Tag Archives: Politics

AHAH!!! …(Yawn.): Glenn Beck & Company Nearly Savage a Liberal News Source, …Almost, …Kinda, um, zzzzzzzzzzz…

23 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Politics

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

First I must confess that I was reading Glenn Beck’s website. …I’ve done dumber things in my life. I just can’t think what they would be.

So, somewhere amid all the rancid piles of smegma that accumulate about his website, I stumbled across something called the Stu Blog, and in this Blog I found this wonderful little headline:

“The majority of people who believe Obama is a Muslim are not Republicans”

“Really?” I thought to myself. “I have to check this out!”

And thus I opened the article

The piece begins by talking about recent polls conducted in Alabama and Mississippi, polls showing (as Stu puts it) that; “a lot of Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi think President Barack Obama is a Muslim.” He faults Democrats and MSNBC for publicizing these polls. Stu dismisses these as biased polls and says we need a more neutral source on the issue. Next, he turns to a national poll conducted by Pew in 2010. Hence, we get the following paragraph:

Pew asked 2,811 people about Barack Obama’s religion. Approximately 536 of them incorrectly said he was a Muslim. Of those 536 people, 261 of them were Republicans, 275 were not. In other words, about 51% of those who believe Obama is Muslim are outside the Republican party.

So, you see, the title (piss-poor wording and all) is technically right. The Pew study does show that Republicans fail to constitute a majority of those believing President Obama is a Muslim.

But, I wonder, just what are the odds that any other political party has a higher representation?

None.

The poll results are right here.

Note that the highest percentage of people believing Obama is a Muslim are, according to that poll, conservative Republicans. Do they constitute a majority of the total population believing Obama is a Muslim? No.

So, if you add BOTH the Democrats who believe this to the independents who believe it, then those two together beat the Republicans by 14 people out of over 500. So one could not in fact say that Republicans constitute a majority of those believing Obama is a Muslim. One would have to be content to say that they are the largest group in that total population. But one could not say that they constituted a “majority.”

Which I suppose is the second most underwhelming fact of the day. The first being that Glenn Beck is a festering blood-fart. (Stu Burguiere is merely an emergent anal fistula.)

…and I really need to surf smarter corners of the net.

Photo by Gage Skidmore.

Remember Kids! False Equivalence is a Way of Life

09 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Politics

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

As the Limbaugh-Fluke flap dies out, the right wing blogosphere has fielded a number of diversion tactics, not the least of them being the good old fashioned tu quoque argument that liberals do it too. They have fielded several examples of putatively equivalent behavior, but Bill Maher’s comments about Sarah Palin seem to get the most mileage. He has used quite a few derogatory terms to describe Palin, several of which have sexist overtones every bit as vile as those of Limbaugh.

So, is there a difference? Well, yes.

Sarah Palin has a history of persistent dishonesty, malice, and utter stupidity, all committed in the public eye. Called out for her short-comings, Palin has consistently doubled down, blamed others for her failings, and produced one excuse after another for conduct that falls well short of basic human decency. Yet the pseudo-conservative machine that is Limbaugh, Fox News, and right wing radio supports her anyway.

Somewhere in the time since Palin first became a candidate for Vice President of the United States the public criticism ceased to be about demonstrating her faults and became an effort to shame her and her supporters for ignoring (and even celebrating) those faults. Insulting Palin may not be admirable behavior, and it certainly isn’t an adequate solution to the problem posed by a political base completely devoid of judgement. But the transformation of public criticism into outright abuse didn’t happen on day one, or even day three of her candidacy. It happened over time and in direct response to an extensive record of shoddy behavior on her own part.

Fluke, one the other hand, gave testimony in one (unofficial) public hearing. This and this alone was enough to warrant the attacks made on her character and (more importantly) a very deliberate misrepresentation of her actual testimony.

Furthermore, Rush Limbaugh did not merely call Fluke a slut, he supported that insult with false claims about her testimony and her actual sex life. His use of the terms “slut” and “prostitute” served not merely to indicate Rush’s contempt for the woman in question, but to promote a calculated misrepresentation of her politics and her behavior.

At the end of the day, Fluke wasn’t attacked for anything she actually said or did, but for a fantasy scenario having little to do with anything she actually said or did.

In short, Palin has become an object of ridicule, not because she is conservative (she isn’t), but because she has proven herself to be incompetent and shameless. Fluke became an object of ridicule for no reason other than that she was on the other side of this issue long enough to get public attention.

If neither attack is acceptable, each plays a very different role in the current discourse. Take away the insults to Palin and we still need a means of characterizing the public behavior of a person who has proven herself to be utterly irresponsible. Take away the insults to Fluke and we may just begin to evaluate her actual testimony.

That is one very considerable difference.

Real World Villains, Volume II: Those Damned Poor People! (They are so Envious!)

13 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Politics

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Okay, let’s have a show of hands. All of you that believe that growing interest in the gap between the rich and the poor is just a case of envy raise your hands.

Okay, all of you with your hands raised can go fuck yourself!

Seriously.

This is apparently the position Mitt Romney has recently taken on the issue. It’s a familiar bit of seasoning that certain elements of the Republican party like to add into the mix from time to time. If the difference between the rich and the poor bothers you, then you must be envious of their wealth. Just work a little harder and maybe you too can vacation in the Bahamas! Just add a reference to “Class Warfare” and stir to taste.

What makes this particular flavor of right wing rhetoric so damned vile is that it shows just how much people like Romney and his corporate masters are focused on the lives of the rich. The lives of the poor enter their minds only when cast in terms wealth and privelage.

If your neighbor has a better lawn than you, that is grounds for envy. If he has a faster car, a better boat, a bigger flat screen TV. All of these things are cause for envy. All of these things can lead to jealousy.

Would that the gap between the rich and the poor could be limited to such differences!

But envy does not explain the anguish of those that have lost their homes in the mortgage crisis; it does not explain misery of those working overtime only to find themselves a little further behind at the end of every month. It certainly doesn’t explain the fear of those without health insurance, or those who can hardly put food on the table.

Neither is it envy when someone who cannot afford basic health care,  feed his family, or pay his mortgage recognizes that that his financial limitations are linked in some sense to the spectacular wealth enjoyed by others. When some can afford luxurious vacation homes while others struggle for basic necessities this reflects an essential value judgement. It means that somewhere along the line the community at large (or rather the majority of people in that community) has decided the one is more important than the other, a lot more important. How folks came to that choice, and how they justify it is another question, but it doesn’t take class envy to question its wisdom.

Of course Romney has an explanation for that choice; it is the wisdom of meritocracy, a system that rewards hard working people with great skills and creative energy more than those who don’t. It’s the same talking point that Rick Santorum was flouting a short while ago, and it will of course be standard fair at every Republican fund raiser throughout this election. But seriously, if you actually think the gap between the rich and the poor is a function of merit, then you can go fuck yourself again.

Grow up people!

There is no Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny is road kill, and money does not magically find its way to those that deserve it most, nor does it flee from the grasp of those unworthy of its benefits. The wealthy are not categorically smarter, harder working, or more creative than the rest of the population. That simply does not explain the gap between the rich and the poor and it never will. It is little other than pretense to haul this old yarn out, just another way of suggesting that the poor do not deserve any better than they can earn themselves by working at the same crap jobs that aren’t working for them now and haven’t been for decades. But how dare those ingrates think they are entitled to any better?

The Republican party faithful would have us believe that poverty is a function of poor character, lazy people making bad choices. Now we can just add covetous character to the list of horribles perpetrated by the undeserving poor. That is the theory Romney us pushing.

But it’s a bullshit theory.

The gap between the rich and the poor is not reducible to lazyness, nor is concern over that gap simply a question of wanting nicer things. When Obama or any other politician raises this question (timid as they may be about it), it is not playing to the envy of the poor. It is addressing a real problem, albeit not one that the Republican party seems to recognize anymore (Hell, even Reagan’s trickle down theories would be an improvement over the present sense of entitlement the GOP fosters among the wealthy.)

Landing on the bottom end of the economic spectrum has serious consequences for the lives of those unfortunate enough to do so. To suggest that Romney’s comments trivialize that problem is putting it mildly. To say nothing of the overall consequences for the economy as ever increasing portions of the population find themselves unable to play the role of consumers which our economy requires. Simply put, if the poor get too poor, they won’t buy things from the rich anymore, and that could have serious consequences for those rich folk.

A vacation in the Bahamas ain’t cheap!

If Romney were simply making the case for conservative fiscal policies, then I wouldn’t fault him for that. Hell, I might even agree with him. But pretending that the growing gap between the upper crust of society and those beneath them is not a real matter of concern is well beyond the pale. Even if you only care about the wealthy, the gap between the rich and the poor ought to be a major concern. But there Romney sits, assuring the nation that this issue is nothing but the preoccupation of folks jealous of other people’s toys.

And this supposed to be the reasonable Republican candidate, the sane one. It’s beyond ridiculous.

Of course some might suggest that Romney knows better. Perhaps he would roll up his sleeves when the cameras are off him and get to work on the economy. He seems to suggest as much himself, and one can only hope that when it comes right down to it Mitt Romney will understand the gap between the rich and the poor is a real problem for a lot of Americans. One can also hope that he will realize he is responsible for those other Americans too, the ones he currently dismisses as envious. One can only hope that their welfare will be somewhere in the list of things he cares about (…albeit well below the bottom line for corporate CEOs. Their welfare must of course come first!)

And that is the hope we are left with in reading comments like this; that the presumptive Republican candidate is just playing to the faithful with this talking point, telling them a good reassuring story about their enemies. Why would anyone care about the gap between the rich and the poor? Personal pettiness. That is Romney’s answer. Its useful answer in that it helps to marginalize even the most moderate of liberals.

It’s also a bullshit answer, one that speaks loads about the character of anyone who utters it. …whether they believe it or not.

I really don’t know if Romney would have raised his hand upon reading the first question of my post.

He can fuck himself anyway.

How Local a Yokel Do You Gotta Be?

24 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in Alaska, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

It isn’t often that CSPAN gets interesting, but this little bit of congressional bickering is downright worthy of MTV. Jersey Shore ain’t got nothin’ on the House Committee on Natural Resources!

Don Young seems to be getting beat-up all over the net on account of this rant, mostly on account of the seeming arrogance of his approach to Professor Brinkly. To be fair, the video does leave out a cheap shot or two coming from the good Professor himself (the love of money theme is ad hominem gold right on par with Young’s sneering “ivory tower” comments). Still, I’m less interested in chasing down the particulars of personal outrage here than I am about the manipulation of regional credentials.

It is fair enough to say many up here want drilling to take place, but one has to wonder about the “small minority” that opposes it. And just what separates Young’s dismissal of this minority from his approach to the outside “elites” who assert an interest in the arctic refuge? The latter is too far away to be considered, but the former is simply too small. What both have in common is that their views simply do not seem to count. More to the point, I wonder just how much of the North Slope community would agree that “the arctic plane is really nothing?”

I wonder how many people from Kaktovik would say that about the coastal region of ANWR?

Yes, those are rhetorical questions. The landscape that Young dismisses in this clip means a great deal to much of the Inupiaq population of the North Slope, a fact which makes it difficult to swallow these comments coming as they do from someone who was at that very moment lecturing an outsider on his lack of concern for local interests. On that point at least, Young’s perspective is deeply flawed.

Of course part of Young’s larger argument is that the area actually subject to drilling is negligible, but the accuracy of estimates on both the planned drilling footprint and the risk in case of accidents are both open to question. …as is the actual economic impact of the oil on the national and regional economies.  There are a number of legitimate questions about both the environmental impact and economic benefits of ANWR. Unfortunately, it does not build confidence to hear someone claiming to have those answers dismiss as valueless the land upon which this drilling is to take place. …all the while claiming to represent the interests of locals who do indeed value that land.

Anyway, this clip is not Don Young at his best. There is a reasonable case to be made for drilling in ANWR, and it includes (as Young himself argues) consideration of the economic benefits to natives of the North Slope. That case does not include this kind of low-brow snobbery and xenophobic commentary, nor does it include a willful dismissal of the tundra as barren wasteland.

I wouldn’t suggest that the second video (taken from the same hearings) quite manages to make that reasonable case for drilling at ANWR (I am for example a little suspicious of the claim that failure to drill in ANWR is the long-term cause of 9-11). Still Young is a bit more calm here in this second video and you can get a better sense of his approach to the issue from it.

Don’t worry, the word “garbage” makes an appearance here too.

Great Real World Villains, Volume I: The Damned Welfare Mother!

08 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

I’ve just been thinking about the latest bit of political-spam making its way around the net, appearing in mailboxes here and there and on blogs in sundry corners of the net. Ostensibly published as a Letter to the Editor of the Waco Herald tribune, I’ve reproduced this bit of revenge-porn below.

What fascinates me about this piece is the hatred it directs at the poor.

The author makes no effort to explain the degree to which the programs she describes actually do constitute a burden on the economy, nor does she seem aware of the reforms of 1996. It is not even clear that she sees any concrete public policy benefit for her proposals. In fact, she makes no claim that this will ease the public obligation, nor even that her proposals will actually decrease the amount of government aid needed by the poor. What she does do is argue that this wholesale surrender of rights in return for public assistance is fair, and that it will teach people a lesson. How it will do the latter is never quite clear. Apparently, it is enlightening to be demeaned.

Perhaps the most glaring assumption of the author is that those on public assistance of any kind are there through some personal failure. The prospect that circumstances beyond someone’s control might lead someone to need public assistance appears to be completely beyond the author of this letter.

Of course, we could find plenty of people on public assistance with a number of mistakes in their past, and I’ll warrant many who have been less than diligent in the work place. But is that what really separates them from the rest of us? Is that the defining feature of poverty? The invariant principle that explains each person on public assistance?

Yes, those are rhetorical questions.

If anyone has not figured out yet that we have a growing number of working poor, or that circumstances beyond people’s control can and will land them in poverty, then they have been working very hard to remain ignorant about a lot of things.

Simply put, a rather large number of Americans are one serious illness away from similar circumstances.

But here is what really bothers me about the attack on the poor; it the clearest of double standards. The very thought that someone on welfare might not really need all they are getting seems to drive some people to heights of cruelty unimaginable. And yet those same people remain well aware that others with varying degrees of wealth may also get by with a crime or two.

To be sure this does not mean that folks necessarily accept crime from other wlaks of life, but it certainly does not get their attention quite so much as the fear that someone on food stamps might be running a scam. The prospect that a banker might embezzle funds is not usually seen as a good argument against the existence of banks. But the welfare mother who doesn’t really need the money? She is public enemy number one.

But perhaps this is all too abstract. Let’s put it in more concrete terms; the same people who rolled their eyes and complained about the bank and corporate bailouts that began with Bush and continued with Obama actually did something to stop government-funded health-care. The former was an objection “in principle,” but the latter was a battle that some fought tooth and nail.

It is a pattern seen all too frequently. But why? I think for most of the people who write letters such as this corporate corruption is simply too far beyond them. It is a bit like the weather, a storm one must survive, but not one someone can do anything about. If the banks and lending agencies have pulled a fast one on all of us in recent years, then well, go tell it on the mountain.

But what we can do, what is absolutely within our power as ordinary people, is to punish those who might be unworthy of government aid. …to make their lives miserable, and to demean them. If you cannot do something about the corporate monsters of the world, then you can sure as hell make someone on food-stamps cry. And that of course is the point.

It would be a mistake to suggest that this letter was a serious effort to advocate reform, or even to discuss any actual problems with public assistance. It is an exercise in fantasy, and that fantasy is about hurting people. Whoever wrote this letter understands one thing very well. When you are looking for a scape-goat, make damned sure it is someone less powerful than yourself.

Edited to add: Just in case anyone fails to grasp the significance of some of these suggestions, let us take a look at what happened the last time government agents were empowered to decide who was fit to breed and who was not:

http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/07/8640744-victims-speak-out-about-north-carolina-sterilization-program-which-targeted-women-young-girls-and-blacks

http://faculty.utep.edu/LinkClick.aspx?link=lawrence.pdf&tabid=19869&mid=71730

*****

Here is the letter as it appeared in my email-box.

Put me in charge . . .

Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no
cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice
and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul
away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.

Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do is to get women
Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we’ll test
recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos
and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or
get tats and piercings, then get a job.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a barracks?
You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair.
Your “home” will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will
be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and
your own place.

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week
or you will report to a “government” job. It may be cleaning the
roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we
find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and
your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common
good..â€

Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all
of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules..
Before you say that this would be “demeaning” and ruin their “self
esteem,” consider that it wasn’t that long ago that taking someone
else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered
self esteem.

If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at
least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current
system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.

AND While you are on Gov’t subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes
that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You
will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a
Gov’t welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.

Alaska Federation of Natives, 2011

28 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in Alaska, Native American Themes, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

The Alaska Federation of Natives held its annual meeting in Anchorage this last week (October 20-22). This is a big event and it’s filled with enough stories to fill many a blog. What grabbed my attention this year was the participation of Senator Lisa Murkowski.  Watching the first of two presentations she was to give at this year’s convention, brought to mind two other moments.

First, there was last year’s meeting of the AFN, held in Fairbanks. Senator Murkowski spoke then as well. At that time, she was a write-in candidate for her own office. Her principal opposition, Joe Miller, had secured the Republican nomination for Murkowski’s position. A Tea Party favorite, Miller had been openly critical of Alaska’s tribal corporations. Faced with a near certain Republican victory, Alaska’s Native leadership threw its weight behind Murkowski. Lost in the shuffle, the Democratic nominee, Scott McAdams, struggled to keep in the race.

The Alaska Federation of Natives endorsed Murkowski and she spoke at their convention. Denied the chance to debate Murkowski in a public forum, or to speak on their own, McAdams and Joe Miller made appearances on the floor of the convention. If McAdams received little in the way of attention, Miller must have received a very chilly reception.

A year later, Senator Murkowski took to the podium again, this time at the Dena’ina Civic and Convention center appropriately enough, the very location at which she announced her write-in candidacy. This year, Murkowski took to the floor once during the convention itself, and once again at the closing banquet, both times the substance of her speech was an expression of thanks. If Murkowski’s gratitude was apparent, so was the pride of AFN leadership. They had played a substantial role in getting her back into office, and this year’s AFN proved to be an opportune moment to trumpet that victory.

The second thing on my mind proved to be a very different kind of moment in the politics of indigenous affairs. In early February, 1998, then President of the Navajo Nation, Albert Hale, threatened to shut down the roads passing through Navajo lands. Doing so, he suggested would help to teach non-natives to respect the sovereignty of the Navajo Nation

The immediate response to Hale’s threat was fascinating. Non-Indians wrote all manner of letters to various local newspapers, most of them angry. On the one hand, much of the criticism seemed understandable. Hale hadn’t really put any specific issue on the table, so no-one knew really what he wanted out of the move. (Some of the more cynical among us might have believed it was to draw attention away from an ethics investigation which soon led to Hale’s ouster.) But something more interested proved to be happening in those letters; an awful lot of non-natives were learning the hard way that Indian people’s still held a measure of power in the United States. For all the poverty and corruption one can find in Indian country, for all the problems that tribal leadership seemed unable to resolve, there were at least a few things that they could still do. And one of those things was to make it a lot more difficult to drive through parts of the Southwest.

This is where the other letters from that time come in, the ones from the Navajo people. Many were less than pleased with Hale’s gambit themselves. I was living in Fort Defiance at the time and I recall quite well the shaking heads and office gossip. This was not the way to do things, at least according to the folks I knew.  What use is sovereignty if it only means shutting down roads, some seemed to say? It would be far better, so the argument went, to build a road, or at least to repair the roads already there.  A gesture intended to show the power and force of the Navajo Nation, Hale’s threats seemed only to underscore the relative weakness of Navajo leadership.

I couldn’t help but think about Albert Hale’s road-gambit as I saw Lisa Murkowski speak at AFN.  The basis for the comparison sis simple enough. To me, Hale’s move had always been something of a low-moment in Native American politics, but now I was watching a high one, at least as measured by raw political power. This was Native Alaskans doing what Hale had failed to do back in 1998, they were actually building something.  Now as it happens, it wasn’t a road that Alaskan natives built here, it was a political base capable of affecting a major election, but that election itself is precisely what it will take to get the roads built in Alaska’s Native communities.  Faced with a threat from an outside source, The Alaska Federation of Natives did what it took to ensure that their own interests were protected.

Such victories are hardly new for the Alaska Federation of Natives, but perhaps that is my point. In a world where native politics is so often relegated to symbolic victories, this organization stands out as one of the major players in Alaskan politics. The theme for this meeting of the AFN was “Strength in Unity,” and what better proof could its leaders offer than the re-election of Murkowski to the U.S. Senate. Here at least, Native Leaders had demonstrated with perfect clarity that they were a force to be reckoned with.

Against Tolerance

17 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

“Tolerance?” Yep, I’m agin’ it!

…or at least certain rhetorical uses of the term.

Let’s start with the most obvious, and perhaps the most important example in contemporary American politics, tolerance of homosexuality. People often invoke the value of tolerance as a means of advancing acceptance of homosexuality. There is definitely some positive value to this approach, but the stratagem has at least two major flaws.

Problem 1: Apparent contradiction. The typical response here is to say that those pushing tolerance of homosexuality often show themselves to be intolerant of those who are intolerant of homosexuality. (Yes, that’s a serious double-negative maze in there, but you can manage it, I know you can.) Simply put, some people advocating tolerance really are too quick to attack cultural conservatives (particularly evangelical Christians) in personal and inappropriate ways. And if there are reasonable ways  to advocate tolerance for homosexuals while remaining critical of its critics, well, let us just say that an awful lot of people are too tone deaf to notice the necessary distinctions.

Problem 2: The Open Door Defense. I first noticed this problem when I heard someone claim to be tolerant of blacks. I just could not get my mind past the notion that there was anything about African Americans that needed tolerating. And therein lies the problem; at least one way of construing the term in question suggests that the person to be tolerated has actually done something wrong, something that will require a gesture of goodwill, even mercy, if they are not to be condemned in some manner. I think most people see this implication quite clearly in most uses of the term, and I think that is precisely why we do not normally ask for tolerance of blacks? Jews? Mexicans? …or people from New Jersey. We don’t normally ask people to tolerate different ethnic groups, precisely because that’s a rather damning defense of them.

If you are serious about defending the rights of minorities, then an appeal to tolerance is not how you would go about it. So, why is this continually the go-to principal for defense of homosexuality?

Tolerance is what one grants to kids that are acting up, to drunks that are getting loud, or to obnoxious customers when one is unfortunate enough to work in customer service. Tolerance is what one extends to people, not because they deserve it, but because you are feeling especially generous today (or when the boss is paying you to accept fecal input without complaint).

And therein lies the liver of this problem. Lots of people ‘tolerate’ homosexuality. …which is to say that they don’t scream and point, or get out a baseball bat when they see folks of homosexual orientation. They might not even fire a gay or bisexual worker at the first sign of good fashion sense, and that is the extent of their tolerance. And some folks congratulate themselves on their lack of violent and overt hostility. They think they are doing very well because they don’t attack or openly condemn homosexuals, at least not literally. But of course the very logic of tolerance suggests that they reserve the option to do so. …to express their disapproval if and when the mood strikes them.

Tolerance is what one extends to others out of personal largess. It’s a kindness one does for others when one isn’t feeling a little left of their own mind on any given day. This kind gesture goes to the glory of the one doing the tolerating, not the person tolerated. The object of toleration is, in a sense, demeaned by the implication that he requires this treatment for one reason or another.

Tolerance is a gift, and the problem is the gift is given or not given at the whim of the giver.

Advocating tolerance is like asking people to be nice. Folks may or they may not go along with it, but the request does little to foster the notion that there is anything obligatory about the matter. Granted, a willingness to accept people as they really are might be implied somewhere in notion, and that’s a damned fine value if someone truly embraces it. But for every individual that truly takes that message to heart there are many more who learn by the virtue of ‘tolerance’ to set their jaws and be quiet, sit an extra chair over from the offending party and go about their business, or just generally let it slide …for now.

As a substantive agenda, this is begging for scraps. And it’s settling for a truce while the enemy keeps his guns pointed. (…yes, we can produce additional metaphors, but you get the idea.)

I’d rather enter the debate with a little more muscle. To the degree that this is a public issue at all, it is an issue that involves rights. And rights are not asked for. They are not requested, and they are not presented as optional. One does not prove oneself to be an exceptionally good person by recognizing the rights of another. It is expected.

Rights are demanded. One should not be asking folks, for example, to tolerate a homosexual in the work place; one should be making it clear that mistreatment is not an option. It is not that someone would be nicer if they didn’t condemn the gay friend at a social outing; they should be informed clearly that doing so will not be …tolerated.

Told you I was against tolerance.