Supreme Crap of the United States

OR: A Cumulative Review of Some Major Events of the Last Few Weeks (Because I’ve been too busy and/or lazy to update my site recently.)

Continued.

Section IV: Con[tract]flict With America

Remember that these are the people who, during the last administration, promised that they were going to clean up corruption and misdeeds–that whole “Contract with America” thing that got them so many votes. I find it amusing that it took the conservatives fifty years to try to make the Democrats look bad, and once the Republicans finally took control of the government, it’s barely half a decade and they’re making themselves look bad with real scandals that need no exaggeration to seem outright appalling.

Listen closely, conservatives: These are your supposedly “conservative” leaders, exposed for what they truly are: greedy, self-serving crooks whose interests lie not with religious principles and “American values” but with how much they can personally benefit from deception and your ignorance and blind loyalty. They wear the cloth of your faction from a wardrobe of disguises–though all are ill-fitting–and they get your vote time and time again.

I’ve asked this before, and I’ll ask this again now: How do you think their policies will benefit you, personally? How will you benefit from deregulation of business? Can’t afford a gun, so you want to play Russian Roulette with the safety of your home appliances and food products? And do you honestly think you’re going to somehow benefit from the abolition of the estate tax? How about that awesome bankruptcy bill that they passed last year at the behest of credit card companies? I could go on and on.

Do you want an America like Saipan, where sweatshop workers are placed in camps and teenage girls are forced into prostitution? Do you want your thirteen-year-old daughters to perform live sex acts with rich, white, filthy old businessmen on stages in front of other leering, rich, filthy businessmen? Tom DeLay does. Remember him? Good ol’ Republican boy. Or, at least he claims to be. If it meant he’d get money or power from it, he’d call himself a Vagina Windgoat. But here’s what Tom DeLay–one of the people you conservatives voted into office–said about Saipan, the U.S. territory where things like this (and worse) actually happen (and this is a quote): “You represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America.”

“Everything that is good.” For what definition of ‘good’, might I ask? Do you think it would be ‘good’ for a sweatshop owner to force your daughter to do these things using threats against her life and yours? Somehow, that doesn’t strike me as at all ‘good’, if what I’m thinking of as the definition of the word is correct.

Yet this is what you’re voting for. This is what you voted for in 2000, and this is what you voted for in 2004, just because you believe their reports without gathering the evidence necessary to determine whether their opinion is closer to truth than any of the others.

Thanks. Thanks a whole damn lot. I’m sure your daughters will be thanking you, too, when their mouths aren’t busy.

Continued tomorrow in Section V: The Truth About Cats

Supreme Crap of the United States

OR: A Cumulative Review of Some Major Events of the Last Few Weeks (Because I’ve been too busy and/or lazy to update my site recently.)

Continued.

Section III: Rove, Rove, Rove Your Boat… Gently Up Shit Creek

I don’t mean to imply, of course, in the last section, that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Take the recent indictment of Scooter “Sir Leaksalot” Libby, and the surrounding investigations. Many conservatives are claiming that the charges are frivolous (I’ll get to this in just a second) and the crime with which he’s charged somehow isn’t related to outing a CIA operative. They also think that because Rove wasn’t indicted (yet, at least), it means that he didn’t do anything wrong.

Now, for all I know, Rove could be completely innocent of any misdeeds in the outing of Valerie Plame. But just because there may turn out to be no evidence, that doesn’t necessarily prove his innocence. Returning to the rape example: Let’s say the woman didn’t report the rape until weeks after she claimed it happened, because she was afraid and embarrassed, as many rape victims can be. Let’s say there was no surveillance tape from the area. Nobody else saw it, and the guy had a solid alibi. That doesn’t mean he didn’t actually rape her. It just means there’s not enough evidence to prove that he did. We can’t convict him in a court, of course, but we can’t claim to know the truth of the matter either way.

Addressing the allegations of the charges being “frivolous”: Remember when perjury was such a big hit about a decade ago? Remember when the issue wasn’t that the president got a blowjob, but that he lied under oath? I thought that was so important, conservatives! Remember that? Remember how important that was? Wait, so how come it’s “frivolous” or silly when it’s a conservative?

Let’s compare and contrast:

Clinton: Lied, during a hearing about a real estate deal gone sour, about a blowjob he’d received from an intern.

Libby: Lied about circumstances surrounding the outing of a CIA agent during wartime–an agent whose specialty was in the field upon which the war was based.

Hrm. Frivolous. Which one seems frivolous? Tough decision, here. A blowjob lie during an unrelated real-estate case, or outing a CIA agent during wartime? Oh, God, what a toughie.

(Regarding the issue of perjury: I believe that the law should be amended so that it only counts as perjury when the question is actually somehow related to the trial. For instance: If you were being tried for murder, and someone asked you if you ever used a wallhack during a game of Counter-Strike, and you said “no”, and then they pulled out a bunch of logs from one of the servers that show you actually did it, I don’t think you should be able to be tried for perjury just because you lied about something completely unrelated.)

What we must keep in mind is that this man, or these men, allowed politics to supercede the safety of not only a single CIA agent, but the American people. By compromising a piece of our protection, they compromised us. They didn’t like that one man was critical of the administration’s attitude toward the war, so they tried to discredit him by placing a member of our nation’s intelligence network at risk. (Anyone who doesn’t believe she was at risk needs to be reminded of the following: from which country, again, were the airplanes used in the 9/11 attacks hijacked? Like there aren’t dangers present in this country? People who want to harm others?) This was malicious and spiteful, with little regard for consequence. Anything to shut up one of the critics people might actually take seriously.

I don’t mean to convict him before the trial, of course. It could very well be someone else in the administration. Right now, apparently most of the evidence merely coincides with the report that Libby was the one responsible. In any event, a crime did occur. The information came from somewhere, didn’t it? Somehow, the classified information about Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA agent made it into the possession of people without the appropriate clearance. Someone is guilty.

Continued tomorrow in Section IV: Con[tract]flict With America

Supreme Crap of the United States

OR: A Cumulative Review of Some Major Events of the Last Few Weeks (Because I’ve been too busy and/or lazy to update my site recently.)

Continued.

Section II: The Truth About The Truth (With Jokes)

Al Franken just released a new book, The Truth (With Jokes). I’m not going to get into the content or give a review or anything; I’d like to discuss just the title alone–one of the “jokes” it references–and what I’ve seen of the conservative response. Some of these have been in the form of reviews at Amazon.com. (I know, one can’t really take Amazon user reviews at all seriously, but the people who write them, in this case, are expressing their political viewpoints, so it counts.)

One of the reviews I noticed said something to the effect of, “What it should be called is My Opinion (With Jokes).” Now, moving beyond the superficial “missing the joke of the title entirely” thing that happened, there’s an important flaw in the reviewer’s presumption (and the presumptions of many others) that the truth somehow isn’t opinion.

The “truth”, for human purposes, is usually that which is generally agreed upon to be true. It’s impossible for us to know real truth, just as it’s impossible for us to be truly objective–it’s a limitation on our consciousness and perspective. Even with things as simple as gravity: We haven’t documented every body in the universe, so the best we can do is agree that, to the best of our knowledge, gravity is “true”. Because we can’t know the real truth, we have to settle for “that which is, based on the evidence with which we are presented, agreed to be closer to likely”.

It’s evident even in our courts: Say a woman was raped–or claimed to have been–and reported it. The police arrested the man she claimed was responsible, and he denied the accusation. What is the truth? Well, you collect evidence. Maybe there was a surveillance video of the parking lot where she claims it happened. Maybe biological evidence like semen or hair, or skin under her fingernails. (Which, I suppose, could have all been planted there by God to trick everyone. More on this in a later section.) Anyway, one way or the other, one report of the event will coincide more with the evidence than the other. Does that mean it’s the absolute truth? Of course not. It’s impossible to know the absolute truth. All we can do is get close enough to it.

To put it in Platonic terms of Forms and Ideas, one report of the event–let’s say, in this case, the woman’s–is merely participating more in the Form of truth than the other report or reports–in this case, the man’s.

History books are a great place to look for a more widespread trend regarding “truth”. Reports are given of events that happened, but nobody can know exactly what happened, because not all of us were able to experience it personally. (And no, video documentation isn’t necessarily the arbiter of truth, either.) Even then, it’d be filtered through our own emotions, and recorded to our defective meat memories. (There was a study I read about several years ago describing a situation in a classroom: A professor walked into class, set his briefcase on the counter, and started discussion. After a few minutes, someone rushed into the classroom, grabbed the briefcase, and darted back outside. When the students were asked about the event, only very few of them got even half the details right. For instance, when asked if the man had a gun, there were many who reported that they “saw it”. The man was actually carrying a banana.) Again, what is the truth? History books are prone to nationalist perspectives on events. How will they record, say, the war in Iraq? I’m sure the world history textbooks in the U.S. will differ greatly from those in, for instance, Canada or Sweden. Which version is true?

The major problem with this–with the nature of the truth–is that many are taking advantage, especially in the media, of its relativity. (It’s not merely that the truth is relative–which it is–it’s that truth is unknowable. I guess the only real truth is that we can’t fully know truth.) The method is simple: either deny any opposing evidence; pretend it doesn’t exist; or fabricate evidence to suit your cause.

One of the best contemporary examples is the “Swift Boat Veterans ‘for’ ‘Truth’” fiasco. In fact, they even used the word “truth” in their name, in an attempt to somehow imply that any report but theirs was somehow not “true”. But all evidence–eyewitness accounts (none of the Swift Boat Veterans ‘for’ ‘Truth’ were actually there with Kerry), military documents, even some of the reports and praise from the Swift Boat Veterans themselves–favored Kerry’s report of the events. Using logic, one can deduce, then, that Kerry’s version of the truth was participating more in the Form of truth than the version offered by the Swift Boat Veterans.

How did they manage to convince so many people? Well, to put it simply, most of the people in this country (and world, for that matter) don’t know what “truth” is. I don’t mean they can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what isn’t, though there are many who have trouble with that as well. What I mean is that they’re fuzzy on the meaning of the term, and the nature of the concept. Most importantly, they don’t know the difference between “truth” and “report”. Anyone can claim anything. That doesn’t somehow automatically make it true. If a woman accuses a man of raping her, and all evidence indicates that the man was in a different state at the time and the woman is still, in fact, a virgin, then nobody can justifiably claim that he raped her. Both reports of the “truth” of the event are merely opinions, and supporting evidence decides which of the opinions is valid, or closer to the Form of truth.

In short, one should approach and judge all information in a fashion similar to how a jury judges guilt or innocence in a trial. Put both (or more) sides of an issue–each individual report or opinion–in its own separate trial, in which each is innocent of the crime of truth until proven guilty. If there isn’t enough evidence to believe one thing closer to truth than the other, don’t ‘convict’ or ‘acquit’ any of the reports.

Continued tomorrow in Section III: Rove, Rove, Rove Your Boat… Gently Up Shit Creek

Supreme Crap of the United States

OR: A Cumulative Review of Some Major Events of the Last Few Weeks (Because I’ve been too busy and/or lazy to update my site recently.)

I’ll post each section individually.

Section I: Expectations of Perfection

Years ago, I saw an illustration of a man tied to a chair, with a string tied from his penis through a system of pulleys to the trigger of a shotgun pointed at the back of his head. His eyelids were held open, and a gorgeous woman was stripping in front of him. There was an agonized expression on his face as he fought to restrain his growing erection.

If the religious conservatives get their way, that is how the law in the U.S. would operate: One single fuckup–just that one erection–and you’re done. Perfection required. Granted, it’s a huge exaggeration, of course–the cops aren’t going to bang down your door and arrest you for getting aroused–but it’s based on the same principles of superhuman self-control.

The fundamentalists have an agenda for America that isn’t at all American. Perhaps there’s some important memo that went around somewhere between 1776 and this very moment, but I don’t ever recall one of the principles of this nation being “the church determines the acceptability of your actions”. In fact, I’m willing to wager that a very thorough search through the Constitution won’t yield a single instance of that stipulation.

But that’s how they would have it, and the nomination by president Bush of Samuel “Scalito” Alito to the Supreme Court is just another clear illustration of these intentions. I’ve said it before, and I will continue to say it until it is no longer an issue: Building or interpreting policy based solely on the beliefs of a particular religion is different from establishing a state religion in semantic terms only. It is a violation of our freedom, and is in direct conflict with everything for which America stands. (I’ll get into the specifics–abstinence-only education; abortion; et cetera–in future installments.)

Few seem to realize how incompatible conservative principles and fundamentalist ideology really are. How can they claim to support “small government” while at the same time endorsing laws that micromanage the lives of every citizen of the country? After all, outlawing abortion would, among other things, guarantee a murder or murder-like investigation into each and every miscarriage. Are you aware how often those happen?

How can they say they want to trim down unnecessary government programs while establishing an internet task force to wipe out perfectly legal and legitimate fetish pornography between consenting adults? How can they claim that everyone should let the market take care of everything, but at the same time make laws that create imbalances of the market in their favor?

Add that layer to the religious conservative onion of hypocrisy, and we fall into the “meta” realm of reasons none of these people should hold office or be allowed within five hundred yards of anywhere public policy is being forged. There are contradictions in their religious ideology, there are contradictions in their political philosophy, and there are deep contradictions between their religious ideology and their political philosophy.

I’m starting to wonder why more traditional, pre-Reagan conservatives aren’t realizing that this current breed isn’t the same as they are. Especially when it’s obvious that the policies they’re supporting merely because the people proposing them claim to be “conservative” are in reality as beneficial to them as a plague of mutant scorpion-bees with surgical lasers for eyes.

(“Section II: The Truth About The Truth (With Jokes)” Tomorrow.)