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At my official campaign kick-off party at Jefferson County Commissioner Kathy Hartman’s house a little over a year ago, I gave a speech which included the statement, ‘We are confronted by a fire-breathing dragon of blind ideology.” At the time, I was thinking more of right-wing ideology, though I’ve always known that all blind ideology, wherever it falls in the multidimensional space of political beliefs and values, diminishes our ability to govern ourselves wisely, divides us in aggressive and often arbitrary ways, and, in general, is counterproductive to human welfare. I’ve been reminded again recently of how ugly left-wing blind ideology can be, and am constantly reminded of how ugly right-wing blind ideology has become.
The two competing major spheres of political extremism, as usual, are defined more by their similarities than by their differences. It is very much akin to the similarities of Christian and Muslim fundamentalism, each deeply imbued with an absolute false certainty, the two certainties, though very similar, are perceived as mutually exclusive and incompatible, and as absolute truths ordained by god, as justifications for extremes of intolerance mobilized in their service. Political zealots, like religious zealots, are mirror images, arguing over whether they part one should part their hair on the left or the right (or whether, in Jonathan Swift’s Lilliput, they should crack their egg at the small end or the large end).
I recently watched with my seven-year-old daughter “How To Train Your Dragon,” an entertaining and insightful children’s movie that bears some resemblance to the issues raised by competing blind ideologies. The Vikings has an image of themselves, and of their purpose and character and bases for honor, that compelled them to slay dragons, which were constantly attacking their village and stealing their food. The dragons, we eventually discover, are compelled to do so by their overlord, their own authoritarian guiding principle. The clever but “shamefully” peaceful son of the Viking chief, in an attempt to kill his first dragon, instead, when the opportunity arose, saw that it was very much like him, afraid and vulnerable. And by showing it kindness, it quickly became his ally rather than his enemy.
It would be nice if this meant that the instant any reasonable person of goodwill (which Hiccup, the young protagonist of the movie, represents) shows a blind ideologue, whether on his own side or the enemy side, kindness and goodwill, they become instant allies and all is well. Occasionally, even in my own experience, this does indeed happen from time to time. But, more often, the entrenched ideology is not so easily dispelled, the assumption of hatreds, which catalyze reactions even among those who would have preferred a different kind of discourse, not so easily massaged into mutual accommodation. But the idea, though accelerated for the purposes of entertainment and providing a compact enough message, is really very true: We either smite our dragons, and, by doing so, cultivate their escalating enmity, or we tame our dragons, and by doing so cultivate a growing alliance with them.
The question of “how to tame our dragons,” by people of all ideological stripes who seek a more productive and mutually respectful dialogue, is the question we should be facing, first and foremost. It is more important than “how we get money out of politics” (though that is important too); more important than “how we win this election” (though that is important too); more important than just about all other issues and challenges we face.
How to tame our dragons? Both those within (ourselves, and our party), and those without. This is the long-term fundamental political challenge. Does anyone have any ideas on how to accomplish it?
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Scott Kimball’s possible connection to the murder for which Tim Masters was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16352864) is another reminder of a simple but underrecognized fact of life: Every act has rippling repercussions throughout the fabric of our social field. Whoever murdered Peggy Hattrick didn’t commit an act whose sole consequence was to deprive an individual of her life, nor even one whose sole consequence was that plus the infliction of grief on all those who cared about her. It’s an act which also contributed to all of the consequences of that grief, and the consequences of those consequences, reverberating through our tightly intertwined and far-reaching social networks. It’s an act which also deprived Tim Masters of 18 years of his life, and which raised awareness of the problem of completely avoidable wrongful convictions.
And Tim Masters’ choice to draw disturbing teen age pictures of sex and violence, though in no way a criminal act, had consequences beyond their being seen by others and embarrassing the “artist,” consequences which converged with some of those of the murder itself. The same is true for every kind or unkind, wise or unwise, selfish or generous word or deed, of magnitudes large and small. There are many such words and deeds which contributed to the creation of Scott Kimball and others like him, ones which were considered completely innocent by those who indulged in them. Violence isn’t just a crime committed by some (though it is that as well), but also a cumulative collective phenomenon contributed to in small ways by many. It is the responsibility of each of us to absorb and transform those ripples which contribute to it, sending out instead ripples which contribute to something more positive.
Bill Clinton recommended that voters not let their anger over the sluggish economy cloud their judgment (http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_16352734). I recommend that voters allow their anger over the sluggish economy to focus their judgment on those who are responsible for it: the Republicans. People forget that when Barack Obama took office, we were teetering on the edge of the abyss of a Great-Depression-scale economic meltdown, not merely looking at years of slow-to-no growth and high unemployment. We averted that impending disaster by the bold policies that the Right has succeeded in vilifying in the minds of those who are not overly concerned with facts and logic, an impending disaster that was the direct consequence of Republican policies and priorities (particularly underregulation of the financial sector, something whose consequences had long been foreseen).
“Governor Tancredo” is a real possibility (http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_16352450), and one which would be to Colorado what blunt force trauma is to a human brain: We might survive, but impaired and possibly crippled.
At a leadership panel at Arapahoe Community College a couple of days ago, one of the panelists paraphrased a Lone Tree library official regarding Colorado ballot initiatives 60, 61, and 101: They define a policy that is like slowly amputating one’s limbs to lose weight. I’ve used a similar (though less picturesque) metaphor to describe extreme anti-tax fiscal policy in general (such as that which has come to dominate Colorado, to our great harm): It’s like trying to impose weight loss by forced continual starvation.
The emphasis on transportation at the same panel of local government heads stuck a chord. Our transportation system is an economic circulatory system, moving nutrients and oxygen from where they come into the system to where they are needed (more precisely, since the economic analogue to a “digestive system” is more decentralized than the anatomical referent, the economic circulatory system moves nutrients around among particularized decentralized points of entry, helping to ensure that all parts are fully nourished). Overreliance on cars is like a high cholestoral diet, causing a clogging of the arteries (in the somewhat literal sense of gridlock, with resulting increased pollution and decreased productivity; as well as in the broader sense of the more general dysfunctionalities of overreliance on cars).
Tiny Crawford CO’s love for it’s altruistic health care provider but scorn for the legislation that will allow her to continue to practice (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16352526) is a wonderful illustration of the disconnect between blind ideological beliefs and judgments, and real human preferences and desires. The ideal would be for us all to ask, “if I didn’t know what my own circumstances in life would be (race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, sexual preference, congenital physical condition and appearance, etc.), and I had to design a set of policies based on my self-interest prior to the lottery of birth, what would it be?” Second to that in preferability would be for each to vigorously seek his or her own self-interest based on a high volume of reliable information and well-reasoned analyses. Worst of all is what the Tea Party are their fellow travelers are trying to impose on us: Vigorous pursuit of an irrational set of ideological beliefs and judgments which don’t even serve the real interests of those pursuing them.
As for the “terrible” Health Reform Act itself, it’s funneling $19 million to Colorado to expand health clinics that serve the poor, unemployed, and uninsured, in a very definitive step in the right direction for this country.
The October 15 issue of Rolling Stone includes a nice little article which explores the tangle of internal inconsistencies, pure irrationalities, simmering hypocrisies, and just plain random folly of the ultimately elusive Tea Party “ideology” (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904?RS_show_page=0). The Kentucky seniors community, many blithely mounted on Medicare funded scooters or sucking on Medicare funded oxygen tanks, raptly worshiping at the anti-government alter while suckling at government’s teat; Rand Paul followers not batting an eye at their candidate, who wants to cut every government program but is indignant that the government might cut Medicaid payments to doctors such as himself, because, after all, “physicians should be allowed to make a comfortable living”; the life-long government employee who thinks it’s okay that he’s taken money from the government all his life (but that it’s not okay for anyone else to) because he doesn’t earn too much. All willing to take their share of the pie, but all eager to deny it to those far more in need.
But the author sums this mess up with a very cogent observation: The Tea Party isn’t really about issues; it’s about “us-versus-them,” about opposing those out-group members that they revile because they revile them, those “socialists” who are somehow inchoately evil and committed to a policy that will cause all that is good and holy to shrivel up and blow away. They are about “taking back their country” from whoever stole it, from whoever contributed to the discovery of electricity and the freeing of the slaves and the relative equality of women and, most of all, the invention of Velcro. It’s just blind, irrational, angry, ignorant rage. And it’s coming to a theater of culture war near you.
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