Barefoot in the street, running on asphalt is like running on a cheese grater. The feet become damaged quickly. Fortunately, the inflammation that will make running (or walking) so difficult tomorrow, were there to be one, has not happened yet, so the boy finds himself with his full faculties. After a short time, under a bright street light, against a quiet street, very late at night, the boy stops, breathless, to see. The roar again. Surprisingly close. And then he sees them, in the direction of his house. Flashing, feline eyes. Maybe 100 yards away, just beyond the last street light. They squint and move in his direction. He stands frozen just a moment, then tries to run. But something has a hold of his feet. He looks down to see a barbed, black tentacle, like the root of an alien tree, wrapped around his ankle and lower leg. An involuntary noise, and he pulls his foot, breaking the tentacle. But then he sees them: the street is lined with them, undulating and growing rapidly toward his legs. Veering into the street around him he runs the other direction from his house.
It happens just before he stumbles into a mass of tentacles, in the middle of the street, he can hear the labored breathing of an animal, coming up behind him. As he positions his body to face up at the coming threat, a program also given to him by his animal ancestors, he suddenly notices that the street has come alive. There are no houses, he's surrounded to the waist by a tangled, moving, soundless mass of tentacles. The trees lining the street, visible in the street lights, bow toward him, bringing the openness in close, trapping him. He sits in the dark between two streetlights but then he sees it. Matted, black fur. About the size of a very large man, running on two legs. Yellow, cat-like eyes. Seeing that it has met with its quarry, and the battle is over, it bounds to a stop on its hind legs, then settles onto all fours. While he can't make out its specific features with the dim light, those eyes are clearly visible. It smells of all outdoors, many such pursuits. Its presence indicates the scary badlands beyond the grocery stores where one must capture and kill what it wants to eat. Kill to survive. The primal growling returns while shiny saliva cascades from its shortened, cat-like lower jaw.
The boy's frozen fear gives way, and he cries, weeping, sobbing openly, heaving in great staccato breaths and muttering incomprehensibly. His arms now held with his legs, only his head is free. There is a moment, we are told by those whom have experienced it, when we know we are going to die, that the terror we feel, or the pain, will have an end, and we stop fighting for our lives. A fly, hopelessly tangled in a spider web, must feel it. A soldier, wounded one too many times for hope has to feel it, too. An antelope, running and dodging with all its might agains the killing-machine cheetah, must feel it when the cat finally sinks its teeth into its trachea, because they go limp well before they would be dead. But not the boy. For he knows. This creature that has come for him, where the world has collaborated in its defense, was only here for one thing.
Suddenly able to speak, but still sobbing, the boy cries, "I'm sorry! Okay? I'm sorry!" Now with slobber and the hardest tears, "I am sorry!"
And the tentacles, holding him fast, loosened their grip. The trees twisted back to a more natural position. The boy fell back onto his back, while the creature, straightening up, bounded away the direction it had come, to wild lands unknown. It had been so simple.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
A Short-Story Cautionary Tale, Part 1
This starts the same way they all do. It's a preteen boy in his bed, curtains drawn, shadowed shapes of trees making arachnoid outlines in the curtain fabric. All is quiet. There are clues of the activities taking place before, a tented book on a nearby desk chair awaiting the next chapter reading tomorrow night, a short, half-drunk glass of water on the small, glass-topped table. The well-trampled carpet gives the only sense of texture to the room, with footprints appearing like moon craters in the dim, directional light. Downstairs somewhere, you can hear the murmured voices of adults, one with the timbre and volume of a man, the other, the thin, pitched voice of a woman. The words cannot be understood. To us, the observer, there is nothing amiss. But abruptly, the voices go silent. The rising and falling of the covers and the boy's body beneath them pay no heed. But there is no mistaking the creaking of footfalls on the stairs. There is no mistaking the thick, suffocating silence that otherwise settles into the air in the house. The boy, sleeping peacefully, doesn't notice any of this, alone with his dreams.
It is then, when the silence has taken on the heat of a summer day in its oppression, that the door, so tacit just a moment ago, explodes into the room, its pieces knocking knick-knacks off the shelves and desk, the deafening roar of a suddenly assaulted wooden object rapidly deconstructing. What person could sleep with such noise? With the humming in his ears, the panic in his head and his heart suddenly pounding in his chest, the way his ancestors would do when threatened when threatened and all the animals do now, the boy bolted upward from his sleep, suddenly and violently wide awake, the only remnants of sleep the eyelids uncooperative against opening. In the last rain of wood shards striking the hard surfaces, silence again falls, as he is paralyzed in the bed. Were this a movie, this is when the subwoofer would shake us into the foreboding, while our jaded nature assures us that we've seen this before, many times, as movies have tried to scare us. But nothing else happens.
The boy's paralysis suddenly loosens its grip, though the physiological reaction is maintained. Scared as he was to move, more afraid was he to sit still, because we are all taught by movies the same way, even characters in stories. Moving quickly and silently, he steps out of bed, feeling his heartbeat throughout his head and his chest seized against breathing, a burning sensation in his ears. Expecting a form to emerge from the darkness, he freezes again, but nothing comes. His instinct is to call for his parents, but he is afraid to do it, and paralyzed against making his presence known. The animals in his ancestry were brought up this way, the primal self-preservation they have shown is why we persist now. For this boy to persist, though, he must overcome his instinct, the way his body has betrayed him against action and the youthful way hiding always seems best during scary times. The darkness suddenly thicker than the silence, the dim light once entering in through the window extinguished somehow. Nothing moves nor makes any sound. So the boy feels his way to the light switch by the door. That's when the guttural noise, like the creaking of wood against asphalt, crescendoes out of the darkness, from the direction of the corner opposite his door. This refocusing of his attention causes him to forget where he is in the room, and, suddenly dizzy with fear, he falls to the floor. Desperation sets in now. This bomb in his chest, feeling close to the point of exploding, compels him to do what his body was preparing for anyway--run. As he hits the wall, a picture frame falls right before him, freeing him from the feeling of being in infinite space. Now he knows--he's three feet to the right of the now-vacant doorway. Tears jump to his eyes as he finds it, not bothering with the light switch, he fumbles through the door, half walking, half crawling, and down the stairs. Darkness persists at the bottom of the stairs but the door to the outside is there, 90 degrees to his left. There is no sign of a living soul in the darkness. The TV that should be on keeps its location a secret. Finally, the fear lets its grip on his throat slack and he manages to yell, "HELP!" before stumbling toward the outside door, unlocking it and hurling himself outside into a heap on the concrete porch.
Was there danger? His eye suddenly burns, and he feels it with a hand. His hand, in the dim light of streetlights is wet and shiny black. Blood. Something terrible has happened. Then, from inside the door, a primal roar, something beyond human, something large. Without turning to look he runs. Down the stairs of the front stoop. Into the street. Turning to his right, he runs down the street, his liberated vocal anatomy shrieking, hoping to find its way to competent, sympathetic help. But he can only run, so that's what he does.
It is then, when the silence has taken on the heat of a summer day in its oppression, that the door, so tacit just a moment ago, explodes into the room, its pieces knocking knick-knacks off the shelves and desk, the deafening roar of a suddenly assaulted wooden object rapidly deconstructing. What person could sleep with such noise? With the humming in his ears, the panic in his head and his heart suddenly pounding in his chest, the way his ancestors would do when threatened when threatened and all the animals do now, the boy bolted upward from his sleep, suddenly and violently wide awake, the only remnants of sleep the eyelids uncooperative against opening. In the last rain of wood shards striking the hard surfaces, silence again falls, as he is paralyzed in the bed. Were this a movie, this is when the subwoofer would shake us into the foreboding, while our jaded nature assures us that we've seen this before, many times, as movies have tried to scare us. But nothing else happens.
The boy's paralysis suddenly loosens its grip, though the physiological reaction is maintained. Scared as he was to move, more afraid was he to sit still, because we are all taught by movies the same way, even characters in stories. Moving quickly and silently, he steps out of bed, feeling his heartbeat throughout his head and his chest seized against breathing, a burning sensation in his ears. Expecting a form to emerge from the darkness, he freezes again, but nothing comes. His instinct is to call for his parents, but he is afraid to do it, and paralyzed against making his presence known. The animals in his ancestry were brought up this way, the primal self-preservation they have shown is why we persist now. For this boy to persist, though, he must overcome his instinct, the way his body has betrayed him against action and the youthful way hiding always seems best during scary times. The darkness suddenly thicker than the silence, the dim light once entering in through the window extinguished somehow. Nothing moves nor makes any sound. So the boy feels his way to the light switch by the door. That's when the guttural noise, like the creaking of wood against asphalt, crescendoes out of the darkness, from the direction of the corner opposite his door. This refocusing of his attention causes him to forget where he is in the room, and, suddenly dizzy with fear, he falls to the floor. Desperation sets in now. This bomb in his chest, feeling close to the point of exploding, compels him to do what his body was preparing for anyway--run. As he hits the wall, a picture frame falls right before him, freeing him from the feeling of being in infinite space. Now he knows--he's three feet to the right of the now-vacant doorway. Tears jump to his eyes as he finds it, not bothering with the light switch, he fumbles through the door, half walking, half crawling, and down the stairs. Darkness persists at the bottom of the stairs but the door to the outside is there, 90 degrees to his left. There is no sign of a living soul in the darkness. The TV that should be on keeps its location a secret. Finally, the fear lets its grip on his throat slack and he manages to yell, "HELP!" before stumbling toward the outside door, unlocking it and hurling himself outside into a heap on the concrete porch.
Was there danger? His eye suddenly burns, and he feels it with a hand. His hand, in the dim light of streetlights is wet and shiny black. Blood. Something terrible has happened. Then, from inside the door, a primal roar, something beyond human, something large. Without turning to look he runs. Down the stairs of the front stoop. Into the street. Turning to his right, he runs down the street, his liberated vocal anatomy shrieking, hoping to find its way to competent, sympathetic help. But he can only run, so that's what he does.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
How To Get Out of Our Current Political Stalemate
In the style of Rocky and Bullwinkle, "or...The Case for a Third Party."
Something dawned on me today. I read lots of political writing, which puts me in a comfortable spot in my own small, narrow world. I read blogs and news that generally comes from the left or center, some straying ever-so-slightly to the right, but never beyond that. (Sometimes I read very right-wing stuff just for the righteous indignation.) And that's where the story begins--I crashed headlong into a right-winger, my roommate. I've always viewed abortion (I know, "anything but that;" but there's a point) as the issue of other people, as in, I never would do it in conscience, but if there are children unwanted by the world, maybe they're better off not in the world and I never have to think about what, exactly, that means. I read Steven Levitt's Freakonomics, which tells that there's a strong correlation between the decades-long dropping crime rates and the number of disaffected kids not here due to abortion, with a very nice natural experiment showing the opposite situation (when a ban on abortions was imposed after years of its being legal), where the coming of age of those born in the no-abortions era showed an increase in many negative social factors, such as psychiatric services, crime in general, and arrests. To me, it was cut-and-dried--pragmatically, abortions have made life safer for the rest of us and, as a teacher, I've had my fill of disaffected kids because I know what an uphill battle for happiness and prosperity they face. I didn't participate in it, I didn't care what anyone else did and nobody else should, either.
My roommate is a deeply Christian woman, and she has a different attitude about it. She once worked in a "crisis pregnancy center," a place derided by left-wing and pro-choice advocates as a place where teenagers are bullied into not having abortions, as being talked out of an abortion is the only reason these putative crisis centers exist (they don't offer any other services). My view had been that they violate the civil rights of pro-choice persons and are somewhat deceptive in advertising. But that's when the debate I foolishly charged headlong into took a turn. I had assumed that we were talking about issues of pragmatism. We were not. My roommate looked close to tears when she talked about the deaths of "all those babies." She asked how I would feel if someone murdered my daughter, such as her mother, who would have the right to do so in this situation if it only happened 8 years ago instead of today. In other words, I had underestimated the nature of "emotionally charged." It's not that reasonable people don't disagree, they do, but your stance on the nature of life matters to it quite a bit and my unemotional nature simply makes it hard for me to see the other side's view, or, at least, it did until this.
This hasn't changed my stance, but that's not the point. Here's the point: social issues have allowed conservatives to hijack reasonable people into voting against their own self-interests. There are three prongs to this point: 1) people who are not wealthy, or have used the social safety nets, would reasonably be voting against their own self-interests to vote conservative but they do so anyways, 2) plutocrats are not people, at least in the way we've come to understand them, and 3) people are required by the two-party system to pick a side and its black-and-white approach, forcing them into compromising some important principles in favor of strictly religious ones.
I'm a teacher. It's a government institution and a socialist one at that--it is a service entirely paid for by the government from tax dollars. I have colleagues who are vehemently, caustically conservative. Wouldn't a person who is caustically conservative and a teacher be forced by their conscience to work in the private sector, or at least at a for-profit private school, or a charter school (conservatives apparently love the charter schools movement though it is a mostly bipartisan issue)? Well, in the interest of non-hypocrisy, yes, they do. But they haven't. These are social conservatives. They don't like that their government paychecks are being taxed for social programs (!), even though they ARE a social program. How did that happen? Add to that the fact that teachers, while compensated reasonably, are not compensated nearly like they're educated, and you've got some lower-middle class people who are conservatives. Conservatism worships Supply-Side Jesus, a caricature of the real Jesus, the one who gave away his worldly possessions and spent his life in service to the poor and disaffected. Modern conservatism holds that by forming a society friendly to rich people, rich people in turn will take care of everyone. A teacher can't possibly believe that without seriously pondering his or her place in the world. Al Franken has stated that, in effect, a single Biblical passage, the Parable of the Talents, gives Supply-Side Jesus worshippers the rhetorical firepower to justify that merciless pursuit of money. Think of all of the evangelical truck drivers, teachers, cops, secretaries, construction workers, factory workers, etc. who want to do away with all of the government programs they either depend on or draw a paycheck from, and it's stunning how hypocritical that seems. At the same time, I don't believe that they are knowingly being hypocritical; they've been given a choice between that and the Church of Liberalism, painted as a dirty word by conservatives. So, you accept social conservatism (abortions and gay rights and such), you accept the whole pie of conservatism since there is nothing else.
I am not wealthy. Most of us are not. But when we vote for a politician (at least on the national level, but usually locally, too) we are not voting for people like us. All current members of Congress are wealthy Americans, the 1%. The many lobbies that swarm around Washington and pay to keep them power brokers have the same goal of making the American experience better for the elite, so they pay Congress to make it so. This goes nearly equally for Democrats and Republicans. Democrats, from that perspective, have to be ideologues, because by voting with Democrats, they are voting against their own interests, too. It's not nearly the stretch for Republicans, since they're voting with their own type, the wealthy elite. This is the absolute definition of a plutocracy, rule by the wealthy. So any legislative action that benefits wealthy people must be seen as disingenuous at least, open corruption at worst. Isn't conservatism by the middle- and lower-middle class masses, then, an extension of that disingenuousness? It is, but they don't have a choice. Voting against abortion rights is more important to them than economic issues, and conservatism is the only choice they have in that regard. Viewed through that lens, conservatism is a very nice racket.
Even among liberals, abortions are distasteful, are they not? So the same can be said for liberalism: there are issues that some liberals side with Democrats on, but issues they may not. Liberals age given no more choice in the matter than conservatives--they have to pick a party from the two we have. In my state, Arizona, "independent," which is what my own registration is, means "not able to participate meaningfully in the political process." I can't vote in primaries and if I vote strictly Democrat on any ticket my candidate will lose.
So, in summary, a third (or fourth, or fifth) party is needed to alleviate this problem. Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution in the mid-90s did more to alienate people from the political process than any single event in history I know of, because it forced people of conscience to side with Republicans, perhaps against their own self-interests, and set in stone the plutocracy that we currently enjoy in Washington and most states. Abortion, gay rights and issues like it have allowed cunning conservatives to make us all cheerleaders of the plutocracy.
UPDATE: Paul Krugman said the exact same thing, but 1) knows more than I do by far and 2) has studies that back up his/my claims. My work is done here: (meant both ways)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/opinion/krugman-moochers-against-welfare.html?ref=paulkrugman
Something dawned on me today. I read lots of political writing, which puts me in a comfortable spot in my own small, narrow world. I read blogs and news that generally comes from the left or center, some straying ever-so-slightly to the right, but never beyond that. (Sometimes I read very right-wing stuff just for the righteous indignation.) And that's where the story begins--I crashed headlong into a right-winger, my roommate. I've always viewed abortion (I know, "anything but that;" but there's a point) as the issue of other people, as in, I never would do it in conscience, but if there are children unwanted by the world, maybe they're better off not in the world and I never have to think about what, exactly, that means. I read Steven Levitt's Freakonomics, which tells that there's a strong correlation between the decades-long dropping crime rates and the number of disaffected kids not here due to abortion, with a very nice natural experiment showing the opposite situation (when a ban on abortions was imposed after years of its being legal), where the coming of age of those born in the no-abortions era showed an increase in many negative social factors, such as psychiatric services, crime in general, and arrests. To me, it was cut-and-dried--pragmatically, abortions have made life safer for the rest of us and, as a teacher, I've had my fill of disaffected kids because I know what an uphill battle for happiness and prosperity they face. I didn't participate in it, I didn't care what anyone else did and nobody else should, either.
My roommate is a deeply Christian woman, and she has a different attitude about it. She once worked in a "crisis pregnancy center," a place derided by left-wing and pro-choice advocates as a place where teenagers are bullied into not having abortions, as being talked out of an abortion is the only reason these putative crisis centers exist (they don't offer any other services). My view had been that they violate the civil rights of pro-choice persons and are somewhat deceptive in advertising. But that's when the debate I foolishly charged headlong into took a turn. I had assumed that we were talking about issues of pragmatism. We were not. My roommate looked close to tears when she talked about the deaths of "all those babies." She asked how I would feel if someone murdered my daughter, such as her mother, who would have the right to do so in this situation if it only happened 8 years ago instead of today. In other words, I had underestimated the nature of "emotionally charged." It's not that reasonable people don't disagree, they do, but your stance on the nature of life matters to it quite a bit and my unemotional nature simply makes it hard for me to see the other side's view, or, at least, it did until this.
This hasn't changed my stance, but that's not the point. Here's the point: social issues have allowed conservatives to hijack reasonable people into voting against their own self-interests. There are three prongs to this point: 1) people who are not wealthy, or have used the social safety nets, would reasonably be voting against their own self-interests to vote conservative but they do so anyways, 2) plutocrats are not people, at least in the way we've come to understand them, and 3) people are required by the two-party system to pick a side and its black-and-white approach, forcing them into compromising some important principles in favor of strictly religious ones.
I'm a teacher. It's a government institution and a socialist one at that--it is a service entirely paid for by the government from tax dollars. I have colleagues who are vehemently, caustically conservative. Wouldn't a person who is caustically conservative and a teacher be forced by their conscience to work in the private sector, or at least at a for-profit private school, or a charter school (conservatives apparently love the charter schools movement though it is a mostly bipartisan issue)? Well, in the interest of non-hypocrisy, yes, they do. But they haven't. These are social conservatives. They don't like that their government paychecks are being taxed for social programs (!), even though they ARE a social program. How did that happen? Add to that the fact that teachers, while compensated reasonably, are not compensated nearly like they're educated, and you've got some lower-middle class people who are conservatives. Conservatism worships Supply-Side Jesus, a caricature of the real Jesus, the one who gave away his worldly possessions and spent his life in service to the poor and disaffected. Modern conservatism holds that by forming a society friendly to rich people, rich people in turn will take care of everyone. A teacher can't possibly believe that without seriously pondering his or her place in the world. Al Franken has stated that, in effect, a single Biblical passage, the Parable of the Talents, gives Supply-Side Jesus worshippers the rhetorical firepower to justify that merciless pursuit of money. Think of all of the evangelical truck drivers, teachers, cops, secretaries, construction workers, factory workers, etc. who want to do away with all of the government programs they either depend on or draw a paycheck from, and it's stunning how hypocritical that seems. At the same time, I don't believe that they are knowingly being hypocritical; they've been given a choice between that and the Church of Liberalism, painted as a dirty word by conservatives. So, you accept social conservatism (abortions and gay rights and such), you accept the whole pie of conservatism since there is nothing else.
I am not wealthy. Most of us are not. But when we vote for a politician (at least on the national level, but usually locally, too) we are not voting for people like us. All current members of Congress are wealthy Americans, the 1%. The many lobbies that swarm around Washington and pay to keep them power brokers have the same goal of making the American experience better for the elite, so they pay Congress to make it so. This goes nearly equally for Democrats and Republicans. Democrats, from that perspective, have to be ideologues, because by voting with Democrats, they are voting against their own interests, too. It's not nearly the stretch for Republicans, since they're voting with their own type, the wealthy elite. This is the absolute definition of a plutocracy, rule by the wealthy. So any legislative action that benefits wealthy people must be seen as disingenuous at least, open corruption at worst. Isn't conservatism by the middle- and lower-middle class masses, then, an extension of that disingenuousness? It is, but they don't have a choice. Voting against abortion rights is more important to them than economic issues, and conservatism is the only choice they have in that regard. Viewed through that lens, conservatism is a very nice racket.
Even among liberals, abortions are distasteful, are they not? So the same can be said for liberalism: there are issues that some liberals side with Democrats on, but issues they may not. Liberals age given no more choice in the matter than conservatives--they have to pick a party from the two we have. In my state, Arizona, "independent," which is what my own registration is, means "not able to participate meaningfully in the political process." I can't vote in primaries and if I vote strictly Democrat on any ticket my candidate will lose.
So, in summary, a third (or fourth, or fifth) party is needed to alleviate this problem. Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution in the mid-90s did more to alienate people from the political process than any single event in history I know of, because it forced people of conscience to side with Republicans, perhaps against their own self-interests, and set in stone the plutocracy that we currently enjoy in Washington and most states. Abortion, gay rights and issues like it have allowed cunning conservatives to make us all cheerleaders of the plutocracy.
UPDATE: Paul Krugman said the exact same thing, but 1) knows more than I do by far and 2) has studies that back up his/my claims. My work is done here: (meant both ways)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/opinion/krugman-moochers-against-welfare.html?ref=paulkrugman
The Case for Centrism
So, I got to thinking about all of the political upheaval we've experienced in these difficult economic times over the last four years or so. I was just watching an interview with Tom Brokaw on The Daily Show where Brokaw argued that the paralyzing polarization in Washington is the worst he's ever seen in the country's recallable history. I agree, and as someone who leans mildly left, it's easy to want to float ever further away philosophically from the Michelle Bachmanns of the world. It's obvious that everyone only looks for evidence that confirms their already spun opinions, and I'm sure I'm guilty of that, too. However, as I've said before on here, the Political Center is not the average of the two sides, but a different viewpoint, as Paul Krugman from the New York Times has also stated (his academic accomplishments being of somewhat greater weight than mine). So, I think it's helpful to go ahead and outline that argument.
For starters, the extreme right wing wants the government shrunk down so it's manageable. So, allowing that looking at the extremes of an issue makes it a little bit easier to see the nuances (not militias-to-Nazis extremes), let's do a little thought experiment: what would we lose if the government were shrunken down to Grover's desired level as that of a puppy in a burlap sack? Well, for starters, there's public infrastructure, such as streets, bridges, stoplights, and the like. There's no way to make a profit off of such things, so it's unlikely that privatization of these public works would bear any fruit. Then there's the Nation Park system, as well as the local city and county parks, which make our lives just a bit nicer, with the local hiking and biking. Not to mention the local neighborhood parks managed by the cities. Would you want to pay an entry fee? I wouldn't, either. There are many other such examples. It stands to reason, then, unless you want to live in a place that completely lacks these things (where the lands that contain them would be sold for profit, probably to build awesome houses that you can't afford), that SOME government is necessary. Now it's a simple question of how much.
I think the military may have been overused in the last 10 years, but that's my lefty way of thinking. It's hard to say "Get rid of the military," so let's call that a necessary, if very expensive, government agency (righties would agree, especially the hawks). So, that's something government has to do. The social safety nets are important to most Americans, right or left. In other countries, the social safety nets are much larger and catch a lot more people. I'm for moderation here, as long as it's fair to everyone who pays in.
Look at the other extreme: tax rates exceeding 50%, health care paid for by the State, free education all the way to college, a nearly-flat economic distribution? Sound miserable? It is! Actually, it's a great way to live where that system works. While such a thing is nice, with our current political distribution, it's unlikely to fly here. But the claims of evil socialism by the more hysterical branches of the right wing are unfounded in the world; socialism is only a bad word here.
So, with this thought experiment, what have we learned? It seems likely that we're going to be happiest somewhere in the middle of the scale that has pure capitalist plutocracy at one end and pure socialist society at the other. Small government isn't the answer, but neither is bigger (for the sake of argument).
It's plain to see that cuts are not the answer. So, if government at all is necessary, it might be better to be less black-and-white, or hysterically hypochondriac about our government in its current form, but instead, to focus on ways to make life better for all Americans, and, especially, more equal.
For starters, the extreme right wing wants the government shrunk down so it's manageable. So, allowing that looking at the extremes of an issue makes it a little bit easier to see the nuances (not militias-to-Nazis extremes), let's do a little thought experiment: what would we lose if the government were shrunken down to Grover's desired level as that of a puppy in a burlap sack? Well, for starters, there's public infrastructure, such as streets, bridges, stoplights, and the like. There's no way to make a profit off of such things, so it's unlikely that privatization of these public works would bear any fruit. Then there's the Nation Park system, as well as the local city and county parks, which make our lives just a bit nicer, with the local hiking and biking. Not to mention the local neighborhood parks managed by the cities. Would you want to pay an entry fee? I wouldn't, either. There are many other such examples. It stands to reason, then, unless you want to live in a place that completely lacks these things (where the lands that contain them would be sold for profit, probably to build awesome houses that you can't afford), that SOME government is necessary. Now it's a simple question of how much.
I think the military may have been overused in the last 10 years, but that's my lefty way of thinking. It's hard to say "Get rid of the military," so let's call that a necessary, if very expensive, government agency (righties would agree, especially the hawks). So, that's something government has to do. The social safety nets are important to most Americans, right or left. In other countries, the social safety nets are much larger and catch a lot more people. I'm for moderation here, as long as it's fair to everyone who pays in.
Look at the other extreme: tax rates exceeding 50%, health care paid for by the State, free education all the way to college, a nearly-flat economic distribution? Sound miserable? It is! Actually, it's a great way to live where that system works. While such a thing is nice, with our current political distribution, it's unlikely to fly here. But the claims of evil socialism by the more hysterical branches of the right wing are unfounded in the world; socialism is only a bad word here.
So, with this thought experiment, what have we learned? It seems likely that we're going to be happiest somewhere in the middle of the scale that has pure capitalist plutocracy at one end and pure socialist society at the other. Small government isn't the answer, but neither is bigger (for the sake of argument).
It's plain to see that cuts are not the answer. So, if government at all is necessary, it might be better to be less black-and-white, or hysterically hypochondriac about our government in its current form, but instead, to focus on ways to make life better for all Americans, and, especially, more equal.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
The "Reasonable Risk" Hypothesis
I've got two points to make today.
The first point: there are a mind-blowing many types of people in the world, of course, but for illustration purposes I'm going to pretend there are only two: procrastinators and ex-Marines. I've noticed that those people who always get up at the crack of dawn and their lawns are mowed before I stir are mostly ex-military, where they apparently teach this behavior as a skill. (This, of course, is my own observation and not fact, and I have obviously never served in the military.) Procrastinators have a tendency to wait until the last minute, stating the obvious, and therefore try to crunch more productivity in less time. In doing so, Procrastinators often don't leave enough time for the work, and often have to cut corners. Yes, I know this is superhyperovergeneralization. But the point is, when we do not leave adequate time to prepare, we are often not adequately prepared. The Ex-Marine type, on the other hand, is prepared in a way that most of us find a little distasteful, as if they're rubbing in the fact that they're productive morning people, that they get to eat breakfast seated at a table, finish the day's work with time to lounge around in the evening with cup of coffee and watch the sunset. The Ex-Marine is too much of a good thing for most of us. Good for him (or her), but they sort of point out the self-imposed difficulties of our lives.
The second point is that we sometimes will fear and work toward the mitigation of some risks when they affect us personally, even though they're invisible and theoretical. I remember when, two years ago at age 35, my doctor told me my cholesterol was too high. To most people, this would mean that a heart attack is imminent, but it doesn't mean that at all. In fact, what it means is there is a slightly higher probability that I might have a heart attack than another white thirty-something male that has LDLs that are lower. In either case, it might or might not happen. So what did I do? Started antihyperlipidemics and exercise. I found that, after a year, I did better, but was still above the standard for hyperlipidemia, so my dose was raised. In other words, on the chance that something bad might happen I've rearranged my whole life and made massive lifestyle changes, when it really will, even if successful, only postpone my death, not prevent it. How many times do we make such changes? Many of us (decreasing in number all the time, of course) will never make it to retirement, yet, as is prudent, we put money away as though we'll live to be 100 years old. We put money away for our kids' education even though they might get a scholarship or they might decide to be high school custodians (not that there's anything wrong with that, they just won't need that expensive college education.) People save for all sorts of scenarios, besides just college, such as owning a home. We build houses to be hurricane-resistant or purchase flood insurance, even though these calamities may never come to pass. We might horde gold in case money collapses, even around the discussion of dollar solvency. Some of the more conspiratorial among us stockpile weapons for a future battle with a docile government. There's sunscreen, burglar alarms, water purification, and many others. The point is, we're a species that is willing to mobilize on future risk (only risk and not certainty) when it affects us in certain, personal ways.
So, let's take a logical leap that synthesizes these two points into something useful. Let's say there's a measurable, set amount of oil on Earth (this is actually true, though nobody claims knowledge of what that exact amount is). I'm going to pour a quart of it into a barrel and light it on fire. Doesn't that mean that there is now the amount of oil on Earth minus one quart? Okay, based on that, as long as people are using oil (also a demonstrable fact) there will continually be less of it until there is none. This follows logically. Drilling for more in the Americas or in the ANWR will not change that fact, only postpone it. Look at global climate change. If human-caused carbon dioxide emissions are increasing, and mitigating factors such as rain forests and forests in general are decreasing (though climate-change skeptics will deny this, these are both also established, demonstrable facts), then it's safe to say the Earth will be dirtier (i.e. more carbon-y) tomorrow than it is today, and that this will continue into perpetuity (in fact will accelerate). This one's a bit more of a leap, but still demonstrably true: if there's a limit to how much climate change will allow the current economic systems to function, we will, at some point, definitely pass it.
So, here's the punchline: like the heart attack, the flood, the college education, or the war with the government, there's a chance that none of this will happen. But there's also a chance that it will--a good chance (and a logical leap that says it's inevitable). And if there's a chance that it will, wouldn't any reasonable person, one that would take Crestor, start running, voluntarily pay into Social Security, buy insurance, save for retirement, horde gold, or assume any other preparatory action against future problems, at least consider starting to make some preparations for these impending problems? If we used less oil, compelled businesses to do less polluting, recycled more, built infrastructure, such as public transportation systems that work, that would mitigate carbon emissions while we work actively to find other sources of energy, and climate change turned out to be false (it isn't), what have we lost? If I wouldn't have had a heart attack with this new lifestyle I live, hopefully, I'll never know it. I call this the "Reasonable Risk Hypothesis," which states that if there's a chance that something bad will happen in the future, we should take action as if it is, because it doesn't hurt us to take such action, but betting against the bad occurrence is certain to lead to catastrophe, if the event does come to pass...
And in deciding to take this action, are we going to be Procrastinators, and do too little now, or cut corners later, or Ex-Marines, and solve the problems ahead of the time of reckoning?
Someone else already used this hypothesis, but the "bad event" was a little different: Pascal's Wager....
The first point: there are a mind-blowing many types of people in the world, of course, but for illustration purposes I'm going to pretend there are only two: procrastinators and ex-Marines. I've noticed that those people who always get up at the crack of dawn and their lawns are mowed before I stir are mostly ex-military, where they apparently teach this behavior as a skill. (This, of course, is my own observation and not fact, and I have obviously never served in the military.) Procrastinators have a tendency to wait until the last minute, stating the obvious, and therefore try to crunch more productivity in less time. In doing so, Procrastinators often don't leave enough time for the work, and often have to cut corners. Yes, I know this is superhyperovergeneralization. But the point is, when we do not leave adequate time to prepare, we are often not adequately prepared. The Ex-Marine type, on the other hand, is prepared in a way that most of us find a little distasteful, as if they're rubbing in the fact that they're productive morning people, that they get to eat breakfast seated at a table, finish the day's work with time to lounge around in the evening with cup of coffee and watch the sunset. The Ex-Marine is too much of a good thing for most of us. Good for him (or her), but they sort of point out the self-imposed difficulties of our lives.
The second point is that we sometimes will fear and work toward the mitigation of some risks when they affect us personally, even though they're invisible and theoretical. I remember when, two years ago at age 35, my doctor told me my cholesterol was too high. To most people, this would mean that a heart attack is imminent, but it doesn't mean that at all. In fact, what it means is there is a slightly higher probability that I might have a heart attack than another white thirty-something male that has LDLs that are lower. In either case, it might or might not happen. So what did I do? Started antihyperlipidemics and exercise. I found that, after a year, I did better, but was still above the standard for hyperlipidemia, so my dose was raised. In other words, on the chance that something bad might happen I've rearranged my whole life and made massive lifestyle changes, when it really will, even if successful, only postpone my death, not prevent it. How many times do we make such changes? Many of us (decreasing in number all the time, of course) will never make it to retirement, yet, as is prudent, we put money away as though we'll live to be 100 years old. We put money away for our kids' education even though they might get a scholarship or they might decide to be high school custodians (not that there's anything wrong with that, they just won't need that expensive college education.) People save for all sorts of scenarios, besides just college, such as owning a home. We build houses to be hurricane-resistant or purchase flood insurance, even though these calamities may never come to pass. We might horde gold in case money collapses, even around the discussion of dollar solvency. Some of the more conspiratorial among us stockpile weapons for a future battle with a docile government. There's sunscreen, burglar alarms, water purification, and many others. The point is, we're a species that is willing to mobilize on future risk (only risk and not certainty) when it affects us in certain, personal ways.
So, let's take a logical leap that synthesizes these two points into something useful. Let's say there's a measurable, set amount of oil on Earth (this is actually true, though nobody claims knowledge of what that exact amount is). I'm going to pour a quart of it into a barrel and light it on fire. Doesn't that mean that there is now the amount of oil on Earth minus one quart? Okay, based on that, as long as people are using oil (also a demonstrable fact) there will continually be less of it until there is none. This follows logically. Drilling for more in the Americas or in the ANWR will not change that fact, only postpone it. Look at global climate change. If human-caused carbon dioxide emissions are increasing, and mitigating factors such as rain forests and forests in general are decreasing (though climate-change skeptics will deny this, these are both also established, demonstrable facts), then it's safe to say the Earth will be dirtier (i.e. more carbon-y) tomorrow than it is today, and that this will continue into perpetuity (in fact will accelerate). This one's a bit more of a leap, but still demonstrably true: if there's a limit to how much climate change will allow the current economic systems to function, we will, at some point, definitely pass it.
So, here's the punchline: like the heart attack, the flood, the college education, or the war with the government, there's a chance that none of this will happen. But there's also a chance that it will--a good chance (and a logical leap that says it's inevitable). And if there's a chance that it will, wouldn't any reasonable person, one that would take Crestor, start running, voluntarily pay into Social Security, buy insurance, save for retirement, horde gold, or assume any other preparatory action against future problems, at least consider starting to make some preparations for these impending problems? If we used less oil, compelled businesses to do less polluting, recycled more, built infrastructure, such as public transportation systems that work, that would mitigate carbon emissions while we work actively to find other sources of energy, and climate change turned out to be false (it isn't), what have we lost? If I wouldn't have had a heart attack with this new lifestyle I live, hopefully, I'll never know it. I call this the "Reasonable Risk Hypothesis," which states that if there's a chance that something bad will happen in the future, we should take action as if it is, because it doesn't hurt us to take such action, but betting against the bad occurrence is certain to lead to catastrophe, if the event does come to pass...
And in deciding to take this action, are we going to be Procrastinators, and do too little now, or cut corners later, or Ex-Marines, and solve the problems ahead of the time of reckoning?
Someone else already used this hypothesis, but the "bad event" was a little different: Pascal's Wager....
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Aside: Letter to John McCain
I got to thinking about something and decided to ask my representative about it (Jon Kyl is a reprehensible human being, so I don't consider him to be my representative). While this has nothing to do whatsoever with my current string of posts, I'm interested to hear what those of you who read my blog have to say about it.
Dear Mr. McCain,
If cuts come, as they surely will, to Social Security and Medicare, doesn't that mean a guy in his 30s, like me, is entitled to at least a partial refund of the money I've paid into the system? The logic goes something like this: if people my age knew they would not be receiving those benefits as current retirees are receiving them, we would not have entered into the agreement to pay forward as readily, and furthermore, there would probably have been many widespread protests of paying better benefits to current retirees than we would receive for the same deductions in income. I know you'll be gone out of office, and possibly from the planet, by the time it matters to me, but as my representative, it would be nice to know that the discussions of my financial security later in life have my well-being in mind, and not just the fancy of the Tea Party, which I understand you have some contempt for, anyways.
[Real Name Redacted]
Dear Mr. McCain,
If cuts come, as they surely will, to Social Security and Medicare, doesn't that mean a guy in his 30s, like me, is entitled to at least a partial refund of the money I've paid into the system? The logic goes something like this: if people my age knew they would not be receiving those benefits as current retirees are receiving them, we would not have entered into the agreement to pay forward as readily, and furthermore, there would probably have been many widespread protests of paying better benefits to current retirees than we would receive for the same deductions in income. I know you'll be gone out of office, and possibly from the planet, by the time it matters to me, but as my representative, it would be nice to know that the discussions of my financial security later in life have my well-being in mind, and not just the fancy of the Tea Party, which I understand you have some contempt for, anyways.
[Real Name Redacted]
Saturday, September 3, 2011
The Trouble With Capitalism, Part 3
In Jared Diamond's book, Collapse (I am a huge fan of Diamond's writing), he essentially writes about some of the environmental challenges that face us currently, and compares them to environmental challenges faced by past civilizations that were unable to overcome them, speaking in story-like prose but using archaeological evidence as the engine powering his argument, very tidy and scientific. Reading the book, then, to the cognoscenti, becomes increasingly terrifying, but not in the look-behind-you sort of way that movies attempt to scare us with. Instead, it's what Diamond fails to say in black and white which is the most terrifying thing I've ever read: all of those ghost towns, which still look today like people could just move right in and live comfortably, where great civilizations once stood, were killed where they stood, abrupt in the night, by depleting their local natural resources beyond survival, and they didn't see it until they collapsed. In other words, in the absence of science to shine the light on the right hook coming in sharply from the blindside (or maybe in its presence, which I'll get to in a future post), it hit them, knocking them out cold and forever, and if they saw it coming, they never let on.
Al Gore, as John Stewart said, is an unlikely film star, but his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, is a very good scare-umentary on the current science concerning global warming and its human causes. I have much to say about this, but I'll get to most of it later. When Al and other high-profile left-leaning politicians (our current president included) came out to say that "green jobs" were the future of this country, for the sake of political savvy, they left a large portion of what that means unsaid: "If we don't find another basis to power our country and its infrastructure, its manufacturing, farming, military and way of life, then that way of life will collapse. Further, that collapse is avoidable but we've got to do it now and be serious about it." Saying it that way makes a person sound like a conspiracy nut, but I don't think most Americans know how pervasive oil and other fossil fuels are in the economic lifestyle of the world right now. The big one that comes to mind is plastics, but also chemicals, lubricants, and, of course, many different types of fuels powering many different vehicles. Imagine if that oil were to suddenly dry up. Even if the process is fairly slow, over a number of years or decades, we humans would have to find other ways to make/replace each and every one of those things. Sure, it may be a spur of economic growth in and of itself to be in an age of such inventiveness, but only if people get cracking and now. Are you cracking now? I'm not. We're being screened from seeing that we need to get cracking by those who profit from the black stuff, sweet crude.
I talked about the perverse incentives that capitalism gives to business executives, where the information that we should probably stop using oil as the basis for our whole economy and right now, is decidedly counterproductive to profits. Also, allowing politicians to do so would be just as counterproductive. So, like with Diamond and the Liberals, it's what goes unsaid. In a country where money = free speech, those with the money, whose free speech is now far louder (corporations, PACs, and "think tanks"), can just depose the naysayers and put people in charge who are willing to cast doubt on science (future post) or pretend none of this is happening, real, or is part of a larger long-term process instead of being a temporary political setback that can be solved through rhetorical ideology, or both. That's the trouble with capitalism: it's primary concern with profits and influence necessarily means that it must keep secret those things which the public needs to know and put current profitability ahead of future sustainability. It may be the case that socialism cannot address these concerns, either (future post) but the watchman is not sleeping, he's been paid to leave in a capitalist society. It's not the unsaid, but the willfully silenced.
In my next post, I'd like to delve into that war on science raging through the debate. Unfortunately, the belligerents on the side of ignorance wield much more substantial weaponry...
Al Gore, as John Stewart said, is an unlikely film star, but his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, is a very good scare-umentary on the current science concerning global warming and its human causes. I have much to say about this, but I'll get to most of it later. When Al and other high-profile left-leaning politicians (our current president included) came out to say that "green jobs" were the future of this country, for the sake of political savvy, they left a large portion of what that means unsaid: "If we don't find another basis to power our country and its infrastructure, its manufacturing, farming, military and way of life, then that way of life will collapse. Further, that collapse is avoidable but we've got to do it now and be serious about it." Saying it that way makes a person sound like a conspiracy nut, but I don't think most Americans know how pervasive oil and other fossil fuels are in the economic lifestyle of the world right now. The big one that comes to mind is plastics, but also chemicals, lubricants, and, of course, many different types of fuels powering many different vehicles. Imagine if that oil were to suddenly dry up. Even if the process is fairly slow, over a number of years or decades, we humans would have to find other ways to make/replace each and every one of those things. Sure, it may be a spur of economic growth in and of itself to be in an age of such inventiveness, but only if people get cracking and now. Are you cracking now? I'm not. We're being screened from seeing that we need to get cracking by those who profit from the black stuff, sweet crude.
I talked about the perverse incentives that capitalism gives to business executives, where the information that we should probably stop using oil as the basis for our whole economy and right now, is decidedly counterproductive to profits. Also, allowing politicians to do so would be just as counterproductive. So, like with Diamond and the Liberals, it's what goes unsaid. In a country where money = free speech, those with the money, whose free speech is now far louder (corporations, PACs, and "think tanks"), can just depose the naysayers and put people in charge who are willing to cast doubt on science (future post) or pretend none of this is happening, real, or is part of a larger long-term process instead of being a temporary political setback that can be solved through rhetorical ideology, or both. That's the trouble with capitalism: it's primary concern with profits and influence necessarily means that it must keep secret those things which the public needs to know and put current profitability ahead of future sustainability. It may be the case that socialism cannot address these concerns, either (future post) but the watchman is not sleeping, he's been paid to leave in a capitalist society. It's not the unsaid, but the willfully silenced.
In my next post, I'd like to delve into that war on science raging through the debate. Unfortunately, the belligerents on the side of ignorance wield much more substantial weaponry...
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