Dehumanizing Our Enemies

A Facebook friend (the childhood friend of a cousin) posted something that, for the last 85 days or so, is easy to find on one's FB feed: a 25 word-or-less rant condemning Trump and calling anyone who voted for him an idiot.  Again, nothing that all forms of media haven't been saturated with since the election.

I either accidentally or absent mindedly expanded the post and read the comments. Mostly a chorus of vulgar "amens", but one lady made a comment about Trump only being in office 9 days and cutting the guy some slack.  Now I understand that it's precisely what Trump has done in those first days that has many upset.  "Let's wait and see" isn't going to be an acceptable strategy to those who think the man is burning down the country.

Did anyone respond with that sort of information? I.e.  "Hey, we're upset exactly because this guy has done so many things we oppose in such a short time." No.

Instead the woman was vulgarly insulted multiple times and one of the posters hoped for this lady to be sexually assaulted.  I don't know if these people knew each other or were simply connected through our mutual 'friend'. 

I post items that could be deemed controversial at times, but I stay away from online sparring because it's generally fruitless.  But I couldn't help coming to the defense of this woman.  In an exchange of comments, mostly questions for my part, I tried to call attention to the inconsistency of calling a person (Trump) out for his behavior while emulating it and calling for others to be assaulted. 

After a few exchanges, one of the people on the thread calmed down and admitted that she had gotten carried away by her emotions and the group's shared upset.  She IM'd me directly and we talked a little about who we voted for in the past. She even sent me a friend request (which I turned down - I don't really know this person yet). In any event, we listened to each other without changing any minds.

But the rest of the thread continued on, culminating in the commentor who had advocated for the assault of the woman who didn't agree with the group, commenting that he hoped I had a daughter and that she was also assaulted.

This is the mindset that many, many people are in, and it does not appear to be abating.  This is indeed a frightening time to live in this country.

How now shall I live? Or... What's the point again?

I became acutely aware of the inevitability of death in my 20s, during a flight from San Jose to Austin.  The plane made a weird noise when the landing gear came up, and inexplicably,  it filled me with existential anxiety.  "This whole scenario is wrong!", I thought. "I'm in a multi-ton aluminum tube going hundreds of miles an hour, five plus miles high in the sky."

Obviously a panic attack, which I had experienced before, but it awoke something deeper in me.  It didn't just panic my mind, it opened up a vein of thought: My mortality was real.

Busyness was my ally in the battle to ignore my existential angst.  Wife, kids, work, and school ate up all my time for reflection.  But I finished school and landed a good job towards the end of my 20's that slowed the pace of life such that I could reflect more.  And my anxiety grew...

Long story short, in the end, this drew me to a closer relationship with God (and the realization of my own lack of righteousness, specifically, to Christ).

I'm mentioning this because I was prompted to think of these things hearing the following quote from Leo Tolstoy.  It's definitely a downer if one has a strictly materialist/scientific determinism world view, but I think it beautifully describes the  overwhelming anxiety that can grip the human heart when reflecting upon the inevitability of our own end.

There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveller overtaken on a plain by an enraged beast. Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but sees at the bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him. And the unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of the well lest he should be eaten by the dragon, seizes s twig growing in a crack in the well and clings to it. His hands are growing weaker and he feels he will soon have to resign himself to the destruction that awaits him above or below, but still he clings on. Then he sees that two mice, a black one and a white one, go regularly round and round the stem of the twig to which he is clinging and gnaw at it. And soon the twig itself will snap and he will fall into the dragon's jaws. The traveller sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he looks around, sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the twig, reaches them with his tongue and licks them. So I too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had fallen into such torment. I tried to lick the honey which formerly consoled me, but the honey no longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed at the branch by which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tasted sweet. I only saw the unescapable dragon and the mice, and I could not tear my gaze from them. and this is not a fable but the real unanswerable truth intelligible to all.

The deception of the joys of life which formerly allayed my terror of the dragon now no longer deceived me. No matter how often I may be told, "You cannot understand the meaning of life so do not think about it, but live," I can no longer do it: I have already done it too long. I cannot now help seeing day and night going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false.

The two drops of honey which diverted my eyes from the cruel truth longer than the rest: my love of family, and of writing - art as I called it - were no longer sweet to me.

"Family"...said I to myself. But my family - wife and children - are also human. They are placed just as I am: they must either live in a lie or see the terrible truth. Why should they live? Why should I love them, guard them, bring them up, or watch them? That they may come to the despair that I feel, or else be stupid? Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them: each step in knowledge leads them to the truth. And the truth is death"

Unhealthy Skepticism

"But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. . . . As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. . . . The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything. "

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Free Speech

There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Fake News

This is an example of the reactionary histrionics that are destroying intelligent political dialogue in America:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/20/donald_trump_puts_black_lives_matter_osu

The author contends the Administration is targeting Black Lives Matter (BLM), yet provides no references to BLM from the White House website.

Instead, the author claims the reference is implicit in the statement, "The Trump Administration will be a law and order administration."

Should the Administration be *against* law and order?

The author then calls out the following text from the White House website: "The dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America is wrong."

Seems innocuous enough, but for the insight provided by the author.  You see, the White House website goes on to indicate who is responsible for this atmosphere:  “Our job is not to make life more comfortable for the rioter, the looter, or the violent disrupter.”

"OK?...So what?", says the unenlightened reader.

Don't you see? the author effectively asks, directly tying "the rioter, the looter, or the violent disrupter" to BLM: "it was chilling to see such unambiguous evidence of his contempt for those who've protested against police violence."

Again, nowhere is BLM mentioned on the website and nowhere is peaceful protest condemned.  Rather the author equates rioting, looting, and violent disruption to protests against police violence and, Q.E.D, BLM. 

Apparently the author has never ventured to the BLM website, where the following snippets of the movement's platform can be gleaned:

"We are committed to embodying and practicing justice, liberation, and peace in our engagements with one another."

And:

"We are committed to collectively, lovingly and courageously working vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension all people. As we forge our path, we intentionally build and nurture a beloved community that is bonded together through a beautiful struggle that is restorative, not depleting."

Rather, the author equates BLM to rioters, looters, and violent disruptors before harkening back to a false example of police brutality in Ferguson ( "Hands up, don't shoot" was proven to be false, but not until the community had been devastated by riots, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/19/hands-up-dont-shoot-did-not-happen-in-ferguson/?utm_term=.8764bdeae70f ).

It's not that I think Trump is a good man.  He's repeatedly demonstrated his boorish character.  It's that examples of that specific behavior should be the subject of criticism.  There's no need to read between the lines with this guy - 140 characters don't allow for many lines to begin with.

It's not that I oppose protesting police brutality.  I've witnessed it with my own eyes, and not through an out of context youtube clip.   Police brutality is an issue that needs to be addressed (there's probably not a career that involves more psychological and physical stress so it should not be a surprise that some police go off the rails).  

It's that failing to distinguish between Selma and Ferguson, and between a statement supporting law enforcement and a message targeting a specific political group can only be the result of crowd-induced mania, extreme ignorance, or blatant disingenuousness. None of these alternatives bodes well for the future of political debate in America.

Hey look over there!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-employers-rushing-offer-unlimited-vacation-kathleen-christensen

It sounds good on the surface, and the intentions of some organizations may be good, but my understanding is that this approach both eliminates the guarantee of vacation and the associated financial liability.  From an article in Time: "Wiping away the average vacation liability saves companies $1,898 per employee, according to research from Project:Time Off. That quickly adds up: U.S. companies carried forward $65.6 billion in accrued paid time off costs last year." See http://time.com/money/4070275/unlimited-vacation-policy/

Profoundly Sad - The Rev. Katherine Ragsdale's "Abortion is a Blessing" Speech

It seems that the Episcopal Church's leadership, among others, do not want Katherine Hancock Ragsdale's view on abortion to be widely known now that they have unanimously appointed her to the presidency of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. Most of the links to her sermon to a group in Alabama have been pulled, so I've included the following links, in case the main link of this post gets axed.

From Ms. Ragsdale's blog: http://katherineragsdale.blogspot.com/2009/04/about-time.html.

From a site promoting traditional Anglicanism in America: http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/21537

I won't comment on the sermon itself; David J. Sanders does a nice job:
http://arkansasnews.com/2009/04/08/episcopal-official-abortionists-%e2%80%98saints%e2%80%99