Sunday Soapbox: Defending What I Never Said

*Steps on soapbox*

A week ago, I couldn't think of something to complain about. Today, it's how to choose.
Regarding some of the possibilities, I'm probably too irked to be objective, so I'll stick with one of my pet peeves. What is it, you wonder?

People telling me what I think, what I meant (but did not say), and asking me to defend positions I've never taken (or that even crossed my mind). This isn't aimed at any particular person. I can't remember when it didn't happen, which strikes me as odd. People who don't know me and people who do, it doesn't seem to matter. Too often, people get bent into shape over what they think I meant to say, rather than what I said. And demanding I defend those things I never said.

Part of it, I think, is that, because I'm very straightforward - and people often aren't - it's easy to assume I'm only telling part of my opinion or that I have a hidden agenda. Folks, if I have something to say, I'll say it. You don't have to read between the lines. I don't write anything there.

I'm a fairly unique individual. It's easy, when someone espouses a particular view (particularly if it's not one the other person shared), to assume someone got it from listening to others. That isn't me. I'm not saying I've never been swayed by what someone had to say, but it was because it fit in with my own thinking, included data I didn't have, or involved better reasoning than my own. It's happened. But it didn't happen because of who was telling me, but that what they had to say fit in with my own way of thinking, made sense when I thought about it. Which means, it's still my thinking. My mind can be changed, but you have to have logic that works for me as well as the logic that got me where I am.

What I'm saying is, it's unlikely anyone can predict how I got here or what my opinions are on other topics based on my opinion on one. I'm weird. I don't fit in any particular religion, philosophy, political ideology, area of expertise, mindset, background, race, or mold in general. They not only broke the mold when they made me, the stomped on it a few times for good measure.

But, if you manage to decide what I "really" meant to say or what I was implying, for heaven's sake, don't expect me to defend your interpretation of my words. I won't do it. Ask me to defend what I've said, describe how I got there, say why I think the way I do, no problem. But I get to decide what I think, no one else. And I won't defend positions I don't have.

Just sayin'.

*Steps off soapbox*

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What's a Thinker to Do?

Based on the comments on my last post, most of the thinkers I know are disheartened by how much easier it is for the dumb but emotionally manipulative stories to gain traction than any amount of rational logical thought.

Experience argues they're right.

So, what's a thinker to do?

It would be nice to say, well, I can try to help people by educating them, encouraging people to think critically, to use their minds and discourage them to follow anyone blindly. And I will do that, even though I know that the ones most likely to listen don't really need me to tell them to think critically. Chances are, if they weren't the sort who did that, they wouldn't be frequenting my blog anyway.

The misinformation crowd has more outlets and more money, have people on staff who are experts in emotional manipulation. My reason and logic are drops in the bucket. Aren't they?

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
-Mahatma Gandhi

But then I think back to history and I find some hope. Not comfort, per se, but a light at the end of the tunnel, because those that do bad things, those that convince others to do the wrong thing with their emotional appeals and charisma - their reigns are short (even if the damage is acute). What's more, what's left behind after the smoke clears is smarter and less gullible. Freedoms, once provided, are there for the duration. Not so the oppression.

If there was no hope, we wouldn't understand the significance of Gandhi and King because they wouldn't have made a difference - but they did make a difference. It cost them, but they were successful without compromising their principles. It can happen.

In my opinion, this last (US presidential) election sends this same message. However one feels about the ideology of the two candidates last year, in many ways it was a battle between emotionalism and reason, negativity and hope, fear and hatred vs. compassion. And reason won. Whether Obama can follow through or not remains to be seen. That he's trying is encouraging for folks like me, even if some of what he's fighting involve the politics as usual from dems as much as republicans.

Admittedly, much of the reason we had a small victory is a direct result of who came before and the lessons we learned from that. But we learned. People can learn.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall - think of it, always.
-Mahatma Gandhi

If you look at society today, for all it's problems, can compare it to the intolerance and disparity of times gone by, the religious persecution and selective freedoms, the opportunities for all, including minorities, the world is a better place.

If we didn't learn, if we couldn't learn, all of us, it wouldn't be.

It's not perfect. We've more growing and learning to do. We may never reach our potential...but we're closer to it than we used to be. That ought to mean something.

If we don't have as many scientists as we should, we have more than we used to. If we don't have as many deep thinkers as we should, we have more than we once did. Education is more widespread in this age than it ever has been before.

Truth alone will endure; all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.
-Mahatma Gandhi

So, I'll stay here in my quiet corner, preaching to the choir, pointing out the nonsense when I see it, telling people my reasoning when I have it. I won't be silent. I won't be part of the problem.

If, over time, just a few minds open a little more, think a little harder as a result, the world is better off.

I won't believe it's hopeless. People are flawed, but I think they're mostly good, they want happiness for themselves and others. They can be misled, but not indefinitely.

Perhaps I'm wrong. But, if I am, I can't do anything to stop it. And if I'm right, I'm doing the best I can.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
-Mahatma Gandhi

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Thieving Thursday: Making the World Better

Joel Klebanoff again has provided me a venue to steal a good comment this week. He wrote a blog this week about how cool (but unlikely) it would be if we could all get along, stop warring and treating people with intolerance, stop killing and raping, stop beating up the old lady and kicking puppies (I'm paraphrasing). Then, he noted the terrible unemployment that would result from all those jobs in the army, in the military contractor venue, in crime fighting, etc that would be lost and horror would lay across the land. He meant it all in fun (and I knew it), but, around here, that kind of thinking is considered just short of gospel.

I don't get it.

Yes, military contractors would have to change focii or go out of business. Horse drawn cart builders did, too. And we survived. So did milkmen and ice deliverers and door-to-door brush salesmen. But they did so because the money still gets spent. People scream at the money the government spends BUT it largely goes back into the economy here. That's working against my argument but bear with me. See, let's say we had a balanced budget and a reasonable deficit (pause for uncontrollable laughter). Chances are, the bulk of the money not spent on ugliness, spent to support police and federal prisons and federal courts and FBI and CIA and the military and all the military contractors would be spent another way. Heck, shutting everything down would probably eat a chunk, at least the first year, and that money would be spent on jobs. But what about next year? Same thing. Or it could be spent to support universal health care that would allow more businesses to do their own hiring and would allow regular people to have more money to spend on other things rather than medical care/coverage. The money still goes out into the economy. Or it could be spent on rebuilding architecture. Or putting those technical minds to NASA or inventions or green energy or ...

Given, of course, that we won't be seeing a balanced budget any time soon or a deficit that isn't frightening, if this happened say, tomorrow, it might just go toward debts we're making or have already made. What about that? Well, everything we pay toward the principal is something we don't have to pay toward the interest, don't have to pay back later. Which means, in the long term it will do the same thing, put that money back into the system, our system, for our benefit.

It's really not complicated.

So, for our economic health, we're supposed to buy that war and violence and intolerance and nastiness in general are a small price to pay? This Rocket Scientist calls BS.

What is unfathomable to me is how the US public is brainwashed into thinking we owe whole industries a living. We're supposed to protect the profits of big oil and the auto industry and the military contractors and the...well, you name it.

Take for instance health insurance. Health insurance is screaming that the government can't be trusted to be a middle man between people and the ones that actually do the healing, that cutting out their incredible profits will somehow do the general populace a disservice and leave them paying more for less. Uh. How? The government doesn't have to make a profit. Hell, breaking even would be great. How could those using it not benefit? And, if there were only a one payer system, every doctor would be on it (thereby providing more assurance of choice, not less), but he wouldn't have to pay half his staff to do only filing for insurance because there'd be only one organization to deal with instead of eleventy dozen - so he could instead hire staff that would, I don't know, help people get well instead of shuffle forms.

And health insurance knows this which is why they're busting a gut trying to convince us we don't need a public option along with all of their private options. If government were really going to do such a crappy job, they'd be pushing for it. But, since they live and die by profit, they will lose in a head to head every time. Good riddance as far as I'm concerned. I have no sympathy for any company that profits on the pain and suffering of others. Maybe they can do something useful now. Or work for the government.

Of course, no one does this like big oil. "You need to keep buying oil and forgo those useless green technologies because they're too expensive." Oil is indeed cheaper. Today. Investing and more research can change that, though not necessarily overnight. However, conservation today saves the consumer money, no matter what oil costs (or green energy sources too, for that matter). And having solar or wind power available does the consumer only good. Every drop of oil they don't spend not only makes the world a better place, but also keeps further off the day when unavoidable skyrocketing oil prices sky high. It also limits our need to poke our noses where it doesn't belong militarily to protect our oil interests.

That, of course, brings us back to war. Shouldn't we be smart enough to know better by now? I've used this quote before but I think it fits perfectly.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
-Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953, a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors

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