Curated post from 2010, using the controversial anti-abortion ad aired during that year’s superbowl featuring Tim Tebow as a frame to discuss the larger abortion issue.
The debate over abortion in this country, and around the world, has raged since the first miscarriage. In the main, the debate has been characterized by an overabundance of emotive outbursts, handwringing, ad hominem attacks, and a paucity of facts, balance, and clear, rational thought.
One of the manifest expressions of the former list of attributes is the rise of hard-right “Christian” groups such as the American Family Association and Focus on the Family. As a part of their overall fundamentalist diet of exhortations to donate money, condemnation of everyone who “ain’t like us,” and rampant, cynical fear-mongering for profit, these “faith-based” organizations routinely seek out hot-button issues like gay marriage, free expression, and abortion with which to stir up their marks and generate donations.
The Super Bowl 2009 advertisement featuring football star Tim Tebow and his mom making vague statements about family has stirred up some debate, but for me it’s not about the abortion issue. The abortion issue is settled as far as I’m concerned; I don’t like them – and I know from the closest experience a man can that they’re not exactly a trip to the fun park – I wish they weren’t necessary, but until steps are taken to ensure that there is never a valid reason to terminate a pregnancy (steps that are currently well beyond the capability of our technology and our social evolution), they are. Since they are necessary, the solution is to reduce their necessity while also providing a safe and reliable means of abortion for women who need it. As need decreases, so will incidence. Period. There is no other logical solution to the “problem of abortion.” So that argument’s done.
My issues with the Tebow ad are not with his, his mother’s, or anyone else’s opinion about abortion. I want that made clear. Everyone’s entitled to hold an opinion, regardless of how ludicrous I think it is.
My issue is, first and foremost, with a group like FotF insinuating themselves into national discourse in the first place and secondarily with the stealthy way they’ve gone about it. Frankly, I’d have had less problem with the ad if Tebow and his mom just walked onscreen and said “This man almost didn’t exist because I seriously considered terminating my pregnancy with him. I’m glad I didn’t, and I believe you will feel the same way if you make the same choice. Thank you.” This heartwarming and light-hearted little diversion leads you to FotF’s website…where the indoctrination process begins. “Oh, look honey, they don’t like abortion! We don’t like abortion either! We should sign up for their mailing list!” And next thing you know FotF has a few hundred thousand more “members” that they can use to bully the media into covering them, and you as a member are suddenly being regaled with tales of doom and woe in which a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for mandatory gay marriage, mandatory gender education in first grade, the end of adoption agencies, nuclear war in the middle east, terrorist attacks in the US, a new Russian imperialism unchecked by a weakened and apathetic US military,[2023: and boy oh boy is that an entertaining read here in 2023, give that its premise is to predict the horrible, broken future of 2012 under the Obama presidency! It’s long and dull and enraging when you remember people actually think like that, but beyond that it’s hilarious. -jh] and all manner of other Terrible Things including a massive series of job openings when every good-thinking Christian quits their jobs and shuts down their business because they’re now being “forced” to act “against their morals” by (for instance) helping a gay couple adopt a child.
Focus’ tactics and methods are execrable and well-known. Any reasonably sentient mind can read the letter I linked to in the above paragraph and quickly note how often subtexts of pedophilia and homosexuality are both invoked and conflated. In paragraph after paragraph we are told that the evil liberals, “the gays,” the ACLU, and of course that old standby the Commies, are just waiting for President Barry to welcome them in the door and transform America into a nation of roving homosexual pedophiles, anti-religious violence, and a new pot-smoking effete bourgeoisie that revels in the sight of Evul.
Organizations like Focus on the Family are brutal and terrorizing manipulators of public ignorance. They rely on our inability to separate emotions from objective facts in order to push their dream of theocratic totalitarianism on the rest of us. “Dr.” James Dobson and his ilk, each and every one of them, wants to be Nehemiah Scudder when they grow up. This is the method behind their madness of the seemingly silly and naive attempts to influence education in this country; if we get ‘em while they’re young, they’re WAY easier to keep when they grow up. [2023: this isn’t just flowery prose; even as a firm atheist of some dozen years following decades of agnosticism, I still can’t – and never will – shake the brain-image of ‘God’ as an old white guy with a big white beard and flowing white hair. It was programmed into me before I could read, and I started reading when I was two. -jh]
I appreciate anyone standing up for what they believe in [2023: given what I’ve seen people standing up for since writing this article, I can no longer stand behind the statement. -jh], but I think anyone who chooses to do so has the duty to ensure that they are fully aware of the implications of who they’re standing with. I’m sorry, but if an organization like Focus on the Family came out hard in favor of anything I agreed with, I’d have to take a hard look at what I’m agreeing with.
I’d respectfully suggest that those of you who are applauding Tebow here, or who think that your “support” for this advertisement or for Focus on the Family is going to prevent ONE abortion in the world today, tomorrow, or ever, may want to reconsider who you’re hanging out with. Those groups are sick, endlessly focused on sexuality (and that often with a specific focus on children – EVERYTHING is a “threat” to “innocence” WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?! gimme money…[2023 and this con is also working better than ever, 13 years later. -jh]) and ultimately existing for the sole purpose of enriching themselves at the expense of the credulous, the frightened, the ignorant, the superstitious, and the confused…every one of whom are good people with kind hearts and the best of intentions, just like you.
This curated-and-updated post was originally published Oct. 29, 2009, and centers around a situation in which Home Depot terminated an employee named Trevor Keezer for refusing to remove a pin from his work uniform, while working, that read “One Nation, Under God, INDIVISIBLE.” You may recognize this as one of the many Islamophobic slogans that was flying around during the decade or so after 9-11 (and to some extent still are). The company’s policy was that employees may not wear anything on their uniform that wasn’t provided by the company. While a great deal of noise was made in right-wing media over the whole thing and indeed a lawsuit was filed, there’s no indication it ever went to court, and indeed it seems to have just been quietly dropped after a year of right-wing media outlets trying to drum out outrage over the “discrimination” against Christianity.
This essay is presented as originally written in the immediate aftermath of the event, with minor editorial corrections and edits. -jh
I’m definitely missing my camcorder today as this pointless, divisive kerfluffle over some redneck getting fired for pushing his religion on people on the workplace. What a great topic for a video rant…
I find it hilarious that so many people get all het up and whiny about BOYCOTT HOME DEPOT THOSE ATHEIST EVUL COMMIES, but boy wouldn’t they feel differently if the guy expressing his religious views on his work uniform was a Muslim, druid, or follower of Cthulhu? But no, it’s shove those noses in the air, start wringing your hands, and quick everybody get wrapped up in a my-god-is-better-than-your-god argument that solves nothing and distracts us from dealing with the very REAL and PRESENT and OBSERVABLE problems that we are wrapped up in.
A friend on Facebook linked to the Today show’s little fan page there, where one such conversation is taking place. it’s hilarious. “It’s not freedom FROM religion it’s freedom OF religion!” Uh…same thing, Captain Logic Freedom of religion by necessity includes the freedom to not participate in any religion at all without fear of persecution or discrimination. And then it’s the same tired old arguments that have been shot down time and time and time again over how this is a ‘Christian nation’ (it isn’t and it never was) or how anyone who doesn’t believe in Jethro Bodine’s particular concept of “God” is unpatriotic and evil and should LUV IT ER LEEV IT.
Now there’s a proud American sentiment, eh? You must worship according to our rules or be rejected from society. Oh, hey, waitaminnit, that’s the whole reason we (well, YOU. My people are native american, dutch, and black) left England in the first place, isn’t it?
What I can’t figure out is where all of these ‘good Christians’ get the fancy bibles that are missing the first part of Matthew 6. Especially verse five:
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
This is one of the most important verses in the Christian canon, and one of the most overlooked. In short, it says “you keep your religion between you and your god, rather than displaying it openly so that you can make money or impress people with your piety. ‘God’ does not care if your friends are impressed with how holy you are, so STFU and keep it to yourself. Anything else is stagecraft and hypocrisy. I AM, that which I AM, and I do not need to pursue or convince my creatures of my power, nor need I for you to pursue or convince them on My behalf; they will choose to come to me.”
I’ve seen this behavior at many large companies I’ve been employed by over the years, people decorating their cubes with their little holier-than-thou displays of bible verse and self-aggrandizing piety. It made me terribly uncomfortable, afraid to express myself openly. I even had colleagues ask me what church I attended – love that assumption that I attend ANY church, let alone that it’s anyone else’s damn business which one.
(Sidebar: One of the precious, self-righteous jerks I observed made the remark that one of HD’s competitors offers a standard military discount, so they were a better store anyway. My first thought: WTF lady you sent your husband off to die so you could get a good price on f’n gutters?! How callous.)
I don’t have anything against believers, personally. I just don’t believe that your beliefs give you the right to force those beliefs on anyone else, particularly when you’re in a public-facing customer service role; it’s obnoxious, unwelcoming, and exclusionary to anyone who doesn’t share your beliefs – which, frankly, is the entire point of doing it so let’s not kid ourselves.
You want to blog about Jesus and pray in your facebook status, that’s no skin off my nose in the least. I don’t want to be prayed over at Home Depot or have my soul saved at McDonalds or get into a long discussion about my religious beliefs when I try to buy a slurpee.
I still can find no Christian principle is supported by wearing buttons and slogans on my clothing to push my views on other people when I’m at work. That guy wasn’t being paid to proselytize, he was being paid to stock shelves or run a cash register. When I’ve had corporate jobs I haven’t decorated my workspace with political or social or religious messages. Of course I have opinions, that much should be no secret by now, but I also have enough grace and respect for others to not make their work day uncomfortable by broadcasting them in that forum. That’s not where they belong.
Believe what you want. I won’t hold it against you, in and of itself. Do I have things to say about these issues? Of course…but not when I’m working for someone else. If I’m stocking shelves or building databases or whatever, I’m being paid to do that, and all of my time save that which is necessary to attend to the necessities of human body function – i.e. eating, drinking, restroom, and a short step-away every few hours to ‘cleanse the palate’ and clear the head for more effective work function – should be spent doing that.
But more than anything else, what really chaps my ass about this whole thing is the smug tyranny of the majority, that obnoxious and distinctly un-Christian attitude that so many self-proclaimed followers of Jesus display to the rest of the world. You know, that condescending crap they wrap around themselves that screams to the world, “I am a member of a special club, and if you don’t do things my way you can’t join my special club, and then I and all of my special friends will make fun of you and not rent apartments to you and not let you eat at our restaurants or date our daughters or work for us, because YOU are not one of US, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it because GAWD is on MY SIDE.”
This root and its derivatives are, and have always been, among the fundamental causes of human misery.
Isn’t it ironic that so many followers of the “Prince of Peace” will cheerfully do violence and wage war in his name? Isn’t it ironic, that so many followers of the man who said “Be ye kind one unto another, tenderhearted, forgiving…” (Ephesians 4:32) are so cruel and heartless in their dealings with one another. That the religion which gave us the concept of pride as sin should give rise to such pride-filled followers; that the religion which purports to teach us that judgment lies solely in the hands of the Almighty should generate so many adherents who incessantly judge others on their mode of worship, their sexual habits, or whatever else, rarely if ever exercising such strict judgment on themselves.
Every one of us – every one of us – has skeletons in our closet. We are all human, we are all fallible, and we are all in this together. Anything that separates us one from another in the greater sense, as religion unquestionably does, is by definition genocidal…if slowly.
The guy shouldn’t have had the pin on his uniform. When the whole story’s out, it’s likely that he was asked/told/warned about this several times, and further that his decision to start publicly practicing his religion at work was intended to get him fired and provoke just this kind of self-righteous indignance, once again warming the fires that keep us from coming together as one people to solve our common problems, face our common threats, and improve our common state of being. [Ed. note 2023 – the eventual playing out of this case in one brief announcement of a lawsuit a year later followed by dead silence from all sides bears this analysis out entirely. He was in fact asked, told, warned, and even offered a company approved pin reading “United We Stand,” which is the same sentiment minute the Islamophobia/Christian proseltyzing. -jh]
Everybody’s wrong sometimes. There’s nothing bad about that; we learn from being wrong, or should.
Often you can get a sense of what’s motivating a person or entity by observing how they behave when they’re caught being wrong.
A longtime friend and supporter showed me this article in which a recent meme from longtime clickbait/meme farm The Other 98 asserting off-hand that “Funny how we haven’t seen a single American mega church offer ANYTHING to the Ukrainians…” is entirely debunked as without factual basis.
Followup shows that the page didn’t pull the image but rather changed the description…which is only useful when people have shared the description and not just copied/pasted the image as is the case more often than not. They could have just as easily thrown a DEBUNKED stamp on the original and edited that into the original post while deleting the first image entirely, but they didn’t.
This is why you can’t just go sharing everything that confirms your biases. There’s nothing about the underlying values the meme ostensibly represents that’s wrong, it’s just that someone was in a bigger hurry to push people’s emotional buttons for easy traffic – 22K shares last I looked – than to get their facts straight.
Perhaps my failure to adopt that attitude even as all of social media fell into it is why I don’t have 5 million people following me rather than 5 thousand aside from the big page where I’m a co-admin, but I also really like knowing that nobody can credibly accuse me of putting my own advancement, comfort, or benefit over the principles I believe in and the messages I’m trying to get into the world.
Everybody gets it wrong sometimes, including me, and that’s okay. It’s what you do about it that matters. The right way to deal with this would have been to edit the post and replace the image with one showing clearly that it had been debunked.
As it happens, I’ve been through this precise situation myself, probably a decade or so ago; back then it wasn’t possible to change the image in a post after it was posted, all you could do is delete it and just deleting it wasn’t sufficient to notify people it wasn’t accurate. I created a new corrected image and linked it in the description of the old, with edited text making clear that the original image was inaccurate and should not be used. Back then that was about the best you could do; the tools have since evolved.
As a source of information, If performative ass-covering while still trying to reap the benefits of your error is your first instinct, it’s probably time to take a hard look in the mirror and ask yourself honestly what you’re really trying to do.
As an activist or activist organization it’s vital to keep your priorities straight and not do things like this, because every time you do you’re validating criticism from “the other side” that call you “fake news” or accuse you of “lying” or “misinformation” or “propaganda,” and not without solid merit to their argument. Journalism currently has a similar problem; sensationalism “puts asses in seats” but it’s not often accurate.
As a consumer of information it’s always imperative to make sure you’ve checked your facts – not just when something’s asserted that you don’t agree with anyway, but *even more so* when you do.
Understanding bias is a core component of information literacy, which is a critical life skill for the modern day and beyond. That very much begins with understanding our own biases, because those are the ones that are going to most often be used against us. This is something I’ve been teaching for a very long time, and is now one of the core concepts underpinning CUSTODE. Our vulnerability to being easily manipulated by mass media has far outpaced the growth of our ability to see through the malicious application of persuasive communication, and until we fix that none of the challenges we currently face will ever truly be resolved.
The following article was originally published on my then-current website on May 27, 2001. I know it can get eye-roll-y sometimes when I talk about having had something right long before most people were paying attention, and the potential consequences if they’d listened.
At the time this article was written, most Americans had never heard of the Taliban except perhaps by reference in popular movies, and if they really had any familiarity at all it was with the previous name they were called in western media – the mujahadin. The vast majority of people had never heard of Mullah Mohammed Omar, either.
I recall that what prompted me to finally write this a couple of months after the fact was this news story: https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.aid/ In this story, we read of the $43 million grant given to the Taliban – ceremonially presented by Colin Powell – in May of that year as incentive for them to continue controlling the production and export of opium and its derivatives from Afghanistan.
Just six months before 9/11.
This representation has been altered from the original solely by the removal of two paragraphs expressing opinions I no longer hold and containing no information critical to understanding the story or my position.
I want you to read the last paragraph of this article and consider what the world would look like right now if that mass civil disobedience and immediate high-priority focus on the human rights crimes of the Taliban had happened when I suggested it…and just think about it next time you want to mistake ol’ JH for Yet Another Internet Know-It-All. Thanks 🙂
This rant might be dated by a few weeks, but I still feel the need to rant on it. On March 2, 2001, a radical Islamic sect in Afghanistan known as the Taliban announced that they would be destroying all of the centuries-old megalithic statues of Buddha that are carved into the cliffside near Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, including the largest known statue of Buddha in the world. The reason for this mindless destruction, according to Taliban supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar, is that their presence could induce the worship of ‘false idols,’ a sin under Islamic law.
This same Taliban, on May 1 2001, announced a complete ban on all non-Islamic music within the borders of Afghanistan. The only music now permitted there is the singing of Islamic hymns and Taliban chants.
On May 22, 2001, in a move frighteningly reminiscent of pre-WWII Nazi Germany, the Taliban announced that all non-Muslims must wear distinctive marks on their clothing to set them apart from the country’s Muslim majority.
Since the Taliban began seizing power in the mid-1990’s, their rulers have implemented a very strict series of laws aimed at adhering very closely to they hyperconservative letter of the ‘law,’ that is to say the Koran. Today in Afghanistan, women are not allowed to work or attend school, and may not leave home unless veiled from head to foot; men must wear long beards and pray in Mosques 5 times per day.
Somewhere, right now, in Afghanistan, a beautiful wife is being beaten mercilessly for disobeying her husband, under sanction of law. That beautiful wife has no choice – she cannot get a job to support herself, and even if she could, due to the illegality of educating women in Afghanistan, she’s not likely to have the skills to *perform* a job, other than as a maid, au pair, or whore. Those are the only functions that women in Taliban Afghanistan are allowed to fill, and I personally find that offensive against the very nature of humanity in the highest degree.
It’s 2001, for crying out loud. How in the world can this be going on today? How can such oppression be allowed to continue? I’m not a big one on war – it’s destructive and the usual victims are anyone BUT the people you’re shooting for – however, I firmly believe that strong, polylateral military action is not just required, but a moral imperative. The idea that one madman, or a small collection of them, can be allowed to dehumanize people and destroy centuries-old artistic treasures – to hell with the religious import – is absolutely mind-boggling to me.
I call upon you, reader, to do whatever you must – write articles, letters to the editor, contact your congressman, write the president, whatever you have to do – to put an end to this unchecked madness in Afghanistan now, rather than waiting for 6 million more Jews (Gypsies, Catholics, disobedient wives, insert your afghan religious minority here) to be gassed to death before we step up and put a stop to it, like we did last time.
How many people have to die in the name of God? How many priceless and timeless works of art, which are by convention and agreement the property of all humankind, will be lost forever to the ages due to the horrific acts of a few loose screws. Afghanistan is the ONLY country in the world in which human rights were *more* protected under communist soviet rule. The worst part is, WE helped put the Taliban in power by running out the Soviets.
I would like to make this a cause celebre amongst those of you reading. Ideas – a petition? a march on Washington? some sort of mass civil disobedience? – are welcome in my mailbox – perhaps together, we can manage to do something about this.
In this video holiday rant from December of 2009, JH goes off on racism, materialism, hypocrisy, and much more. Shot at Bronson Park in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Lately it seems like I’ve been on a bit of a tear, as they say. There’s been some status messages, and even a short video, all coming back to the core idea we’ve got to stop explaining basic things to people who completely understand them but pretend not to because the pretense allows them to continue engaging in unacceptable behavior.
I don’t mean to ever discourage reading or genuine intellectual curiosity. I absolutely believe that understanding what the facts are is critically important, and that of necessity that means understanding what a fact is, is pretty important too.
I’m just over the constant going back and forth with people who act like they don’t get it.
It sucks up too much energy.
Explaining why black lives matter and what that phrase means when it’s been under public discussion since 2013 is waste of time, as is arguing back and forth over what groups where and why “own” what “interest” in whatever related commercial trademarks there may be and how they’re used and why. First and foremost the conversation must begin with the basic understanding that black lives matter. Full stop. Anything beyond that is nonsense and argument, because anything beyond that means on some level and to some degree you are willing enough to compromise that basic idea to bother arguing about it.
Same thing with explaining why Confederate statues don’t have any place in the United States, same thing with explaining people why they should wear a mask in the midst of an ongoing deadly pandemic, on and on. We just expend so much time and energy on people not to educate them but to chip away at the idea that their position has some social acceptability, that we can’t ever move forward because these sandbaggers keep siphoning all our energy into just not going backwards any faster.
Manners?
The darker colors have smaller gaps; the darkest, the *smallest* gap is about 10% (women make a little over 90% what men do), and the lightest – in Utah, women make less than 70% of men on average.
Meanwhile women are still making 70 or 80 cents on the dollar, black people are still getting shot by cops on an almost daily basis if not more than daily, there are still thousands of kids in cages in the middle of a global pandemic and we’re doing worse than nothing to help them including losing them entirely.
I’m really not trying to be rude about it, but at this point who’s more rude here? The person who is continuing to act as though they don’t understand the arguments why human beings should be human beings and we shouldn’t put up statues to people who bought and sold human beings and fought against the interests of human freedom because that is neither honorable nor laudable? Or the person who says “enough, we’re moving on now?”
Who’s being more disrespectful, the person who refuses to wear a simple facemask, repeatedly demonstrated to have zero to negligible ill effects, in the middle of a deadly global pandemic that’s already killed at least – depending on your source – 125-130-ish thousand people just in the United States at the time I’m writing this, and probably many more? Or is the person who firmly insists we’re done arguing about it now and have the best guidance possible, and that’s WEAR A MASK WHEN YOU GO OUT, being rude by their firm insistence? Who dies in which direction? How many cases are there, EVER, of people dying because they were wearing a mask? Right. Wear the damn thing. If you’ve got reason beyond selfish and spurious hypochondria not to, you really WILL have the advice of a doctor because you’ve already got other serious problems.
In the vast majority of cases that first person is simply not being honest. It’s silly that we keep having to say the same things over and over as if each individual person is always hearing it for the first time. For instance I’m quite sure that my friend’s friend, whose remark started the comment that became this article, has heard all of these arguments before. He just doesn’t want to accept them. He can’t find a reasoned basis in objective fact and ethical behavior to support his position so he just pretends not to understand the arguments against it. Maybe that’s a conscious decision, maybe it’s not, I don’t know the man well enough to say. But that’s what’s happening.
At some level that stops even being about questions of racism or sexism or xenophobia or bigotry, and just starts being about personal character and integrity. I know people are going to find that offensive and outrageous and insulting, but it’s more offensive and outrageous and insulting to continue to insist that we don’t understand the basic realities of life whenever they’re inconvenient for us.
Consequences
Worse, it’s deadly.
This whole “I don’t get it” game is half the problem in a lot of places right now, where you’re talking about coronavirus or gender issues or racial issues or economic disparity issues or any of it. Half of any of those problems at least is people who just insist on pretending not to get it because if they admit they understand the arguments they have to admit that they’ve been wrong. Nobody likes to do that, so we’ve developed this elaborate set of communications to justify not doing it.
That has to stop now. That’s really what all of this is teaching us.
In another example, there’s a big kerfuffle up the road from me in Allendale, Michigan over the removal of a “confederate statue,” arguably more a civil war memorial featuring a generic confederate soldier.
That statue, though, was placed in 1998. It’s less historically relevant than The Simpsons, Nirvana, or Baywatch. And, it’s in Michigan. Nobody from this state fought for the breakaway traitorous republic; the statue doesn’t represent anyone who has any sort of tie here.
But obviously it must be important, after all apparently nobody in that town heard about the Civil War until 133 years after it was over and that’s why we’ve got to keep the statue!
Top feature of Allendale MI civil war memorial statue. Statue photos courtesy reddit.com user u/resister_sister
No more of that nonsense. It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time, and it’s a bunch of dishonest and disingenuous people complaining about things that don’t even have the slightest significance to them other than having something to complain about.
In the greater part, right now especially, they are complaining simply because other people whose oppression these people have benefited from for centuries are demanding an end to that oppression. The loudest subgroup of those voices, those with legitimate grievances that remain ignored, are those who descended from or look like the people who have been largely enslaved and dehumanized throughout the entire history of this country. And those people are saying “you see this? This is what we’re talking about!”
That scares people whose current state of privileged comfort is in some way is a product of their privilege and social standing they were born to and other irrelevancies like their gender or the color of their skin. They are facing the reality that pretty much their entire way of thinking is wrong and cruel and intolerable and it must stop. They’ve lived so long with privilege, they think they’re entitled to it. They’re afraid they can’t compete without the advantages privilege brings, against those who have historically been denied those privileges. So when the oppressed rise up and say “you see this?” the response of the oppressors is “I don’t know what you mean,” and they keep right on going.
Solutions
So the privileged are scared again because their privilege is threatened and they imagine that’s a threat to their comfort. That’s where all this comes from, right, is this stupid zero-sum thinking where in order for me to have, you have to do without. Some people, most of them simply mislead and others deliberately misleading, push that way of thinking to rationalize their own greed or self-interest above and beyond others. It’s uncomfortable for people who have defined themselves around a core creed to realize that it’s cruel and harmful, not only to those against whom it is directed but also against those who create it and perpetuate it. They don’t want to change because it’s not comfortable and they think it means they’ll lose something.
That, my friends, is just too bad. Those privileged folks are just gonna have to handle themselves, because if they continue behaving that way and treating the problem that way, they may just end up right. Problem is, so will we all, again, and that crap has to end or we’re going to end. So the traditionally privileged can just go find find those bootstraps they’re always telling the oppressed to pull themselves up by. Because the world is moving on, with them or without them.
The truly stupid thing is, it’s not even really “taking away” anything; it’s just making sure other people have access to the same opportunities and “rights” even if they’re *not* born into privilege &c.
Those people who are afraid they can’t compete on a level playing field rely on the power of their privilege to continuing to sabotage the game.
All of this is to say nothing of the fact that the statue itself perpetuates the idea that freedom of black Americans is a gift from white men rather than their right as human beings.
The problem is – and this is why I’ve been saying for years that “kumbaya liberalism is dead” – those same people have learned that they can manipulate the good nature of people who are decent. They can claim injury where there is none, or ignorance that is really saccharine stupidity, and rely on The Good Guys™ to continue being gentle.
It’s time we faced the difficult reality that the long term result of that has been a lot of good, dead people and a lot of live crappy ones, and it’s quickly becoming an existential threat to the species.
As I’ve paraphrased Heinlein so many times: survival and propagation of the species is the only universal morality. Ultimately, as a totality of human consciousness and existence, anything threatening that single universal morality will be eliminated, one way or another, just as happens with Darwinian selection for any other species, to the greatest extent that can possibly be exerted by that totality.
What makes that humane and ethically acceptable – or what defines the point at which it becomes so – is the effect of individual human will. At some level, all else being equal, we can each choose to act in ways that benefit or detract from the universal morality. “Lower” life forms don’t always have a choice about that.
In the US and other nations we’ve built entire systems that detract from the sole universal human morality, and we’ve insisted on treating the very things about those systems which detract from that fundamental drive to survive as though they are themselves required for our survival.
We have, rather than elevating and empowering human life, chosen to subjugate and restrict it for our own material benefit.
That has to stop, and we can either choose to stop it or the greater will of the collective species will absolutely act to stop it one way or another.
Conclusions
When our self-serving idiocy begins to work against the universal morality of other species and we refuse to put an end to it ourselves, those species do their best to fight back.
When we act against the universal morality of great numbers of species, we act against the universal morality of all life, and all life will work together to ensure we can’t keep doing that.
This is how all of this crap keeps going on, every bit of it. Including coronavirus, even including an alarming percentage of seismic activity in the last fifty years, to say nothing of the natural disasters that are made worse by our destruction of the environment, and it just keeps going and it all starts with individuals thinking clearly and ethically. Individuals who make a deliberate choice to refuse to at least make the genuine effort to *try* to do either one of those things are making a deliberate choice to die.
We no longer have the option of first considering the hurt feelings of the privileged. Especially when it’s mostly adults acting like little kids, being afraid to remove a band-aid and see the healing where a wound used to be. None of this is really going to “hurt” anybody, beyond the blow to their ego in finding out they’ve got to actually start living up to their own self-image, they’re not allowed to keep faking it anymore.
The coddling of these egos has to stop, and it has to stop now. It’s killing us, in very large numbers, and those numbers are going to get larger still before they start shrinking. Aside from basic human selfishness in the immediate sense, what mostly keeps this going is that arguing over these things is a multibillion dollar industry, and in spite of the generalized damage is inflicts on society as a whole, it props up the power and lifestyles of the ownership class.
But if we don’t change what we’re doing, NOW, they’re not going to start shrinking until so many people have died that the human population is no longer a threat to the rest of the world or itself.
We can no longer, as a matter of that universal human morality I keep talking about, continue to be polite to the stupid. Yes, there are going to be people who genuinely don’t get it, but that’s what education is for. That’s ignorance and it can be fixed. I’m talking about stupidity, which is willful ignorance or pretense to it. There are many more people who get it just fine and pretend not to – they play stupid – like the people who get a fake “emotional support animal” just because they notice people with real ones and are pissed off that someone is getting something “special” and they’re not.
The protection of these people’s feelings has to end, or it’s going to end us. It sounds cruel, but it isn’t. What’s cruel is the price everyone has to pay to keep propping all this BS up.
This is more of a broad-topic philosophical essay than the more pointed work addressing environmental and other issues that I was producing during this period. Also a bit lighter-hearted, maybe, at least not quite so intense. And the analogy stands.
Original description: Did that guy just compare religion to playing with yourself? Yeah, I think he did. JH takes on religion, hypocrisy, responsibility, and asks why we’re waiting for the invisible man to solve our problems for us.
