What a crazy time to be alive.
Making sense of things is almost impossible, and I'm not really sure what I'm going to type here. I just felt the need to sort of brainstorm it out.
There are a couple of underlying... assumptions? heuristics? worldviews?
Whatever it is, it tends to shape my perspective on a lot of things. Some of it's pretty basic - like the concept of a 'social contract', and the importance of people feeling like they have some sort of say in their governance. (It's part of why gerrymandering is such a threat to our system. More, I would say, then whatever fears or worries the people instating it have about what would happen if they didn't have power. Undermining the social contract, undermining the connection between the will of the people and their government, is far more of a threat to America than bloated government, high taxes, etc.)
Free speech is good, protecting minority opinions is good. (The problem with lack of gatekeepers to filter out the crap is part of what I wanted to brainstorm here. Protecting minority opinions has similar complications - does it include protecting racists, for example? Otherwise someone is still deciding what is 'acceptable' and what isn't, in which case free speech and protection of minority opinions is really just protection for the ones we agree with. The underlying issues, though... the problems with censoring speech, the ills that occur when minorities are not protected, well... these are values we - the West - have come to over a long period of time. And, unfortunately, they are values that somehow wind up getting challenged. Again and again. It's sad when people who claim to be all about America are somehow the very same people pushing for things that go against the values we fought for and stood for. But that's a really long topic to get on, and I'm not sure I want to do it right now.)
Fear is almost always a bad sign. Fear, the actions/plans/strategies based on fear, and the results of fear-based strategies are almost always bad. To do a mish/mash of two quotes that I saw on a computer screensaver once "Fear is the mindkiller. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I remember reading about the Civil War, decades ago, and thinking 'the fear that the North would outlaw slavery led to the attempted secession of the South, which wound up making their fears realized... and probably even faster than they would have been otherwise.' That is, when we act on fear, we can often lead to the very thing we are afraid of. (So, for white supremacists, letting fear that we will eventually be a minority in America lead to violent actions and upheavals could actually hasten a time when we are, in fact, a minority. But then, idiots like that probably assume - since they're foolish enough to think the color of the skin somehow makes them superior - that they're going to win any coming showdown. Considering how many wars had unpredictable results, I think that's a remarkably foolish gamble. But hey, nobody has a monopoly on stupidity.)
So anyways, on to the rambling.
Over a decade ago (how weird, to talk in terms of decades now!) my boyfriend at the time commented on his Toyota truck and the concept of 'buy American'. I am absolutely horrible at quotes, so I'll just paraphrase his reasoning -
He bought the best truck on the market. If they want him to buy American, then America needs to step up and be that best truck on the market.
I know there's a whole bunch of underlying things not addressed here - disparities in the economy that allows certain goods to be manufactured more cheaply for one reason or another, tariffs, transportation, etc. - but I think he brought up a rather good point.
Namely that, when threatened, challenged, and afraid, there are two ways of dealing with it. Step up to the challenge and get even better (in which case, the issues with, say, competition being able to pay lower wages, just becomes a driver for getting even better. A challenge that makes your eventual triumph even more meaningful, since you had a handicap the entire time)... or let fear drive you into trying to protect your position by eliminating the competition somehow. Tariffs, 'buy American' drives, things that allow your existing business to continue to compete even when other businesses might actually be providing a better product at a lower cost. (Again, note that this is a complex topic, especially when you get into what countries like China have been doing to help develop their own domestic businesses. The people pushing for these policies often justify them by saying 'this is what they're doing, so we have to do it as well in order to keep up.)
The underlying reasoning, for all of that, is fear. And as I said above, that's sort of one of the things I consider noteworthy.
In political science, they've noted that previous presidential candidates often spoke positively. Uplifting. We want leaders who challenge us to rise to the occasion. To shoot for the moon. To stand up to the Soviet Union.
Trump. Well. Even though he had some of the typical markers ('Make America Great Again' talks about how great America is) the underlying structure is entirely fear based. We have to 'Make America Great Again', because we no longer think we are. We're somehow losing our greatness, according to some people at least. (And just as Jim Collins described in 'How the Mighty Fall', that fear can make us susceptible to anyone who promises to save us. And so we get some outsider riding in on a white horse to save the day, even though they very often are actually the ones who wind up delivering the final, fatal blow.)
Great presidents encourages us to stand tall and rise to the occasion. Trump, on the other hand, feeds our fears and brings out the worst in everyone. Aside from politics, aside from anything else, seeing the sheer level of pettiness he brings to our political system is horrifying.
And I am disturbed, perturbed, and disappointed in all the various people who allow him to have what influence he has. Because nobody can be a leader when others refuse to follow.
The Republicans in particular have been awfully horrifying with how often they wind up justifying supporting Trump even when it goes against things they used to stand for. Christian conservatives as well, who laud someone who seems like the epitome of everything Jesus stood against.
But hey, that's politics, right? Should I really be surprised at how much people are willing to compromise themselves, at how nicely they can come up with something to justify doing whatever it is that is in their self-interest? Whether that's supporting Trump, or doing shenanigans to try and shape the upcoming midterms in their favor (even when it means closing polling sites and/or moving them to hard-to-reach places, because apparently they'd rather undermine the social contract and disenfranchise US citizens than lose an election.)
And that, right there, is how you know someone's political judgement has been compromised. That the wisdom of our founding fathers, who understood the risks of power and put all sorts of careful checks in place, has been lost by near-sighted people more concerned with staying in power than maintaining the legitimacy of our system.
When did we become so afraid? Why are we so afraid? We're in one of the best positions, as a nation, possible. We're capable of being so much better than this.
Making sense of things is almost impossible, and I'm not really sure what I'm going to type here. I just felt the need to sort of brainstorm it out.
There are a couple of underlying... assumptions? heuristics? worldviews?
Whatever it is, it tends to shape my perspective on a lot of things. Some of it's pretty basic - like the concept of a 'social contract', and the importance of people feeling like they have some sort of say in their governance. (It's part of why gerrymandering is such a threat to our system. More, I would say, then whatever fears or worries the people instating it have about what would happen if they didn't have power. Undermining the social contract, undermining the connection between the will of the people and their government, is far more of a threat to America than bloated government, high taxes, etc.)
Free speech is good, protecting minority opinions is good. (The problem with lack of gatekeepers to filter out the crap is part of what I wanted to brainstorm here. Protecting minority opinions has similar complications - does it include protecting racists, for example? Otherwise someone is still deciding what is 'acceptable' and what isn't, in which case free speech and protection of minority opinions is really just protection for the ones we agree with. The underlying issues, though... the problems with censoring speech, the ills that occur when minorities are not protected, well... these are values we - the West - have come to over a long period of time. And, unfortunately, they are values that somehow wind up getting challenged. Again and again. It's sad when people who claim to be all about America are somehow the very same people pushing for things that go against the values we fought for and stood for. But that's a really long topic to get on, and I'm not sure I want to do it right now.)
Fear is almost always a bad sign. Fear, the actions/plans/strategies based on fear, and the results of fear-based strategies are almost always bad. To do a mish/mash of two quotes that I saw on a computer screensaver once "Fear is the mindkiller. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I remember reading about the Civil War, decades ago, and thinking 'the fear that the North would outlaw slavery led to the attempted secession of the South, which wound up making their fears realized... and probably even faster than they would have been otherwise.' That is, when we act on fear, we can often lead to the very thing we are afraid of. (So, for white supremacists, letting fear that we will eventually be a minority in America lead to violent actions and upheavals could actually hasten a time when we are, in fact, a minority. But then, idiots like that probably assume - since they're foolish enough to think the color of the skin somehow makes them superior - that they're going to win any coming showdown. Considering how many wars had unpredictable results, I think that's a remarkably foolish gamble. But hey, nobody has a monopoly on stupidity.)
So anyways, on to the rambling.
Over a decade ago (how weird, to talk in terms of decades now!) my boyfriend at the time commented on his Toyota truck and the concept of 'buy American'. I am absolutely horrible at quotes, so I'll just paraphrase his reasoning -
He bought the best truck on the market. If they want him to buy American, then America needs to step up and be that best truck on the market.
I know there's a whole bunch of underlying things not addressed here - disparities in the economy that allows certain goods to be manufactured more cheaply for one reason or another, tariffs, transportation, etc. - but I think he brought up a rather good point.
Namely that, when threatened, challenged, and afraid, there are two ways of dealing with it. Step up to the challenge and get even better (in which case, the issues with, say, competition being able to pay lower wages, just becomes a driver for getting even better. A challenge that makes your eventual triumph even more meaningful, since you had a handicap the entire time)... or let fear drive you into trying to protect your position by eliminating the competition somehow. Tariffs, 'buy American' drives, things that allow your existing business to continue to compete even when other businesses might actually be providing a better product at a lower cost. (Again, note that this is a complex topic, especially when you get into what countries like China have been doing to help develop their own domestic businesses. The people pushing for these policies often justify them by saying 'this is what they're doing, so we have to do it as well in order to keep up.)
The underlying reasoning, for all of that, is fear. And as I said above, that's sort of one of the things I consider noteworthy.
In political science, they've noted that previous presidential candidates often spoke positively. Uplifting. We want leaders who challenge us to rise to the occasion. To shoot for the moon. To stand up to the Soviet Union.
Trump. Well. Even though he had some of the typical markers ('Make America Great Again' talks about how great America is) the underlying structure is entirely fear based. We have to 'Make America Great Again', because we no longer think we are. We're somehow losing our greatness, according to some people at least. (And just as Jim Collins described in 'How the Mighty Fall', that fear can make us susceptible to anyone who promises to save us. And so we get some outsider riding in on a white horse to save the day, even though they very often are actually the ones who wind up delivering the final, fatal blow.)
Great presidents encourages us to stand tall and rise to the occasion. Trump, on the other hand, feeds our fears and brings out the worst in everyone. Aside from politics, aside from anything else, seeing the sheer level of pettiness he brings to our political system is horrifying.
And I am disturbed, perturbed, and disappointed in all the various people who allow him to have what influence he has. Because nobody can be a leader when others refuse to follow.
The Republicans in particular have been awfully horrifying with how often they wind up justifying supporting Trump even when it goes against things they used to stand for. Christian conservatives as well, who laud someone who seems like the epitome of everything Jesus stood against.
But hey, that's politics, right? Should I really be surprised at how much people are willing to compromise themselves, at how nicely they can come up with something to justify doing whatever it is that is in their self-interest? Whether that's supporting Trump, or doing shenanigans to try and shape the upcoming midterms in their favor (even when it means closing polling sites and/or moving them to hard-to-reach places, because apparently they'd rather undermine the social contract and disenfranchise US citizens than lose an election.)
And that, right there, is how you know someone's political judgement has been compromised. That the wisdom of our founding fathers, who understood the risks of power and put all sorts of careful checks in place, has been lost by near-sighted people more concerned with staying in power than maintaining the legitimacy of our system.
When did we become so afraid? Why are we so afraid? We're in one of the best positions, as a nation, possible. We're capable of being so much better than this.
No comments:
Post a Comment