Category: Politics

Categories
Politics

What’s So Bad about Donald Trump?

I’ve been forced to ask myself this question in recent months because what I have assumed should be too glaringly obvious to require explanation is clearly not obvious to about 42 percent of my fellow citizens. That’s the percentage who, according to this week’s polls, plan to vote for Trump’s re-election. Because there’s such a close margin between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, we could easily be facing the dire prospect of Trump’s remaining in office for an undetermined number of years, as he suggested during his acceptance speech at the RNC, when he cajoled the faithful into chanting “12 more years!”

When Barack Obama’s supporters have suggested in jest that they’d like to have him in the White House for another four years, he has immediately flashed his big, warm smile and responded that he couldn’t consider such an idea for two reasons: “The constitution and Michelle Obama.” His lighthearted reference to his wife’s distaste for politics is an aside to the real reason: the constitution limits the number of years one person can serve as president, and Barack Obama respects and honors our founding document. Donald Trump possesses no such qualms or integrity, and it’s doubtful he’s ever read the constitution.

Trump’s continued support is insured by those who really would vote for him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue as he famously bragged; but for those willing to see fact and reason, it’s important to sort out just what it is about this man that makes him different from the other 43 men who have held the office of President of the United States. (Remember, Grover Cleveland is counted twice in the number 45 because he served two non-consecutive terms.)

The other 43 men trusted with our highest office were not exactly saints, and they even share a few characteristics with the current POTUS. Trump’s unfitness for office has nothing to do with his odd orange skin tone, his ridiculous-looking combover, his obesity, or his taste for fast food. And many of us have probably spent too much time criticizing his appearance, which is a convenient if unintentional distraction from his real disqualifiers.

The problem with Trump is not even the fact that he’s been divorced and remarried. Ronald Reagan was also divorced and shared the White House with his second wife. The problem with Trump is not that he has had children with more than one wife. The highly revered Thomas Jefferson had six children with his wife Martha Wayles Jefferson and six with his slave Sally Hemings.

What makes Trump different from other presidents is not even his womanizing and genital grabbing. I’m not saying those are admirable or presidential characteristics, just that he’s not the only president of whom those things can be truthfully said. Bill Clinton and John Kennedy were the two most promiscuous, at least so far as we know, members of the presidential hall of shame. However, they were not alone in having wandering eyes. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, most often elected president in history, in addition to his long-time mistress Lucy Mercer, is rumored to have had at least four other mistresses. George Washington, the “Father of Our Country,” is also alleged to be the father of a few children born to his slave named Venus. Historical records suggest at least ten other presidents had sex scandals, so we’ll have to look beyond philandering to define what makes Donald Trump unique among presidents.

Twelve of the 44 men who have served in the office of POTUS were slave owners during their lifetimes, eight of those twelve held slaves during their tenure in office, and four of the twelve are alleged to have had sexual relationships with at least one of their slaves. Not exactly moral high ground.

The problem with Trump is also not Melania’s accent, the slightly creepy look in her eyes, her strange/offensive wardrobe choices, whether his son was high when giving his convention speech, whether he has an inappropriate relationship with his daughter, what his toilets are made of, how long his ties are, the shape of his mouth, or even his misspellings.

The occasional scandal, unpopular decision, misjudgment–none of those is unique to any one president. Presidents are human beings first, chief executives second; so they have all erred more than once. Why, then, is it that we can more or less forgive past presidents for their human frailty but see the prospect of Donald Trump’s re-election as the apocalypse of democracy and life in this country as we know it?

I’ve boiled down what’s really wrong with Donald Trump to five factors which I think we’d all do well to focus on instead of his orange color, his weird hairdo, his untoned body, and his sexual promiscuity. Donald Trump’s utter unfitness for the presidency is based on his lack of preparation, his lack of personal integrity, his infantile deportment, his malignant narcissism,  and his cult following. On those five criteria, he has no parallel in our country’s history and I pray not in our country’s future.

The constitution’s skimpy job description for the highest office is either a misdemeanor on the part of our founders or evidence that they perhaps gave future generations far too much credit for using good judgment. Their brief statement includes a mere three qualifications: at least 35 years old, natural-born citizen, and in residence for at least 14 years. There’s no other job in the world for which the requirements are so broad or so low. Every job posting, from street sweeper to CEO, includes specific education, skills, and experience, without which no one need apply. Until 2016, however, in spite of our constitution’s lack of specifics, United States citizens had done a fairly decent job of making up the description as we went along–some years better than others.

Then came 2016, when a failed businessman with six bankruptcies within 18 years, a reality-TV star, and a New York tabloid sensation, with no government or military experience, announced he’d like to be president. Immediately, one of our major political parties chose to sponsor him and the fans started going wild. Donald Trump possesses not one of the assumed job qualifications for the office of POTUS, yet not only did the GOP choose to back him as their party’s candidate once but they have fiercely defended him through almost four years of scandals, mismanagement, and general ineptitude; and they are enthusiastically allowing him to carry their banner a second time.

Hiring a person so devoid of qualification to be the leader of our country and the free world is tantamount to hiring me to teach mathematics, and trust me, no one would do that–even though I am well qualified to teach English, as I did for 40+ years. We all have a skill set; and being a uniter, representing our country well on the world stage, making careful judgments, listening to skilled advisers (or picking the skilled advisers in the first place), caring for all people, keeping peace and order, and working cooperatively with the other two branches of government are simply not in Trump’s golf bag.

His inability and reluctance to read are a direct threat to our national security and standing in the world. Michelle Obama wrote in her book Becoming that her husband would stay up late after the family had gone to bed, poring through his classified briefings. Trump doesn’t read his briefings at all but spends hours every day watching Fox News and making decisions based on what he hears and the advice he receives through phone calls with his favorite anchors. Even if he chose a more reliable news outlet, that’s still not the way presidents should get the information on which they govern our country. His illiteracy endangers us all. He has access to the most highly classified intelligence in the world, but he doesn’t want to read it. He’d rather check our what Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Steve Doocy are saying on Fox.

In addition to Trump’s own lack of qualifications for the job, he has filled government posts with people just as unprepared and unqualified as he is. Looking at you, Jared and Ivanka. Beyond his nepotistic appointment of inept family members, though, his cabinet is filled with the likes of Ben Carson and Mike Pompeo, who have no previous knowledge or experience to recommend them for the posts they fill. Since the sole criterion for appointment is loyalty to Trump, he has surrounded himself with unknowledgeable sycophants and has left many government agencies permanently in the hands of “acting” directors.

Second among the five attributes that set Trump apart from his 43 predecessors is his lack of integrity. As of July 13, 2020, the Washington Post lie counter had him at 20,000 easily disprovable statements. Imagine what the pandemic period and the RNC have added to that number! Bill Clinton was impeached for telling just one lie, and that about a highly personal matter which did not directly affect our national security. When confronted with Trump’s average of 12 lies every day, his party’s response is either “Meh” or “fake news.”

Although a number of other presidents are known to have had extra-marital affairs, I believe Trump is the only one we know of who paid his lovers to keep silent so as not to hurt his chances for election. He has consistently refused to release pertinent financial information, though doing so has been the precedent for several decades, and his secrecy raises legitimate questions about what he’s hiding. His record of business dealings reveals deep ethics issues, and his failure to fully divest himself from his businesses and his use of the presidency to enhance his business interests are out-in-the-open ethics violations which have been condoned by his party.

His known associates raise further questions about his personal ethics; to date, eight Trump associates have been found guilty of crimes and some are serving prison terms. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of even one felon in my personal circle of friends and close associates. Would you be friends with someone who has close ties to eight felons, plus a number of others under investigation? I know of no other president who had such questionable characters in his contact book.

Trump’s unfitness and childishness have so diminished our country’s standing in the world that we are now the laughing stock or object of pity among many who have published their sentiments. In fact, we no longer hold the distinction “Leader of the Free World.” That title currently goes to Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor.

The third characteristic that places Trump in a category of one, when compared with past presidents, is his infantile deportment, examples of which would fill an encyclopedia. His name calling, his childish attacks on reporters, and his puerile tweets have turned this country into an object of ridicule. No other president has publicly made a statement like this one about Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler: “The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing. The people of Portland won’t put up with no safety any longer. The Mayor is a FOOL. Bring in the National Guard!” Ignoring the fact that he misspelled the simple word “an,” he is the only president I’ve ever known to publicly attack a city’s leader in such immature fashion.

Any of our real presidents would have met with advisers, determined the best course of action, and then implemented that plan. When a city has been embroiled in civil unrest for months on end, the last thing the mayor needs is the president’s attacking him and calling him names. He needs support from the federal government and should be able to rely on the government’s back-up. If Trump had done nothing else wrong during his tenure in office, this alone should raise questions about his fitness; and it certainly makes him unique among the 44.

Add to that the fact he is the only president in our history to wage war on the free press, and it’s clear how he gets away with much of his malfeasance. Every president has gotten bad press; it goes with the job. But no other president has so relentlessly attacked the press and cast doubt on the legitimacy of respectable news outlets and investigative journalists. He is a master of few things, but gaslighting is one technique at which he excels. Delegitimizing the public’s only source of information about what goes on in our government causes everyone to wonder what is real and what’s not and whether our own perceptions and observations can be trusted.

Democracy cannot survive without a free press. Yes, opinion and bias are far too prevalent in modern news reports; and yes, news is often sensationalized. But that makes all the more urgent our responsibility to hold the media to account and to demand fair and accurate reporting, not to discredit all journalists and portray them as public enemies. Attacks on “the media” are unfair, because as in every other field, there are good sources and bad sources. We know how to tell a good doctor from a bad one or a good minister from a bad one or a good restaurant from a bad one, and we use our knowledge to make informed choices. We should do the same with our news sources, instead of painting them all with one big brush stroke. As the Washington Post motto says, “Democracy dies in darkness.” We must respect, support, and seek out good journalism, because it’s our only way of knowing what happens inside the halls of power.

Fourth, among the few positive outcomes of the Trump “presidency” is that more Americans have now heard the word “narcissism” and know how to define, pronounce, and spell it than ever before. So as you already know, “narcissism” is defined as “excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one’s physical appearance.” Psychology sources further define the word as “selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, as characterizing a personality type.” “Sense of entitlement”: Trump’s assumption that he is the rightful owner of the office of president and his disdain for anyone who would think otherwise or have the audacity to challenge him for it. “Lack of empathy”: Puerto Rico, Gold Star families, victims of gun violence, victims of natural disasters, historically oppressed people groups, people with disabilities, victims of police brutality, families who have lost members to the coronavirus, and anyone else who doesn’t serve his purposes. “Need for admiration”: Do I need to elaborate?

It is said that everyone has a touch of narcissism, especially successful leaders. An article in the Harvard Business Review lists Napoléon Bonaparte, Mahatma Gandhi, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford as narcissists. We can conclude, then, that within a certain range, narcissism is simply supreme confidence in one’s abilities and drive to use one’s knowledge and skills to benefit oneself and the world. Trump’s brand of narcissism, however, is most often branded “malignant narcissism,” which is defined as a “psychological syndrome comprising an extreme mix of narcissism, antisocial behavior, aggression, and sadism.”

Malignant narcissists are sociopathic and cruel. They are sadistic, enjoy the pain and suffering they cause others, and love creating chaos. Although Trump supporters like to paint him as a person who loves his country and is motivated by the desire to serve others, the facts simply don’t corroborate that image. He has promoted violence, praised and/or refused to condemn people who perform acts of violence, mocked a handicapped reporter, ridiculed war heroes, told law enforcement officers to stop being “too nice” to those they are apprehending, and taken children from their parents who were desperate enough to cross our border to escape untenable situations in their home countries and held those children in unthinkable conditions–and those are only the ones he’s done right out in public view. Insider reports of more private acts are too numerous to list.

Any one of these deeds would have been enough to disqualify a previous president or presidential candidate, because for anyone we’ve ever witnessed in the past, just one of these actions would have stood out as an isolated incident. Therefore, it would have been easy to examine on its own merits and to say, “No, this is not acceptable behavior for a president.” One of the ways Trump has gotten away with such outrageous deeds is by doing them every day in plain view, so that people begin questioning their own sanity instead of questioning his. When evil becomes the norm, it no longer has the same shock value or triggers the same repulsion. It’s impossible to single out the one or two things that make him unacceptable; we find ourselves wading through a dark jungle of intertwining lies, cruel acts, violations of laws and precedents, vile tweets, and behaviors unbecoming any functioning adult much less a President of the United States. Where do we begin building a coherent case?

Fifth and last, Donald Trump is the only president in our country’s history to have inspired the kind of cult following he has. Every president has had people who love him and people who hate him; or as I used to say about my position as college prof: “There are some students who think I walk on water, some who wouldn’t care if I died tomorrow, and some who are praying I will.” I think that’s pretty typical of anyone in a position of leadership. All presidents inspire citizens to join their campaigns, to display a bumper sticker or yard sign, to be loyal to them during their tenure in office, and often to support their re-election.

I, however, have never witnessed the level of cult behavior I have seen among Trump supporters. Within the last two weeks, hundreds of trucks formed a parade that drove through Portland, Oregon, and hundreds of boats paraded on a Texas waterway. All of the vehicles were heavily adorned with American flags, Confederate flags, and an abundance of Trump memorabilia. Speaking of memorabilia, I can’t recall ever having a president who inspired whole lines of fan shirts, hats, and other gear. And have you ever heard of a president who continues holding campaign rallies after he’s elected? I’d call them cult meetings.

What’s wrong with a little enthusiasm for your candidate? There’s a difference between enthusiasm and fanaticism. I enthusiastically supported President Obama, but my mind is not closed to his shortcomings. I respect what Bill Clinton accomplished during his presidency while being disgusted by his inability to keep his zipper up for eight years, which I don’t think is too much to ask of the person to whom we entrust our national welfare.

Fanatics, on the other hand, are unable to see or admit any fault in their object of adoration. They show him the same blind loyalty other cult members showed their leaders. From murder to mass suicide to imprisonment, followers of Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, and David Koresh were loyal to their leaders without regard for their own lives or the consequences of the evil in which they participated. The presidency should not be a fan club or cult of worshipers.

The worst part of a president’s having a cult following is its effect on his judgment and ability to act in the best interests of the whole country. The U. S. tradition of peaceful transfer of power has always gone something like this: two people (or more) vie for the office of POTUS, and lots of people support and vote for each candidate; then an election is held. The candidate who wins fewer votes calls the candidate who wins more votes and offers a gracious concession and congratulations. Then an approximately two-and-half-month period of transition begins, during which the outgoing president welcomes the incoming president (even when the outgoing was the incumbent candidate in the election). The old president and family show the new president and family around their future living quarters, and the two presidents confer about whatever it is that presidents confer about. On inauguration day, the outgoing president and spouse invite the incoming president and spouse for tea/breakfast. They go to the inauguration, then shake hands and say their polite goodbyes, and then the helicopter flies the outgoing president and spouse off to their new home.

Then all of the people who voted for the guy who lost the election come together and support the guy who won, although sometimes reluctantly, at least at the beginning. And the guy who won promises to respect and govern all of the people, even those who didn’t vote for him.

That’s how it usually happens. In no predicted scenario is that how this year’s election will play out. Even Richard Nixon left peacefully and early when it became obvious his staying would further damage the country. Al Gore, more than a month after the hotly contested 2000 election, conceded reluctantly “for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy.” Donald Trump stirs division, not unity; he acts only in his own interest and to keep the loyalty of his cult members, never for the whole of our population.

He has made no effort during his almost four years in office to win over or to find common ground with those who did not vote for him but has consistently pandered to his cult and further alienated everyone else with his attacks, including Democrats in congress. He is the only president who has made enemies of over half our country’s citizens and has refused to consider them in his decisions. He has, in fact, chosen to punish cities and states with Democratic leaders. He is the only president ever to make cult loyalty the criterion for receiving needed and deserved support from the federal government to whom we all pay our taxes and pledge our allegiance.

For four years, Democrats have been called “sore losers” for our refusal to accept a reality TV star as a legitimate president. “We put up with Obama for eight years, now you can put up with Trump.” If by “put up with,” you mean calling our president and his family every known racial slur, plus a few I had never heard before, applauding and supporting Mitch McConnell and others who declared in 2008 that their number-one priority was to make Barack Obama a one-term president, and approving McConnell and others’ blocking of Obama’s judicial nominees and legislation, that doesn’t really set the bar very high for “putting up with Trump.” Yet those who make that claim seem to have short memories, especially when they support the cult narrative that Trump is the most persecuted president in history.

Faulty memories aside, though, the fact Trump cult members refuse to see is that Donald Trump’s presidency is so far from normal that there is no precedent. Yes, in a more conventional contest, those on the losing team should shake hands, congratulate the winners, and then get behind the will of the majority and work for the common good. This is not one of those normal times.

Never before have citizens been expected to get behind a president who is a bully, who has criminal ties, who has alienated our allies and cozied up to our adversaries, who has expressed admiration for dictators, who has openly profited from the office of president, and who has refused to say a single negative word about Vladimir Putin even when credible reports say he paid bounties on American troops and even though it’s well known that Trump never hesitates to make negative statements about American citizens and members of our military. Choosing to back this “president” simply because he won an election (but lost the popular vote)–with the help of his good friend Vladimir Putin–would require ignoring our own consciences and abdicating our responsibility as citizens to help protect our country from enemies “both foreign and domestic.” Donald Trump is a clear and present danger, not just your average president.

Joe Biden recently said, “The job of the president is to lower the temperature. As the convention demonstrated, all Trump wants to do is raise it.” On his watch, our country has lost its standing in the world, our streets are filled with violence, thousands more have died from a deadly virus than would have died under responsible leadership, service members and their families have suffered attacks by their commander-in-chief, racial equality has been set back 100 years, we have seen the people’s house desecrated for a political pageant, and the respected office of president has been degraded to a daily reality-TV show starring a lying con man.

Yet even more tragic than all of those things is that 42% of the country’s voters think this is all good and will vote to extend the demolition of our democracy another four years–or more, if they can manage during this next term to completely annul our constitution. This is an unprecedented time, and the stakes have never been higher in any election. They’re even willing to ignore all of the credible evidence of foreign interference, Trump’s failure to condemn that interference and take action to prevent its reoccurrence, and his deliberately tampering with our mail service to limit voting in this November’s election.

I’ll close with a quotation from a social media post written by a man who serves on a casket team: a group of military personnel who greet planes returning fallen soldiers and who carry the flag-wrapped aluminum transfer cases to vehicles which will take them to the place of final preparation and placement in real caskets. In reference to Donald Trump’s reported disgraceful remarks about fallen soldiers, this soldier writes:

“I suppose the one thing we all took for granted is that dignity would always be affirmed by all our civilian leaders to those service members who gave everything. I never would have predicted any official, let alone a sitting president, would insult fallen service members.

I cannot adequately describe my anger at Donald Trump for being so willing to send service members halfway around the world to die on his own behalf and then call them ‘losers’ for doing so. This coward is unfit for his office and the power it holds. He needs to go.”

Amen.

Categories
Politics

Snow, Rain, and Gloom of Night

I’ve done my share of grumbling about the postal service. There was the mail carrier at my long-time home in Florida who consistently put my mail in neighbors’ boxes and neighbors’ mail in my box or occasionally left packages on the wrong porches. Part of the daily mailbox run was walking to the neighbors’ houses delivering the misplaced envelopes and parcels to the proper boxes and porches.

When I moved into a condo the last 18 months of my life in Florida, all of the mailboxes were together by the swimming pool. During the entire 18 months I lived there, I received mail for every previous resident of that condo; and when I got tired of writing on each envelope, I just started dropping them into the outgoing mail slot, figuring that would be enough to let the delivery person know they didn’t belong there. Nope. It worked for a while, then the new carrier started putting the envelopes right back into my box. You found this in outgoing mail. What should that tell you?

Then there was the time just a few months ago, after I had made my epic move right smack in the middle of a pandemic and was dependent on online ordering to get the things I needed for my new condo. I had ordered a pad to go under one of the rugs I bought. The company shipped the pad via USPS, and one morning I found a colored slip of paper in my mailbox (also the kind where all of the boxes are together), saying “Sorry we missed you. We attempted to deliver a package, will try again.” Mind you, this is a set of drive-by mailboxes; my little cubicle is possibly 3 inches high by maybe 10-12 inches wide and about that deep. You could probably have looked at that package at the post office and figured out that it wasn’t going to fit in any mailbox on the planet. And what do you mean you’re sorry you missed me? Were you really expecting to find me in that little box? Did you ring the bell and I didn’t come to the door? I was speechless; well, maybe not really speechless, but nothing I said would be decent to repeat here. The next day, I received a second note saying they were sorry to have missed me again.

After that, I left a response in the box, which I also won’t repeat here, because now that the post office is in so much trouble, I have to admit I’ve been feeling pretty guilty about that one. (I didn’t use any curse words, so at least there’s that.)

I’ve often told my children that the world we currently live in is so much different from the world in which I spent my youth that it’s almost as if I’ve moved to another planet. It would be easier to name the things that have stayed the same than the things that have changed, but high on that short list of things which have remained constant throughout my life is the six-day-every-week mail delivery. Except for holidays, there’s rarely been a day in my life when I have not checked the mailbox and anticipated what treasures I might find. Before email and Zoom, I fondly remember getting letters. Those were exciting, almost exotic! I come from a huge family, spread out over the entire United States and into northern Mexico, so we received many letters from aunts and uncles and grandparents. I can still remember the thrill of seeing a Mexico postmark, knowing it was news from my Uncle Lavee and his family.

The “mailman” was one of our favorite people–and powerful! He could rouse sleeping dogs into full attack mode (still can), make little children feel special with his friendly smile, bring joy to homes with news from distant loved ones, and deliver needed commodities to homebound neighbors. The importance of this job is caricatured in one of my favorite Cheers characters: the pompous know-it-all Cliff Clavin, who is rarely seen in anything but his blue postal uniform and who sees being a postal carrier as only slightly below knighthood.

Operating under the unofficial motto “Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” those blue-uniformed men (and later women) made their way to my mailbox every day–some days pretty late during heavy volume times like Christmas. Oh, remember the Christmas cards! And we knew that, if we just did our part by getting our packages to the post office on time, the post office would work overtime to do its part by delivering them to their destinations in time for Santa’s arrival.

Mail-in voting in the form of “absentee ballots” dates back to the Civil War, when it was allowed for military personnel. Absentee ballots have been used continuously since that time for military voters as well as citizens unable to go to physical polling places. My former in-laws voted absentee because of my mother-in-law’s disability. In more recent years, five states have moved to voting almost completely by mail: Hawaii, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. And an increasing number of other states are either making efforts to change to a mail-in system or are offering mail-in ballots as an option for all voters. My former state, Florida, has for a number of years been strongly encouraging mail-in voting. I opted for it several elections ago, because I found I could vote more effectively at home where I had access to information about the less familiar items on the ballot, which don’t receive the same level of hype as presidential candidates.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the post office–the post office!–becoming the epicenter of a political battle and a tool in the hands of a power-hungry president hoping to become a dictator. I’m not sure I could tell you the names of three Postmasters General during my life, but now Louis DeJoy is one of the first names mentioned on the nightly news. What is supposed to be a completely a-political government agency, like the Justice Department, is–like the Justice Department–being used by an unscrupulous political party as its personal accomplice.

Together, Donald Trump and his henchman Louis DeJoy have moved quickly to cripple the postal service ahead of the upcoming election, because Trump has been building hysteria over the long-standing practice of absentee or mail-in voting (same thing!). Trump knows the more people who vote the smaller the percentage likely to vote for him, so he has worked feverishly to suppress voting, including getting himself a new Postmaster General who, like his Attorney General William Barr, will be willing to forget that he’s supposed to be working for the American Public and not acting as the president’s personal hit man.

Mail collection boxes have been removed from the streets or left in place but locked so as to render them useless. Sorting machines have been removed from distribution centers. They have also cut overtime and limited post office hours, causing massive delivery delays. Although public outcry caused DeJoy to stop short of completing some of the changes and to reverse others, enough damage has already been done to cast doubt on whether the USPS is ready to deliver the ballots for this November in time for everyone’s vote to be counted. These are the kinds of things that, if we were reading about their happening in another country, we’d be shocked and outraged. But since the last four years have numbed our ability to be shocked, now it’s just another news cycle. Who’s the shithole country now?

Much of the current controversy centers on the USPS’s financial stability. In Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s opening remarks to the Board of Governors on August 7, 2020, he said:

“That said, I am a realist, and am keenly aware of the magnitude of the financial challenges we face. Our financial position is dire, stemming from substantial declines in mail volume, a broken business model and a management strategy that has not adequately addressed these issues. As a result, the Postal Service has experienced over a decade of financial losses, with FY 2019 approaching $9 billion and 2020 closing in on $11 billion in losses. Without dramatic change, there is no end in sight, and we face an impending liquidity crisis.”

These are legitimate concerns, and if an overhaul is in order, it would not be the first time in our history that the postal service has been reorganized to keep up with current demands. Electronic communication has reduced many people’s reliance on letters delivered to physical mailboxes. Many packages are delivered by rival private for-profit businesses such as UPS and FedEx. For many people, checks have been replaced by direct deposit, wire transfers, and electronic transfer services such as PayPal and Venmo. Yet many do still rely on the postal service for those services, and for all of us it is still a vital part of our staying connected and receiving the goods and commodities we need.

More importantly, if an overhaul is genuinely needed for the reasons Mr. DeJoy mentions, doesn’t it seem a tad coincidental that massive restructuring would be started less than three months before an election, and especially an election which because of health concerns will depend more heavily than usual on mail-in voting? Doesn’t it also seem a bit odd that those high-speed sorting machines which were already there and already paid for would be disassembled and pushed into a corner–to accomplish what? One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see what’s happening here. 

Many are calling for privatizing mail delivery, or breaking up the government agency’s monopoly and allowing private companies to compete. We already do that with package delivery, so why not letters and other services also? I don’t know what the future of the United States Postal Service will look like, but I believe it’s important for every citizen to understand what it is now and the history which has led it to this point.

This is a collection of facts about the postal service, in no particular order, which many people in my age range already know. However, it’s a good review for all of us and a fact check for younger people who may be hearing conflicting arguments about the value of this American institution.

So let’s sort out the FACTS:

  1. The U. S. Postal Service is a department of the U. S. Government.
  2. The postal service is NOT a private business. UPS, FedEx, DHL, and that shiny fleet of blue Amazon vans are private delivery services.
  3. Government services are not expected to turn a profit; they are supported by our tax dollars and by our payment for services.
  4. Private delivery services (such as UPS and FedEx) are for-profit businesses.
  5. If a government service is in the red, it means that it needs more funding or better management or both. That is the job of Congress and of the Board of Governors appointed to run the USPS.
  6. The responsibility “to establish Post offices and post roads” is among the powers accorded to Congress by Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.
  7. As a government agency, the postal service is not intended to turn a profit. Private businesses are for-profit organizations; government agencies are public services, funded by tax payers.
  8. Also included in Congress’s list of powers in Article I, Section 8 are, among others, coining money, protecting copyrights and patents, raising and supporting armies, providing and maintaining a navy, and organizing and managing the militia. I haven’t heard anyone complaining that the mint, the copyright office, the army, or the navy isn’t turning a profit. We may debate over the appropriate amount of military funding, but we don’t expect a return on our investment–other than, of course, our safety.
  9. The centralized postal service has been in continuous operation since 1775 when the Second Continental Congress ordered the United States Post Office (USPO). This was the first national mail service; before that time, mail delivery had been handled by individual colonies and communities.
  10. Journalists led the push for a national mail service, which they believed was necessitated by the urgency of connecting the colonies and sharing news of national importance as the revolution was brewing.
  11. Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General.
  12. After the Revolution, George Washington created the U.S. Post Office Department (USPOD) in 1792, based on Article I, Section 8 of the new constitution.
  13. From 1792 until 1971, the Postmaster General was a member of the President’s cabinet.
  14. On August 12, 1970, following unrest among postal employees which led to a major strike over low wages and poor working conditions, President Nixon signed the Postal Reorganization Act.
  15. That act replaced the cabinet-level post office department with a new federal agency, the United States Postal Service (USPS), effective July 1, 1971.
  16. The new agency is described as a corporation-like independent agency with an official monopoly on the delivery of mail in the United States. The key word in that sentence is “like.” The USPS is a government agency, not a for-profit corporation.
  17. The first paragraph of the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act clearly describes the structure and responsibilities of the USPS:

“The United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by Act of Congress, and supported by the people. The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities.”

18. The governing body of the USPS is the Board of Governors, comprised of up to nine governors; they elect the Postmaster General.

19. Interesting side fact: The first postage stamps were issued in 1847. Before that time, letters were sent C.O.D., with the receiver picking up the letter and paying for its delivery. According to sources, some people resisted the change to having senders pay in advance. Some felt it was an insult to the receiver, suggesting the receiver was too poor or too cheap to pay for his/her own mail.

20. Things the USPS delivers besides letters and junk mail: medications, Social Security checks, income tax refunds, absentee ballots, plants and animals to farmers. There’s one I didn’t know: Farmers receive baby chicks by mail. I read one account of a woman who received a box of 500 newly hatched chicks, of which only 25 were alive because their delivery had been delayed by the antics of Trump and DeJoy.

The next time you grumble about the postal service, as we all will, here are a few other facts to remember.

  1. The USPS employs 469,934 of our fellow citizens, 40% of whom are minorities.
  2. Those 469,934 public servants help to deliver 472.1 million pieces of mail every day.
  3. Sometimes they put things in the wrong boxes, lose a few things, run late, or leave ridiculous notes. Sometimes the barista at Starbucks serves you a cappuccino when you asked for a frappuccino or an iced cold brew when you ordered a hot coffee. Sometimes your restaurant chef sends out a well-done steak when you specifically said medium rare. Sometimes your server neglects to refill your water glass. Sometimes your English professor gives you a B on that brilliant essay when it clearly deserved an A (right!). Mistakes happen in all professions, and most of them are not fatal. Any agency that can process and deliver 470,000 pieces of mail every day, six days a week, at affordable prices, to all neighborhoods, deserves our gratitude and admiration.

The postal service is a treasured American institution which we must not allow to be destroyed by political partisanship or by unethical power mongers. We should all heed the words of James Madison in Federalist No. 42:

“The power of establishing post roads must, in every view, be a harmless power, and may, perhaps, by judicious management, become productive of great public conveniency. Nothing which tends to facilitate the intercourse between the States can be deemed unworthy of the public care.”

Today’s reality is that high-level officials are using this constitutional power to do harm and to serve their own political ambitions. Therefore, those of us who benefit from it must accept our responsibility to care for it. If every one of us would just do the simple act of buying a sheet of stamps, we could infuse the USPS with millions of operating dollars. We the people must step up and save the institutions we treasure. That is the true definition of “conservative.”

Categories
Coronavirus, COVID-19 Politics

Bread Crumbs, Q Drops, and Code 17

Many years ago, home alone on a Saturday morning and in search of entertainment, I  came across a movie called Capricorn One, about an elaborate hoax to fake a Mars landing. Kidnapped flight crew, secret sound stages, special effects, and a desperate escape through the desert–it has all the makings of a thriller. This movie was my Intro to Conspiracy Theories/Conspiracy Theories 101 class. Because it had never before occurred to me that perpetrating such a grand hoax could be possible–let alone that anyone would have reason to do such a thing–I admit I was intrigued for weeks. It raised questions about the moon landing and everything else I had ever read about NASA, space exploration, and the integrity of our government and its agencies.

To be clear, when I say “intrigued,” I do not mean I ever believed the notion of grand hoaxes perpetrated by NASA or questioned the legitimacy of our country’s advances into space travel. I mean I was intellectually curious: curious to know why anyone would propose such an idea, curious to understand what kind of mind questions verifiable scientific fact, curious to know whether such a hoax could be pulled off.

That film was produced in 1977, so obviously conspiracy theories are not a 21st-century phenomenon, and they were not even a 20th-century phenomenon. It does seem, however, that conspiracy theories have proliferated and gained traction more in the last decade than in all the other decades of my life.

Q Anon is one of the hot groups right now chasing some wild theories about the inner workings of our government. Recently, after hearing the name mentioned so often, I realized I didn’t have a clear understanding of who or what this group is, beyond the obvious, that it’s pretty crazy. So I found some articles in reputable publications (I refuse to visit Q Anon sites) and educated myself. If, like me, you’re not quite sure what Q Anon is or whether you should rush out to sign up, here’s a little of what I learned.

The core belief of those who identify as Q Anon followers is that the United States is governed by a “deep state” made up of Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Although that would certainly explain a lot about what’s happening right now, we’ve advanced from Conspiracy Theories 101 into the post-doctoral courses: Conspiracy Theory Meets Twilight Zone. An August 20 New York Times article adds, “Members of this group [also] kill and eat their victims in order to extract a life-extending chemical from their blood.” So for the sake of brevity, let’s call them the SWPCs (Satan-worshiping pedophilic cannibals).

It’s pretty hard to imagine such far-fetched stuff going mainstream, but it has done just that. The same NYT article says social media platforms have been flooded with misinformation propagated by this umbrella “for a sprawling set of internet conspiracy theories that allege, falsely, that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against Mr. Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring.” It’s also known as a “big-tent” conspiracy theory, so it’s an equal-opportunity clearing house for all types of wackos.

And that brings us to the least shocking fact of all: Donald Trump is at the center of this madness. In fact, Donald Trump is the hero they are trying to rescue from the grips of the deep-state SWPCs; or, as ABC News puts it, he is their “crusading savior.”

Most of the people I hang out with, when Q Anon is mentioned, will respond with either a furrowed brow and a “Huh??” or an eye roll and a “Pffft.” The scary thing, however, is that since I’m rather selective, as I imagine you are, about the people I hang out with, my circle is probably not an accurate sampling of the population at large. The list believed to be part of the SWPC Clique include, but is not limited to, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, Ellen DeGeneres, Pope Francis, and the Dalai Lama (New York Times 8/20).

Various sources estimate the number of Q Anon followers–that is, the ones who actually believe Tom Hanks and Barack Obama worship Satan and eat children–in the hundreds of thousands to the millions. So while your immediate circle of friends may not include any QAnon types, that person behind you in the grocery store checkout line, the person ringing up your groceries, that sweet old couple next-door, your hair stylist, your dentist (I’ve always suspected they’re aliens), the people in the house down the street that you tell your kids to stay away from, or even the slightly odd person sitting on the pew beside you (pre-COVID of course) scrolling on their phone during the minister’s sermon. If the estimates are accurate, we’re all sure to encounter a few.

So what is it that these followers are following? “Q” is allegedly a high-ranking intelligence officer who has infiltrated the deep state in order to expose and destroy it. The person first started posting on an Internet message board in October 2017 under the name Q Clearance Patriot, later shortened to just “Q.” Q is the Department of Energy’s designation for Top Secret Restricted Data, National Security Information, and Secret Restricted Data–meant to suggest that this person has access to all of the most highly classified information possessed by the United States intelligence community.

No one knows who this person is (that’s the Anon part), but he or she sends out coded information as marching orders to the faithful. Q posts these coded messages on Internet boards; the posts are called “bread crumbs” or “Q drops.” There are even Q drop apps which collect all of the crumbs and notify the user when a new one arrives, for the highly organized wacko. The number 17 is important, because Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet and also one DT has used several times, which makes it an obvious choice for use in coded messages. Are you with me so far? Am I with me so far? This is deeply disturbing territory we’re in here.

It’s not certain whether Q is a single individual, a group, or an identity that morphs over time; but all who follow believe they are engaged in a global war against an evil cabal, which will “soon culminate in ‘The Storm’ — an appointed time when Mr. Trump would finally unmask the cabal, punish its members for their crimes and restore America to greatness” (New York Times 8/20). Hmm, does this mean MAGA is also code?

This Storm thing reminds me of “The Rapture,” something I was taught as a child in church, not exactly a conspiracy theory, but with some similarities. The story goes that Jesus will some day, when least expected, sneak up on us and beam up all of his favorites, then rain down death and destruction on all the poor saps left behind.

But back to the SWPCs and those faithful soldiers helping Donald Trump win the war against them, this is stuff that Rod Serling and Stephen King might be proud to have written; but as real-life politics, one must wonder just who the hell believes it. And more importantly, why? What does anyone gain by accepting weird fiction as reality?

In elementary school, I read the tall tales of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Throughout my school years, we read about the deities of various countries, most notably Greece and Rome. There was a whole horde of gods and goddesses in each of the mythologies, created by pre-scientific people as explanations for natural phenomena for which there were so far no more sophisticated explanations. Those myths survived science to become literature that captures our imaginations with epic tales of intrigue, personal rivalries, sex, and war.

After President Kennedy was assassinated, conspiracy theories abounded, because humans always crave explanations when tragedy strikes; we need something that makes sense of a senseless act. According to some theories, he was still alive but gravely wounded. I met someone who told me she had heard first-hand from a family member that the wing of the Dallas hospital in which Kennedy had “allegedly” died was closed for months afterward, suggesting he was still there. I even heard that Jackie married Aristotle Onassis only because he owned a private island where she could keep her invalid husband. And then of course, there was the whole string of theories about who really shot him and why.

The thing that makes tall tales, epic stories of mythology, a faked Mars landing, and a dead president who wasn’t really dead relatively harmless is that they are either clearly fiction or they’re isolated theories confined to small groups or to individuals. What Donald Trump and the modern Republican Party have done for conspiracy theories is to take them mainstream. The number of followers is huge and growing daily.

Just this week, Marjorie Taylor Greene won a Georgia primary for a seat in Congress; and most pundits think she has a strong chance at winning in the general election. So Q Anon goes to Congress. It doesn’t get much more mainstream than that. These people will make the Tea Party look like a tea party.

Second on the not-at-all-shocking list is that Donald Trump likes these people because they like him. When asked at a White House briefing what he thinks of them, he responded, “I’ve heard these are people that love our country. So I don’t know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me.” Well, then, they’re okay. DT’s sole criterion for a person or group’s legitimacy is how much they like him. His buddy Vlad calls him frequently, Kim Jong Un writes him beautiful letters, and Q Anon peeps like him. What else is there to know? Meanwhile, he spins his own conspiracies that Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are not natural citizens and–this morning’s gem–that Joe Biden was not born in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

There is just one word of caution which I think should be mentioned here. Like the term “fake news,” which was coined to name a specific type of information of which all should be wary but now is the aspersion cast at anything unfavorable to our own biases, “conspiracy theory” can also lose its meaning if used indiscriminately.

There’s a difference between an alternate theory and a conspiracy theory. Alternate theories are often breakthroughs that lead us to “think outside the box,” to open our minds to possibilities. Conspiracy theories have no redeeming value. When a thinking person questions the accuracy or legitimacy of a mainstream opinion and decides to challenge it, that person does some research and presents their alternate theory grounded in the factual evidence which led to the theory. That theorist will make a logical argument to explain and defend the validity of their conclusion. A conspiracy theorist can make no such argument because conspiracy theories are never based on fact.

By definition, a conspiracy theory can’t have factual evidence to support it. Brittanica.com defines the term as “an attempt to explain harmful or tragic events as the result of the actions of a small, powerful group. Such explanations reject the accepted narrative surrounding those events; indeed, the official version may be seen as further proof of the conspiracy.” Such theories, then, seem to be the concoctions of suspicious minds, not the conclusions of rational thought.

In science, a theory is

“a well-substantiated explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can incorporate laws, hypotheses and facts. The theory of gravitation, for instance, explains why apples fall from trees and astronauts float in space. . . . A theory not only explains known facts; it also allows scientists to make predictions of what they should observe if a theory is true. Scientific theories are testable. New evidence should be compatible with a theory. If it isn’t, the theory is refined or rejected.” (American Museum of Natural History website)

Conspiracy theories are closer to paranoia–“suspicion and mistrust of people or their actions without evidence or justification”–than to scientific theory (definition from online dictionary). Isn’t it interesting that many of the same people who call wearing a mask to prevent the spread of disease “living in fear” see watching message boards for coded messages about Satan-worshiping pedophilic cannibals perfectly reasonable. They ain’t afraid of nothin’.

My favorite Friday night TV show in the early 1960s was The Twilight Zone, though I often slept lightly after watching it. At the beginning of each episode, Rod Serling, the writer of the series, looked into the camera and laid the premise for what was to come. His introduction changed slightly over the years, but this is one version which seems eerily relevant today:

“You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone.”

Most days over the last four years, and most intensely since January of this year, I’ve felt we crossed that line and are deep into the Zone. I don’t recall Rod Serling telling viewers how to get out of the Twilight Zone; but I fervently hope we can find the map, because I’ve had enough of living in a world where everything feels surreal, where I don’t even recognize my native country, where citizens are divided into warring tribes, and where we have a president who fans the flames of division. Enough.

Vote on November 3 like your life depends on it. (It does.)

Categories
Coronavirus, COVID-19 Politics

Apocalypse 2020

Someone recently asked me why the United States leads the world in coronavirus infections and deaths yet comes in last for implementing effective measures to control and eliminate the virus and get our lives back to some level of normalcy. Other countries are enjoying restaurant dining, socializing, shopping, and other pleasures which until March 2020 we all took for granted. Other countries also will have their schools open for business as usual this fall. Many of those same countries currently have travel bans against U.S. citizens because we are seen as a public safety risk. An August 9 Newsweek article places Americans at the top of the list of “at-risk travelers to Europe.” Now that’s humbling. So the question “What did these other countries do that we didn’t?” is one we’re compelled to consider.

From what I’m reading, I’d say there are two main answers: (1) Other countries have a centralized plan for fighting the virus and protecting citizens’ health; and (2) the United States is and always has been ruggedly individualistic in our attitude toward the social structure, whereas many other countries live by a more collectivist philosophy. Professor Michael Baker, epidemiologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand, sums up the qualities which have determined success in countries where the virus is under control: a combination of “good science and great leadership.” Sadly, the United States has had neither.

As for great leadership, countries which have seen significant decreases in their rates of infection and death have instituted nationwide policies. Italy, for example, flattened their initial curve by giving shelter-in-place orders for the entire country. Before our U.S. quarantine began, we saw images of Italians holed up in their homes, but it wasn’t just residents of scattered regions here and there; it was the whole of Italy. France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Austria, Greece, the Netherlands, Denmark, and many others also issued nationwide stay-at-home orders. Germany had already made face masks mandatory by the end of April. Norway and Denmark are cited in a July 11 New York Times article as “good examples” of countries that were able to reopen schools within only a month after closing them, and “neither country has seen an increase in cases.”

By contrast, the United States has struggled because of the leadership vacuum at the national level, which has forced state and local officials to make policies for those in their own jurisdictions, knowing how easily their directives can be circumvented when other states or counties are still open. New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo agonized early on over how many restrictions he should place on New Yorkers because those who didn’t wish to comply could simply go elsewhere, then bring back whatever infection they picked up, potentially exacerbating the problem. I spoke to my doctor last week about her experience during this crisis, and she heartily agreed that her job would be infinitely easier if our country had a top-down strategy that would keep everyone “on the same page.”

At the risk of sounding overly crass, I appreciate this analogy I’ve seen often: “Having some states lock down and some states not lock down is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.” Exactly!

Anthropologist Wade Davis, in an August 6 article published in Rolling Stone, says this about COVID’s effect on our country:

“In a dark season of pestilence, COVID has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism. At the height of the crisis, with more than 2,000 dying each day, Americans found themselves members of a failed state, ruled by a dysfunctional and incompetent government largely responsible for death rates that added a tragic coda to America’s claim to supremacy in the world.”

So not only has our current leadership failed to stop COVID-19’s spread in this country, the systemic weakness has destroyed our standing in the world.

According to an Associated Press article on August 9, New Zealand, on that date, was marking its 100th day of no new reported cases. The country is not only completely back to normal but is daring to use the term “stamped out” in regard to the coronavirus within their borders. In late March, 100 people tested positive; so Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern imposed a strict lockdown nationwide which immediately stopped the spread.

The article says, “From early on, New Zealand pursued a bold strategy of eliminating the virus rather than just suppressing its spread.” Because of Prime Minister Ardern’s philosophy “Go hard and go early,” the total infections for that country are just under 1500, and the death toll is just 22. On July 29, Reuters reported the U.S. is experiencing one death every minute; at that rate, the U.S. death toll every 22 minutes is equal to New Zealand’s for the last five months.

Italy, as of August 9, reports just 150-300 new cases per day nationwide, down from their high of 6500 per day on March 21. By contrast, the United States is currently seeing 54,000 new cases per day–more than 8 times the number Italy had on its highest day. And we are close to setting a world record of 5,000,000 confirmed infections. I can think of so many other ways I’d like to see my country set a world record! Italy’s success in reducing new infections can be attributed to their strict ten-week nationwide lockdown.

Also in Italy’s favor is their acceptance of science, something more and more Americans view with skepticism. According to the same Newsweek article, Italians blame Donald Trump and other politicians for undercutting medical professionals who they say should have “been allowed to operate” but instead “were not allowed to proceed unchecked.” We’re seeing the devastating long-term effects of anti-science and anti-intellectualism that have marked much of American thought for decades.

Whereas other countries accept the findings and advice of their medical experts, some Americans applaud Donald Trump’s harassment of Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top infectious disease expert, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, and public health adviser to six presidents. In addition to, or because of, Trump’s ignorant tweets, Dr. Fauci has had to hire security to protect himself and his family because he has received death threats and his three daughters have been harassed. NPR quotes Dr. Fauci:

“I wouldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams that people who object to things that are pure public health principles are so set against it, and don’t like what you and I say, namely in the word of science, that they actually threaten you. I mean, that to me is just strange.”

I can think of a more accurate term than “strange,” but I’ll try to keep this family friendly.

Andy Slavitt, former acting administration of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Obama, is quoted in a July 27 Huffpost article: The U.S. can “virtually eliminate” the coronavirus “any time we decide to.” He says the process could be done in four to six weeks if we just “throw the kitchen sink at COVID-19.” He has issued a 38-tweet thread listing the steps to be followed and says that, if we followed that plan, “the light at the end of the tunnel would be blinding.”

These are the six steps he suggests would not eliminate the virus in 4-6 weeks but would reduce it to “embers”:

  1. Universal mask wearing;
  2. Keeping bars, restaurants, churches, and transit (all hot spots) closed;
  3. Prohibiting interstate travel;
  4. Prohibiting travel into the country;
  5. Having hotels set up to allow people to isolate from their families at no cost; and
  6. Mandating a 90% lockdown, instead of the 50% lockdown we had in March and April.

So why are we stuck in neutral, spinning our wheels?

Benjamin Fearnow, in his August 9 Newsweek article, says Europeans are shocked by American citizens’ behavior during this crisis. They are questioning whether we care about our own people’s health.

“Public health experts and everyday residents said they ‘always saw America as a model’ for the world, but the pandemic has exposed a country with horrendous infrastructure and no coherent public health system.”

With so much death and destruction surrounding us and evidence that the keys to stopping the spread of COVID-19, as other countries have done, are mostly simple measures, the question every reasonable person has to ask is “Why on earth are we prolonging our suffering and sacrificing our fellow citizens’ lives instead of doing the things we need to do to stop it?” The answer to that question lies in my second point: Americans’ fierce individualism. Fearnow, in the same Newsweek article, cites several European doctors who say “Americans’ individualist spirit has backfired and led the country to the top of both infection and death toll lists.”

Malcolm X, minister and 1960s civil rights activist, said “When ‘I’ is replaced with ‘we’ even illness becomes wellness.” Cultures in which group well-being is more important than individual well-being understand those words; Americans are sadly not among that group.

Kara Alaimo, Ph.D., in an article on prsa.org, explains:

“Individualistic cultures stress the importance of the individual, while collectivist societies place greater importance on the group that one belongs to. In collectivist societies, such as China and South Korea, people tend to grow up with members of their extended family, who share resources like their salaries. By contrast, in individualistic societies, such as the U.S., U.K. and Australia, people see their identities as distinct from those of others.”

Ava Rosenbaum, in an October 31, 2018, article published in The Brown Political Review, says:

“The United States has one of the most individualistic cultures in the world. Americans are more likely to prioritize themselves over a group and they value independence and autonomy.”

Anthropologist Wade Davis says in his August 6 article:

“More than any other country, the United States,” during the years following World War II “lionized the individual at the expense of community and family. It was the sociological equivalent of splitting the atom. What was gained in terms of mobility and personal freedom came at the expense of common purpose.” In summing up the effects on family life, he says, “Only six percent of American homes had grandparents living beneath the same roof as grandchildren; elders were abandoned to retirement homes.”

In countries like Japan, multigenerational households are the norm; here, they are increasingly rare. According to Davis, economic disparities and other factors which strain a nation can be “mitigated or even muted” by the “elements that reinforce social solidarity — religious faith, the strength and comfort of family, the pride of tradition, fidelity to the land, a spirit of place.” Sadly, America shows less evidence of social solidarity today than at almost any other time in our history. Politicization of issues which concern all of us and which should call us to seek common ground only further polarize us, because our concern for our individual “freedoms” is far greater than our concern for the group safety, welfare, and survival.

One need look no further than our national love of guns and resistance to nationalized health care to find abundant evidence of our unconcern for group welfare. Davis points out:

“The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. All must be prepared to fight for everything: education, shelter, food, medical care. What every prosperous and successful democracy deems to be fundamental rights — universal health care, equal access to quality public education, a social safety net for the weak, elderly, and infirmed — America dismisses as socialist indulgences, as if so many signs of weakness.”

Even the shooting of 346 students and teachers on school grounds is insufficient to persuade hard-core gun lovers to sacrifice a little of their personal “freedom” for the greater good.

Paul DeVries, in a May 22 opinion piece published on the japantimes website, contrasts Japan’s success in fighting the virus with America’s failure. For one thing, he says, Americans are less likely to practice safety measures when they themselves don’t have symptoms or have not tested positive, because doing so “requires people to endure discomfort for the sake of the collective good.” We all know that’s something Americans are not very good at.

DeVries attributes Japan’s having daily infection numbers in the single digits to characteristics of their national ethos: “Three of the motivating factors that induce Japanese nationals to adhere are courtesy, obligation and shame.” Americans can be courteous, though recent events may have caused us to think otherwise; and we do have a sense of obligation, though it all-too-often extends only our own narrow circles instead of to the nation as a whole.

Where Americans differ drastically from the Japanese is in our ability to feel shame, and there has never been a more glaring example than our current “president,” who shamelessly takes no responsibility for failure, has never uttered an apology, and despite his appeal among certain Christian groups has admitted to never asking God to forgive him. DeVries tells a story to illustrate the effect of shame on the Japanese people’s behavior.

When in late January the Japanese government began repatriating its citizens from Wuhan, China, officials requested that evacuees undergo testing and two weeks of self-quarantine. All but two complied, and the government lacked the legal ability to issue a mandate. No problem. The two resisters’ families stepped in, and they quickly changed their minds. “The irresistible force of liberty, it proved, was no match for that of Japanese collectivism.” Shame is not always a bad thing, when it compels individuals to act in the best interest of the whole.

One of the sadder manifestations of Americans’ stubborn individualism is the tendency, when confronted with scientific facts which can’t logically be disputed, to look for ways to deny and circumvent the facts. All too many have accepted Donald Trump’s claim that the coronavirus is a hoax, while others have accepted all manner of conspiracy theories meant to relieve them of any responsibility to inconvenience themselves by following safe practices. I’ve even heard that the Democrats produced the whole thing just to defeat Trump in November. Yes, of course we killed 160,000 of our friends and family members just to get rid of an elected official whom we can vote not to re-elect. As desperately as our country needs to rid of this national menace to our democracy, even the evil “demon-crats” wouldn’t kill 160,000 people.

However, that brings me to another favorite end-run around accepting facts and making inconvenient adjustments to our individual lifestyles. On June 19, the New York Times published an article titled “Is the Coronavirus Death Tally Inflated? Here’s Why Experts Say No.” Authors Amy Schoenfeld Walker, Lisa Waananen Jones, and Lazaro Gamio begin by citing New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo and Donald Trump as two people who have questioned the accuracy of publicly reported death counts. They quote Robert Anderson, head of the mortality statistics branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics: “Everything is so politically charged, people are looking for excuses to question the data.” The article goes on to detail the methods by which cause of death is determined and the collective numbers are reported as evidence that doctors and scientists are being highly responsible in their work and their reporting.

In an April 16 article published in Rolling Stone, author EJ Dickson cites a couple of others who have helped to spread the inflated death toll theory. One is David Icke, “who is most notable for his endorsement of the idea that the world is controlled by a cabal of ‘reptilian elites,’ or lizard people.” Another is far-right Candace Owens who tweeted on April 6: “Turns out everyone is only dying of Coronavirus now. Gee. I wonder why.” Wink, wink. Dickson further cites Montana physician Dr. Annie Bukacek who, in a video widely circulated on social media, claims, “Based on inaccurate, incomplete data, people are being terrorized by fearmongers into relinquishing … freedoms.” Even though Dr. Annie appears in the video decked out in her white lab coat and flaunting her stethoscope, further searching reveals the channel that published the video is a religious organization, not a medical one. Remember what I said in my last post about checking the credentials and credibility of your sources?

In fairness, I know from personal experience that death records are not always accurate. When my mother passed away in 2011, my sister and I were irate when we read that the doctor had attributed her death to a condition she never had. We demanded a correction and were told that death certificates cannot be altered (no matter how inaccurate). We persisted and got an addendum with a cause of death that was closer to the truth. So yes, I agree death certificates are not always correct.

But my question is why are we looking for excuses to ignore an obvious problem and to abdicate our responsibility to the whole of the society which has given us life and livelihood? Why is taking simple precautions such an infringement on our “freedoms” that we’d rather let thousands more people die than wear a mask at the grocery store or limit our social contacts for a while longer?

Other evidence shows that some deaths which have been caused by COVID have been attributed to other causes on death records, so the inaccuracies cut both ways. But again, my question is “So what?” What percentage of those 160,000+ deaths would have to be legit to make it worth slightly inconveniencing myself for a few months? In Japan, people wear face masks during flu season, even though no medical evidence has shown face masks to be effective against the spread of influenza. In America, some refuse to wear face masks even though there is abundant medical evidence that universal mask wearing could significantly reduce the spread of COVID. What’s the difference? It’s as simple as “we” versus “I.”

One last American problem worth mentioning here is something I’d call weird religion. I’m not an expert on world religions, but America is the only country I’m familiar with that has the brand of weird religion that has recently gained a voice in national affairs. Among the “Don’t tread on my freedoms” folks are those who believe “God will get you if you tread on my freedoms.” Creating a false dilemma between faith and fear (they’re not mutually exclusive);  creating an equally false dilemma between God and science; proclaiming that God will take care of us, so we don’t have to take care of ourselves; and advising anyone with a problem to “just pray about it” have led to responses too inane to warrant serious discussion. But just for kicks, here’s an example.

State representative Nino Vitale of Ohio won’t wear a mask because “This is the greatest nation on earth founded on Judeo-Christian Principles. One of those principles is that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. That image is seen the most by our face. I will not wear a mask.” Really?

I recently lost brain cells watching a video in which multiple speakers expressed their disdain for mask wearing on the grounds that it interferes with their God-created respiratory system and therefore is an affront to God.

But for balance, let’s look at this statement by Clare Johnson, who says she wears a mask in public because of her faith in God: “Mask-wearing is an exercise in the spiritual practice of love of neighbor. I wear my mask as a sign of my love and care for others, especially those who are most at risk. Jesus tells us that when we care for ‘the least of these,’ we are really serving him. I believe that by caring for the most vulnerable among us, I am following Christ’s example.” That’s the kind of Christian I’d like to hear from more often.

No matter how you stir this pot, the fact is the United States of America leads the world in COVID-19 deaths and has no coherent plan for taking control of this deadly virus. Other countries have, through “good science and great leadership,” limited the number of deaths and returned to a somewhat normal version of life. As Andy Slavitt says, we can “virtually eliminate” the coronavirus “any time we decide to.” What’s the solution to ending COVID? We have to want to.

So wear the damn mask.

Categories
Politics

Demon Sperm, Hydroxychloroquine, and Demonized MDs

In case you may have been vacationing on Mars these last few months and haven’t quite caught up on the news here at home, we’re in the midst of a pandemic and the United States of America is losing badly in its fight against a disease called COVID-19. Our White House squatter, Donald Trump, has botched the government’s response to the point that finding a way out of the mess we’re in seems depressingly out of reach.

Part of the problem is there’s so much conflicting information and disinformation being circulated, and Americans don’t seem to be doing a good job of sorting through the deluge of facts and opinions and deciding which ones to believe. And who can blame them? It’s hard to know, especially since we had never heard of COVID-19 until 2019, so we lack the advantage of prior experience as we strive to understand and respond in ways that will help keep us alive and healthy.

I’m not an infectious disease expert, but I do have some knowledge of critical thinking processes. For me, step one is establishing my basic premise, which is that my medical expertise is zero; therefore, any opinions I form or actions I take will have to be based on what I learn from people who have more expertise than I do, which in this case just means they know something. But since even experts often disagree, deciding which ones have greater credibility is a challenge and requires sharpening those critical thinking skills I mentioned.

Adding to the confusion, often experts disagree not only with other experts but also with their own previous positions. Many people, when they see that a recognized expert has changed a previously held position throw up their hands and exclaim “See, this is all a hoax!” They then dismiss everything the person has ever said and label him/her a fraud. But let’s think about that. Does a professional’s changing their mind diminish their credibility, or might it enhance our confidence in them? Many people would never admit to having changed their minds because they fear looking foolish, so they’ll double down on disproven ideas for the sake of saving face. One who admits having been influenced by newly discovered information should be applauded for having the honesty and courage to accept and act on new ideas.

In George Washington’s time, “medical theory of the day recommended that bleeding be administered in conjunction with emetics to produce vomiting and purges such as calomel (mercury). The idea was to debilitate the body to the point where the disease had nothing left on which to work” (encyclopedia.com). President Washington was bled, with his consent and at his request four times during the illness that preceded his death. Bleeding, or bloodletting, was sometimes done by leeches (yeah, the creepy-crawlies) and sometimes by making small incisions in the body. Joseph Kennedy–patriarch of the Kennedy clan that included a President, a Presidential candidate, and a long-serving Senator–ordered a lobotomy done on his then 23-year-old daughter Rosemary to “fix” the behavioral problems caused by her “mental retardation.” The results were not good, and Rosemary lived the last 63 years of her life in an institution.

Doctors today would face malpractice suits and have their licenses revoked for such treatments, but doctors in the 1700s and early 1900s were not committing malpractice; they were simply acting on the best research available to them.

Even in my own lifetime, much has changed. Castor oil and enemas were my mother’s go-to home remedies for pretty much whatever ailed us; I did not use those treatments on my children. When my children were babies, everything they touched was supposed to be sterilized: yep, in a pan of boiling water. By the time my grandchildren were born, washing things in hot water or running them through a dishwasher cycle was deemed sufficient. When I was a child, the treatment for a fever was to wrap up tight in flannel pjs and several blankets to “sweat it out.” When my children were feverish, I was instructed to remove clothing and blankets to allow excess body heat to escape.

Today’s medical science progresses by the day, not the year; therefore, theory and practice can change quickly, making it even more crucial that we learn to be discerning about whom and what we choose to believe.

Scientific research is a complex, time-consuming process for which most of us lack knowledge, skill, or patience. I think most of us would do well if we simply follow this checklist: (1) Who said it? (2) Who published the information and what is the date? (3) What are the person and the publisher’s biases? (4) What supporting evidence does the writer or speaker offer as the basis for their positions? And does that evidence pass the “smell” test?

That’s enough for my limited attention span, so let’s talk about those four questions.

First, who said it? Personal credibility is everything. What do you know about the writer or speaker? Do they have a reputation for honesty and integrity? Are they known for their expertise in the medical field? No one in the world is an expert on everything, though I’ve known a few who purport to be. Some people have a way of speaking that says “You have just heard the final word on this subject. There is no need to look further or check out my answer. I reside among the sages of the ages and I’m always right on every subject.” Remind you of anyone you know? I could name a few, but I won’t digress. The point is, some people can sway you to believe them simply by the confidence and authority with which they speak. Don’t be swayed. Look them up. See what else they believe or have done or what credentials they possess.

When a doctor stands on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court building, wearing her white coat and surrounded by her medical colleagues in their white coats, and makes this statement, it might seem to carry authority.

“This virus has a cure. It is called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax. I know you people want to talk about a mask. Hello? You don’t need masks. There is a cure. I know they don’t want to open schools. No, you don’t need people to be locked down. There is prevention and there is a cure.”

Wow! In just nine short sentences, she has contradicted everything the experts have been telling us for months: We don’t need masks, there is a cure and its name is hydroxychloroquine, and we don’t need to practice social distancing. There’s a choice to make here. We can believe this doctor, because she is after all a doctor, and doctors don’t lie to us, right? She has the credentials, so I should assume she knows more than I do. But still, she’s going against Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, the CDC, and the WHO; so shouldn’t I at least check her out a little further?

Google, who is Dr. Stella Immanuel?

One of Google’s responses, from an article in The Daily Beast:

“Immanuel, a pediatrician and a religious minister, has a history of making bizarre claims about medical topics and other issues. She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches.”

Oh. Well, in that case, I may as well call my neighbor of years ago who had a tradition of rewarding himself for surviving another work week by drinking himself into a stupor every Friday night. Though he did provide some neighborhood entertainment, no one would have gone to him for information, even when he was sober.

So now it’s Dr. Fauci vs. Dr. Immanuel. Dr. Fauci’s education, experience, and high honors could be an entire article on their own, so I’ll sum them up with this link: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/director. Among other things, he has directed the National Institutes of Health and served under six presidents from both parties, and she believes medical conditions can be caused by dream sex with demons. I’ve made my choice: I’m with him. Yet the “president” praises her and goes on Tweet rants against him.

Choices are not always this clear cut, however, even for me. Maybe my local doctor is a skilled, ethical professional who tells me something which does not agree with mainstream positions. I’m still going to go with the guy who has the  broader scope of experience and access to more relevant data and therefore the wider lens through which to view the situation. At the very least, I won’t discount what the higher-ranking expert says based on one bit of information even from another person I respect.

Next is the publisher and currency of the information. Just as individuals have reputations, so do publishers. It’s unfair to paint any group with a single brush stroke, including “the media.” Certain media outlets are known for adhering to journalistic ethics and standards, and some are not. Know which are which. Look up the publication if you’re not sure. Then look at the date on the material. If it was published in March of this year, it’s highly doubtful that it’s still relevant. We’ve lived ten years since March 2020. Whatever the date, keep looking to see whether you find newer information.

Third is the question of bias. And don’t say they don’t have any biases; we all have them, so having a bias is not always bad. I’m pretty biased toward my own children and grandchildren. My grandchildren are definitely cuter and smarter than yours. That bias is harmless enough, because you’d say the same thing to me. Media biases are a bit more problematic. When CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News present a story, we expect them to give different slants on the story determined by their corporate biases. Fox News is well known for supporting Donald Trump, whereas MSNBC is equally well known for disdaining him. CNN falls somewhere between the other two, though it’s moved far closer to MSNBC. It helps to know that. It also helps to bear those attitudes in mind when we hear stories from them about COVID-19. Fox News will echo Trump’s latest bluster: it’s a hoax, it will magically go away, or whatever. CNN and MSNBC will present the stories as they have researched the facts, though with a heavy dose of personal opinion from the anchors and guests.

Viewers must also beware of confirmation bias: the tendency to believe information because it agrees with our own biases and not believe information, regardless of how credible the source, because it forces us to question our previous ideas. Jean-Paul Sartre, 20th-century French philosopher and writer, in his 1957 book Existentialism and Human Emotion, defends the premise “Existence precedes essence,” by which he means each of us chooses our own existence and shapes our own reality strictly through the choices we make. Sartre doesn’t use the term “confirmation bias,” but he suggests it repeatedly by arguing that humans do not help themselves by seeking advice or direction from others because they will always interpret what they find to suit themselves. Confirmation bias indeed, and it applies to our choice of news and information sources as much as to anything else.

Fourth, we need to examine the evidence presented as proof of the writer or speaker’s claim. No matter how well credentialed a person is, their word is not enough. My mother’s favorite saying, “Because I said so,” is not a convincing scientific argument. Actually, it wasn’t very convincing for my mom either, but that’s a subject to take up with Oprah. Never accept any information based on the word of one person. If they can’t cite evidence, they aren’t worth listening to.

Always ask “Where did you get this? What is your source?” Any responsible person will willingly refer you to their sources. If they don’t have any, disregard whatever they say–even if they have a string of letters after their name or an impressive title. When Donald Trump speaks into a microphone “This will go away. It’s going to go away,” without offering any evidence of how it’s going to go away or what anyone is doing to make it go away, pay no attention to that person behind the mic–even though he’s the “president.” Or especially because he’s the “president.” The higher the office the greater the duty to speak responsibly. No one’s word stands alone as proof.

And since all evidence is not equally credible, it’s important to weigh the evidence presented. What is the source? Is it current? What is the bias? Is it politically motivated? Motive is key when examining evidence. When it becomes clear that information is being presented in an attempt to gain political advantage, that is a red flag. Even if the information is factual, the part that’s relevant to public health has to be looked at separately, apart from the political spin. When Donald Trump says over and over “It will go away,” it should be clear to anyone with normal intelligence that he’s working on getting himself re-elected, not on protecting your health and mine.

Rarely is one piece of evidence a sufficient basis for an important decision. The legal terms “preponderance of evidence” and “beyond reasonable doubt” suggest that evidence needs to be weighty enough to persuade reasonable people that a wrong has been done, and typically, Exhibit A all by itself is not enough to do that.

This week, I was out exploring walking paths around my new home and came to a place where I saw a possible route that was on the other side of the road from where I was standing. Trying to decide whether I should cross over, I looked around and observed there were no vehicles in sight. Based on that bit of evidence alone, it should have been perfectly safe to cross the road. It was a fact, not fake news, confirmed by my own observation–a primary source. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, there were a few other pertinent facts: (1) I was close to a sharp curve in the road, so I couldn’t see more than maybe 20 feet beyond where I was standing; (2) it’s a main road, heavily traveled; (3) I’d estimate the average speed of the vehicles I see go past me is maybe 50-70 miles per hour; (4) I do not move at 50-70 miles per hour; (5) therefore, because of the speed difference and the limited visibility, by the time I could see a vehicle coming toward me, it’s highly unlikely I could get out of its path; (6) because of the limited visibility, by the time a driver could see me, it would be difficult to avoid hitting me. The preponderance (weight) of evidence was not sufficient to remove reasonable doubt that crossing the road at that particular place was safe, in spite of the initial fact that I saw no cars coming.

Americans are an independent lot; our rugged individualism, though prized by many, is actually one of the main obstacles right now to our conquering this crisis. Lots of people are fond of saying “I’m entitled to my own opinion.” I would say yes and no to that. Yes, I am entitled to think for myself, but no I am not entitled to follow my own inclinations when my actions may negatively impact others. Citizens of more collectivist societies understand that principle, and those are the countries which currently have COVID under control, while we’re in the midst of a raging forest fire.

An opinion is not just whatever thought pops into my head or what I read in an Internet meme or some isolated article from a marginal “news” outlet or what I feel in a given moment. An opinion is a carefully considered interpretation of facts. Two or more people may look at the same facts and reach different conclusions, but opinions to be valid must begin with facts (not just one fact), not feeling and not hearsay.

We’re in dangerous times. What you and I do today will determine whether some people will live to see tomorrow and will shape the lives of those who do survive this crisis for years to come. Making a few sacrifices now seems a small price to pay for a healthier future. I saw a clever meme today on social media: a picture of two dogs with talk bubbles over their heads. One dog asks “Why are humans wearing muzzles?” The other dog replies “Because they couldn’t sit and stay.” Surely we can be better than this.

Don’t believe everything you hear and wear the damn mask.

Categories
Palestine Politics

Where My Nose Begins

I grew up in the age of folksy sayings; there was a catchy aphorism for just about anything a child could think of. A couple of my mother’s favorites were “Pretty is as pretty does” and “God helps those who help themselves.” Obviously, expressing universal truths in pithy sayings was effective, because I remember many of them–along with the lessons they taught me–now that I am many years past childhood.

One such saying which is replaying in my head repeatedly these days is “Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.” Swinging one’s arm is a common act, for a variety of reasons; and it’s one in which the government and our fellow citizens would typically have no say. However, if the arc of my swing intersects with part of another person’s body, that person’s right not to be assaulted must be given equal weight with my right to swing my arm, and that person’s right will limit my right. Seems logical.

If there were a word counter that could calculate the number of times a particular word is spoken in our country, I’d bet “rights” would be thousands ahead of the next most common. But what’s sad about that thought is that most of the time when an American is talking about rights, it’s about their own personal rights and those of their “tribe”; equal weight is not given to those outside their sphere.

There’s a very large, very loud contingent of Americans who adamantly claim their right to own firearms–any number and any type they choose–because Second Amendment (Don’t get me started!). Not only does that claim ignore the language and limits stated and implied in the amendment itself, but it callously ignores the “noses” of others whose rights should be given equal consideration. My grandchildren have the right to feel secure in their schools; they have the right to go to school each day without having to fear that they may leave in a body bag; they have the right for active shooter drills not to be part of their required curriculum. Limiting a few of the gun lovers’ rights would help to insure our children’s rights, but many are too self-centered to see it that way.

Did early settlers in the American South have the right to build large farms to support their families and make strong communities? Of course they did. Did they have the right to travel across the ocean and kidnap fellow human beings and force them to do the hard work of the plantation with no share in the profits? Well, no. Did early European settlers have the right to come to this continent and establish communities in harmony with the native inhabitants? I would say yes. Did they have the right to kill many of those natives and drive the rest onto reservations so that they could have the whole place to themselves? Well, no.

If I may digress for a moment from examples within our own country, did displaced Jewish people have the right to return to their land of origin and establish themselves as a nation? I believe they did. Do they have the right to bulldoze homes and communities of those natives who have been there continuously since antiquity? Do they have the right to displace these people from their ancestral lands? Do they have the right to bulldoze Bedouin villages, home to people who want nothing more than to live in peace and enjoy simple lives, to operate schools in which children can be educated? Do they have the right to establish their own nation by destroying another one? NO, they do not.

Humans are the cruelest breed.

To return to my main subject, the banner under which the conservative movement has marched over the last several decades is Right to Life, or the hoped-for revoking of Roe v Wade. Yet when these same advocates of protection for the unborn are confronted with the right of immigrant children in detention centers to be released from the cruel circumstances in which they’re being held and returned to their parents, the only response is “Meh! They wouldn’t be there if their parents hadn’t tried to enter the country.” When confronted with the fact that “Black lives matter,” their response is “All lives matter,” even though their attitudes toward many other groups belie that statement.

It’s enough to make one think unborn lives are not really their concern after all. Could it be that advocating for the rights of embryonic humans is a smokescreen? Could it be that they’re using an emotional appeal to gain more support for their “conservative” agenda? Could it be that they’re really just pulling at some people’s heartstrings in order to gain more power for themselves and their party? I wouldn’t go so far as to assign motives to people I don’t know, but I think those questions are worth considering.

I’ve often quoted Thomas Paine, writer of many influential pamphlets during the American Revolutionary period, because I think he had the most clear-eyed view on human rights that I’ve read. In Paine’s 1792 book “Rights of Man,” he opines that all humans have two categories of rights: natural rights and civil rights.

This is his definition of natural rights:

“Natural rights are those which appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the natural rights of others.”

In the previous paragraph, he has discussed the Genesis account of creation, not as a religious sectarian, which Payne was not, but as a philosopher explaining the origin of this category of human rights. Our natural rights, according to Thomas Paine, were given to us at our individual creation, and every human receives exactly the same endowment. Thomas Jefferson expresses the same idea in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” We all know by now the problems with those words; but taken at face value, they echo Paine’s statement of natural rights and equality of all humans.

It’s also worth noting that, even in this initial statement, Paine includes the caveat “which are not injurious to the natural rights of others.” Even our God-given rights, according to the great thinkers, have limits; and that limit is “where my nose begins.” At no point in history have humans ever been recognized as having unlimited personal rights, although our actions certainly speak louder than those words–to use another familiar folksy saying from my youth.

Paine goes on to explain the concept of civil rights:

“Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.”

Thomas Jefferson put it this way: “To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The purpose of government, then, according to both Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, is to protect our natural rights. As Paine says, security and protection are the benefits we gain from being part of a civil body, since we are individually not always capable of protecting ourselves and insuring our own security. I think I feel another old saying coming on: “There is strength in numbers.”

Paine goes on to add another caveat: “It follows, then, that the power produced from the aggregate of natural rights, imperfect in power in the individual, cannot be applied to invade the natural rights which are retained in the individual, and in which the power to execute is as perfect as the right itself.” In other words, if I can execute one of my natural rights on my own–and my exercise of that right is “not injurious to others,” the government does not have the authority to invade that particular right.

Thomas Jefferson lists our natural, or “unalienable” rights, as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He actually uses the words “among these,” meaning that these are just three examples, not a comprehensive list.

Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau–among others–called this concept of natural and civil rights, and the relationship between the two, the social contract. Individuals who wish to enjoy the security and protection of a civil body enter into a contract with that body. I believe the most important thing to remember here is that a contract is an agreement between two parties which is binding on both parties. In other words, we each have a responsibility in the forming and maintaining of that “more perfect union” that the writers of our Constitution envisioned.

So what does all of this mean to us right now? If you’re one of those who believe you have a right to go wherever you want without a mask, I would say you’re wrong. You have a right to be maskless any time you are alone or in the open air with no one else less than six feet away from you, but you do not have the right to refuse wearing a mask in a public place where other members of our civil body will be in close proximity. I would also say you do not have the right to discount the information given by people who know more about the subject of disease than you or I know. Those experts do their part to uphold the social contract by sharing their expertise with the rest of us, and my ignorant opinion is not equal to their scientific research. The same principle applies to following social distancing guidelines and limiting our number of contacts. Wait, I’m thinking of another not-so-old saying: “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”

America is leading the world in COVID infections and deaths. That’s not the way we’re supposed to be the leaders of the free world! We are a civil body, and what affects one of us affects us all. There is no “God-given” right–not in any of our governing documents, not in any religious text, and not in common-sense thinking–to ignore medical guidelines meant to protect the whole civil body. It just doesn’t exist, and if it did, it would be superseded by the greater good of keeping the whole body alive and healthy.

It’s not about you. Or me. So here’s my final wise saying, not so very old but it will be by the time this is over: “Wear the damn mask!” Oh, yeah, and for God’s sake put it over your nose.

Categories
Politics Religion

Thoughts about Prayers

Listening to the current national conversation, one might believe our only two options for managing a public health crisis are either to follow the advice of medical experts or to “pray about it.” Aside from the latter choice being misguided and possibly deadly, it also suggests that prayer must be done in isolation from other action. I would suggest that those who believe in praying can offer their heavenly petitions while keeping their distance from others, wearing their masks, and washing their hands. It doesn’t have to be an either-or.

Most of the atheists I’ve known have at some point made a statement similar to this one: “I just don’t believe in some great fairy in the sky.” Well, I am a theist, not an atheist, and I also do not believe in some great fairy who rules the universe with a magic wand. The space here does not allow a theological treatise on God’s nature; and even if it did, I’d be ill equipped to lead that study. However, since one’s approach to prayer is determined by one’s concept of God, it might be helpful to look at the source which many of those who have opted to “just pray about it” claim as their inspiration: the Christian Bible.

I’m a writer and retired English professor, not a theologian, and I don’t want anyone to think I’m launching into a sermon. But since “thoughts and prayers” is one of our current cultural clichés, I decided to do a bit of digging to see what prayer really is and how it’s recorded in religious texts, the Bible in particular. Here are a few of the things I learned.

Prayer is mentioned hundreds of times, and hundreds of individual prayers are recorded in the Bible. Prayers fall into several categories: worship, peace and comfort, confession/repentance, forgiveness, and petition. (Remember, I’m not a theologian, so I don’t claim my lists are exhaustive.)

I’m as confused as anyone else by some of the prayers and the concept of God recorded in the Old Testament. Asking God to destroy whole civilizations, including every man, woman, child, animal, and cockroach evokes a concept of God which is a bit scary; so if it’s okay with you, I’ll stick mostly to the New Testament.

What I find in the New Testament prayers is not humans abdicating their own responsibility but humans asking God to empower them with the strength, boldness, endurance, and wisdom to carry out those responsibilities. Those who pray for God to end a deadly virus while they continue on in their normal routines are abdicating their own responsibilities and evoking the “great fairy” image of a God who might, with a wave of the magic wand, rid the world of a disease. Those who choose praying about gun violence, while stockpiling munitions and voting for lawmakers who allow such stockpiling, abdicate their human responsibility to guard the social welfare and expect God to save people’s lives. Those who admonish us to pray for our “president” while they vote for those who enable his corruption abdicate their human responsibility to elect responsible lawmakers and expect God to change someone who doesn’t want to be changed. It doesn’t work that way.

Although Philippians 4:13 is not a prayer, it seems a good place to start: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” I start here because I think this verse suggests a divine-human partnership in which the human is committed to right actions and the divine is the source when enables the human to carry out those actions when they are in accordance with divine principles. Such requests as “help our team win” may not exactly meet the requirement of aligning with divine principles. Just saying.

Romans 8:26–“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought . . .”–reinforces the idea that God strengthens humans to do good works but does not promise to clean up the damage when humans act in their own selfish interests.

Borrowing just one example from the Old Testament, remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the book of Genesis, Abraham negotiates with God to spare Sodom from destruction brought on by the corruption that has engulfed the city. God’s response is that God will spare the city if Abraham can find a particular number of righteous people. The number continues to decrease until God finally says, “Okay, warn your nephew Lot to take his family and leave, and then I’ll do the job.” The story gets a lot creepier after that, but the point I’d like to make here is that God is unwilling to take action without some human cooperation. God is not our fixer.

The Lord’s Prayer, sometimes called the Model Prayer, suggests the same spirit of human-divine cooperation: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” There are no freebies here; those who want God to do God’s part must first be willing to do their own part.

In Jesus’ well-known prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before his arrest, Jesus prays: “My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (Matthew 26:39). Even Jesus knows it’s not all about him and his freedom to do as he wishes while God takes care of the business of running the world. Jesus makes himself a willing participant, knowing the grave suffering he is about to face.  

Some people today seem to view God as the Michael Cohen in the sky, the fixer who will clean up human messes without our having any responsibility to help. I don’t believe it works that way. I believe if prayer is to have any effect at all, it must be active, not passive. Prayers recorded in the Bible are answered or unanswered depending on the degree to which they align with what is already known of God and God’s plan. The person praying is asking to be equipped for his/her personal mission. I agree with the adage, “Put feet under your prayers.” To put it another way, pray on your feet, not your butt.

Sending “thoughts and prayers” to families torn apart by gun violence or police overreach, while opposing any action that might reduce further incidents of carnage, is an insult to those families and makes a mockery of human communication with the divine. I’ve read numerous comments from finger- waggers on social media admonishing those who oppose the current corruption in our government to just shut up and pray about it. “Pray for our ‘president’; don’t point out his incompetence and criminality.” Am I allowed to do both?

Those who believe in prayer should by all means keep praying. Our nation needs all the help it can get to climb out of this mess, and seeking guidance and strength from the Almighty seems a good place to start but not to end. My mother often told me “God helps those who help themselves.” It’s our job to make this nation what it should be: yours and mine. Some may believe God has a part in it; I believe that. But I don’t believe God will take the wreck we’ve made and put all the pieces back together while we continue to do things which exacerbate the problem. We have to help ourselves if we expect God to help us.

Here’s my prayer for the day. (Just to be clear, I don’t own a hunting rifle.)

Now I kneel me down to pray,

A bottle of hand sanitizer a few inches away.

A mask is nearby, on demand

In case a non-family member is close at hand.

My hunting rifle is locked away in its case

And an assault rifle would be out of place.

I’ve written my senators and my rep

Encouraging them to stay in step.

I’ve done what Jesus said to do:

Love my God and love all of you.

I didn’t vote for Donald Trump

Because I’m not a big dumb lump.

My mail-in ballot is ready to go,

With votes for all of the candidates who show

Integrity and an ounce of wit,

Who know how to get us out of this shit.

I’ve tried my best to do my part.

Now I ask you, God, to strengthen my heart

To continue the fight for right and good,

And to keep doing all I should.

Our country’s in a great big mess,

So we ask you all of our hearts to bless.

Amen

Categories
Politics Religion

Living in Responsibility

Americans love to talk and sing about their freedom. Two days ago, we indulged in our annual orgy of wearing red-white-blue outfits, shooting off fireworks, and smugly proclaiming “’Merica!” Amid all of the hype, what gets lost is that we as a nation have achieved freedom for some by stripping it from others. The elephant in the room is the fact that we have built an empire on stolen land and used stolen humans to help with the construction.

What also gets lost in the hype is the balance between freedom and responsibility. I have recently made a long-distance move and have become an apartment dweller for the first time in many decades, so I’m learning a lot about freedom and responsibility. I have the freedom and the right to play my TV set any time of the day or night at whatever volume I choose, but I have the responsibility to be courteous to my neighbors and give them the freedom to listen to their own TV programs, not mine. Since I now live in a state where recreational marijuana use is legal, our community standards respect the right of residents to smoke pot but ask that they take the responsibility to be considerate of neighbors who may be sensitive to the smoke. (I don’t smoke.) I collect the leaves that I sweep off my deck in a dustpan and dispose of them in my trash rather than sweeping them off the edge, because they would litter the patio of the neighbor whose apartment is below mine.

The U.S. response to the coronavirus has been inept to say the least and a national disgrace to be more accurate. The current dearth of intelligent, responsible leadership is the leading cause of our failure to flatten the curve, but close behind is the mass of freedom-loving Americans who never got the memo that freedom is balanced by responsibility. Then throw in the twisted thinking of the loudly vocal evangelical faction who love to sprinkle their conversations with cherry-picked Bible phrases, and you have a pretty good picture of how we got where we are.

I’ve reached the point where if I hear one more person say wearing a mask or social distancing constitutes “living in fear,” I’m sure my response will not be very Christian. It’s true that the expressions “fear not” and “do not fear” appear often in the Christian Bible as God assures humans God has their backs and they can rely on God’s love. II Timothy 1:7 is often cherry-picked and referenced: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” Okay, let’s think about that.

First, the word “fear” has a broad range of meanings; all fears are not the same. Fearing God doesn’t mean being terrified of God; it means holding God in awe and reverence. Phobias are irrational fears. I’m claustrophobic, and I could not rationally explain to you why being in a closed space–or even thinking about being in a closed space–sends my blood pressure soaring, starts my stomach churning, and makes my skin crawl and almost break a sweat; but that’s what happens. There’s a whole list of things people fear with no rational explanation.

Fear of death is one which nearly all humans share. Even those who don’t fear a dark afterlife have some qualms about how their deaths will occur, whether they’ll suffer at the end, and other understandable concerns. Fear of public speaking has sometimes been ranked even higher in prevalence than the fear of death, because we all share the dread of looking foolish and sounding stupid.

Then there are what I would call healthy or survival fears, those which contribute to our longevity. I fear walking or driving too close to the edge of a precipice; I’ll never be one of those who die by falling off a cliff while trying to capture the perfect selfie to post on social media. I live very close to several freeways; I’m careful what times of day I venture onto them in my car, and on no day will you find me walking across them. Why? Because I fear being flattened by a fast-moving vehicle. Whenever possible, I try to stay away from sick people, and it didn’t take a pandemic to make me wash my hands frequently. I do these things because I fear being sick. These survival fears cause me to use caution and take responsibility for my own well-being.

“A spirit of fear” is, I think, different from any of the types of fears I’ve mentioned; and I agree it’s unhealthy. A spirit of fear is what psychologists might call paranoia: “a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others” (Merriam-Webster online dictionary). Although we toss this word around casually and humorously to designate some things to which we are hyper-alert, paranoia is a serious mental disorder. It can be an aspect of drug abuse or of a mental illness such as CPD (chronic personality disorder) or schizophrenia.

I believe we can all agree that living in a “spirit of fear” is unhealthy, regardless of one’s religious persuasions. However, using reasonable caution and taking responsibility do not in any way equate to “living in fear.”

Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is referenced in an article by CNN’s Holly Yan: “But the CDC director said everyone can help stop this deadly pandemic. It just takes personal responsibility.”

And that brings us back to where I started: remembering that our freedom demands responsibility. Henry David Thoreau begins his famous 1849 essay “Civil Disobedience” with these statements: “I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe- ‘That government is best which governs not at all’; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”

This is one of the clearest arguments for personal responsibility I’ve ever read. He agrees with the adage that what we would call small government is preferable to the alternative of big government, then takes it a step further by saying his first choice would be no government at all. He’s not advocating anarchy, however; he’s saying a responsible citizenry doesn’t need laws to make them behave ethically. The caveat for having no government is learning to govern ourselves, to take responsibility for our own actions and their consequences.

I’ve been wearing a mask in public for several months, even before masking up became state law in Washington. In spite of the state mandate, I still pass people in the grocery store who smugly stroll the aisles unmasked. I haven’t asked any of them to explain their reasons, because that’s not my place; but I’d wager at least a few of them are in the group who see a requirement to mask up as an infringement on their personal freedom. This is another group that makes me want to scream, but I digress.

When one claims one’s rights have been infringed on, that person ought to be able to clearly name the specific right that’s being violated. Perhaps someone can help me out here: exactly what freedom do I as a U.S. citizen have that is taken away by my being required to wear a mask? I’m stumped. But I’m reminded of a saying I heard often when I was growing up: “Your freedom to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.”

That’s a folksy way of saying none of us has unbounded freedom. In fact, we’d all do well to remember that our laws enumerate far more things which we do not have the freedom to do than rights which we are at liberty to exercise. It’s illegal to shout “Fire!” in a crowded place unless the shouter has actually seen flames or other evidence of a real fire. It’s illegal to park my car in a spot reserved for people with disabilities. It’s illegal to have sex with someone without first securing that person’s consent to be a willing partner. And the other prohibitions which govern our daily interactions fill volumes.

Then there’s the list of mandated actions meant to protect ourselves and others. I can’t legally drive my car or ride in someone else’s car without wearing a seatbelt. Parents can’t legally transport their young children without adhering to very detailed instructions on how those children must be secured in the vehicle. In some states, helmets are required by those who ride bicycles and motorcycles.

Every law on that last list has also been hotly contested and disobeyed, just as the mask law is now, because “freedom.” It took “Click it or ticket” to get many people to comply with the seatbelt law, and of course the persistent beepers on newer cars have also been quite persuasive in making people buckle up just to stop the noise. Hospitals have gotten involved in making sure parents own and know how to use car seats for their infants by refusing to discharge a mother and baby until the baby has been properly restrained in the right kind of seat. So obviously the mask law is not the first to draw the ire and defiance of liberty-loving Americans, but it is perhaps the one for which disobedience has the most widespread consequences.

Refusing to wear my seatbelt might place me at greater risk for injury or even death when involved in an accident, and refusing to wear a helmet might cause my own head to be severely injured were it to crash to the pavement. Those are serious consequences for defying laws requiring simple actions, but they affect a small circle of people: myself, my family, and whatever medical professionals are required to assist me. Refusing to wear a mask, however, has the potential to affect the dozens of people I pass in a store, plus their close family members and associates (some of whom may be in high-risk categories), and to place an additional strain on medical resources necessary for those people’s treatment. That one little pebble can cause a wide circle of ripples.

Our current national leadership is ignorant and divisive. They’ve chosen to politicize a public health crisis rather than create a coordinated system for effectively slowing down and eventually ending it. Our governors are overwhelmed by the enormity of the decisions and responsibility not normally delegated to them and besieged by those in rebellion against their attempts to carry out their duties. That leaves you and me. It’s on us. Those of us who wish to retain our cherished freedom have to grow up and take the responsibility to govern ourselves and to willingly follow reasonable guidelines for protecting ourselves and others. The downfall of democracy is that, as a friend recently put it, “ignorance and misinformation are given the same weight” as expert and informed data.

One of the individual responsibilities that fall to us right now is the decision of whom to believe. Such statements as “we have so many cases because we’re doing so much testing” are too plainly stupid to merit a rational response. By that line of thinking, I guess the way to reduce teen pregnancies is to ban pregnancy tests. As we hear so often these days, “You can’t fix stupid,” but you can learn to ignore it and not allow your own decisions to be guided by it. It’s true that there’s lots of conflicting information and a wide range of proposed solutions to this crisis; and yes, the experts sometimes change their positions and recommendations. But so what? COVID-19 was identified in 2019. Cancer has plagued humanity for decades at least, yet the information and recommended treatments continue to vary and conflict as new research becomes available.

The first step to “flattening the curve” and eventually doing away with this plague is to act not as Democrats and Republicans or liberals and conservatives but as human beings who live in a close network where individual survival depends on herd responsibility, not herd immunity. To achieve the 70% to 90% immunity rate required to reach the level of herd immunity, several hundreds of thousands more people would have to die. If we instead work toward herd responsibility, we can save lives and become a better, more evolved group of humans.

Keeping our distance from people during this time is not living in fear. Wearing a mask in public is not living in fear. Staying home when going out is not necessary is not living in fear. Washing our hands often is not living in fear. Doing those things is living in intelligence, reasonable caution, and personal responsibility; and those are the qualities that will save our lives and our nation.

Want to be patriotic? Stop whining and wear the damn mask!

Categories
Politics

Understanding White Privilege

I just read this quote from Maya Angelou: “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better I do better.”

Sometimes understanding a subject is a long process and requires experience beyond one’s own narrow world. One of those subjects for me is white privilege.

I don’t normally share this much personal information with anyone, but since these are the least normal times I’ve ever lived through, I am sharing my story in the hope that it may help others reach a place of empathy sooner than I did.

My life as a child was not privileged by anyone’s standards. My father left our family when I was ten and my sister was eight. My mother worked 48 hours each week at a local hamburger joint to keep us meagerly clothed and fed. I can remember asking for something that cost fifty cents and my mother replying that seemed like a fortune to her. For perspective, 50 cents went a lot further then than it does now, but even then it was not a huge sum in most people’s budgets.

We lived in a four-room apartment that would have fit into some of the living rooms I’ve had as an adult. The apartment was part of a concrete block building that was built to house military families after World War II. Most families lived there temporarily, just long enough to get back on their feet after their wage earner returned from active duty. We lived there eleven years; I was 17 when we moved out, into another low-rent apartment. Since that one was close to downtown and was a converted house, however, it felt posh by comparison.

So, absentee father–check. Tired, frustrated, angry mother–check. Being socially shunned as the child of a “divorcee” who lived in a neighborhood others hesitated to walk through–check. Never having enough money to feel secure–check.

Doesn’t sound much like a life of privilege. The black kids I knew had intact families and lived in real houses. They could afford to participate in activities I could only dream of affording. Their lives seemed so far above mine that for many years I couldn’t figure out how they could possibly be deemed less privileged than I was.

What I can understand and appreciate now is that when it came time for me to apply for college, my only concern was finding one I could afford, since I’d be paying my own way. Never once did I have to consider that I might be rejected solely on the basis of my skin color. That’s privilege.

As a young adult, I never had to be afraid to shop for a home, apply for a mortgage, or move into a neighborhood because I might be rejected by angry neighbors anxious about what my presence would do to their property values. That’s privilege.

Never once in my life have I been denied admission to a restaurant, theater, museum, restroom, library, or park because I have the wrong skin color. That’s privilege.

As a young mother, I never had to be concerned that my children would be denied admission to any of those places because they had the wrong skin color. That’s privilege.

When my two sons were teenagers, they gave me many reasons to worry, but not once did I worry about their being bullied or brutalized because of their skin color. I never had to fear for their lives because they were wearing hoodies, jogging, playing in a park, taking a walk in our own neighborhood, or driving home from dinner. Now that they’re grown men, I still worry about them a little but never because doing any of these things might cost them their lives. That’s privilege.

When my sons were out late at night and had missed curfew (pretty much every Friday and Saturday), being admittedly a bit of a Nervous Nellie, I usually went straight to visualizing them dead in a ditch somewhere. Not once, however, did I picture them detained by police officers or accused of a crime just because they had the wrong look. That’s privilege.

If one of my sons ever attempts to make a purchase using a counterfeit bill, I may kill him, but I don’t believe a police officer would. Therefore, chances are remote that I will ever have to spend my remaining days with the haunting mental image of my precious son (regardless how flawed) handcuffed, face down on the pavement, while a police officer has a knee on my son’s neck and a smirk on his own despicable face. Never will I live tormented by the sound of my son’s voice echoing in my head “I can’t breathe” and crying out “Mama.” That is blessed, blessed privilege.

I have three white grandsons who will enjoy the same privilege my sons have enjoyed. I and their parents are striving to raise them to understand that privilege, never to take it for granted, and to use their advantage to better the lives of those not so fortunate. That’s privilege.

Privilege is not always determined by financial assets and security. That’s part of it, but it’s not the whole. People of color can be extremely wealthy yet still live with the fact that their skin color will always influence what they can do, where they can go, and in what places they will be accepted.

People of color will always live looking over their shoulders. Honest men of color will know they are feared when in public and will instinctively learn to take measures to protect themselves. Some people of color live with the fear of deportation, never able to settle into a peaceful life.

Mothers with children of color live constantly on tiptoe, wondering whether this will be the moment their lives change forever, because some private citizen or police officer passed judgment on their son or daughter based solely on the amount of melanin in their skin and decided their child’s life was worth less than the need to calm the white person’s cowardly and  irrational fear.

There is no such thing as black privilege. There is no single thing which people of color get to do just because they’re black or brown. Dark skin opens no doors, affords no advantages. If a program such as Affirmative Action gives preference in specific situations to qualified people of color, it’s only because white people have been assholes for so long that something must be done to level the playing field. It’s not just because they’re black.

After the events of the last two weeks–following the murder of George Floyd– no one can claim not to know better. So now that we know, we owe it to the thousands of black men and women, who have been wrongly killed during the 401 years since we abducted them from their homeland and brought them here in chains, to do better. Much better.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Categories
Politics

The Monster under the Bed

Did you ever have a monster living under your bed? Lots of people have had them. No one ever saw, heard, or smelled your monster; yet you were as convinced of its existence and the imminent danger it posed as if you had an entire photo album of high-def close-ups. So vivid were your mental images of impending doom that you stayed awake at night, demanded a night light in your room, and occasionally went on furtive searches with a flashlight, knowing for sure you’d uncover that little gremlin some day.

For millions of Americans, socialism is the monster under their beds that keeps them awake at night, causes them to worry over unfounded fears, and makes them vote for unqualified presidential candidates. It convinces them that intelligent, highly qualified candidates would turn our country into a place where people stand in line for a crust of bread. Mind you, few if any of these people have ever seen socialism in action, but they’re convinced they know exactly what it looks like and what the slippery slope that plunges us into socialist hell would look like.

Ask a dozen conservatives why they couldn’t possibly vote for a Democrat president, regardless of how hard they have to hold their noses to vote for the Republican candidate, and at least half of them will launch into a tirade on socialism completely unrelated to anything in your conversation. In their minds, “Democrat” and “socialist” are synonymous, evidence be damned.

Unscrupulous politicians play on the fear of the monster by labeling every new progressive idea “socialist” and warning of the slippery slope, just as they have convinced the fearful that universal background checks would lead to a total gun ban. Never mind that no one has ever proposed those things; the monster exists, and denying its presence means certain doom.

Words have power, and to accept the words of a fear-monger is to enslave oneself to that fear-monger. Accusations of socialism are not new, yet they never lose their impact. Paul Blumenthal, in a February 24  HuffPost article, writes:

“Every single political actor since the late 19th century advocating for some form progressive social change ― whether it be economic reform, challenging America’s racial caste system or advocating for women’s rights or LGBT rights ― has been tarred as a socialist or a communist bent on destroying the American Free Enterprise System.”

It seems few Democratic presidents and presidential candidates of the twentieth century escaped the derogatory labels “socialist” and “communist”; but Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the most consistently attacked because of his New Deal and other actions that enlarged our social safety net. Barack Obama was also a top contender for most accusations of being a socialist, even though Billy Wharton, co-chair of the Socialist Party USA, is quoted in an article as saying Obama’s election was no victory for socialists: “Obama isn’t a socialist. He’s not even a liberal.”

Terence Ball, who writes about ideologies, has told the Associated Press, “I grow weary of Obama and the Democrats being called socialist. If you talk to any real socialist, they disown them very, very quickly.” Billy Wharton told CNN he considers assertions that Obama is a socialist “absurd.” “It makes no rational sense,” says Wharton. “It clearly means that people don’t understand what socialism is.”

And that brings us to where every good conversation should start: understanding the subject. Time to visit the dictionary. My Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary gives this definition for “socialism”:

The theory or system of the ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution by society or the community rather than by private individuals, with all members of society or the community sharing in the work and the products.

In Communist doctrine, the stage of society coming between the capitalist stage and the communist stage, in which private ownership of the means of production and distribution has been eliminated, as in the Soviet Union, and the production of goods is sufficient to permit realization of the slogan from each according to his ability, to each according to his work.

The online dictionary Lexico by Oxford offers the same definition, adding the synonym “utopia,” which begins to give some hint as to how socialism can go wrong. Utopian societies throughout history have had a low (zero) success rate. Lexico also adds that socialism is “a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism.”

It’s easy enough to understand why Americans are opposed to a socialist government but not so easy to understand why anyone thinks we’re headed in that direction. So far, no presidential candidate of either party has ever mentioned eliminating private property and turning the means of production and distribution over to the government. Not Barack Obama, not Franklin Delano Roosevelt, not Harry Truman, and not even one of the current Democrat candidates.

Paul Krugman, a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center and a Nobel Prize-winning economist, wrote in a June 27 New York Times Op-Ed:

The Democratic Party has clearly moved left in recent years, but none of the presidential candidates are anything close to being actual socialists — no, not even Bernie Sanders.

Nobody in these debates wants government ownership of the means of production, which is what socialism used to mean. Most of the candidates are, instead, what Europeans would call ‘social democrats’: advocates of a private-sector-driven economy, but with a stronger social safety net, enhanced bargaining power for workers and tighter regulation of corporate malfeasance. They want America to be more like Denmark, not more like Venezuela.

Examples of the “social safety net” already in existence in our country include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, minimum wage, maximum work hours, and child labor laws, among others. All of these laws and programs can be considered socialist “in that the government intervenes in the capitalist market to require employers to meet minimum standards that might not be met in a pure, unregulated ‘free’ market. Agricultural and energy subsidies are likewise socialist programs.” (Miles Mogulescu 7 Feb 2019)

Mr. Mogulescu adds, “Stripped of the Red-baiting and name-calling, the real debate isn’t between capitalism vs. socialism, but about the appropriate balance between the two.”

Amen.

Time to drag this monster out from under the bed and send it on its way. There are plenty of genuine problems in America right now that should keep us awake at night searching for solutions. The probability that we’ll become an actual socialist country any time soon is not one of them.