Fighting over similarities

December 9, 2015December 9, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

muhammad_ali_02a Perhaps the ultimate irony of Muslim faith in the public sphere was that of Muhammad Ali. The fighter formerly known as Cassius Clay controversially converted to Islam, then protested the Vietnam War as a conscientious objector.

The complexity of that decision confounded Americans. Some blamed him for refusing to serve his country. As the website This Day In History documents, Ali was penalized in the manner of a high profile figure.

“On April 28, 1967, with the United States at war in Vietnam, Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces, saying “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.” On June 20, 1967, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years. He stayed out of prison as his case was appealed and returned to the ring on October 26, 1970, knocking out Jerry Quarry in Atlanta in the third round. On March 8, 1971, Ali fought Joe Frazier in the “Fight of the Century” and lost after 15 rounds, the first loss of his professional boxing career. On June 28 of that same year, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction for evading the draft.”

That’s right, his case went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United states, which overturned his conviction for draft evasion. In other words, Ali was exonerated of wrongdoing in his case against the United States. His faith was also vindicated.

In context with America’s troubled relationship with the Muslim religion and its “peace or no peace” controversies, the case of Muhammad Ali bears recognition as a sign that the Muslim faith does have a tradition of peace at its core.

Conscientious Objector

Ali was justified in his argument that “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.” The nation entered the war ostensibly to stop the advance of communism. Instead, America’s involvement in the Vietnam War proved far more costly in terms of lives and political capital, and communism ultimately won the battle for control of Vietnam. One could argue that it ultimately lost the war in that communism ultimately collapsed the Soviet Union.

But in the moment, the Vietnam war was unpopular at the liberal end of the political spectrum, leading to war protests and civil unrest. The nation imposed a military draft and thousands of lives were spent on the guerrilla battlefields where victory and loss often felt like the same thing. In other words, a conscientious objector could find many reasons not to want to fight in Vietnam. That’s why Ali did not go to fight in Vietnam.

The ugliness of the fight game

Yet Ali was quite ironically a fighter by trade. He was also prone to controversial methods of race profiling as a means of fight promotion, calling men such as Joe Frazier “Uncle Tom” and engaging in pre-fight dialogue that was profoundly insulting.

Ali: “Joe Frazier should give his face to the Wildlife Fund. He’s so ugly, blind men go the other way. Ugly! Ugly! Ugly! He not only looks bad, you can smell him in another country! What will the people of Manila think? That black brothers are animals. Ignorant. Stupid. Ugly and smelly.”

Ali: “He’s the other type Negro, he’s not like me,” Ali shouts to the now stunned white interviewer. “There are two types of slaves, Joe Frazier’s worse than you to me … That’s what I mean when I say Uncle Tom, I mean he’s a brother, one day he might be like me, but for now he works for the enemy”

Lennon and Ali

John-Lennon-john-lennon-34078983-1024-768 In his violent reproach toward his rivals, Muhammad Ali resembled another public figure of the late 1960s and early 1970s. That was John Lennon, who spoke for world peace even as he engaged in very public fights with his former Beatles partner Paul McCartney. Their friendship for a while became a bitter rivalry.

But men like Lennon and Ali ultimately did apologize to their rivals.

Ali: “Joe Frazier’s a nice fella, he’s just doing a job. The bad talk wasn’t serious, just part of the buildup to the fight. The fight was serious, though. Joe spoke to me once or twice in the middle, told me I was burned out, that I’d have to quit dancing now. I told him I was gonna dance all night.”

Lessons learned

The point here is that personal rivalry drives public interest, and there are commercial and professional reasons why this is beneficial to the advancement of individual causes. Both Ali and Lennon are considered great artists in their trade. Each knew the value of slogans and sound bites. Ali engaged in a form of street poetry and Lennon lyrically crafted songs that appealed to both the common man and universal themes.

These similarities and differences are interesting to note. Ali advocated a religion while Lennon was equivocal about such matters, arguing through his song Imagine that perhaps even religion had its limitations in terms of seeking better understanding. Yet both seemed to arrive in the same place.

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

It is worth nothing that that the statement by Ali that “I ain’t got no quarrel with no VietCong” could serve as a quick summary of the reasons why Lennon also protested the quasi-religious motives of the Vietnam War.

And indeed, communism was not resisted by conservative Americans only as a social and economic system, but because its “godlessness” was judged to be in direct opposition to the supposedly religious foundations of American history.

But it holds true as well that the most vicious of all wars are not fought over lack of a god, but as rivalries between two competing notions of God.

That is the precise reason why one sect of Muslims is killing another, and why ISIL is so committed to creating a caliphate or national state in Iraq. They are attempting to impose their version of Sharia law by conquering territory and forcing people to either convert of die. The entire enterprise is a rivalry over interpretations of God. As a result, ISIL wants to confront Christianity on its “home soil.”

Ali-Frazier redux

That rivalry over who represents the “real deal” is the the same sort of argument Ali foisted on Joe Frazier, who he openly accused of being the “wrong kind of black.” Their mutual anger over issues like these fueled three killer fights between the two men.

The same brand of story unfolded between McCartney and Lennon, who exchanged critical songs as a means to express frustration with the artistic differences that once made them the most dynamic writing team in popular music.

Religious rivalries

It is the same thing with the Muslim, Christian and Jewish faiths in this world. All share the same root histories, yet the advancing interpretations and judgment on what constitutes a prophet or a Messiah are to this day cause a triangulation of horror, murder and prejudice.

It remains to be seen whether these religious differences can be reconciled or forgiven. Some claim the differences are too fundamental or profound. Others point fingers at the murderous ways of the opponent while ignoring their own egregious modes of death and destruction. This is true of the collective efforts by Christian, Jewish and Musliim states.

Great rivals can become great allies, or at least show respect. Ali sooner or later did that with Frazier, as did McCartney and Lennon.

The rule we need to consider is that the more we share in history and the more we are alike, the more bitter the feud can be.

Who is really keeping us safe?

November 19, 2015November 19, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

“If you’re not a liberal at twenty, you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative by the time you are forty, you have no brain.” –Winston Churchill

Years ago I read a massive two-volume biography of Winston Churchill. It was with great disappointment that I learned that the author of those first two books had died. The third would have covered the period including World War II, and that would have been fascinating to study the actions and philosophies of the man that ushered Great Britain through the war.

Yet even with Churchill, his strong points as a war leader turned out to be challenges of a sort in the political realm. He was initially defeated for the role of Prime Minister after the war, yet returned to that role again before suffering physical and mental decline that may have resulted from strokes and heart issues.

A wealth of protectors

While obviously a man to admire, Winston Churchill’s determination that conservatism was the ultimate form of philosophical sophistication may have been formed more from his upbringing in a wealthy English family than his own evolution as a military man and spokesman. He was great at both those things, but there is an abiding factor to how these were developed and sustained that made it possible for Churchill to think like a conservative at all.

That factor was the presence and alliance of both the United States and the Soviet Union in World War II. Without that partnership, Great Britain would have been sunk under the pressures of Germany to take over much of Europe.

It was the liberal support of America’s Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt and the hard right determination of Joseph Stalin that fought back Germany’s considerable will to conquer and subjugate. That enabled Churchill to essentially occupy an important middle ground from which he could flexibly consider and pursue his necessary options. That is conservative in the good sense of the word, in being considerate.

Modern times

Fast forward to the current world perspective in which we live. America’s President Barack Obama has behaved as a noted centrist on the world stage. And like Churchill, there have been wins and losses, risks and seeming triumphs associated with that centrist position. Obama has been the considerate if quietly brusque leader, not prone to launch off new wars, yet capable of effecting deadly drone strikes that many people protest as cruel and miscalculated.

Such are the risks of all world leaders. The apparently noble fight of America, Britain and the Soviets against the Germans, Italians and Japanese Axis was full of death and destruction. And while Germany clearly committed war crimes, the rest of the fighters were not a group of innocents. America ultimately dropped a massive nuclear weapon on Japan’s big cities, killing thousands of civilians in the process.

During the leadup to that event, America engaged in some rather heinous efforts to protect itself, ushering many of its own citizens of Japanese descent into camps. The object at the time was to “keep us safe” from perceived threats because Japan itself was such a threat.

Fear and strange decisions

Fear drives all kind of strange decisions in this world. And while some of our fears are very real, the collective anxiety of a culture can often be extremely misguided.

Such is the case wth current concerns over America’s possible acceptance of Syrian refugees. While France opens its borders willingly to Syrian refugees even on the heels of the terrorist attacks on its own soil, America’s arch-conservative population wants to ban them from entry into the country. All of this is based on the idea that terrorists will somehow disguise themselves as refugees and come to this country to kill Americans.

Raging debates

Having engaged in considerable political debate with a number of anxious conservatives on social media, a few simple things have emerged in the argument. 1) They don’t trust Obama or the government 2) They don’t trust the government or Obama 3) They really don’t trust either Obama or the government. That’s the substance of their arguments.

In the process of defending those arguments they also engage in considerable name-calling while simultaneously denying that the Bush administration or any conservative before him had anything to do with creating the terrorist problem in the Middle East. We all know that started with the Reagan administration, was fostered by the Bush relationships with the Saudis, and carried on with the patsy treatment of the bin Laden family right through the 9/11 terrorist attacks when our first priority was flying remnants of that family out of the United States when all other flights were suddenly banned. Conservatives also created the Saddam Hussein we overthrew, and set up the Shah of Iran that led to that country being so pissed off at the Western World.

Yet somehow it’s all Obama’s fault that we have problems in the Middle East.

Brotherly love

Of course, Jeb Bush, the equally inept brother of George W. Bush, is now running for President of the United States. And like any conservative worth his radical salt he has publicly claimed that his brother “kept us safe.”

So for the sake of analysis, we should examine what he might mean by that statement. The expectations of conservatives about what “keeps us safe” clearly breaks down into categories that were demonstrated by the Bush administration’s actions in the Middle East. And we’ll get to those in a minute.

But first we must admit there was little resistance by the Democratic Left to any of Bush’s policies overseas. That was a sick and sad chapter in our political history as well. Either by choice or by fear, the Left stood down under considerable pressure from conservative dominance of all three branches of government. That included the power of the Presidency, a willing Congress and Senate and even the Supreme Court that handed Bush surveillance powers that broke every rule in the Constitution about personal privacy.

So Bush and Cheney were given free license to engage in a series of cynical acts of aggression designed, in their minds, to “keep us safe” from terrorism. These included:

Bomb first, ask no questions later. When faced with threats, conservatives love to bomb things because it makes them feel as if they are taking action against that threat. Of course, civilian casualties resulting from those bombings inflamed hatred for the United States as innocents perished. But that’s the apparent price of thoughtless war. “Collateral damage” they call it. The ultimate euphemism of course. Conservatives bomb, and then move on without a second thought about what the real effects of such bombings could be in terms of perception among enemies or friends.
Torture is acceptable. Arguments in favor of torturing Iraqis and potential terrorist focused on the fact that such tactics were necessary to extract information that could “keep America safe.” That connection between information and actionable intelligence really never happened in any substantial way. And yet the apparent thought that our supposed enemies were being tortured made a certain segment of our society feel happy because we were “doing something” about terrorism. Never mind that many of the people we tortured and even killed through torture and mistreatment were in fact completely innocent.
Spying on your own people is desirable. How ironic it is that the political force in America that claims to hate government most and wants to reduce its influence in our lives should choose to open a surveillance program that brought government into the very conversations we all hold over our telephones and cell phones. It seems a common phenomenon that the things conservatives most hate in others they ultimately become themselves. It happens on the social front when people who claim to stand for family values turn out to be serial wife cheaters or sexual predators. This repression haunts the conservative party like a ghost of unvirtuous fact.
Always blame the other side. For all these insane actions and remorseless activities, conservatives have developed denial of responsibility for the evil outcomes into a very fine art. The virtual memo that says “never admit you were wrong” has been hard-wired into the consciousness of political, military and civilian conservatives. In fact, it is perhaps the greatest social conspiracy ever contrived as a political strategy. Its level of secrecy is protected by a devotion to denial and an entire lack of accountability. It is thus quite breathtaking in its scope and effect on civil discourse. Its main mouthpiece, of course, is Fox News, whose claims of being “fair and balanced” as a “news organization” are the absolute expression of the virtue of lying with a smile on your face and putting tits above the fold as a distraction of the very audience you intend to recruit.

There’s a reason for all this aggression, repression and secession going on within the conservative cult in America. Only when a conservative breaks completely free of the party entirely, which means they can never go back, do we hear an ounce of truth and admission about what really goes on behind the scenes. The recent inadvertent confession of a certain Congressman on the real reasons for the Benghazi investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are just one such example of politically motivated use of government to harangue and discredit anyone that dares resist the conservative cartel in America.

It goes back a ways

John_F_Kennedy Resistance to this secret society of Conservatism with a Capital A (and its apparent arm, the CIA) is what got President Kennedy killed back in the 1960s. So the phenomena of killing threats to the cabal is not new.Kennedy was no saint, that’s for sure. But what he also represented as a political liberalism that some perceived as a threat to the security of America. But again, the considerations shown by John F. Kennedy in negotiations with the Soviets in the Cuba Missile Crisis are likely what prevented nuclear war. In other words, his small “c” conservatism kept us safe, just like Winston Churchill’s small “c” conservatism helped guide the Allies through World War II. It is this conservatism to which I believe Winston Churchill is referring in the quote above this column.

But it keeps happening that large “C” Conservatism is trying to kill its perceived enemies. And true to form, the conservative cabal went after Bill Clinton over engagement in a harmless blow job. The ensuing scandal turned into a political spectacle that distracted from Clinton’s ability to do his job, and keep us safe.

At that time, Clinton wanted to take action against bin Laden and potential terrorists in the Middle East, but was discouraged from doing so because it would appear he was attempting to “wag the dog” and escape accusations and impeachment over his extramarital affair. We seriously need to ask what would have kept us more safe in that scenario, the Starr Report or actually paying attention to real threats to our security. Capital A Conservatives clearly chose the former over the latter. America has paid the price ever since for this selfish, politically motivated debacle.

Fear, loathing and power

New House Speaker Paul Ryan

So you see, the goal of conservatism is never really to keep us safe. It is to gain and keep power, and that is all. Conservatives use fear to accomplish that mission all the time. That is why the call to war is so strong among them. War creates a deep tide fear in the populace, accentuated by methods such as “terror alerts” that the Bush administration turned on and off as needed to sway political will and push the perception of power in their direction. These are all tricks to get people to fall in line. Authoritarian thinkers on both the proactive and responsive side love these methods because it gives them a sense of control in otherwise chaotic circumstances. Of course it is all a ruse, but that does not matter.

FlagWaiver Indeed, Conservatives with a capital “C” want Americans to behave like Pavlov’s dogs in response to the call for war and acceptance of violence as status quo. They wave flags as patriots in fear until the very meaning of the flag is all worn out. Our flag has come to represent a national attitude of fear and a worn out ideology as a result.

Witness the marketing methods of the NRA, which flouts fear about race and crime as reasons to arm American on claims that more guns will “keep us safe.” Again, these are lies of massive proportions. More Americans have died from gun violence on American soil that all the soldiers ever killed in foreign wars. This is not “keeping us safe.”

Money kills

In the end, the sad thing about all this fear and terror and power is that it is all about money. Conservatives simply love money and all that it gives them. That’s why so many conservative whine about high tax rates and complain about giving their dollars through any social programs that might help the poor or elderly. This is the brand of conservatism that has evolved in America; selfishness as a life philosophy. It stands in direct opposition to the Christian call for charity and even giving away all you have to serve God and Christ. But modern conservatives (oxymoron intended) ignore all that real Christian stuff. That part is old-fashioned to them.

And we must return to the fact that top level Conservatives have always liked war because it enriches them. Former Vice President Dick Cheney used the Iraq War to increase the value of companies like Halliburton in which he has long held financial interests. The snarling visage of the man who almost singlehandedly leveraged America’s fortunes into his own while ruining our reputation overseas is like the Ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge, who without ever having gone through the happy change that made him into an advocate for the Christmas Spirit acts instead like the Grinch Who Stole America.

No Churchill

dick-cheney Cheney was no Churchill, let’s all agree on that. He seems to have envisioned himself that way, but where he falls short is in the ability to recognize the advantage of being a smart conservative with a small “c.” That is one who knows that conservatism actually involves consideration. Cheney appears to have none of that capacity, and as a result his version of “keeping us safe” turned the Middle East into a morass of angry terrorist hornets hoping to break free and sting the invader of their nest.

So let’s stop pretending that stirring up the hornet’s nest in the Middle East with bombings, torture and boots on the ground is a conservative strategy at all. It is not a conservative strategy, and it does not keep us safe.

And as for hornet’s back home, we’ve already got a system in place to detect their angry buzz. Typically they can’t keep quiet. Not if we open our eyes and ears and pay attention. And let’s not ignore those clear warnings this time, as Bush did back when he and Cheney were plotting to take over the entire Middle East to steal the oil and get some archly conservative kicks. That was stupid. And we’re getting stung as a result.

An unhealthy view at the health club

October 22, 2015October 22, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

The health club where I work out has just finished a major overhaul of the locker rooms and main floor facilities. It is all tastefully and professionally done. The club earns all major accreditations from organizations that track such things.

I use the club to lift and swim, and sometimes jump on a treadmill on cold winter days when running outside would simply hurt.

The pool is just 25 meters long. It helps me build fitness with the goal of participating in Olympic distance triathlons next year.

There’s just one thing that bugs me about the club. Whenever I go to the area where the sinks are situated, Fox News is playing on the TV.

I try to ignore Fox News wherever it plays. Yet many businesses seem to like to put Fox on their TVs. One former employer had it playing on the screen where visitors sat to do business or come in for interviews.

There’s just one problem with this business philosophy. Fox News makes you dumber.

According to independent research conducted by Farleigh Dickinson University, watching Fox News actually diminishes the ability to answer questions about current events. Here’s what a story on the website RT.com revealed:

The report reveals that, on average, Americans are able to correctly answer 1.8 out of 4 questions on international news and 1.6 of 5 questions when quizzed on domestic issues. For those that disregard the television for taking in daily newscasts, they averaged 1.22 answers correctly.

Fox viewers, of course, were a different story.

“[S]omeone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer just 1.04 domestic questions correctly – a figure which is significantly worse than if they had reported watching no media at all,” reveals the study.

“On the other hand, if they listened only to NPR, they would be expected to answer 1.51 questions correctly; viewers of Sunday morning talk shows fare similarly well. And people watching only The Daily Show with Jon Stewart could answer about 1.42 questions correctly.”

The admittedly liberal website newshound.us reveals some of the reasons behind the “Fox Effect.”

In summary, then, the “science” of Fox News clearly shows that its viewers are more misinformed than the viewers of other stations, and are indeed this way for ideological reasons. But these are not necessarily the reasons that liberals may assume. Instead, the Fox “effect” probably occurs both because the station churns out falsehoods that conservatives readily accept—falsehoods that may even seem convincing to some liberals on occasion—but also because conservatives are overwhelmingly inclined to choose to watch Fox to begin with.

At the same time, it’s important to note that they’re also disinclined to watch anything else. Fox keeps constantly in their minds the idea that the rest of the media are “biased” against them, and conservatives duly respond by saying other media aren’t worth watching—it’s just a pack of lies. According to Public Policy Polling’s annual TV News Trust Poll (the 2011 run), 72 percent of conservatives say they trust Fox News, but they also say they strongly distrust NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN. Liberals and moderates, in contrast, trust all of these outlets more than they distrust them (though they distrust Fox). This, too, suggests conservative selective exposure.

And there is an even more telling study of “Fox-only” behavior among conservatives, from Stanford’s Shanto Iyengar and Kyu Hahn of Yonsei University, in Seoul, South Korea. They conducted a classic left-right selective exposure study, giving members of different ideological groups the chance to choose stories from a news stream that provided them with a headline and a news source logo—Fox, CNN, NPR, and the BBC—but nothing else. The experiment was manipulated so that the same headline and story was randomly attributed to different news sources. The result was that Democrats and liberals were definitely less inclined to choose Fox than other sources, but spread their interest across the other outlets when it came to news. But Republicans and conservatives overwhelmingly chose Fox for hard news and even for soft news, and ignored other sources. “The probability that a Republican would select a CNN or NPR report was around 10%,” wrote the authors.

In other words Fox News is both deceiver and enabler simultaneously. First, its existence creates the opportunity for conservatives to exercise their biases, by selecting into the Fox information stream, and also by imbibing Fox-style arguments and claims that can then fuel biased reasoning about politics, science, and whatever else comes up.

This means the health club is actually doing a genuine disservice to the mental health and acuity of its members by playing Fox News on the television. And it’s not a health club… if the television is undermining the mental health and acuity of its members.

That’s all we need to say about Fox News today. It is clearly quite bad for your mental health, and bad for the health of the nation as a whole.

The height of arrogance and the depth of denial

October 19, 2015October 19, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

The Republican propensity for denial of responsibility and grasp of fact is now so revered among the party’s elite it has become the first tool of response to any challenge.

The most recent denial of fact is the Republican claim that their last President of the United States was not, in fact, actually the President when the 9/11 tragedy took place. The initial volley about the issue came from none other than Donald Trump, ostensibly the Republican leading the polls among conservatives. This is what Trump said about George W. Bush and his responsibility for 9/11.

“When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time,” Trump said. “He was President, okay? Don’t blame him or don’t blame him, but he was President. The World Trade Center came down during his reign,” Trump replied. ”

O Brother

Those simple facts did not set well with Jeb Bush, another Republican hopeful who has repeatedly claimed that his brother George “kept us safe.”

He may have been referring to the idea that no additional foreign terror attacks took place during the remaining years of the Bush presidency. But as noted, Trump was having none of that nonsense.

This harsh divide manifested in Trump’s domineering approach to criticism breaks with the Republican tradition of attacking only the opposition and not criticizing their own. That has been the presiding, if not perfect, strategy behind the Republican push for power over several decades. There may be ugly fights behind the scenes among Republicans, but the goal has always been to keep those spats private.

Breaking the rules

Trump is not playing by any of those rules, and as a result, is not really running for the Republican nomination so much as he is forcing the party to reform itself around this meme of gaining power at all costs. Even by Trump’s standards, that means leaving the rest of the nasty baggage behind. This could be the ironic salvation of Republicanism, if not the Republican Party itself.

See, the tradition of denying its own failures has both a benefit and a cost. Sooner or later you get to the obvious and well-documented parts of recent history, and you must deny even these to continue on the path toward power. The denials launch from the dusty calls of legislatures and courts on Constitutional matters to exploding buildings and wars started by sitting Presidents who stretched the truth to justify their ideology and their actions. In other words, you can only win by breaking every rule of conscience and truth.

Trumped at their own game

That’s what Trump is calling to account, and Jeb Bush has put his image of brotherly love and political credibility on the line, deciding to throw his support behind his brother’s claims of success rather than confont the facts, which point to a massive failure in intelligence, both gathered and native, by his apparently dimwit brother.

Yes, George W. Bush did some stupid things, and Donald Trump is having nothing to do with making excuses for what he perceives as the dumbing down of recent history. What we’re witnessing in real time is the height of arrogance and the depth of denial running the Republican Party. Their grasp of reality isn’t just slipping away, it is gone entirely.

Denial as a worldview

Republicans also deny the science behind global climate change on claims it is arrogant to think human beings could ever cause such a massive shift in the earth’s foundational temperatures.

Look at how that works. The GOP hates Al Gore for his claim that global climate change is, to quote a phrase, “An Inconvenient Truth.” So by directing their anger toward Al Gore they accomplish two things. Poor Al tends to come off as arrogant in his general demeanor, which makes him an ideal target for Republican denial of fact. They use him to deflect the factual arrogance of denying 97% of the world’s climate scientists who find tons of evidence that our current pattern of rising temperatures and warming oceans is a result of human activities.

But think about what’s happening here. If it is possible to deny the fact that 9/11 happened under the watch of George W. Bush, denying the complex and scientifically predicted influence of climate change is simple by comparison. The height of arrogance and the depth of denial work together fantastically in the propaganda-driven mode by which the Republican Party communicates.

In other words

As a result, terms like “sustainability” and “gun control” become catchphrases and buzzwords of resistance in the party of denial. These terms bespeak change in favor of temperance and planning, which are translated as government intervention by the party with a professed aversion for government even as it seeks total dominance over the three branches of jurisdiction; the Presidency, legislature and the courts.

This is the height of arrogance and the depth of denial at its most sinister level. To claim to hate the thing you want to rule is both an arrogance in purpose and a denial of responsibility.

Christian fakes

That’s what’s taking place on a grand scale here in America. The height of arrogance and the depth of denial also rules the brand of Christianity used to back Republican aims. The movement to wield the power of Christian faith in politics without abiding by the basic principles of Christianity is now 30-40 years old. Conservatives seeking to align their supply-side economics with biblical authority conveniently ignore the call to divest themselves of wealth in favor of spiritual governance. As a result, churches feel free to politicize and make the claim that you cannot be both liberal (ne: a Democrat) and a Christian.

Running interference

It’s no surprise that the inconvenient truth of science, especially the theory of evolution, interferes with this narrative that a fundamentally literal interpretation of the Bible is the only way to gain truth. This also denies the fact that Jesus taught using metaphors drawn from nature to explain important spiritual principles.

When pressed about his own faith and love for the Bible, Donald Trump ripped a page right out of the Republican playbook with this statement: “I wouldn’t want to get into it. Because to me, that’s very personal,” he said. “The Bible means a lot to me, but I don’t want to get into specifics.”

Again, the height of arrogance and the depth of denial is at work.

Twitterized

But not everyone buys this brand of junk. Using his own quotes and philosophy, folks on Twitter took after Trump (and by proxy, all of RepublicanLand) with a feed called #TrumpBible. Take a look at how they handed Trump his stupid hat.

It’s time we all got a bit wiser about how this game of arrogance and denial really works. No one should get away with stupid remarks like Jeb Bush claiming his brother was not responsible for 9/11, or the partnered meme that Bush was not even President when it happened nine months after he was installed as President.

The sad fact is that so many people prefer the height of arrogance and the depth of denial. It fulfills their worldview on many fronts, exonerating them from responsibility for painful social issues such as gun violence, racism and economic exploitation. Let’s be honest and hold these people accountable. Stop letting your friends and conservative associates turn bald-faced denials and unaccountable arrogances into something resembling fact.

Donald Trump is just the starting point. He symbolizes the so-called anger expressed by so many Americans, and for all the wrong reasons. Denial is not a form of government. It is the absence of governance, and an entire lack of conscience.

Don’t let them get away with it. Call them out. The height of arrogance and the depth of denial is exactly what is killing American hopes and a future fit for all.

The socialism of sociopathy

October 16, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Sociopath: a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

Perhaps you noticed the difference in tone between the Republican and Democratic debates? The Republican “debate” was all about name-calling, angry accusations and selfish calls for political support because the “other guys” both within their own party and political opponents outside the realm of Republicanism are doing it all wrong.

Basically what we saw was a line of sociopaths socializing over a menu of red political meat. And to no one’s real surprise, they were eating their own.

Contrasts

By contrast, the Democratic debate focused on issues of substance, and when issues like the Hillary Clinton emails came up, candidate Bernie Sanders steered the subject back to matters that mattered. “Enough about your damn emails,” he barked. “Let’s talk about real issues.”

See, there really is a moral equivalency that needs to be measured in the nature of how Republicans conduct themselves and the manner in which Democrats are trying to solve America’s problems. Notice the difference there? For a lineup of sociopaths, it’s literally impossible to think about the impact of what they’re saying about others. They don’t care. They’re antisocial to a major degree.

Crass and uncaring

Donald Trump is leading the polls on the Republican side. His misogyny is so bald-faced and crass. His entire campaign is about the fact that “he’ll do this” and “he’ll do that.” And it will be better. He’ll force people to the table to negotiate. And if they don’t like his deals, he’ll dump them and move on. He’s the king of anti-socialites, primped with a bad hair style and a bad brain beneath it. He’s a sociopath.

And yet he rallies the sociopaths who love his style. That’s because there’s a brand of socialism that emanates from sociopathy. That’s how organizations like the Klu Klux Klan were able to help impose Jim Crow laws that favored whites across the nation. All social advantage was conferred to white people through economic and political power. Blacks were denied jobs and even a seat at the counter or on the bus.

This is the most evil brand of socialism. Here’s how it is defined:

Socialism is a social and economic system characterised by social ownership and/or social control of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system.

Do you begin to see how it works? Sociopaths like Donald Trump and Marco Rubio (who acts like a serial murderer) and Chris Christie and so on…love to claim they favor capitalism as a socioeconomic system. But their brand of capitalism does not provide equal opportunity for all to participate in the system. By definition and design, the Republican Party has concocted through a combination of Good Old Boy political favors and outright bribery and control by industries such as oil, pharmaceuticals and even agriculture, turned America into a socialistic oligarchy.

Oligarchy: a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution.

When you put the two words together, Socialism and Oligarchy, and study how our economy has been manipulated to push wealth to a small fraction of ownership, you begin to realize that the socialism proposed by candidates such as Bernie Sanders is really more like a market correction than it is an attempt to socialistically redistribute wealth from one segment of society to another.

We recently saw the result of a market correction as managed (and designed) by the greedy sociopaths currently running our economy. America’s wealth convulsed and contracted, and millions of people lost millions of dollars, jobs and wages became depressed as a result. Meanwhile the richest got richer. We were literally told that the tax dollars of everyday Americans would be necessarily used to bail out banks that were “too big to fail.”

Convenient untruths

Well, isn’t that convenient? Meanwhile millions of middle class and often middle-aged Americans were cast out of work, and companies refused to hire them if they were out of work more than six months. Then a cast of sociopathic Republican Senators and Congressman began to blame these Americans for collecting unemployment insurance. They refused to pass a bill that would allow people to keep collecting said insurance as they continued looking for work. They further accused people of not even trying to look for work.

I sat around the table at a business luncheon in 2009. Around me sat a group of local businessmen, all who blanched when the banking industry speaker admitted that companies like his would not soon loosen restrictions on loans for capital and payroll loans. You could feel the anger and frustration surge, for these were good conservative people who ran businesses that employed other people. They felt abandoned by the very system they supported. They were victims of the socialistic sociopathy of oligarchic capitalism. But one wonders if they recognized it, or would ever change their vote to people that actually cared whether their businesses survived.

It’s doubtful.

Hierarchies

The sociopaths at the upper levels of the economy have zero empathy for other people, you see. By definition they entirely lack “a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.” And when the economy tanked, many of them actually gave themselves performances. Big companies held parties using the federal dollars they received in bailouts. That is the most sociopathic thing one can conceive.

See, it has become a pattern in the America that the socialism of sociopathy works against the interests of everyday people trying to make a living, run businesses, raise a family and enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And as if the economics of sociopathic socialism were not enough, the political Right also wants to rule the inside of a woman’s body, and prevents the Equal Rights Amendment from even being considered for passage.

Well, shoot

Meanwhile, the sociopathic socialists also constructed a gun culture in which the rights of everyday people who do not want to own or possess guns are being forced to consider their own safety just by attending school or going to a movie theater. The sociopathic socialists tell the world that guns make the nation a safer place to live despite the fact that 30,000 annually die from gun violence. Guns are the perfect expression of sociopathic socialism, because they now are legal for Concealed Carry in all 50 states, and lobbies are working to pass Open Carry laws so that people can walk around brandishing weapons in public.

Stop and think about that for a moment. We’re talking about a fully militarized society at that point. All people who do not carry weapons would be at a social disadvantage wherever they go.

Fighting back meekly

Small efforts to combat this brand of sociopathic socialism still exist. One can find No Guns signage on the doors of churches and businesses that do not want people carrying weapons. And yet, the sociopathic socialists warn that it is No Gun Zones that are the most dangerous places because it confers advantage to so-called criminals with guns.

How is this logic even tolerated? Well, the slogan for gun rights that trump all other rights is “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

And that, my friends, is the most sociopathic statement ever concocted. It actually invites people to kill. Look at those last three words. “People kill people.” That’s the slogan for sociopathy. And now it is socialized into our country’s lexicon.

Good gun owners

Granted, there are millions of gun owners that use and keep their weapons lawfully. But they are doing precious little to prevent the sociopathic strain of gun owners from ruining their rights as guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Instead these lawful gun owners either weakly or submissively go along, or else get on their Right To Bear Arms stump as if standing proudly above others on grounds of the Second Amendment and ignoring the part about a “well-regulated militia, being necessary for the security fo a free state…” was justification enough to ignore the fact that our police are being shot and killed and hundreds of thousands more people per year are harmed by gun violence.

Hate, fear and aggression

This is the socialism of sociopathy. It harnesses hatred, fear and aggression to confer political power on those whose worldview has no empathy, and whose greed blinds them to the mechanics of true democracy, which works to provide an equal and fair playing field for all citizens.

It’s no coincidence that political leaders like Paul Ryan cite the sociopathic writings of Ayn Rand as a model for his own behavior. Or that men like Newt Gingrich could deliver an ultimatum note to his wife in her sickbed from cancer, and take part in all sorts of other schemes while hypocritically castigating President Clinton for his affair. And that supposed Good Guy Dennis Hastert was paying hush money all these years to cover up his own transgressions while pretending to be a man of high honor.

All of them, sociopaths. These are not people of good character, and they have assembled a political party around principles that are exclusionary, manipulative of cultural norms and backed by a strangely sociopathic brand of Christian faith that is literally divorced from the teachings of Jesus Christ.

It all requires a considerable amount of cognitive dissonance to sustain. But the fundamental sociopathy behind a cultural force that works against social welfare by blaming the victims of its policies for causing ill to society is the methodology of a sociopath with psychopathic disorder.

Psychopath: a person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoraland antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.

Think about the Rush Limbaughs of the world, who with his multiple failed marriages still feels it’s his right and responsibility to tell women how to live and what to do with their bodies. Or Bill O’Reilly, caught in multiple lies about his journalistic history, and yet he claims to operate in a “No Spin Zone.”

These are manipulations of image that exhibit sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies. And yet millions of people buy their schtick and pipe up with “dittos!” to Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.

This is the socialism of sociopathy. It’s a sickness American needs to cure. But there’s a problem in that people with the illness seldom recognize it in themselves. And so they vote even against their own interests just so the person who appears to be below them on the social ladder will not get a leg up. That’s the socialism of sociopathy.

America is a sick place sometimes.

How difficult it is for some to enter the Kingdom of God

October 12, 2015October 12, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Today’s scripture passage at church was a quite famous story found in Mark 10:17-29. A man approaches Jesus to ask him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

The passage focuses on how Jesus addresses the man. ¹⁸“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.”

From that point of reference, Jesus goes on to ask the man how he has lived his life. Has he kept the commandments? ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’^[d]”

“All these I have kept since I was a boy,” the man replies.

²¹Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

The passage remains the greatest challenge of all for so many in this world. The belief in modern society that success is the measure of the man, and that success is measured in material terms, is still a stumbling block. America is one of the richest nations on earth. There are many people who enjoy their wealth and the security that comes with it.

But the lesson from Mark 10 calls all this worldly focus to account. Scripture describes the reaction of the man who approached Jesus with the request, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He is told to give it all to the poor. Cherish nothing. Covet nothing. That’s what Jesus asks.

The bible says: “At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.”

We don’t know what happened next. Scripture does not tell us. But perhaps if the man had engaged in a change of heart, sold all his possession and followed Jesus, as his closest disciples had done, we might have heard more about the man. He might have been one of the greatest heroes in all the bible, for that matter.

Instead the man went away sad because he was not sure he could bear the idea of giving up his wealth. Perhaps he was good at protecting it as well. We all know how prideful and jealous people can be toward their worldly possessions. Some stack up weapons in their homes to confront and “defend” themselves against anyone that might dare to enter. These enemies, imagined or real, are considered good enough reason to use deadly force in protection of goods and family.

It is hard to imagine Jesus giving anyone a hard time about that, isn’t it? After all, isn’t it our job to protect our family and guard our homes? Isn’t that the most important thing in all the world?

Not according to Jesus, who tells us that we need to give it all away to get what we really need, which is fulfillment. ²⁹“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel ³⁰will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

This statement is a direct indictment of the “I’ve got mine” mentality that drives so much of modern culture and economics. The idea that wealth is to be earned and then guarded with deadly force is not the way that Jesus would have us follow at all. The idea that keeping and bearing weapons for the purpose of protection of home and family turns out to be a gross exaggeration of an already misguided principle.

Nothing you have in this world is meant to be kept. Absolutely nothing. Jesus drove a hard bargain even with those who clung to family ties. He certainly would not have supported the worldview that 290M guns are necessary for the protection of anything. Yet that’s an estimate of how many guns we have in America. Supposedly these guns protect our freedoms.

“What is freedom?” Jesus might well have asked. “There is no freedom if you are a prisoner to the weapons you need to protect it.”

Recently a friend on Facebook tried to make a point in favor of guns by invoking a veiled reference to religion. “It’s not the guns,” he pleaded, “Gun crime is a matter of the heart.”

But it is the guns, you see. It’s the guns and all the possessions to which we cling for fulfillment of our perceived promise of prosperity from God. That’s what’s wrong with the entire “I’ve got mine” mentality driving our acquisitive culture. It is a never-ending cycle of wanting more and delivering it by force or cunning if necessary. This has produced a political worldview that takes the position of punishing the poor for being need and passes an increasing amount of wealth to the already wealthy in hopes that it will “trickle down” to the poor like wine dripping off the table of a king.

This gruesome and distorted vision of prosperity leads to a defensively violent protection of self-interest and a host of rationalizations that support it. That is how the so-called Christian politically lobby has come to be so closely aligned with gun proponents. It’s not about protecting rights at all. It’s about protecting things that people have come to value as part of the package perceived to represent the American enterprise system.

But Jesus has a different message. He makes the point that if it is protection from evil that you truly want, the first thing you may have to do is give away everything you own. Otherwise people cling to temptations that pull them away from the trust that God will provide. Only in that trust do you have all that you need.

It’s a very hard lesson for anyone to learn, perhaps the hardest lesson in all the Bible. It is also difficult for some people to appreciate and understand that the Kingdom of God is not some faraway place or a goal to be attained. The Kingdom of God is ever present, right here on earth. It is what we make it, and whatever else may come.

Introduction to Sustainable Faith

September 29, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

What follows is the Introduction to a new book by Christopher L. Cudworth to be titled Sustainable Faith.

What you are about to read is a wakeup call, a “connect-the-dots” moment in which Christianity is urged to take a fresh look at where it has been, and where it is going.

This book is necessary because some of the traditions Christianity has used to stake its cultural tent now hold it back from pulling up stakes and going where it is meant to go. Instead, there are many Christians hammering ever harder on the stakes of treasured convictions and timeworn traditions.

You may recall that according to the Bible, many of the people chosen by God to carry forth his kingdom were either asked to uproot themselves or were taken by force out of their homes, even to the bonds of slavery.

Their circumstances were often dire as a result of these actions. Yet God kept watch on them and ultimately chose to lead these same people out of slavery or out of the wilderness. And that is where their faith in the sustaining power of God was put to the test.

Let us always remember that while people felt they were suffering and complained loudly about being left to fend for themselves in that wilderness, God reached out and gave them enough food to sustain them through days, months and years of exile. This was the original lesson in sustainability. Be grateful for what you have and use it well.

These were the lessons in sustaining faith and trust that God wanted people to pass down through generations. But of course, people grumbled and rebelled, challenging their leaders to give them better food, better news and firmer directions than the mere sustenance of “Tomorrow is another day, live it well. God will come through.”

When the Promised Land was finally delivered, new problems of leadership and dissatisfaction arrived. God asked people to continue in trust and faith. Yet they begged and demanded God to give them kings to rule over them. God finally relented, and with that earthly concession came wars and dissolution. The kings always turned out to be selfish or overreaching, and the people followed their lead, always getting themselves into trouble.

So God sent prophets to tell the people there was hope if they repented of their selfishness.

Long periods of imbalance and divorce from God ensued, until finally a man arrived that had a simple message to convey. John the Baptist was a voice crying from the wilderness. This time, he bore good news for all the people. An entirely new kind of king was arriving.

John was no ordinary character. He wore wild-looking clothes crafted from camel’s hair, tied by a leather belt around his waist. He ate insects such as locusts, and dined on wild honey. In other words, he had a flair for strange sustenance and knew how to survive outside the realm of traditional society.

“Listen,” he shared in ministry with his people. “I have come to bring you the Kingdom of God,” he said. “But it is not I that brings you this gift.” Then John baptized none other than Jesus, who in turn spoke of John this way. “I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John …”

It is clear that Jesus appreciated John’s unflinching approach. He also loved the wild strain of his faith, which bucked convention, challenged authority and depended not on temples or hierarchy for its strength, but sprung up from the earth itself, the very foundation of the Kingdom of God.

That Jesus understood the organic nature of John’s ministry is crucial to our understanding of the fulfillment of the entire Judeo-Christian narrative. Later when Jesus began his ministry in full, he kept with John’s example of calling people home to the earth, teaching through examples drawn from nature to illustrate spiritual principles. Jesus taught using parables that sprung from these eminently sustainable sources of wisdom. Nature is always there, he strove to tell us, and with it comes an appreciation for the creative power and sustenance of God.

In keeping with this approach to wisdom, he also warned that all people are but leaves of grass. Human beings come and go, and it is this ephemeral quality of life that you must recognize if you are to appreciate the unique and special place you occupy in the realm of creation. Life is precious, he encouraged us to understand, but not so precious that it cannot be lost for a million reasons. It happens every day, and none of us knows our time.

While this hardly seems like a sustaining piece of wisdom, in fact, it is the paradox you must grasp to appreciate the true nature of your circumstance here on earth.

To better comprehend our unique yet fragile relationship with the earth, we must return to the example of Jesus, who used parables formed from earth and water and light to communicate the vital connection between worldly experience and spiritual principles. This example of using natural symbols to teach about our spiritual nature is the prime paradox of scripture, yet also the most important to understand if we hope to achieve reconciliation with God.

From the opening passages of Genesis with its iconic description of creation to the fantastically imaginative brilliance of Revelation, we find scripture calling on examples of organic truths through metaphors to illuminate the power and wonder of God. If we limit ourselves to a literal interpretation of all this wonder and power, we risk driving yet another stake into the ground and tying people to it with a chain of ignorance. In so doing we imprison the beliefs of all those who seek but are not free to pursue these truths in full.

It is time to wake up and understand the limits that literalism has so long placed on the faith through its traditions and its halting brand of theology. It is instead time to pull up these stakes and step over these stumbling blocks in order free our beliefs from idols of law and zealotry dragged along from the past.

We instead need to be free to embark on a walk with Jesus that allows God to enter our lives in every step along the way. No longer should we fear science, because Jesus did not fear knowledge or the use of organic symbolism to convey the nature of truth. Likewise, we should no longer choose to fear or discriminate each other based on reasons of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

These were conventions that cultures once knew as rules, but they no longer apply. The selective method of choosing which rules from the Bible to emphasize and obey must end. And we should confront and hold to account all those who do these things in the names of other religions as well. Leave the tents of fundamentalism behind. Let them rot in the desert wind. Reach out to the people trying to free themselves from these prisons of perception, and help them yank up the stakes and uproot the horrid windrows planted to keep people from moving on.

There is only one set of sustaining principles from the God asks of us, and always has. Love one another. Respect creation. Sustain each other in all things.

Christianity and its close relatives in Jewish and Muslim faith can indeed embrace these healthy new realities and bring about a “new earth.” In fact, it is sitting outside our door if we go out with a sense of wonder and appreciation of creation in mind. The New World we are waiting for is both within us and outside of us. We must accept that paradox and get to work demanding that the church yank up the stakes of its false and harmful convictions. We must move the tent of where God wants us to go.

Yes, this is the hardest path to choose. But that is the path the Bible clearly asks us to consider. God sends people away from comfort to find themselves, and to call all those who would listen to follow. If those who are stuck in their ways want to stay behind, they should know clear and well why they are not right with God. It is our job to tell them. To offer for them to come along. To help them get right with God and the world.

There’s a great tradition in this regard. We have John the Baptist, the man crying in the wilderness, from whence all truth and understanding ultimately comes. Then Jesus himself was sent to the wilderness to face down Satan through 40 days of temptation that included an offer to have and own all of creation for his own. But Jesus stood by the sustaining power of his faith through it all, and turned down the selfish offers of Satan for a faith sustained not by expression of power but by expression of trust in God.

Matthew 4

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,

and they will lift you up in their hands,

so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ “

7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’[e]”

11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

How our desires and our differences dissolve in the face of such words. Behold the power of sustaining faith, which does not live on bread alone but feasts on every word that comes from the mouth of God! It also stands up to every test, and does not fear other forms of knowledge, but embraces them for the manner in which they expand upon our understanding of the world, just as Jesus taught us to do. And finally, a sustainable faith grows in the presence of all creation, and finds hope not in exploiting these resources, but by respecting the gift enough to restore whatever facets of creation we impact, and to act wisely for future generations.

It’s the liberal use of guns that is killing America

September 18, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Reading this blog might give some people the impression that I don’t like guns. I’ve never actually said that. I like guns plenty. I grew up playing with guns and shooting actual guns from BB guns to 12-gauge shotguns. Not a lot, mind you. But enough to know what guns can do.

I specifically recall my father taking out a ground hog from the upstairs perch of our three-story house in Seneca Falls, New York. It made me think my dad was a real hero. Of course he grew up shooting guns to gather game on his Upstate New York farm. He told stories of following ruffed grouse with his gun and how hard they were to hit.

Dealing with fears

One of my best friends is a very able and avid hunter. He’s backed off the last few years because his body has rebelled against those cold mornings in the South Dakota hills. Plus he got stared down by a mountain lion a few years back and then had to walk out carrying only his bow and arrow as defense. That’s enough to unnerve anyone.

It might have helped to deal with his fear if he had carried another weapon with him. Like a gun. But not always. If a mountain lion really wants to track you down and pounce on your back, they’ll likely find a way before you can turn and fire your weapon.

Shoot first?

Of course the same goes in the city. If someone wants to shoot you, it almost doesn’t matter if you’re packing heat or not. You can conceal carry or throw that weapon on your hip for all to see. The rule of the urban jungle is that whoever fires first has the advantage.

Unless you miss. Then you’re screwed unless you have a rapid fire or automatic weapon. And thus the gun industry has responded by creating weapons that can fire multiple rounds. That cuts down your odds of receiving return fire.

Cops’ rule

So it’s no wonder the police are none too keen about the presence of automatic weapons on the street. How would you feel knowing that you might be outgunned even if you do fire your service revolver first?

There’s an hilarious yet somewhat revealing scene to this effect in the movie True Lies, in which the scantily dressed Jamie Lee Curtis character goes to fire a machine gun and drops it. As it falls down the steps it takes out a dozen or so terrorist types. So much for the theory that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Yes, it’s a complete farce of a scene. The likelihood of something like that happening is a million to one.

No solutions

Yet there are many arguments about guns that depend on a rather random belief that guns solve the problem of threats or violence. Once such contention is the idea that a room full of people carrying concealed weapons is going to deter a person with criminal intent and the will to kill. With the power of repeating weapons at hand, there is still a great advantage in the hands of the person who shoots first.

There’s the shock and fear factor, for one thing. And if the entire room erupts in gunfire, how will all those concealed carry wizards identify and focus on the original shooter? It really doesn’t make sense.

We can turn to another example from the movies to point out the absurdity of all such strategies. In the scene from Men In Black in which Will Smith as a New York City policemen is put through a firing range test with some of America’s best millitary marksmen, he holds his fire until the last minute and finally shoots a cutouf of a young girl right through the forehead with a single shot.

The rest of the trained military men blaze away before that moment, taking out everything in the room that moves. But Smith, when asked why he chose to shoot a young girl through the head rather than the monsters and aliens presented for earlier target practice, simply explains that she looked out of place.

Good call

Well, good for him. We all wish our armed citizens and officers had such wits about them. But that’s also illustrating the problem as well as the solution. Officers who think that people look “out of place” have been known to shoot down innocent citizens or become aggressive at the mere sight of someone who “looks different.” Add in racial profiling and everyone on the street can start to look like a monster.

That’s in part why a women like Sandra Bland gets dragged off and winds up dead. Officers sick of being threatened or disrespected have every right and authority to take control of a situation. But this strategy is stressed to its limit when deadly firearms are potentially involved.

Liberality

There’s no telling when that might happen. There are plenty of guns to go around in America. There’s no shortage and no one in the Democratic Party has succeeded or even proposed much about taking guns away from everyday citizens. Oh sure, the NRA loves to trump up its base with those claims, but really, we’ve had eight years of the Obama administration and during that time gun rights have actually expanded with more Concealed Carry states joining the ranks of the gun happy populace.

I’ll accept that the law of the land has become quite liberal about owning guns. It has also become quite liberal about their use in mass shootings. In every instance in which multiple people have been killed in the last 10 years, it is the ability to liberally spray bullets without aim or conscience that puts the advantage on the side of the mentally disturbed and insane.

I have argued that it is this liberality that even turns people crazy with power. Certainly it does not happen with all gun owners. Not by a long, long stretch. By far most gun owners are law-abiding and perhaps just want to protect themselves. Only a few develop that messianic look in their eyes like George Zimmerman, and want to take the law into their own hands.

Militia madness

And there are militias too, those people that fancy their only chance at freedom in America is to take up weapons and stand up to the supposed tyranny of the government. That is a case of people running out of wits before they run out of imagination. They close this gap with as many weapons as they can gather, refusing to recognize the clear Second Amendment call for a “well-regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state.”

It works both ways, you see. No one really wants to take away anyone’s guns. I know I don’t. What we do want is a conservative return to recognition of what guns really mean, and why they exist. They were invented for killing. There’s no escaping that fact. Even law-abiding hunters must admit they are killing other living things.

Target and sport shooters stand apart somewhat from the killing fray. And yet, their sports would not exist were it not for the refined need to kill. At some level that is the Mother of All Gun Invention. The fact that you can shoot well is only an expression of the fact that if pressed, you could kill better than most.

Heroes and villains

Hence the popularity of the propagandistic movie American Sniper. With no apologies, huge numbers of Americans watched a film that celebrated a man that killed nearly a couple hundred people in war. They are strategic targets, but were killings nonetheless. That’s the nature of war.

Our problem is separating those instincts from society when people become snipers for their own anger, frustrations and delusions. Those are the people whose liberal use of weapons we must really watch. And whatever steps must be taken to keep guns out of the hands of those murderous snipers…must be done.

What to do

Enough with the excuses. Guns should be highly regulated and traceable not only to the current owner, but all previous owners. There should be liability when these processes are compromised or result in criminal actions. Guns should be digitally traceable at all times. With GPS technology and the ability to trace guns within feet of their position, all guns should be chipped with irrevocable and renewable chips. These weapons should be required to be brought in for regular inspections, and all failure to do so should be a criminal offense. You forget, you lose your right to own that gun.

Want to argue that all such chips could be disabled? Make that a federal crime with a year in prison as punishment. Again, no excuses.

Driving home the point

It’s just like cars. You can’t sell a car without a title, and guns need to be kept on record at all times. If you’re afraid the government is going to come and confiscate your deadly weapon, then you’re the one with something to hide. The only way to keep insane people from owning or abusing guns is to impose hard penalties for all such abuses, and to track guns aggressively so that ownership is a privilege and a conservative statement that the right type of government matters.

If we’re going to abide by the Second Amendment, let’s respect its source and its purpose. We pay for the right to drive our cars on tollways, and the government knows where we drive and when. The same style of regulation must be applied to guns, without exception.

Again, I’m not proposing taking anyone’s guns away. Instead, let’s encourage a conservative approach to gun ownership, one that demands responsibility rather than allows murderous intent to ruin the game for all.

The confused role model Kim Davis deserves her own Unreality Show

September 16, 2015September 16, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

When it comes to cognitive dissonance, it does not matter whether one is Republican, Democrat or Libertarian. Catholic, Protestant or Muslim. Baseball, Football or Soccer Fan. If you can’t connect the realities of cause and effect, you are clearly operating in the realm of unreality.

And, if you’re delusional at a deep enough level, and actually turn out to be either rich or poor enough to serve as a caricature of society and social status, you might even qualify to get your own Reality Show.

Trumped Up

Just ask the likes of Donald Trump, the rich dingbat now running for America’s highest office. His trademark bad hair and catchphrases such as “You’re Fired!” perfectly fit the carnival atmosphere of reality television. The fact that he is now the front-runner among Republican candidates illustrates the cognitive dissonance of Americans that cannot separate reality from unreality.
Their keen sense of aggressive ignorance mirrors the unreal reality of one Honey Boo Boo, the child princess with a family that perfectly expressed the worst that America has to offer in the way of values.

Yet somehow the pure absence of conscience in that show symbolizes the brand of depravity that serves as values in the post-modern age. Honey Boo Boo is a direct descendant of the circus carnivals that once toured America with bearded ladies and Strongmen, freaks of nature who somehow appeal to that sense of inhumanity and prurience from which you can’t look away, and will pay to see.

The cause of our curiosity is the effect it has on us. Desperate for both entertainment and confirmation that we’re somehow better than the people we subject to our attentions, we turn people ill-prepared for the role into heroes into rock stars. And that includes the rock stars themselves.

Confused role models

Into this cognitive disconnect between reality and unreality marches one Kim Davis. She makes the claim that her religious beliefs are being violated by carrying out her legally specified duties of issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

We’ll leave her own confused life out of our analysis other than to say that she has not been a model of marital virtue. Not by any current measure, or past. To her credit she has apparently asked forgiveness for her mistakes, and deserves an audience with God or Christ to reconcile her need for justification. That’s between her and her maker.

Yet she’s weirdly fashioned herself into something of a role model for a certain brand of Christian who feels persecuted by a society that legitimately questions hypocrites who won’t do the job they are paid to do because it appears to conflict with their religious beliefs.

Well, social media has had a fine time with that contention, hasn’t it? There are all kinds of religious beliefs out there just waiting to be violated. A pastor that is a fan of guns could argue that the ban his church places on carrying concealed weapons is against his personal beliefs. The breaches of such nature are never-ending.

Which is why our Constitution guarantees both freedom of religion and freedom from religion. The whole point of our Constitution is to establish and preside over the general consensus between moral values and public laws. It is a confused role model that refuses to understand these qualities that govern our country.

Where she’s wrong

Kim Davis may be all right in her own mind, but she’s got it all wrong when it comes to working in the public sector. By making the claim that she should not be “forced” ––if that’s how she feels about it––to issue gay marriage licenses is an apparent confession that she does not believe in her oath and role as a public servant. Period.

And the Bible is all too clear about that, over and over again:

1 Peter 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority…

And so on. Now you could argue that Jesus was pretty good at breaking that rule. But that’s Jesus. He had a broader goal in mind than pissing off the authorities. He came to enlighten people that the greatest law of all was love, and that love is the great revealer of the human spirit.

So Kim Davis isn’t even aligned with Jesus Christ in her attempt at castigating gays for wanting to share their love in marriage.

She’s wrong in the public sector and she’s wrong in the halls of the Lord.

Interpretations

This is the problem with so-called “modern” Christianity with its so-called evangelical roots. A faith that tries to proselytize without first checking the accuracy of its contentions, and then further push the agenda through politics, winds up way off base.

Because those contentions are all a matter of interpretation. There is no consensus among Christians on the subject of gay marriage. So what’s she’s trying to do is use her ostensible authority as a representative of her faith is to superimpose those beliefs even above those who do not agree with her theology. She is, in other words, a very loose cannon who is confused on so many fronts she can only appeal to public sympathy for elucidation and support.

And manically, we must suppose, she has used her seemingly populist popularity to claim she wants to run for Governor of Kentucky. And at what point would her religious beliefs then conflict with her pursuant oath of office?

She clearly hasn’t thought any of this through. Nor would she likely care to try. People of conviction without investigation often turn a blind eye to the facts staring them plain in the face.

But that is exactly what makes a great reality show star. The illusion of wonder is far greater than the mundane work of actually wondering what to believe.

Which should make her the next star of an Unreality Show. And you heard it here first.

Are we fools for being liberal or Progressive?

September 8, 2015 / Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

One of the abiding themes of criticism leveraged at liberals by conservatives (and to some degree, libertarians as well) is that liberals are fools for believing in the things they do.

That’s an interesting contention. Because foolishness is defined as “lack of good sense or judgment; stupidity.”

So let’s take a look at a few of the big and small things conservatives––across a spectrum of religion, politics and culture––have stood for throughout history, and why.

The example of Jesus

First, we might consider that a certain Jesus Christ was highly frustrated by a group of conservative religious leaders in his day who turned faith into legalism by imposing all kinds of rules people had to follow. When Jesus questioned their authority, they paid to have him betrayed and killed.

And wasn’t that foolish?

The bad example of the church

Then when the church grew, it basically started asking people to buy favor with God. When Martin Luther questioned their authority in doing so, they threatened his life.

The same thing happened when men such as Copernicus and Galileo questioned the view of the Church that Earth was at the center of the universe. For hundreds of years the church persecuted and imprisoned all those dared make such a claim. Because the church was behaving like a pack of fools.

Foolish Crusades

It was conservatives on both sides of the Muslim and Christian religions who led the Crusades and engaged in wars over the City of Jerusalem and land claimed by the nation of Israel. These bloody fights were based on ancient claims to ownership of the so-called Holy Land. In the process, hundreds of thousands of people gave their lives for no real reason other than an attempt to prove that God was on their side.

And that is always foolish.

Wars of foolish greed

Speaking of wars, it was conservatives from the Confederate South who wanted states to have all authority in all matters. These same conservatives favored slavery and used religious justification to impose their will on people captured and forced into slavery.

Conservatives then forced America into a Civil War over these issues that cost the nation 750,000 lives.

Even after they lost that war, conservatives still didn’t give up their angrily foolish ways. Conservative white racists imposed Jim Crow laws across the nation to further persecute and control black Americans even after an amendment was added to the Constitution guaranteeing them equal rights. Hundreds if not thousands of black Americans consequently were beaten, tortured, hung or burnt to death by angry white conservatives fearful that their “way of life” was at risk by granting black American’s equal social status.

Foolish societies

These conservatives even formed societies such as the Klu Klux Klan specifically to terrorize and persecute blacks and people of other races and religion apart from conservative white Christianity. This breed of conservatism raged full bore from the early 20th century all the way into the 1950s and 60s. The KKK persists to this day, euphemistically claiming they only favor “white rights” versus persecution of others.

But history proves we’d all be fools to believe such claims. Liberals to this day have a hard time convincing such people of the foolishness of their ways. Yet liberals are blamed by conservatives for “ruining the country.” This is a cynically contrary euphemism for providing equal rights to people that were formerly oppressed.

Foolish money

The same aggressive meme holds true for conservatives accusing liberals of ruinous economic policies. In the wake of the stock market crash where conservative bulls ran the economy right into the ground through deregulation and speculative investments, liberals acted to install programs to protect everyday citizens from the ugly vagaries of such behavior. The Social Security insurance program was set up to provide a common man’s return on investment through a government program that would be available to people no longer engaged the labor market. The program leverages the investment of society to build interest and provide for all those in need during their waning years.

Up until the 1960s, conservatives saw the safety and common sense of such an insurance program. Republicans supported and even expanded Social Security.

But then conservative stalwarts got greedy. It seems to drive them nuts to think they can’t get their hands on all that money through privatization. The wealthiest Americans don’t even pay into the program, and yet those are the same people who seem to be lobbying against the fact that a socialized insurance program works to protect the neediest in America.

And that is the logic of ignorant, greedy fools.

Hatred for common sense

It holds true also for Medicare, a social program set up to protect primarily the elderly from increasingly burdensome medical costs as they age. And Conservatives (note the Capital C) hate it. And so it goes with conservatives hating common sense for the very fact that it is both common, and sensible.

Instead the conservative faction in American seems to abide by contradictory logic as a rule of thumb. That is how, and why, they currently protest abortion while lobbying against organizations such as Planned Parenthood that provide legal birth control to women to help them avoid unwanted pregnancies.

Conservatives claim on supposedly moral grounds that only abstinence is a rightful method for avoiding pregnancy. The real goal it seems is to take away that decision-making capability from women, whom conservatives consistently persecute over all such decisions of sexual or personal freedom.

Rhythm nonsense

Even the Catholic Church looks like a fool on such issues because more than 90% of its own member base chooses by practical intuition to ignore the dictums of the church’s morality-based yet hypocritical bans on birth control. The so-called “rhythm method” so long advocated by the Vatican is nothing more than a falsely moral attempt to avoid pregnancy as well.

Pro-nothing

And when it comes to abortion, conservatives calling themselves “pro-life” who also protest distribution and use of birth control are not in favor of anything. They’re simply “anti” with no room for solutions on a practial scale. That’s not “pro-life.” It’s anti-living. Positions like that are aggressively foolish.

Naturally foolish

Equally foolish and equally aggressive are Christian conservatives claiming that science is out to kill religion simply by teaching the theory of evolution. That strange claim ignores the fact that Jesus himself taught using naturalistic parables to illustrate spiritual concepts. Men like the stalwartly foolish Ken Ham, a leading creationist, seem to have no ability to connect the organic fundamentalism of the Bible with modern science. As a result, they remain engaged in an increasingly Quixotic attempt to knock down the windmills of science. And when that fails, new labels such as Intelligent Design are invoked in an semantic battle for supremacy. But that too has failed in the face of plain and rational logic on the side of science.

Proving that creationalism is pure and unadulterated foolishness.

Fool for politics

It all spills into the realm of politics where the current band of conservative leaders is struggling to become ever more extreme in an attempt to prove themselves securely “sensible” in the eyes of their zealous and crazed base.

The height of this tomfoolery is now on full display in the cartoonish manner and statements of men such as Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee. who blather on like homeless and mentally ill individuals society on a street corner.

Adding to the manic display of such foolishness are women such as Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, whose conservatively-driven rants split off like solar flares in the political universe. These particular women offer little more than conservative hot energy, yet people foolish enough to consider them bright stars don’t recognize the burnt out nature of their message. Like most conservative messengers, they are not prophets, but parrots. They repeat only what they’ve been able to learn from worn out ideals.

Fools for anger and fear

But their parrotism feeds on the same anger and fear that has driven conservatism for ages upon ages. From the religious conservatives who tormented Jesus to the Facebook fools who torment liberals for believing and acting on social justice, racial, gender and sexual equality, economic parity and environmental protection, conservatives keep believing they see fools where in fact what they are seeing is people committed to rational solutions.

Because it has been the liberal enterprise that has delivered on the promise of humanity and God.

Liberalism has led the way on all great scientific discoveries. It has fostered social revolutions in democracy and equality, because even when men like Ronald Reagan were lobbying against the Soviet Union, it was the liberal enterprise of America initiative for which he was a stalwart defender.

Our Founding Fathers authored a Constitution guaranteeing freedom and liberty, which simultaneously loosened the binds of religious authority where it constricted human understanding. America is a nation dependent on freedom from religion as well as freedom of religion. It is not, as some conservatives love to claim, a Christian nation by definition.

Throughout history it is liberalism that has built societies where human respect is paramount, yet God is quite welcome. But we recognize that all words are symbols, and all scripture is composed of words. That means metaphor should be welcome at the table of truth. Literalism can be the enemy of truth.

Disclaimers

So it is not liberals that are the fools. It has long been proven that conservatism with all its rigid and anachronistic tendencies are the bane of culture, government and the earth. The main thing we need to extract from these lessons is that it takes a strong will, a rational mind and a commitmen to liberal convictions to resist conservative foolishness at every turn.

And that, my friends, is no foolish exercise.

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Christopher Cudworth