I said couldn't as opposed to didn't. Why couldn't I listen to the State of the Union speech? Because I could not tolerate hearing even one more lie.
I could not bear to hear about any new jobs being created while knowing that no such thing was happening. I could not tolerate hearing how the economy was getting better while knowing it is just as bad as ever and getting worse. I could not tolerate hearing about unemployment numbers getting better while knowing the numbers are better because some people have simply fallen off of the unemployment benefit rolls without finding a job. I could not tolerate hearing unemployment is 8-point-whatever while knowing the reality is 18, 19, or 20%. I could not tolerate hearing about any cuts in government spending while knowing government spending is higher than it has ever been and going up. I could not tolerate hearing how we are going to reduce the debt or the deficit while we have done nothing but increase it every year.
Most of all I could not tolerate listening to all the lies while knowing that there would be people all over the country that were believing this garbage.
Have you ever seen the movie Idiocracy? If not, go find it and watch it. It's us.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
What do you really want?
This is something that has been on my mind for a long time, but I'm still not sure I can explain it. Let me start with a quote from a famous speech by Rev. Martin Luther King. He said something I hear almost every morning, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Many people claim to want this although they may be thinking about things other than "the color of their skin." Instead the issue for them may be their religion, their life style, their social position, their financial position, or any of a number of things.
Yet while they claim to just want to be judged "by the content of their character" they too often demonstrate by their actions that they want the exact opposite.
Any time we think that some group with which we feel we are associated should be treated in a particular way we are guilty of the very problem that Dr. King dreamed would one day be gone. You see, to be judged by the content of your character is to give up being treated as a group. It is marked by the desire to be treated as an individual who stands on his or her own.
Discrimination is discrimination. It is a process of treating people as groups rather than as individual people of character. It is every bit as much discrimination to do something for people because of their group status as it is to reject them because of their group status. There is no such thing as reverse discrimination. The opposite of discrimination is only the lack of discrimination in any form whether it be for or against.
I've never really counted myself as part of any group. Maybe someone else counted me that way (which would be discrimination), but I didn't.
The day I graduated from high School, over 41 years ago, a Hispanic group gave a scholarship to one of the Hispanic kids in our school. A Black group gave a scholarship to one of the Black kids in our school. A Portuguese group gave a scholarship to one of the Portuguese kids in our school. And on and on. I wasn't any of those. Looking back on it I feel sorry for those people who found it necessary to not just judge people by "the content of their character."
The world might be a whole lot better off if we all just reated each other as individuals, but I think that was the dream.
Many people claim to want this although they may be thinking about things other than "the color of their skin." Instead the issue for them may be their religion, their life style, their social position, their financial position, or any of a number of things.
Yet while they claim to just want to be judged "by the content of their character" they too often demonstrate by their actions that they want the exact opposite.
Any time we think that some group with which we feel we are associated should be treated in a particular way we are guilty of the very problem that Dr. King dreamed would one day be gone. You see, to be judged by the content of your character is to give up being treated as a group. It is marked by the desire to be treated as an individual who stands on his or her own.
Discrimination is discrimination. It is a process of treating people as groups rather than as individual people of character. It is every bit as much discrimination to do something for people because of their group status as it is to reject them because of their group status. There is no such thing as reverse discrimination. The opposite of discrimination is only the lack of discrimination in any form whether it be for or against.
I've never really counted myself as part of any group. Maybe someone else counted me that way (which would be discrimination), but I didn't.
The day I graduated from high School, over 41 years ago, a Hispanic group gave a scholarship to one of the Hispanic kids in our school. A Black group gave a scholarship to one of the Black kids in our school. A Portuguese group gave a scholarship to one of the Portuguese kids in our school. And on and on. I wasn't any of those. Looking back on it I feel sorry for those people who found it necessary to not just judge people by "the content of their character."
The world might be a whole lot better off if we all just reated each other as individuals, but I think that was the dream.
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