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I have a theory that a thousand years from now, if the species still survives, that the biggest holiday of the year will be digging up climate change deniers from our generation, and dragging their skeletons over the hot pavement.
Bryan Fischer is the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association. He recently tweeted that America needs an underground railroad to rescue children from same sex parents. In other words, he was advocating an illegal secret network of Christians kidnappers to abduct children and take them… well, he didn’t say where they should be taken. He obviously didn’t think that far ahead.
In his defense, Mr. Fischer may be so stunted by his own propaganda that he is incapable of imagining how horrifying his words would be to someone who can actually feel human emotion on this issue. It might be wise for him to consider what he would be willing to do to someone who threatened to kidnap his own children, and then to realize that’s what he looks like to the rest of us.
Last night, the state of Texas executed Marvin Wilson, who tested as having an IQ of 61. The state argued that his crime exibited a greater capacity, but a family member says that Wilson suffered from sever mental retardation and sucked his thumb well into adulthood. The one “witness” to the shooting was the wife of the other man convicted of the crime. As a consequence of her testimony, her husband was spared the death penalty, and instead received a sentence of life in prison with the possiblity of parole.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/marvin-wilson-execution-texas_n_1753968.html
Pat Robertson just announced that the shooting in the Sikh temple was the fault of atheists. Do you ever wonder how such little minds can hold so much hatred? It turns out that ignorance and arrogance are closely related afflictions. When any of us reduce life to one simple theory, then whatever happens will validate our theory. For example, if Pat Robertson believes American Christians are the chosen ones, and that all of our problems come from non-believers and foreigners, then even when someone who identifies as American and Christian kills, it is still the outsider’s fault. Even if they don’t pull the trigger, their very presence is a provocation. If Pat Robertson turns out to be right about God, I would choose hell in a heartbeat.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/pat-robertson-says-those-_n_1749532.html
Imagine if bank robbers were never arrested for their crimes but, instead, when caught in the act, they received a stiff fine. Obviously, bank robbing would become an honored profession. Occasional fines would be considered a cost of doing business. That is exactly how our executive branch is treating the massive crimes of the banks and Wall Street. When they were caught red handed robbing the public, they were given record fines by the Obama administration, and then, set free to rob again. There are important differences in the political parties, but allowing the rich to fleece the poor is a bi-partisan project. The message sent by the justice department to the guilty is pretty clear: “Next time, don’t be so obvious.”
In a nation as deeply ignorant of other cultures as ours, it should not be a surprise when people from one group are attacked in revenge for the imagined actions of another group. It is to be expected that a nation that spends as much time praising itself as ours, would have a problem with individuals taking that sense of superiority even further. It is bad enough to lump one fifth of the world’s population (Muslims) into a stereotype of violent religous extremists, it is a further step into insanity to attack an unrelated group like the Sikh’s because they dress differently from our cultural norm. According to a coalition working to support Sikhs, it has received over 700 requests by Sikhs for legal assistance in the face of discrimination, bullying and hate crimes since 2001.
To read the NPR report on violence against Sikhs, click here.
To learn more about Sikhs, click here http://www.sikhs.org/
“Civility” does not mean we cannot speak bluntly or even painfully. “Civility” means we remember that the purpose of human language is communication above all else. “Civility” is keeping our reason when others have forfeited theirs. It is remembering that ridicule is not refutation. “Civility” is remembering our sacred duty to keep communicating even when others are using language only to taunt. “Civility” is holding onto the holy torch of reason, not only because our opponent might listen, but also because we ourselves do not wish to grope in the dark.
Social media are a wonderful new laboratory for studying the human animal. Yesterday, I saw that a conservative friend had posted a picture of Obama dressed like a clown. It reminded me of that human quirk that thinks if we draw a mustache on the face of our enemy we have refuted his or her best ideas as well.
Unsurprisingly, some of the liberal responders were offended by the picture of their candidate in a clown suit. “Why do you need to be so mean? Why can’t we keep the conversation civil?” one of them implored. On a hunch, I went to her website and was not surprised to see a picture of Romney photo shopped onto a picture of the tin man, apparently implying that Romney has no heart. In other words, to this women, Obama in a clown suit felt like vicious ridicule, Romney’s face on a picture of the tin man felt like an intellectual satire.
The conservative who had posted the Obama/clown picture also responded very predictably. “You liberals laughed at George Bush unmercifully, now you are getting some of your own medicine.” In other words, “If I can find an example of anyone from your group doing something wrong to anyone from my group, it is fair for me to do that to you.”
Lesson: Hypocrisy is a universal human foible which we see in our enemy, but not in ourselves. Every time we “pass like ships in the night” in conversations like this, both sides leave more convinced of their group’s superiority, and more oblivious to their own role in the problem.
thanks to Rita Stephan
link: psi.org
Below is a NY Times summary of the landing of the Mars rover, “Curiosity.” It is a remarkable accomplishment and there is much to celebrate today. But when the President spoke afterward, and did the obligatory national chest beating, I wondered how those words would feel to someone from another country? Everyone knows that we are the only nation who could have done this, so why did we need to say it? I wondered what would happen if we saw our best accomplishments within the context of our species and not just more proof of our own national glory? What if instead of planting our own flag on every moon and planet we land upon, we left, instead, a symbol of planet earth? What if the President saw our remarkable accomplishments as a sign of what our world could do if we worked together and not against one another? People would still know we did it, but what if we invited them to share in the celebration, and to join us in doing even greater things? When Neil Armstrong stepped out on the moon he recognized the lunar landing as an accomplishment for our entire species. But, then, we planted our own flag. I wonder what it would feel like if, for once, we left our national flag back on earth?
http://science.time.com/2012/08/06/mars-rover-curiosity-lands-safely-on-the-red-planet/