Day 1227 – Notes From a Friend

Day 1227 – Notes From a Friend

Friday May 29, 2020 

156 Days until the election on November 3^rd

236 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

I use the title from Tony Robbins’ book (not Anthony here – Tony. Okay? Same guy, less formal.) mainly because I just read the book and it’s really helpful, but in my twisted way I thought it “nice.”

I have a friend. She tells people that she has extreme political views. Her stuff kept showing up on my Facebook feed. Typically, it’s a meme with a big glaring headline. She posts it usually with the note: “To read later.”

I have read many of her posts. I don’t know if she ever goes back and reads what she posts or if she looks up in other sources to see if what she is posting is true.

I doubt it. That s to say: I doubt she goes back and reads what she posts, and I doubt she looks up elsewhere to see if what she has posted is factually accurate. 

The problem I have with her posts is the headline is never accurate in that it never reflects the intention or real story. The headlines are typically carefully worded so as to not be wrong, but certainly not be accurate of what has gone on.

Most recently the meme posted was concerning The Speaker of The House. It said she wouldn’t allow the House to remote vote, yet was fine with mail-in voting.

Sounds hypocritical right? Yeah. But that wasn’t the actual story.

Pelosi was asked why not allow remote voting and she said it seemed the way the Constitution was written it wouldn’t be allowed. She said she thought the validity of such a vote was “vague.” She had asked others to look into it in more depth, as in “perhaps there is a way around it” (the quotes and sense is mine, not hers.)

I had earlier taken a month out to read whatever “To Read Later” posts my friend put up, and I pointed out time and again that what she put up was inaccurate and suggested she take them down. This ended in her writing, “You’ve said this before.”

And that’s pretty much how this last round went. There seem to be three people who always comment on these situations. The sister of an old grammar school buddy who holds similar beliefs to my friend. Her comment is never directly leveled at me but is indirectly ascribed. This last round it was “There’s a lot of anger out there.”

Then there’s a woman whom I don’t know that takes up a similar cudgel as my friend and chimes in with “You’ve said this before.”

Okay, I’ve said it before. What you are putting up is untrue and dishonest, for the love of God take it down and stop embarrassing yourself!

(You’ve said this before. … But not in that way … Why don’t YOU tell me what you believe and stop quoting others? (Wait? What? I tell you what I, unlike you, know the situation to be. I try to stay away from beliefs.) )

The other thing I get hit with is that I never back up what I say, which I find interesting because as far as I know I always do. At worst, I point out what the article sited really says or what the facts are that aren’t stated and can be found by a simple Google search.

Then there’s one more person who likes to jump in and ask my friend “who is this asshole?” and he throws in words like liptard, etc. 

He most recently pointed out why we shouldn’t allow mail in voting. Here is what he stated:

 so republican ballots are the same color as democratic ballots but the have a hidden isotope in the paper that the.scanner detects and counts as a Democratic vote. Yes it can happen. So you have millions of votes counted incorrectly. Yes it happens.

I have asked for examples. Haven’t heard back yet.

My friend likes to reply to her buds that I’m a liberal ask as such …

She then asks me to comment on a whole host of things: abortion, gun rights, etc. And poses the questions that many on the right think important (“So you think it’s okay for a person that declares themself to be female to compete in women’s sports?”, “Are you for the killing of babies when they are X weeks along?”, “So, It’s okay with you to let males walk into a women’s bathroom as long as they’ve declared themselves to be a woman?” etc.)

My brain is not big enough to do my screeds and answer her stuff. I either have to “Say yes to one, and let the other one ride”* or I have to think of something clever.

*Quick, what’s the song? What’s the group? Who is singing? 

I have decided, for now, to try and answer her questions, criticism of my earlier replies, in my screeds.

As I’ve thought about many of the issues she has raised it finally occurred to me, “What are her goals?” By that, what would she do? What does she ultimately wish for the country (the world) to be?

I don’t know what they are. So I’ll ask here. She can respond in a private email.

To be fair then I would have to state my goals.

They are – To Make the World a Better Place.

That I realize is very lofty and can be interpreted many different ways, and perhaps, just perhaps might be open to gigantic broadsides from her buddies so let me be more specific.

To make the world a better place requires of me and others to help, not just myself but others. The way to measure if the world is becoming a better place would be to look at various measurable outputs that address questions of climate, poverty, resource usage, and freedom. This requires one state their philosophy. I believe in the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats and therefore strive to look for answers to problems that help many people not a few. The alternative philosophy is what I call “Rugged Individualism” or “I got mine; you get yours.” The alternative philosophy, however you want to state it, makes claims that if you didn’t succeed it’s your fault and you should live with the consequences. Okay, that’s fine, then what do you do if someone ends up near the end of their life with no money and not able to afford to see a doctor? What do you, as an individual or as a nation, do? Ignore them?

This is illustrated in Tip O’Neil’s book “Speaker of the House.” At the time George Bush was President. A member of his staff had a personal problem in his family. I forget the exact situation, I think it had something to do with the man’s wife and a health issue that was going to be very expensive. George felt sorry for the man and they passed the hat. Nice gesture, thought Tip, but he was reminded that Bush had vetoed legislation that would have given the same kind of aid and comfort to many in a similar situation just the week before. Pass the hat is rugged individualism. Passing legislation to address the issue in general is floating all boats on a rising tide. 

Tomorrow I’ll address the Lafler Curve.

Now for the answer to the quiz from yesterday. What did you guess? Paddle? Good one. We had an oar and half a mile to go. Could have done that. I guess. But if you’re Billy Hood, you reach in your pocket, take out your cell phone and make a call, 

In a few minutes another motorized canoe was headed our way, and towed us. 

PS “You want a piece of me? Come on” The one claw crab takes on the world.