Goddammit ABC…

About a month ago, ABC aired a special on guns in America.  Within 30 minutes of the start the proverbial media fear-mongering had entered full swing on 20/20’s broadcast that Friday night, showing (via hidden cameras) children, teenagers and twenty-somethings handling guns.  As you can imagine, they repeatedly showed the subjects looking down the barrels, pointing guns at other people and doing all of the things those of us exposed to guns by a responsible owner at some point were taught not to do.

I’m no expert on guns by any measure, but even with my limited experience I’m fully aware of which end of a gun is the business end and I’m smart enough to be aware of the risks involved in choosing where to point that end.  In this day and age, with the prevalence of guns in movies and television, I think it’s safe to assume that virtually everyone – children aside – also knows all of this.  Yet there is still a fairly common belief that guns are as dangerous as can be, firing deadly rounds at random any time they are even touched.

The thing that these people don’t seem to grasp is that a gun is a machine that lacks any ability to expel a round without external force.  The operative word here is force.  A loaded gun sitting on a shelf is no more inherently dangerous than a bullet sitting in the same place.

Sidenote: Yes, I understand that there are physics in play when exploding gasses are contained within a space and behind a projectile that make the loaded gun significantly more dangerous when it’s fired.  But the chance is small that the gun is aimed back into the room where the shelf upon which the gun rests is located, so I’d say the two are about even in terms of risk.

Regardless of the specifics, the point is that a gun will not fire unless someone squeezes the trigger (with the safety off, round properly loaded, breech closed, etc.) at a rate any higher than ammunition will fire sitting in a box.  Pointing a loaded gun at your face is no more dangerous than a pilot peering into an engine nacelle prior to takeoff.  Both could easily kill you, provided something else happenes first: pulling a trigger or starting an engine.

People have been killed by jet engines, guns, cars, ladders, swimming pools and elective surgical procedures.  Despite that, these things haven’t been banned because of the desire for a return in the face of the risks that they present.  The risk of any activity is accepted or rejected based upon the reason for engaging in the behavior and the strength of the want or need for the outcome, a concept I’ve come to understand is colloquially referred to as ‘living life.’  I once heard that humans are 800 times more likely to die if they get out of bed in the morning versus staying put under the covers.  Does that stop anyone from getting out of bed?  Very few, if any.

Regardless, quite a few jackasses in this country believe that legislation, not education, is the best way to mitigate this risk.  I, as you may have guessed, disagree.  But let’s entertain the fantasies of the unimaginably stupid for a moment.

Imagine that guns are banned tomorrow, how do you propose that the guns already in existence be collected for destruction?  Just have everyone bring their guns down to their local police station and drop them off?  Only the most law-abiding people in the country would even consider doing that and there are only four of them.  You can trust me, I know, I dated their daughters.

Since the honor system would be completely ineffective, how about having the police confiscate any gun that they happen to discover while performing their ordinary duties while our political leaders pass laws to lock up those found to be in possession?  That’s a bad idea too because 1) it would take so long to complete that those hell-bent on getting guns would surely find a way to do so, rendering the law useless, and 2) it would cause those unwilling to part with their weapons to go to great lengths to prevent their seizure.

So why should we not ban guns?  The most obvious answer is that banning doesn’t work.  The oft-repeated argument that “…if guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns,” is true.  For proof, look no further than the idiotic ‘War on Drugs.’  Cops already confiscate drugs, as well as raid the cars, homes and businesses of those who are suspected of having some involvement with them and arrest millions of people in the process.

What’s the net result of all of this confiscating, raiding and arresting?  Millions of American tax dollars spent on salaries, equipment, training and planning for the police and millions more spent on prisons filled to the brim with non-violent offenders who pose no serious or immediate threat to society.  Those inmates will eventually be released back into the general population and, because of the black mark on their record due to the conviction, will have few options other than crime to support themselves.  The best evidence that banning doesn’t work is that with a few phone calls and a little cash, I could have virtually any drug known to man delivered to me like a pizza within a couple of hours.

Who could possibly be stupid enough to believe that banning guns would have any different result?  Apparently, the folks at ABC are and, assuming this special was effective, then perhaps a few more Americans.

Everyone is Pro-Life

A couple of my Facebook friends joined a group titled “LIFE – Let’s see how many pro-life people are on facebook,” which made me realize the stupidity and pomposity of the naming conventions surrounding the abortion issue.

The argument is primarily between two sides, those in the ‘Pro-Choice’ camp think it should remain a legal option while those in the ‘Pro-Life’ camp think that it should not.  I’ve noticed that often times this difference of opinion is frequently twisted around to make the argument about something else, be it morality, religion, faith, politics, feminism, gender equality and so on.  While these can be tools utilized by all of us to make our argument regarding this issue, all I’ve seen any of this do is further complicate the problem and the names don’t help.

‘Pro-Choice’ is fairly accurate in that its supporters believe that people should be able to choose to have an abortion, while its opponents think that the option shouldn’t be available, essentially making the ‘choice’ for those actually involved.  Rather than call themselves ‘Anti-Choice’ possibly due to the decidedly un-American vibe that phrase holds, the opposition chose a different term that sounds overwhelmingly positive: ‘Pro-Life.’

Unfortunately both sides chose titles that serve not only to strengthen the resolve of their supporters by offering what is essentially a semantically-positive rallying cry but to further polarize and confuse the issue.  How could anyone possibly be ‘anti-choice’ or ‘anti-life?’

The real goal that we should all be working toward is to reduce the number of abortions which, just like drug use and gun violence, simply can’t be achieved through legislation.  Perhaps the best first step is an overhaul in sexual education coupled with easier access to effective birth control.  We are all pro-life and we are all pro-choice, these are two of the attributes that bind us together as a society under the broader term ‘freedom.’

Midwest Gay

I wrote a new post about Ann Curry’s on-air experience with corporate censorship earlier today, and it reminded me of something funny that I experienced nearly a decade ago while I was in high school.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I attended a small public high school in a rural portion of the midwest.  Socially conservative, historically Republican and less diverse than Utah, it was a rough go for those of us capable of free thought.  Being called ‘gay’ was the worst possible insult for the males, though it never seemed to be used accurately.  Instead, it was what I call ‘Midwest Gay.’  It’s not ‘real’ gay, mind you.  The target’s sexual inclinations were presumed hetero as homosexuals were either non-existent or totally invisible.  The sight of a gay person would have probably caused the agitator’s head to explode, raining down hate, ignorance and bigotry in a bloody mess of intellectual inferiority all over the gymnasium.  I became Midwest Gay pretty early into my freshman year despite having been threatened with suspension for making out with a cheerleader on school property.  It being a small school, news traveled exceptionally fast and there was no such thing as a secret, so I’m sure everyone heard about it within seconds.  Just how did I manage to acquire the label then, you ask?

- I taped a brief and edited version of Joseph Lewis’ An Atheist Manifesto to the outside of my locker.  I wasn’t necessarily an atheist, I just didn’t like having Christian doctrine rammed down my throat every other day and I knew that such an action would at least open up a dialogue.  Unfortunately, the dialogue consisted of a few dozen juveniles calling me gay (and all of its colorful derivatives) and frequently informing me of my inevitable descent into the fiery depths of hell where I’d be spending all of eternity for hating baby Jesus.  On the upside, I hate cold weather and I’m guessing that there aren’t too many snowy days near The Lake.

- There was a display case in the hallway outside of the library that was used to call attention to different literary periods throughout history.  During the time in which the focus was on the Renaissance, a miniature version of Michelangelo’s David was prominently displayed in the case but with a tiny piece of paper taped conveniently over his genitals.  I explained to the librarian just how ridiculous it was that she felt that one of the most famous sculptures in the world needed to be censored in an attempt to protect the sensitivities of a bunch of high school students, but to no avail.  The statue had a penis and a penis is indecent.  Period.  I then got to spend the next few weeks overhearing people in the hallways saying things like “That’s the gay pervert that wants to see guys’ dicks.”

- While sitting in an English class one day I was handed a piece of paper composed by the same librarian of Art Censorship Infamy suggesting books that all of us planning to go to college should read, conveniently separated into ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ sections.  Of course, the first book listed in the ‘non-fiction’ section was *drumroll* the Christian Bible.  I asked my English teacher why it was listed there when it clearly didn’t belong.  She responded by saying “Of course it does!”  I argued and was then told to either shut up or leave the classroom and report to the principal’s office for being disruptive.  I gladly left, taking the paper with me and coincidentally arrived at the office at exactly the same time as the librarian, so I asked her about the list.  I was then accused of starting trouble and stirring things up for no reason.  I assured her that that was certainly not the case, just that I felt that the book was wrongly categorized.  I even went so far as to offer a compromise: put a third section on the list titled ‘Religious Texts’ and include the Bible, the Tanakh, the Talmud, the Koran, the Book of Mormon and so on.  I wasn’t against them recommending a religious text, I was just pissed that a public high school was clearly endorsing a specific religion and presenting it as truth.  Much to my dismay, though I had predicted this outcome, the list wasn’t altered and I became Midwest Gay-er.

- I was once asked by one of my male classmates point-blank in the cafeteria while eating lunch if I was gay.  I responded by asking “Why?  Looking for a date to prom?”  In hindsight, that probably didn’t help quell any rumors.

- During my junior year a former professional athlete of some sort (Football?  Wrestling?  I can’t remember.  He was big, though.) came to our school and an assembly was held.  The first thirty minutes or so of his speech were really interesting as the man spoke of the wealth he had amassed and how he wasted most of it on drugs and women.  Then he found Christ and his life changed dramatically.  If we wanted to find similar happiness then he suggested we do the same and become born-again Christians just like he did.  It was at this point that I stood up, walked down the bleachers and across the floor directly in front of him as he continued to preach.  I was stopped by the principal, threatened with suspension (noticing any common themes?) for disrupting an assembly, then forced to stand in the hallway until the end of his speech, still within earshot.  They maintain that I was told that I didn’t have to attend, though they couldn’t find anyone who could confirm that anyone had actually told me this.  I had ceased to be Midwest Gay by this point, though, because I had become good friends with one of the captains of the football team and remain so to this day, having even been the Best Man in his wedding some years ago.

I suppose the lesson here is that all it takes to legitimize a person, product or idea is one celebrity endorsement, which is why we should all be scared shitless of Scientology.

Cheers To Ann Curry

While watching Today on NBC this morning I was underwhelmed by a couple of the stories they aired, several of which served to propagate the typical ‘doom-and-gloom’ media hype I’ve come to expect from television.  For instance, some jackass killed a bunch of people in Alabama, so did another in Germany.  These are stories that would usually be reported ad nauseam but then a bit of good news trickled in toward the end of the first hour.  For starters, Citi reported a profit (easy to do when your losses are wiped away with a magic, taxpayer-funded wand), Wall Street ‘rallied‘ yesterday, Madoff may go to prison for the rest of his life and apparently Obama told those who disagree with his stimulus plan to blow it out their collective ass.  It’s always fun to see a President say something firm when that something isn’t also retarded (I’M THE DECIDER, DAMMIT!).

Then the hosts did something fun: Matt, Meredith, Al and Ann went to the New York Academy of Art in NYC to paint.  They ‘warmed up’ by drawing a bowl of fruit, then moved on to painting a couple of nude models.  As the scene was filmed, any bit of the models’ so-called ‘intimate parts’ that happened to make its way into the shot was pixelated thanks to our archaic social rules regarding the human body.  For fuck’s sake, people, the one thing that every person has in common is a naked body…how could the most common thing in humanity possibly be considered indecent?!  I hope to god that reincarnation is real so that I can come back to this country in a few thousand years once the average level of common sense has progressed beyond that of a common house fly.  But I digress…

While the hosts were painting their works were not displayed to the television audience, presumably so that they could be revealed to us at the end of the segment with some sort of anti-climactic flourish.  It turns out that I was half-right.  The segment did end with the paintings being revealed to the audience, but there most certainly was a point where my blood pressure reached what can only be described as a climax.  The previously-mentioned ‘intimate parts’ were covered with pixelated tape.  The painted intimate parts.  The fake intimate parts.  The ones that, judging by the astonishing level of photo-realism displayed by the painted non-intimate parts, probably looked much like the bowl of fruit drawn earlier.

So what did Ann Curry do?  She reached over to her painting and ripped the pixelated tape covering the breasts of the female figure she had painted right off of the canvas as Matt gave a half-assed attempt at covering it with a red cloth.  So what did the painted breasts look like?  Grab the nearest CD or DVD and imagine it flesh-colored.  Salacious, no?

So I say to you, Ann Curry, cheers for understanding that nudity is not inherently bad – especially not an artistic representation of nudity – and for standing up on behalf of common sense!

As I was typing this, another segment aired regarding breast cancer in women.  During the segment four x-ray images of different breasts were shown, void of any pixelation.  Other than context (art versus medicine), what’s the difference?  Both are images depicting breasts, neither one looked necessarily realistic and both were created in two dimensions.  So what the hell, NBC?  Are breasts offensive and deserving of censoring or not?

Politics Over Friendship? You Betcha!

Today a friend of mine made note of something that surprised her with its stupidity and, at first, I agreed with her.  But after some careless consideration, I’ve realized that it was actually completely reasonable.  She said (via Facebook) “r ppl really so hardheaded that they’re willing to lose friends over politics? really?”  The short answer, for me, is ‘yes…sort of.’

Prior to this election season I knew the political affiliations and inclinations of only a few of my friends, and it was rarely an issue.  As November 4th came near, some of my friends who had never before displayed to me the slightest interest in politics were wearing t-shirts supporting their chosen presidential candidate. Many of them began using their Facebook profiles as political soapboxes from which they would espouse the virtuous nature of their candidate while simultaneously condemning the opposition.  Though the latter was irritating due to the volume and frequency of updates all on the same topic, I was comforted to know that the news media’s characterization of my generation as politically apathetic wasn’t completely true.  More important, and more relevant to this post, is that although I may have disagreed with some of the positions my friends had taken, most of it was far too trivial for me to consider ending a friendship over.  Most of it…

There were a few people who really surprised me with their ignorance, both on Facebook and in the real world.  These were people who managed to destroy all respect I had for them by arguing that Barack Obama really is a Muslim, or that Sarah Palin is a brilliant person, or that John McCain was never a prisoner of war, or that Sarah Palin’s youngest child is actually her grandson.  The worst I heard was arguably also the most ridiculous, and that came from those few who were willing to admit that they would never, ever, under any circumstances, vote for a black candidate solely because of their race.

I can’t possibly maintain any sort of meaningful relationship with these people after these events have transpired.  Some of them are actually too stupid to comprehend the truth, like when it is explained to them that just because someone is named “Barack Hussein Obama,” he, like every other American, is free to choose and follow any religion he likes and is not, by default, a devout follower of Islam.  Others activate their self-preservation gene and utilize their skill in willful ignorance, like when they are given countless examples of Sarah Palin’s stupidity, or are shown photos of John McCain in a POW Camp, and they still refuse to accept the obvious truth of your argument.

While it may not have been directly because of politics that I’m willing to lose a friend, it was politics that saved me from wasting countless hours, if not years, investing in these morons.

The Curse of the Plumber, Part 2

Expect this on the news for the next day or two: Joe the Plumber is above the law.  On Wednesday, October 29th, Sam/Joe “The [Fake] Plumber” Wurzelbacher was pulled over by Toledo police for traveling at “…about 50 mph in a 35 mph zone in his Dodge Durango SUV,” but received a verbal warning instead of a citation.

Why no ticket?  According to the cop that wrote the report, they were “…concern[ed] it would reflect negatively on the Toledo department.”  Apparently, some jackass clerk that works in the police department looked up Wurzelbacher’s address in a state database the day before, presumably resulting in negative press for the department.

Anyway, you know what reflects negatively upon you, TPD?  When you not only condone, but promote your lack of professionalism.  Wurzelbacher, by your own admission, was caught, by you, breaking the law and he deserves a ticket.  It shouldn’t matter to anyone that John McCain gets his rocks off talking about this guy, so much so that McCain imagines Wurzelbacher being there even when he is not.

I guess this is kind of like what frequently happens in college football: the refs make a shitty call, and everyone knows it.  Then, to even things out, they make another shitty call during the next drive to penalize the other team, thereby simultaneously acknowledging and apologizing for their earlier mistake.  What the Toledo Police Department and NCAA referees apparently don’t remember, though, is that classic line from elementary school: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”  Instead, everyone who didn’t benefit from the decisions that were made ends up pissed off, and those involved end up losing some credibility in the eyes of the angered.

The Curse of the Plumber, Part 1

I’m sorry to say folks, but it looks as though those of us who assumed this “Sam/Joe ‘The [Fake] Plumber’ Wurzelbacher” character was nothing more than a flash-in-the-pan utilized by the faltering campaign of a presidential hopeful, were wrong.  He has not only hired a publicist, but now he’s planning on writing a book.  Thankfully he is not, as rumors had previously suggested, working toward becoming a country music star.

I wonder how it is that he apparently can’t pay his taxes but can afford a publicist.  Maybe the firm took him on as a client in the spirit of charity and he isn’t paying them anything.  Or maybe he’s paying them in free plumbing work, which they will inevitably have to get re-done because he’s not licensed and his work would never pass inspection.

Perhaps the greatest irony here is that the only people who would be willing to read a book written by this guy are those who are unable to read.  Looks like they’ll have to wait for the miniseries to air on Lifetime which, if the media obsession with this faux-celebrity continues, might just become the big hit this holiday season.  That would be funny if it weren’t a realistic possibility…

Say What You Mean

I strongly believe in protecting the right to free speech as guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, just look at my posts on profanity and personal freedom.  That said, I really wish that there was more honesty and less bullshit pouring out of the mouths of the talking heads.

On The Situation Room this afternoon, Wolf Blitzer spoke with guests Leslie Sanchez, a Republican Strategist and entrepreneur, and the “Ragin’ Cajun” James Carville, discussing the effect evangelicals will have on this upcoming election.  Ms. Sanchez spoke of the religiously-inclined independents and religiously-inclined undecided voters, regarding their desires in a President.  Though she cited several examples, one in particular stuck with me which was “protecting the family.”  Any American with a brain knows what she meant, that religious types want a President who will work to prevent gays from getting married.  Though I firmly defend her right to phrase anything she wants to say in any particular way she desires, I wish she would be more straightforward and just say what she means.

We all sugarcoat words and phrases in certain situations and it is generally acceptable, even preferable, to portray certain things in a veiled manner.  But why does our society act so complacently when the blow we are attempting to soften is blatant discrimination?  How is replacing “gays aren’t deserving of the same rights and opportunities as straight people” with “we are protecting the family” while on television the equivalent of replacing “I fucking hate that bitch” with “I really don’t like Sarah Palin” while your grandmother is present?

Aside from that, the words they have chosen to act as a synonymous phrase are completely illogical.  “Protecting the family” brings to mind a father, armed with a large-caliber rifle, standing in front of his wife and small children as a large bear charges toward them.  If you replace the rifle with legislation and the bear with Clay Aiken, both the phrase and the image seem ridiculous.  Gay people offer no threat from which anyone needs protection, not families, not children and certainly not the religious.

The problem I have with Ms. Sanchez and others like her who choose to put a noble-sounding name on such a ridiculous notion is not with the act itself, it is with the effect this glossing-over has.  It makes it socially acceptable for anyone to spew hateful rhetoric and for the government to intervene in the private lives of individuals.  The latter, of course, then serves to legitimize the claims of those who chose to discriminate against homosexuals in the first place.

On the Issue of Race

Much has been said regarding Barack Obama’s historic Presidential run, and few things have been mentioned more frequently than his race.  A quick search on CNN yielded several news stories, and Google News has plenty of them as well, regarding the issue of race in this election.  The opinions found in those stories vary quite a bit: some people think it will matter in the election, others think it won’t, and others attempt to persuade their readers that it shouldn’t matter, even if it does.  Having been raised in a so-called ‘battleground state,’ and in a predominantly-white area of that state, I can tell you from personal experience that race most certainly matters to some people, and likely will matter in this election.

When school let out for winter break in December of 2006, I flew back to my hometown where I met a veteran of the Vietnam War and a self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat.  We discussed the next Presidential election and upon learning of his political affiliation, I asked his opinion of Barack Obama, who I had heard was considering running for President.  This man admitted that he didn’t know much about Obama, and that he would never vote for a black person because he had learned during his time spent in Southeast Asia that “…they [black people] can’t be trusted.”  I returned again in December of 2007 during the next winter break, and I ran into the same guy.  Unfortunately, his position had yet to change, and he still would not be voting for a black candidate.  Perhaps most interesting to those of you who didn’t grow up in the same area as I did is that I wasn’t at all surprised by his statements.  Racism was and apparently still is normal, acceptable behavior for some people in that part of the country.

How normal was it?  Funny you should ask:

When I was in second grade, I was made fun of by my classmates for wearing ‘n—-r pants,’ which were black khakis that my grandmother had bought for me.  Like a lot of grandmothers, she chose a pair that were several sizes too big so that I could ‘grow into them,’ a hold-over from the Depression Era, I suppose.  However, her decision had the unfortunate and unintended consequence of making me look like MC Hammer, according to the kids at my school.  I remember sitting at a table in the cafeteria at my high school as one of my classmates explained to me why using the word ‘n—-r’ is acceptable.  I would have said ‘one of my white classmates,’ but aside from the adopted Korean girl, all of my classmates were white, as were all of my teachers and school administrators from kindergarten through graduation.  The parents of a friend of mine adopted a child and upon doing so, were asked by their priest to not return to their church because that child was black.  For more than a year I dated a girl who isn’t white and there were people in my life who I never introduced her to for fear of what may have transpired solely because of the color of her skin.

Just to be clear, I don’t think that a majority of people from my hometown harbor racist opinions, but there are a few.  The point of this post is that Ashland is just one small sliver of the American population and it is moronic to think that there aren’t a number of people across the country who share the views of the people I have mentioned here.

I’m saying it here first: even if Barack Obama wins a majority of Ohio’s 88 counties, you can bet that on November 4th, Ashland County will be blood-red just like it was in 2004, 2000, 1996, 1992, 1988 and 1984.  Why?  Hopefully because the majority of Ashlanders are Republican and vote with their party.  But based upon personal experience I’m guessing that it will be, at least in part, because race matters to some people regardless of whether or not the rest of us like or accept it.

UPDATE 1 – Nov. 10, 2008: My prediction was correct, John McCain won Ashland County with 60% of the vote.

The American Marriage Obsession

Quick!  Name the top five social issues currently dividing American politics!  Don’t worry, I couldn’t think of five either, although not due to any sort of indecisive behavior.  After marking off abortion and gay marriage, I was out of ideas long enough to lose interest in searching further, though I admit that the television was on and that it may have played a role.  Americans are obsessed with marriage regardless of which people are involved, or for that matter, how many people.  Why is gay marriage a big deal?  Because in this country marriage is a big deal.

Take this woman, for instance, who is seriously attempting to raise $3 million via her website to purchase 30-seconds worth of television ad-space during next year’s Super Bowl.  What does this 40-something supposed Mensa member want to advertise to the millions of people watching that event?  She wants to inform the world that she is single and desperately seeking a good man to marry.  It’s an expensive, nationwide twist of the bathroom-stall classic, “For a good time call…”  While I can understand that some people have a strong desire for companionship, this seems to be more than just a bit extreme.

Where I grew up, a person’s life generally follows a basic, well-established course: birth, high school graduation, meaningless job, marriage, kids, retirement and death.  With 7 meaningful events in a person’s life, only five of which are memorable, and only three of those five have any realistic potential of being joyous events or periods of time, it’s easier to understand why marriage is such a big deal to people living in a place that has been economically stagnant for as long as I can remember.  But this chick lives in Manhattan, a far cry from life in the rural Midwest.

Despite the excessive lengths to which this woman is going, I think that this case is indicative of the general obsession American society has with the antiquated concept of marriage, that once people have ‘grown up,’ they are supposed to get married and start a family (biologically or otherwise).  I suppose it makes sense in that the desire for procreation solely for the survival of the species is probably why the urge to engage in sexual activity is so explicitly primal.  Long ago there was probably also an issue with genetics assuming that there were fewer people around, hence the logic behind spreading (while being mindful to not blend) the gene pool.  But what does that have to do with our apparent desire to continue the marriage ‘tradition’ in 2008?  In a word: nothing.

Anymore, it seems as though people get married for any combination of only a few reasons: 1) it’s expected by society, 2) the perceived security offered by a lifelong commitment, 3) religion and 4) money.  The first shouldn’t matter to an intelligent, independent adult, the second is illusory, the third is a pathetic attempt at rationalizing an irrational behavior, and the fourth can be denied by a solid prenuptial agreement or extensive litigation after the divorce or the death of the wealthy half of the marriage.  So why bother?  I really don’t know.  But for whatever reason, the desire persists for many.

As I told a friend of mine in a Statistics class one semester: “Guys never have to worry about getting married.  There is always going to be some chick with some set of circumstances who will be willing to marry virtually anyone for whatever reason.”  Now I can add: “There’s even a woman from NYC who tried to spend $3 million on a 30-second TV commercial perfectly illustrating my point.”

The Politician’s Take on Personal Freedom

Anyone can and likely will tell you that ‘personal freedom for all’ was the central theme surrounding the creation of the United States. But like most great ideas it exists only in theory and has never truly been tested. Merriam-Webster defines freedom as “…the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.” While a society that offers that level of freedom to its citizens wouldn’t likely last very long, it is a goal towards which America should strive to align its policies as close as possible.

Essentially, freedom in this country means that any citizen can do whatever they want, so long as it doesn’t harm any other person. It’s a nice idea, but as I stated earlier, it doesn’t work that way in practice. Why? Because of what I believe is the typical definition of freedom as held by most American politicians: “Citizens can do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else, or if we say otherwise.”

In a perfect representative democracy in a perfect world, legislators would never make any law that would infringe upon the personal freedoms of any member of the populace. That could never happen, though, unless every member of the nation agreed completely on everything. There is always going to be some collateral damage, and we place our collective trust in our elected officials to enact legislation that makes the smallest mess. In doing so, some people will unfortunately have their toes stepped on. Take DUI laws, for example, in which you can and likely will face consequences if caught driving under the influence of alcohol, even if you don’t hurt anyone else. Though preemptive in nature, an attribute of laws that I am usually in opposition of, I agree that these laws are generally a good thing as it only infringes upon the rights of people who wish to drive while intoxicated; an action that has a decent chance of harming innocent people.

But what about laws enacted to prevent behavior that doesn’t affect other people in any respect? The best example that I can think of is gay marriage. I understand that most people who are against it choose their position based upon religious convictions, a topic I’ll leave for another day, but that doesn’t explain the criminalization of marijuana.  In my experience, this substance has never proved to be harmful to anyone, though I have met people who are nauseated by it (talk about irony). Regardless, our government has made it illegal, and the question remains: what right is it of the state to make illegal an action that has no effect on anyone beyond those performing the action?  Why criminalize so-called ‘victimless’ actions?  Does that not go against everything we say that we love about this country?  These examples are indicative of what I think may be the general attitude that most legislators take, which is “Our job is to make their decisions for them because they’re too fucking stupid to be trusted with doing it themselves.” It is in that spirit that I think that most politicians go about performing their duties. When the outcome of any choice is void of any professional gain for the politician, he chooses to work for personal gain, a decision that I think would be made by most people. However, the politician is in a unique position in that he has the ability to work toward making America the kind of place he wants it to be, like the kind of place where the laws of his country and the laws of his religion are in perfect harmony.

Roger Ebert’s Relevance to a 20-Something

While perusing Fark.com the other day I came across an interesting headline, something about Roger Ebert, the famed movie critic, being some sort of scary religiophile (Yup, new word. You’re welcome, World.) The linked page was an article supposedly written by Ebert in which he ‘answers’ questions commonly thrown at the Creationism argument and in doing so, espouses all of the tenants of said argument, including some of the usual headliners: Earth is only a few thousand years old, Noah really did have a giant boat (and even though nobody ever mentions it, I’m relatively certain that the boat was largely a floating toilet), something other than the Colorado River formed the Grand Canyon, and so on. After I finished reading the article, I was left with a kind of “Huh…who knew?” sort of feeling, and I went on with my day.

Just a few moments ago I was back on Fark.com and noticed that there was a new link posted, this one as a follow-up piece to Ebert’s previous article. This new article was also authored by Ebert, and was written in response to the “…firestorm on the web…” created by his earlier post. In it, Ebert was attempting to show the general public how frequently we accept at face-value the things we hear, articles we read, political advertisements we see on television and virtually anything else to which we are exposed. In his opinion, we too rarely bother with trying to figure out the author’s intended meaning of any communication, and instead we assume that if the author wanted to say something, he would just come out and say it. Whether or not that is true is hardly the sort of thing I have any interest in discussing, mostly because there is no way to know for sure without performing several gigantic studies, though the “…firestorm…” offers evidence that it may be true.

Ebert’s big problem, though, was that so few people ‘got it,’ and I have to admit that I was one of them. When I read the original article I assumed that Roger Ebert was simply using his celebrity as a platform from which to inform the world of his views on Creationism and, as the article suggests, offer an informal Q&A to anyone who happened to read it. Interestingly, though, the reason I didn’t ‘get it’ is not what Ebert suggests, that I have a “…decay[ed] … sense of irony and instinct for satire.” Rather, I didn’t ‘get it’ because I don’t know shit about Roger Ebert.

As of two weeks ago, this is all I knew about Roger Ebert:

He’s a white guy who is significantly older than me. He co-hosts a television show (which I’ve never seen a full episode of) on which he critiques movies.

That’s it.

I don’t know where he’s from, I know nothing of his marital status or, come to think of it, his sexual orientation. I’m unaware of any of his political or religious affiliations, whether his books are funny or serious, or even what movies he likes (how’s that for irony?).

How am I supposed to pick up on irony or satire when I can’t fairly consider the source? Moreover, his entire piece about Creationism is believed as fact by literally millions of people around the world. Is it so unlikely that some guy on TV who talks about movies could also be one of them? Tom Cruise thinks he’s an expert on antidepressants, why can’t Roger Ebert be a Bible thumper?

It’s not that we can’t identify irony, satire or even outright lies when we come across them, it’s that these messages are often delivered without the information required to identify them as such. Some would probably say that that is the point, but I disagree. Irony only works if you understand the topics and agents utilized in the example. For instance, I could say “A bleezit was killed yesterday while driving a borzeg,” and most reasonable people would stare at me blankly before asking me about recent drug use. However, if I said “A NASCAR driver was killed yesterday while driving a pedal-powered kiddie car,” most people would recognize the irony almost instantaneously, even if they couldn’t identify it as such.

So when Roger Ebert pens an article espousing the virtues of Christianity, socialism, Pinacate Beetles or anything else in which I have limited interest, I’ll stare blankly, shrug, and go on living my life, continuing to believe that anybody is free to believe anything they want and to talk about it all they want. Although, if he were to write about the evils of movies and television and the people associated with those industries…

Profanity

A topic that I have often found incredibly interesting is that of profanity in American culture. I’m sure that this will be just one of several posts on the topic, as I am constantly finding myself being angered by the restrictions placed upon me by other people because of their irrational and inexplicable fear of certain words.

I realize that to some of you the phrase ‘American culture’ is a humorous oxymoron. Regardless, I believe that American culture exists primarily in the difficulty found in attempting to describe it. That there are so many facets of our culture, and so many large groups existing within America’s borders that have few things in common, is exactly what makes fairly defining and thoroughly explaining our culture so difficult. Though an interesting topic itself, I’ll leave that to another day.

I want to know why it is that a certain series of sounds can be deemed offensive, while numerous others are not. To me, words are simply signs that have an assigned and agreed-upon meaning as determined by the society in which they are used. As our society morphs into a more intelligent, knowledgeable and tolerant one while continuing to hold true to its principles of freedom, I fail to understand how it is that we can so blindly continue to believe that words have ever hurt someone. I can think of no person who has collapsed and died because the moral center of their brain exploded upon being exposed to profanity.

While I would imagine that it doesn’t feel great when your mother tells you to “…fuck off,” the reason it hurts has little to do with the words. For those of us who have heard our mothers say the word ‘fuck’ before, we can say that it didn’t hurt; nor did it hurt when she said the word ‘off.’ But chaining those two together, oddly enough, does. However, what most people fail to realize, is that it isn’t the direct content of the phrase, as it can be interpreted with multiple meanings depending upon the context in which it was said (as a joke compared to a request, for example). What hurts is the implication of the statement: that your mother doesn’t want you around her.

Perhaps the most bizarre thing about this issue, is the idea that word replacement is an acceptable alternative to swearing. When I was a child, saying ‘heck’ instead of ‘hell’ was perfectly acceptable, even preferable in some circles, even though everyone knew what you meant. Also, spelling ‘hell’ by saying ‘h-e-double hockey sticks’ was alright, even in school. Saying ‘crap’ instead of ’shit,’ or ‘frick’ instead of ‘fuck’ (as popularized on the TV show Scrubs), even though virtually everyone knows what is meant is perfectly acceptable. Because of this, it is clearly not the meaning of the word that we take issue with, so I can only conclude that it is the sound. ‘Shit’ must sound like nails being scratched across a chalkboard and ‘fuck’ must sound like Gilbert Gottfried’s voice to those hell-bent on maintaining some sort of linguistic purity in American English, as though there could ever be such a thing.

George Carlin, renowned for his ‘Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television’ bit, lived a pretty fantastic life, and a relatively long one at that, having died at 71 years of age. So if profanity is as ‘bad’ (check out the ‘Comments’ section, too) as some believe, why did he seem to do so well? Shouldn’t he have been ostracized by our society, thrown out on the street and left to die while cold, hungry and alone? Regardless of your thoughts on the last couple of questions, the fact remains that we lifted him up on a pedestal, made him famous, rich and a cultural icon. Strangely, we continue to celebrate the lives and work of other people who have followed Carlin’s lead, while simultaneously condemning them for it.

We Americans seem to have a bizarre desire to continue to separate our truths and our reality from our utopian ideals and perceived desires.  Virtually all of us say that we support the right to free speech, yet we do little to ensure that that right can be freely exercised.  Instead, we actively work toward silencing those with whom we disagree under the guise of safeguarding the easily offended or the highly impressionable.