It's hard out here for a realist
First of all, I'm not dead. My blog disappeared for a while, and then I got busy so I haven't had much time to update. But after some prodding by some people that shall remain nameless (though the name rhymes with, uh, shlavital) I've gotten back in a saddle. So here it goes.
You ever have that dream that you're standing in a room full of people hitting themselves in the head and no matter how loud you yell at them to stop, they don't even look up? No? Just me? Ok, nevermind. Let me put it this way:
Before I was considering coming to D.C., I was told at a journalism conference (ironically enough, being held in D.C.) that I should avoid coming to "The District" because it would "suck the life out of me." Ten moths later, I think I know what they meant.
That isn't to say, of course, that I've become some sort of emotionless being incapable of feeling — I'm just exhausted. The sheer amount of stupidity, incompetence and obliviousness I've witnessed and encountered boggles the mind.
Founder of the Na+ional Review Willi@m F. Buck|ey once defined conservatism as the willingness to "stand athwart history, yelling stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who do." Fair enough.
If it were up to me, which it isn't, I would make a slight change to this adage. Instead of yelling "stop," I prefer to yell "you're going the wrong way." At any rate, I'm tired of yelling.
When I see where we are as a nation, a society, or even as a planet and compare that to where I believe we should be, it's quite discouraging and overwhelming. Not only do we have a long way to go, but we're not even moving in the right direction.
Republicans have abandoned fiscal discipline and personal responsibility. Democrats have abandoned, well, pretty much everything in their effort to bash the President.
People still believe, even after mountains of evidence to the contrary, that government is the solution to problems like poverty, healthcare, and other social ills.
Afghans still want to put a man to death for converting to Christianity.
Even supporters of the war in Iraq are giving up on the entire mission after three years.
China and Russia continue to screw the rest of the U.N. Security council over Iran. Meanwhile, Jew-hating Iran continues to build the bomb and people still insist that the U.N. has any credibility at all.
Many members of generation X have become generation XXX in that they are over-sexualized, engage in casual sex and are generally hedonistic and debaucherous.
Entertainment media glorifies the aforementioned hedonistic and often criminal lifestyles.
It's enough to make a guy want to put a constitutionally-protected firearm in his mouth. Not really, but you know what I mean.
Rona|d Re@gan once said that the problem with liberals "isn't that they're wrong, it's just that they believe so much that isn't true." But as long as they believe the things that they do, the longer it's going to take to get on the right track.
I understand that the majority of people, especially people in my generation (apologies to Pete Townsend) are disinclined to listen to prude like me prattle on about these things — either out of apathy or disagreement. Both are immensely frustrating, but I prefer that people disagree rather than be apathetic. At least when there's disagreement there's dialogue taking place. Apathy is a tacit acceptance of the status quo, which in my opinion is quite undesirable.
I don't pretend to have any practical solutions to these problems, and I'm sure many people don't even see these issues as 'problems.' Nor am I simply suggesting that we turn back the clock. I just believe that we have a skewed view of progress, and it seems that most so-called "progressive" ideas, well, aren't. They haven't worked, they're not working, and they're not going to work. It's time we tried something different.
We only need to look as far as Europe to see the kind of future we have to look forward to should we continue down this path. Doesn't look like much fun to me, but then again, I'm an uptight prude, right?
posted by That guy @ 12:29 AM
22 Comments:
Pretty much.
Glad to see you're back writing again. Your blog is like a liferaft to me in this wasteland that I live in. I wholeheartedly agree with you with basically everything you've commented on. I've felt so alone in this city because I'm so outnumbered when it comes to the aforementioned views. I've given up on finding people my age to hang out with. Even most of the older people I associate with are of the same mindset. I consider a 70 year old and a 50 year old to be the closest thing I have to like-minded friends in this city.
They say the closer to DC you get, the worst the political situation is. I'm four hours away and it's completely screwed up. I wish people would open their eyes to how things really are and look where this path is going. Instead I can only politely nod and smile since debate is futile and only succeeds in getting my blood pressure dangerously high. Please continue to write more regularly. Knowing that I'm not completely alone in these views keeps me from being completely absorbed by despair. The sad thing is that I'm not being melodramatic. I'm in complete earnest about all of this.
I don't think age has as much to do with it as mindset. I know plenty of older people that are flaming liberals too. It's all about people's worldview.
If they think it's the government's responsibility to manage people's lives, if they think the UN is a credible institution, if they think adolescent/teenage sexuality isn't emotionally damaging, or whatever else, they're going to think that people like you and I are crazy prudes that just want to crap all over everyone's good time.
But shouldn't people be allowed to chose whichever path, however morally sound, they want to follow? You should discourage the 'wrong' choice, not ban the 'wrong' action. Not to mention that banning x makes the wanting of x more prevelent, which makes illegal x more prevelent...which is just a bad idea!
First off, I'm going to ignore for now the fact that you're begging the question all over the place.
Second of all, where did I say anything about banning anything? In fact, the entire post was about changing minds, not making things illegal.
Third, sign your posts. I mean, I know who you are, but not everyone does.
Finally, as for your begging the question: Banning something doesn't necessarily make it more prevalent. You can't just assume that.
Banning drunk driving doesn't make people WANT to drive drunk. That's just asinine.
By that reasoning, making things legal that are currently illegal would decrease their prevalence. Let's legalize theft and see how much stealing goes down.
And if people should be left to make their own moral choices, why have any ethics laws? For that matter, why have any laws period?
I get what you're trying to say...it just doesn't stand to reason.
You missed my whole argument.
Alright, I'll do it this way:
"But shouldn't people be allowed to chose whichever path, however morally sound, they want to follow?" No, they shouldn't. Most every law we have in this country is some form of moral guideline. If people were allowed to do whatever they wanted, moral or otherwise, there'd be no need for laws at all.
"You should discourage the 'wrong' choice," That's exactly what I was saying.
"[N]ot ban the 'wrong' action." I never said that.
"Not to mention that banning x makes the wanting of x more prevelent,"That's a flawed argument. You just assume when something is banned that it makes people want to do it. This is not true. Banning smoking in public places doesn't lead to more smoking in public places, does it? I wouldn't think so.
"[W]hich makes illegal x more prevelent...which is just a bad idea!"Again, you're just assuming your argument is true, which it isn't. So what'd I miss?
But shouldn't people be allowed to chose whichever path, however morally sound, they want to follow? Example, abortion. One can be pro-choice and still think abortion is a mortal sin. I can't liken that argument to anything, since it is quite unique. You should discourage the 'wrong' choice, not ban the 'wrong' action. Think of that in terms of abstinance vs. safe sex, and the like. Not to mention that banning x makes the wanting of x more prevelent, which makes illegal x more prevelent...which is just a bad idea! Well, perhaps that was a huge leap. I regret saying that here. Pardon me.
Charles,
2 short quibbles to your post:
1) I don't think the "government should be the solution" mindset is nearly as prevalent as you seem to imply it is. Especially in this post-Clinton, "the era of big government is over" age, I don't see very many people arguing that government should solve all of society's ills or all of people's problems. Of course some people, Democrats/liberals in particular, want to see government act as a "safety net" for the poor/eldery, and want to see more public funds go to social services, but I think it's basic CW nowadays that just throwing the governments money at a problem isn't going to make it go away. For example, with education I think most democrats would agree the best approach to solving this is some mix of public funds and standards for teachers and schools. And even with welfare reform under Clinton, you had the government act as a temporary crutch to help someone get back onto their feet, not some paternal figure providing for them. While this might be a pretty large blanket statement, I don't see many people seriously looking in envy at the welfare state in The Old World (with healthcare being of course the major exception).
2) With regards to the law/morality discussion prompted in the comments section, I don't quite think all the laws we have are necessarily derived from morality. Without getting too philosophical here, laws against killing or stealing have just as much to do with self-interest (Hobbes, anyone?) than they do with a higher ethical principle. And then you have plain 'ol boring patent laws, anti-trust laws, and things like trade regulations that seem to have more to do with capitalism that anything.
This isn't entirely to dismiss the question of whether or not government should be able to step in and ban certain unethical and immoral things rather than simply discouraging them. There are obviously certain things that should be banned: to take a pretty boring example, torturing animals. But in less clear-cut cases you run into the issue of censorship. Can you shout "fire" in a crowded theater? Can you burn a cross on your front lawn across from your new black (or Jewish) neighbors? Should the government ban all forms of pornography? These are all things the courts have ruled on, whether you agree with them or not, but they're all certainly debatable and subject to change just as society's norms change.
As a last aside, I've always seen somewhat of a contradiction by people who complain that the government should stay out of private citizens lives (say, with taxes) but at the same time want the government to step in and ban/regulate other things (say, with pornography). I don't know if this is wanting to government to stay out of economic matters but play a role in ethical matters, or just wanting the government to play a role in citizens' lives only when its agreeable to you.
(Just so I don't come off the wrong way, on this last point, Charles, I'm not directing this specifically at you or anything you wrote in this post, but rather to thinkers and pundits closer to your ideological leaning than mine so you can tease out an answer for me.)
Ryan
First, to address the not-so-anonymous poster — that doesn't make such sense either. I've never really understood people that say "I'm pro-choice, but I think abortion is a terrible thing/'mortal sin'." That doesn't make sense for any other kind of issue. I mean, that's like saying 'I think slavery is a terrible thing, but I think people should be able to choose whether they own slaves.'
Regardless of whether you practice what you consider a 'mortal sin,' if you condone other people committing it, there is, I believe, a certain level of complicity there.
Of course, it's something completely different for people who don't see anything wrong with abortion in the first place. But to say that you're pro-choice but still think abortion is a mortal sin seems to be a bit of a cop out.
As for what Ryan said, I don't necessarily think that there's a huge movement underway to make government the provider, but I think we're slowly drifting that way.
And don't get me wrong...I'm all for having a safety net for the poor and elderly and the like. I just don't think the government should be the one providing it.
My main problem with government involvement in things like that is that it diffuses personal responsibility. People are much less likely to get involved with their communities and helping the poor and elderly when they think 'the government is handling it.' This relegates the people in need of care to the inefficient, ineffective government programs and often doesn't get them the care they need. And that's not cool.
As for laws being derived from morality, naturally not every law is the result of some moral conundrum, but even patent laws, I think, come from the idea that it's wrong to steal other people's ideas. The whole concept of right and wrong comes from morality — at least as I understand it. I could be wrong on that...I haven't had a philosophy class in like five years.
As far as people that want government in their lives in some ways and not others, I know what you mean. But I don't think its necessarily a contradiction. I mean, only the most extreme libertarians/anarchists favor no government involvement at all and only the most radical leftists/fascists favor total government control. The vast majority of people are somewhere in between.
It's all a matter of what people think government's responsibilities are.
I give up. You don't want to hear it anyway.
If I may play devil's advocate a bit more, 3 very quick responses:
1) One could say--again to use the pornography example--that if government involvement does impede personal responsibility, and personal responsibility is a good thing in itself, pornography (or some other immoral societal ill) should be allowed so that people can more fully take responsibility for their moral choices. After all, isn't a person more morally virtuous if they lack some vice because they turned it down rather than the vice never being an option at all? To pre-empt an objection, if the vice is, say, killing people, you obviously don't even want that to be an option, but for more gray areas, like pornography (yes, maybe I keep coming back to pornography for a reason) the existence of it isn't so threatening.
2)I wish I could agree with you that people won't help others when the government steps in to do their altruistic work for them, but I'm a bit more cynical about human nature. I think people don't help the poor either because they think they're poor for a reason and thus don't warrant help, or because they simply don't have that type of empathy for people. I don't think the existence of government handouts has much of a bearing on personal philanthropy.
3) Here's where I'm really going to sound like a cynic, but laws about stealing, murdering, lying, etc., can certainly all be chalked up to self-interested, Hobbesian social contract as much as they can to an objective moral (or religious) code. This is totally academic and really has no bearing on the crux of your argument(s), but the philosophy major in me just had to get that out.
Cheers to the lively debate,
Ryan
To anonymous — Just because I'm not convinced by your argument doesn't mean that I'm not listening. I get what your saying, I just think it's poorly reasoned. I don't see how a person can consider a certain action to be a "mortal sin" but yet still condone its comission. Try again.
To Ryan — Play Devil's advocate all you want. It's always nice to keep the debate skills sharpened.
As far as your pornography argument, I'm not saying that pornography or any similar immoral thing should be made illegal outright. I just think it should be made more difficult to obtain. I actually have quite a lot to say on the issue of 'censorship' (though I find the term misleading) but that could take up its own post, so I'll save that for another time.
Suffice it to say that people that want to see pornography have every right to do so, but it should not be readily accessible, especially to minors.
As for your comments on personal philanthropy, I think you're being a little too cynical. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying that if welfare were abolished that Pat Buchanan would be out there helping inner city school children. There will always be people — for the sake of argument, let's call them "pricks" — that think that poor people deserve to be poor, sick people deserve to be sick and old people deserve to be old.
But for the most part, people will be more likely to help if they tink no one else is doing it. I've seen quite a bit of data that show personal philanthropy in socialist Europe is anemic compared to that in America. And I know it's insanely difficult to prove causality, but I can't help but think that the massive welfare state has something to do with it.
And I'll cede the point that laws can be chalked up to Hobbesian philosophy as much as morality, but it's hard to tell the difference. I mean, some people might think 'I won't steal because it's wrong' and some people might think 'I won't steal because I might get the crap kicked out of me' but the end result is the same. Personally, I'm more of a Locke kinda guy.
I shall attempt to explain the abortion thing. Being female, this can get to be a pretty personal issue. Being Catholic pretty much cements my opinion that abortion is wrong and should be avoided. So I don't see it as a form of birth control, but... there are situations when it's just the better choice. There are situations where murder in general is the better choice. Courts call that self-defense. When a mother aborts the child because she can't care for it, doesn't want the burden, ect. abortion falls in the same grey area. Adoption, you say? Eh. That still means swelling to enormous size and going through gobs of pain and missing work. If anything else did that to a person, medical procedures preventing it would be hailed. Not threatened. I used to say that, were a draft instituted, I would get pregnant to avoid it because my life would already be ruined. That said, I still think abortion is wrong. But...I also see why banning it is wrong.
Ok, so you said you don't agree with abortion as birth control...but then you said "When a mother aborts the child because she can't care for it, doesn't want the burden, ect. abortion falls in the same grey area." Um...that seems like using it as birth control to me. How about using some kind of birth control, oh I dunno, prior to having sex? Don't do something if you can't afford the consequences. I'm not saying I am against abortion in all cases - when the mother's life is at risk or someone is the victim or rape or incest, its a different story. While this makes the law itself tricky, and makes me personally lean more towards the pro-choice side of things, I still have the belief that abortion is wrong and should only be done in the most dire of circumstances.
I'm not even going to touch on the whole if there "were a draft instituted...my life would already be ruined"...I'll leave that for someone else.
Ditto to what "A" said.
That has got to be one of the most shallow defenses of abortion I've ever heard.
"Adoption, you say? Eh."? Are you serious? You would rather abort a child than gain a few pounds, go through child birth and miss work? Your selfishness astounds me.
Also, pregnancy isn't a disease. The weight gain and pain aren't symptoms. Abortion isn't treatment for a disease. Medical procedures that end pregnancy can't be compared to medical procedures that heal illnesses.
And it's not like people get pregnant randomly. It takes quite a bit of effort on your part. Like "A" said, if you're not prepared to handle the consequences, don't put yourself in the position to get pregnant.
As far as your comment on the draft, I don't really see what that has to do with anything. But ok. First of all, a draft will never be instituted. Second of all, you're female so you're ineligble for it. Third, in the event that a draft WAS initiated and you WERE eligible, you're too old. Fourth, in the event that there was a draft, you were eligible and not too old, you in all likelihood wouldn't be sent into combat. Fifth, in the event that a draft was enacted, you were eligible, you weren't too old and you WERE sent into combat, you wouldn't necessarily be killed. Being in the military isn't a death sentence. Trust me. But with that attitude, I wouldn't want you fighting for this country anyway.
As John Stuart Mill said: "The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
As far as your "being Catholic," Catholicism says a lot of things that you don't follow. What makes this so special?
And I agree with you...almost completely. But not quite. Because I am a sexually active female. And no matter what precautions are taken, condoms do break. Periods are late. And it's just reassuring to have options, even though they might only rarely be taken. And shouldn't be taken. But it's good to know that options are there, are safe, and are legal.
I apologize for my lack of verbal skills and abundance of frustration.
You're exactly right. Condoms do break. Things do go wrong. That's why, if you're not prepared to have a child, you shouldn't even take that risk. It really is that simple. Abortion shouldn't be a matter of convenience.
There are actually very few instances where abortion is medically necessary. Otherwise, like it or not, it's just a glorified form of birth control. And given the barbarism of the procedure, that really shouldn't be the case.
Point, perhaps. But face it, people are dumb.
I'm a little confused by your logic here...people are dumb, so we should allow abortion?
Until you illiminate the need to use them as 'glorified birth control' or whatever, removing the legality of abortions is not wise. Having to go underground instead of to a clinic or a hospital is not safe or sanitary or cheap. Read Crichton's Case of Need.
And the way to illiminate the need is to teach safe sex. And to teach the options to take after unsafe sex (morning-after pill). Until such things are taught and hailed, there will be the need for abortions. So yes, people are stupid.
So because people are stupid, they shouldn't be responsible for their actions? What kind of logic is that?
The fact of the matter is, none of those precautions are 100 percent effective, aside from not engaging in sexual activity. So, unless you're prepared to take that risk, i.e. have a child, you shouldn't put yourself in that situation.
Like I said before, abortion should be a practice of medical necessity, not personal convenience. If an abortion would medically save your life, by all means have one. But if you just don't want the burden of having a child, you should've thought of that before you put yourself into the position to get pregnant.
And I'm not sure how this went from a debate over governmental responsibility to a debate over abortion, but whatever.
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