Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Parody? No... Progress.



I've seen this meme pop up in multiple places recently. It is meant to be deriding or mocking of current teenagers. All it really shows, however, is a misunderstanding. But unlike many "I saw this and was outraged!" posts, in this case I CAN even, because of something the posters always miss.

It doesn't know it, but this meme represents progress.

The second image is preferable to the first in almost every conceivable way, with one exception; the first is on a beach, and the best the second can hope for is a beach house.

Seriously, just look at it. Anyone who can look at a generation of young males sent to die en mass for politics they don't entirely understand and think it superior to a generation trying to get people to stop being assholes to each other and sometimes making mistakes in that process (being the first generation ever to make a mistake, I'm sure) is clearly, provably insane. And how do we know that?

Because the second image is why the first exists.

Get past the rhetoric, the politics, the lines drawn on maps and most soldiers in World War 2 were not fighting because they wanted to. They fought because they had to. And when you hear their thoughts on the subject, a theme that recurs over and over again was that they fought so that no one would ever have to again.

It didn't work, it never does. War can end violence, but it doesn't create peace. The building blocks of the second World War were laid during the first, and the roots of most of our modern fears and aggression were established during the second.

But they didn't know that, couldn't have known that. They were just kids, trying to make the world a better place. And like every generation before or since, they made mistakes. But if you were to look at those soldiers... not necessarily as they are now, but as they were then, and told them that, so many decades later, the second image exists, and is true, if a bit mean-spirited... it would, perhaps, be a comfort.

So when people gripe and moan about the "Younger Generation" being "special snowflakes" or whatever, just smile and laugh, and remind them that they are what they are, and make their mistakes, because of the victories and mistakes of the so-called Greatest Generation. The second image is not a mockery of the first... it is the proof that maybe, just maybe, some of those soldiers we see on that beach got what they thought they were fighting for.

Friday, December 4, 2015

The Problem is Deeper than Guns

As some of my readership have noticed, I tend liberal on a lot of things. And as such a liberal, I have, in the past, opined on how the lack of gun control in the United States is a big problem. I get irritated when the NRA or other such groups deflect gun concerns, or worse, say that more guns in the mix would keep things safer. (Hard to stomach when every training about safety in a live shooter situation explicitly says that if you have a gun DO NOT BE HOLDING IT WHEN THE COPS COME.)

But there is a saying; "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." It is short and simple. Now, as Eddie Izzard pointed out, the gun most certainly helps. You don't hear of a lot of mass stabbings, for instance. But underneath everything else, beyond the question of gun control and background checks, there lies a simple truth that neither side spends all that much time looking at.

What is wrong with the United States that so many people have decided that grabbing a gun and shooting as many people as they can is the solution?

A friend once pointed out to me that during the recent deer hunting season, Wisconsin had more armed men, women, and children armed with fingers on the trigger than many nations have in their standing armies, and yet, no fatalities, or even gun-related accidents. I have before considered that if the local Wisconsin brand of the NRA (who are deeply committed to safety training and education) were to run the whole show, things would be better, but it still shows that there is something to that tired cliche.

So let's say it simply. There is something so wrong with us that, this year, on more occasions than we have had days, people have taken it upon themselves to arm, go out, and injure or kill multiple victims all at once. And sometimes, like today, I wonder if the argument around the gun isn't us beating around the bush, avoiding the real issue.

The issue is a simple question; "What is wrong with us," and the answer couldn't possibly simply that we are armed.

We leave the question at guns because they are loud and visible, and yes, without them, mass killing wouldn't get nearly as high a bodycount (unless they used bombs, or poison, or oh screw it.) Guns are cheap, as is the ammo, and you don't run the risk of blowing yourself up if you have any idea of what you are doing.

The noise is important because it makes us feel like we're doing something even though we're not. Cast the vote, post the meme, act all enraged and boom! You've done your part.

And the next day, another mass killing.

I don't buy the right's arguments on guns. They have extrapolated the 2nd amendment far beyond its language, a move they usually say the Left SHOULDN'T take. The government overthrow idea is basically farcical. The fear of the other (muslim, immigrant, whatever) has a bit more traction, but that is more for shock value.

The simple truth is that people fight to protect gun rights because Americans like owning guns. And so long as that remains true, the Constitutional Amendment that would be required to REALLY change the conversation won't ever happen. And no matter how strongly you feel about the issue, I am firm in my belief that only the people should be permitted to change OUR constitution.

So gun RIGHTS won't change for at least a long while. So how do WE need to change?

America is a nation that kills itself with greater efficiency than some nations fighting Civil wars do. Why? What is wrong with us?

The Right wants to claim that people are horrible, have always been horrible and will always be horrible. Hence our need for guns. The Left wants to claim that it's all the guns, take them away and the problem goes away. But take a toy from a misbehaving child and their behavior will not magically improve, and in many ways that is who we are where weapons are concerned, children who want our way no matter what.

I don't know what to do. Taking away the guns (or at least limiting access to them) may lower the body count (Australia seems to think so) but it doesn't change the underlying mental issues we face, the fact that we live in a nation that seems better at creating murderers than anyone else, and then proceeds to arm them.

We need to look at those who attack or otherwise persecute organizations like Planned Parenthood and start entertaining the possibility of looking at them as a terrorist movement, and treat that movement accordingly.

We need to look at killers and, instead of seeing them as isolated maniacs, see them as symptoms of a problem that we, as fellow Americans, are complicit in.

We need to look at our public discourse and see the firebrands who use violent rhetoric against ideological enemies as people who, even if they aren't directly ordering violence, are creating an environment that promotes it, and name them as a part of the problem, and deprive them of the public eye as we would someone who was cheering for a terrorist attack.

We will continue discussing guns. I don't see the debate going away anytime soon. But while that continues to spin its wheels, we also need to look deeper. We need to look past the gun... and at ourselves.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Reader Question: What are your top 5 books of the Bible?

What are your top 5 Books of the Bible and Why? -Joseph
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I have spent entirely too  much time thinking about this question, and so I am just going to answer it and get it out of the way. Thanks again, Joseph, for complicating my life.

First, a brief explanation for the non Bible Geeks out there: The Bible looks like a book, is packaged and sold like a book, but would be more accurately thought of as an anthology, a collection of works by different authors spread out over a great deal of time. This anthology is divided up into different books, each of which often have a unique tone and subject matter. Some were written as histories, others as lawbooks, some as philosophy, still others as collections of poetry. Others were simply letters. So reading them like chapters of a larger work will only leave you confused.

Picking a top 5, though...

I'm self-nerd sniping again. ALL RIGHT, HERE WE GO!

1: Genesis- There's just so much goodness in here, and since a lot of people have at least parsed it somewhat because of the infuriating Creation/Evolution debate, it's the one I can usually talk to people about and assume at least some level of literacy. But it is also the book that, perhaps more than any other, shows the building blocks of how the Hebrew Scriptures as we know them came to be. Multiple creation stories, attributed to what were once known as different Gods, right next to each other in the canon. And of course, as always, tons of sex and violence.

2: Job- Job is a great book to get get folks to loosen expectations of Scripture they may have picked up in Sunday School, and expand the way they look at the Bible as a whole. It is a work of philosophy, a thought experiment, and once you get people to see that, suddenly lots of new possibilities get lifted up, all in an engaging debate over the question of why bad things happen to good people. It also features the most sarcastic voice God is ever given in the scriptures, and I always love me some sarcasm.

3: Psalms- So often in my work I get people telling me that they are doing their faith wrong. That they are mad at God and shouldn't be, that they should be joyful and praising all the time. And when I need them to see that isn't the case, I refer them to the book of Psalms. A collection of worship prayers and hymns, the Psalms contain emotion from every facet of the life of faith, from joy, to awe, to fear, to sadness, to unquenchable rage. It's all there, all of it beautifully, truly, sometimes horribly human. It doesn't deal in rights or wrongs, shoulds or shouldn'ts. No judgement. Just prayer, and the knowledge that prayer isn't wrong.

4: Mark- You just have to love a portrayal of Jesus as a healing ninja. Mark is the Gospel at its least pretentious, making few overt claims and allowing the actions of Christ speak for themselves. And in the word, Christ is at a constant sprint, immediately going from one place to another, and constantly spreading the word... "DON'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT ME." Which, of course, they always failed. Jesus Christ- Great Healer, Poor Ninja.

5: Romans- I don't typically get that into Paul. He writes great stuff, don't get me wrong, but when a guy spends a chapter or two telling his followers to aspire to be as humble as he is, you spend a decent amount of time rolling your eyes. But Romans is, perhaps, the primary treatise of the faith, at least in the way I practice it. The building blocks of my faith are found here, and none more profound than the following:

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Honorable Mentions:

And now, some books that I couldn't quite place in my top 5 but needed a mention, because they're awesome...

Ruth- Two impoverished women make their way in a landscape arrayed against them by playing the rules of the system and trusting each other, written both as a funny bar story and as a middle finger to the prophet Nehemiah, who thought Judah should be getting rid of foreign women.

Judges- An early history of the Hebrew Nation before the Kings. It reads almost like a comic book, with great heroes making rises and falls. As I have talked before, it also features Deborah, the crowning proof that God does NOT oppose women in leadership positions.

Hosea- I am always tempted to put this in the church reading when my most prim and proper church lady is my liturgist, to see how many times she can say the word "whoredom" without getting flustered.

Habakuk- I just like the name.