Politics Over Personality

As an underground conservative working in the arts community, I tend to suffer a bit from the Elijah mentality. That is, it is easy to look around and say, "I am entirely alone! I am the last true Republican conservative in a liberal Democrat emotional mudslide! Send sustenance, oh God! Send me some ravens with copies of 'The Weekly Standard' in their talons!"

Alas, one of the places I turn to when I feel this way (albeit very secretly) is conservative talk radio. I am an avid aficionado of the Maha-Rushie, listening to his program on my iPod at every opportunity. I like Glenn Beck's rattled every-man logic quite a lot as well. Laura Ingraham strikes me as one of the most balanced and moderated voices out there. On the other hand, however, unlike many of my underground conservative brethren, there are one or two of those radio voices I don't love. In particular, I don't like Sean Hannity, and I'll explain why.

I'd like to say that Sean Hannity is probably a fine individual, even if I don't like his show, but I'm not sure even that is true. Anyone who throws around the term "You're a great American," like he does, spending the compliment on anyone and everyone based on the mere qualification that they can obtain a telephone and dial his show's number, is suspect in my (admittedly rather long) book. Frankly, he is only bearable on his Fox show because he is offset by the relatively more odious Alan Combs (although I fear I must admit that I'd sooner drink a beer with Combs than Hannity, as long as we don't talk politics).

But all of that aside, my issue with Sean Hannity is really my issue with current politics in general. The problem with the discussion of American politics is that it is bogged down with the relatively superficial vaguaries of personality instead of idealogy. It's easy to preach to the choir about how awful the enemy is, but it does nothing to engage those who are on the fence, or even to bolster the intellectual arguments of the faithful. As much as I'd like to think otherwise, Hannity strikes me as simply a mean-spirited dimwit whose main argument against the opposition is that they are dopey-looking, silly-sounding, anti-American dum-dum-heads.

In a nutshell, while I tend to agree with Hannity that Howard Dean's famous barbaric yawp is funny, I do not think that it is reason enough not to vote Democrat.

Here's the problem: I am convinced that most of those who voted for Barack Obama and all the rest of the Democrats were not voting for the primary ideals of liberalism. They were voting against George W. Bush, even though he wasn't on the ballot. Why? Because they've been trained to dislike him personally. Not for his policies, specifically, or his Republican ideologies, or even his record. They simply voted for Obama because they don't like Bush himself, personally. Poor John McCain couldn't get out of Bush's shadow enough to differentiate himself-- and let's be honest, he doesn't have all that winning of a personality either.

The main problem with the Hannitization of politics is that, once we reduce the discussion to an argument over who looks the funniest, sounds the dumbest, lies the most, produces the most scandals, or looks the most or the least presidential, we are doomed to a relatively equal slap-fight. There are liars, cheats, thieves, incompetents and screw-ups on both sides. Of course, we on the conservative side at least aim for a higher standard, and arguably there is less out-and-out corruption on the Republican side, but our politicians are a long, long way from perfect. Therefore, the moment we allow the discussion to center on personalities instead of idealogies, that is the moment we surrender our greatest and most meaningful tool in the debate: the soundness of our core ideas.

I propose this: next time we have a discussion about politics, challenge all involved to avoid reducing it to a slap-fight about personalities. Challenge yourself and your conversants to have the discussion without mentioning any specific politician, even by inference. The more we can center the debate on ideals and common sense concepts, the more succesful we will be. And this goes for politicians themselves, progressing all the way through this next election. No name calling or insults or smack-downs. As fun as they are, they reduce our message to a mere popularity contest, a mere debate of one-liners and put-downs. If it comes to that, we will be doomed, not only because it takes away the irrefutable strength of our core convictions, but because, let's face it, pretty much all of the one-liner writers are on their side.

Think about it: why are we conservatives? Is it because we love George W.? Hardly. Is it because Obama is a snarky, pompous elitist? Not in the least. We are not conservatives because of personalities. We are conservatives because we believe in personal responsibility, and the power of the free market, and liberty. We are conservatives because we believe everyone and anyone can achieve, and should be free to, without the roadblocks of a nanny state, or the hobbling of a welfare state. We are conservatives because we believe government's job is, contrary to current experience, extremely limited and necessarily small, and that a huge, tax-and-spend Washington D. C. money machine is a proven failure and should be mercilessly pruned. We are conservatives because we believe in the sanctity of life, and are willing to make the pragmatic, difficult, and honorable choice to sacrifice it in the short term so as to preserve it in the long term. We are conservatives because we recognize that a simple-minded ideal of universal peace only foments the bloodthirsty tyranny of murderers.

And the reason these ideologies will win, if we subtract from them the shifting superficialities of personalities, is that, deep down, almost everyone shares these core beliefs. It's true. Reduce conservatism to the lowest common denominator and almost everyone agrees with it. In their personal lives, all but the most suicidally liberal would use lethal force to protect their families from evil people. All but the most deluded radical knows that he cannot give millions away to charity if his wallet is empty. All but the most knee-jerk Democrat drone knows that he cannot freely fulfill every whim of his child without reducing that child to a helpless, directionless bum. Where the rubber of action meets the road of life, nearly everyone is a conservative. Our duty is to help them see that what is true for themselves is true for nations and governments. This message, however, will be instantly lost the moment we allow it to be hijacked into a debate over personalities.

Conservatism does not need to be redefined. It needs to be unvarnished. It needs to be stripped of all the labels and fluff and superficial personality worship and defamation that well-meaning conservatives have bogged it down with. Under all the tripe, the machine of conservative is still well-oiled, effective, and universal.

It's time to de-Hannitize our message. The discussion isn't about this Democrat's cheating or that liberal's lies. It's about the strength of our ideology versus theirs. If we can manage this, we will see a vast reawakening to the logic and common sense of conservatism.

If we keep arguing personalities, we'll be stuck defending George W. Bush's pronunciation of "nuclear" and Sarah Palin's wardrobe forever. Think about that, and then ask yourself-- Politics or Personality: which do you think will be more effective?

New Democratic Talking Points: "Change Nothing"

(Intercepted Document from the New Democratic National Committee)

------CONFIDENTIAL------

If you are not a card-carrying member of the Democratic National Convention, an affiliate of the cabinet of the current President-Elect, an employee or editor of a national news organ, then stop reading immediately and destroy this document.

OFFICIAL STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES FOR CONTINUED DEALINGS WITH ROGUE CONSERVATIVE THINKERS AND POLITICIANS (IF ANY ARE TO BE FOUND).

On the heels of our smashing victory this last November, we, the new Democratic leaders of this country, have cause to rejoice. We must not, however, be lulled into a false sense of security. Our foes are still out there, and they may be even more dangerous in their current, defeated state. After all, the last thing their cause needs is martyrs. The work of destroying our opposition has only just begun, and that work can be summed up in two, all-important words:

CHANGE NOTHING.

It will be tempting to adopt an attitude of magnanimous reconciliation with our opponents, or to soften the viciousness of our attacks. This is a sign of lingering humanity in many of our members, but under no circumstances should these primitive instincts be indulged. That which we have used to defeat the conservative (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Republican) ideologies must be continued verbatim, with no break and no exception. "Change" may be an extremely effective mantra for wooing the proletariat, but it is the last thing we wish to implement in terms of our ongoing manifesto. Our new President Elect has shown his understanding of this by peopling his cabinet entirely with our best old-guard liberal warriors, so let us all follow his example and remember the basic principles which have carried us thus far.

Here, in brief, are the guiding axioms that should continue to define our attitude to the remaining conservative underground and any recalcitrant Republican politicians who dare not defect to our side, if in ideology only:

NUMBER ONE: REPUBLICANS ARE STUPID.

This cannot be emphasized enough. This is our first and most effective attack, and it should be repeated above all others. Did it matter that George W. Bush scored higher grades than Al Gore? Not at all. Does it matter that he reads more books in a year than the typical Democrat voter will read in his lifetime (although, in all fairness, he does not watch anywhere near as much television)? No, it doesn't matter. As we so importantly learned during the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings a decade ago, it isn't the facts that matter, but rather the seriousness of the allegation.

Calling someone stupid works on the grade school playground and it works in the world of adult politics for the same reason: calling someone stupid means that their words can be legitimately ignored. THIS is the point. The last thing we want any of our people to do is start listening to the arguments of the other side. As we have long known, debate does not help our side, for the simple reason that our rank-and-file are, in actuality, rather ignorant themselves. As we know, eighty-percent of our own people do not know who Harry Reed is, and only slightly more can name the current vice president. Historically, our members do not vote on issues or ideology; they vote on emotion. They vote on what makes them feel “cool”, or “caring”, or “broad-minded”, or “sexy”. It has been said that Barack Obama is the first “MTV” President, and we are not ashamed of this. This is, in fact, the pinnacle expression of how our Party has always worked. We must, if anything, continue to craft our Democratic brand to represent this strength. This means assuring that our voters continue to vote based on emotion and cool-factor, rather than on boring intellectual facts. We must do everything in our power to prevent ideas from cluttering our voters’ judgments. In short, our best tools involve stifling debate, but under the guise that we'd love to have a debate, if only our opponents weren't so stupid. This way, we can allow our members to continue to feel smart, while freeing them from the burden of actual thinking.

NUMBER TWO: REPUBLICANS ARE HICKS, RUBES, REDNECKS, HILLBILLIES, HOOSIERS, HAYSEEDS or whatever synonym is colloquially relevant.

This is second only to the first in application, and it is mostly the purview and responsibility of the entertainment media to spread this attack. Our own politicians must continue to be viewed as above making such degrading accusations, but it should be made obvious that they are thinking it, and simply being too gracious to say so. Late night comedians in particular are granted free reign in spreading the rumors that:

• Conservatives enjoy incest at every opportunity.

• Conservatives own guns, leave them lying around their shacks loaded, and fire them at every opportunity, usually at cuddly animals and homosexuals.

• Conservatives are religious whackos that handle snakes, pronounce “God” as “GAWD”, and include country and western music as a central tenet of their faith.

• Conservatives are terrified of black people, and, in fact, people of any other color, and have probably never seen or spoken to one.

• Conservatives subsist entirely on Twinkies, deep-fried sticks of butter, and buckets of gravy, which they both drink and bathe in (often at the same time).

See? The jokes pretty much write themselves, mainly because we’ve been making them for so long. It does not matter that the jokes are unoriginal, cliché, or even knee-jerk obligatory. All that matters is that they demean and belittle our enemies in a way that works.

Many of our members feel a twinge of dishonesty about this tenet for two reasons: one, most Republican politicians are, in fact, wealthy upper-west-side urbanites with nary a gun cabinet or a pick-up truck in sight, and two, most of our rank-and-file constituency are gun-toting, pickup driving, rednecks, rubes, hicks, hayseeds, hoosiers, hillbillies, etc. It must be emphasized again that these mere “facts” must be ignored for the good of the Party. It does not matter that our political opponents are possibly more urbanized and intellectual than we are, simply because the allegations stick. We have been making them for so long that the idea of a redneck conservative politician is an absolute institution: people know it before we even say it, furthermore—and this is the main point—they know it not because it is true, but because we’ve been saying it for so long that people simply see what they expect.

Secondarily, it does not matter that the vast majority of our constituency is, in fact, rednecks, hicks and hayseeds, because of one very simple thing: they do not acknowledge it. They refuse to think of themselves as such, even though they know they are. We provide for them the important service of giving them someone else they can look down on, someone whom they can feel is even less backwards and inbred than themselves. Voting for us becomes simply a nominal evidence that they are not what we’ve claimed our opponents are. After all, what is more important to the redneck than fooling himself into thinking he is better than the “redneck” who might rule him?

NUMBER THREE: REPUBLICANS ARE RACISTS

This must be handled delicately lest it back-fire, but it is one of the deadliest bullets in our arsenal. As with the previous two points, it does not matter if the allegation is true, but merely that it be made, seriously and with absolute assurance. You must trust your own indignance, even if it is baseless. If we have been able to convince the voters of this country that the party of Abraham Lincoln and the Underground Railroad is, against all probability, a racist party, then you must trust your ability to make the accusation stick as well. Fortunately, today’s voters’ understanding of history is apocryphal at best, thus they actually believe that Republicans were the party of segregation, rather than Democrats. We have not yet had the sheer audacity to imply that Governor George Wallace, who enlisted the militia to block entry of black students into an Alabama high school, was actually a Republican, but we’d venture to guess that most people probably believe it anyway.

It may seem ludicrous on the surface of it, but it is absolutely essential to maintain the appropriate sense of outraged indignance whilst making accusations of racism, lest the accusation be seen for the farce that it is. One must not smile or giggle, even if the accusation is made against a conservative candidate who has adopted or married a person of a different race, supported racially-harmonizing issues, or is even of a non-white race themselves. There need be no supporting facts or evidence in the least. In fact, the more the accuser relies on actual evidence, the less convincing the accusation will probably seem. As any race-racketeer knows, racism is best accused on terms of “instinct”, rather than evidence. As we’ve learned in this country, if a person of color accuses a white of racism, it is true, period. Argument or denial by the accused will only deepen their apparent guilt. If handled well, there is no escape from the accusation of racism, as evidenced by the legions of conservatives who have been buried by it in the past.

Now that we have a black President in the White House, some of you may feel that this tool has become somewhat ineffective. To repeat the main point of this dispatch: CHANGE NOTHING. Accusations of racism have been a lethal tool against our opposition in the past, and they remain so today. The fact that we now have a black President in the White House simply means that, as far as we are concerned, forty-seven percent of voters are still racist. You must use this angle to its fullest effect.

NUMBER FOUR: SHOW NO MERCY

Joe Lieberman spoke before the Republican convention, supporting John McCain. Now that we have won, is this the time to welcome the Honorable Senator back to our camp with open arms, exhibiting our respect of his dissenting views in a country that purports to value freedom of thought? Recent events give us the answer to that question. Just as we have convened to see how best to punish, belittle and excommunicate the traitor, Joe Lieberman, we must not allow ourselves to show the slightest compassion on our enemies now that they are down. They will attempt to reorganize, even in their decimated state, and just as we have arisen from the ashes of the George W. Bush years, unified and unstoppable, they will surely attempt to rally themselves for 2012 and beyond. We are now in the perfect position to crush them utterly.

Our first tack must be to further the idea that Conservatism is dead, the Reagan years are over, and that Republican ideology must be redefined to conform to modern reality (i.e. liberalism).

Further, we must support and fast-track the Fairness Doctrine, shutting down on-air expression of conservative ideas. We must continue to redefine dissenting thought in all its forms as hate speech. We must inflame our base into threatening their conservative associates into silence. We must make our members believe that it is good and just to crush the opposition, with threats and shouts if effective, and with violence (such as the glorious displays at the Republican Convention earlier this year) when necessary. We must continue the campaign, consistently rallying our troops to avoid the temptation to debate issues or engage in polite discourse. Conservatives remain our enemy, and like a virus, they must be destroyed utterly, lest they return in the future, rallied and immune to our opposition. Now is the time to complete the work we have begun, ever vigilant, and more dedicated than ever.

That which has worked so far will continue to work. Our voters do not really want change. They want what they have always wanted: to be told they are smart and good for voting against the purported conservative dimwit redneck racists. They want to be promised things, even if we never really follow through with granting those promises. They want to be convinced they are victims, that the evil conservatives have held them down, and that it is time to make those conservatives pay, figuratively and literally.

Despite the apparent landslide of this last election, our majority is slight. Now is the time for us to create further dependence on the government, greater desire to be coddled and provided for, and even less belief in the potential for success. If we accomplish this mission, fully cementing a majority in this country who will vote entirely on emotion and on who promises the most goodies, rather than ideas and what is best for the country, then we will never again have to fear losing power. The few remaining conservative Republicans will become, quite literally, a party without a country.

Only then will we be able to rest.

Say hello to the new Democratic Regime. Just like the old Democratic Regime.

Dispatch From the New Conservative Underground: It's Worse Than We Thought

I work in the creative industry, therefore it will surprise no one that I am constantly surrounded by Democrats, most of whom are fairly hardcore liberal. Most of them are not bad people, but they are passionate about their politics, despite the fact that most of them truly do not know what they are talking about. Being a liberal in the creative industry is like being high at a Grateful Dead concert: you don't have to be the one smoking it to be under its influence. Most of the people in my field are Democrats simply because you can't be cool (or even particularly tolerated) if you are anything else, and creative people are very enamoured with being cool. I don't engage my colleagues in political conversations for the same reason prison inmates don't bend over to pick up a dropped bar of soap. I just keep my head down and do my job, and usually we all get along fine.

Today, however, I had my first serious freak-out of the new Obama era.

I was working in an editing suite with three other guys. One of these guys, who I will call Bob, spent a good portion of the day loudly voicing his glee about what the Obama presidency was going to be like. The other two guys nodded and agreed as Bob plowed on, assuming, as a matter of course, that everyone in the room agreed with him.

I have not been so sincerely freaked out in a long, long time.

It started with Bob disgustedly calling those who dared vote different than him "f--king hayseeds". This did not particularly surprise me. I am long accustomed to Democrats utterly belittling and insulting those who disagree with them. A few minutes later, however, Bob mentioned an acquaintance of his who'd attended the Republican National Convention. He said that this person had been appalled by the violence that was committed against many of the attendees. Bob blithely admitted that the violence had indeed occurred, and then explained to this acquaintance, "the fact that you people don't understand why that was justified is why you are going to lose this thing."

Did you hear that? I mean, really? According to this particular liberal Democrat, violence against people who disagree with him is justified.

I should point out that Bob is not a complete whack-job. He's successful. He's apparently happily married. He's a father. He's even relatively likeable when he isn't talking polotics. And Bob thinks that dropping cement bags onto the windshields of busses full of conventioneers and spitting on seventy-year-old women is justified, simply because those people dared to be Republicans.

How, exactly, are people like Bob different from terrorists?

I'd sure like to believe that Bob is the great exception, sort of like the Republican racist or the Boy Scout child-molester (contrary to popular belief), but then I began to recall more of what his party has always been about.

Barack Obama himself never once spoke out against the violences committed against Republicans at their convention. Strangely enough, on our own side of the campaign, one couldn't even mention Obama's middle name without John McCain calling an emergency press conference to condemn the guilty party. Amazingly, however, McCain's strained nobility didn't translate across the aisle. During the last debate, Obama managed to effect an air of wounded transcendence at the idea that someone might have shouted something ugly about him at a Republican rally, but was apparently all right with the idea of bags of human feces being lobbed at Republican conventioneers. Bob would certainly approve.

These are the people who've just won the White House.

This is the same party that spawned Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Pucs Coalition, which regularly extorts massive donations from corporations lest they be deemed "racist" by the morally impeccable Jackson. Similarly, this is the same party that planted the seeds of the current economic catastrophe by threatening to picket banks as racist if they didn't grant more and more sub-prime home loans. This is the party that foments men like the baton-weilding Black Panthers who attempted to block the polling place in Republican-heavy voting areas, happily resorting to threats instead of debate. This is, in short, the party of simple thug-politics and mafia-style threats.

These are the people who now control the majority of the government.

Bob's party is the force behind the "fairness doctrine", which is interested in fairness in the same way that George Orwell's fictional "Ministry of Peace" was interested in Peace (for those of you who've not yet read "1984", the Ministry of Peace was, of course, concerned with waging war). This is the party that shuns debates of ideas, choosing instead the forced silence of anyone who dissents. This is the party of shouting down the speeches of those they oppose, rather than engaging them intellectually. This is the party of Barack Obama, who refused to debate John McCain in Town Hall-style meetings across the country. This is the party of Al Gore, who refuses to debate anyone in the scientific community (or any other community, for that matter) on the issue of global warming. This is the party of Michael Moore, of propagandistic movies and bumper sticker slogans, of one-sided diatribes of all kinds, but never of rational discussions of ideas. This is the party of belittling and mocking, of comfort in the like-minded crowd, because the group-think of the crowd so easily supplants any need for personal intellectual honesty.

This is the party that admits that the question of when life begins is "above their pay-grade", and yet, even in the face of that uncertainty, defaults to killing that potential life, and then dares to call it a virtue.

This is the party that admires Karl Marx, who taught that truth is variable based on whatever furthers the cause. This is the party that has made that philosophy a synonym for politics.

I hate to say it, but I think things are actually a lot worse than we originally thought. This is the party that is now firmly in charge of our country.

Bob had a lot more to say. He said that Obama was already planning to use his army of millions of online cyber-brutes to harrass his opponants, pressuring and threatening them into fast-tracking the new president's deliciously liberal agenda. Most of the facets of that agenda, Bob explained, had to do with forcing companies to adhere to debilitating "green" retrofittings (much like what Obama claimed he'd cripple the coal industry with) and supplanting "straight-capitalism" with "new socialistic capitalism". Bob wasn't just blowing smoke. He wasn't making any of this up. He knew his stuff. He knew the terminology and the numbers. He knew how this internet army came about (Clinton and Howard Dean) and about the uncomfortable alliance between Clinton's DNC and the new Obama regime. He knew dates and names and specifics. Bob was very much in-the-know.

Maybe Bob is wrong. Maybe Obama really will settle down into the sort of mainstream, centrist presidency that so many presidents seem to succumb to, regardless of political inclination. Maybe Bob doesn't represent his party when he says that violence against Republicans is justified and understandable. Maybe Bob is just one angry, gleeful exception in the liberal Democratic juggernaut that is now controlling everything.

Oh God, I do hope so. But considering the history of the Democratic party, up to this very day, I don't think Bob is wrong at all. I think Bob is, in fact, in the dead-center mainstream of his party.

I used to keep my head down and avoid talking about politics among my colleagues because I was worried about getting into a senseless argument. Now, for the first time, I am actually worried to even admit I am a conservative. Now, for the first time in my life, being a conservative could potentially be physically dangerous.

Welcome to the New Conservative Underground.

This Former Republican says: If You Can't Beat 'Em...

Well, it's almost nine o'clock on election night, and it's a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama is the new president. I was upset by this at first, but then I realized something, something that has set me free.

I've realized that I've been wrong all along.

Let me explain. I was raised by well-meaning, but obviously deluded parents. They worked hard to instill in me the same misconceptions they themselves grew up with, and as a result I have been a victim of those misconceptions my entire life. Thus, when I saw that the most liberal-minded democratic candidate of all time was about to assume the presidency, those life-long, deeply ingrained misunderstandings led me to believe that this would be an awful, even frightening thing. "How is it," I thought to myself, "That the majority of this country can fanatically support a man who represents the exact opposite of the ideals I was raised with?" And for the first time in my life, I asked a question that very few people ever honestly pose to themselves: Is it possible I am wrong and they are right?

It was an epiphany. I am shocked and amazed that it took me so long to realize how wrong I have been. And I have to tell you, it is extremely freeing to come over to the other side.

But I fear I am not being as specific as I should be. Like those who suffer from the disease of alcoholism, the first step to healing is admitting one's specific problem. Let me take a deep breath and face this.

I was raised to believe in personal responsibility. It was, in fact, the cornerstone of my family's belief system. I was taught that if I was ever to succeed, it was up to me to do the hard work of making it happen. I was told that no one would give me a free lunch. I was made to buy my own first car and pay my own way through college. As an adult, I have struggled and worked long, hard jobs, all because I believed it was my responsibility to take care of myself and my family. In short, my life view was summed up by the idea that I, and I alone, was responsible for my own health, success and family.

What a prison I had constructed for myself! To think of all the time I spent trying to work it out on my own, struggling to learn and grow, slaving through the days to hone my talents into marketable skills. How much time I wasted trying to create new products and valuable services, all to achieve my own success, to take care of myself and my family. In short, how very long I struggled to reach that elusive and teasing American Dream! Oh, what a fool I was! For now I see what the majority of the rest of this country sees, what the rest of you have apparently known all along: it ISN'T my job to take care of myself and my family. It's the government's!

WHAT a relief!

You know, I laugh now, looking back on how I felt during the election. I was so annoyed at people for not seeing the apparent folly of Obama's statements about "being our brother's keepers" when his own brother was living in a shack for twelve dollars a year and his aunt was living in a rat-infested slum in Boston. Now, of course, I see the real truth. Obama didn't literally mean we should take care of our brothers. What he really meant was that the government should take care of our brothers (and aunts). This explains how he intended to help his slum-living Aunt, and I see now that it is a much more loving method than just sending her some of his own money. Instead, once he becomes president, he'll just send her a bunch of everybody else's money. I understand now that it wasn't Obama's job to help Aunt Zeituni specifically, since she is just one of the millions of children of the government, meant to be taken care of like chicks under a huge, federal wing. It makes sense to me now. I used to be so shamelessly literal.

Similarly, I used to labor under a delusion of ownership. I was plagued by what Congressman Jim Moran recently called "the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it." Never mind what Thomas Jefferson (the slave owner) meant when he said "a wise and frugal government... shall leave [men] otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it had earned". It was quite the two-edged sword of heresy I lived under: the idea that I had to work hard for myself and my family, and the idea that what I earned by that hard word was mine. Only now do I see the folly of my ways, and now that I have rejected them, I feel such a sense of complete freedom.

Shall I describe it? Now I can finally- finally!- let it all go. No longer do I have to work hard day and night to make a way for myself and my family. No more will I have to struggle to create new products that the market may wish to enjoy. Finally, I can catch up on all that wonderful TV I've been missing because I'd been working so hard. Now, finally, it's someone else's duty to take care of me! How completely and utterly freeing! Here, all this time, I had resented the fact that the government takes away thirty percent of my income. Now, finally, I see that if I simply give up, lay back, and do nothing, that same government will give me chunks of someone else's thirty percent! What a complete and unadulterated fool I have been, working so hard and trying to be self relient! Obama, and you, the rest of the country who figured this out a long time ago, have finally shown me the way.

It's a new day. It's a "what's in it for me" day. This is the moment where I officially abandon the idea of personal responsibility and making it by myself. After all, I'm a victim. I was misled by my parents, taught a narrow-minded and probably racist litany of lies about character and hard work and wisdom and good choices. Now I see the truth: choices don't matter, because if I make a mistake, I can abort it (even in the third trimester, and I won't even have to pay for it). If I screw up, the government will take care of me anyway, so why even try? Why work so hard to be the one creating the income for everyone else, when I can be the one sponging it up? Let the Joe the Plumbers of the country be the schlubs to go out and work their butts off. They may be sucker enough to think its still worth it to be self-reliant, but I have seen the light. I have learned that it is better not to try, because trying just means having more and more taken away. I have learned that this is the "gimme" country. So gimme. I want mine. I don't want to work for it anymore. Why should I? It wouldn't be mine to keep even if I did. I want someone else's, because they have too much and don't deserve it, even if they worked for it.

I'm late coming to this party, I know. Most of the country is in line ahead of me. All of you who voted for Obama got here first, but I'm shouldering in with you, lining up outside the federal coffers for my chunk of the handout. The bank doors are open. We've finally gotten to that fabled point where we are voting in a president because of the free goodies he's promising us. I know it means the end of the country is at hand, but it isn't here yet. There's still at least a few more years of good looting to be had before everything is completely broke and all the producers flee the country like rats from a sinking ship. Until then, at least for a little while, there will be plenty of wealth to spread around, so get outta my way. I want mine.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Hallelujah, Reverend Wright, pass the collection plate.

Political Vomit 2: Bumper Sticker People

Sorry, I don't think I quite got it all out yesterday. This has been accumulating for awhile.

Part of the reason that it is easy for a mild-mannered, reasonably intelligent conservative-minded guy like me to get a little depressed about things is that, by all appearances, the rest of the country is in complete disagreement with me and my personal views. Everywhere I look, there are bumper stickers and yard signs snidely deriding my beliefs, proclaiming the deity of Barack Obama, and trumpeting snarky, self righteous one-liners about how horrible people like me are. Some of them are pretty funny ("Republicans for Voldemort '08") and some of them are so sappy they rot your teeth ("one day schools will have enough money and the navy will have to hold a bake sell to buy a..." yadda yadda, I think I'm gonna puke, 'scuse me, I feel so dirty for even quoting this), but all of them amount to the same things I mentioned yesterday: Republicans are evil, mean, war-mongering, intolerant, gun-toting, over-religious bitter clingers-- with absolutely no exceptions-- and you should all be dreadfully ashamed of yourselves, hit with plastic bags of feces, sued, impeached and shot.

Besides the bumper stickers and yard signs, just watch any television, movie, or listen to any popular music. It is absolutely undeniable-- I mean, come on, even the most liberal-minded of you can't deny this and keep even the slightest shred of respectability-- it is absolutely undeniable that the vast and nearly unanimous majority of our entertainers (including the broadcast news media, with the single exception of most talk radio) are passionate adherents to democratic political philosophy. It is an axiom. If you are an artist, actor, singer, writer, or entertainer in any way, two things are true about you: Your job is to be heard and seen by the general public, AND you are a liberal-minded democrat. The result: nearly every message we hear in our media-saturated culture, either directly or indirectly, mirrors the messages of the bumper stickers and yard signs.

It is no surprise, really, that the entertainment community as a whole is liberal democrat. If it is true (and it is) that Democratic beliefs are rooted in emotion, then it makes perfect sense that it'd appeal strongly to a demographic whose very livelihood is based on the conjuring and commerse of emotion. Artists of all stripe work in the world of manufacturing emotion, first in themselves, to create the product (drama, music, art, news*, etc) and then in the general public, through the sale of that product. Emotion is their single currency. It's all they understand. I know this, because I am an artist, and I know a lot of other artists. Of course they are not all ruled exclusively by emotion, but I know from personal experience that it takes an effort of will for an artist not to be. Thus, again, it makes perfect sense that a political idealogy based on feel-good intentions and lofty motivations (regardless of actual result) would appeal to the great majority of artists.

It's no surprise, either, that young people are also almost entirely democratic. Young people are all ruled by emotions. It's the very nature of being young. We who are no longer particularly young remember it well. We all made stupid decisions and said moronic things and got into sticky situations because our emotions made it seem like "a good idea at the time." If you don't agree, I'm sorry, you were never a teenager. Also, let us not forget that the single most important thing to any young adult is being as attractive and cool as humanly possible. There is NO way that a young person can be attractive and cool AND be known as a Republican. (I recall the episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" in which the main character is so disgusted by the fact that his gorgeous romantic partner is a Republican that he loses all desire for her; 'nuff said). On the other hand, there is no quicker and surer way to proclaim your coolness than to mock Republicans, mindlessly parrot democratic talking points, and march for global warming/world peace/save the polar bears/protect abortion-on-demand rallies.

Face it: young people, while pretending to be the most free-minded and individually unique of us all, are the most lock-step lemmings imaginable. "You can be cool believing anything you want! Er, as long as it's the same thing me and George Clooney and Moby believe."

At the end of all this, the result is that we are absolutely inundated with the message that democrats are the vast majority, that they alone are cool and well-adjusted and socially conscious, that democratic beliefs are the only responsible choice, and that Republicans are evil, uncool, hate-filled neanderthals with rebel flags tatooed on their very fat butts. Thus, for a guy like me, looking around at our culture, it is easy to get depressed. It looks as if everyone is aligned against me and my beliefs.

But I've begun to suspect something. You wanna know what it is? I don't care, I'm gonna tell you anyway.

They're ALL bumper sticker people. What I mean is that it only seems like the rest of the country is aligned against conservative beliefs because democrats are the LOUD ones. They're the ones whose political beliefs are rooted in emotion, thus they are passionate and angry, and this makes them militant and vocal. From the news anchors to the guy currently waving the "impeach Cheney" sign on the courthouse lawn across the street from this very coffee shop, they are believers in the spectacle as argument. They are big ones for rallies and marches, shouted chants, chaotic disruptions of speeches, throwing fake blood and real feces, spray-painted epithets and, yes, bumper-sticker plastered cars.

I have fairly strong political convictions. I quite like to debate them, because I am very keen on honing my own convictions via sharpening them against smart people who might disagree with them (even though-- and I'm not joking here -- smart people who disagree with me are getting harder and harder to come by). But I don't have any bumper stickers on my car. I never have. I don't put up yard signs or chant slogans. And I definitely don't believe in the persuasive power of spitting on old ladies as they try to enter conventions.

In short, I'm not one of the loud ones. And here's the part that gives me hope: I don't think the majority of the country are, either. I think most of us are doing our jobs, raising our kids, thinking through our political and moral convictions, and voicing them only in the quiet but earth-shaping act of voting. We look with dismay at the militant, spittle-flying diatribes of our angry democratic neighbors, and with disgust at the snide, belittling attitudes of the entertainment media, and we just go on silently anyway, unswayed in our convictions because we are not the sort to be persuaded by emotion alone (even if it would make us a little cooler to Keith Olberman and Tim Robbins).

We're the ones that really move the country, and this is why the loud ones are so very, very loud. They hate that we, the quiet ones, are, in actuality, driving the nation. We, who work too hard to attend protest rallies, who respect people too much to shout them down at their speeches, who believe in logical thinking too much to reduce our convictions to snarky one-liners, we are the mighty unseen who carry this country and make it work. And yes, this gives me hope.

Even if it means Al Franken thinks I'm a big fat idiot.

*And if you think news is not interested, first and foremost, in conjuring emotion, consider that most famous news axiom of all, "if it bleeds, it leads."



ADDENDUM TO YESTERDAY'S POST: The Polar Bear Debacle

My general advice to any political minded person, republican or democrat, is the advice I try to follow: 1) verify the rumors before you make them the foundation of your convictions. 2) Check and know your sources before you try to use them in an argument. And 3) Use your brain just a little teensy bit more than you use your heart. With this in mind, I did some research on the Sarah Palin Polar Bear debacle my friend "Ruth" was so exercised about.

I discovered a lot of things, but the only one that really matters is this: the entire controversy is based on the numbers of polar bears. Are they increasing or decreasing? As with all such things, it depends on who you read. I found this article about it, from a site dedicated to debunking the opponents of man-made global warming and proving that we humans are the vilest creatures to ever leave a trail of slime on this poor, abused planet. Here's the quote that was meant to prove that polar bears are in dire doom:

"Yet recently there have been claims that polar bear populations are increasing... While polar bear numbers are increasing in two of these [various polar bear] populations, two others are definitely in decline. We don't really know how the rest of the populations are faring, so the truth is that no one can say for sure how overall numbers are changing."

Let's turn off our emotions for a moment and look at this together: the article states that two populations are increasing, two are declining, and two are unknown. At best, mathematically, does this not mean that polar bear numbers are, in fact, generally the same as always, with some variation in specific populations? I thought the numbers were supposed to be plummeting? This is the whole reason they were supposed to be endangered, yes? The best the self-proclaimed defenders of the poor polar bear can do is claim that the numbers of polar bears are unchanging? Forgive me if, like Sarah Palin, I don't find this incredibly moving.

In fact, if two of the populations ARE, in fact, increasing, as the article states, how can we be certain that any changes made for the good of the declining types of bears would not harm the numbers of the type that are increasing? I guess, like any good democratic philosophy, it's noble and just that the bears who are benefiting be punished in favor of the bears that are less-well-off.

Despite what the polar bear blogs say("Oil and gas extraction can be very damaging to arctic ecosystems including the polar bears."), even Alaska's Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who "rejected every point" Palin made about the polar bears, admitted that the threat to polar bears did not come from the petroleum industry (it comes from your SUV, you stupid Republican war-monger). So. What does this leave us with? Turn your emotions back on. That rankled, itchy, hot feeling in your chest? It's justified annoyance at being hoodwinked.

Political Vomit

I've been watching the coverage of the upcoming election and talking to people about it, and I feel like if I don't spew some of the thoughts that have been locked in my head during this time, I'll go into some sort of mental constipation overload. Thus, the following may not be particularly coherent, organized, or digestible. It is, after all, political vomit. Here goes.

I met a couple at the park the other day whilst watching the kids. They were very nice, and I quite enjoyed connecting with them as our kids threw sand on each other in the sandbox. They'd just moved to St. Louis from California, where they had both worked in the film industry, thus we had some immediate common ground. Their son was wearing a tee shirt with the word PEACE on it, framed in the appropriate symbol. Not too surprising, of course, but somewhat indicative. Shortly, the couple began talking politics with me, assuming that I was, of course, in complete agreement with them in their decidedly liberal views. I was sad, because I realized that what had begun to look like a burgeoning friendship was suddenly doomed. NOT because I cannot tolerate democratic friends, mind you. Quite the reverse, in fact: I sat feeling rather dejected in the knowledge that, if these nice people knew I was a Republican, they'd suddenly and disgustedly shun me.

After all-- and this is the point-- Republicans are EVIL, aren't they? It was apparent that this nice couple believed in that supposition entirely. From George W. Bush on down, Republicans are evil, selfish, hate-filled, war-mongering capitalist pigs intent only on dropping bombs, jailing homosexuals, and shooting things with guns. Republicans are incapable of love, compassion, generosity and grace. For example, when asked about Cindy McCain's adopting an Asian child whom she'd brought to this country for a life-saving surgery, a caller on a radio talk show stated with dripping disgust, "she's just looking for a new servant to manage her mansions." Enough said.

Being a Republican means being a pariah. It's not the same in reverse. Have you noticed this?

We have quite a few Democratic and liberal friends. Hell, we have Socialist friends. Do most hardcore Democrats have Republican friends (that they know of)? I'd hazard a guess that they don't. We, as Republicans, can have liberal friends because, for the most part, we see liberals as wrong, and potentially dangerous when in positions of high power, but that's all. We don't think they are evil. We don't believe they deserve to have bags of human feces thrown at them as they attempt to enter their convention. We don't wish them horrible misfortunes. We believe that the rank and file Democrat truly means well. Thus, we don't hate them. We can and do befriend them.

Liberal Democrats, on the other hand, believe that Republicans are the pure essence of evil. Me. They think that I, your friendly neighborhood coffee-drinking, Potter fan-fiction writing, goof-off computer animator and very occasional blog writer, am EVIL. It goes without saying: you don't make friends with evil. You fight evil. You shun and hate evil. In a culture ruled by political correctness, marches for peace, and tolerance for all, Republicans alone deserve nothing but scathing mockery, violent protest, and complete rejection. Because we, people like George W. and John McCain on down to little old me, are the devil incarnate.

It's cool to hate people like me. It's hip to mock us. Not that the mockeries are fair or even representative of us. I've never shot a single living thing, for fun or for food. I'm an artist. I listen to System of a Down and Evanescence and Three Days Grace. But that doesn't matter, because Republicans like me are ALL-- without exception-- gun-rack truck-drivin' redneck factory workers or rich white wanna-be-slave-owning industrialists. We're all selfish, arrogant, and stupid, and we ALL listen to country and western music. Right? As far as the left is concerned, these are the things that virtually define being a Republican. I'm a Republican, so do the math. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

That's the first thing that has been bugging me about the political world. After all, how do you discuss issues calmly with someone who is absolutely certain that you, your leaders, and everything you stand for is the earthly manifestation of pure, liquid evil?

But there's something else.

I, like pretty much every other semi-conservative Republican with a pulse, was excited about Sarah Palin's appointment as McCain's running mate. Up until then, I was not a huge McCain supporter. Palin I like though, for a variety of reasons. You get the point. When we expressed this excitement to one of our Democratic friends, she recoiled. This friend, who I will call Barbara, was completely disgusted with Palin. Why? "Well," she replied, "the whole beauty pageant thing..."

...

... what?

I'd not even heard about "the beauty pageant thing" at that point. I looked it up, worried, certain that Palin must have some horrid, nefarious past in which she'd cheated in the pageant, or been paid to judge falsely, or had broken the knee of another contestent with a tire iron. As it turns out, she was merely in the Ms. Alaska pageant. She came in second. That was enough for Barbara. To my wife I said, "as an attractive woman, does it offend you that apparently being attractive means you are stupid and incapable of leading?" She didn't need to answer. She did, of course, and her answer wouldn't surprise anyone.

Another friend of ours, who happens to be a Socialist-leaning Democrat (we'll call her Ruth), was equally repulsed when we brought up Sarah Palin at a recent gathering. Ruth believes Bush is the anti-christ (not entirely jokingly, either) but she was, at first, cautiously hopeful about Sarah Palin. Until her speech at the Democratic convention, that is. As she talked about her response to Palin's speech, Ruth repeatedly used the word "horrified". My mouth was agape. I'd seen the speech. Depending on your philosophy, I could imagine you disagreeing with Palin, but to be repeatedly "horrified"? I asked why. What policy or position did Ruth object to? Turns out it wasn't really any of her specific policies, it was the way she was so vicious and mean, the way she attacked the Democrats.

"You mean," (I didn't say) "She hurled plastic bags of infected urine at them and dropped sacks of dry cement on their buses from overpasses?" Oh wait, no, that was the Democrats. Not the leaders, of course, but I've noticed that those same leaders didn't verbally object in any way to the actions of their followers. Thus, we have to assume that that kind of attack is all right with both Ruth and Barack Obama. No, stating facts and critiques about one's opponant from the stage, with a smile and a confident tone of voice-- that's uncalled for and unforgivable.

Then, of course, there were the polar bears. There's always the polar bears. Apparently, Palin refused to sign some bill that would declare all the polar bears endangered. Ruth was absolutely beside herself about that. As far as she was concerned, Palin was intentionally trying to kill off the polar bears. I'm not exaggerating. She really believes that, with a passion. I tried, fleetingly, to discuss it with her, to offer a lucid argument, but she simply couldn't hear it. I could see it on her face. No argument mattered. Just the polar bears.

I went for a walk, completely flummuxed. I couldn't quite put my finger on what bugged me so much about talking to Ruth, or, for that matter, Barbara and the rest of the Democrat/liberals out there. I finally realized what it was, and it was a revelation to me. Here's what it is:

Republicans like me base our positions on logic. We base it on thinking through the facts, discussing them with people who both agree and disagree with us, listening to arguments on both sides, and coming to a defensible conclusion. Our Democratic friends do not seem to do that, and by extrapolation, I can only assume that this is not a typical characteristic of Democratic philosophies in general. Democrats don'tseem to think about issues-- they feel about them. For our Democratic friends, issues are, first and foremost, emotional. The feel-good response is the right one, even if it doesn't really work out in real life.

Further, anyone who disagrees with a Democrat or argues with them is assaulting their feelings, and therefore invalidating them. Anyone who contends with the "science" of global warming, therefore, hates the environment and are evil. Anyone who believes welfare might actually harm the poor who come to rely on it hates the poor and wants them all shipped off to an island somewhere. In short, to a liberal-minded person, if the argument is not emotional at it's heart, there can be no argument at all. It didn't even begin to occur to Ruth that Sarah Palin might have had good, logical reasons for not signing a bill that felt as good as one protecting polar bears. Despite whatever I said to logically argue Sarah Palin's possible perspective on it (like, for example, the fact that they said the same thing about the caribou, and we all know how well they fared, despite the predictions) Ruth was completely unable to hear a logical (non-emotional) argument. If the motivation isn't emotional, it isn't a motivation at all. Instead, Ruth had to invent a potential motivation for Sarah Palin based on emotion: hate. Sarah Palin hates polar bears. To me, it would be truly funny if Ruth didn't believe it so ardently. Sarah Palin hating polar bears is the only thing that makes sense to a person who bases their decisions solely on feelings.

Ugh. That's about it. Enough political vomit. The bottom line is I am so very tired of feeling afraid to admit I am a Republican, since it has become such conventional wisdom that Republicans are stupid, mean, hateful and backwards. I'm a people-pleaser; I want to be liked! But, thankfully, not enough to change my hard-thought convictions. I'll just go and vote, like I always do, without making a big thing about it, just like the vast majority of those who are like me.

And I am tired of not being able to have a healthy debate about issues because you cannot argue with someone's emotions. It just insults them, because deep down, they believe you are invalidating something central and very personal to who they are. Honestly, I have no problem with feelings. I am a sensitive, emotional guy, and I am passionate about my views, but moreso because I have thought them through so carefully. In fact, the more my worldviews are backed up by careful, daily scrutiny, the more impassioned I am about them, because I am increasingly confident in their rightness. Political decisions must be logical first.

But you can't say that to a liberal. Mostly because if you do, they'll know you are a Republican, and everyone knows Republicans are evil.

(sigh.)

Note to the Kirkwood Killer: a Qualified Retraction...

(Note: this is a follow-up to the previous post, "A Note to the Kirkwood City Council Killer". If you didn't read that, this won't make much sense. If you did read it, it's probably a good idea for you to read on.)

OK, so it's been a few days, now. The Kirkwood City Council Gun-wielding murderous madman has been the subject of lots of conversation and speculation in the local and national news media. I know quite a bit more now about who the guy was and what his ongoing complaints were. For one, I know his nickname was Cookie. I know I said I'd never remember his name, but a handle like "Cookie" -- especially for a construction worker -- is pretty memorable.

I also know that the Kirkwood city council had been an obsession of Cookie's for several years. I know that he used to run a construction business and parked his equipment on the street, resulting in over a hundred-fifty tickets. I know that he felt uniquely persecuted by those tickets, but apparently not persecuted enough to stop parking his construction equipment on the street. Strange, that, but I'll save that for another blog. I know that he felt it was his duty to make spittle-flying diatribes at any and all council meetings until the council determined that, if they wished to get anything done, they'd have to order him to stay quiet. I know that they considered banning him from the meetings altogether but that the mayor decided against it. I know that the city council forgave all the outstanding tickets-- several thousand dollars worth of fines-- in a conciliatory gesture. I know that, despite this gesture of goodwill, Cookie continued to pursue his legal right to make a vitriolic ruckus during council meetings. I know that his "freedom of speech" case was thrown out of court a few weeks ago. I know now that, bafflingly, his mother and brother apparently believe his vendetta was justified and rational. And maybe most important of all (at least according to the standards of our myopic culture) I now know that Cookie was black.


I didn't know that when I wrote the Note to the Kirkwood City Council Killer. It wouldn't have made any difference if I had. Apparently, though, the fact that Cookie was black changes the dynamics of the entire affair for lots of people. I don't understand that. Does morality change a little depending on a person's skin color? Does a crime become more heinous if the perpetrator is white and more justifiable if the perpetrator is black?

That's not a rhetorical question. I'm actually asking that, because the evidence is that loads of people believe that.

Yes, I know a lot more about Cookie now. But I want to put all of that aside for the moment. A good friend asked me if I really meant what I said about Cookie being a "forgettable lump of human debris"? She challenged me to consider that he, too, was a life worth considering. A life worth mourning along with the others. I thank her for asking that. In a less specific way, my wife has been asking me that kind of question for a long time.

Bleah.

I don't want to think about that. I really don't. And I think I know why. It's very simple. What Cookie did was so awful- so surprising and devastating and meaningless- that I want to be able to package it up into a neat, containable box of blame. If I can convince myself and everyone else that Cookie was a horrible, worthless monster, then the tragedy becomes manageable. Why? Because Cookie's dead. He can't spread his stupid, random, murderous insanity around anymore. The world is a safer place. It didn't make sense for a few minutes there, but thankfully the source of the senselessness was killed -- virtually by his own hand, how about that for poetic justice? -- so the world is, once again, a relatively safe place to raise my kids.

But balance demands a less simple answer. I don't want to face it, damn it! But things aren't quite that easy, are they?

I've had this mental picture of what a healthy soul looks like. It's like a ball suspended in space by four strings. Each string is anchored to the four elements of personality: emotion and intellect, belief and knowledge*. In the truly healthy individual, the soul is suspended equidistant between all four polarities. There is, in short, a perfect balance between reason and faith, hope and reality. When an individual exercises one aspect of their personality while neglecting the others, the result is an imbalance that will inevitably lead to error. For instance, the person who values knowledge over belief will forget how to have faith. They will land on atheism and feel all the more superior for having overcome the "irrationality of belief". They will become, in effect, too smart for their own good. On the other hand, the person who immerses in emotion while neglecting reason will find themselves hopelessly gullible, ruled by the vaguaries of their emotions. This person will adopt any belief system, no matter how arcane or preposterous, as long as it makes them feel meaningful and special.

The reason I mention this here is just to illustrate how hard balance is to maintain. When I allow myself to immerse into rage at Cookie and loll in the merciless delight of blame, I am ignoring the alternate fact, as my friend implied, that Cookie is also a casualty in the larger scheme of God's world. God loved Cookie just as much as He loves me. It wasn't true for me to say that no one was Cookie's advocate. God was. God loved Cookie. God doesn't approve of what Cookie did, but neither does He approve of me calling another of His kids a worthless speck of human debris.

Cookie was broken, yes. The human side of me wants to throw that which was broken away, forget about it, despise it. But the spiritual side of me needs to remember that God wants to fix what is broken. He wants to make it better even than it was to begin with. God loves the broken. In fact, I think it's undeniable that His heart is especially inclined towards them, probably because, being their Maker, He knows what they can be. He sees their desperate unhappiness and knows only that He made them for delighted joy, and He wants them to know it.

"But wait!" a part of me warns stridently, "Let's not get all mushy about what God may think of this idiot in the heavenly realm. Of course God loved him. God loved Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer, too, but they had to pay the earthly price for their crimes. Murderers don't get let out of jail just because they find God and get divine forgiveness. It's fine to remember that God loves everybody, but make sure you keep a grip on the human reality that we all have to live in."

And that's just it. Balance. Two worlds that have to fit together, not only out there, where the spiritual rubber meets the earthly road, but here in my own heart and mind and soul. It's hard. Really, really hard. Exhausting.

So to answer my friend's question: no, despite what I said earlier, I can't think that Cookie is a forgettable lump of human debris. I want to, but I can't let that overcome the delicate balance of grace (which in my heart is tenuous at the best of times). God loved Cookie and made him for better. God mourns Cookie's destruction along with the rest. I should, too, or at least try to. Cookie was broken, but not worthless.

I'm still glad he's dead. Not necessarily because he deserved it, but because he is no longer tormented by his brokenness, and no one else will die at the hand of that brokenness. I wish Cookie had been surrounded by people who loved him enough to steer him to balance (as my friend steered me). I wish he'd been loved enough by his mother and brother to be redirected toward healing. It could've happened, and we might have celebrated Cookie's re-emergence into the brotherhood of humanity. He could've been taught how to live. Instead, Cookie was encouraged and propelled to his doom by his own family, who even now seem to live in a black box of bitterness, apparently convinced that Cookie's final rampage of mad hate was justified.

In short, the horror of what cookie did is not simple to explain. Worse, it isn't simple to contain. The seeds of his brokenness are still rooted in his family. The brokenness that destroyed Cookie and his victims is still alive and well. God would see that brokenness healed, and I should make it my mission to pray and work to that end. I hope I remember. Left alone, in a vacuum of lovelessness and bitterness, that brokenness will inevitably result in more horrors. And not just in Kirkwood. Brokenness, by degrees, is universal. It's true all over the world. It's true in my own heart.

In human terms, that's not very reassuring. But in God terms, it's endlessly comforting. Because if God loves even the most broken, even the most dangerously cracked of us, and wants to redeem and delight them with His love, well then His love is bigger and more powerful than I can comprehend. If God's love is that fierce for the most broken, then he loves me that way, too, no matter how cracked and broken I often am.

You know, if I connected with God's undying and fierce love for me more often, I suspect I'd have an easier time remembering His love for guys like Cookie. If I sometimes doubt that God really and completely loves me (and I do), of course I'll find it nearly impossible to extend that love to the worst of villains.

Balance is so damn much work, but I guess that's the work of being human. I owe it to God, and I owe it to myself.

And yeah, I even owe it to Cookie.



* No, intellect and knowledge are not the same thing, and nor are emotion and belief. Intellect is the garden knowledge grows in. Emotion is the seedbed for belief. Developing intellect leads to an increase in knowledge, just as immersion into emotion results in a plethora of beliefs. One may be dependent on the other, but they are distinct and exert their own unique gravity on the soul.

A Note to the Kirkwood City Council Killer

I did the math already. I figured out exactly where my family and I were when the shootings at the Kirkwood council meeting took place tonight. My wife and I had just gotten back from a walk around our section of Kirkwood, about a mile from downtown.

My Sister-in-law had fed our two children- our five-year-old boy and two-year-old Girl- and we chased them around for a few minutes and put them to bed. I finished preparing the potatoes for our dinner while the kids chattered and giggled in their room, hyper from playing with their aunt. My wife and I had a relaxed dinner in the living room and chatted about getting the sagging foundation of our house fixed and the funny things our kids did today. When we were done, I scolded the kids (trying not to smile at the mess they'd made of the bed they share) and told them to quiet down and go to sleep.

My wife commented that the sirens seemed unusual.

Barely a mile away, some guy whose name I didn't yet know had already shot and killed a policemen outside the City Hall. As I tucked my kids in, he was stalking crazily around the council chamber, in full sight of thirty residents, possibly even some kids, possibly even kids not unlike my own, firing at anyone who got in his way and shouting "shoot the mayor!" Apparently he succeeded. According to what we've gleaned from the local news, which is even now still flashing and warbling away in the next room, this random guy killed five people. I am assuming one of them was the mayor. I met the mayor once or twice. He seemed really cool. I liked him. And I don't like people easily. He reminded me of both of my grandfathers. He shook my hand as my wife and I went to vote this past presidential election. And now he's dead, along with four other people.

Apparently, the gunman shot at one of the attendees who was throwing chairs at him to bring him down. Damn, that takes guts. I hope the guy that did that isn't one of the dead ones too, but he probably is. That guy I'd liked to have met. Throwing chairs at a guy who's shooting people to kill is what a man does.

Shooting people because you have a crazy, whacked-out grudge isn't what a man does. That's why I am writing this note to you, that guy with the gun whose name I didn't know a few minutes ago. You know what? Even now I can't remember your name. Why should I? You're dead too, now. But if what the Bible says is true- and I believe it is- then you are out there somewhere, and maybe somehow you will be able to read this. I hope you do, because I want you to understand what I said. I'll repeat it:

Getting a gun and killing people over some stupid grudge isn't what a man does. That's the choice of a weakling, a mongrel, a human cur. Pointing a gun at an unsuspecting person and pulling the trigger doesn't take courage. It's the most cowardly thing a person can do. It's weak. It's a sign of a mind so cracked, either by defect or by will, that it has departed from the brotherhood of humanity.

What you need to know, you whose name I cannot nor will remember, is that those you left alive will not look at your actions and wonder if you were justified. No one will say, "Wow, he was really upset! I wonder what awful thing they did to him to push him so far? I wonder why they deserved to be killed?" No. Nobody is thinking that. No one is your advocate. No one is on your side. No one is thinking what you did was brave. No one sympathizes for you. There will be no plaques to honor you or your silly, stupid, pathetic cause.

In fact, in a way, you are worse than a terrorist. At least a terrorist can claim to kill for a noble cause, even if it is insane and twisted. Why did you kill? We know enough of the why. I heard the word "zoning". I heard that you used to have a construction company here in Kirkwood. I hear that you felt you'd been unfairly treated somehow. I probably don't need to tell you what I am about to say, do I? You probably know it by now. After all, you're dead, and I can only guess that being dead gives one a whole new perspective on these kind of things. But I am going to tell you anyway. Here it is:

No one believes zoning is a good reason to go on a killing rampage in front of innocent people and children. No one.

The world will forget about you, if it hasn't already. But while you are still on the world's mind, you should know that we are not pondering the validity of your complaint. We are just thinking you were a weak, sick, misguided coward who knew, like any monkey does, how to point something and pull a trigger. The world is grieving for those you killed, not you. We are wondering how best to honor the victims. The innocent people who saw you will wish forever that you had not been born. The children who might have seen your stupid, pathetic rampage will be broken, in some small part of their little hearts and minds, until they grow old and die. We will all take a tiny, insignificant bit of solace in knowing that at least you, too, are dead. And we will all wonder, for a short time, how a human being can allow themselves to shrink and shrivel into such a tiny, worthless little speck of cowardly bitterness? How can a person allow themselves to believe that killing the unsuspecting over a stupid grievance is justified? How can a person fool themselves into thinking a gun equals strength?

I'm glad you're dead, you whose name I won't remember. Not because I hate you. You don't deserve an emotion that strong. You were a bug. A bug with a gun. I'm glad you're dead because you were too stupid to know how to live. You were too weak to know how to be a man. You were a cur with rabies. I only wish the first policeman had seen the foam on your lips before you got close enough to do your wimpy, weakling work.

And the rest of you who think pointing a gun means strength, are you watching? Are you seeing how we'll honor the dead, rather than consider what wrong they did to their killer? Are you seeing how we will soon forget the killer but revere his victims? Are you taking notes? I hope you will remember that the person who pulls the trigger on the unsuspecting is known for what he is: a weakling and a coward; a sick, tiny, forgettable lump of human debris. I hope you are watching. It isn't too late to learn how to live. It isn't too late to abandon weakness and learn, at least a little bit, how to be strong.

It is too late for you, though, the gunman lying dead a mile or so away, the guy whose name I already can't remember. You could've learned how to be strong, but you refused.

The guy who threw the chairs at you was strong. I hope he lived. I want to see what courage looks like. After all, I've seen enough of what abject weakness looks like.

(Update: the mayor was not, in fact, killed. He was wounded, but I do not know how badly. The guy who threw chairs at the gun-wielding weakling also survived. Five others were not so fortunate. The gun-wielding weakling is dead, too, but he hardly counts.)