Liberty's Price

We are so far removed from the original struggle to found the United States, so distant from the events that led to its creation, that it is probably very hard for most of us to imagine what it was like to live in Colonial America. We can no more wrap our heads around the idea of being ruled by a foreign power, than we can understand the motivations of those who perpetrated September 11Th. The idea that at one time, the people of America were subjects of Great Britain, subject to the whims of its king and unrepresented in Parliament, seems almost whimsical now.

It was not so in 1775.

The Founding Fathers fought a protracted, costly, and often contentious war to pry the United States free from the grip of Britain. In doing so, they knew that the end result would have to be a nation, conceived in freedom and liberty, that would have to do anything within its power to ensure that its citizens would never again fall under the thrall of another sovereign nation, nor be subjugated by their own government. The Bill of Rights was the foundation upon which the new nation was laid. It said the government would have no right to limit the freedom to speak, the freedom to worship, or the freedom of the press to report on how the country was being run. It said the government could not simply take what belonged to its citizens, nor charge them with crimes without some form of due process, and that people had the right to know what they were being accused of, and by whom. They also made sure that the government would not make them surrender their arms, to ensure the ability of the nation to raise martial forces in time of need and to make sure that the citizenry could resist, should the government turn repressive.

While it can be said that these precepts were earth-shaking in the 18Th Century, the founders knew that no half measures would do. They tried to anticipate what it would take to hold a nation of such disparate heritage together over generations, and made sure that the Constitution could be amended to adapt to change. They made assumptions about the course of history to come, hoping to ensure that the foundation remained solid long after they were gone. If our current place in the world is any indication, this new birth of freedom and the growing pains that came after, led to a nation that is strong, proud, and even more diverse than the founders could have imagined.

But there was a cost inherent to the liberty thus created.

That the government ceded the right to limit the freedom to speak, meant that in addition to the liberation of being able to criticize people, institutions, and even the government itself, in a manner which fostered public debate, created mutual understanding, and promoted growth, groups with less than admirable aims would have the right to stand upon their soapboxes and spew forth venom and vitriol. Sanity, reason, and logic would have to share the field with ignorance, intransigence, and intolerance. Any reasonable person would have to face the possibility of being set upon by howling mobs of the narrow-minded.

It could be no other way.

The founders had seen, first-hand, how a totalitarian regime would do whatever it took to suppress even mild dissent. They knew that for there to be true freedom, the good would have to be taken with the bad. One suspects they hoped, beyond hope, that as the nation grew, the bond of community would overwhelm any opposition. In essence, they were counting on, as Lincoln put it, "the better angles of our nature" to naturally suppress dissent. Freedom and liberty would do a better job reigning in the destructive tendencies of some, than a heavy-handed government.

They were eternal optimists.

The history of our country has seen the collection and distribution of disturbing ideologies, ideologies that have no basis in fact or reason, but that persist because they play to people's fears. Fear is a powerful motivator -- it is built in to us as a defense mechanism, causing us to flee if we can and fight if we cannot flee. Fear can be harnessed, used to fuel intolerance, cruelty, hypocrisy, and greed. Fear can be turned into a weapon, and a justification.

And so, on June 10Th, 2009, the dream of a nation conceived in liberty and freedom was weakened, by the act of a anti-Semitic, racist, hate-monger, who, for no reason we can fathom, decided to attack a memorial to an event, the likes of which the world did not know until the 20Th Century, an event he denied even happened. He turned a sick, twisted, misguided ideology into action, fear-inducing, hate-spreading action. Because of this, a decent man, a man paid to maintain peace and order and to protect the lives of others, paid the ultimate price, in laying down his life to stop a madman before he could kill others. A family has been deprived of a father. Parents have been deprived of a son.

We are outraged. We are stunned, both by the act itself, but more importantly, by the ideology that spawned it. We want retribution. We want the flaming sword of justice to swoop down from the heavens, and smite these hate-filled animals. We want to strip away their freedom, forfeit their lives, as payment for their ignorance. We want them dead.

It cannot be that way. The founders knew this.

If we are to honor our country, if we are to honor the memory of every person who has died, in any way, to sustain our freedom, then we cannot devolve to the level of such extremists. We have rule of law in this country, and we must use it, and wisely, to fight these hate-mongers at every turn. We must show that the vast bulk of the citizenry in the United States rejects fear and hatred, rejects anti-Semitism and racism, rejects anything that is contrary to the greater good. They must be repudiated, their views torn down, the truth shouted from every rooftop. We must drown their ideology of hate with the weight of decency and law. We must take this moment, take this opportunity afforded us by this tragedy, and turn it into action. All free Americans, all good citizens, must rise as one and say "Enough!" to the forces that would divide us and make us afraid of each other. We must make it clear to the forces of intolerance, that America may grant them the freedom to espouse their views, but we do not grant them the power to control us with fear.

Let us put a fallen hero in our thoughts, put his murderer behind bars, and put those who would lionize such a coward on notice, that their days of intolerance are numbered.

Four Words

You shall not kill.

Now, you may take those words at face value, and if you do, their intent is pretty obvious. Killing, it would seem, is wrong.

Mind you, there is not a lot of specificity there. Kill what, precisely? Other people? Animals? Microbes?

Without context, as powerful as the words are, we are left to wonder about their true intent. When placed in the context from which they sprang, the Ten Commandments, there is much better clarity. The Ten Commandments were a series of rules to live by, the codifying of life in terms all could understand and recognize. They told you what to do and what not to do to be seen as good in the eyes of the Old Testament God.

And these 4 words makes sense, even out of that context.

Whatever your belief system, there seems to be a fundamental right to be alive. You are here, brought into this world, raised, part of human society, and it seems perfectly natural for you to stay that way. More to the point, given that we are all human in this society, it seems reasonable to assume that if you have the right to be alive, so do your fellow humans. Taken further, it is an unforgivable breach for one human being to deprive another human being of their life, an asset that cannot be restored, once taken.

What seems obvious, right, and logical to one person, or even group of people, does not always translate. Throughout time, it has always been easier to simply deprive others of their life in order to get what you want. Someone has land you want: you kill them. Someone is in love with a woman you desire: you kill them. Your country is in a shambles and those people are to blame: let us kill them. They do not look like we do: kill them. They do not believe what we do. 

Kill them.

Miraculously, human society still exists, despite the ever-increasing conflicts we pursue, on the ever-increasing scales we pursue them. And where large portions of human society have not managed to wipe other large portions out, there are the small, daily skirmishes, chalked up to daily survival, or worse, the defense of a "way of life."

You shall not kill.

For all the power of those 4 words, they are easily enough ignored when desired. Even the most devout can find a justification for murdering someone, if they try hard enough. Perhaps it is easy to do, because they know they can ask for absolution, a kind of "get out of jail free card" for the soul. Perhaps they are convinced that it is the hand of God that made them do it, and that places them beyond the grip of mortal, human justice. Perhaps they need no more justification than "I can do it, so I will." They do not fear degradation, retribution, or the judgment of other humans, cocooned in a shell of their belief, as unbreakable as their personal faith.

So, it is easy enough for them to justify their actions to themselves, if no one else. Yet we know, there are those who believe as they do, who see these actions, not as deplorable or reprehensible, but as justified, on some loose moral ground. They are driven by a desire to see everyone believe as they do. They are frustrated that their will is not enforced. They see it as their "right" to make the world in their own image. Reason, appeals to sanity, logic... these do not sway them. Their belief is their sword and their shield, and backed by nothing more, they would trample others who stand in their way, all the while hiding behind the protections granted them by their country.

Death begets death. They who live by the sword, die by the sword.

And those who would take up arms to enforce their point of view, or revel in a blow struck for their beliefs, can rest peacefully in their bed, because nowhere will others who oppose them plan the same fate for them. They will not have to worry about being brutally murdered to prove a point.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Lift The Burden

It is sad to me that a genetic adaptation, expressed by my chromosomes, something passed down to me by my ancestors, and currently beyond my power to control (save for exposure to ultraviolet radiation), has been made into a burden by history, namely by those self-same ancestors of similar lineage but no direct relation, who saw fit to express their power to the detriment of others.

Thus is a white man's burden.

Now, before the self-righteous among you decide that it is anathema for a white man to talk of race, racism, and race relations, let me point out that I am in no way absolving anyone of the consequences of their actions, nor making excuses for their behavior. I am also not speaking for my race, because I'm a firm believer in the right of an individual to self-determination, and therefore, responsibility for their actions. What any of us do, falls upon us when the time comes to be judged, or so it should be. It is incumbent upon our society to judge by action, by deed, and by character.

Hence the burden. A burden carried by every person of every skin type, for at some time, their color has determined how someone, somewhere, felt about them, even if they have never met them. And for every dozen people of good moral character, hard-working, honest, and decent, there is the one who is not the embodiment of the race, who splashes a stain on its character by mere association. That is the burden.

For if we are to be judged as people, not as sexual characteristics, skin tone, or even belief systems, we must somehow erase those stains by our own rectitude, living as high and moral a life as we can manage in our own circumstances. The world must be flooded with the examples of how we do right by others, not by how we tear them down. That is the burden.

The problem is: for all our attempts to show that we are beyond the petty dictatorship of our skin, our sex, our religion, there are those who would exacerbate the preexisting doubt, uncertainty, and fear in other people's eyes by their actions. In a time when we should be coming together, coalescing as a progressive, forward-thinking, and above all, inclusive society, some seek to throw a wrench into the works, to bring our forward progress to a halt. They covet their power too greatly, bemoan the changes that are self-evident and, according to Darwin, inevitable. They refuse to believe that their view can be wrong, and seek to instill fear in others, fear of "what may come," as if a shadowy war is just beyond the horizon.

What is worse, many of these fear-mongers have positions of power, that grant them access to vast communications resources, that allow them to spew their shameful vitriol with near impunity. They can reach to every corner of society, seeking out those with doubts, who harbor moral ambiguity, or even fervent hatred; supplicants and converts, waiting for a word, a sign, that they are not alone. That is the burden.

For a person like myself, who has done his level best to see people only as people, who has striven to live a good and moral life, to do unto others as I would have them do unto me, I am sickened, and many times disheartened, to hear words spoken in public, by figures of some renown, that cast aspersions and generate false witness against others, for no other reason that they can. There is no reason for any human being to claim superiority over any other, but these disreputable mountebanks continue to stain us all with the broad brush of their ignorance. There are days I wish to slough off my skin, that to wear it feels unclean. It is as if every good deed I do is poisoned. That is the burden.

Our burden can only be lifted if every person of good conscience and free heart and mind, stands up and speaks, to drown out this tidal wave of intolerance. We many, we, the silent majority, must unite our voices in a choir of dissent, to bring forth the true harmony of humanity. Be it pen, blog, or microphone, we must do whatever we can to show that in the United States of America, ours is a society that tolerates differences but does not condone discrimination on any level, that allows the individual the freedom to think and do as they will but does not stand on a foundation of moral indifference when those thoughts and actions threaten us as a whole. We must show that, in the end, it is possible for all people to live together, free to be who they are, free from the fear that who they are and what they are will mark them somehow. We must rededicate this country to the idea that all people are created equal.

Battle of the Sex

A couple of months ago, I wrote a tract on opinion and judgement, stating that it is a slippery slope we tackle when we write opinions and commentary on our blogs, or in public forums, stating that we believe our point of view to be the "correct" one. While it is possible to find a great number of people who may agree on any one salient point about a particular topic, statistics tell us there will always be groups outside the mean with differing opinions. The idea of debate is founded on this; for any subject, there is more than one side, more than one opinion, and in a proper setting, the give-and-take of ideas allows us to see all sides clearly, form value judgements, and come to a consensus.

Hopefully.

The twin phenomena of the blog and the commenter, brought about by the rise of the Information Age, has altered the normal structure of debate and dialog to a great extent. Whereas great debate has always taken place in person, between parties capable of reacting to each other, making their vision and passion known through their actions at the podium, as well as their words, the Internet has provided us with the idea of "telepresent" debate, whereby hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people may weigh in on a topic, in a kind of whirling frenzy, punctuated by colorful metaphors and diatribes and remotely-launched character assassination. All this, from behind the cloak of anonymity, or in some cases, pseudo-anonymity. Most combatants in this game of computerized expostulation take part behind shields of their own creations, pseudonyms being the rule more than the exception. Even I find it easier to comment while shielded by a name which is part trademark, and part jest.

Most of it is harmless enough. Trading banter has always been part of the human condition. However, the relative anonymity and ease of attainment leads many to unleash inner demons, allow the darker parts of themselves to roam free. Intellect and cogent discourse are subverted by emotion and rampant gainsaying. A holier-than-thou attitude, normally checked by proximity to people, is launched onto the Internet, to wreak havoc and sow discord through narrow-mindedness and effrontery.

This was no more evident than when Linda Hirshman, of Slate's female-oriented site doubleX, went on a rambling, baseless, and self-indicting screed against a site on which I comment regularly, Jezebel. The gist of the attack was that feminism was being ruined by the editorial staff of Jezebel. Rather than reproduce any portion of the diatribe here (feel free to look it up on doubleX, under the title 'The Trouble With Jezebel'), given that I do not wish to drive any more readers to that site, it must be said you could find more coherence of thought in a Chinese restaurant menu.

I won't launch any kind of personal attack here; I will say that if Linda Hirshman is holding herself out to be a scion of feminism, then feminism is, indeed, in serious trouble. You cannot, on one hand, claim that feminism is about the liberation of women from the oppression of men that has lasted for centuries, while, on the other hand, decrying women using that hard-won freedom to do as they wish. It is especially galling that she should heap her particular brand of ill-considered scorn on the editors and staff of Jezebel, who represent what is probably one of the best staffs of any web site you care to name. Day after day, they fill Jezebel with timely and important information of interest to women (and men like myself, who care about women's issues), as well as entertainment news, providing an eclectic mix that makes for a pleasant read.

Ms. Hirshman based her opinions on a handful of posts and one video from an ill-fated discussion attended by two editors. From that scant base, she concocted a theory of how the freedom of these women and their personal choices spelled the doom of classic feminism. Apparently, being a feminist and having been freed of the patriarchy, you are free to go about your business, as long as it doesn't reflect badly on feminism. That is to say, you're not allowed to make mistakes in judgement, not allowed to determine how you will handle your own rape, not allowed to imbibe freely, not allowed to be a free-wheeling, devil-may-car, sex-enjoying woman. Once you have been labeled a feminist, you receive your ID card and handbook, and are expected to be circumspect, to follow the tenets of the movement religiously, and are allowed no variation from them.

To say that all this is laughable and ludicrous, is to put it mildly. Like so many of the "old guard" that any movement spawns, Ms. Hirshman is frightened by these women, who have taken their freedom and run with it, while she remains fettered to the movement. As any movement (feminism, civil rights, gay rights, etc.) progresses, it grows and evolves, incorporates more people, people with different viewpoints and perspectives, who take it in new directions and break new ground. Such is the way of things. This leaves the old-timers waxing nostalgic, pining for the ground-breaking days, when they could control the thing they breathed life into. But the only constant in the universe is change; those who deny it are left behind, embittered.

Eventually a thing grows beyond those who brought it into being. That is true of our country, which the Founding Fathers would know but not recognize. Or a California redwood, which has far outlived all the plants and animals that were alive when it sprouted as a seedling. It is very true of children, who last far beyond their parents, and see the world become far different than the one they first emerged into. So it is that feminism has moved beyond suffrage and "women's lib," to become a standard, something that generations of women from now to the distant future will accept as their normal birthright. True, women are still caught in an imperfect human society, portions of which have yet to see this new birth of female freedom, but no longer is it just a crazy idea, a pie-in-the-sky dream still awaiting its day. No, feminism is now a living, breathing entity, an implacable force that will shape our world in myriad ways, as it sweeps across our planet and lifts the faces of all women up to the sun.

Who Are You?

What matters most to people? How much money you have? The kind of house you own? What you do? How you look? Your IQ?

Right now, society has a case of weight sensitization, which is taking on proportions that would have it seem that issues such as war, poverty, and global climate change are mere bagatelles. The chatter about what is healthy, what you should eat, how much you should eat, how large you are, how fat you are, how skinny you are, ad infinitum, is such that people are being reduced from feeling beings to sacks of proteins, fats, amino acids, and other chemicals.

This goes beyond the divisive and elusive ideal of beauty, to a fundamental conception that, like intelligence, health can be boiled down to a single characteristic, trait, or even number. That soon, we may be nothing more than a set of numbers like IQ, weight, BMI, etc., is both frightening and perverse. It is the modern reflection of inherent classicism that continues to plague us. We feel a need to place people into convenient, calibrated categories and to organize them on a continuum that allows us to determine exactly where we stand in relation to "them."

It is no longer enough to judge people on the scale of "beauty," but to break down and quantify the qualities that make them "less beautiful" or "less attractive" than someone else, or even less "like us." A person must conform or be condemned.

This rush to judgment, this desire to force society into some absolutism of type, feeds on our more destructive impulses, those dark demons of our ancestry that marked different things as threats, to be avoided, shunned, or killed. Given our evolved state, where we have the mental horsepower to override our baser instincts, it is sad to see how easily we are seduced by them, turned from reasoning individuals into fanatical mob. Even as we strive for greater tolerance of race, sexual orientation, gender, et. al., we turn inward and succumb to the intolerance of our animal brain, chopping people down rather than reaching out to pull them up.

In the end, the success and survival of human society is predicated on our ability to throw off the shackles of our evolutionary past and reach beyond our instincts. We must look past the face, the body, the eyes, and see what is inside people. And not just see, but learn to tolerate the differences, no matter how radical. This will prove to be a far greater struggle than the switch from hunter-gatherer to agrarian society, but the rewards for success will be immeasurable, compared to the possibility of our species becoming nothing more than a cosmic footnote.