Political Irony

© Ruben Bolling

While this comic might take some liberties for comic effect, it is scary how many people view behaviors far differently depending on the skin color of the person doing the behavior. Even people who aren’t particularly racist. For example, if you saw a black person carrying a hunting rifle around in an urban environment, would it make you more concerned that if a white person was doing the same thing?

Heck, even the NRA supported gun control (and even wrote some of the federal gun control laws) when the Black Panthers started packing.

Katrina vanden Heuvel (editor and publisher of The Nation) has published a powerful opinion piece in the Washington Post about net neutrality.

I like this one because it doesn’t depend on technical arguments or anything speculative. It just uses clear examples to show why letting the telecoms have their way with the internet would threaten not only the internet, but also the future of our democracy. You should go read it.

But as you know, this blog is about irony. So the reason I’m posting this is that vanden Heuvel points out near the end something particularly hypocritical about the Republican opposition to net neutrality – the GOP is willing to abandon pretty much anything they claim to stand for, in exchange for campaign contributions from large corporations:

Obama’s announcement sparked a predictable backlash from Republicans in Congress, who largely oppose even the most diluted attempts by the FCC to regulate the Internet. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) disparaged net neutrality as “Obamacare for the Internet,” a description that is, perhaps, even more absurd than he is. Standing in opposition to net neutrality is tantamount to standing against innovation, against small business, against private-sector job creation and against competition — all of the things that the Republican Party claims to stand for.

This may explain Citizens United. Money may not be free speech, but it sure does speak to some people.

[Albert Einstein wrote this in 1946. Given what is going on right now, I think it is relevant. I completely agree that people often unquestioningly accept things with which they have grown up, and that travel is a good way to help question one’s beliefs.]

I am writing as one who has lived among you in America only a little more than ten years. And I am writing seriously and warningly. Many readers may ask:

“What right has he to speak about things which concern us alone, and which no newcomer should touch?”

I do not think such a standpoint is justified. One who has grown up in an environment takes much for granted. On the other hand, one who has come to this country as a mature person may have a keen eye for everything peculiar and characteristic. I believe he should speak out freely on what he sees and feels, for by so doing he may perhaps prove himself useful.

What soon makes the new arrival devoted to this country is the democratic trait among the people. I am not thinking here so much of the democratic political constitution of this country, however highly it must be praised. I am thinking of the relationship between individual people and of the attitude they maintain toward one another.

In the United States everyone feels assured of his worth as an individual. No one humbles himself before another person or class. Even the great difference in wealth, the superior power of a few, cannot undermine this healthy self-confidence and natural respect for the dignity of one’s fellow-man.

There is, however, a somber point in the social outlook of Americans. Their sense of equality and human dignity is mainly limited to men of white skins. Even among these there are prejudices of which I as a Jew am clearly conscious; but they are unimportant in comparison with the attitude of the “Whites” toward their fellow-citizens of darker complexion, particularly toward Negroes. The more I feel an American, the more this situation pains me. I can escape the feeling of complicity in it only by speaking out.

Many a sincere person will answer: “Our attitude towards Negroes is the result of unfavorable experiences which we have had by living side by side with Negroes in this country. They are not our equals in intelligence, sense of responsibility, reliability.”

I am firmly convinced that whoever believes this suffers from a fatal misconception. Your ancestors dragged these black people from their homes by force; and in the white man’s quest for wealth and an easy life they have been ruthlessly suppressed and exploited, degraded into slavery. The modern prejudice against Negroes is the result of the desire to maintain this unworthy condition.

The ancient Greeks also had slaves. They were not Negroes but white men who had been taken captive in war. There could be no talk of racial differences. And yet Aristotle, one of the great Greek philosophers, declared slaves inferior beings who were justly subdued and deprived of their liberty. It is clear that he was enmeshed in a traditional prejudice from which, despite his extraordinary intellect, he could not free himself.

A large part of our attitude toward things is conditioned by opinions and emotions which we unconsciously absorb as children from our environment. In other words, it is tradition—besides inherited aptitudes and qualities—which makes us what we are. We but rarely reflect how relatively small as compared with the powerful influence of tradition is the influence of our conscious thought upon our conduct and convictions.

It would be foolish to despise tradition. But with our growing self-consciousness and increasing intelligence we must begin to control tradition and assume a critical attitude toward it, if human relations are ever to change for the better. We must try to recognize what in our accepted tradition is damaging to our fate and dignity—and shape our lives accordingly.

I believe that whoever tries to think things through honestly will soon recognize how unworthy and even fatal is the traditional bias against Negroes.

What, however, can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice? He must have the courage to set an example by word and deed, and must watch lest his children become influenced by this racial bias.

I do not believe there is a way in which this deeply entrenched evil can be quickly healed.
But until this goal is reached there is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of the good cause.

An article in The Atlantic points out something interesting. The abortion rate has been falling dramatically for the last 40 years, after rising sharply in the 1970s (after Roe v. Wade legalized it in 1973).

You might think that this is because of improved access to birth control, but there is almost no evidence to support that view (almost half of all pregnancies in the US are unintended). Or you might think it is because of increased restrictions on abortions, but the decline mainly happened before those restrictions started being enacted in 2010.

The answer is that culturally, single motherhood has largely become acceptable, so more women who become pregnant unintentionally are carrying their babies to term, with or without the father around.

And therein lies the irony. Social conservatives have traded reductions in abortion rates for increases in unwed mothers. Bristol Palin being one notable example.