Partisan as hell

I believe in standing up for what I think is correct. I'll talk about it, and explain my point of view. I think it's useful to pay attention to what others are saying, but that doesn't mean I should buckle whenever someone disagrees with me.

I like the notion of everyone working together for the common good. It's a nice thought. But if half of a group thinks you should be moving forward and one half thinks you should be moving backward, compromise isn't "working together"; it's allowing one side to get its way, just not as much as they'd like.

If it comes down to a choice between moving things I believe in forward, or compromising, I'll take moving things forward every time. The same goes for holding the line against things I believe in getting cut down.

There is a place for compromise, because otherwise nothing gets done. That place is anywhere where the effect is more important than the process. If you're about to be hit by a car, the important thing isn't so much whether you jump to the left or jump to the right, the important thing is not to get hit by the damned car. When something needs to be done, fine, compromise. But that's when something NEEDS to be done. Not when you just feel like doing something, or you think something might potentially be helpful. Differentiating needs from wants is one of the key elements to being an adult; it's pathetic that so few people in politics seem to understand that there's even a difference between the two.

When you stand up for what you believe in politics, you're called a partisan. Technically, it simply means that you adhere to a particular cause or another; in common usage, it carries all sorts of negative connotations. The other side of the aisle will also call you an extremist. (Extremists do tend to be partisan, but most partisans aren't extremists.) The people who agree with you will simply call you an "idealist". Forget the word games, the key is the notion behind the term. There's a big myth that we should all be compromising all the time, to get things done. Screw that, if the things being done aren't necessary. Let's have an actual argument of ideas on both sides, and put those ideas up to a vote. Whoever wins, wins. If the country doesn't like how it turns out, we can have another vote, later.

Being a partisan also doesn't give you license to be an asshole, nor does it automatically make you one. Too often people go out of their way to take offense at things said by people on the other side of the political fence, and they'll excuse damned near any action made by people they agree with. How about simply expecting them to hold to the same standards you have for others? If you'd be pissed off if your friend, or a guy on the street, or the waiter that serves you dinner if they said it, then apply the same standard to a politician. If you'd just laugh it off, then apply the same standard. It's really not that hard, and it'll cut through a lot of the whiny false offense.

ANOTHER THING:

If you're in the Mystery section of a used bookstore, keep an eye out for two of Harlan Coben's early books: Play Dead and Miracle Cure. You probably won't see the hardcovers; they're rare. The paperbacks turn up from time to time, though. And all of them are easy cash on Ebay. Or, if you want to toss them to me, I'll give you cash for them: $15 for either paperback, and the hardcovers will vary. Either way, worth picking up... and worth reading, too, for that matter.

If everybody says it, it must be true!

True or false time. Take this quiz, just answering true or false to each question.

1. Shots were fired at a relief helicopter from the Astrodome, in the days just after Katrina hit.
2. Al Gore claimed he invented the internet.
3. Dan Quayle said "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
4. Saddam Hussein had a direct connection to September 11th.
5. There have been no WMDs found in Iraq.

The answer is that all five are false. They're notable only because all five have found firm root in the beliefs of large numbers of Americans. Most of them have been referenced extensively in magazines, newspapers, online and in video. One of them, #4, has taken root with a number of people despite the fact that nearly every major news story which has brought it up has done so in the context of pointing it out as being wrong.

So, what's the point? Actually, there are a few.

First, when you hear something, consider the source. Hell, you're reading a blog right now... don't take my word for any of this stuff; go look up the facts on your own. But, to help you along, the story about the shooting was heavily reported, although it wound up not being accurate; Al Gore took deserved credit for being one of the congressmen who okayed funding for the establishment of the current Internet system, and it was twisted, primarily by political opponents, to make it sound like he was claiming credit for inventing it; while Dan Quayle has in fact made a lot of misstatements, many of the most famous (including the quote above) were created by comedians but were then attributed to him by political opponents; the nature of Saddam's interactions with Al Qaida are a matter of debate, but there is no credible evidence to believe he had any association with the Sept. 11th plot; and there have been sizable quantities of WMD found, enough to wipe out thousands of people, but nothing even remotely of the scale of the stockpiles he was purported to have.

The information is out there, but most people don't have the time to do heavy research, so instead they grab sound bites, or browse headlines, and they think they're informed. Or they catch a full story, and miss its public retraction later. That's one problem. Another problem is that things are sometimes misstated or misattributed, and after it's been done once, it gets perpetuated.

Hell, even the places which are designed to inform their readers/listeners are often intentionally biased, cutting portions of a statement out so that it makes the statement look like something other than what it was.

That leads us to the second point: Get multiple sources. Sure, there are some times when it's just not worth the time to look up multiple sources of a story. Hell, that might be most of the time. But if something strikes you as important, why not try to get the full story on it? Hearing other takes on a topic, expecially if you can try to consider the merits of the argument somewhat dispassionately, gives you a greater understanding of something you consider important.
And it's not that hard to find alternate takes. CNN and Fox slant in different directions, and both are accessible to anyone with cable. The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are both available at coffee and donut shops throughout the country. Rush Limbaugh and Randi Rhodes are both available on the radio dial or internet streaming. Molly Ivins and P.J. O'Rourke both put out books regularly. http://www.mediaresearch.org or http://www.mediamatters.org

And then there's the third: Just because a lot of people say it's true, doesn't mean it's true. There are two primary reasons why great misinformation happens; one is that the information from a bunch of different sources all stem from the same point. Like when Richard Jewell was investigated for the bomb in the Olympic Village in Atlanta. It turned out to be a mistaken charge, but because everyone covered the same press conference, everyone got the same, wrong, information. Same thing happened with Wen Ho Lee, and many others. Hell, the same thing happened with the initial report on the wonderful health effects of oat bran, or the creation of cold fusion in an aquarium. Two is when the falsehood is given a huge initial stage, especially with visuals. Whether it's President Bush talking about the huge stockpiles of WMDs during the State of the Union address, or Michael Moore altering video footage of Charleton Heston during an award-winning "documentary", one untruth can become imbedded as truth in the minds of many observers.

To close this up, I'd suggest that when you encounter sources of information, decide for yourself how reliable they are (by checking all sides of interesting stories, and seeing how close to the absolute truth your chosen source got) and when you find a few dependable ones, use them as primary information gathering spots. Just don't forget to check on them periodically, just to keep them honest.

How to vote

From what I've been able to determine, most people think they know this. Also, from what I've been able to determine, most people don't know how to do it in a way that actually benefits them. So, as a public service, I've decided to help. It'll take about one hour to do it right, some time before an election, and it'll pay off.

1) Throw out all the crap you've ever heard about who does what. You've heard that the Democrats are the party of the working man? Throw it out. You've heard that Republicans are better on national defense? Throw it out. And keep going. Start off at baseline, assume that neither side is going to do anything or is for anyone. Parties change positions, and individual politicians are often going to differ from their party on a few issues.

2) Figure out what you're for and what you're against. Just get a piece of paper and write down things you care about. It doesn't matter what they are. Get as detailed as you want. If you are concerned about your city's murder rate, put that down. If you want to make ferret ownership legal, or stop urban sprawl, or increase the minimum wage, or start drilling for oil in Alaska, or stop people from owning handguns... just write that stuff down. Then, when you feel comfortable with the list of stuff you care about, put it in some kind of order. Figure out what you care about most. Don't spend more than five minutes on this. If you can't think of stuff that matters to you within five minutes, it probably doesn't really matter that much to you. If you weren't specific, if you said you cared about generalizations like "liberty" or "the environment" without being specific about them, you're going to discover you wasted your time, because all major parties are going to be for those things. They're going to disagree on the specifics.

3) Find out what the different party platforms are on your topics. This should be pretty quick, because both parties will have web sites up. Work through all the bull that will be there, and find out what their actual position is. If they don't have a position, and their opponent does, don't just assume that the uncertain party's position is what you want. On the contrary, it's safest to assume that they'll do exactly what you don't want. They're trying to play you by not stating a position; don't be played.
This is important only because when the people you elect get into office, they're going to be pushed by the other people in their parties to vote with the rest of the party. And, in order to get influence on other votes and get money for re-election, a lot of the time they'll vote in line with the party over what they stated back when they were running.
This should run you about ten minutes, most of which will be trying to cut through the bull on the web sites to find out what they're really saying.

4) Find out what the individual candidates you can vote for have actually done, in terms of their voting record. It's important here NOT to use campaign ads, because both sides will be lying their asses off. So, where do you discover the voting record, at the last minute? Well, most of the stuff you wrote down, that you cared about, will have political action groups associated with them. Whether it's a committee for preventing people from owning handguns or a committe to drill in Alaska, all you have to do is do a web search for the thing you care about. The committees and groups will be there, somewhere, on the list you pulled up. When election time draws near, they always have lists of key laws which were proposed, and who voted how. Note, if you're concerned about something local for a local election, remember to put in your state or county. Finding a coalition to legalize ferrets as pets is worthless if that coalition is for Maryland and you're in California.
This will probably run you about thirty minutes.

5) Find out, on the candidate's web sites, if they've actually got propositions for dealing with the stuff you care about, and if so, their intentions. Again, assume that if they haven't got a position, it means they disagree with you. This shouldn't run more than five minutes.

6) Take the information you've gathered, and using that and that only, decide who you want to vote for. Almost always, you'll find out that you agree with one person on one topic, and their opponent on another, and on some topics none of the candidates agree with you. That's normal. What you're voting for is the person who best represents what matters to you.

This process works whether you've barely paid attention at all to politics, or if you're paying attention every day. Ideally, as mentioned in the previous post, you are paying some attention, because it'll give you a better idea of what arguments are out there, and maybe make you more informed come voting time. But even if you aren't, using this process should get you the best results from your vote.

Why should I care about politics?

This is the reason you should care about politics: self-interest.

I find it amazing that people who follow sports don't bother following politics. Yes, it's exciting to watch a sport being played, but at the end of the day, the only thing gained or lost is a bit of personal pride, when the team or athlete you follow wins or loses. But at its core, politics is all about three things: restricting what you are allowed to do, redirecting where money goes, and the way we deal with other countries.

Two of those things matter to just about everybody. The first, because nobody wants to have something they like to do, or might want to do, made illegal. You also probably don't want to have things you don't want others to do made legal. Politicians do both of those things when they write laws, so it's a good idea to keep an idea on what they're doing.
The second, because people tend to care about their cash. With a few strokes of a pen, politicians can reach into the paychecks of any working person, and pull out money. With other strokes, they can send that money wherever they want, or to whomever.

Neither of these things can be done by any sports star, or any Hollywood celebrity, or anyone at a recording label. They can entertain or disappoint you; politicians can destroy you.

They realize this. They don't get into power by being threatening, they get there by saying what they think you want to hear. They do this by keeping their statements simple and their laws complicated. You hear the simple stuff, then you look at the complicated laws, and decide just to trust them.

They know this. Both Republicans and Democrats do it. But in your life, if you encountered someone who always... ALWAYS... talked a good game, but you never got results, sooner or later you'd start to distrust them. You'd check out what they're actually doing, as opposed to what they're saying.

When enough people actually pay attention, though, they change their tune. That's the reason some things do get changed; the politicians hear enough anger, and get concerned about re-election. Because they always want to hang onto their power.

That's why you have to care. Because if you don't, these guys will just continue to do whatever they want to do, while controlling every part of your life. You wouldn't let your parents or your best friends do that; why would you let someone you've never met before do it?

"If I disagree, I'm stupid?" and other misconceptions

Let's get this out of the way fast.

I anticipate pointing out great measures of ignorance and stupidity on this blog. Or, more accurately, what I feel are indications of stupidity. Stupidity is, like so many other things, a subjective term. What I think is stupid, others might not.

That does not mean, however, that if anyone disagrees with me, they're a dope. What that means is that if they try to use specific, demonstrably inaccurate arguments to present their points, I think they're a dope.

Also, I expect to make errors when I'm writing these posts. It happens. The area for comments is designed to allow feedback, so a person can issue a mea culpa and correct the mistake. It's also designed for discussion of a topic presented, whether at length or in short "attaboy"/"you suck" formats. It is not a place for petty whining or flamewars. Look, the entire reason I'm doing this is to argue for rational thought; if anyone thinks for a moment I'm not going to delete comments by aggressive jackasses, they're not thinking straight.

Keep in mind exactly what the error is, too. If someone is talking about the damage a hurricane can do to a house, and then points out how a particular house had its roof torn off and three walls knocked down, someone else coming along and correcting the record by saying it had two of its walls knocked down DOES NOT REFUTE THE POINT. I can't count the times I've heard people grasp onto one misstatement or inaccuracy, and tried to pretend that it nullifies an entire case. It doesn't. The most it does is raise questions about the ability of the person to research and present facts; it doesn't raise any questions about their ability to reason based on the information they have.
(Simplified: Argue the point, don't argue bullshit.)

I also curse. This is a flaw of mine, and I admit it, and I'm not looking to change it for the purpose of this blog. I'm trying to present arguments in the way that I normally speak. That way, I can focus on the message and not the format. If the occasional blue language offends you, either stop reading or learn to live with it. This isn't broadcast television, it isn't talk radio, and it isn't your daily paper. I restrict myself, and that's the extent of the supervisory role.

ANOTHER THING:
If you happen to be hunting for a horror or thriller book that's either still in print or has recently fallen out of print, I suggest you stop by Shocklines. It's an online bookstore which has a great variety of the big names and the up-and-comers. You can usually find the newest Stephen King novel more cheaply at the local Borders or Barnes and Noble or Sam's Club, but if you want to find out about the upcoming limited edition of a signed Stephen King, Shocklines is the place to go. If you want to pick up David Morrell's latest paperback, hit the big bookstore; if you want to get a small press-exclusive collection by the man who wrote First Blood (filmed as the first Rambo movie), or The Brotherhood of the Rose, you go to places like Shocklines.
If you're hunting Science Fiction or Fantasy in the same vein, I'd direct you to Clarkesworld Books.
http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/
http://www.clarkesworldbooks.com/

There. That's my plug for some of the nicer online booksellers out of the way.

I do not think it means what you think it means.

From the news:
LONDON, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- Forcing store clerks to listen to the same holiday music over and over could be akin to torture and should change, a British noise pollution group said.
The UK Noise Association and labor unions are suggesting legal action on behalf of store employees who listen to endless looped recordings of holiday music, the Observer said Sunday.
"What we're saying is that, if Christmas carols are being played on the same CD repeatedly, that could create an unhealthy working environment. It must drive people to distraction," said Paul Clarke, spokesman for the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers.
Exposure to the same music constantly is "no different to being tortured," added Val Weedon, the noise association's national coordinator.
...........

What is torture? Most people have a pretty good idea, and for the vast majority of people, it does not include having Christmas carols play repeatedly during your shift for a few weeks in a row. Granting that some people can't drown them out into background noise, they will undoubtedly become irritating, annoying, and even grating... but torture?

When most people think about torture, they have scenes from movies and books in mind. Some of the more current-events oriented among us think of pictures we've seen from prison camps and interrogation rooms. But the important thing to get from the news article above is not that some groups are being ridiculous in how they classify torture. The important thing is this: the definition is subjective.

And it isn't just torture, either. It's just about any non-emotional concept. Define art. Define danger. While most people have a solid idea of what's being described by these things, the borders get fuzzy; almost everyone would consider being shot in the kneecap while restricted as torture, while few would include hearing Christmas songs played repeatedly. If the producers of 24 had Jack Bauer playing "Silent Night" over and over to try to get information from a terrorist, viewers wouldn't be able to take the thing seriously. But there are some people out there who really view it as torture.

You have to be aware of how the stories you hear might be slanted. When you hear that someone felt "threatened", you should find out how and why. When you hear that word, you're likely to put your own definition of threatened in, instead of the "victim's" definition. It's bad when you find yourself defending someone who turns out to just be whining. Make it your decision as to what constitutes a real threat, based on your experience, not someone else. Same thing when you hear about things like "damage". A cigarette butt on the ground damages the environment, but if you try to tell me it's the same thing as a strip mine, I'm going to call you an idiot.

Zealotry and violence

One of the erroneous statements I've been hearing a lot recently is that all religious extremists are equally dangerous. This has been advanced, like all ideas are advanced, for a variety of reasons, but primary among them is an effort to form some level of equivalency between religions.

This is ludicrous.

Try to find me the extremist Wiccan who adheres so firmly to the notion of "First, do no harm" that they become a danger to themselves and others. Or consider the Amish, those powderkegs of Christianity, ready to go and raise a barn at a moment's notice.

No, the simple fact is that all religions... a religion being nothing more and nothing less than a set of rules by which to demonstrate adherance to a faith... can be dangerous in different degrees, based on the rules set forth. Catholics were able to find enough in the Bible to advocate for the Inquisitions; Muslims can find things in the Koran to justify nearly any atrocity, and have been doing so for over a thousand years.

The answer isn't simply a refutation of faith, either. The largest mass slaughters in history have been performed by secular states upon their own populations, whether in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, or elsewhere.

The Muslim religion is, simply, the most aggressive and violent of all major contemporary religions. While, thankfully, it does speak heavily about peace in some ways, it also stipulates that the rules which apply between Muslims do not apply to non-Muslims. It also advocates war against non-Muslims. Thankfully, many Western Muslims have rejected the literal interpretations of many of those passages, and instead interpret them as being allegorical or symbolic; disturbingly, the Koran also specifies that it is acceptable to deceive even fellow Muslims if it is for the purpose of waging war against the infidels.
This makes it particularly difficult for outsiders to be fully welcoming to Muslims, because any reading on the subject, or simply paying attention to the statements made by high-profile clerics, shows the danger involved. And it is also grossly unfair to the Western Muslims who are trying to peacefully advance their religion, because they are being judged by the actions of others.

I am perfectly happy to admit that the Christians have had their major problems in the past, and that some of them continue to this day. Whenever you have a doctor murdered because he has performed abortions, or a gay couple kicked to death for the simply offense of holding hands in public, the notion that Christians are free of guilt is thrown out the window.

But, please, enough with the foolish attempts at equality. If I drive my car to the corner store, or I drive my car back and forth across the country five times, yes, technically they're both drives; but they are not equivalent. The anti-homosexual chanting of thirty lunatics at a military funeral is not the same as international calls for tracking down and murdering cartoonists. Boycotting and holding small demonstrations against a movie viewed as blasphemous is not the same as wedging a butcher's knife hilt-deep in the chest of a movie director who creates a film about the need for better treatment of Muslim women. Ideally, violence wouldn't be a part of either religion, but to claim they are the same in the measure of that violence is stupidity of the highest order.

A little sanity

Let's get the most important thing out of the way first: the other side isn't (generally) evil. They aren't trying to undermine the country, they aren't engaging in giant conspiracies. They simply have different opinions.

Now, at this point, I could be on either side. Because I haven't stated my political leanings yet, some of the people reading this (the ones who aren't otherwise familiar with me) are probably paying attention. The second I declare my orientation, a significant portion will immediately tune me out.

That's not stupid; that's willfully ignorant, which is far worse than stupid. Stupidity can often be overcome with time and effort.

The left and the right both want the same things, generally. They want freedom, happiness, a good education for their children, a chance to have a good job and some possessions. They just vastly disagree on how to get there. Those disagreements don't make the other side evil, or hateful, or anything else. It might on occasion make them wrong.

It's easy to make the mistake of attributing bad intentions. After all, if your intentions are good (and most people view themselves in a positive light) and your opponent disagrees with you, his intentions must be bad, right?

No. That's like saying that because your poker hand is a flush in hearts, and your opponent has all clubs, that they can't have a flush. Two people can try to arrive at the same endpoint by different means.

Pick any topic in the US, or Canada, or the UK, and you'll find two or more groups trying to arrive at the best possible solution. Often they'll use different methods. It's up to you to divorce yourself as much as possible from which side is saying which, and decide what method makes the most sense to you. Then, on that issue, support whatever side is pushing that method.

I'm writing this in the US, and I'll be addressing most of the issues here from an American standpoint. My own viewpoint will become, undoubtedly, readily apparent in the course of writing these posts. I'm simply trying to break down some of the stuff people don't really examine in a way they'll find comprehensible.

And if, along the way, I use a big word or two, go look it up. Use Merriam-Webster online or something (http://www.m-w.com) and then come back. I want to be accessible to everyone, but that doesn't mean I'm going to write at a fifth-grade level.

A COUPLE OF OTHER THINGS:
1) Free money alert: if you run across any of the Sheri S. Tepper Marianne books in your local second-hand bookstore, I'll buy them from you. You can find them, sometimes, in the Science Fiction / Fantasy section. Marianne, The Magus, and the Manticore; Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods; and Marianne, the Matchbox, and the Malachite Mouse. $8 for the Manticore book, $20 for either of the other two. Or you can just toss them out on ebay. Either way, you make a profit.

2) The name of the blog stems from Alexander Pope. "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."
I like the quote for a few reasons. One, people constantly misquote it as "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Considering that the idea behind the quote can be summed as "If you don't really know what you're talking about, take the time to learn. Don't just learn a little and think you're an expert," the fact that they're misquoting in the first place underscores the thought behind the quote. Two, I've always liked mythology, and the Pierian spring is a great trivia question: it's where the Muses drank. And if you don't know what the fuck the Muses were, go look it up. See, learning again. It's a good thing.