What He's Typed Will Be a Window Into His Madness

If you don't like long posts then you won't like this. It is, in all, a long post. But it is also a collection of little posts- sort of. It's what happens when I second guess myself about what I should or shouldn't post.

THE SET-UP
So if you remember, I wrote the "Defense of Torture" post last Tuesday. How self-referential. It's not much but you can see what I've been occupied with, in part, lately. It may not seem like it, in my treatment of the subject, but I am really bothered by the fact that as a nation we endorse torture but are so quiet about it. I figure we should be whole hog for it and completely defend it as a great thing that should be done everywhere and to everyone or put an end to it. Anyway, the next thing I was working on was an exercise in seeing things form another person's perspective. Even though the president has a very low approval rating, there are still a number of people that think, with everything they know now, he is doing a great job and would vote for him again if he was running today. I wanted to understand, not conservatism- I understand that and am quite conservative about a few things myself, but the mindset that religiously apologizes and supports this president no matter what. That is the point that I can't relate to.

So I was going to take something like lying about not spying on people without wiretaps and look at it from another perspective. Questions about the possibility of objectivity aside, I was going to craft a defense of it- not the act of wiretapping, but the lying about it first off. That's what I was going to try to frame. Then I would frame the wiretapping itself. But as I was doing that, I was getting angry. I can frame a position and defend it as rational, but I could not accept it as right. So I quit that, because I was offending myself and started this...

THE RANT
I'm a pretty fair-minded guy. I try to see and understand where people are coming from and get a sense for who they are and why they do what they do. You can be absolutely convinced of something and be certain of your rightness in it, and I will try to see why you think "X" is good. I don't just mean in matters of taste either. For example, I don't happen to think being dunked in water is much of anything when it comes to churchy stuff. But I understand that for some people it might be the turning point of their lives and if they didn't do it they would just die.

That said, I have to admit I could not conceive people voting for Bush twice. I was blind-sided by that one. I think it perhaps speaks to my lack of cynicism that I was unable to understand how controlled by fear people were and I could definitely not then appreciate just how absurd things would become in the future which is our now. (I'm leaving out my thoughts about how much of our elections mirror Latin American electoral irregularities to make another point.) I thought, "Drag- Iraq is gonna get a lot uglier before it gets any better," and "Ugh- there goes Alaska." All because people didn't want to change horses midstream or some other crapical nonsense like that.

I didn't vote for Bush the first time. I was one of those jerks that voted for Nader; I've done a lot of things I regret. I was also a Deaniac until he tried to find religion. That was awkward. Then I counted my losses and figured, if I'm not voting for Bush, it was Kerry or bust. I know I could've voted for anyone I wanted to in California and it would've gone to Kerry no matter what- I guess I was atoning for my Nader ballot four years prior. I write this in the interest of full disclosure; I've never been a fan of W, but I never thought things would look like this. I do not hold any illusions about what kind of people generally seek power, but I am astounded by the level of vileness we now tolerate.

When I wrote that last sentence, I started to get angry. I was angry at imagining people who think the president is not only doing a good job, but a job that is "the good." But I continued...

I'm not talking about policy decisions or ideologies I disagree with. There are plenty of those, I am rather focusing on outright deceptions, lawbreaking, and a disgusting moral deadness that makes me sick. Can you sense a bit of a tone change here? Setting aside most of the first term, not because the "My Pet Goat" term was good, but for the sake of the post I'm sticking with the second. In just the second, take your pick: the illegal Plame Leak that endangered at least one CIA operative and who knows how many more for the sake of political points, cherry picking intelligence on WMD and distorting intelligence on the same to excuse an invasion of Iraq, saying no one could have anticipated the extensive destruction of hurricane Katrina AFTER being briefed about the extensive destruction of hurricane Katrina, authorizing warrantless, illegal wire taps and lying about authorizing warrantless, illegal wiretaps, endorsing torture and lying about endorsing torture. Any one of them is outrageous and a couple of them are impeachable offenses. It shows you how truly unimaginative I am that I was so concerned about drilling for oil in Alaska. I never thought DOJ lawyers would ever say, "even if the tactics were considered [torture], detainees at Guantanamo would have no recourse to challenge them in court." Really that's where we are. I'm writing "What the hell?!" but thinking WTF. Who are we?

So I am angry. But I don't leave things external, I can't help but bring things back to me and the church- I am so selfish

Admittedly I am tired of the assumption that because I am an evangelical Christian, I am a fan of the president. I am tired of the assumption that these somehow correspond with each other. In one sense, that's just a silliness I need to get over. People who call themselves Evangelical Christians tend to have supported W and largely still do. On the one hand, in some way, I can deal with that and still be a part of the community I am. What I can't do though is let it be thought I support this garbage, what I can't do much more of is stand by as we collectively ignore it. I am tired of our silence that is tacit approval and I'm tired of pretending that thoughtful Christians can disagree about wether torture is good or lying to engage in a war of aggression is right. That certain Evangelicals have the influence they do in this government and public sphere but do not use it to clearly speak against these things disgusts me. Go ahead and cite Romans 13. Forget everything else about our Constitutional form of government wherein law governs and not the whim of a single administration. We'll pretend that doesn't exist. It may say the governing authorities have the right to do whatever the hell they want but it does not give us the right to stand by and say it is good.

Just like I could not agree with someone who said my dad cheating on my mom was good, I cannot agree with someone who says these decisions, these actualized choices, are good. Maybe that just makes me a baby. Maybe I'm the one with a problem because I can't just say things will be good in the long run so they must be good now.

So I stopped writing this because it was getting myself frustrated, but I couldn't write anything else without dealing with this. That's just weird. So, I thought I might address it obliquely. and came up with this:

Burning Down the House/Reichstag
I know I can seem paranoid. I know I can over-react to things. My wife once had to drag me from a supermarket checkout because I was ranting about bread. I needed a loaf of bread so grabbed what I thought was a cheap loaf. But it was an expensive loaf misplaced on the cheap loaf shelf. Expensive may be relative- if you think nothing of filling up your H2 with premium from Shell instead of the regular unleaded from ARCO and drive it to your 7 million dollar home above Sierra Madre, $4 for a loaf of bread may be nothing. But to me $4 seems a bit much for a loaf of bread.

So when the cashier rang up my sale I was surprised at the price. I said something to that effect. She suggested I could go get the cheaper loaf. She's right I could've, but I was suddenly gripped by principle. I started in on some nonsense about food production, ownership, poverty, and the farce of supply and demand pricing that is foisted on our children blah blah blah. Oh I paid four dollars for the bread, but she had to know I was against it. That was dumb, my wife grabbed me by the arm and said, "Nobody cares about your bread, let's go." She wasn't my wife at the time- all I can say about that is she's very lucky I am so forgiving.

Anyway- I know I can be crazy. That said, I still wonder. I wonder in the same way someone might wonder in Berlin in the late Spring of 1933 about how "weird" things might get in the future. I wonder if someone being fired for a bumper sticker won't be news someday. I wonder where our talk about torture (as it were) will lead us....

Then I stop with this. Then Tom Fox is found dead. Then I decide to post this. And it is all bracketed by a trip to the hospital for a hernia.

So there it is. Now it belongs to the ages though none of it is finished. And I think that's how I like it and want it.
Because things aren't finished.