Carpenters Wanted: Jackasses Need Not Apply

I have to admit I'm confused. It seems that people constantly complain about elected officials being no good because they don't really care about the people they serve; they only care about keeping their jobs. This widespread criticism suggests that politicians are bad because they choose to do the popular thing in order to get reelected instead of doing the responsible thing, which is their duty. Now people are enraged because legislators worked tirelessly to pass health care reform even though opinion polls showed considerable opposition. I don't understand how politicians can be condemned with equal ferocity for following the polls and for not following the polls.

For a long time, we've known that we have serious problems in our health care system, and for a long time we've tried in vain to institute comprehensive solutions. All such efforts failed precisely because these are thorny issues and in the absence of heroic visionaries, those who had the power to fix our system inevitably took the coward's way out and did nothing even if they knew something needed to be done. It takes extraordinary courage to soldier on and keep working towards an important goal knowing you will suffer an endless barrage of slings and arrows from those who don't have what it takes to do what needs to be done. Political hacks and cowards do only what's easy without regard to what's important; real leaders do what's important without regard to what's easy. As Sam Rayburn said, "Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it." We need carpenters and I'm immensely grateful that we have some. One good carpenter is infinitely more valuable to our society than the combined total of everyone attending the world's largest tea party for jackasses.

In addition to leadership on substantive issues, we need statesmanship to elevate the tone of the discourse. Even those who should be responsible voices of reason are acting disgracefully. I cringe when I see Sarah Palin get thunderous applause for knocking the "lame stream media" in an artless, ham-fisted play on the term mainstream media, which is itself a term the political far right uses with scorn because to them only that which is extremely slanted their way can be considered not slanted. Such is the world in which these people spend 168 hours a week. Listening to President Obama then to someone like Sarah Palin is like watching a Lincoln-Douglas debate then turning around to watch one five year old call another five year old a doody head. America needs better leaders than the Sarah Palins of the world if it aspires to be something other than a second rate laughingstock.

Grumpy Old Pouters

A wise man once said, "You can't kill your parents then ask for sympathy because you're an orphan." G.O.P. lawmakers, as in Grumpy Old Pouters are now acting like petulant children because the bi-partisanship that they painstakingly murdered is now dead. They gambled on a strategy of trying to bring down a President rather than being responsible grownups and doing what we pay them to do, and they crapped out. In keeping with their inclination to take defeat in the manner of a spoiled brat, Senator John McCain has proclaimed that Republicans will not cooperate for the rest of the year. We know that Senator McCain can't possibly hold his breath that long, but it's not clear whether or not he actually stuck out his tongue or stamped his feet as his announced his intention not to play nicely with the other boys and girls.

With that, the cat is officially out of the cellophane bag. The wide eyed idealists who believed that Republicans in the Senate had at least a scintilla of good faith and were not solely concerned with obstructing those who sought to solve our problems, must now abandon the last shred of hope that such integrity existed. This is not to say that Republican lawmakers are inherently worse than Democrats, or that Democrats wouldn't have done the same thing if the roles were reversed; we have no way of knowing. However, in this case, it happens to be the Republicans and they deserve to be called out.

Unfortunately, this debacle persists as Republicans pursue some Machiavellian gains by using parliamentary gambits designed to both drag this out and to politically embarrass Democrats. Republican senators are working feverishly to find some excuse to change the bill's text so that it would have to go back to the House for yet another vote. The most regrettable aspect of the whole sordid affair is the transparent demagoguery and sleaze. Republicans are proposing poison pill amendments designed to both alter the bill and provide fodder for deliberately dishonorable and false advertising. For instance, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), introduced an amendment to bar coverage for erectile dysfunction medication for convicted sex offenders. Republicans intend use votes against this thinly veiled charade in ads specifically designed to deceive voters by mischaracterizing the votes as a desire on the part of Democratic lawmakers to use taxpayer money to give Viagra to monsters who rape children. Such deliberately misleading advertising for a product would cause significant FTC fines.

I want to make it clear that this only happens to be Republicans in this case. The sleazy demagoguery and win at any cost gutter politics cut across all party lines and political ideologies. That said, people need to be held accountable for their wrongdoing. I'm bothered because these are our leaders and we should to be able see them as something other than contemptible. Politicians acting without a sense of honor or decency corrode our democracy and further harm the already maligned though noble calling of public service. I know politics can be a bare knuckle street fight that sometimes gets pretty ugly, but we need to recognize what's beyond the pale and when to say stop it! You're disgracing your office and your country.

The Sky Is Falling...Again

After what feels like an interminable period of discussion, debate, compromise, and a tremendous amount of ranting and raving, Congress is now poised to cast a vote on a health care reform package later today. Of course, coincidental to that scheduled vote is the deadline for any last ditch fear-mongering. Once again, we have no shortage of Chicken Littles driving a legion of frightened Henny Pennies to hysteria with false claims that the sky is falling. As usual, yes, it's the end of the world (yawn). We are, at long last, taking action to fix some of the problems in our health care system, and this is provoking widespread panic that we will now be in the evil clutches of communism, fascism, of some other ism that some hopelessly deluded white guy can blame as the reason he won't earn $47.2 million next year, even though he has never earned more than $40,000 a year in his life and offers the free market nothing that would cause that to drastically change under any circumstance.

Sure, I can get a kick out of watching Rep. Steve King (R-IA), talk to Glenn Beck about the sacrilegious horror of this vote happening on the Sabbath in Lent, or Rep. Ron Broun (R-GA), lashing out against the bill as he makes sure to squeeze in a reference to "The Great War of Yankee Aggression." For those of you living in the 21st Century, he's talking about the Civil War, which ended for reasonable people 145 years ago. I'll admit that this has been mildly amusing theater of the absurd, but enough is enough. The dogs have barked and it's time for the caravan to move on. We've already paid far too much attention to silliness ranging from death panels to claims that this is literally the end of United States. When the most frightening bogeymen said to be lurking in this bill naturally don't materialize, I fully expect many of the ranters to say they never made such ridiculous claims. Depending on whether or not they actually believed their own nonsense, they will either go from ignorance to dishonesty or from one lie to another.

For those of you who are still terrified that this represents a Constitutional crisis the likes of which we've never seen before, as you cite Thomas Jefferson on the evils of a powerful central government, let's go to the history books, shall we? Over 200 years ago, President Jefferson spent the taxpayers' hard-earned money to buy land and double the size of the country. That too was thought to be an outrageous breach of the Constitution. Like the current health care debate, this was extremely divisive, and a vote to block the Louisiana Purchase barely failed in the House by a vote of 59-57. Let me go way out on a limb here and suggest that even health care would get pushed off the front page if President Obama went out and bought Canada.

We made the Louisiana Purchase. THE SKY DIDN'T FALL; the country subsequently grew and prospered, and now Jefferson is revered as the very model of someone believes in a tightly restrained central government. FDR passed a series of measures people claimed were Socialist and would destroy our country. THE SKY DIDN'T FALL; the country subsequently grew and prospered, and now FDR's image is on our dime. LBJ passed Medicare and Medicaid. THE SKY DIDN'T FALL; the country subsequently grew and prospered, and now those opposed to the current health care reforms are screaming about how it will take money away from Medicare. Do you see a pattern emerging? However the vote goes, we'll be just fine.

The Girl from Itawamba

Feel free to sing along (to the tune of Girl from Ipanema): Brave and proud and young and lovely, the girl from Itawamba goes dancing...or, sadly, maybe she doesn't. Once again life is imitating art, with a small town in Bible country denying students a high school prom. The fictional Footloose had a happy ending with John Lithgow eventually seeing the light and Kevin Bacon dancing his way into our collective heart. I can only hope that the real life story ends as happily. In the current drama, the Itawamba County (MS) School District cancelled the senior prom rather than face and likely lose an ACLU lawsuit. The conflict stems from the school district pushing a policy that would not allow Constance McMillen, an 18 year-old senior at Itawamba County Agricultural High School to wear a tuxedo to the prom or bring her girlfriend as her date. Since the district was forced to choose between maintaining its bigotry and holding a prom, it opted for the former and cancelled the dance.

Particulars of this case aside, I want to discuss the response from a local pastor, which I suspect is fairly representative. Pastor Bobby Crenshaw of the Southside Baptist Church said that he has seen the South portrayed as "backwards" on websites discussing this matter, but he defended the community, by saying that, "A lot more people here have biblically based values." Even if we give Pastor Crenshaw a break and conveniently forget the biblical dictates not to judge one another and, more importantly, to treat others as you would have them treat you, let's compare the "biblically based values" by which the good people of Itawamba County presumably live to what the school district finds so objectionable. If ham, barbecue pork or a variety of other items were on the menu at the prom, the God-fearin' folk would have no objection, even though the Bible declares that eating such things is an abomination. Of course, gays and lesbians are to be condemned because the Bible also declares their sexuality an abomination. Anyone who ignores biblical condemnation of some things deemed abominable while claiming an obligation to honor other such condemnations that happen to suit them ("Hey, it's not like I want to be a sniveling bigot, but I owe it to my Lord and Savior") is a liar and a fraud. If you believe that homosexuality is wrong that's one thing, but don't tell me you do so because the Bible demands it unless you pay the same respect to other nonsense sprinkled liberally throughout that book.

Finally, I want to examine the sense of moral superiority that those who object to homosexuality seem to harbor. In all likelihood, these people did nothing heroic, moral or even voluntary. They were simply born into the majority. They deserve no kudos for resisting temptation that probably never existed. As a heterosexual I can explain how this works. During the early part of your life you are for all practical purposes asexual. Then one day interacting with the opposite sex goes from something to be avoided at all cost to something you would crawl across broken glass to do. It is as pre-programmed as right or left handedness. And speaking of which, I do happen to be left handed. Luckily, I was born at at time when we had pretty much abandoned primitive beliefs regarding lefties. By the time I went to school, even the nuns had learned to holster their rulers and not abuse those who tried to write with a naturally dominant left hand. While I'm optimistic that we will as a society become more enlightened with respect to sexuality as well, I'm saddened that so many will have to suffer in the meantime. Constance, I applaud your courage and I wish you all the best. The world owes thanks to all who fight for justice.