My Final Thoughts (I Hope) About Hillbilly Elegy

 This is my third post about J.D. Vance’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, after which I hope never to discuss it again. Unless he does something that forces my hand, which I admit is not unlikely.

The first two posts discussed how the book’s good points are diminished by Vance’s subsequent actions and how his conflation of terms casts misleading impressions of demographic groups. Both impugn Vance’s honesty, but what could we have expected? Even the title is cynically misleading.

Merriam-Webster defines elegy as “a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamentation especially for one who is dead.” (Leave aside the “song or poem” part. It’s not germane.) The book’s subtitle is A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. Yet by the end of the book Vance is talking about how hillbillies leaving the hollers for better opportunities are spreading the hillbilly outlook of distrust for outsiders, holding grudges, and citing the Bible more than observing it across the country. (If you take issue with that description of hillbillies, read the book. Vance makes it clear.)

I understand leaving decaying areas in search of opportunity. I left Western Pennsylvania in 1980 to join the Army and have lived in or near Atlanta, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, then back to the DC metro area. I’ve done all right for myself. I own my home and was able to retire at 65. I also picked up knowledge and customs from each place I lived and incorporated them into my own life. I’m a better person for it.

That does not seem to be the case with the Great Hillbilly Migration, as Vance himself implies. Based on changing voting patterns as regional demographics evolve, it appears folks from the hills bring their virtues and vices with them as an inseparable package and it’s up to everyone else to either adjust or ignore them. No effort is made to assimilate.

Well, hell, people. Isn’t that something MAGites can be heard bitching about every day? Pissing and moaning about Spanish signs in stores and how immigrants don’t observe our customs?

The Orange Menace rants endlessly about how immigrants are taking over this country and dragging it down to their level when the sad truth is we can’t have nice things because too many native-born voters are mired in an attitude distrustful of outsiders, hold grudges, actively resist change, and spend more time reading the Bible than they do observing it.

I wonder where that came from?

Hillbilly culture isn’t dying. It’s spreading. And we’d better get a handle on its worst elements before it takes us all down with it.

More on Hillbilly Elegy

 Yesterday’s post talked about J.D. Vance’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. That post dealt with what the book got right and how subsequent displays of Vance’s character – or lack thereof – make everything in it dubious. Today I’ll talk about things in the book that indicated to me he was talking though his hat even then.

Early in the book Vance notes that people use the terms hillbilly, redneck, and white trash interchangeably. I grew up at the northern tip of the Appalachian coal country Vance is from and can reasonably say he’s full of shit.

Hillbilly is self-descriptive, and Vance did a serviceable, if less than flattering, job of describing them as people from the hollers who hold firm to family, are distrustful of outsiders, hold grudges, actively resist change, and spend more time reading the Bible than observing its lessons.

A redneck is someone who typically is a manual laborer, as is indicated by the term redneck; their necks are sunburned from working outdoors, often in construction, landscaping, or some other physical task. Rednecks have their own undesirable qualities – quick to anger, too often ready to fight, drink too much beer, and a casual racism they do not themselves see – but they work, and are willing to find different work if the situation requires it. I grew up among rednecks and have a few of the qualities myself. I’m not saying that’s good or bad. That’s just how it is.

White trash are well described in Vance’s book. These are people who don’t work and expect someone else to take care of them. Calling someone “white trash” is the ultimate insult among rednecks.

Conflating the three archetypes does no one any favors. While there are similarities among hillbillies and redneck, the differences are profound. White trash are something completely different from both.

Vance wasn’t finished. Later in the book, after he’s talked about his formative years and gets into examining the problem hillbillies face, he starts to use the term interchangeable with working class whites.

I grew up working class white in a working class white neighborhood. I moved away 45 years ago, but I still proudly identify as such. Someone tries to conflate working class white with redneck, I’ll shake my head a little and give a tight smile, but I have no good argument against it. Given how Vance has described the hillbilly life in the first two hundred pages of the book, I take his making synonyms of hillbilly and working class white to be an insult.

Words matter, especially when used to communicate broad ideas. Vance has taken the warnings of Orwell and Huxley as instruction manuals to say whatever he wants in whatever manner he chooses to and decide for himself what those words mean. It’s a dangerous tactic, and we place ourselves in peril for letting him get away with it.

Hillbilly Elegy

 

A family member I respect a great deal asked me to read J.D. Vance’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, before the election. My family member said he thought Vance made some good points and asked me to take a critical look.

Vance does make several good points. The most salient is that hillbillies have good reason to harbor resentment toward much of the rest of the country. Aside from the jokes, they always seem to get left out when economic advances are made. Doesn’t matter what happens elsewhere, things never seem to get better in Harlan County, for instance.

I grew up in Western Pennsylvania during the 70s, so I get this. Even though Pittsburgh rebounded years ago, the towns up and down the rivers have yet to make similar recoveries. Advances are at the margins and much local business consists of, in the words of my late father, people helping each other go under slower.

So I’m with Vance on that. What I’m not down with is how he has used those conditions in a remarkably cynical manner for political gain. Nowhere in his campaigning have I noticed him coming up with anything to help these folks. It’s all been demagoguery to play on the emotions generated by whipping them up to ever higher levels of resentment.

It was Vance who came up with the story that Haitians were eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio. This was the baldest of lies, and Vance copped to it only after the damage had been done. His reasoning excuse? “Sometimes you have to make up a story to make a point.”

Well, yeah. It’s called fiction. I’m well aware of it. It’s an old saying that fiction writers use lies to tell the truth. Dennis Lehane covered much of the same ground – working class people feeling put upon for too long and reacting badly – in his brilliant novel Small Mercies. The difference is Lehane made no bones that the book was fiction, even though it was set in the context of actual events that took place during the Boston busing riots. Vance passed off the Haitian story as a fact to be considered when deciding how to vote and only pulled it back after the damage had been done. That’s reprehensible.

Vance also whined about being fact checked during the vice presidential debate. The only kind of person who complains about getting fact checked is someone who intends to lie.

These examples of Vance’s character flaws cast doubt on everything in the book. A couple of other things led me to think even less of him. I’ll talk more about that next time.

How Did We Get Here?

 I see three primary reasons LibDems lose elections they should win.

1.    Pacifism

Too many LibDems are pacifists. Don’t get me wrong; pacifism is a noble philosophy. It also too often contains the seeds of its own defeat. I believe in turning the other cheek, but there needs to be a Plan B if you are then struck with the other fist.

2.    Liberal pussies

Not the same as pacifism, which is a legitimate ethos. Being a pussy means not standing up for what you allegedly believe. Running your mouth on social media and not backing it up by doing something as simple and safe as voting is the literal definition of being a pussy. A wise friends once told me “What people say is important is what they’d like to tell themselves is important. What they do tells you what’s really important to them.”

3.    LibDems are too concerned with how things get done instead of actually getting them done.

This was discussed the other day in “Outrage Appropriation.” If the desired result is the same, any means should be acceptable, or at least considered, so long as it isn’t counterproductive. I’m pretty sure some LibDems prefer protesting to winning

Everyone would like life to be more linear, with simple, elegant solutions that are so obvious everybody can agree on them. Life isn’t like that, so we live a series of compromises.

Until we find something about which our conscience forbids compromise. Human rights. The rule of law. Hungry children. Then it has to be about winning. Has to be.

When you have to win, something my father said to me when teaching me to golf always comes to mind.

I hit a particularly nasty shot that ricochetted off a tree and came to rest three feet from the hole.

Dad said, “Nice shot.”

I thought he was breaking my balls. “Damn, Dad. It would’ve gone out of bounds if it didn’t hit that tree.”

Dad looked me straight in the eye. “When you’re keeping score, it doesn’t matter how. All that matters is how many.”

LibDems worry too much about how. All that matters now is how many

Schadenfreude

 schadenfreude /shäd′n-froi″də

Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others

I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

--Commonly misattributed to Mark Twain. (Clarence Darrow once said something similar, but his was more refined. I’m sticking with Twain.)

While schadenfreude is not the loftiest form of human emotion, it has its place. The world is full of people who deserve some form of retribution that is beyond man’s ability to deliver. We have to settle for fate to handle it for us, if it cares to.

While I am genuinely disturbed at the prospect of many good people suffering under much of what The Orange Menace proposes to do – woman’s health restrictions, economy-damaging tariffs, citizens swept up in deportation raids, whatever else he comes up with – I take the edge off these concerns by anticipating how MAGA voters will react when some of this hits home and

·       Grocery prices – especially produce – skyrocket because there’s no one left to work the fields;

·       Other prices go up dramatically because companies aren’t going to eat those tariffs all by themselves;

·       They or a loved one is swept up in a broadly-based deportation raid. (Remember, significant numbers of Hispanics voted for him);

·       The veterans’ benefits they depended on are cut;

·       Things I haven’t thought of yet.

I’ll do what someone in my position can to help, but my “official” policy will be to ask anyone who complains about such things who they voted for.

If they say anything other than “Harris,” my only response will be to say, “Suffer.”

But I’ll be smiling when I say it.

Outrage Appropriation

 Earlier I wrote about Democrats not voting in sufficient numbers to get their way in elections, even when that way is what a majority of people want. I also mentioned another Democratic/Progressive problem was how they tend to turn on each other when the going gets tough. I’ll get to that today.

The Beloved Spouse™ belongs to a Facebook group of women committed to Progressive values. Everybody got along swimmingly until Harris lost. Now people who were all for wearing Chucks and pearls and blue bracelets are calling others out for continuing to do so after the election.

From what I can tell, this appears to be partly a racial issue. At least one Black woman called out white women for “letting us down again.” When it was noted that white woman do not vote as a monolith, then original complainant disagreed. Vigorously.

That was stupid enough on its face. What followed was worse. The accusation was made that white women who continue to wear their Chucks and pearls and blue bracelets are endangering marginalized groups by doing so. It’s allegedly virtue signaling to do these things now, and that white women shouldn’t point out how they may have stood up for a gay friend for fear of further endangering them.

That’s not just disappointing. It’s bullshit.

Wearing something to identify oneself as protesting endangers no one except the person so attired. Once a common theme for this appears – as did with the Chucks etc. – I’ll be all in on it. As it is, I wear a pair of rainbow sweatbands when I leave the house to show my support for the queer community. If people are willing to put themselves out there, who is anyone to complain?

Then  there are the white women who attack other white women for disagreeing, saying they can’t possibly know what it’s like to live as Black/brown/queer in this country. I have a news flash for them: neither do you. I love the term TBS has coined for this: outrage appropriation. Expect to see it in future posts.

It is not “performative” to show sincere support for others, however it’s done. Not everyone can afford to make donations, just as not everyone has the time to protest, and not everyone has the personality – or health – to organize or too actively take part in a group. They’re doing what they can. Shutting this down altogether can allow the MAG-ites to believe what they’re doing is all right with us. It’s not, and any way we can show this in greater numbers should be accepted in context.

This is not a new phenomenon. A while back a transgender acquaintance of mine posted to Facebook about a low passed in Tennessee(?) that required commercial establishments to display a sign if they allowed people to use the rest room of the gender they identified with. Clearly this was an attempt by the state to shame these establishments in the belief “good Christians” would neither shop nor shit there.

Why not, I suggested, use these signs to identify trans-friendly business and direct commerce their way, thus creating exactly the outcome the lawmakers didn’t want. Let’s see how quickly antagonistic business become more accommodating if being “good Christians” affected their wallets.

My acquaintance accused me of standing up for an abhorrent law. I thought I hadn’t made myself clear about how this could be a good thing for the trans community and was shot down eve harder. Turned out it wasn’t enough for me to support trans people; I had to support them in the way this woman wanted it done or I was as bad as the transphobes.

This, too, is bullshit. It’s also not the first time I encountered it. When someone who has no vested interest in standing up for you outside of a sense of decency wants to stand up for you, let them. Life is hard, we need all the help we can get. Support is where you find it, and that person may well not have the same ideas on how to accomplish things as you do. That doesn’t make them wrong. The best decisions are made through the most diverse set of inputs. Consider anything that might help until you know it will be counterproductive.

Needless to say, she and I are no longer even acquaintances.

 

Where Did All the Harris Votes Go?

 I’ve been keeping my head down since the election, in part because I don’t need to see or hear the venting I knew would go along with it. The Beloved Spouse™ is made of sterner stuff and kept me relatively current.

A couple of things are becoming clear to me. Neither are surprises. Both are disappointing.

Democrats lose pivotal elections because

1.    Low turnout

2.    A tendency to turn on each in a heartbeat.

From the New York Times:

Counties with the biggest Democratic victories in 2020 delivered 1.9 million fewer votes for Ms. Harris than they had for Mr. Biden. The nation’s most Republican-heavy counties turned out an additional 1.2 million votes for Mr. Trump this year, according to the analysis of the 47 states where the vote count is largely complete.

Apparently not enough people understood the assignment.

Altogether, Harris lost almost eight million former Biden voters. I’d like to give Democrats more credit than they seem to deserve for knowing what was at stake. The only other explanation for the falloff in Democratic votes is that too many stayed home. Total votes cast were down far less than the number of votes Harris lost compared to Biden in 2020.

This lends credence to something I have believed since the riots in Ferguson, Missouri. I was surprised to find a town that was 70% Black had no Black elected officials, and no more than a handful (One? It’s been a while) of Black city employees. The only explanation I could come up with was that Blacks weren’t voting, at least not in sufficient numbers to make a difference.

My understanding is that this has changed since the riots. Enough people got pissed off enough to pull the old “I’m not going to put up with this anymore” and get a government that better reflected their needs and desires.

I use Ferguson as an example not to pick on Black, but because what happened there crystallized my thoughts on why Democrats so often leave elections with unresolved grievances even though registered Democrats have outnumbered registered Republicans for years. I’m reminded of it every time I read of how people are adversely affected by some short-sighted or mean-spirited policy in their state. The power grid in Texas or abortion to name a couple. If the elected officials who put these things into place get re-elected  the only conclusion I can draw is that the people of that state are okay with it and should be left to enjoy the fruits of their decision.

But then we read reports of how a majority of people in the state are actually against that policy, which leads me to modify the above statement to:

“the people of that state who could be bothered to get off their asses and vote are okay with it and should be left to enjoy the fruits of their decision.

“But what about voter suppression?” What about it? If I knew I faced the possibility of deportation – and let’s not kid ourselves, they’re going to deport as many citizens as they can get away with – I’d stand in line in freezing rain all goddamn night if that’s what it took to vote. I’d check on my registration status and do whatever I could to vote early or by mail if those were options.

Focus groups showed that large majorities chose Harris’s policies over The Orange Menace’s when they were presented side-by-side without telling people who proposed what. The only explanation for her dismal showing is that Harris supporters stayed home. They may have had their own reasons for this but the factor that can’t be ignored is that they just. Didn’t. vote.

So at the risk of being even more of a prick than usual, my policy for the next four years, upon hearing someone complain about how the federal government is being run, will be to ask if that person voted.

If they voted for Harris, we can talk. Maybe comfort each other and discuss what we can do better next time.

If they voted for The Orange Menace, we can still talk. We may end up arguing, but there can be a conversation.

If they didn’t vote at all, they can tell their story walking.

The next post talks about the internecine warfare of the Progressives.

We're Gonna Have to Work Together on This

 (This blog originally carried the title “From the Home Office,: where I posted comments from 2005 – 2013. It has been on hiatus since then as I gradually moved toward posting my opinions on Twitter and Facebook. Recent events have prompted me to re-open and re-brand it to reflect the times. Please feel free to poke around in the archives and to hold be accountable for any evolving positions.)

I am a straight cisgendered white man in his late sixties. While my politics are left of center, I value traditional conservative perspectives and agree with more than a few. What I cannot abide is how the internal corruption of the Republican Party has bred the loathsome entity that is MAGA.

There was a time when my political views would have been described as “New England Republican:” socially liberal and fiscally conservative. The social element comes first. Government is uniquely suited to provide things people cannot provide for themselves. Infrastructure. Defense. Public safety. Food that is safe to eat, water that is safe to drink, and air that is safe to breathe. Affordable medical care. There’s more, but you get the picture.

The fiscally conservative part means I dislike spending money I don’t have. I’ll save for something before I’ll go into debt for it. Sometimes it can’t be helped. If the roof or foundation develops a fundamental flaw, I may have to go into debt to repair it. Few people can pay cash for a new car. Mortgages are long-term debts. All of these are parts of life.

The two perspectives are not mutually exclusive. We live in the wealthiest nation in history. There are people living here who are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars – millions, even – for a baseball card. They can afford to pay more for the general welfare. They’ll never miss it.

It has been said that a man who is not liberal when young has no heart, and one who is not conservative when old has no brain. This is bullshit. I was much more conservative as a teen than I am now; then I joined the Army. I saw and did things I had no idea about before, and I never left the country. The more I experienced, the more I learned, the more I looked at things from other points of view.

This led me to become a firm believer in treating people the way I’d like to be treated. This is so self-evident to me I have to assume everyone feels that way, which leads to what I call King’s Corollary to The Golden Rule: If someone interacts with me like an insensitive prick, he must want to be treated that way. It would be impolite not to oblige him. Or her.

Among the reasons I restarted this blog is I no longer identify as liberal; I’m a pragmatist. I’m willing to listen to ideas from either side of the aisle, so long as two conditions are met:

1.    They have to have a realistic chance of working.

2.    They have to benefit more people than the inconvenience.

So don’t tell me building a wall will solve the immigration problem. It won’t.

Don’t tell me cutting taxes for the rich – again – will stimulate the economy and balance the budget. It hasn’t in forty years of practice. Why would it now?

Don’t tell me voter suppression cost Kamala Harris the last election. It didn’t.

Don’t tell me “abortion” and “women’s health” are synonymous. They aren’t.

I’ll do my best to keep these posts relatively brief and on topic, typically the 600 – 800 words of a traditional newspaper column. I have long said the Internet needs editors and do not intend to add to the problem.

I expect I’ll come down harder on the right than the left – those who voted to make president a man not fit to run a whorehouse laundry showed more about their character than his – but I also have little patience with the purity tests too many on the left apply to measure wokeness.

All I want to do here is point out where we may be missing something that could help. Maybe get a passerby to think of something they’d not thought of before. I promise to make every effort not to be the old man railing at clouds or hollering for kids to stay off my lawn.

I need to work some things out for myself. So does this country. If anything I say here can contribute to even one person becoming willing to look at a different perspective – not necessarily change their mind, but maybe see where the other side is coming from – then this blog will be a rousing success.

There will be no regular schedule; I’ll post as things come to mind. I’ll send new post notifications through Facebook and BlueSky. Feel free to share them and to comment either here, or there. Comment moderation will be turned on, but only to weed out spam; all on-topic comments will be allowed to stand.

I hope we can start, and maintain, a cordial place to disagree on the way to finding common ground. And that you’ll come with me.

 

I Hope Some Day This Post Will Seem Quaint and Foreign

I work almost exclusively from home now, which means I interact with far fewer people than in the past. The more I learn about people, I’m good with that.

Two gay friends of ours celebrated their first wedding anniversary the other day. The Beloved Spouse made a card for them; I delivered it. (I wouldn’t want anyone to think my contribution went no farther than a signature.) Last night I received a thank-you note, in which the money quote was:

We've both lost friends over their insistence that they "have no problem with us choosing to be gay" but they cannot recognize our relationship as a marriage.

I have no problem with such people choosing to be assholes, but I cannot recognize them as fully functional human beings.

In have several gay friends. (That I know of.) In all but one case, we were friends before I knew they were gay. Learning their sexual preference did not alter any of the things that made us friends. They had the same personalities, the same tastes, the same senses of humor, and enjoyed the same sports, music, television and movies. Nothing about them changed. Discovering they were gay was, to me, not unlike becoming aware they liked a style of music that did not interest me, or were addicted to Top Chef, or engaged in a sport in which I have no interest. (Yeah, I know…)

To allow same sex couples to have the same options as heterosexuals when it comes to marriage seems to be self-evident in the Preamble to the Constitution many homophobes claim to hold so dear. They are just as entitled to pursue happiness as any of us. As for the Biblical issues, I’m tired of God-fearing “Christians” only reading as far as Malachi. Even I am tolerant enough to understand there are those whose religious beliefs cannot accept homosexual behavior. Fine. If your church doesn’t want to perform or accept same-sex marriages, don’t. Christians are generally advised to follow St. Augustine’s admonition to “love the sinner but hate the sin.” Make an effort. (Do not take the liberty to consider this to be an anti-religious rant. It’s just that many homophobes like to dress their prejudices in religious robes in an effort to give them a veneer of respectability.)

Here’s an insight for homophobes: gays are just like you are. (Which is probably what scares them.) I’ve shared locker rooms with friends I knew to be gay; I’m sure I’ve done so with others I didn’t know about. Not one has ever made an advance toward me. I know of no gay person who would attempt to recruit someone—even if we grant the possibility that sexual preference is a choice—not because they’re ashamed of being gay, but because they’re painfully aware of the bullshit that must be endured.

Gays are parents, teachers, cops, athletes, soldiers, accountants, comedians, assholes, philanthropists, humble, arrogant, smart, stupid, loyal, faithless, religious, atheists, Buddhists, violent, passive, alcoholics, teetotalers, activists, and sloths. Just like everyone else. This is a line that need not be drawn, but, if you insist, you might enjoy Mississippi, which only last week got around to admitting slavery is a bad thing. You’ll fit right in on the wrong side of history.

So, Now What?

Most of you probably assume I’m voting for Obama, given the breakdowns I gave of him and Romney the past couple of days. Not so fast.

Our political system is broken from stem to stern. I don’t mind how much money gets spent. Why shouldn’t as much money be spent deciding who runs the joint as is spent advertising beer or gasoline? The issue is where the money comes from, and how much accountability those donors demand. We’re in an era of openly transactional politics, where, too often, you get what you pay for, and the long-term interests of the country as a whole get short shrift.

When I first became politically aware, the great debate in America was how best to take care of those who most needed it. Now the debate centers on whether we should take care of those people at all. The parties have hardened their positions and changed the rules to make it harder to find common ground. The voters complain, blaming the other side more every day, then dig in to support their favored positions, hardening the partisan lines.

What is really needed is a more parliamentary form of government. Five parties would do nicely. There would be the Tea Party on the extreme right, a counterweight just as far to the left, then basic liberal and conservative parties, and the Libertarians. No party would have enough votes to pass anything on its own, but no party would have enough votes to block anything on its own, either. They’d all have to work together.

That’s not going to happen. The existing parties have things too good for themselves. What can be done by the average voter, who may lean one way or the other when discussing whose fault it is but can agree this is a mess? How can a message be sent to say we’re not happy?

Don’t vote for either party.

I’m not saying stay home. That’s not a protest; it’s abdication. I’m not saying throw out all the incumbents. That will only create a Won’t Get Fooled Again scenario. (“Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss.”) Pick minor party candidates. It doesn’t even matter so much who they are, though if you find someone who aligns well with you, go for it. Your candidate won’t win, but your vote won’t be wasted if enough of us do it. If the major parties see other parties are siphoning off four or five times as many votes as usual, they may have to sit up and take note.

Don’t be stupid about it. This is best done in election where there is no real contest. We still have to live with the results of our actions, and you don’t want to cut off your nose to spite your face. (See “Conservatives who voted for Ross Perot, 1992” and “Liberals who voted for Ralph Nader, 2000”) Pick your spots. I live in Maryland, where Mitt Romney has as much chance of winning as he does of becoming pope. My House and Senate races are no contests, as well. Since my vote doesn’t really matter in that context—we know who is going to win—I might as well try to say something with it.

I looked at my available options and will vote for the Green candidates in each race. Not because they’ll win, or even because I want them to win. I’ll vote for them because I don’t have a better way to show I have had enough of the status quo.

Mitt Romney

Yesterday the topic was Barack Obama’s plusses and minuses as president. Today is Mitt Romney’s turn.

I have been voting in presidential elections since I became eligible in 1976, when I voted for Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter. That makes thirty-six years; this will be my tenth presidential campaign. In all that time, I have never seen a more cynical, calculated campaign than what has been put together by Mitt Romney and his team.

The election is upon us and Romney still has not put forth plausible numbers to show which deductions he’d do away with to offset the tax cuts he proposes. We’re supposed to trust him. How much trust has he earned?

He tacked harder right than any of his primary opponents, having farther to go after his tenure as governor of Massachusetts. When asked if Romney had moved too far right last March, senior campaign advisor Eric Fehrnstrom replied, “"I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again." English translation: Nothing we said before counts. We’ll say whatever each audience wants to hear.

Later in the campaign, Republican pollster Neil Newhouse let this slip, when questioned about the accuracy of a claim in a recent ad: “We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

Politicians make their livings through playing fast and loose with the truth; it’s why people dislike them in general. (Sometimes on principle.) They deceive, fabricate, mislead, dissemble, prevaricate, and misrepresent. Rarely do they flat out lie, and I have never seen a presidential campaign so willing to say, “So what?” when caught. What will Romney actually do if elected? It’s hard to say, though it’s safe to predict he’ll do whatever is most politically expedient at the time.

Gaffes are part of the political theater, never more so than in this day of You Tube and camera phones. Too much is made of them, even in debates. Candidates speak millions of words on the campaign trail, usually while handling multiple responsibilities on little sleep. They’re going to say something stupid once in a while. Still, Romney’s comment in the third debate (“Syria is Iran’s route to the sea.”) is disturbing on multiple levels.

It’s not a one-time misstatement; he’s made the same claim at least five times over the past year. It doesn’t take Magellan to look at a map to see Iran has a long coast (1,100 miles), and does not border on Syria. (Note: it has been said Romney means Syria is Iran’s route to the Mediterranean. They’d still have to go through Iraq—friend or not, that will not go unnoted—and to what end? To take on all of NATO’s navies, when whatever fleet Iran can muster still has to go around Africa?) Romney either doesn’t care what he said is not true, or—what? Someone must have told him. Shown him a map. Something. Is this the person we want making war or peace decisions?

Another concern has to do with Romney’s ability—or willingness—to empathize, or even care about, people less fortunate than himself. Lyndon Johnson was a world-class SOB; Ronald Reagan was the original presidential champion of trickle-down economics. Both were able to see what needed to be done when it was needed most by the most people, set aside some differences, and get it done.

He famously said 47% of the people in this country—presumably those who pay no federal income tax—“Believe they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.” Romney either lacked the curiosity to find out—or didn’t care—that those who do not pay are predominantly those living on Social Security, disability, have legitimate deductions (itemized deductions, tax credits for education, and the income tax exemptions for everything from disability payments to interest on municipal bonds), or work and don’t make enough money to reach even the minimum threshold for income tax, even though they do pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. Reagan would have seen the breakdown and asked what could be done to help some of those people, especially those who flat out didn’t make enough money to qualify; Johnson would have offered to kick Romney’s ass for him.

It’s become a joke, but how many people do you know put their dog on top of the car for a long trip so the luggage can ride inside? That’s not politically relevant, but it says something about the kind of person we’re dealing with.

So, who will I vote for? Come back tomorrow. It might surprise you.

Barack Obama

The Beloved Spouse will be happy to tell you I’m no Obama booster. What he says he wants to do is generally what I think needs to be done, but he too often leads from behind. When the Tea Party was savaging the Affordable Care Act for its “death panels” in town hall meetings, shouting down any reasonable discourse, he alone had the pulpit to speak to the nation to describe exactly what end of life counseling is, and how badly many people need it. He didn’t. He did much the same with the original stimulus plan, as well as Dodd-Frank. Their passages were far more due to the efforts of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid than to Obama, but, like the quarterback on a football team, he gets both too much credit and too much blame for the results.

His record on executive decisions is no better. Joe Biden had to (probably inadvertently) shame him into coming out for same sex marriage. He allowed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to go away when he could have ordered it as Commander-in-Chief. (Doing so summarily would have been a tough call, but he could have pushed for it more than he did. As it was, he accepted a fait accompli, hardly a sign of stellar leadership.) Guantanamo still holds prisoners.

On the other hand, he does have accomplishments. The Affordable Care Act is law, and will, over time, prove to be a major advancement in solving our health care problems. Dodd-Frank will help to avoid the kinds of cumulative disasters that led to the crash of 2008. The stimulus, while not big enough to pull us out of the Great Recession, kept things from being worse than they are. He has come around on some things, such as Gay Marriage, instead of digging in his heels.

The facts are, he did quite a bit, and quite possibly would have done more had he faced an opposition interested in governing as a loyal opposition, instead of treating the past four years as a campaign to rid themselves of Barack Obama. This is not a casual excuse on Obama’s behalf. Senate Minority Mitch McConnell publicly stated his prime objective would be to deny Obama a second term. Record numbers of filibusters have shown this to be no idle boast.

Republicans have criticized Obama for not working with them, of failing to reach across the aisle to compromise, yet it is they—especially in the House—who have consistently refused to negotiate in good faith. The prime example comes from the Grand Bargain negotiations between Obama and Speaker John Boehner to reach a deal on the deficit. The original plan was to make one dollar in spending cuts for each dollar of taxes raised. Boehner took that back to the House, and was told in no uncertain terms by the Tea Party wing of his own party—which makes up no more than 20% of the Republican caucus—that it was unacceptable. So Boehner went back and cut a deal for two dollars in cuts for each dollar of revenue. Obama agreed; the Tea party cut him off at the knees again. A three-to-one ratio was offered. Six-to-one.

After a while, the Republicans’ true position came out: no revenue increases at all. The deficit would have to be controlled exclusively through spending cuts, which would fall disproportionately on those who could least afford them. It can only be concluded this was what they had been shooting for all along. The negotiations were shams. Obama’s primary fault was in allowing himself to be jerked around for as long as he did.

This brings the argument full circle, to a lack of leadership. He didn’t spend his political capital when he had some, which was right after the 2008 election, when he had an enthusiastic base and ample majorities in both houses. Political capital does not gather interest if ignored; it withers like an unused muscle. When Democrats lost the House in 2010, Obama was more interested in conciliation than in leadership, only becoming vocal on the situation when the presidential campaign began in earnest. Say what you want about Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush had far better leadership skills. He may have led this country off a cliff, but he knew how rally the troops.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about Mitt Romney.

More on Chick Fil-A

Americans on both sides of the political spectrum delight in painting the opposition in the broadest strokes possible, to the detriment of everyone except those who stand to benefit by the resulting polarization. It was bad enough when people refused to see shades of gray in public figures; everyone was either good or bad. Now, thanks in large part to the perpetual campaign and twenty-four hour news, “good” and “bad” aren’t enough. Everyone is either Good or Evil.

The current Chick Fil-A controversy is a good example. I have weighed in rather firmly on one side, yet my reasons are not at all what those who ostensibly agree with me tend to argue. I don’t eat at Chick Fil-A anymore. It’s not because Dan Cathy is Evil. I don’t know Dan Cathy. Never heard of him until a few weeks ago. (It’s his father, Truett, whose picture appears in all the restaurants.) For all I know he’s a good man and fine father who happens to hold a social/political opinion far removed from at least one of mine. That doesn’t make him bad, no matter how far apart we are on this. Some of his recent comments make him sound a little intolerant and close-minded, but that’s his right, and has nothing to do with my personal boycott.

The issue here is solely how Chick Fil-A spends money I give them. The money in question moves from the business to the Chick Fil-A Foundation to organizations that take positions I find abhorrent. I won’t let them use my money for that, as is my right. They’re not bad, or evil. In my eyes, they’re just wrong about this one thing. It’s a big enough thing in my eyes to justify action on my part. Period.

If Dan Cathy wants to spend his personal money on these groups, that’s his business, and I’d have lunch at Chick Fil-A tomorrow. True, his income likely comes almost exclusively from Chick Fil-A, but once it enters his personal bank accounts, it’s his; what he does with it is none of my business. (Unless he wants to run for public office, which may place him in a position to make his opinions into law.)

That may seem like splitting hairs to some. So be it. To me it makes a difference. I don’t shop at Wal-Mart. That has nothing to do with how the Walton family spends its obscene fortune, and everything to do with their business practices. (How they treat their employees and how much of their merchandize is from China, for example.)

A representative democracy only works if people of good will can discuss their differences. It’s not working now, largely because that isn’t happening. We’d better start soon, or what’s left won’t be worth fighting over.

Does This Hurt?

Doctors have this thing they do now when you say something hurts. “On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst pain you can imagine, how bad is it?” This is stupid on a couple of levels.

First, I write crime fiction; I can imagine a lot. “You mean like having a bayonet thrust through your navel then thrust upward to your sternum? Is that ten?” Well,

a. I don’t know what that feels like, and

2. If it hurts that bad, I’m probably too engaged to tell you about it.

How about a system that actually means something, that people can relate to? I am proposing the King Pain Scale, which may someday achieve the same level of acceptance as the Apgar test or the stages of grief.

1. I’m fine. Leave me alone.

2. I’m aware of it.

3. It’s sore.

4. It hurts.

5. It’s painful.

6. I’m in a lot of pain.

7. Hurts like a bastard.

8. Incapacitated.

9. Unconscious.

The Sole Heir is about a year away from spending more money than most people’s houses cost to go to medical school, and she has this kind of a resource right here, for free. Go figure.

An Open Letter to Chick Fil-A

Dan Cathy

CEO, Chick Fil-A

Dear Mr. Cathy,

I have been a fan of Chick Fil-A restaurants since serving at Fort McPherson during my time in the Army in the early 1980s; I have eaten at the original restaurant in Hapeville GA. I currently live in Laurel MD, and my wife and regularly eat at the local Chick-Fil-A. (By regularly, I mean at least once a week, sometimes more.) I believe it is the finest fast food restaurant I have seen, not only because of the quality of the food, but the exceptional cleanliness of the restaurant, and the courteous and friendly demeanor shown by everyone on the staff. I have mentioned this to managers on more than one occasion. I am sorry to say I will not eat there anymore, due to Chick Fil-A’s support of groups that actively advocate against same-sex marriage.

Make no mistake, I understand these groups—such as Focus On the Family—may perform many worthy functions for families. Unfortunately, their support for only the type of family they consider to be appropriate, and their efforts to limit the rights of any who would subscribe to a different view, are hateful and without compassion. I have several gay friends; my daughter’s godmother is gay. These are good people who have lived lives more difficult than they should have been because of intolerant views about a matter that is no one’s business but their own. I know of no person or organization providing evidence of any kind to show same-sex marriage affects anyone else’s marriage or family choices.

I understand there are religious issues in play here. I do not mean to be anti-religion. If a religion’s conscience does not allow it to accept same-sex marriages, that is their right. It is not their place to try to enforce such strictures on others. Too often Old Testament verses are quoted to damn those who are different, when any good Christian should look more to the New Testament and its lessons of tolerance, as the New Testament is where Christians are supposed to have taken their teachings.

This is a free country, and everyone is free to worship as they see fit. I think any self-proclaimed “Christian” organization should be more inclusive, but do not feel they should be forced to do so. All I am saying here is you can’t use any of my money to fund activities I find personally abhorrent, even if done indirectly.

Sincerely,

Dana King

Laurel MD

Exercising the First Two Amendments

It’s always good to hear from The Second Amendment Correspondent. It’s been too long since we sat down over dinner and discussed everything from work and mutual acquaintances to what’s wrong with the world. His comments to a previous post are, as always, thoughtful and thought-provoking. In the spirit of energetic discourse, here are some of the thoughts he provoked (his comments in italics for reference):



Some good points. Not enough. Health inspectors? As someone who has dealt with them, I can tell you they don't protect us anywhere near what you think. Look at all the food related scandals we've had lately. And no, likely they wouldn't be worse without them in many cases. After all, the USDA and FDA approved "Pink Slime".


No argument about pink slime and the other food issues the past few years. Two things to consider: isn’t it odd how things got worse when the inspectors’ budgets started to get cut. Also, let’s not forget our history. Do we really want to go back to the way things were a hundred years ago, where food safety was balanced against profits? Unless you’re planning on growing your own food, someone has to be the impartial arbiter.

Most people who do the research realize that the TSA isn't actually protecting us anywhere near what the government would like us to believe. News organizations routinely wander around the baggage area and on the runway without interference. Thank God the terrorists haven't figured that out yet (although I can't imagine why not).


No defense of TSA here, but is the solution to go to a private security firm? Seems to me for-profit companies were running airline security on September 11, 2001. How’d that work out?


The main issue with the healthcare package is that it requires an enormous amount of money to support it. More than we can pay. People forget that the real provisions don't kick in until 2014 as enough money needed to be collected upfront to pay for it. That is if our "expert" politicians don't raid it like they have Social Security (which by the way isn't an entitlement as we all pay into it).


The United States spends more on defense than the world’s next nineteen countries combined. We build sports stadiums for hundreds of millions of dollars apiece. We can’t afford to ensure everyone has decent, basic, health care? We keep hearing about what we can’t afford. It’s not that we can’t afford these things; we don’t want to pay for them.


No defense here of how Social Security has been treated, though there seems to be some confusion over who is more at fault for this. Generally speaking, the least fiscal responsibility is exercised when so-called conservatives are in charge. Over the past thirty years—maybe even fifty—deficits are more likely to rise when conservative hold power then liberals.


Our government has consistently shown itself to be unreliable and untrustworthy in many cases whenever we allow it more power. Why we would entrust the government with any more regulatory power than it already has baffles me.


We have a large number of elected officials who ran on the platform of “government is the problem,” so it is now in their best interests to ensure government is the problem. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
One example, anyone know how many regulations govern the production and distribution of ground beef? Something that has had multiple outbreaks of e. coli infestation? Take a guess - and you'll be wrong.
There are 40,000 regulations covering ground beef. And no, I didn't put too many zeroes there. So, with 40,000 regulations and all the inspectors out there, they still can't prevent widespread contamination of ground beef.


There are a couple of ways to look at this. One, there are clearly too many regulations. We need fewer regs, better enforced. On the other hand, I doubt anyone sat around making up regulations out of thin air. Regulations are like the rules of sports: new one come up when someone finds a way around the old ones. The truth is somewhere between those two extremes.


But, we think they can regulate healthcare (remember, pass it so you can find out what's in it?)



We all knew the key elements in the Affordable Care Act:
· Young adults can now stay on their parent’s health plan up to age 26.
· Some small businesses with fewer than 25 employees can get help paying for the cost of providing health insurance.
· Insurance companies can’t deny health coverage to kids with pre-existing conditions.
· Adults who have been uninsured for at least 6 months and have been denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition may now get coverage.
· Insurance companies can’t place dollar limits on the health care they cover in your lifetime. 
· Those in the Medicare Part D “doughnut hole” get a 50 percent discount on name-brand prescription drugs and a 7 percent discount on generic prescription drugs.
· Those in Medicare can get preventive services and screenings, such as mammograms and colonoscopies, at no cost to them. 
· New health plans must offer preventive and screening services, such as mammograms and colonoscopies, at no cost to the patient. 
Down the Road
· Insurance companies won’t be able to deny coverage to anyone with a pre-existing conditions.
· Health insurance will cover essential health benefits and coverage will be guaranteed for nearly all Americans. 
· Most Americans will be required to purchase health insurance if they don’t already have it – and depending on your income, they may get help paying for it. 
· Insurance companies won’t be able to place dollar limits on the care they cover in a single year. 
· Americans without health insurance will be able to buy it through state-based marketplaces called exchanges. 
· More Americans will have access to health coverage through Medicaid.


None of these exist in a health care market run by the open market. We also knew there were no death panels in it.


Tea Party advocates are proud to pull out Revolutionary War slogans; “Don’t tread on me” is a favorite. There are two they conveniently forget. You never see them wave the flag showing the snake cut into thirteen pieces, and you never hear them recalling Benjamin Franklin’s words: We must all hang together, or we will all must certainly hang separately. The United States became the richest and most powerful nation in history during a period of social liberalism, where the words “To who much is given, much is expected” had real meaning. The current every man for himself, devil take the hindmost mentality has a good chance of undoing all of that. Everything good that has happened to this country over the past seventy years could have happened elsewhere; there but for the grace of God. Everything bad that has happened elsewhere can also happen here if we’re not careful of the legacy we have been handed.


Right Winger, and proud of it.


My good friend, and happy to have you. I’d post here more often for this kind of response.

How Mitt Romney Made His Money

Courtesy of Huffington Post.

Claiming a Father’s Privilege

Few things are more tedious than people who tell you every little thing their kids do, from their first bowel movement through retirement. Past a certain age, most of us have kids, we all love them, and they all do things their parents think are remarkable. I’m not in the business of relentlessly promoting The Sole Heir, and I’m not about to start.

That doesn’t mean I don’t get to bump my chest a little when she has a week like this one.

On Tuesday she received her MCAT scores. (MCATs are the medical school equivalent of SATs for incoming freshman.) Her total for the three numerically scored sections was 33, including 13 in Verbal Reasoning. Of course, those numbers means nothing to anyone not involved in the medical profession. Suffice to say she well exceeded the average section scores of students for medical school (8.8) as well as some top flight medical schools. (Georgetown 10.0; George Washington 9.4; Johns Hopkins 10.1.) Her writing score was an R (on a scale of A to T, T being highest); the average accepted student gets an N. Overall, that places her near the 90th percentile, and that’s a pretty harsh curve, since you don’t take MCATs unless you’re planning to be a doctor.

That would be a good week for anyone. It’s not even the most exciting thing to happen to TSH.

Tomorrow she leaves for seven weeks in France. First a week of sightseeing in Paris with her mother, then off to Nice to participate in a medical internship at a trauma hospital, observing surgeries and doing other pre-doctor kinds of things. She is the first student from St. Mary’s College of Maryland ever to be chosen for this program.

I’ll miss her and I’ll be anxious for her until she returns, but I won’t worry. My daughter is very much the person I’d like to be if I ever grow up. She knows how to take care of herself.

Well done, Bink.

Missing Connections

For a nation with no qualms about telling the rest of the world how it should live, Americans seem to have a lot of trouble connecting causes and effects. We see them when they aren’t there, and don’t see them when they are. The latter is the subject of today’s diatribe.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) is about to come before the Supreme Court. Polls show the law is unpopular. Asking people how they feel about the individual provisions should show a wide band of dissatisfaction, right?

Not quite.

Pre-existing conditions can’t be held against you? Love it. Keep your kids on your insurance until they’re 26? Love it. Prescription benefits? Love it. Advances in maintaining medical records? Great idea. Better access to preventive care? Common sense.

Aside from amorphous conspiracy theories (European-style socialized medicine will corrupt your precious bodily fluids!), about the only thing people don’t like about the ACA is the individual mandate, which is necessary to keep younger, healthier people from cherry-picking their care. “You can’t make us have health insurance!” is the cry. “It’s a crumbling of our Constitutional liberties.”

What’s most interesting about this is those who are most hysterical about it have, in general, accepted the Patriot Act as an essential protection of the American Way of Life. These folks also have no issues with TSA requiring colonoscopies before allowing one to board an airplane. Americans insist on paying for their own invasive procedures, which is not the face I’d want to show the rest of the world.

Then there is government regulation. Ask any red-blooded American about government regulations and he’ll tell you they stymie business, cost jobs, and don’t do a damn bit of good.

Probe deeper and you’ll find this same person doesn’t want to have to do without food and drug inspectors, highway safety standards, environmental and workplace health rules, and on and on. Those are government regulations, folks, and the reason you like them is because the people those rules are intended to regulate will fuck you to death without them.

I could go on, but the point is made. Americans are perfectly happy to throw out a program that helps a thousand people because they heard someone gamed the system, even if they can’t prove that someone actually did what their buddy on the Internet (or Rush Limbaugh or Rick Santorum) said they did. Writers know never to let truth get in the way of a good story. The same rule should not apply to life decisions.

March 1

It was about 8:00 PM when I dropped my coat on the stairs and made it to the bathroom barely in time to vomit from adrenaline and exhaustion. Awake for thirty-eight hours, hardly anything to eat, and I had the easy job. I might have fallen asleep on my way to the bedroom. When the phone woke me an hour later my shoes were on, neither foot on the bed. I would have ripped the caller a new one, but it was my mother-in-law, and she deserved a special dispensation.

She’d only been a grandmother for three hours.

She wasn’t home when I called from the hospital; she had only just received the message.

It took a little over thirty-four hours of labor to become an official father. Mom was getting stitched up when the midwife invited me to meet my daughter. Unseeing and cold, she looked everywhere and nowhere until they told me to speak to her, and she looked straight at me. We played that game a few times and it was time for neo-natal ICU after a less than perfect Apgar test.

That was twenty-one years ago today. Happy Birthday to The Sole Heir.

Almost eight years ago someone else with a March 1 birthday came into my life. She’s still around, too, known better to readers of this blog as The Beloved Spouse.

Happy birthday to the two women in my life. You are the reasons I look forward to every day.