Fate seems to play strange things with my life. I was in Denver for the trial of Timothy McVeigh and now find myself in Arizona for the recent assassination attempt on the life of Representative Gifford, gunned down by a disturbed man whose motive is unclear but tied somehow to personal delusions and demons. It is hard to see how shooting a nine-year old child, senior citizens, and a legislative aide serves a satisfying political purpose, but no one ever said the mentally ill needed to make sense.
Now, mental illness is something with which I have had some slight connection. My mother was a psychiatric nurse, first in the UK, then in Canada, whose career ended with service in a high-security prison facilty for the criminally insane in Matsqui, British Columbia. My own grandmother suffered from dementia caused by a stroke for all of the time her life overlapped mine. I grew up knowing my mother's patients and visiting the facilities where she worked, even including the prison at Matsqui. While not a trained psychiatric professional, I still have more personal insight into mental illness than many others who are busily arguing over responsibility for this last terrible event in Tuscon.
This morning's Phoenix paper is full of finger pointing, particularly at Sarah Palin. I think all this is completely useless and a mere continuation of the very things that have brought us to this point; this country is enduring national division, as significant as the one during those terrible months and days leading up to America's Civil War. We are divided with both sides locked into positions as securely and morally smugly as those who went to war to impose their versions of truth..
Nevertheless, I believe that blaming Sarah Palin, as various members of the media are trying to, is both disingenuous and a copout. Now, as every reader of this blog knows, I am no great fan of Ms. Palin's simplistic self-promotion nor her pandering to the worst among us. I must admit a grim satisfaction to watching her get bitten on her butt by the tiger she attempted to ride. Yet I do not link her to the shooting-- except for her complicity in the general mood that has swept the country.
One thing I quickly realized about mental patients is that their pathology is a distortion of the culture around them, a parallel universe but not one that is completely unrecognizable. For example, I once saw a disturbed man in Italy attempting to pinch someone's rear in a train station. He was no threat, but it seemed to me that he was desperately trying to be part of a culture from which he was excluded and in which his disability did not allow him to participate.
Only someone who interviews the shooter may be able to explain the desperate motives that led him to kill. But my guess is that somewhere inside his brain he had a crippled vision of the culture around him. America is a culture that is easily misperceived, particularly by those whose brains can see only the shadows of the culture around them. Partisans on both sides of every issue have villified one another and expressed their positions absolutely--there is no grey, only black and white. This verbal assault is not supposed to lead to actual murder. If such happens, those who have spoken harsh words publicly are the first to deny any responsibility--this, of course, is a given since accountability is uncomfortable. Nevertheless, there have been historical precedents when political thought led to assassination, and one has to wonder how someone can deny any responsibility when faced with the murders of Presidents Lincoln, McKinley, and Kennedy. There IS precedent and as Representative Gifford said herself, there is an effect when people indulge their prejudices.
So, I do not blame Ms. Palin. Hers is only one voice. There is enough blame to go around. I do believe, however, and very strongly, that the beloved Constitution of this country did not and should not merely be one-way, with the conferring of freedoms and benefits. Those who choose to exercise their rights need to understand that the right of free speech comes with the price tag of responsibility for what is being said. I would think a great deal more of Ms. Palin and the media that supports her and the other pundits, if instead of reloading and having her staff defend her, she looked in the mirror and shuddered. I might also think that the US was maturing if it stopped the pernicious practice of finding scapegoats rather than taking responsibility for itself.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
An Illegal Is Not Just a Mexican Bird
Recently there has been a flap down here in RV land—our park, which shall remain nameless lost its activities director. He had been directing things here for six seasons, long enough to build an empire and have followers. He was given a severance package and twenty-fours notice to remove his rig to another park. Ashes and sackcloth followed. People were in tears, people threatened not to return next season, people cursed the park owners. You would have thought someone had been killed.
The reason for all this heartbreak? It turns out that the activities director was not a US citizen and was working illegally. In other words, he was an illegal alien to the extent he was violating his tourist visa.
The situation (his unlawful employment) came to light when various parks and businesses catering to RVers were called into a meeting and told that there was going to be a crackdown.
Right there, you can tell he wasn’t Mexican. When Mexicans are involved, the IRS raids, arrests, and sorts thing out later. The director was Canadian. The park was warned, he was given a severance package, and he was moved out quickly (probably on advice of legal counsel) since his RV space was part of his pay package. No arrest. No jail. No deportation. Genteel, as these things go, and definitely preferential.
Now what gets my goat and the reason for this blog is that the same people wearing ashes and sackcloth have been the ones passionately complaining about illegals here in Arizona. The law has been broken, they’ve said loudly, and why couldn’t these people wait for work permits and green cards, why don’t they learn English, and why don’t they go back where they came from? The whole matter has been turned in a moral maelstrom in the park.
The many Canadian RVers don’t really understand the seriousness of the situation so think he treated shabbily with only 24 hours notice. The director’s followers see the loss of their little privileges and wonder why now after six years (good question). And the self-righteous among us are busy stereotyping all Mexicans into vicious criminals and drug runners (even the children) in order to defend the director from label of illegal: he was a good guy, why aren’t they out catching the real ones.
Now I’m not in favor of illegal immigration myself (I went through what I call the sewer of the regular process to emigrate to Canada and then the US) but I am a foe of hypocrisy. I am making myself unpopular, of course, pointing out the fallacy to those folk now saying the director “at least came legally into the country.” He came in on a tourist visa, chums, that says specifically that he may not accept employment in the US. The law is the law, and—yes—anglos, I want to tell them but don’t, it applies to you too. I think it says reams that this park is just about one hundred percent anglo.
I’m glad the director wasn’t taken out of the park in handcuffs. I’m glad he’s not sitting in INS jail with all the Mexicans awaiting a hearing. I’m really glad they didn’t shut down the park and freeze assets (which would have seen the lot of us trying to find spaces in 24 hours with no refunds), but I am very disappointed in the park’s willingness to expose all of us to those risks (and, yes, the IRS and INS can do that).
The little legalistic core in me, left over from dealing with federal investigations on campus (which no one in their right mind would ever want—trust me) says there’s a reason the figure of Justice wears a blindfold.
The reason for all this heartbreak? It turns out that the activities director was not a US citizen and was working illegally. In other words, he was an illegal alien to the extent he was violating his tourist visa.
The situation (his unlawful employment) came to light when various parks and businesses catering to RVers were called into a meeting and told that there was going to be a crackdown.
Right there, you can tell he wasn’t Mexican. When Mexicans are involved, the IRS raids, arrests, and sorts thing out later. The director was Canadian. The park was warned, he was given a severance package, and he was moved out quickly (probably on advice of legal counsel) since his RV space was part of his pay package. No arrest. No jail. No deportation. Genteel, as these things go, and definitely preferential.
Now what gets my goat and the reason for this blog is that the same people wearing ashes and sackcloth have been the ones passionately complaining about illegals here in Arizona. The law has been broken, they’ve said loudly, and why couldn’t these people wait for work permits and green cards, why don’t they learn English, and why don’t they go back where they came from? The whole matter has been turned in a moral maelstrom in the park.
The many Canadian RVers don’t really understand the seriousness of the situation so think he treated shabbily with only 24 hours notice. The director’s followers see the loss of their little privileges and wonder why now after six years (good question). And the self-righteous among us are busy stereotyping all Mexicans into vicious criminals and drug runners (even the children) in order to defend the director from label of illegal: he was a good guy, why aren’t they out catching the real ones.
Now I’m not in favor of illegal immigration myself (I went through what I call the sewer of the regular process to emigrate to Canada and then the US) but I am a foe of hypocrisy. I am making myself unpopular, of course, pointing out the fallacy to those folk now saying the director “at least came legally into the country.” He came in on a tourist visa, chums, that says specifically that he may not accept employment in the US. The law is the law, and—yes—anglos, I want to tell them but don’t, it applies to you too. I think it says reams that this park is just about one hundred percent anglo.
I’m glad the director wasn’t taken out of the park in handcuffs. I’m glad he’s not sitting in INS jail with all the Mexicans awaiting a hearing. I’m really glad they didn’t shut down the park and freeze assets (which would have seen the lot of us trying to find spaces in 24 hours with no refunds), but I am very disappointed in the park’s willingness to expose all of us to those risks (and, yes, the IRS and INS can do that).
The little legalistic core in me, left over from dealing with federal investigations on campus (which no one in their right mind would ever want—trust me) says there’s a reason the figure of Justice wears a blindfold.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Life's Illusions 2011
Anyone reading my blog through the years will not be surprised by this list. This is where I stand and it lies behind everything I have written. As we start 2011, therefore, I'd like to thank you all for reading my work. It's been a personal adventure for me and I hope a source of interest and amusement for you. Here's hoping that the new year is kind to us all.
• Religion and Politics are not ends in themselves—they are symptoms of the people who support them. If people did not need to feel secure and superior, neither would exist.
• Organized religion is a corporation providing a service: giving pre-digested answers to life’s great questions, licensing human behavior, and providing employment.
• Religions exist for community. They become political when they legislate human behavior and then attempt to enforce it.
• Spirituality does not require an organized place of worship or prescribed ways of recognizing blessings.
o The founders of a religion are the idealists. Followers take and pervert the original ideas as people sign on. It is much easier to gain followers by promising benefits than asking for sacrifice.
o People can create better myths and beliefs for themselves if they go out to a hillside in complete darkness and try counting stars.
o It is entirely possible to be ethical and not part of organized religion.
o Any religion looks ridiculous if its basic beliefs are examined closely. Contrary to religious belief, science is not a religion. It is subject to hypothesis and correction through evidence. Belief and truth are not the same. Try telling the creationists to prove or disprove their beliefs.
o Parents who raise their children in an organized religion without thinking shut down young minds and then act as enforcers for religion if the children start to think for themselves.
o Politics is not the art of the possible: it is the art of the expedient, particularly in lining the pockets of those who know how to play the game. Too often, any good done for society as the result of political action is incidental and accidental. The wisest question to ask a politician is “Who is benefitting from this?” or, more bravely, “How are you benefitting from this?”
o Religion assumes prominence when people are starving and stressed. At other times it is one more form of oppression, purporting to add spiritual authority to human unkindness.
o Religious and political “values” are merely slogans to sway large numbers of people by referring to ideologies and ideas that people know only by name and have not taken the time to examine. Anyone who really studies politics and religion should be scared witless by them.
o Wars are a form of profit seeking and taking. Lunatics start them, people die for them, religion justifies them, and armament manufacturers encourage it all. Money is not the root of all evil. People believing they deserve it is.
• Religion and Politics are not ends in themselves—they are symptoms of the people who support them. If people did not need to feel secure and superior, neither would exist.
• Organized religion is a corporation providing a service: giving pre-digested answers to life’s great questions, licensing human behavior, and providing employment.
• Religions exist for community. They become political when they legislate human behavior and then attempt to enforce it.
• Spirituality does not require an organized place of worship or prescribed ways of recognizing blessings.
o The founders of a religion are the idealists. Followers take and pervert the original ideas as people sign on. It is much easier to gain followers by promising benefits than asking for sacrifice.
o People can create better myths and beliefs for themselves if they go out to a hillside in complete darkness and try counting stars.
o It is entirely possible to be ethical and not part of organized religion.
o Any religion looks ridiculous if its basic beliefs are examined closely. Contrary to religious belief, science is not a religion. It is subject to hypothesis and correction through evidence. Belief and truth are not the same. Try telling the creationists to prove or disprove their beliefs.
o Parents who raise their children in an organized religion without thinking shut down young minds and then act as enforcers for religion if the children start to think for themselves.
o Politics is not the art of the possible: it is the art of the expedient, particularly in lining the pockets of those who know how to play the game. Too often, any good done for society as the result of political action is incidental and accidental. The wisest question to ask a politician is “Who is benefitting from this?” or, more bravely, “How are you benefitting from this?”
o Religion assumes prominence when people are starving and stressed. At other times it is one more form of oppression, purporting to add spiritual authority to human unkindness.
o Religious and political “values” are merely slogans to sway large numbers of people by referring to ideologies and ideas that people know only by name and have not taken the time to examine. Anyone who really studies politics and religion should be scared witless by them.
o Wars are a form of profit seeking and taking. Lunatics start them, people die for them, religion justifies them, and armament manufacturers encourage it all. Money is not the root of all evil. People believing they deserve it is.
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