Conservatism and Sharron Angle; or “Don’t Read This if You Think My Blowhard Liberal Rantings Will Offend You (though hopefully they’ll make you laugh)”

Conservatism and Sharron Angle; or “Don’t Read This if You Think My Blowhard Liberal Rantings Will Offend You (though hopefully they’ll make you laugh)”

I know some people get annoyed when I make so many political postings on Facebook, but I just can’t help it. It’s election season, we’ve got a lot of serious issues to contend with, and a lot of unserious candidates running for office. As soon as the election is over, I promise the posts will stop. Until then, the rants continue.

The 2010 election cycle has to be one of the most disturbing to witness since the 1950s saw us through McCarthyism, as a number of uninformed and seriously misguided – sometimes even batshit crazy – candidates are running for office. Since you all know my political viewpoints (to the left!), I think you know who I’m talking about: Rand Paul, Christine O’Donnell, Ken Buck, Carl Paladino, Joe Miller, and my state’s very own Sharron Angle. It’s bad enough that we live in a political climate where an entertainer with no real-world experience outside of talk radio like Rush Limbaugh is heralded by many as an articulate political pundit, but he’s not running for office; these wing-nuts are, and they could very well end up representing YOU in Washington D.C.

I’m not an unbiased person, to be sure. I’m pretty liberal in my political viewpoints, but that doesn’t mean that I associate conservatism with idiocy or lunacy. If anything, conservatism is a philosophy that advocates keeping things the way they are as much as possible; experimenting with new ideas can sometimes be hazardous to a people and its government. I get that, and to various extents I’m a conservative person in my own life. The budget deficits that we’re facing right now call for an overhaul of the way budgets are made in Washington, and that most certainly means both spending cuts (especially in the bloated Dept. of Defense budget, arguably the most inefficient government bureaucracy) and tax increases. I would think that most conservatives realize that.

 But the list of people I just mentioned above are not conservatives, and they probably couldn’t define the term beyond anything but the normal platitudes you hear from them: limited government, less spending, less taxes, blah blah blah, etc. They have no idea that protecting the environment and preserving our nature’s heritage is a fundamentally conservative idea; they don’t understand that allowing gays and lesbians the right to marry is a conservative proposal, because it acts as a civilizing force for gays and lesbians -after all, aren’t the values of marriage that we want to preserve those of love, monogamy, and commitment?; they don’t understand that the separation of church and state is inherently a conservative principle (in addition to a constitutional one), as they both function better when they don’t have undue influences on the other; and they don’t understand that military adventurism is most certainly not a conservative value, as our republic was never intended nor designed to be an empire. Instead, their “conservative ideology” is anything but conservative. They seek to return the United States to the social model of the 1950s and the economic model of the 1900s. They abhor GLBT rights, they could give a damn about economic prosperity for all socioeconomic classes, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they believe Jesus is telling them to invade Cuba (or possibly Pennsylvania). They’re not conservatives, they’re just insane.

Sharron Angle

Speaking of insane, this little Teapot could quite possibly be the next United States Senator from Nevada. Polling is showing the race to be very tight, with Angle leading in 2 of the last 3 polls (but not by much). I see this race as a referendum not necessarily on Harry Reid, but rather on the state of democracy in the United States. There is a great deal of dislike towards Harry Reid, which I don’t personally understand. I’m not crazy about the guy, but he hasn’t done anything that warrants the kind of hostile reaction garnered from the Right. He’s the Senate Majority Leader, which means he’s the face of the Democratic Party in the Senate, which means he automatically becomes a pretty unpopular fellow. As soon as he took that mantle in 2007, he had to know that his re-election in 2010 would be tough because Senate leaders on both sides have tough re-election bids (Mitch McConnell had a close call in ’08, Tom Daschle lost his seat in 2004, and plenty of others declined to run again after leading their respective parties). That’s the price of leadership.

Even with all the angst towards Reid, the fact that the Republicans in Nevada nominated someone who is clearly in over head shows just how far our democratic capacities have dropped. Instead of nominating the best and the brightest, we’ve now got a match-up between an unpopular incumbent and Looney Tunes. And if you think I’m being hyperbolic in calling Sharron Angle crazy, or unqualified, or ill-tempered, or - oh hell, let’s go through the list right now and get it out of the way: crazy, lunatic, nuts, batshit crazy, scary, laughable, idiotic, repugnant, batshit crazy again, delusional, insane, or a crayon box short of a crayon box –, it’s worth repeating a great deal of what Mrs. Angle has said on the campaign trail thus far. Some of these clips and stories are real treasures:

1.       The media should ask questions that only candidates want to answer, and to report the news they want it to be reported..

2.       Social Security should ultimately be phased out, instead of fixed; another link here.

3.       High school football team uniforms that are all-black are satanic and “thoroughly evil”.

4.       She’ll peddle influence to other candidates if they drop out of the Senate race

5.       Not only is there is no separation of church and state, but religion should guide public policy.

6.       God wants her to become a Senator (this one I believe if the End of Days are actually upon us…also, this is on Pat Robertson’s TV show. Crazy reporting crazy.) Also, here’s another.

7.       Muslims are invading Michigan and Texas.

8.       Entitlements like unemployment insurance, social security, and Medicare have spoiled people.

9.       Rape and incest are not valid reasons to obtain an abortion…and I think she alludes to “God’s plan” having a part in such things…? Someone please clear that one up .

10.   Doesn’t discern the difference between gay marriage and repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and thinks that voters who approved gay marriage bans favor DADT (when most people don’t).

11.   Thinks Hispanics look Asian.

12.   Thinks she’s an Asian. (same video as above, towards the very end)

In a nutshell, she’s nuts. And voting for her makes you nutty. I’m not saying that she’s a bad person, or lacks character; don’t mistake this for a “character attack”. I’m not questioning whether she’s a good or person, BUT I am saying that she’s quite possibly certifiable. She has displayed a complete and utter lack of judgment and temperament, and in no way has a mentality that befits a position as important in a democracy as the one that she’s currently seeking (you can be a very pleasant and moral person and still be insane. I know this from being myself). I know a lot of people don’t like Harry Reid, for whatever reason. But how in good conscience can you vote for or support this candidate? I hate the idea of voting for someone because you’re voting against the other candidate, but that’s what this race has boiled down to. If you have sanity, if you have rationality, if you have any respect for what representative democracy means, you WON’T vote for Sharron Angle. Hell, we’d be better with “None of the Above” taking a plurality of votes instead of her. At least a vacant seat wouldn’t be occupied by someone creaming inarticulate ramblings from the Senate floor; it’s bad enough that I’m doing that from this blog!

 If you’re voting for her because she’ll be a reliable vote for the Republicans and will take a swipe at the Dems by ousting Reid and NOT because you think she’d make a good senator (does anyone believe that?), you are putting your party before your country. To my conservative Republican friends, you know she’d be a bad senator – many of you have gone so far as to explicitly tell me that, and that you’re voting for her only to depose Harry Reid. It’s an insult to the voters of Nevada that she became their nominee for US Senate. Likewise, it’ll be an insult to democracy if we vote her in on Nov. 2^nd.

Slavery, Agnosticism, The Future, and a Drinking Song

The Mind is a Slave unto Itself

(Warning: this particular section of today’s blogpost is exceedingly long, and you may wish to avoid it if you’re not keen on religion or related subjects)

In the last few weeks – indeed, the last few months – I’ve been reflecting a great deal on the role of religion in my life. A particular spark was lit when I was browsing The Economist’s website a few days ago (link here). On the debate page, there was a discussion on whether or not religion was ultimately a force of good in the world. I read through the pros and cons, and didn’t feel any more or less obliged to one particular direction more than the other after reading it. I’ve held for a long time that I believe religion has, on the whole, been a net positive for mankind. It’s inspired men and women to do great things, alleviate human suffering, and brings forth a sense of community that’s integral to real human needs. At the same time, it’s also been used as a weapon (and oftentimes a cheap excuse) to do what mankind is so prone to – killing itself. Then, for whatever reason, I was reading something involving the role of Christianity in supporting and opposing the institution of slavery throughout human history. Reading through the material, a profound question entered into my mind like no other had before – why did Jesus Christ not condemn the institution of slavery?

Before I expand on that question, let me explain its context and importance. In just about any Christian faith (except for Unitarianism, to my knowledge), Jesus Christ is revered as being divine and of God; I know this is common knowledge to just about everyone under the sun, but it’s worth contemplating for just a second: Christ was God here on earth, in human form (to Christians). At the time that He came down to earth for His divine purpose, the corrupt and reprehensible practice of slavery was a completely institutionalized social, political, and economic norm; it permeated throughout society. It was so widespread and acknowledged that the Old Testament is rife with rules and regulations about the treatment and conditions of slaves. BUT it’s never condemned. I never gave it more than a passing thought, because it had been explained away as just a context for the times (that and that slavery back then was markedly different in its practice from what most Americans think of slavery to be, re: Antebellum South). It was not a great theological question that I ever wrestled with. And then all of the sudden it hits me like a fat kid hits a chocolate bar, or like my head hits a stop sign in Korea.

So there’s the question: Why didn’t Jesus Christ condemn the practice and institution of slavery. I mean, He’s God, right? Isn’t He supposed to be in the business of condemning things that elicit and perpetuate human suffering? Murder, lying, stealing, coveting, shrimp cocktails, etc. all get some mention in either the Old or the New as being an offensive, but never the forced submission of one man or woman to another. Jesus Himself taught parables through the servant-master relationship to describe the man-God relationship, though “servant” most always meant “slave”. And while I’d have no problem with suggesting that every person belongs to God, the idea that one man can be owned – literally, in every sense – by another is gravely appalling and morally unjust. We know that today. Although the practice still occurs in various corners of the world, the human race has since acknowledged its practice to be a crime against humanity. Why didn’t Christ?

To hear the apologetics, you’d get various answers. The Catholic answers from New Advent site (here) comment mostly on the role of the early Church and the practice. Their contention is that had the Church opposed slavery, society itself could’ve very well crumbled under the social and economic upheaval that would’ve ensued had the practice been condemned. Others would argue that had Christians opposed slavery from the get-go, the religion would have died in its infancy (though one would think that it would spread quickly amongst slave populations).

I have two responses to this. First, yes it probably would’ve caused a great deal of social consternation; removing an institutional feature that was woven into the fabric of life at that time would certainly rile things up. But so what? Didn’t Jesus come here to cause “upheavals”? After all, the Endgame in Christianity is one big upheaval. Further, should not all moral injustices be opposed and condemned? Since when is it a tenet of any religion to merely oppose what’s unpopular? Such things are easy.

There is a big seeming contradiction here, based on the premise that Jesus was divine, that God WOULD NOT condemn something that was heinously evil, slavery. This is itself premised on the conclusion that slavery is evil, which I think any rational person would concur with. If Jesus was truly divine and morally infallible, surely He would’ve said something on the matter. On the other hand, if Jesus was simply a man and operated within the context of the times as such, then His response (or lack thereof) towards slavery is understandable. BUT there’s where the kicker is: that conclusion supposes that Jesus was not divine, thereby causing this current crisis of faith.

Edna’s Response

Consulting various sites and sources, I hadn’t been able to find any worthwhile reconciliation of the two. Most of what I read suggested that slavery was simply a fact of life at the time (and for thousands of years after); a certain attitude of “c’est la vie” seems to permeate a lot of Christian thought on the topic, coupled with the admonition that the Christian churches eventually opposed the institutions.

I then spoke with the other native English teacher at my school, Edna, who is among the wisest souls I’ve ever encountered (and one of the best cooks, for that matter). We discussed the issue for a good half hour, and she seemed a bit stumped herself. So she got back to me a little later in an email, trying to reconcile all these things. From Edna:

“ Why did Jesus not openly condemn slavery---that it is wrong and therefore must be stopped? The same way that He did not openly condemn other issues at the time. Come to think of it, do you think that would be a better strategy? Would that reach the heart? Or would that just be the talk and not the walk? Remember, Jesus is concerned after our hearts.

That had happened two thousand years ago---and yet look at His very words ----they still ring in our ears; and His very acts wrench our hearts.”

That’s actually the best response I’ve thought about since I asked the question. The question is reframed from a societal point of view into an individual one. Oftentimes, we lose sight of religion being a personal thing – it is indeed personal. Insofar as a Christian’s relationship with Christ is concerned, it is intensely personal. Community matters a great deal, of that there can be no doubt; that’s why we have the Mass, why we go to services, and why we say we’re interconnected when we talk about the Body of Christ. BUT you can’t forget the personal aspect to all this. At its very core, the Christian faith is one of a “personal relationship”, as its said, with Jesus Christ. To the skeptic/agnostic/doubter/etc., that does mean talking to what many people perceive as some magic man in the sky; it can make you look crazy to many others, but that’s what it is.

So the question is reframed from a societal one (e.g the role of slavery in society) to an individual one – e.g how does slavery affect the individual person, both slave and non-slave? That becomes a more muddled area of concern, because slavery in antiquity isn’t entirely relatable to slavery in the Antebellum South; I think people in antiquity had greater worries of war and food than we do today, and as such the role of slavery as a debatable issue back then did not take precedence. Consequently, speaking of it and attacking it would presumably – and this is an assumption, something to take on faith (I suppose) – somehow prevent the Gospel from having its effect on the individual heart. And whenever Christ – or, for that matter St. Paul in his letters to various audiences – did have any mention or say about slaves/servants, it always emphasized the need to treat each other as brothers and sisters, as family. If these people at the time had such a difficult time of relating to each other in that simple way, it is entirely possible that a drumbeat about servitude might not be entirely effective.

 And all we have of Christ’s teachings seem fully focused on individual – not societal – remedies. The rich are admonished to give up their possessions and take their treasures in heaven, but He doesn’t say anything about taxing them. We’re talking about a societal problem framed in a societal context, when Christ’s approach to just about everything is individual. The Church is for the societal, then, and its role in either supporting or condemning slavery is what becomes critical.

I’m sure I have some more thoughts on the matter, but right now I seem to be at something of an impasse. It’s a more difficult question to grapple with.

Of course, I could always take the easy road and throw my hands up in the air, become an agnostic, and simply be content to live a life of good deeds and kimchi. But I’m not giving up just yet. There are still deeper meanings to understand and headaches to overcome.

Agnosticism as the most reasonable position; or “I am not a reasonable person”

I think the agnostic point of view is easily the most reasonable and rational, since it doesn’t presume to know whether or not there is a God; or if there is a God, what the qualities of that deity are. And quite frankly, none of us can prove one way or the other whether God exists. By the same token, I can’t prove that a pink elephant is on the roof of my school at the moment. It’s exceedingly unlikely, but unless I physically get up on the roof and confirm there is no pink elephant, the possibility of it being there still exists. It’s kind of silly to make an apples to apples comparison using the two – God and a pink elephant (would God make a pink elephant) – but there’s some logic behind it.

That being said, I find it difficult in adopting a point of view that stipulates the universe as we know it is the result of a random sequence of events that just somehow happened. Reality, as I perceive it, takes into account of coincidences and the laws of randomness; but I don’t trust coincidence, and I don’t trust randomness. Everything we see and experience on earth has some purpose behind it, most notably our own evolution over millions of years (the purpose being to adapt and survive in our environment…which hopefully we evolve the ability to breathe CO2 and live in 150*F weather, at the rate we’re going). And that human perception – that self-awareness – is a key trait we hold in trying to answer the big questions.

That being said, I could use a break from the big questions. As you can see, they’re driving me mad.

Teaching in the Middle East

I’ve got until June 2011 before my contract in Korea is up, and I’m dithering as to what my next move will be. Most likely, I’ll resign and stay another year here – it’s the most practical and logical decision for me, as I’ll have my debt incurred from college paid (not to mention have a few extra dollars in the bank). But that’s only two years down the road. The question of what after comes up, and my answer can be one of many different paths. I could finish up my M.Ed at UNLV, and that’d be the most likely option; I worked for a year on that thing, and it wouldn’t seem right leaving business unfinished – not to mention the debt that I owe to my colleagues and friends from the C&I dept. there. Once that’s completed, though, I don’t know where things will stand.

I could possibly take the LSATs and enter law school, but then I face two harrowing prospects: a.) a life in a career that I find unfulfilling and economically challenging (law school debt + bad job prospects) and b.) listening to my mother say “I told you so.” for the rest of my adult life. I could also relocate outside of Las Vegas – most desirably to Seattle or the Bay Area – but, again, I don’t know what the prospects would be at the time.

Perhaps the most interesting and intriguing path I could take would to take a job teaching English or Social Studies at an international school in the Middle East. There are numerous schools – particularly in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – that pay quite well relative to the cost of living, and offer the chance at exploring another unique culture and its language. Doing so would probably give a few people heart attacks, but it’s something I might want to pursue.

A Lot to Drink About

Between having a crisis of faith, accepting my irrationality, dealing with 1kg of kimchi in my stomach, and wondering about the future, I think Jimmy Buffet has it right.

Tequila? Of course I’ll have some!

Rumors, Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, and the 49ers

Speak Up and Be Heard, but Don’t Believe Everything You Hear (The Downer)

As most of you know, I’m a person who loves to talk (to a fault, no doubt). I don’t know why, but it’s always been in my nature. Conversation is an art-form, and one that you must practice if you wish to excel at it. The problematic thing is that you can often fall into the trap of saying the wrong things or speaking to the wrong people. I’d like to say that such things as rumor-mills and gossip never crossed my path, and that I never engaged in them, but I’d be lying if I did; the odds are the same for you too if we’re being honest with ourselves. They seem to be integral to the human experience, particularly when we’re in our formative years and lack true wisdom and judgment. That being said, I genuinely despise rumors and gossip. Not only because I’ve been subject to them before – mostly miniscule and silly, others rather hurtful – but because the damage they can do to one’s reputation can sometimes be irreparable. Further, rumors and gossip can start amongst one or two people and then their nets can be cast far beyond your social and professional networks. People that you’ve never heard of before have now heard of you, only what they’ve heard is an untruth that you will have to work to discredit.

I think the worst rumor that I’ve dealt with is that I had spread gossip about someone’s personal life when I didn’t. When such things get thrown around to people that you don’t even know, it can sting; when they’re tossed to people that you have admired and deeply respected for a long time, it can feel like someone punched the air out of your lungs. And it can drive you nuts when you don’t know what the full extent of the damage is from something that you didn’t even do; all you did was be present in a conversation that shouldn’t have occurred, and got tainted. Like most situations in life, I suppose that you can take some positives from it. For one, it forces you to check yourself, what your character is, and what your words actually are. For another, it makes you re-evaluate your relationships with other people and gain a better appreciation for the persons that are really your friends. But at the same time, it can also leave you feeling deeply resentful for a awhile. You just have to evaluate, think it over, and then ultimately let it go…and pray that those whom you respected and admired don’t let you go.

Even worse are rumors and gossip that are started at places that are holy to you – literally. For whatever reason, church can be a breeding ground for half-truths and cooked up lies about people. I live 6,000 miles away from the place that I would come to every Sunday to worship, reflect, and get away from it all, yet I’ve heard more than a few different things being spread around about a few different people in just the last two weeks. Without getting into details – it’s all very obnoxious and pathetic – it’s troubling how something so un-Christian happens in a place of Christian worship. I think a lot of it stems from the insecurities that plague us, and the lack of confidence and wherewithal we have about who we are. It’s as if you want to hear other people being torn down and thrown under the bus because that’s exactly how you feel; even if I never said anything about another person, there have been times where I was so down and out that I felt exactly that way. But while we all have hearts that are bruised and battered at some point – sometimes bludgeoned - , that shouldn’t lend itself to the battering bruising of others’.

The Grilled Cheese Crucible and the Shrimp Pizza Redemption (The Upper)

This week, I had the joy of compiling a lesson on different foods and food-related expressions for my 2^nd grade classes. I teach 4 2^nd grade classes full of funny and adorable little kids, so it’s always a little bit of a treat to start my mornings off with them. I found a quick video clip of a cheese expert (what a title) serving up a grilled cheese sandwich, and thought it appropriate to use in my classes. After all, we can watch the video and learn some introductory vocab words: bread, cheese, butter, heart attack, clogged arteries, coronary, etc. So I downloaded the clip and put it into a neat little powerpoint presentation. I thought the kids might get a kick out of it, as anything that’s visually appealing gets wild raucous applause amongst these students. But not with this one…

We get to the video portion, and it starts to play. What followed was the strangest response to a cooking show that I’ve ever seen. Students started to gasp and awe when the bread was buttered and placed into the skillet (why is this so exciting?). Then, the cook flips the sandwich in the air with her spatula, and the kids go wild. “WWWWOOOOOOOOWWWWW!!!!!” was the common scream heard at about 65 decibels. But THEN, the sandwich was finished and thoroughly ready. The cook broke the sandwich in half to reveal the ooey-gooey cheese that would make any American mouth thousands of miles away from his home water. The kids’ reaction, however, was markedly different. There were screams of horror and agony, to the point that you’d think they were frightened and horrified by some ghost. One kid even pointed to the television scream shouting, “NO!” I was absolutely dumbfounded at the tawdry reception the great American grilled cheese sandwich had received.

The next day, I switched the video in favor of a Wolfgang Puck clip in which he made a shrimp pizza. It actually looks like a marvelous creation, though I wondered what response it would elicit from the students. So I put the video into the powerpoint and used new vocab words with identifiable pictures – tomatoes, cheese, shrimp, pizza dough – and let it rip. The kids loved it. Absolutely loved it. As all the toppings were being put onto the dough, there was a collectively mild “ooooooooohhhhh!!!” permeating the room. Wolfgang slid the pizza into the oven, and the kids were a little confused (probably because I didn’t translate the word “oven” was, or something). But once the pizza came out of the oven all fully cooked and at a golden brown, the students started clapping and chanting, “Yaaaaaayyy!”.

Moral of the story – Korean kids are funny. And grilled cheese sandwiches cause riots.

The 2010 San Francisco 49ers

are breaking my heart every week with new and inventive ways of losing. How wonderful it was to watch Nate Clements return a possibly game-winning interception, only to fumble it away because he didn’t go down in time. At 1-3, the 49ers would be only one-game behind in the NFC West. But instead, they sit at 0-4. I keep hearing all is not lost, and all is not lost for the 49ers; after all, they’re in the NFC West. It’s possible that an 8-8 team could end up winning the thing. And I don’t think it’s as bad a division as everyone says. Rather, it’s a terribly mediocre division. The Seahawks, Rams, Cardinals, and 49ers are all teams that have a chance for an 8-8 record; .500 isn’t awful, it’s just mediocre.

Still, I can’t keep waking up at 3am Monday morning to watch a game that will end up making me feel blue all day. If that’s the case, I won’t be the big jolly red man that the kids seem to endeared to.