truth is, taxes are lower now than they’ve been in decades. In 2009 nearly half of all Americans owed no federal income tax(a). In 2008, 36% of Hoosiers paid no federal income taxes(b). In fact, federal taxes collected this year will represent the smallest portion of our overall economy since 1950. Only four developed nations collect less from their taxpayers than the U.S. They are Japan, Turkey, Mexico, and South Korea(c). And amazingly, according to a recent CBS/NY Times Poll, only 12% of Americans are aware that last year’s stimulus bill actually lowered taxes for 95% of Americans. 24% of respondents believed their taxes went up, while 53% thought they’d stayed the same.

Claim #2: I’m Mad As Hell About Health Care Reform. Let’s take these one at a time.

-“It’s a complete takeover of our healthcare system.” Not true. That would be a British or Canadian-style system, something that was never seriously considered in Congress. The government will not show up to nationalize your doctor’s office, hospital or pharmacy(a).

-Maybe you got the email titled, “Another Obama Nightmare,” claiming the reform bill included a 3% tax on all real estate transactions. No true(b).

-“Health Care Reform will raise my taxes this year.” Again, not true(c).

-“Health Care Reform will create panels to decide how much care patients get.” Not true(d). We can credit Sarah Palin in part for this mistaken belief thanks to her famous claim the bill would create “Death Panels,” which would decide who lives and dies. I received another mass email claiming that senior citizens would be forced to get euthanasia counseling every 5 years, presumably to encourage them not to request aggressive medical procedures, thereby saving the government a lot of money. Also not true (e).

-“Why should I have to pay for health care for people too lazy to get it themselves?” I received a number of anti-health reform emails painting unflattering pictures of the stereotypical “Welfare Queens” wanting free health care. So, let’s start by dispelling some myths about poverty. The majority of welfare recipients are white and either suburban or rural, not black and inner-city(f), and the average family living below the poverty line has at least one adult working full time(g). And in 2009, 60% of the 1.5 million bankruptcy’s filed in the U.S. were caused by medical bills. The majority of those filers were educated, middle class homeowners and 75% of them HAD! health insurance but reached policy payout limits(h).

Claim #3: The Federal Government Won’t Do Anything To Control Illegal Immigration. I spoke with a Tea Party activist this summer who insisted Obama and the Democrats were refusing to do anything to control illegal immigration and that crime was out of control in Arizona border towns. This echoes the sort of thing you might hear on Fox News (a). Truth is, crime in Southwestern border counties has dropped more than 30% in the past 20 years and F.B.I. statistics show the safest 4 cities in the U.S. – San Diego, El Paso, Phoenix and Austin are all in border states (b). And while the number of those trying to cross our southern border has dramatically declined due to the weak economy, the U.S. broke its record last year for the most deportations of illegals: 392,000(c), well up over G. W. Bush’s last year in office. The Department of Homeland Security also has begun auditing employers suspected of knowingly hiring Illegals,(approximately 3,200 employers) and as a result imposed more than $50 million in fines. There are also more border patrol agents currently working on the border than at any time in U.S. history (d). And the President recently sent 532 National Guard Troops to the border to help out.

I could go on, present the truth about the bailouts (polls show most Americans believe the bank bail outs happened under Obama, though they actually happened under G. W. Bush and the previous Congress(a)) the deficit, gun control, but you get the point. We’ve got a country filled with angry voters who don’t know very much about what they’re angry about.

Why do so many people believe so many things that are just plain false? I figure there are a number of reasons – and no footnotes here, this is just my opinion.

First, the quality of TV news in this nation has truly suffered as networks focus more on quarterly profits and less on meaningful reporting. And petty conflict sells. If you’re outraged about something and show up at your congressman’s town hall meeting and scream at him, the camera will be in place to follow every moment. Stand up at the same meeting and politely share thoughtful concerns, and it will not appear on the 6:00 o’clock news. Calm debate is just not interesting.

Secondly, there is a cottage industry that creates politically-charged emails that are filled with – well, there’s no other word for it; lies. This is something forces on the right have become very fond of. I say on the right because at least twice a week I get an email that attacks President Obama or the Democrats in Congress and 9 times out of 10 they turn out to be absolute lies. During the 8 years President Bush was in office, I got exactly 2 emails attacking him, and those were obvious jokes, not intended to trick anyone with a false claim.

Considering that every one of those smear campaign emails ends with a comment like, “Send this to all the people you know who are true patriots.” I’ll do the same thing to my readers for the first time.

If you know someone who loves America and wants it to be a better place but is so blind with rage they can’t tell the truth from political propaganda, please forward this to them.

Taxes 1: (a) Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research organization. (c) The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization. (c) Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development.

Health Care 2: (a) CBS News Healthwatch (b) 3% Real Estate Tax: http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/realestate.asp (c) Fox News, The Associated Press. (d) Associated Press. (e) http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/euthanasia.asp (f) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n21_v90/ai_18744024/?tag=rbxcra.2.a.33, (g) Bureau of Labor Statistics, (h) CNN Health: http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/health/bankruptcy.medical.bills_1_medical-bills-bankruptcies-health-insurance?_s=PM:HEALTH

Immigration 3: (a) http://mediamatters.org/research/201010130005 (b) FBI Statistics , The New Yorker. (c) Department of Homeland Security, KETKnbc.com. (d) The Arizona Republic

Bank Bailouts: (a) http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1766512.ece

Desperately Seeking Atticus Finch

If Americans ever needed Atticus Finch, we need him now.

My favorite novel is To Kill a Mockingbird, in large part because of the main character, Atticus Finch. Amid the racially charged populism in his small fictional town of Maycomb, he remained a stoic reminder of the values we claim to believe in. As his friends and neighbors struggled with their religious and secular predjudices, Atticus stood firm for both Christian and American values, eventually becoming the subject of scorn.

I search for that kind of quiet wisdom in our nation’s most contentious debates, and seldom find it. We live in an era when chest-beating demmogogues get all the attention and quiet voices of reason are ignored. Scream and pound your fist at a town hall meeting and the cameras will capture every moment. Quietly stand for what’s right, and you’re invisible.

Still, I can’t help but wonder what Atticus Finch would make of the debate over a proposed mosque 2 blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks.

In the novel, Atticus didn’t lecture much, but in contentious moments offered soft-spoken lessons in human decency to his two young children. What would he tell his children if they expressed sympathy for the recent protest signs against the mosque that read, “All I need to know about Islam I learned on September 11^th”?

He might sit that little boy and little girl down and tell them that you can’t judge the world’s 1 billion Muslims by the actions of a handful of men. Judging all people of a particular religion, color, or ethnicity by the actions of a few is the definition of bigotry.

If Atticus were around to watch a recent discussion on FOX News, what would he think of Newt Gingrich’s comments?

"Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the holocaust museum in Washington," Gingrich pronounced, adding, “[and] we would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor."

I suspect Atticus would calmly shake his head in dismay at the ways demagogues manipulate history. It was the organized national policies of the Japanese when they attacked Pear Harbor and the German Nazis when they persecuted the European Jews, not rogue elements within those countries. He would recognize that the only way the analogy works is to first believe that an entire religion and everyone who follows it attacked us.

What of the frequently heard observation, “Well, a Muslim country like Saudi Arabia would never allow the construction of a Christian Church?” Atticus would likely tell his children, “America doesn’t measure itself against a repressive, religious monarchy.”

And what would he make of the claim that a mosque 2 blocks from ground zero would be disrespectful to the families who lost a loved one on 9/11? My guess is he’d ask, “Then why are new mosques being opposed in cities and towns across America from Sheboygan, Wisconson to Murfreesburo, Tennessee? Are they also too close to ground zero?”

He’d probably also consider the innocent 60 America Muslims who were killed in the twin towers. What would mosque opponents say to the families of those victims? Do they grieve less than Christian or Jewish families who lost loved ones? Who is ready to tell them that a Christian Church or Jewish Synagogue nearby is fine, but a place of worship for their murdered loved ones can’t be allowed?

And what of the sex shops and strip joints just as close to ground zero as the proposed Mosque? No one is protesting those? Are we saying it’s okay to bump and grind nude for dollars near ground zero – okay to buy sex toys there, but not okay for Muslims to worship there?

And what a lost opportunity. We’ve asked the Muslim world, “When will the moderates stand up to the extremists?” Muslim moderates showed up in New York to build a peaceful place of worship and we kicked them in the teeth

Atticus would no doubt wonder all this. He understood what mob mentality, coupled with a fear of “those who are different” can do to people.

The final realization that might make Atticus sigh heavily and rub the back of his neck in worry: the same political forces opposing the mosques in Manhattan, Sheboygan, and Murfreesboro also support Arizona’s new racial profiling law, oppose affirmative action and gay rights, and routinely vote-in national leaders who upon taking office cut the Justice Department’s civil rights enforcement budget.

But who am I kidding? If a modern-day Atticus Finch appeared on the streets of Manhattan to stand up to mosque opponents in defense of racial equality, religious freedom and tolerance he would be vilified just as he was in the novel. Members of the mob would concoct smear campaign mass emails linking Atticus with all that’s evil and wrong in the world. Angry talk show pundits and political opportunists would question his patriotism and religion

They would practice upon Atticus what former Clinton Administration aid Vince Foster described in his suicide note as “The politics of personal destruction.” Something that’s already been practiced upon those Americans planning the mosque

In reality, Atticus Finch was a product of fiction. That’s fitting. The voices of reason in the mosque debate seem as illusive as fiction.

Why Arizona's New Immigration Law is Wrong

Arizona’s new immigration law is a betrayal of our Constitutional values. Let me show you by applying the “Arizona logic” to another big problem: illegal guns.

Our Constitution guarantees Americans the right bare arms. But there are so many guns in this country it’s hard to separate the legal from the illegal?

By illegal I mean guns that are being sold on the street, from criminal to criminal, often stolen from law-abiding citizens and held by people convicted of violent crimes who have no permit for those guns. This illegal trade and ownership of guns provides muscle for the illegal drug trade, nurtures gang violence, and spreads criminal activity nation wide.

It’s a problem of a scale and impact so large it touches nearly every person in America, requiring ever-higher taxes to fund law enforcement to battle it, and effecting the personal safety of people in large cities and small communities alike. I want a new law to address this chronic problem in Indiana. I hope other states will adopt it as well.

My “Arizona-style” gun law for Indiana: The police shall have the power to stop those they suspect of carrying an unregistered or stolen gun and ask them to prove that they have the right to own and carry that gun.

No sooner is my proposal signed into law, the National Rifle Association and the politicians whose campaigns they fund, go ballistic. “You’re infringing on the rights of law abiding Americans,” they protest. They demonstrate in the streets, harangue on television and radio talk shows, demonizing the law. The NRA promotes a boycott of Indiana.

I’m stunned by the opposition. I respond, “How could any law abiding citizen who wants America to be a safer place disagree with my law? If you have a right to own and carry a gun and bought it legitimately, you have nothing to be afraid off?”

“That’s not exactly true,” my opponents respond.

“Legal gun owners are going to be targeted by the police,” they say. “Any hunter with a gun rack in their truck, people coming and going from gun stores, gun shows and firing ranges, and people just legally walking around with a gun on their hip could be stopped and harassed by police.

“We do want to address the problem” my opponents insist, “but what you’re proposing infringes on the Constitutional rights of law abiding Americans. Just because you have a chronic problem that, yes, is hurting America, doesn’t mean that heavy-handed laws are the answer, especially when they betray our Constitutional values.”

Would my gun law get a lot of guns off the streets and out of the hands of criminals? Probably. Should we do it? No. Because it violates the Constitution.

How is that anything like Arizona’s new law?

Our Constitution guarantees Americans the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure. But there are so many illegal immigrants in this country it’s hard to separate the legal from the illegal?

Illegal immigrants flood in through our porous borders in numbers so great their presence is a problem of a scale and impact so large it touches nearly every person in America, driving down wages, burdening taxpayer-funded medical facilities, and driving up taxes to pay for public services like schools, fire and police. Arizona wanted a new law to address that chronic problem.

So their police will have the power to stop those they suspect of being an illegal immigrant and ask them to prove that they are an American.

Civil liberty groups like the ACLU and immigrant rights organizations have gone ballistic. I think the law is wrong because it infringes on the rights of legal, law abiding Americans.

Supporters of the law respond, “How could any legal citizen who wants America to be a better place disagree with Arizona’s law? If you’re an American citizen, you have nothing to be afraid off?”

That’s not entirely true.

American citizens who have dark skin or a foreign accent are going to be targeted by the police. Anyone of Latina heritage, people coming and going from ethnic groceries or restaurants, and people just legally walking around immigrant neighborhoods could be stopped and harassed by police, constantly being asked to prove their citizenship.

I do want to address the problem but the Arizona law infringes on the Constitutional rights of law abiding Americans to be free of unnecessary search and seizure. Just because you have a chronic problem that, yes, is hurting America, doesn’t mean that heavy-handed laws are the answer, especially when they betray our Constitutional values.”

Will Arizona’s new law find a lot of illegal immigrants? Yes. Should we do it? No. Because it violates the Constitution.

Our forefathers wrote a constitution not based on what was easy or expedient, but based upon what was right. Dictatorship, monarchy, and marshal law are easy. Constitutional democracy is hard. Start pulling at the thread of popular shortcuts and the whole flag could unravel.

In the Land of Viral Emails

The email describes a 44” snowstorm in northern Michigan with 90 MPH winds that cut power to tens of thousands and stranded hundreds of motorists.

The email snorts that Obama, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Hollywood’s elite, and FEMA didn’t offer assistance and that victims didn’t demanded $2,000 debit cards or FEMA trailers. It brags, “We did not wait for some affirmative action government,” or “ a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.”

Though I got the email last week it’s nearly word for word identical to an email sent in 2005 about a supposed North Dakota blizzard. In other words, it’s a viral email masquerading as truth, manufactured to make a political point.

The comparisons to Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath and the racial overtones (ala, we white people take responsibility and don’t whine) are obvious, but did it occur to any who got and resent this email that snow up to your eaves and rushing water up to your eaves are not the same? One is a temporary inconvenience and the other destroys your home, your neighborhood, and the place where you work.

But we live in an era of digital germ warfare when mass viral emails are sent and resent, acting as the gossip mill for smear campaigns.

Remember the, “Obama is a Muslim,” and, “Obama won’t wear a flag lapel pin,” and, “Obama wasn’t born in the U.S,” emails that were easily proven false? I still encounter people who believe all three – who in fact get angry as hell that you don’t believe. Why do they believe? Because they got the emails and they want to believe.

Maybe you got the Dr. Starner Jones email. This one’s real, but disturbingly narrow-minded.

Dr. Jones complains about a Medicaid patient with a new gold tooth, expensive tennis shoes and an R&B ringtone on her phone (again, note the racial overtones). He writes, “She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer.

And our Congress expects me to pay for this woman's health care?”

Defining health care reform as a giveaway to the lazy is an immoral oversimplification. Some facts:

1) The majority of families living below the poverty line have an adult working full time.

2) Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills and over two thirds of those happen to middleclass people with health insurance.

3) Health insurance premiums paid to America’s largest insurers by middle class families have increased 87% since 2002.

4) During the same period those top 10 insurance companies’ profits rose 428%.

And Dr. Jones suggests health care reform is about buying insurance for lazy welfare queens?

Where are the angry emails about those bankruptcies, insurance premiums and insurance company profits? Kinda makes you wonder who actually authors and distributes these emails.

Another viral email is titled, “An Actual Commercial From the 50s.” In it, black & white footage shows people listening to a recording of a Ronald Reagan speech. You hear Reagan warn against the evils of socialized medicine and it’s slippery slope towards communism.

If you watch that footage and truly believe it’s an actual commercial from the ‘50s, I’ve got some magic beans to trade for your cow.

While the audio is a real Reagan recording, it’s heavily edited and from the early ‘60s. Reagan was talking about Medicare, but the email never mentions this. In the full speech he claimed that if Medicare passed, people in the future (the 1970s, '80s, & '90s presumably) would look back wistfully at what life was like in America back when people were free, before Medicare took our freedoms away.

As it turns out, Reagan was entirely wrong. Medicare did nothing he said it would do.

Our doctors are not socialized. The government has not seized our hospitals and clinics nor nationalized the drug companies. America is not a communist country and is in no danger of becoming one. And there's nothing about current health care reform that would do that either.

Of course, health care reform is what the email is really trying to effect.

Medicare is a remarkably popular and effective government program. If it's so bad, will the elderly who oppose health care reform renounce their single-payer, socialized, government Medicare and pay out of pocket - the free enterprise way?

No.

The Reagan address was not a wise and dire warning from the past, it was a prediction that history has proven wrong. Still, the viral email’s impression is made and it’s transmitted from person to person like germs on a doorknob.

I haven’t even mentioned the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant emails I’ve gotten from Conservatives lately and I don’t have space for the ridiculous emails that compare America today with Austria and Germany just before the Nazis took over.

I’ve come to believe that few of these emails originate with regular Joe’s concerned for their country. Instead I’d be willing to bet most are authored by lobbying firms, paid political strategists, and corporate public relations departments. Send them to a couple hundred of the faithful, then wait and watch while the germ spreads across the country, sent and resent by people ready and willing to believe anything that reinforces their fears or confirms their prejudices.

It’s interesting that I don’t get these kinds of emails from liberals attacking conservative beliefs. And I’m a liberal with plenty of liberal friends. Oh, I got a couple humorous email jabs at Bush during his 8 years, but they were obvious jokes. I get at least two of these half true conservative-leaning emails a week.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, these viral emails are here to stay. Why? A study conducted recently by Elmhurst College in Illinois found that they’re very effective in shaping people’s beliefs.

Rembering Brown County (and a little about the Nobel Prize)

Drove down to Brown County with friends last Saturday for a party in the woods at Susie and Larry’s cabin. They call it Larryland.

South of Trafalgar, as the predictable grid of northern roads gave way to winding and turning lanes among the hills, I got to thinking about the year and a half I lived in Brown County after graduating college.

I’d spent so much of my life on the flat land of northern Indiana, moving to Brown County in the mid-‘80s at the age of 24, the place just didn’t feel like any part of Indiana I knew. It felt like the south.

I rented a guesthouse from an elderly woman named Angie, just west of Nashville off 46, up a steep hill and in the forest right across from the Little Nashville Opry. My place was one room, maybe 20’ x 20’ with a kitchenette built into one wall and an entire bank of windows, ceiling to floor, looking out on a ravine on the opposite wall.

Angie was a remarkable woman. She’d spent her life in New York as an editor at various fashion magazines. At retirement she followed her daughter and son-in-law to Brown County in the 60’s. They lived next door to us. Angie’s frail body was bent and twisted by arthritis, but she lived with a determined joy for life, her house filled with mementos from her life out east.

Angie had a dog named Ky. He was half German shepherd, half coyote. My first night there I came home from work after dark. As I walked from my car in the pitch black of the forest, I could hear Ky growling as he circled me in the undergrowth. In a scene right out of a horror film, I fumbled with the key in the unfamiliar lock, panicking as Ky drew closer, his growls more insistent. I burst inside, quickly slammed the door and flipped on the porch light. Ky glared back at me, teeth bared.

Angie had apparently watched the whole thing from her window.

She met me in the driveway in the morning and said, “Maybe you better feed the dog for a few days. You need to make friends with him” I did and Ky and I were friends from then on. Many nights he would sit outside my window and howl at the darkness. Coyotes on neighboring hills would howl in response, their cries echoing through the woods.

Angie’s son-in-law Sam was a former New York attorney who retired to Nashville and got elected County judge. Sam was an expert on mushrooms and had written a book, “A Judge Judges Mushrooms,” detailing every kind of mushroom that could be found within a mile of his house. Occasionally he would show up at the door exclaiming, “There are these fabulous little red mushrooms growing under the propane tank. Sauté those in some butter. You’ll love ‘em. But watch out for the puffball mushrooms. They’re poisonous.”

His enthusiasm usually included a casual warning that made you afraid to pick and eat anything.

As I sat around a campfire at “Larryland” on Saturday I thought too about the cultural differences between northern and southern Indiana. There are towns down there with names like Gnaw Bone and Bean Blossom. There’s a little bit of a nasal twang down there that you don’t hear so much in Marion or Ft. Wayne. Listen carefully next time you hear John Mellancamp being interviewed and you’ll hear what I mean. And I heard the term “you-uns” for the first time and then often, a term interchangeable with “ya-all.”

And there’s a driving culture too. Brown County drivers will pull out in front of you no matter what, forcing you to slam on your breaks to avoid a rear-end collision. Locals spend so much time trapped on those winding-curving roads behind slow-driving northerners who’ve come down to gawk at the scenery, they’d just rather get in front of you, no matter the risk.

When I originally went down for the job interview, Nashville looked like a happenin’ little town. What I didn’t know until I moved there was that, at least in those days, it closed down around 6 o’clock. Bloomington was my salvation. Younger friends from high school, still at IU provided nightlife. There were sorority dances, movies, and bars in what has to be one of Indiana’s best towns.

It was there that my wife and I first dated. She would drive down from Bluffton (the flat northland) and spend the weekend with me.

Saturday, as I watched the guests – mostly Noblesville folks – the adults playing corn hole and Mexican horseshoes while the kids rode 4 wheelers and played kickball amid the towering trees, I couldn’t help remembering that there’s just something a little different about the southern part of the state.


Thoughts on Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize
Of course there are those . . . bothered because the President of the United States got the Nobel Peace Prize. Interesting that it was just a few years ago these same folks were calling Bush’s detractors, “un-American,” for not supporting the president. But even some fans of Obama are a little puzzled by the award. I was surprised the Nobel committee did it, but not puzzled about why.

Just after the announcement, one of the smartest, quiet observers of politics I know, fellow Realtor Bill Campbell, came in the office and asked me what I thought. Trying to boil it down to the simplest terms, I answered, “He got it because he isn’t Bush.”

Bill smiled and paused, as he often does at my blunt observations and offered a similar, though far more insightful answer. “It was the Nobel Committee’s way of saying: America, if you want to be the leader of the free world, this man’s approach is what we want.”

Bill said it better than any high-priced media pundit has in the past week.

The world never understood why we elected George Bush. Where some Americans saw tough resolve in Bush’s foreign policy, the world saw belligerence. Where some Americans saw folksy style in Bush’s gaffs and stammering, the world saw ignorance.

From the world’s perspective, the only tool George Bush had in his foreign policy tool kit was a sledgehammer. So every problem was addressed with that sledgehammer, whether verbal (“You’re with us or against us,” & “Axis of Evil”) or militarily (2 wars, torture, illegal wire-taps, Guantanamo). In Obama, they see a person whose tool kit includes precision tools for delicate work. The kinds of tools of diplomacy that do less unintended damage and destroy fewer friendships.

Bill was right. This wasn’t about a specific accomplishment, as Obama’s detractors will insist it should be. It’s about an international preference for how America presents itself on the national stage. Like many of the Nobel Committee’s picks over the years, it was a choice that said, “We think “this (Obama),” rather than “that (Bush)” is what the world needs now.”

Reclaiming September 11th

That anniversary will be here again soon and it’s time we took it back and reclaimed it, not as a day when someone did something bad to us, but a day when we do something good for ourselves. September 11th should be declared a Day of National Service.

As horrific as 9/11 was, in many ways I’m embarrassed by how our country reacted to it. We played along as politicians fear mongered to get elected or keep us obedient. We shrugged our shoulders as our leaders twisted the threat to justify things they wanted to do long before that fateful day ever occurred. And we hardly noticed the many ways we compromised on our American values – from torture, to illegal wiretapping to invading a country that wasn’t involved in 9/11 and wasn’t supporting terrorism.

But most of all I’m sick of the annual hand wringing and wallowing in victim-hood

In an era when it seems all news is shaded to be sold as drama, 9/11 is the ultimate drama. While it should feel like we’re honoring the sacrifices of victims and heroes, it instead feels like the media trivializes them by relentlessly replaying and repackaging the day’s events for dramatic effect.

The anchorperson breathlessly asks, “Do you feel safer?” If not, “Then what are the dangers?” Let’s talk about it and talk about it and talk about it until we’re afraid to get on an airplane or trust anyone with dark skin or a foreign name. The crass motive to titillate viewers with mayhem or tug at our heartstrings to keep us tuned in lies beneath the surface of relentless, solemn news pieces that will soon run about 9/11.

Of the mistakes our government made after 9/11, perhaps none was so great as not having asked the American people to do something, to contribute or sacrifice in some way toward victory over those who seek to harm us. Asking people to support the president or the troops or to be patient with the war would have been a lot more effective if people were actively involved. But we weren’t and still aren’t. While our soldiers are still under fire, we’re still watching Dancing With The Stars and eagerly awaiting the start of the NFL season, barely aware of their sacrifice. We’ve been repeatedly asked to feel a certain way about the war on terror, but not to actually do anything of real meaning. Bush didn’t ask us, and as we ramp up our offensive in Afghanistan, neither has Obama.

During WWII in northern Indiana, my father sold war bonds on his paper route. People planted Victory Gardens, rationed gasoline and many other commodities so they would be readily available for the war effort. Women sewed socks and turned old cloth into bandages. Folks recycled iron, copper – you name it, for the war effort. A gospel song from that era even called on people to help the soldiers abroad by using “the weapon of prayer.”

Instead, after 9/11 President Bush told us to, “go out and shop.” Get on down to Starbucks and Abercrombie and Fitch; that’s how you can help.

The war in Iraq alone has cost us $10 billion a month. There must be something we all could have been doing these past 8 years to help out besides shop and wave flags.

The best thing we could have done is take back September 11th from the terrorist and claim it as our own. Not as a sad day for America, but a day that makes America stronger every year.

September 11th should be declared a Day of National Service.

If I could, I would replace every tearful bell tolling on 911 with citizen-driven projects to rebuild inner-city parks. I would pre-empt every TV and radio replay of the terror of the day with information about where to volunteer to give blood, help the illiterate read, take out a shut-in, clean a fouled stream, mentor a struggling small business or rebuild a burned-out church. I’d cancel every politician’s 9/11 commemorative speech so there would be more time for volunteers to carry-in a thank you meal to their local fire and police departments. And I’d ask people to stop wringing their hands in fear of terrorists being put in American prisons and instead use those hands to send a care package to an American soldier abroad with something in it of real use they could share with the 3rd-world children they serve near.

We couldn’t let the, “Go out and shop,” people get a hold of this day. If they did, NASCAR would schedule a race and soon we’d be drinking beer and grilling brats every 9/11 and as on Labor and Memorial Days, eventually forget why we got the day off.

I challenge readers to expunge their sorrow this September 11th with a random act of kindness. Go out of your way to do something positive. What do you have to offer your community that goes unused? What does your community need that goes untended? Instead of reliving the pain of that day, set aside some time to lift those who are down, to enrich those who are poor, or to fix something broken.

Two years ago, my daughter and I gathered supplies for the local animal shelter. Last year, a group of men in my neighborhood spent the day painting the home of a single mom with two kids. It can be that simple. Find something that needs doing and do it on September 11th.

Correction from last week’s column:
In last week’s column I said that Republicans controlled the House and Senate in Washington for the 12 years previous to January 2008. I was a year off. Their 12 years of control ended in January of ’07.

Dear Conservative Friend

Dear Conservative Friend,

You worry me. As you show up at town hall meetings to protest health care reform, I’ve gone from simply disagreeing with you to genuinely worrying about you.

I know, you’re sighing heavily and rolling your eyes, but hear me out.

During last year’s election you sent me emails claiming Barack Obama was a Muslim who wouldn’t wear a flag lapel pin or say the Pledge of Allegiance. Both liberal and conservative news outlets found these accusations to be utterly false. But a couple months later you sent the same emails to me again.

You sent another email claiming Obama wasn’t an American citizen. Twice now Hawaiian officials have verified that Obama was born there. But you keep insisting otherwise.

Though I often disagree with you, your basic, reasonable conservative beliefs should be enough to make you disapprove of Obama. Why do you need conspiracy theories?

The mortgage industry collapse began in July of ’07. Economists say the recession started in December of ’07. You told me last year that our collapsing economy was Bill Clinton’s fault though he left office in ‘01. If that’s true, what was your party doing for the 12 years immediately prior to December of ’07 when they controlled both the House and Senate? And in the 6 years leading up to the recession your leaders had complete control, as Bush was President. In that time they could have enacted or struck down any law. But just a couple months after Obama took office, you told me the economy was Obama’s mess.

Listening to you one would hardly know your party controlled our government for so long.

The pundits you listen to on radio and television say that Obama is a fascist and a socialist and is taking all our rights away. I ask you for hard evidence, but your answers are weak.

You told me Obama would take our guns away. You and your friends flocked to buy firearms. But this May Obama instead signed a law expanding gun rights – allowing them in National Parks.

A few nights ago I saw a hero of yours, Glenn Beck, on his FOX news show claiming that Obama’s legislative record proves he’s pursuing “reparations” for African Americans. The accusation was delivered with breathless outrage, and with no rational evidence.

You’ve been holding “Tea Party” protests because you believe current debt spending will lead to higher taxes. Yet, when your party’s leaders doubled the national debt between 2001 and 2008, I never heard you utter a word of complaint.

Now you and your friends are protesting health care reform at town hall meetings. I’ve seen the posters held up outside these events – doctored photos of Obama shaking hands with Adolph Hitler and Obama with a Hitler mustache.

During one of President Obama’s town hall meetings on health care last week, I turned on your favorite channel, FOX News. They showed a fleeting moment of the President explaining health care reform, then went back to regular programming, promising to return to the President, “if there were any fireworks.”

It worries me that you think that’s fair and balanced reporting.

Conservative friend, you keep telling me horror stories about Canada and England’s health care systems, even though no one in Washington is considering a system like theirs.

You applauded at Sarah Palin’s resignation speech when she implored the media to, “Stop making things up.” A few days later she made the unfounded claim that health care reform would result in, “Death panels,” that would decide who lives and dies. It worried me that you saw no contradiction.

Though most hospitals across the country already offer end of life counseling, you claim that such counseling paid for with federal dollars would lead to euthanizing elderly people. It worries me that you find that claim rational.

You say a federal health insurance program is socialism that must be stopped. Puzzling, because during the Bush years the leaders you elected reinstituted welfare-style “subsidy” checks to farmers and devised a drug benefit program for the elderly. Both programs took money from those who had it and spread it around to others. Why didn’t you protest that socialism?

My Conservative friend, back then, when I protested, you told me I was un-American to criticize the Commander and Chief while our troops were at war. Well our troops are still at war. I don’t see that stopping you now.

Yes, friend, you worry me.

You seem averse to introspection. You insist that every problem is the other side’s fault, and in fact would have turned out fine if things had only been done your way. And when you hear things that conflict with your point of view, it’s dismissed as a liberal news media lie. Therefore, you never have to reevaluate your beliefs.

You worry me because you seem unable to agree to disagree. How do we have a rational political discourse in this country when anyone who disagrees with you, from Clinton to Sotomayor to Obama you angrily label as racists, fascists, socialists, communists, or America haters?

You don’t seem to realize that it’s possible for someone to love America and disagree with you at the same time. You have no monopoly on patriotism and no exclusive claim to moral values – and you don’t know it.

You worry me because amid all of your shouting and bizarre accusations there seems to be no meeting the opposition half way. In your world, compromise and statesmanship are dead. All that’s left are winners and losers.

Neither a friendship nor a marriage can survive on such terms. And I worry, neither can a country.

I'm not afraid of Obama, I'm afraid of you.

Cindy Goes To The Doctor

One day last March Cindy woke up with a red and swollen eye. Her predicament offers a case study on American’s dysfunctional health care system.

For years Cindy had a comfortable income earned from a small business she operated in the shadow of Noblesville’s clock town. At an ever-increasing price, she bought health insurance. As the price got higher, she accepted an increasingly higher deductible, to the point that her coverage, though it cost $700 a month, was for all practice purposes, catastrophic insurance. She was paying for most expenses out of pocket. But at least she was covered for a major illness.

But last fall as the national economy tanked, so did her business. To make ends meet, she dropped her insurance and joined the other 50 million Americans who have no health insurance.

And then she woke with that eye problem. A pretty small issue, really. She didn’t have cancer, wasn’t maimed in an accident. But her relatively simple problem became an maddening ordeal.

She tried to find inexpensive treatment and went to a local Med-Check center. They said they would charge $150 for a consultation. Sounded high to Cindy. They kindly suggested she try the clinic at Wall Mart. So she did. The Wal-Mart clinic suggested she go to the emergency room.

Her attempt at bargain shopping failed.

Lots of people say competition in health care would bring prices down. But when people have a stroke or heart attack or cut their arm open, or for that matter, get some mysterious inflammation in their eye, they don’t typically go looking for bargains. They look for relief. It’s why competition hasn’t worked very well in health care. You rarely have a couple days to read Consumer Reports or compare quotes from competing doctors.

So Cindy went to the emergency room.

Once at Riverview Hospital a nurse put some numbing drops in her eye.
A doctor came in, examined her for 5 minutes and said he couldn’t help her, but referred her to a specialist. When she left, she asked a checkout clerk what she owed and was told, “We’ll catch up with you next time you come in.”

She drove to the specialist’s office at 146th and Cumberland and after another 5-minute consultation she was given some eye drops. The drops made her eye hurt more. She quit taking them and decided to let nature heal it for her. Which eventually worked.

Then the bills started rolling in. There was a bill from Riverview Hospital for $350 with no itemization or explanation. The ER doctor also billed her $196 for their fruitless 5-minute consultation. That’s a rate of $2,353 per hour (Who does he think he is, a Wall Street banker?). The specialist charged her $100 for his 5-minute conversation that resulted in the eye drops that didn’t help.

So the total bill came to $646 for a lot of driving around, fleeting encounters with doctors, and a treatment that didn’t work. Cindy still doesn’t know why her eye was red and swollen.

Why did Riverview and the ER doctor charge so much? A Riverview representative told me the hospital bills $22 million worth of care a year that goes uncollected. You see, as people complain about “socialized” healthcare plans being considered in Washington, few acknowledge that it’s already socialized. The hospitals, insurance companies, and doctors have done it themselves. They’ve been forced by market realities to charge those who can pay to cover losses caused by those who can’t pay.

The expenses are compounded because those without health insurance tend not to see the doctor when they have a cough or the flu – because they have no coverage, then show up at the emergency room a week later with pneumonia, which is far more expensive to treat than the original illness.

Was the doctor bill high because of malpractice insurance? Research tells us that malpractice insurance, lawsuits, payouts and extra tests run on patients by doctors to protect from lawsuits accounts for only 1% of health care costs. Eliminate that and Cindy’s bill falls by just $6.46.

Cindy called the hospital and the doctors and asked for an explanation of the bill. She was told they’d give her a 20% discount if she didn’t have insurance. Sounds like more socialized, “spreadin’ it around,” to use the parlance of last year’s election.

While Cindy was struggling to understand the bills, Cigna, owner of her former insurer, Sagamore, announced that their 1st quarter profits had tripled to $208 million, which disappointed Wall Street insiders who had hoped for more. According to Forbes, Cigna’s CEO, E. Edward Hanway, earns on average, $15.6 million per year. Which helps us understand another problem for people like Cindy. The goal of most insurers and providers isn’t simply to provide a service, but also and perhaps more importantly, their goal is to earn a profit.

To this day, Cindy still owes the $646, is being threatened that her bills will be turned over the a collection agency, and still, nobody’s asked her if her eye got better.

Facts about American healthcare:
*The Institute of Medicine estimates that 18 thousand people die each year in America because they have no health insurance.
* The United States is the only industrialized country in the world without a universal
health insurance system. -American Journal of Public Health
* Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. Three-quarters of those filings are
people with health insurance. –Health Affairs, 2006
* There are four times as many health care lobbyists in Washington as there are members
of Congress. - Opensecrets.org
* According to the UN Human Development Report, while the United States leads the
world in spending on health care, “countries spending substantially less than the US have
healthier populations.… The infant mortality rate for the U.S. is now higher than for
many other industrial countries.”
* A baby born in El Salvador has a better chance of surviving than a baby in Detroit.
The infant mortality rate in Detroit is 15.5, compared to El Salvador's rate of 9.7. -
http://www.infantmortprogram.org/stats.asp
• Canadians live three years longer on average than Americans do.
* Cubans have a lower infant mortality rate than the United States and according to the
U.N. Human Development Report, a longer average lifespan.
*Americans rank 29th in the world for life expectancy. We tie with Jordan. –CIA World Factbook

Debating The False Bill Cosby

I recently received an emailed prescription for turning America around. It clams to have been authored by frequently insightful and always outspoken comedian Bill Cosby. But further research reveals that Cosby did not write it. Other emails attribute it to late comedian George Carlin, who also did not write it.

The list fascinates me because it represents a bundle of mob-mentality notions. It masquerades as good ‘ol American common sense, but manages to ignore much of what America has stood for over generations. It also reminds us of the many ways the Internet has replaced the corner tavern, the beauty parlor, and the barber shop as the spreader of gossip and often narrow-minded, middle-America angst. The lynch mobs and misguided coups of the future will not assemble on the streets, but on the Internet, fed by intellectual perversion like this.

Here are the Fake Cosby’s bullet points for a better America, followed by The Contrarian’s rebuttal.

#1
The False Cosby: “’Press 1 for English,’ is immediately banned. English is the official language; speak it or wait at the border until you can.”

The Contrarian: So we're going to demand more of modern immigrants than was expected of our own ancestors? Many of our adult immigrant ancestors spoke their native tongue coupled with broken English until their deaths. Often only their children learned English and in many ethnic neighborhoods (in the good 'ol days) streets signs and businesses often used the local ethnic language. How quickly we forget.

#2 & #3
The False Cosby: 2-“We will immediately go into a two year isolationist posture to straighten out the country's attitude. NO imports, no exports. We will use the Wal-Mart policy, 'If we ain't got it, you don't need it.'” 3-“When imports are allowed, there will be a 100% import tax on it.”

The Contrarian: The world economy has been destroyed time and again by isolationism. And the behind-the-scenes Wal-Mart corporate policy is one that aggressively and systematically lures American manufacturers to China. Impose the False Cosby approach and Wal-Mart’s shelves would be empty, just like the logic behind point #2 & #3.

#4
The False Cosby: “All retired military personnel will be required to man one of our many observation towers on the southern border (six month tour). They will be under strict orders not to fire on SOUTHBOUND aliens.”

The Contrarian: So we’re gonna start shooting north bound boarder crossers? Sounds like the East Germans at the Berlin Wall during the Cold War.

#5:
The False Cosby: “Social security will immediately return to its original state. If you didn't put nuttin in, you ain't getting nuttin out. The president nor any other politician will be able to touch it.”

The Contrarian: So we're going to start putting elderly people out in the streets when their money runs out? Housewives who raised children instead of working in factories and children whose parents have died will no longer get benefits? Whose values does that reflect? Attila the Hun? Marie Antoinette? Kim Jong il’? How about a little WWJD?

#6
The False Cosby: “Welfare - Checks will be handed out on Fridays at the end of the 40-hour school week and the successful completion of urinalysis and a passing grade.”

The Contrarian: Okay, the False Cosby is pretty close to right on that one. I would also throw in long-term, systematic corporate welfare, like that our corporate farmers have been enjoying for decades. If you’re mad about the GM bailout, better stop eating American farm produce. It’s been socialized for decades.

#7
The False Cosby: “Professional Athletes--Steroids. The FIRST time you check positive you're banned for life.”

The Contrarian: Okay, that’s 2 for the False Cosby.

#8
The False Cosby: “Crime - We will adopt the Turkish method. The first time you steal, you lose your right hand. There are no more life sentences. If convicted of murder, you will be put to death by the same method you chose for your victim; gun, knife, strangulation, etc.”

The Contrarian: Turkey is our model? P-lease. Did the False Cosby ever go to church or read the Constitution? First, we don't inflict cruel and unusual punishment, not because we're weak on crime, but because we're better than the criminals and we're trying to build a culture in which elevated morals are embraced, not mocked. I'm with Martin Luther King: "An eye for an eye leave everybody blind."

#9
The False Cosby: “One export will be allowed, Wheat. The world needs to eat. A bushel of wheat will be the exact price of a barrel of oil.”

The Contrarian: Sounds good at first, but equating oil with food reveals how sick our love of cars truly is. Contrary to American cultural norms, the right to eat and the right to drive an urban assault vehicle are not equal.

#10
The False Cosby: “All foreign aid using American taxpayer money will immediately cease, and the saved money will pay off the national debt and ultimately lower taxes. When disasters occur around the world, we'll ask the American people if they want to donate to a disaster fund, and each citizen can make the decision whether it's a worthy cause.”

The Contrarian: Think the world hates us now? Do this and find out what it's like to sit entirely alone: hated and looked down upon rather than admired and emulated. To the nations whose democracy was nurtured or protected by our aid – “Hey guys, you’re on your own! All that business about us being a beacon of hope for the world? Well, we’re really not in that business anymore. I mean, come on. We’re already letting the elderly starve (#5) and shooting immigrants at the border (#4). You think we care about you?”

#11 & #12
The False Cosby: 11-“The Pledge of Allegiance will be said every day at school and every day in Congress, and 12-The National Anthem will be played at all appropriate ceremonies, sporting events, outings, etc.”

The Contrarian: I thought it was only communist Russia, China, Cuba, and North Korea that demanded obedience. You'd have to ignore a lot of what America has stood for (and our soldiers have died for) over the past 230+ years to force people to follow this medieval list and then also say the pledge.

The list ends with this salutation:
“Sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes. GOD BLESS AMERICA.”
-Bill Cosby

The only toes the False Cosby stepped on are those who have read and understand the Constitution, those who have at least a rudimentary understanding of foreign policy, and those who put their religious faith into practice. The fake Cosby platform is an attack on reason, and a beckonning call to mob logic. It’s a reminder that the Internet, for all its technological brilliance, it’s also a chalkboard for nuts, extremists and axe-grinders.

Oh, and I almost forgot: Send this to everyone you know who loves America!

It's None Of Our Business 6/10/09

The television and radio debates I hear about gay marriage confound me. They constantly miss the heart of the issue.
Those who oppose gay marriage immediately pull the debate toward broad critiques of homosexuality. Does God approve or disapprove? Is it natural or unnatural? Will it destroy marriage as we know it? And way too often, supporters of gay marriage get drawn into those pointless questions.
I’ve got nothing against asking those questions. They’re completely reasonable questions for an individual to ask themselves, but they have nothing to do with the public debate in a free democracy.
We don’t try to regulate what church our neighbors attend, if any, nor whether they are Republican or Democrat, whether they and their lover are married or not, all of which have important social and political implication. We consider those issues private business. Why treat marriage differently?
But opponents of gay marriage don’t want to talk about that. They pursue abstractions instead. Such as “Gay marriage threatens traditional marriage.”
With America’s divorce rate hovering around 50%, it’s hard to imagine what gays could do to hurt marriage that heterosexuals haven’t already done.
And opponents want to argue that gay marriage is wrong.
But that’s easy to fix. If you think it’s wrong, then don’t marry a gay person.
When I taught school, it was clear that some of my former students were taught by their parents to hate Jews, or Catholics, or African Americans. And I shudder to think of some of the dangerous, fringe religious beliefs some people hold dear in this country. But the only way to make it illegal is to force other people to accept my view of the world.
The simple truth is, what someone else believes, deep in their hearts, is none of our business to regulate. Even if we think the practice of those beliefs like bigotry are damaging to our culture, at some point you have to step back and accept that as long as it does no physical harm nor infringes on another’s rights, it probably can’t be regulated and we don’t want to do the police-state sort of intrusive things one would have to do to regulate it.
So if you think gay marriage is bad, teach your children it’s bad and for goodness sakes don’t enter into a gay relationship. But other than that, mind your own business.
But proponents still argue, “The Bible says it’s wrong!”
But that’s their Bible, from their religion. It’s not what everyone believes.
One of the things our forefathers believed was that everyone should be free to worship as they wish. The fact that the Bible says something is a perfectly good reason for a Christian to order their lives accordingly, but it doesn’t give them the right to force others to live out their idea of a Christian lifestyle.
What two consenting adults do with their lives is none of our business, no matter how wrong one’s individual faith might say it is. Christianity also teaches that adultery is wrong. Yet it’s not illegal. To control that, you’d have to start meddling in people’s bedrooms. That anyone would want to do that to heterosexuals or homosexuals is at best, bizarre.
There’s something else that’s never mentioned in this debate. Those trying to insure that government forbid gays and lesbians the right to marry are generally also part of a political movement that claims to want to get government off our backs.
Really? They apparently want less government involvement unless it’s something they personally want to control. And then, they want absolute control.
Those who want to tell gays and lesbians that they can’t marry strike me as awfully similar to the men in the Middle East who insist a woman cover her face or wear a burka. They seem say, “My moral view is so superior that I will not tolerate you living your life as you see fit. I know better for you than you know for yourself. And if you won’t willingly do what I say, I’ll pass a law that forces you.”
The idea that people wanted to go to the polls in California last year to make sure another adult of legal age couldn’t live in a loving, legal relationship with another adult of legal age is mind boggling. Because it’s none of our business to make that choice for others.
Gay rights forces have a slogan that says, “Can we vote on your marriage?” It sounds like a stab in the heart of opponents, but opponents would only reply, “That suggests a moral equivalency where none exists. We’re not equal. Hetero is right and homo is wrong.”
And we’re right back to judging gays as bad people.
But opponents don’t really want the argument to be about that because it sounds mean and un-American to label a class of adults involved in legal behavior as secondary citizens, entitled to lesser rights because their nature or behavior offends some. But that’s really what this is all about, judging some Americans to be less equal than others.