A common joke among my liberal friends about some of the proposed requirements for U.S. Citizenship was that it's about time people aren't guaranteed citizenship just because they were born here - now people will finally have to learn something about their country. I'm quite sure it won't come to that, but it does depress me how apathetic so many people are about their obligations as citizens of this country, even as many of them criticize me for not being patriotic enough.
My wife asked me to write a guest post on her blog about this very issue. It's running today; check it out!
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Lifestyle
One of my coworkers sent me this article, which is very depressing. I hadn't read very much about the tornados, and hadn't heard anything about half of this stuff. After Katrina, I was very wary of climate change discussions targetting specific weather events, since it was primarily the trajectory of Katrina, rather than the strength, that made it so devestating. Most of the news stories focused on the loss of life and property, and perhaps rightfully so; however, this is not entirely conducive to scientific discussion. Nor am I necessarily inclined to believe doomsayers on the Internet with no credentials, however eloquent their arguments may be.
We continued talking about this during lunch that day, and he'd mentioned that there were more tornados in the April 2011 than any other month on record. (I later checked, and it's worse than that - it more than doubled the previous record, 687 to 267, with the Super Outbreak alone constituting about 327.) I e-mailed my brother-in-law (a meteorologist) about this to get his take; I haven't heard back yet. To me, this sounds like pretty compelling evidence that something is up with our weather.
The lunch special that day was steak. I was not totally unaware of the irony of eating steak while discussing what would happen to Floridian refugees if the oceans rise as much as they're projecting, but this time a more direct thought crossed my mind: how many people have died to support my lifestyle?
This was a scary question, but it hasn't gone away since I first asked it. I've generally felt pretty smug about my environmentalism. I drive a small car. I put in Energy Star windows and doors on my house. My house goes down to 58 degrees at night in the winter, and we don't use air conditioning in the summer. Yet, on an absolute scale, my family and I live better than some kings did for millenia in terms of material wealth and conveniences. Even compared to most of the world, our meager by American standards lifestyle is downright lavish. I've always thought of myself as living fairly simply, but taking a hard look at my life, I really don't.
I am aware that the issue is bigger than my lifestyle decisions. From what I've read, it's bigger even than the U.S. My point is that I haven't cut deeply enough from what I've come to take for granted as things I should have. And, I suspect, neither have most of us, if we're honest with ourselves.
We continued talking about this during lunch that day, and he'd mentioned that there were more tornados in the April 2011 than any other month on record. (I later checked, and it's worse than that - it more than doubled the previous record, 687 to 267, with the Super Outbreak alone constituting about 327.) I e-mailed my brother-in-law (a meteorologist) about this to get his take; I haven't heard back yet. To me, this sounds like pretty compelling evidence that something is up with our weather.
The lunch special that day was steak. I was not totally unaware of the irony of eating steak while discussing what would happen to Floridian refugees if the oceans rise as much as they're projecting, but this time a more direct thought crossed my mind: how many people have died to support my lifestyle?
This was a scary question, but it hasn't gone away since I first asked it. I've generally felt pretty smug about my environmentalism. I drive a small car. I put in Energy Star windows and doors on my house. My house goes down to 58 degrees at night in the winter, and we don't use air conditioning in the summer. Yet, on an absolute scale, my family and I live better than some kings did for millenia in terms of material wealth and conveniences. Even compared to most of the world, our meager by American standards lifestyle is downright lavish. I've always thought of myself as living fairly simply, but taking a hard look at my life, I really don't.
I am aware that the issue is bigger than my lifestyle decisions. From what I've read, it's bigger even than the U.S. My point is that I haven't cut deeply enough from what I've come to take for granted as things I should have. And, I suspect, neither have most of us, if we're honest with ourselves.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Campaign Commercials
Yesterday one of my friends sent me this video - a long-form campaign commercial for Rick Perry, the first I've seen in a campaign season that is already making me want to vote for Jimmy McMillan. (Not really - don't actually vote for him, please. It makes it harder for legitimate third party candidates to get taken seriously.)
There are a lot of things I could write about related to this, not the least of which being that it looks like a trailer to a Michael Bay movie (if I ever become a Hollywood director, I'd definitely hire whoever made this as my DP). What I want to talk about is a line at 0:58 in the video, a quote from Gov. Perry: "The United States of America really is the last great hope of mankind."
As a jaded voter, I'm largely unfazed by meaningless rhetoric like this. However, my first reaction was to suppose this statement will not play well with his base. One of the top 3 things I consistently heard from the "religious right" people I know personally during the 2008 campaign about Obama was a visceral negative reaction to his "Hope" campaign. "Christ is our hope!" they protested. (The other two things I heard were abortion and that he was The Antichrist, the latter from a depressing number of people.) If Obama's hope campaign was heretical, surely Perry's statement here is as well, even though both men are non-denominational Christians?
However, this doesn't seem to have been the case. A cursory search of the internet and a detailed read of an assault rifle owner's forum discussion thread about the video (doesn't get more right-wing than that, right?) showed nothing but support for the line, including from several people who use Bible verses in their online signatures.
Why is this? Is it that the perception was that Obama was claiming he personally was hope, while Perry is claiming hope on the part of the whole country? I suppose that's possible, though odd, since both men were focusing on what they would do in office rather than who they are. Is it just that Obama emphasized it more, so it was more out there for discussion (and you saw his face on posters that said "hope")? Again, possible, but many of the comments I read picked this line in particular out of that two-minute video, suggesting not just a neutral feeling but a positive resonance. Maybe it's just a poor sample size, and the people who were upset about Obama will also be upset at Perry over this. This seems more likely, though again, I heard the Obama complaint from a large majority of Christian Republicans I know, and I haven't come across one single negative reaction yet about Perry.
I want to think well of people, so I'm trying not to come to the conclusion that the answer is that the religious right contains many hypocrites who just used their faith to try and justify their political disagreement with Obama. If anyone has a more plausible explanation, I really would like to hear it.
There are a lot of things I could write about related to this, not the least of which being that it looks like a trailer to a Michael Bay movie (if I ever become a Hollywood director, I'd definitely hire whoever made this as my DP). What I want to talk about is a line at 0:58 in the video, a quote from Gov. Perry: "The United States of America really is the last great hope of mankind."
As a jaded voter, I'm largely unfazed by meaningless rhetoric like this. However, my first reaction was to suppose this statement will not play well with his base. One of the top 3 things I consistently heard from the "religious right" people I know personally during the 2008 campaign about Obama was a visceral negative reaction to his "Hope" campaign. "Christ is our hope!" they protested. (The other two things I heard were abortion and that he was The Antichrist, the latter from a depressing number of people.) If Obama's hope campaign was heretical, surely Perry's statement here is as well, even though both men are non-denominational Christians?
However, this doesn't seem to have been the case. A cursory search of the internet and a detailed read of an assault rifle owner's forum discussion thread about the video (doesn't get more right-wing than that, right?) showed nothing but support for the line, including from several people who use Bible verses in their online signatures.
Why is this? Is it that the perception was that Obama was claiming he personally was hope, while Perry is claiming hope on the part of the whole country? I suppose that's possible, though odd, since both men were focusing on what they would do in office rather than who they are. Is it just that Obama emphasized it more, so it was more out there for discussion (and you saw his face on posters that said "hope")? Again, possible, but many of the comments I read picked this line in particular out of that two-minute video, suggesting not just a neutral feeling but a positive resonance. Maybe it's just a poor sample size, and the people who were upset about Obama will also be upset at Perry over this. This seems more likely, though again, I heard the Obama complaint from a large majority of Christian Republicans I know, and I haven't come across one single negative reaction yet about Perry.
I want to think well of people, so I'm trying not to come to the conclusion that the answer is that the religious right contains many hypocrites who just used their faith to try and justify their political disagreement with Obama. If anyone has a more plausible explanation, I really would like to hear it.
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