Don't You Feel Responsible?

Image credit: Focus.aps.org

The Hate Crimes bill recently passed as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act, and President Obama signed it into law. I've blogged on the ridiculous nature of "hate crime" legislation before, but now a larger connection is materializing in my mind, bringing with it a fresh sense of urgency.

As the FCC is looking to the Net Neutrality Act to enlarge its dominion and neutralize the perceived threat posed by speech that is just too free, it's worth considering how hate crime legislation will interact with that speech crackdown, particularly in the style of attack widely favored by the mass media.

When a lunatic grabs a gun and shoots security guards in a museum, or a lunatic threatens a Federal facility or an abortion clinic, the mass media rush to find a way to blame (conservative-ish) rhetoric and/or a (conservative-ish) pundit for inciting the violence.

That agenda is hardly hidden. As just one example, in a recent interview with Glenn Beck, Katie Couric asked him whether he wouldn't feel responsible if someone who happened to listen to his show or attend a Tea Party, did something stupid and violent.

The aim of that propagandist line of questioning is to blame those advocating oppositional ideas for violence - even when those same advocates are actively discouraging violence.

How far will we go in blaming ideas and groups for the behavior of individuals?

If ideas considered political are squelched because of individual renegade behavior, how much longer will it be before we see an even broader application of the same line of thought that the mass media is using today?

Take, for example, the case of someone who is murdered solely because of their same-gender sexual orientation (the spark of the Hate Crimes bill). The criminal who killed that individual is not just guilty of murder, but legally of a hate crime. Odds are that the attacker attended a Christian denomination at some point in his life. Christian denominations generally preach that homosexual behavior is a sin.  Don't you Christian preachers feel responsible for that attack?  Don't you see how your judgmental doctrine of "sin" encourages attacks on homosexuals?

Aside from basic causal logic, the unsound line of "don't you feel responsible?" questioning necessarily dismisses that individuals are responsible for their own behavior.

Accountability for our choices is the primary check on individual behavior; and as the foil to statist control, it must be fought by those advocating greater government control of our lives.

Is the nefarious nature of the "don't you feel responsible?" approach clear yet? Particularly as our government is arguing for even greater control of our speech, I am concerned that not just freedom of speech, but the freedom of conscience that leads to accountability will be disdainfully swept aside in a frenzied media search to blame someone - anyone - but an individual for that individual's actions.

Collectivizing responsibility that belongs with an individual will eventually imprison us all.

Commie, Neo-con, Whatever.

Liberal. Conservative.

Right-wing gun nut.

Hippie.

Tea Partier (at best).

Republican. Democrat. Extremist.

"One of those people."

Are we in third grade?

I know that treating people like individuals is just SO... HAAAAARD... but it's what we need.

Maybe I'm just a contrarian. (Category alert!) But topping off broad, stereotypical, media accusations and derision at political meetings, was a recent conversation sprinkled generously with "you're not one of those people, are you?"

What I said: "Yeah, actually, I am."

What I thought:

"Finer Clay"

photo credit: drwhimsy

Perhaps the most fundamental nonsense in collectivist dogma is that while all people are equal, some people are "more equal" than others.

The idea that - rather than all mankind being born with the same basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - some mankind have a) more rights than others and are thereby fit to rule over others; or b) fewer rights than others and are thereby undeserving of respect for their natural rights, is, in a word, demonic.

I'll focus on the former for now, as we see it so frequently in practice.

Those unprincipled individuals in elected office tend to take upon themselves a "creator" role - and the longer they spend in office, the greater grows that tendency and view of their own benevolence toward us, who, no longer their employers, have somehow become their wards.

Thoughts on Allegations of Selfishness

Image credit: Microsoft

One of the most effective tactics for making someone feel guilty (presuming they have an active conscience) is to accuse them of being selfish.

This works particularly well as a progressive closing salvo against free markets and low taxes... at least, it tends to hurt my feelings and shut me up, because "I'm not selfish" isn't much of an argument.

So I've been thinking about that accusation and honestly evaluating my motives for advocating lower taxation and less government restriction and regulation, and my thoughts have solidified into these grounds:

A healthy respect for each individual's natural rights: Life, Liberty, and Property (the fruits of our pursuit of happiness).

This respect leads me to the following conclusion:

Rights, Sociability, and Hate

An article linked from Trying to Grok has opened up a whole (long) line of thinking for me. The statement that particularly caught my attention appeared in the author's original op-ed:

I want Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Marxists, Independents and anyone with a halfway decent idea that doesn't incorporate hate.

"That doesn't incorporate hate."

Here's part of my comment at TTG, as a springboard to further thought:

People can have hate, regardless of their political leanings.

But when it comes to ideology, which seems more "hateful":

a) Regardless of your feelings, you may not violate Person X's rights, nor may you join with others to do so in a collective fashion; or

b) Regardless of your feelings or actions, if you have a material or immaterial advantage over Person X, then Person X may individually or collectively violate your rights to eliminate that inequality ?

"Hate."

In this world, there are a number of things we can't force other people to do - eating, sleeping, and potty training among them.

We can't forcibly change someone's opinion, and we can't force others to feel love - or not to feel hate.

We have to figure those things out inside ourselves.

But as a species, that's been hard for us to accept.

What the US *Should* be Saying about the Environment

Currently, our President is working with other leaders of nations around the world, discussing what we can commit ourselves to, to help the environment.

Here's some of what "we" are saying to the world, and what the world is saying to us:

1. "The United States has sometimes fallen short of meeting our responsibilities," Obama said. "Let me be clear, those days are over." [Calling us irresponsible and apologizing to the rest of the world for our citizens' exceptional horrible-ness. Maybe we should all have government-issued flails for when someone, somewhere, is upset with us. Oops, strike that - I'm afraid they'll get a new spending bill authorized...]
   
2. "We have agreed for the first time that average global temperatures must rise by no more than 2C." -Gordon Brown [Did you hear that, sun? No more than TWO DEGREES!!!]
3. "[T]he G8 needed to sound a second wake-up call on the world economy." [No comment necessary.]
   
4. "Neither the wealthy nor the countries in search of their own footing think the other side is doing enough. And only when the pollution emitters work together on a binding plan will a climate strategy work, experts say." [Sounds like a winning strategy to me - just don't do anything until we ALL agree! *wink*]
   

Here's what we SHOULD be saying, as a nation:

1. We love people.
2. We love the planet.
3. We should try to be responsible human beings.
4. NOW,

Understanding Risk and Revolution

image credit: http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wcarr1/Lossing1/Chap35.html

It's a nice get-together with my in-laws on Father's Day.

The kids float in and out of adult conversations, wanting snuggles here and owie-mending there... when this particular adult conversation turns to Iran and the upheaval it is experiencing.

We discuss some of the complexities and conflicts most recently in the news, and I become particularly animated as I recount the rapid succession of tweets from a day prior, about the rooftop Allahu Akbar chants escalating into shouting that shook the city.

That catches my eight-year-old nephew's attention.

With fascination and callousness borne of near-complete lack of understanding, typical for his age, he asks, "Why don't the [Basij & co.] just shoot 'em?"

"Sometimes they do."

His face falls.

"These people," I continue, "are risking their lives to get up on their rooftops and shout because they believe so strongly in what they're doing."

It's quiet for a moment, and then the conversation moves appropriately in a different direction.

***
It was quite a sobering talk for me, too - having this risk illustrated so graphically.

In today's society, it is too easy to forget the real risk our own founders took in banding together and rebelling against the government they had. It wasn't clean and peachy: slander at least, hanging, burning, drawing-and-quartering...

And it makes me think.

What am *I* willing to stand up for?

What am *I* willing to risk?

I'm at least willing to put my own name out there.

It's Krista.