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.

An interesting article in The Daily Beast points out what should be obvious to everyone by now — the GOP may pay lip service to social conservatives, but they haven’t actually done much of anything for them. The interesting part is why — you can’t solve a cultural problem with a political solution. Or stated another way, you can’t legislate morality.

Prohibition demonstrated that a long time ago, but somehow that didn’t stop us from trying a “war on drugs”. So what made anyone think that making homosexuality a crime would eliminate it? Or think that making abortion illegal would do anything other than cause the deaths of desperate women.

In large part the GOP gained power in the last 40 years because they expanded their base beyond the rich, moneyed elites who have always controlled the party by adding (mainly religious) social conservatives. For the rich, this was a marriage of convenience, and for them it was very convenient. As the article puts it:

Now, let’s see who has won, and who has lost, in the ensuing 34 years.

It’s clear that the rich—call them the 1 percent if you like, but I prefer to think of them as the moneylenders whom Jesus threw out of the Temple—have prospered enormously. In 1983, the wealthiest 1 percent were 131 times richer than the average American. In 2009, they were 225 times richer. In 2012, the top 20 percent made $13.5 trillion in income; the entire bottom 80% made $1 trillion.

These are disparities not seen since before the Great Depression. Whether for better or for worse, the ultra-rich have done extremely well in the 30 years you’ve allied with them.

How have you done, in the same period? Not well at all. Not only is gay marriage now the law for over two-thirds of Americans while the value of marriage in general has been declining for decades; not only are television, film, music, and video games more vulgar than we could have imagined in 1980; but more Americans are declaring themselves “Nones,” that is, people of no religious affiliation, than ever before in our history. Sure, some churches are expanding, but overall, your way of life is in steep decline. In short, you are losing horribly.

Ironically, social conservatives should learn from the gay movement, which initially tried a political solution (laws and lawsuits), but saw that the more they tried to force their beliefs on others, the stronger the backlash. They realized that to solve a cultural problem (discrimination against gays) they had to use a cultural solution.

And gays did, with TV shows like Ellen and “Will & Grace” and by breaking down cultural stereotypes in hundreds of other ways. They showed that gays are people with the same hopes and aspirations as everyone else. And it worked. Even gay friends of mine were surprised by how quickly they won the right to marry. And with little or no backlash.

In trying for a political solution, social conservatives have created such a backlash. The face of social conservatism has become shrill politicians and wingnuts like Michele Bachmann and Fred Phelps. No wonder young people are running away from religion. But most Christians are not bigots or homophobes.

Social conservatives are in an abusive relationship with the Republican party. Maybe it is time to break up.

There is a good reason why our founding fathers insisted on a wall of separation between church and state. It was meant to protect religion as much as to protect the state.

After Obama announced his executive action to clean up some of our immigration mess, Republicans screamed bloody murder. As reported here over a week ago:

Rep Steve King said that Obama was “throwing this nation into a crisis”. And Senator Tom Coburn warned of “violent reactions” from people who disagree with Obama, saying “the country’s going to go nuts” and we could see “instances of anarchy [and] violence”.

It should be no surprise to anyone that the reality is quite different. Gallup just released poll results that show that 50% of Americans say that Obama’s action is “about right”, with 22% saying “not far enough”. Only 26% say it went “too far”. In other words, 72% of Americans are fine with what Obama did.

Obama’s approval rating even improved to 44%. To put that in perspective, that’s close to Reagan’s rating of 47% at the same point in his presidency.

A new study from Duke University in North Carolina gives strong statistical proof that the practice of Gerrymandering is perverting our democracy.

North Carolina has 13 congressional districts. In the study, they drew a series of 100 congressional district maps randomly. They took the actual vote results from the 2012 election and totaled them for each randomly drawn map. They found that with exactly the same votes, on average 7.6 Democratic representatives would win the election.

This contrasts sharply with the 4 Democrats elected in the real election. In their conclusion, the authors state bluntly that allowing Gerrymandering subverts the “will of the people“.

It is easy to get rid of Gerrymandering. In fact, the US is the only major country that allows self-interested politicians to control the redistricting process. Three states (Washington, California, and Arizona) have laws that require redistricting to be done in a non-partisan manner. And there are other alternatives, such as avoiding congressional districts entirely and elect representatives for a state “at large”.

Gerrymandering violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause, and furthermore violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We should get rid of this dinosaur.