overachievers

Every election there are some board positions on my ballot.  The local water system board, the school system board, and the community college board are all positions elected by the citizens.  So, some time in October I start reading through campaign websites and social media pages to get a sense for what qualifies the people running for these positions.  They definitely attract a type of person, but I genuinely don't understand that type.

It's fairly typical for a person running for a board position to highlight that they have multiple children, a job with some authority, and also hold multiple other board positions. This is ignoring other community and church volunteer positions that are typically listed.  I want to know why.  Why, if you are already being clearly pulled in fifty different directions would you want to add a fifty-first?  At some point you trade quality for quantity.  I don't necessarily want to elect someone to a board if they are already on four or five other boards that meet regularly.

I do understand wanting to be involved in decision-making when your life is more opened up.  If you are a semi-retired educator and want to use the breadth of your experience to help guide your local school district or community college through difficult decisions, this makes sense to me.  It also makes sense to me that a parent would want to join a board to have a voice.  I just don't understand it being the fifth board you're on, at the expense of time with your children.

talking politics with kids

In the past few years I have worked with the children's ministry in our church more than in previous years.  One thing that I have noticed is that there are specific people who insert their political beliefs into their lessons.  In at least one case this is because the person's political and religious identities are tightly linked, so that's where his mind goes when teaching about a virtue or a vice.

There isn't a great line regarding what is inappropriate to discuss with other people's children, but as I progress as a parent I am starting to believe that any political discussion with elementary-aged children who are not your kids or grand kids is unwise.  Certainly, teachers should teach history, government, civics, etc.  However, that should be the limit.  The downsides of pushing your political worldview on someone else's kid are stronger than the positives.

Much of my opinion comes from the fact that adults don't usually have the requisite humility to discuss political issue appropriately even with other adults.  Most political discussion involves first characterizing people who disagree with you as bad or stupid rather than having valid concerns.  This is wrong, but it is typical.  Speaking to kids like this only teaches them to approach things in a similar way.

Furthermore, I'm shocked that adults think that kids' parents might want someone else teaching them their political worldviews.  Even in an environment where most people believe a certain way there are some who will not.  It is more important rather than less important not to isolate those kids and make them feel like they don't belong.

I remember people talking politics to me and around me as a kid, and it did not occur to me at the time how inappropriate those conversations were.  I've since had several moments as an adult where I realized, "Hey, that adult shouldn't have made the child me believe that conspiracy theory," or "Wow, now that I can articulate what was happening at the time I can't believe that adult slandered that politician to me that way."

For what it's worth, in my experience people with both right-leaning and left-leaning viewpoints felt the freedom to push their opinions.  So, this is an adult thing rather than a right or left thing.

My kids are not as interested in politics as I was at their ages, however I do have an approach I take when a political topic is raised.  I always emphasize that when we have a specific political belief that does not mean that people who disagree with us are bad or stupid.  I am willing to tell them what I think of a specific issue if they want to discuss it, though.

For reference, most of the political questions I've fielded in the last few years have fallen in one of two buckets.

• "I've heard a lot of people say that President Trump is mean.  Is that true?"
• "A lot of people don't like President Trump.  Why is that?"

Sometimes I wish I was raising kids in a different era.  I'd much rather be discussing political issues than politicians' tactics and dispositions.

signing bibles

I'm noticing that, while I frequently contemplate the implications of news stories and comment on them, the news cycle is so fast nowadays that by the time I have real fleshed-out comments to make on them they're long out of the news.

One such story is the somewhat recent kerfuffle about President Trump signing Bibles in Alabama.  If you asked me immediately after the news story broke I would have responded that him doing this was deeply offensive.  Now I still think it's offensive, but I also think it's one of the bigger non-stories of the past month.

My initial reaction was that President Trump should have known better, and that doing this exemplifies the criticism that he has a god complex and/or narcissistic tendencies.  Christians should revere Scripture to the level that turning a Bible into autographed memorabilia should at least give serious pause.  In my view, putting a signature on the cover of the Bible makes it look like the person signing has the same or greater significance than the Bible itself.  I still believe this after giving the situation time and thought.  The general shrug that a lot of believers gave the story is still bothersome from the perspective that the Bible should be given due respect, and in this case it clearly wasn't.

However, my originally harsh view of the event has moderated significantly.  The biggest reason for this is that it's very easy to imagine someone getting random things shoved in front of them to sign and not stopping to think about whether it's a good idea to sign every single thing.  One can argue about how prone President Trump is to stop and think in general, but I expect that a lot of people in that situation who aren't President Trump would have signed a Bible in that situation without thinking about it.

Second, there is some debate as to what specifically about signing a Bible is offensive.  Other presidents have signed Bibles.  Few people consider signing the inside of the Bible wrong, especially when the Bible is a gift to another. People used to use the family Bible to detail their family tree.  I have had more than one Bible with my name inscribed on the cover.  If I can't draw clear lines on the whys for when it's offensive to put a name in or on a Bible and when it isn't, I do need to give some grace.

Finally, what's offensive about this is more what it represents than the act itself.  The real issue is that there are believers who are quick to judge the morals of politicians they disagree with, but will give President Trump or other similar politicians a pass (or twenty) because he nominates the judges they want.  In essence, this issue was always a proxy for that other issue.  Rather than litigating concerns about hypocrisy as a proxy, those should probably be addressed more directly.

So, this is sort of a defense of Trump in this one instance without really being one.  It's indicative of the times we live in.

cherokee princess

From when I was born until when I was elementary-aged my dad worked on a few different reservations.  We are as white as white can be, and no one in our family ever pretended any different.  It never crossed my mind to think any differently about the situation, either. However, one of the first questions I'd get from people who did not live near the reservation was whether I had any Native American ancestry.  This was almost always a prelude to someone telling me about their grandparent who was half-blooded [fill in Native American tribe].

Even as a kid, this pattern jumped out to me because it happened so often.  Why did people who had probably never been on a reservation care so much to identify with a specific tribe?  In my experience (from the 80s and early 90s) reservation life was different from life off the reservation in a lot of respects, so it felt a little like trying to gain the benefits of an identity without paying in experience.

I don't remember this firsthand, but there's apparently a joke that gets told among Native people about how every white person's grandmother was a Cherokee princess.  That does fit my experience.  Everyone and their brother seemed to want to tell me about their Native ancestor.  In fact, even if I mention now that I used to live on a reservation to a small group of people it is more or less guaranteed that someone in the group will notify me of their Native American heritage.

This is what has made the evolving story surrounding Elizabeth Warren fascinating to me.  I don't doubt that she fully believed that she could claim Native American ancestry.  I've heard enough people who were convinced of it themselves that it fits the pattern.  Why, just based on family stories, she decided she should assert that as an identity baffles me.  Even if she had a close Native ancestor, she clearly had to know that she was mostly Caucasian and lived a Caucasian life.  She should have especially known that as someone who originally hailed from Oklahoma.  Of all of the unforced errors a [future] politician could commit, this is among the dumbest.

However, as dumb as I think that scandal is, my experience says that Warren doesn't go much further than a lot of other Native American wannabes.  I am certain that a lot of the folks laughing about "Pocahontas" Warren's claims have also asserted their non-existent Native heritage whenever they got the chance.  The reason I'm so sure is that I've probably heard one of them talk about their Cherokee grandparent some time in the past.

shutdown

"Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin." - Deut 24:14-15

"Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty." - James 5:4
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This isn't intended to be extremely political, despite the topic.  It's simply meant to be a doctrinal assertion.  In the moment it's going to come across as political, however.  While in any given situation this might target one party or government leader or another, there's no saying that the next situation won't involve the opposite party.

My assertion is simply that shutting down the government in the way it has been done recently very clearly violates Scripture.  There are probably extreme situations where a government shutdown is the least sinful course, but those situations are limited.  They certainly are not at play here.

I've been in an awkward place on this issue.  I think it's important to acknowledge in the church that this is a sin, while it is also important not to get overtly political in a church setting.  So, I keep to myself what I see as public sin by other believers.  I feel like there's an unspoken obligation in church to make a stand in calling certain sins sin, but also a similar obligation not to take a stance on other sins because some people in the church disagree that they are sins for one reason or another.  Clearly, if they are sins then this is a problem.

In reading the passages above, I don't know how a Christian can justify taking a public position that making government employees work without pay isn't sin.  I don't know how a Christian government leader could ignore Scripture to force people to work without timely pay.

The natural defense a person might raise is that this is a different situation because it's addressing rich land owners exploiting their workers, but that's a semantic difference more than anything.  It's looking for a loophole to lawyer out of God's instruction.  These instructions/condemnations come from the fact that certain people exploit others, and this puts them at odds with God.  Shutting down the government does the same thing, so it should follow that this puts the people who cause the shutdown at odds with God.  If Scripture is true, doesn't this mean that the cries of unpaid laborers are reaching God, and that those responsible for the shutdown are ultimately under God's judgment?

That this shutdown and previous ones have involved individuals who claim Christianity should be seen as tarnishing our faith.  To counter this more church leaders should be speaking about this situation in terms of its sinfulness.  While I understand the motivation of doing something like shutting down the government as a negotiation tactic, believers should have a high standard for people who claim to represent them as Christians in the public sphere.  For one, those representatives should abide by the Scripture they say they proclaim.

toxic masculinity

I've heard the term "toxic masculinity" used a lot recently.  I don't think I had ever heard it before a year or two ago.  I've never been the most masculine of men, but I'm not by any stretch effeminate.  So, I think I can maintain some objectivity on this specific subject.  Rather than write specifically on this subject, though, what I would like to do is use it as an illustration as to why terms like this are particularly frustrating.  Specifically, labels like this are used by people on all sides of an issue to either label everything they don't like as evil or to portray themselves as being under attack.

A real, valid, and useful definition of "toxic masculinity" would probably be something to the effect of, "Socially reinforcing negative behaviors in boys and men by creating arbitrary standards that associate negative behaviors with masculinity and positive behaviors with femininity."  I've seen and fallen prey to that.  Boys need respect from their peers, and a lot of times doing the right thing is also doing the girly thing--or so I have felt.  I've been the boy/man left to feel less masculine for doing the right thing.  I've been the boy/man who did the wrong thing in order to feel or appear more masculine.  I've also negatively reinforced behavior among others.  As a society, in our smaller sub-cultures, and in our families, this is what we should be addressing.  There will be disagreement about how that's addressed, but I'd hope we could agree that this should be a priority.  This gets at the root of a lot of criminal activity and actions that leads to broken families.  It's a big deal.

All of this being said, there are those who would want to take advantage of the term to knock all things masculine.  These folks are not be in the majority by any stretch, but they can be vocal.  I've definitely heard plenty of opinions about how everything in the world would be better if it were run by women.

As a counterpoint, there are those who hear people taking advantage of the term and assume that "toxic masculinity" is part of a larger cultural attack on masculinity.  As a result, they do not take as seriously the crimes committed through "toxic masculinity" because they sense a danger in giving too much cultural sway to the anti-masculinists.  They also view any criticism on the things they deem masculine as an attack on manhood itself.

This situation leads to the pitched battles we see today in society where people dig in and fight each other rather than understanding each other.

Perhaps the real antidote to the current situation is for discussion to move beyond blaming toxic masculinity, and to focus on what real positive masculinity is.  It can't be just what women want it to be, or what men want it to be, or what "the man" wants it to be.  It needs to be naturally masculine, but having a positive effect on society.  A lot of the traits I consider to be masculine do that already, and so the challenge is not changing everything about men but rather identifying the places where they go astray and focusing on those.  I'm sure this could be done for women too, but I haven't heard the term "toxic femininity" referenced in the media yet so I haven't given that angle much thought.

I think these sorts of issues come up with a lot of terms we use today, and have potentially been issues in the past as well.  I've heard tens of definitions of "feminism."  By some definitions I'd be a feminist.  By most I would not.  But the ambiguity around the term allows people to throw the word around in an argument and seem like they have a well-formulated position when they don't understand the basics of what their "opponent" believes.  I'd bet that if people to get beyond the term and focus on the issues the term represents that a lot of our arguments would melt away into societal compromises and solutions that almost everyone could agree with.

Labels should be short-hand ways for us to shorten the description of something we already understand rather than tools we use to keep from learning about what we don't fully understand yet.

it can't happen here

Sorry, heavy topic alert.

I've been thinking about the Holocaust a bit lately because I recently listened to the audio version of Anne Frank's Diary, and also because I recently did some reading about Kristallnacht in memory of its eightieth anniversary.  I used to be confused about how Nazism took hold, how Hitler was able to come into power, and how people could rationalize supporting a government that sent people to concentration camps.  I've thought many times that it couldn't happen here.  While it would be much harder for something like that to happen in the United States with the separated powers we enjoy in this country, in the last few years I've come to the conclusion that it can happen here.  People are people, and they're prone to demonizing others if doing so supports their preconceived worldview.

That Internet conversations and debates frequently devolve into one side comparing the other to Hitler or the Nazis is so well established that it has its own informal law. The real shame of this tendency is that comparing everyone to Hitler and the Nazis makes it so that few really take it seriously when someone actually does things like Hitler would.  If a real Hitler appears, anyone pointing it out would be seen as a crazy person triggering Godwin's Law.

My views on identifying nascent Nazism have changed some over the years.  I used to think of it as a workers movement because this is the vibe that the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will gives, and I in turn thought that was what I needed to be wary of.  However, workers movements elsewhere haven't had that same destructive tinge.  Certainly, some have.  The destructive ones are noteworthy because they're the exceptions, though.  Most have not.  Therefore, it has to be something deeper.

It could be that the key is that Nazism, like Fascism, was Nationalist.  I know that belief is getting airtime nowadays more than in the past.  It could also be that a deeper dig could reveal that this is unfair to some Nationalist movements which are not so destructive, if such movements exist.  I simply don't know at this time.

I'm not calling anyone on the world stage a Hitler today.  Even if I did, who would take it seriously?  These are now the sort of accusations crazy people make, and so they are a red flag to most that the speaker wants to decry everyone who disagrees with his as a Nazi.  I do see tendencies of what I do know about Hitler and Nazism in general in some modern political figures and movements that give me pause, though.  Some of those figures are in other countries and some are in the United States.  Since I'm no true expert, it would be unfair for me to call out someone as a Hitler based on a partial observation.  I have to believe though, that it would also be right for me to be cautious about their statements and actions, and refuse to support or endorse those individuals and movements, wittingly or otherwise.

It is easy to see how an individual with similarities to Hitler could take power, and how horrible things could be justified in the name of whatever that man portrayed as the ideal.  In 1930s Germany the ideal was a form of Eugenics supported by a host of conspiracy theories about Zionists.  I'm certain that a lot of Germans figured the Jews were simply being sent to a camp where they couldn't harm anyone else, and whatever happened to them they had coming.  Modern societies aren't immune to that sort of thinking.  Someone today can mix a weird political philosophy with conspiracy theories about some other group of people and do the same thing.  As long as a vocal minority (or even majority) believes the conspiracy theory, what's to stop them from doing horrible things?  Those people probably won't even ever realize the negative things they enabled.

History can be scary when you stop thinking that it can't happen here.

right vs left

My biggest complaint about political coverage in the media doesn't have much to do with a right or a left slant.  Instead, it's about nomenclature.  I believe that American political journalism has done its audience a great disservice in throwing around phrases like, "far-right", "far-left", "moderate", "conservative", "liberal", etc.  This bothers me, not because labels are somehow wrong, but rather because it implies a continuum that I believe to be entirely contrived.

If you ask the average Joe (or Jane) on the street about politics in the United States they would probably describe a continuum going from very conservative on one side to very liberal on the other.  In the last presidential election a lot of people saw the last four major party political candidates in the following way.

[Most Liberal]
Sanders
Clinton
Trump
Cruz
[Most Conservative]

If someone considered themselves conservative they'd probably consider Trump the moderate and Clinton and Sanders extremists.  If they considered themselves liberal (or progressive) they' probably consider Cruz and Trump extremists and Clinton as a moderate (or a sell-out if they were pro-Sanders).  Regardless, their view would be focused on where the politician fell on the spectrum, and subsequently who is the closest on the spectrum to them personally.* Thing is, none of this is really the best way to understand political viewpoints, and my personal observation is that it leads to bad things.

American politics, and politics in general, is really just a collection of buckets of special interests.  The phrase "special interests" is often used disparagingly, and sometimes with good reason, but there is nothing inherently evil with a special interest.  Ask that same general person on the street what their views are on various political issues and they're probably going to care deeply about a small number of them and more or less toe the party line on the rest.  If the party line changes on these periphery issues their position will change as well.  They may not even realize it.

So, I would assume that a typical person possibly has two or three issues that they care deeply about, and those issues place them in a special interest bucket (or possibly a small number of buckets).  Over time a feedback loop is formed where more people from one side of the supposed continuum end up in a specific bucket, or some high profile voice for the bucket happens to advocate for one side of the continuum over the other, and this causes people in the bucket to identify with that side of the completely contrived continuum.  It could be either end of the continuum or somewhere in the middle.  Someone who would otherwise have opinions for different issues all over the continuum decides that, since I'm a [Conservative/Progressive/Moderate/Etc] I should take this view on this issue because that's the view of my people.

I see some negative consequences to this.  They include the following.

1. Many people of all political persuasions don't look at any issues objectively, and even issues that they don't otherwise care much about.  They investigate an issue from the perspective of where they are on the continuum.  I've seen it and I've done it.
2. Many people believe they have to agree with people near them on the continuum on all issues.  That's just silly.  For one, there shouldn't be any shame in taking the position that I won't hold a position on an issue until I've had the opportunity to gather enough facts about it.  I've certainly held political opinions before I had enough facts to understand whether they were wise opinions.
3. Many people are skeptical of news sources that are from a different place on the continuum but are overly credulous of news sources in the same location on the continuum.  While it runs counter to human nature, the time we should be the most skeptical is when we agree with everything we're hearing.  I know very much the urge to tune into people who I know will tell me what I want to hear.
4. When many people identify people who are near them on the spectrum they overlook flaws in their logic and flaws in their character because they're on the same team.  I've made excuses for scoundrels on many occasions because I agreed with them, and that's a behavior I see across the board.  This year is like most, where there are multiple people from both parties who will win their elections even in the middle of ridiculous legal and ethical scandals.
5. Most importantly, when many people claim territory on the political spectrum they frequently declare themselves enemies of people who are elsewhere on the spectrum.  Everyone who isn't near me on the political spectrum must be intellectually or morally deficient.  I've been there for sure.

For my part, my motivation for this post is that over time I have realized that I don't belong anywhere on a political continuum.  I believed I did for a long time, and maybe I did in some contrived way.  I don't now, though.

Pick a politician and I almost certainly agree with them on at least one issue and disagree with them on at least one issue.  Maybe the issues I agree with them on are inconsequential enough that I'm not in their bucket, but I can still find an area of agreement.  The buckets you could place me in are all over the place.  Furthermore, like most politicians, my positions on some major issues have shifted over time as well in various directions, and some will continue to shift.  Most people would call this being a Moderate, but I don't hold a lot of the positions that I would expect a true Moderate to hold, so that leaves me believing the concept of a political continuum is woefully inadequate.

It may sound like I am saying that people should be like me, but that would be reading my intentions in reverse.  I believe that, deep down, the majority of people actually are like me.  They may claim a specific political identity, but that's just for maybe two or three issues that place them in a bucket rather than on a continuum.

I believe that if you forced people to explain their political beliefs on a variety of issues without resorting to platitudes and talking points, and forced them to acknowledge the issues they don't really hold a firm position on, you'd find a majority of people who don't fit comfortably on the continuum.  You'd find that everyone is all over the map on the various issues that they actually hold informed opinions on, and you'd also find that people don't care about a lot of issues they claim to that identifies them on one side or the other.  I believe that most Americans are more alike politically than they are different, but most just don't realize it.  We're not all that different, you, I, and most everyone else in this country.

* I'll add that if the person you were asking was a Libertarian they might describe a quadrant instead of a continuum, but the concept is still the same--just with an extra dimension. 

confederate flags

Every once in a while I'll start to type a blog post and not really feel right about publishing it.  Ten or so years ago one of those posts related to a semi truck pulling a trailer I saw on the highway.  On the back it sported a Confederate flag and a verse from Psalms.  At the time, my irritation was in the fact that the love for these things could be conflated.  In my life, experience, and reading of Scripture, they are incompatible with each other.  That is still something that irritates me, but I never felt like my thoughts were developed well enough to post on it.

I've had another observation lately.  I don't live in the deep South, but I've still seen more Confederate flags around than I remember seeing before.  I don't know if this is just a situation of me noticing them more than before or there actually being more than before.  Maybe it's a bit of both.

I know there's been a debate for years around whether the flag is important for honoring past generations or if it's just racist, but I'll be honest that I don't understand how it isn't just racist.  If honoring the past requires pretending that the sins of the past weren't sins, or requires venerating the symbols of those sins, perhaps it is better not to honor that aspect of the past.

I do say a lot of political things here, but this is the one I'm the most concerned will cause problems for me.  Most people don't care about the Confederate flag, but those who do really do.  I'm not attempting to attack a region or cultural identity, but there's no way to discuss this without sounding like I am to a certain group of people.  Nikki Haley made it a bit easier to broadcast that view a few years back, but I could see this getting push-back in some quarters.

This brings me to a final observation that is difficult for me.  For a stretch of time when I was a kid "The Dukes of Hazard" was my favorite show.  As a six-year-old I couldn't go over a hill in the car without yelling "Yeeeee-haw!" like the hero Duke boys jumping over some obstacle in their Dodge Charger, the--uh--General Lee.  Which had a Confederate flag on the top.  And whose car horn played Dixie.  The 80s certainly was a far different time!

unthinkable

I'm frequently guarded about the standards I use to determine whether a movie is appropriate to watch or not.  Most things that make a movie appropriate or inappropriate are inherently subjective.  So, if I refuse to watch something that doesn't mean that I condemn others who watch it.  Likewise, I don't want others to condemn me for deeming something acceptable that they personally find inappropriate to watch.

On-screen violence is one issue that a lot of people find inappropriate.  This is difficult because while I genuinely dislike seeing violence in movies--I never watch a movie excited to see realistic violence--it is often necessary to make the point of the movie.  One oft-cited example is The Passion of the Christ.  Another example that I want to consider here today because it touches on a topic currently in the news is a movie called Unthinkable.

The reason for my lead-in to this is that I'm hesitant to acknowledge that I've watched Unthinkable or to recommend it to others because it's violent in a genuinely disturbing way.  Much like The Passion of the Christ, it is not enjoyable to watch, but it is important in the issue and questions it presents.  I have no desire to re-watch either of these movies, though I consider both to be extremely important works that have affected me in a positive way.

The protagonist in the movie is an FBI agent played by Carrie-Anne Moss, and she is told to oversee the work of an interrogator played by Samuel L. Jackson.  He's attempting to extract information from a terrorist who claims to have planted bombs in major cities.  We're meant to work through the moral trade-offs involved with enhanced interrogation through the decisions that Moss' character is forced to make.  Throughout the movie, she constantly has to decide whether to allow the torture we're witnessing to continue and escalate further or potentially allow thousands to millions to die in a nuclear incident.  Some of the questions forced on the audience follow.

• Is there a way to weigh the moral values of torture against the life that would be lost without it?
• Is a little bit of torture okay if it saves lives?
• Is more extreme torture okay if it saves lives?
• Is there ever a point where the actions necessary to save lives are so unthinkable (hence the movie's name) that it's preferable not to take them?
• *Spoiler (highlight to reveal)* Is it acceptable to torture an innocent if that could save lives? *Spoiler*

Based on the above bullets, suffice to say this isn't a date movie.

The reason I "like" (not enjoy) this movie is that I didn't believe it forced the audience to believe one way or the other on torture.  Where 24* or Zero Dark Thirty* may extol the effectiveness of torture, or where Rendition* may present it as something that will be abused, my take on Unthinkable was that the movie intended for audiences to simply understand the trade-off for taking either a pro- or anti-torture position**.  I didn't finish the movie believing that being for or against torture was an easy choice.  I finished the movie believing that every option in such situations is a bad option, and the real question is determine which the least bad option is***.

So, I'm sort of recommending the movie without recommending it in the same way I would do so with The Passion of the Christ.  If you're not up to watching a violent and disturbing movie don't watch this.  If you could stomach Mel Gibson's movie, though, and want to see a movie that handles the subject of torture against terrorism in an unflinching and honest light, it is worth a consideration.

* I actually have only watched a little bit of 24, and none of Zero Dark Thirty or Rendition.  You can discredit my opinion related to those movies if you like, since I'm only going off second-hand information.

** Full disclosure, I have been anti-torture for a few years now after having believed for a while that it was an acceptable trade-off to stopping acts of terrorism.  This being said, I am genuinely torn on some of the moral conundrums certain scenarios present.

*** I do also think I should acknowledge that one criticism I've seen of the movie is  that it may actually be slanted pro-torture. There is real dispute as to whether torture is effective in getting accurate information from individuals, and while this is somewhat addressed in the movie, the audience may still walk away thinking that torture is more effective than it is.

the same old

The last couple of years have felt rather different from any I've experienced in my short adulthood, at least politically. This is partially because we do live in odd political times where standards that applied before no longer do. However, that being acknowledged, many of the issues being argued in politics and the problems with the political system are as old as the country is.

I am just now wrapping up listening to the audio book version of David McCullough's biography of John Adams.  In this, I have been struck by the number of issues that are still resonant today.

Foremost among the problems in the political system are people's loyalty to party over country.  Adams himself is presented in the book being aghast at the party-ism he saw, though he did represent a party when in office.  The book goes to great lengths to illustrate that his fellow Federalists, such as Alexander Hamilton, caused him as much trouble as the Republican-Democrats did.  Hamilton was to Adams like the modern-day tea partiers to establishment Republicans or Bernie supporters to establishment Democrats.  The sense is presented that many Federalists didn't believe that Adams was enough on their side on some matters.

Another issue McCullough presents is how many people picked and chose their media coverage based on whether they presented the political slant that they agreed with.  Furthermore, the papers that sided with one party over the other were ruthlessly savage to the opposition, and one gets the sense that they weren't overly concerned with accuracy.

It is partially because of the savage press that Adams committed what many consider to be his most shameful act in signing the Alien and Sedition Act.  This was partially anti-immigration legislation, which apparently is not a new thing, and partially legislation to limit what was called seditious speech against the government in power.  I personally believe that this act is a black mark on Adams' legacy, but it is interesting that recent immigration actions by the current administration that feel like a new thing are not new at all.

It's almost only mentioned in passing in the book, but one of the early debates in the country was whether having a national bank was reasonable.  This sounds very much like the Libertarian and somewhat Trumpian rumblings today of, "Wouldn't it be better if markets ran themselves rather than being managed by the Fed?"  That view toward the national bank was more mainstream then than the anti-Fed view is today.

The Federalists were seen as the war-mongering party of their day, as there was a major push by Hamilton to go to war against post-revolution France.  Adams was called a monarchist in part because he favored a good trade relationship with Britain that was imbalanced against the Americans, which was the equivalent of decrying someone as unpatriotic today.  Likewise Jefferson, the figurehead of the Republican-Democrats, was labeled as an irreligious and immoral person.  These are still go-to attacks for some candidates.

The book spends time discussing the work put into establishing trade deals, and at least one ill-conceived embargo that backfired on Adams' son when he voted for it in Congress.  Those are both scenarios that are salient today.

One final thing unrelated to politics that has struck me about the book is the different amounts of time that Adams spent with his different children.  He spent a lot of time in Europe, and his oldest son--John Q. Adams--was there with him much more than any other member of the family.  Later, Adams' two other sons turned out to have very significant issues, with one dying of cirrhosis of the liver, and one wonders if this is partially due to them being left behind when their dad traveled away.  This makes me feel fortunate that I have not had to travel away from my family for work as many others have had to.

what people say about mormons

I have a strange litmus test that I use to determine how tolerant people are of others who are different.  I listen for how they talk about or treat Mormons, or members of the LDS church.

If you are a Conservative and are not Mormon, you are probably a Catholic, Mainline Protestant, or Evangelical Christian who believes that their teachings are heretical.  For my part, I believe their views on the Trinity are heresy.  As a result, there is motivation to speak ill or joke about people who hold that belief.

If you are Liberal, you may or may not be Christian, but you are likely to strongly disagree with the political positions the church has taken over the past few decades.  As a result, there is motivation to speak ill or joke about people who belong to that church.

So, when Mormonism is brought up (very rarely), I perk up to pay attention for how people speak of the people who hold that belief.  Will they talk disparagingly about the people?  Will they withhold judgment on the people, regardless how they feel about the church and it's positions and/or doctrines?  It's edge-of-your-seat suspense!

In related news, I probably need to get out more.

multi-factor issues

People are naturally wired to be lazy in many ways, and one of those ways has piqued my interest recently.  People like to find a singular cause for issues.  As a result, most people aren't wired to address complex issues, and have to fight their wiring to do so.

As an example, when the crime rate rises or falls in a region there is rarely one factor in play.  Policing, the justice system, the socioeconomic situation, etc all play a role, and people are prone to pick their favorite factor as the be-all, end-all reason for the good or the bad things they see on the streets and the news.  All may be factors, but it is unlikely that one is the primary factor that dwarfs all others.

I say this because I see the same tendency in myself.  When I see something broken I want to identify the issue and move toward a fix as closely as possible.  If I can identify an issue I want it to be the issue so that I can pin all of the problems I see on that one blamable and ultimately fixable thing.  I don't want to research more once one factor has been identified, because it's not in my nature to look for a second factor.  That approach leads to incomplete fixes, though.

I don't have much more to add on this.  This is just something I've been observing.

kids and politics

With the upcoming presidential election we have had more discussions with the kids about politics in the past few months than ever before.  I'm not entirely comfortable with that.

While, as anyone who reads this page regularly knows, I am very interested in political issues, I also don't think that there is any ideal way to discuss most political issues with elementary-aged kids.  Kids are naturally inclined to think in very black and white terms and think of people as good or bad (This is different than the Christian view of good and bad where everyone is in the "bad" category.).  I believe that is a dangerous view to bring into politics, and so I am nervous about us introducing our kids to more than a surface level of politics.  Even going to far as to imply that one party is better or worse than another is concerning because that introduces an "Us versus Them" mentality that can lead to bad places.

My belief is that politics, more than anything else, is proof positive that no matter what you believe, there are scoundrels who will try to win your vote by agreeing with you.  My experience is that there is little to no correlation between political viewpoint and integrity.  The liars and the selfishly ambitious reside in all levels of the political perspective, as do those who are principled and true to their beliefs.  I do not currently believe that people are good or bad (or dishonest or principled) based on whether they agree with me politically because I have years of life experience to tell me otherwise.  It's hard not to think that way as a kid, though.  I know because I remember thinking that way.  It's just a natural, human inclination.

Even explaining the political issues that drive our positions is precarious.  We recently had a difficult discussion with CD regarding abortion.  It would be easy for someone who against abortion (or for it) to simply paint those who disagree as being evil and leave things at that.  Alas, many do.  Few positions are more genuinely held than ones regarding abortion, though, so it is wrong not to acknowledge the reasoning of those who disagree.

I don't want CD or NJ to grow up without empathy for those who have to make difficult choices in life, even if we ultimately disagree to the point of being appalled with the results of those decisions.  This is especially because everyone has made appalling decisions at some point in their lives.  I also don't want to give them something to rebel against once they grow to understand that those who disagree with Mom and Dad often have reasons that seem reasonable and valid.  Change one or two assumptions about underlying truth, and right and wrong can change dramatically.

All of this just leads back to my original point.  I can't wait until this election is over and we can move on from discussing politics in this house.

foreign policy

I am thirty-five now, and I will be thirty-six later this year, so I cannot use age as an excuse any more as to why I haven't become president of the United States yet.  The only excuses I have left are simply not wanting it enough and not having a strong enough get-out-the-vote machine built up in the swing states.

On a more serious note, this is the sort of thinking I actually had in my middle elementary years.  I remember as a kid thinking that maybe I would some day run for president.  In third grade my teacher asked the class who wanted to be president some day.  I was surprised when I was one of only four or five in a class of twenty-five who raised their hands.

I remember ticking off the requirements as a kid.  I was born in Arizona, so I met the most obvious requirement.  I knew I'd be an ancient thirty-five some day, so I'd meet that requirement one day.  Everything necessary to become president checked out.  Well, everything checked out except money and the depth of my ambition.

Now, at my current age, I wonder why anyone would possibly want to be president for one very important reason—foreign policy.  Domestic policy is polarizing and a political tightrope walk, but it is far more comparatively easy.  Foreign policy is a loser's game now matter how it's played.  In foreign policy the choice is rarely between the good and bad option, but rather a selection of whatever horrid option is the least so.

How bad are the options?  Most significant decisions will result in people dying or being badly injured.  Everyone seems to have opinions about what the obvious solution is to certain issues, and they are almost always stupid, because sometimes there aren't any good options.  It is frequently difficult to tell the difference between a mistake, a tactical decision, and treason.  The nation-states you are dealing with are largely run by the most intelligently psychopathic people on earth.  Decisions have to be made based on incomplete or inaccurate intelligence.  Success usually depends on implementation details that are completely out of your control.  Every decision is a gamble, and every decision is a gamble with huge consequences for failure.  What's not to love?

I cannot fathom wanting to be the person who has to decide whether to deploy a nuke.  I cannot fathom wanting to be the person who has to decide what level of existential threat necessitates torture.  I cannot fathom wanting to be the person who has to decide whether to embroil the nation in a military quagmire to stop an impending genocide.  I cannot fathom constantly dealing with hostage situations with terrorist groups.  Why would you wish that on yourself?  What sort of person thinks that is something worth pursuing?  Losing a presidential election must be such a gift in disguise.

the great war

Recently, there has been quite a bit of news regarding the one-hundred-year anniversary of Ottoman destruction of the Armenian people during World War I.  This got me to thinking about something that has been on my mind some over the past few years.  Why does World War II hold a significant place in American memory and consideration, but World War I does not?

I figured for a long while that the reason for World War II's place in the American heart when compared to other wars was due to the fact that it came into being when film-making was in a bit of a golden age.  There is a lot of reasonable-quality film of everything from the battles over the Pacific to D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge to the dropping of the atomic bombs, so this was the first opportunity people had to really experience the war.  I now think it is something different.

When it comes to war people like to know that they are on the right and noble side.  They like to know that the sacrifices that are being made are virtuous stands against a grievous evil, and that there is no question that what is being done is necessary.  Unlike most conflicts, World War II has this in spades.  Between the genocide committed by the Nazis and the atrocities of the Japanese, it is easy to see the Allies as the white knight against the obvious Axis evil.  I believe this is also why so many movies have been created using World War II as a setting.  The story teller doesn't have to waste any effort at all establishing who the good and the bad guys are.  It is also a nice shortcut to positive feelings of patriotism.

World War I was completely different, though.  Countries were dragged into war, not because of some overwhelming moral imperative, but rather because they had treaties allying them with other countries that had already declared war.  The United States was only drawn in when its trading interests to the United Kingdom were threatened by Germany, so the primary purposes of entering the war were economic (and revenge for the sinking of the Lusitania).  To an objective observer there was no honorable side.  Looking from the outside, there were only sides who sent millions of soldiers off to die horrible deaths in order to protect their political and economic interests.

Had I understood this about the Great War I think I would have been more interested in it.  The complexity of the politics leading up to the war, and the ludicrous inability of nations to take appropriate steps to avoid their own destruction is fascinating.  The fact that World War II can be blamed on the economic fallout that followed World War I indicates that the one only happened due to the other.  The entirety of history and everything that has happened in the world in the last hundred years has been a direct result of the poor decisions that were made in the lead-up to World War I.

It is simply astounding that the shape of the world today can be directly tied to decisions a few world leaders and diplomats made over one hundred years ago.  You never know how far-reaching one decision or series of decisions will be.

state of the union

I noted earlier that I wouldn't post on politics again for a while.  What I should have rather said is that I won't take a political position in a post for a while.  What's worse is that I don't know how to right this in a way that doesn't sound snobbish.  Forgive me for this.

I generally pride myself on keeping up with political policy news, as well as the implications of different political positions.  However, I decided many years ago that I detested watching the State of the Union address as well as the rebuttal, so I have refused to watch either speech for the past ten years or so.  I also largely avoid televised political debates and political speeches.  No matter who is giving the speech I always feel like the sketchiest logic is used to score political points, and I get the sense that these events are meant to appeal to the people who care about the drama of politics rather than the nuances of policy. Since this turns my stomach—and it truly does—I do my civic-duty research elsewhere.

I do typically read up on the highlights of the State of the Union and its rebuttal after it occurs.  I am also usually very interested in reading about the highlights of political debates they occur.  However, I am less concerned about the drama that frequently creates headlines ("Politician so-and-so drew applause by issuing a killer jab to his opponent," or, "Idiot politician thought the capital of North Dakota was Helena."), and more interested in whether they gave hints to the nuances of their policy positions or proposals.

I always feel a little like I am not doing my civic duty by refusing to watch these events.  I can imagine the groans of a thousand social studies teachers at what appears to be my apathy or cynicism at this part of the process.  It does my emotional health good to avoid them, though.  With that, I think that not watching the State of the Union has to qualify as a very specific guilty pleasure of mine.

torture is wrong

I include the video below only because I started thinking about this topic due to watching this tonight.



One of the bigger recent news stories has been of the fact that details of how the CIA interrogated (or tortured, depending on who you ask) combatants captured in the war on terror.  In the video above John McCain argues that he agrees with the Senate committee that released the details and also argues against the use of such interrogation techniques.

I for one do not know whether releasing the information was a good or a bad thing.  I do not really intend to argue one way or the other because I do not have enough information to take an informed position on that.  I do believe that I have enough information to take a position against the use of torture, however.

For a while I held the position that, while torture is a bad thing, it should be allowed in serious circumstances.  If we believe that a bomb is going to go off in a city center, for example, and someone has information that could keep that bomb from going off, then I figured that torturing that individual should be an option on the table.  This presents a few problems, though.

First, once Pandora's box is open where and how do you draw the lines?  What is allowed and not allowed?  How urgent is urgent enough?  Is a bomb that threatens five people below the threshold but one that threatens twenty above it?  Ultimately, in any scenario where the lines cannot be clearly drawn and where proper oversight is impossible the envelope will continue to be pushed until torture is allowed in scenarios that were never intended.

Second, I have heard multiple sources, including Senator McCain above, claim that torture does not produce useful information.  While this may not be entirely true, I do believe its usefulness is more limited than most people realize.  Is torture worth the moral cost if the information it gleans is minimal?

Third, the rationale I always used was an economic one, and that is not appropriate when dealing with moral issues.  The thought went that if the action saves enough lives it is worth the moral cost of abusing someone else (who may or may not have it coming to them).  Lives are not measurable units, however, and neither is the abuse something that should be measured against the value of lives.  Certainly, if my family are the people threatened by the bomb I would probably be the first in line to extract the information to diffuse the bomb through abuse, and maybe in that it could be an act of love, but more of that is a confession of my sinful nature than I would like to admit.

In going along with this thought, I watched the movie Unthinkable about a year ago.  From a philosophical standpoint the movie is interesting, but I would warn anyone who wants to watch it that it is not an enjoyable watch for a normal person.  It deeply disturbing and very difficult to watch because it directly addresses the question of what torture is acceptable by presenting an extreme situation where millions might die, someone who has information to address the extreme situation, and a torturer whose job it is to extract that information.  The movie is named by the fact that the torturer feels compelled to resort to unthinkable means of extracting information from the subject near the end of the movie, and the question in the viewer's mind is supposed to be whether he should take those truly disgusting steps in the name of saving so many lives.

I would argue that God does not calculate moral decisions based on the number of lives at stake.  Therefore, something that is immoral to save one life is immoral to save a million lives.  Again, if it is my family's lives, of course I am going to turn into a hypocrite, change my tune, and advocate whatever it takes.  I am only a sinful human.

Finally, this may sound like a rehash, but I see no support for torture in Scripture, and rather an indication that it is Christians who should expect torture instead of dealing it out. Sure, we see that governments are given power to enforce justice (Rom 13:4), but we also see that God stood in judgment of nations and people who abused that power (Is 47:5-11).  Further, we see no indication that Christians as individuals are permitted to do anything but respond to ill treatment by actively being kind and respecting their abusers (Matt 5:38-47; Rom 12:17-21).  There was certainly violence that God commanded in the Old Testament, but I do not recall Him commanding torture.

Update (12/16/14):

I have two further notes I would like to make.

First, I am going to step away from political issues for a little while, so my next few posts should be largely apolitical.  Thanks for indulging me on these, though.

Second, I did not address the justification that I keep hearing for torture that the recipients of said torture deserve it.  Since I am addressing this from the perspective that it is unacceptable for Christians, I would point to the fact that, "they deserve it," is never a justification for doing something wrong to someone else for new covenant believers.  This was the whole point of the parable of the unmerciful servant.  The unmerciful servant was punished, not because he was unjust toward his fellow servant, but because he had no right to demand justice in the face of the mercy he had already been shown.

inevitable failure

One of the main topics in the news lately has been the troubled roll-out of the healthcare.gov website that is the main portal for people in the thirty-six states that did not create portals of their own. Amid all of the grandstanding, excuses, and political showmanship from both the Right and the Left on this I have one question that keeps coming up in my mind. Wasn't this to be expected with a major website roll-out?

I understand as I am reading news reports that most people have not been a part of a major IT roll-out like the healthcare.gov website.  A significant minority of the population has, though, and the news reports are notably silent on the inevitability of these outages which should be obvious to anyone who has taken part in them.  Simply put, large IT projects with immovable release dates, extraordinary load requirements, and multiple complex inputs do not usually roll out successfully on the first try.  Many times I have seen roll-outs pushed back months due to unforeseen circumstances, and with a complex roll-out it is almost guaranteed that something unforeseen will occur.

As I have been reading over the last year about the impending go-live date for the website I was always inwardly thankful that I was not involved with what was obviously going to be a failed release.  The idea that major bugs would be addressed, security and load testing completed, and all of the unforeseeable issues that plague any roll-out by a very public unchangeable date was absurd.

While there will be calls for heads to roll, and many probably will, this whole thing smacks of a misunderstanding of how major websites are rolled out.  Few of the people sacked or called out publicly will have deserved it.  This was a failure in the planning stages of the project, and it will be the implementers who take the heat.  That is typically how the project blame game works.

If there is a lesson to be learned it is that something like this should be slowly phased in, lessons learned, then changes made based on those lessons.  The website target date should have been July so that necessary changes could be made when the roll-out inevitably failed.  Those running the project could have crowd-sourced the testing process and had individual volunteers try to overload and break the system, then used that feedback to know which issues needed addressing.  Also, to reduce load, the thirty-six states portals could have been phased in week-by-week.

That's just me being an armchair IT guy, though.

know-it-all

I struggle with when to correct people online.  This has been exacerbated in the last few years by Facebook.  When is the right time and wrong time to correct friends, family, and acquaintances on factual or grammatical errors?

Generally speaking, I don't correct people on politics.  There have been some noteworthy exceptions where I have called someone out on what I thought was a blatant error, but I do not look back on those incidents with pride.  Even then, those incidents have been very few and far between. Like most people I generally bite my tongue and move on when I see political statements that I believe are based on errors.

I correct grammar and spelling even less than I call people out on political issues, but I regularly notice specific errors that annoy me.  The most annoying errors are the ones I find in my own typing.  Some grammatical and spelling errors drive me more crazy than political errors do.

The issue that snags me the most, and far more than politics or grammar, are rumors that have been discredited elsewhere.  As an example, a few months ago a couple of my Facebook friends who do not know each other posted information like what is detailed here to their feeds.  I tried to resist pointing out the mistake, but I knew it would bother me more than most errors since might damage the ability of specific non-profits to do their jobs.

The problem I have is there is no good way to correct someone without coming off like an arrogant know-it-all.  The very act of correcting someone is blatantly telling them that they are wrong and you are right, which causes most people to get defensive and feel like you are attempting to assert your superiority in some way over them.  I don't like it when others correct me, even when I know deep-down that I am in the wrong.  I don't expect anyone else to be different.

I need to learn to better differentiate the situations where correction is called for.