I Agreed with Rush (and the sun did not fall from the sky)

The opinion poll as news, Rush Limbaugh pronounced yesterday on his radio program, is nonsensical.  I happen to agree.

Of course, that’s probably the point at which Mr. Limbaugh and I part company, being poles apart on most things political.

But his point is an important one, I think: the news media does no one a service by soliciting our opinions and then reporting them back to us as if it were news to tell me what I think.

Of course, this tendency is not limited to media outlets.  The, in my view, by-far worse example is governance by opinion poll.

What does it matter, as asked yesterday, whether I think ebola or the enterovirus is the more dangerous.  There actually is a way to factually ascertain which is the more dangerous.  Asking me is not the way.  And my opinion will not change the facts.

This is but one problem in governing by opinion poll: I, the voter, am not the best expert from whom to solicit advice for any topic with the sole exception of one: what I think.

But what I think, as a voter and a citizen, while relevant to political discussion, discourse and decision, is not determinative.  It is merely one of many factors and, I would posit, perhaps the least important of all.

For the simple fact is that I might be wrong.

And we are a representative republic, N. O. T. a democracy.

It is an important distinction and we the people seem to have forgotten it.

A representative republic has built into it the recognition that majority rule is not always best.

A representative republic presupposes statesmanship as a craft that is learned, practiced and perfected.

A representative republic presupposes that our representatives will actually listen to each other.

A representative republic presupposes that our collective wisdom is actually superior to our individual wisdom.

Of course, that presupposes that wisdom is actually something desired by the nation as a whole.

So how about this.

How about WE, THE PEOPLE, who hold the truth that we don’t always or even often know best to be self-evident, IMMEDIATELY STOP – cease, desist, refrain, from answering all these confounded opinion polls.

Let’s stop worrying so much about what we think and about being heard and worry more about doing the hard work of governance – by making informed choices in our voting, by taking the time to learn what the big questions of government actually are, by listening to our opponents, who just might have something to teach us (yes, for me, that includes Rush Limbaugh, even when or perhaps especially when I do not agree with him), by rolling up our sleeves and getting to work.

Make no mistake about it.  Good governance requires work.  Effort.  Commitment.

And the work, commitment and effort are ours.

There is no amorphous ‘they’.

There is only us.

We have the government we’ve worked to have.

So if we do not like it, it is up to us to get busy.

And getting busy is not limited to electing our favorites.

Getting busy includes getting behind those with whom we disagree in common cause for our collective good.

It presupposes that those who disagree with me love their country as much as I do.

It presupposes that the work of being a citizen matters.

It presupposes the basic and fundamental understanding that bitching about something is not doing something about it.

We cannot afford to be front porch whiners, complainers, kvetchers.

And hey, this governing thing also requires, I suspect, stepping back in appreciation for all our many blessings, recognizing them for the gifts they are.

That is the pathway of humility.

A little dose goes a long way.

BethRant5: Ignorant Immolation

I should not publish this.  There is far too much of me in it.  This is my reaction not to the actual events in Egypt and Libya, but to the remarks of Mr. Romney.  My reaction is not born of any political preference (believe that or not).  Rather, my reaction is born of having been in Iraq in 2005-2006 during a time when the country was literally on fire and four of my colleagues were held hostage.  One of them, Tom Fox, would be murdered.  During that time in Baghdad, we, the free ones on team, heard many words from many people.*  And many of those words were fraught with the same kind of judgment, advice, and preferred language echoed by Mr. Romney.  My words below are not elegant.  But please believe me, they are heartfelt.  For I cannot get the image of the Tweet from the US Embassy in Egypt out of my mind: “Of course we condemn breaches of our compound, we're the ones actually living through this.”  Those words were not typed.  Nor were they whispered.  They were screamed.  Sadly, we were too busy talking to hear the plea embedded in them.  I do not speak for the people affected by these most recent attacks; that is a presumption I cannot carry.  What follows is merely my own visceral response.



Sadness . . .
Confusion . . .
Image overload . . .
Puzzlement . . .
Fear – not for self – but for others –
held hostage with only their cell
phones to protect them – shouting
out their Tweets – we mean you no harm . . .
We are not all the same . . . calm down . . .
Please . . .

Anger at the relentless infocycle
that demands a response, an answer,
an explanation, a comment, a stand –
in the place where there is no standing –
only reaching –
Principles are the things you stand on
when the ground is steady under your feet

But when the earthquake comes,
you just grab – onto whatever looks
like it’ll hold you up – even if only
for an instant –
whatever will buy you time –
even if only another moment –

The luxury of distance makes us
cruel . . . and foolish . . . and despised
by those in the earthquake
who would grab our hands if only they could

Sometimes silence is not the only answer,
but the best – especially when our hands
are just too short to grab hold and save

I have stood on that moving ground
and hated the very breath those
at safe distance drew as their
exhalations brought proffered
reason and logic and principles –
as if such things ever mattered
to the dying – or the frightened –

Give me not your logic, I wanted to
scream – give me your help.
Tell me not what to do or not do –
do it for me – but you can’t,
can you?  Then shut up –
for your voice is a distraction
I can ill afford
for if I turn away, even for an instant,
I risk . . . everything . . .
Imagine that I have turned to hear you
and what you have to offer me is a
soap commercial –
I am screaming for help –
and you offer me your principles,
call them universal,
and demand my apology.
I am dying.
And you want apology.
Well, I am sorry to have
inconvenienced you with
my reality . . . here . . .
on ‘the ground’ . . .
What the hell does that
even mean?
Aren’t we all ‘on the ground’?
Aren’t you dying too?
Am I really so very impersonal,
so theoretical, to you, that you
cannot even imagine my death
as your own?

Please, please, please,
if you cannot save me,
just stop – stop talking –
stop.  Stop and pray
or stop and do nothing.
For that would be better
than this.  Please.  Please.


__________________
*Rush Limbaugh called the kidnapping of my colleagues in Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) a hoax and then went on to say that if it wasn’t a hoax to get attention, then he hoped my friends’ heads rolled, because that would teach lefties like us a good lesson.  Strangers made comments on an on-line petition calling for our guys’ release expressing the same sentiment – that they hoped my friends were beheaded.  After Tom’s murder and the release of the remaining guys, fellow Christians called us dupes and idiots and ungrateful and worse.  Colleagues within the Christian peace community wrote about our folly.  From a safe distance, far too many, friend and enemy alike, felt great freedom to tell us how we got it wrong.  I’ve never said this before now.  Thanks for that (read the sarcasm, it is intentional).  Fortunately, I cannot recall the physical sensation that I know I felt at the time – gut punched is the best descriptor I’ve got.  Especially when it came to those with whom we thought we were in common cause – that was the worst.

All I have to offer those in the embassies around the world tonight who are fearing for their own safety are my prayers and my most fervent wish and hope that this fever pitch passes, that they may rest safely and well this night and always.  I would give you my hand, but I am too far away.  For that, I am more sorry than you can ever know.

BethRant2 - Getting There on Your Own

Click on the link for an introduction to the concept of the BethRant.

***

President Obama spoke recently in Roanoke, Virginia.  I have not seen the transcript of his speech.  For purposes of this rant, I will presume Mr. Limbaugh’s quote is accurate.  Taking Mr. Limbaugh’s version, the President made the following statement:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.  The Blaze

The quote that seems to have bothered Mr. Limbaugh so is the line, “you didn’t get there on your own”.

From this simple statement – that even the wealthy did not spring preternaturally from the forehead of some unsuspecting god – Mr. Limbaugh concludes that Mr. Obama:

• hates America
• is a radical
• is trying to “dismantle the American dream”
• is engaging in Marxist classism (whatever that means - didn’t Marx ‘preach’ the elimination of class?)
• is demonstrating contempt for the country (interesting - even if true, Obama’s ‘contempt’ was for the wealthy, which Limbaugh conflates with the country itself - wow - I never knew being rich was being American while being poor was being something else - who’s the classist now, Mr. Limbaugh?)
• is ruthless
• is a despiser of America
• is a despiser of the way America was founded
• is a despiser of the way America became great (I’m guessing Mr. Limbaugh means we became great because the Carnegies, and not the Debs, made us that way)

Are you kidding me?

Apparently not.

At least not according to my own FB page, wherein a series of RNC (Republican National Committee) ads show a series of photos of entrepreneurs with Mr. Obama laughing superimposed on the picture, with the tag line, “You didn’t build that”, RNC FB page,  a clear link to Mr. Limbaugh’s screed.

The fact is that Mr. Obama did not say “you didn’t build that”, even according to Rush Limbaugh.

The fact is that Mr. Obama did say, “you didn’t do it alone”.

The fact is that no sane person would argue with that.

Christian sane people presumptively say that all that they do, they do with the aid, assistance, and intervention of the divine, hence do they never act alone.

Religious and non-religious sane people universally thank their moms when they finally make it on television in a sporting event – an obvious observation that they would not even be present on the planet but for the actions of at least two other people – their parents.

Business owners routinely tell their employees, “we couldn’t have done it without you”.  I always believed them.  Was I being naive?

Here’s the thing: what on earth is so very threatening about the concept of recognizing that we are an interdependent species?  What do we lose by acknowledging that we need each other?  I really and truly wish I understood that one.

I don’t know if it would make me a better person, but I’m betting if I understood I’d be a way better pastor.

But for the love of whatever you hold dear to, would you – my friends and family and neighbors and fellow citizens – all of you – just stop this nonsense.

Disagree with the guy if you’re of a mind to.

But spare me, you, and the rest of us the ridiculousness of pseudo-analysis that would take one construct and turn it into another.  You betray a lack of persuasiveness when you stoop to saying down is up.

RantEnd

BethRant1 - If the Irish Can Do It, So Can You

Facts matter.  And a professor at a respected university ought to know that.  But apparently, when Dr. Walter E. Williams wears the substitute-for-Rush-Limbaugh hat, he takes off his professorial robes.

Dr. Williams subbed for Rush Limbaugh yesterday.  I know because I listened to the show as I drove the mountains between West Virginia and Virginia.

During the time I listened, Dr. Williams touched on health care, gun ownership, social security, and a myriad of other topics of interest to his listeners, including poverty and welfare.

Dr. Williams' views are not mine, but they are his, and as such, I have no quarrel with the man.  But when it comes to facts, well, as my friend Anita is fond of saying, “the facts do not care” if we agree or not.

Hence do I introduce BethRant – a way to alert those reading that this is just that – my own rant against someone I think has gotten ‘it’ wrong and ought to know better.  Be warned: BethRants are political.  Of course, I think everything is political, but hey, that’s just me.

***

When the poor Irish fled the Potato Famine and arrived in New York with just the clothes on their backs, did they get food stamps? If not, how did they make it? -Dr. Williams

Well, Dr. Williams, they didn’t.  The poorest of the poor could not afford to emigrate in the first place Watertown Daily Times, so they starved to death in Ireland - more than a million of them.  Then they died on the ships coming over – so many died that the ships were referred to as ‘coffin ships’.  Then they died in quarantine once they got here.  One expert estimates that more than a third of those on ships for Canada died en route or in quarantine. Constitutional Rights Foundation

Thus, those left to actually enter the Americas were the healthiest, the most physically fit, and those with the most resources.  It was survival of the fittest at its ugliest.  But even that wasn't enough.

In Boston, cholera was rampant among the new immigrants and sixty per cent of Irish children born in Boston during that time didn’t live to see their sixth birthday.  Adults lived on average just six years after arriving from Ireland.  Infant mortality was equally high in New York City. History Place

If one is to make the case that public welfare is not only not the business of government, but also is not necessary, when pointing to historical precedent, it is self-evident that the precedent must apply.  The fact is that the Irish immigrant experience to the Americas is not a case-in-point for Dr. Williams’ proposition that welfare is not necessary for the survival of the poor.  The Irish immigrant experience actually proves the opposite: absent any coordinated effort at assistance to those without food, they will die.  Some will die quickly of starvation and more will die slowly of malnutrition, disease, and the ground-swell of social ills that prey on those too weak to defend themselves against the onslaught.

But we know this, don’t we?

So why do we keep insisting that it isn’t true?

The only reason I can come up with is self-interest – greedy self-interest that requires a number of things in order to alleviate myself from my human obligation to help:

(1) I see myself as a good and moral person – absent this self-perception, the self-deception would not be necessary: I could simply say what’s mine is mine and too bad for you and be done with it.

(2) I must see my neighbor in dire need as someone who has brought their misfortune upon themselves – for if they did not bring this upon themselves somehow, if they are simply an innocent victim of circumstance, my good and moral heart would be stirred to step in and help.

(3) I must see history as proving my point – precedent, what’s been done before, has great persuasive value.  If it was good enough for the ancestors, so the saying goes . . . Of course, historical facts to the contrary can be awfully inconvenient to such an approach.  

And thus do I say, shame on you, Dr. Williams.  You are an economist by training and experience.  You should know better than most that poverty is a systemic thing much more than it is the narrative of any one individual and that systems gather power and wealth and resources unto themselves, loathe to share, especially with those in no position to bargain.

Does that mean the poor, as individuals or as a class, have no ability or no opportunity to alter their circumstances?  Of course not.  But let us not pretend that they enter the playing field with anything approaching an equal chance to you and I, who ate our fill last night.

So please, make your case against the modern welfare state somewhere other than on the backs of dead Irish immigrants -- they simply aren't strong enough to support your position.

RantEnd



_________
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dr. Walter E. Williams holds a B.A. in economics from California State University, Los Angeles, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from UCLA. He also holds a Doctor of Humane Letters from Virginia Union University and Grove City College, Doctor of Laws from Washington and Jefferson College and Doctor Honoris Causa en Ciencias Sociales from Universidad Francisco Marroquin, in Guatemala, where he is also Professor Honorario. Dr. Williams has served on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, since 1980; from 1995 to 2001, he served as department chairman. He has also served on the faculties of Los Angeles City College, California State University Los Angeles, and Temple University in Philadelphia, and Grove City College, Grove City, Pa.  George Mason University

Rush & I Won't Be Dancing at the Inaugural Ball

Some time ago, Rush Limbaugh said, “Bottom line, we don’t like being told what to eat; we don’t like being told how much to exercise . . .” regarding First Lady Obama’s Let’s Move initiative to eliminate childhood obesity.  Politics USA

Mr. Limbaugh has, on the same issue, made a joke about Mrs. Obama coming for our furnaces as a way to get kids to go outside and play.

Given the health catastrophe created by obesity, in one sense, this is about as funny as making a joke about lung cancer or a woman having only one breast, having lost the other to breast cancer. . . not funny.  But in another way, it actually is pretty funny . . . about as funny as these one liners . . .

Bottom line, we don’t like being told what to read or how to r– r— r–e–a–d it . . . (about Laura and Barbara Bush’s literacy campaigns)

Bottom line, we don’t like being told what to do with street kids . . . what does it matter whether we house them or use them for ear muffs? (about Dolly Madison’s support of orphans)

Bottom line, we don’t like being told what to wear to work – who cares if we want to go barefoot?  Toes?  Who needs toes?  in response to Helen Taft’s efforts to insure workplace safety.

Bottom line, we don’t like being told how long to work our animals – next thing you know, they’ll be telling us we can’t beat our mules – the saying ‘stubborn as a mule’ is true, don’t you know?  in response to Florence Harding’s efforts to promote the humane treatment of animals.

Bottom line, we don’t like being told that West Virginians are people too (by the way, did you know that it’s legal for a man to marry his widow’s cousin in West Virginia?) in response to Eleanor Roosevelt’s work for the people of Appalachia.

Bottom line, we don’t like being told that we shouldn’t throw our trash out the window of our cars – we like how the cans glitter in the sun in response to Lady Bird Johnson’s ‘Beautify America’ environmental campaign.

Bottom line, we don’t like being told that we should volunteer – if someone’s telling me to do it, I’m not a volunteer, now am I? in response to Pat Nixon’s volunteerism campaign.

Bottom line, we don’t like being told what we put in our mouths – that’s our business whether it’s a hamburger from McDonald’s or any kind of pills I can get my hands on in response to Nancy Reagan’s ‘Just Say No’ campaign.

Bottom line, I fear, is simply this: we don’t like. . . we don’t like anyone telling us what to do – even when it’s good for us. . . not our First Ladies (or at least some of them), not our preachers, not our bosses, not our family and friends, not even our parents. . . because we are exactly two years old and we just don’t like it!

The conversation would be ridiculous and easily dismissed if it weren’t for the fact that so many actually take it seriously.

Seriously, if you want to continue to eat those french fries, go right ahead.  But if I’m paying for it (as I do through my taxes when it comes to school lunches), aren’t I entitled to a voice in what goes on the menu?  And isn’t healthy better for our kids than unhealthy when it comes to food choices?  Do we really want the measure of a good school lunch to be what the kids want as opposed to what’s good for them?  Do we really want what kids eat at school to be an issue of personal freedom as opposed to an issue of health?

I doubt it.  Really.  Think about it: do you want your kids or anyone else’s, for that matter, to stop reading books or to read only trash at school in order to assure their personal freedom?  No.  What you want is for them to read good books, books that demonstrate quality literature, a sense of history, books that will teach them something worth learning.  And don’t you want their bodies to be as well fed as their minds?  I know I do.

So, Mr. Limbaugh, I actually thought the furnace joke was a little bit funny.  But only a little bit – because I believe you on the other stuff.  If I didn’t (believe you), it would be different.  But I do.  I believe you that you mean it when you imply that encouraging healthy eating among the young smacks of totalitarianism.  I believe you that you mean it when you say, even when it comes to children, that you don’t want anyone telling you better.

And that, Mr. Limbaugh, leaves me with these observations:

Bottom line, we don’t like it when you tell us that childhood obesity doesn’t matter.


Bottom line, we don’t like it when you tell us that nutritional education is a form of mind control.  That’s just plain silly.


Bottom line, we don’t like it when you act as if the health of our young shouldn’t be important to us.


Bottom line, we don’t like it when you try to teach us that the freedom to be foolish is more important than the collective wisdom of every branch of science when it comes to our young.

Bottom line, Mr. Limbaugh, we don’t like it when you tempt us to be dumber that we ought to be when it comes to our kids.  We don’t care who you like or don’t like.  That shouldn’t make any difference when it comes to evaluating the truth.  If all you’re offering us, Mr. Limbaugh, is a way to lampoon our political ‘enemies’, those, sir, are empty calories indeed.  

And while we may love those empty calories, we know they’re bad for us.

And so we’re going to stop eating from your plate; it just isn’t good for us.

That’s what I wish we would say.

___________________
SOURCE for causes supported by various First Ladies:  National First Ladies' Library