Keeping An Open Mind

I am a liberal.

I'll give you a moment to get over the shock.

Now, as a liberal, I am duty-bound to have certain beliefs. You know, hating America, thinking babies make for good eating, stuff like that. My beliefs of course, are right. Not Right as in Coulter and O'Reilly, but right as in correct.

The key to being a liberal, though, is recognizing there are people out there who believe things different from what I believe. Some of them even go so far as to actually disagree with me. Preposterous, I know, but there it is. And the really important thing about being a true liberal is to accept that those people have a right to those differing thoughts, beliefs and opinions.

They're wrong, of course. But they have a right to be wrong.

Clever how I worked the blog title into a blog entry, don't you think? (You don't have to think so, but you're wrong if you don't) (See! There it is again. Genius.)

Nevertheless, and despite my deep conviction of my own rightness, every now and then a story comes along that makes me wonder if those other people really might not be utterly and thoroughly wrong. Or at least that I might not be quite as perfectly right as I thought. Liberals are open-minded that way. It's what makes us better than other people.

One of those stories happened in Wichita a couple weeks back. It all started when three men decided they needed to ...

Before I go any further, I should clarify something. I am not making this up. Even a career in law did not prepare me to concoct anything this ridiculously stupid.

So anyway, these three guys were mad about some stereo speakers, and figured the best way to solve their problem was to kidnap some teen-ager. Really. And we're not even to the stupid part yet.

It should come as no surprise that these guys did not exactly execute their plan flawlessly. To prove I am not making this up, I quote now from the Associated Press article:

WICHITA, Kan. - A botched kidnapping ended with one of the assailants shooting himself in the groin, Wichita police said.

That would do it.

The guy wasn't done, though. After shooting himself "in the left testicle" when he shoved a pistol into his waistband (I'm no firearms expert, but unless it was a really tiny gun, I suspect the AP could safely have started that sentence "After shooting off his left testicle...") the would-be kidnapper "cringed" -- who wouldn't? -- "causing the gun to fire again and strike him in the left calf."

I read the story and immediately found myself wondering: Is this an argument for or against gun control? I mean, I'm a liberal and so it should go without saying that I am in favor of making sure no one has a gun so the UN can sweep down in its black helicopters and make us all renounce God in forced gay marriage ceremonies. Or, if not that exactly, at least I think handguns should be more carefully regulated than they are now because in the hands of bad guys they can be dangerous. Deadly even.

But if the bad guys are going to shoot themselves in the nuts, letting them keep the guns might well make them less dangerous to the rest of us.

And then I realized the question was deeper and more profound. This incident may prove both liberals and conservatives wrong about the very question of creation. I mean, c'mon. If this guy is the product of Intelligent Design, then the head Designer is in for one heck of a product liability suit.

But Darwin's not off the hook either. If humans really are the result of an evolutionary process, eliminating the weakest genes through generations of survival of the fittest, shouldn't we be past the point of shooting off our own testicles? If this is where climbing the evolutionary ladder for tens of thousands of years has gotten us, that first rung must have been pretty far down.

On the other hand, this may just be a particularly drastic example of evolution making an abrupt course correction. Now if it would only do something about Coulter and O'Reilly.

I Want My Wii! Now!

Shoving ethics aside for a higher purpose, I rolled up to the nearby Wal-Mart at 11:40 last night in hopes of snagging the new supercool Nintendo Wii at its 12:01 release. A few kids were already in line, playing some hacky-sack. No problem. There should be enough. This would be a snap. I could even wait in the car.

More or less 4 hours later, it's 11:59. This is when it finally occurs to me that if this Wal-Mart is open 24 hours, why aren't the kids waiting inside?

Uh oh. Panic creeps in. Tears start to form. The inner child revs up a tantrum.

Another 2 hours (again, more or less) pass, and it's 12:01. The magic moment.

Nothing. Nada. Zip. The store is closed until morning.

Damn you Wal-Mart! What's the point of having ethically challenged megastores selling cheap products made by cheap labor and stocked by underpaid employees if they aren't open 24 hours day to cater to my immediate wish -- no, need -- to have the newest coolest toy?

Ok, ok. Breathe. I can get through this. The inner adult distracts the inner child with shiny objects and candy and puts him to bed. We can get up in the morning before Target opens and get in line. That should work. The lines won't be around the block. I mean, it's not like these are Playstation 3 buyers. Those people are crazy, camping out for days in the cold, getting mugged, in one case running headlong into a pole in a mad dash for one of the lawn chairs a store manager set out.

No sense of decorum. We Wii buyers, though, we're much more reasonable and mature.

So I roll out of bed a little after 7 and head for Target. The line isn't too long. I get in it. The inner child is practically giddy. The nice Target boys are handing out tickets. This is it. I get to be the first kid on my block with a Wii. (Ok, since many of my neighbors are in their 50s or older, I'm probably the only one trying to get a Wii, but that's their problem, not mine).

And then they run out of tickets. Before I get one.

The inner child is crushed, despondent. He goes through the 5 stages of grief (mad, really mad, really really mad, super pissed off, and furious). A raging debate ensues with the inner adult. It goes something like this:

Inner Adult: For crying out loud, you're 36 years old. I know you're an inner child and all, but grow up already.

Inner Child: Shut up!

Inner Adult: Look, you don't need the Wii right this very moment. You can wait. It's not like you don't have other toys and games to play with. Oh, and a job.

Inner Child: You're ugly and you smell funny.

Inner Adult: Nice. Now think about this for half a second you little brat. Not only do you already have lots of cool games to play, but this obsession with getting the newest coolest thing the second it hits the shelves is a reflection of American consumerism at its worst, a demonstration that we fail to appreciate what we ... Hey! What are you doing? ... Put that down. Now. ... Ouch, that hurt ... mmmffff ..... [thud]

At which point, the inner child clubs the inner adult with the Wii nunchuk controller, knocking him senseless, and trusses him up with the cords from his Nintendo Gamecube controllers (I mean, what else are you gonna do with them? Cords? On a controller? What kind of Luddite nonsense is that?).

Ok, inner child, you seem to have earned the last word. Your rebuttal?

Inner Child: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! I WANT MY Wiiiiiiiii!

To Wisconsin

Amendment banning gay marriage and even civil unions: Passed.

Death penalty: Endorsed.

You are dead to me.

Victory, bit by bit

"I know it's hard sometimes, but just remember this. The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The good guys are winning.

No matter what happens in tomorrow's election, no matter who controls the House or the Senate, remember this.

The good guys are winning.

Even if the self-righteous, hate-filled Michele "fool for Christ" Bachmann manages to get elected to the U.S. House, the good guys are winning. If she is defeated, though, the good guys get an extra point.

I know sometimes it seems bad, seems like we're taking a pounding. And sometimes it is bad, and we are taking a pounding. But we're still winning. You just have to take the long view.

Consider:

• When this Union was founded on the premise that all men are created equal, some men were counted as only 3/5 human.
  
• Less than a century ago, we pretended "separate but equal" was a legitimate way to run a government.
• Even after an activist court threw out "separate but equal," black men and women were hosed down, beaten and killed for such radical acts as sitting down at a lunch counter, going to school, or voting. That was only 50 years ago.
• It's been fewer than 90 years since the U.S. Constitution recognized the right of women to vote.
  
• Until 1976, a man could legally rape his wife in every state in this country.
• Employers were free, as recently as 40 years ago, to deny employment, promotions or equal pay to women, minorities or gays because they were women, minorities or gay.
  

But today federal law recognizes and protects the rights of minorities and women to equal treatment in employment and education. The Voting Rights Act was just renewed. Blatant racists are mocked as ignorant, and even cultural conservatives have to carefully couch their racism in neutral terms if they want to maintain even a shred of credibility. The pay gap between men and women is steadily (if slowly) closing. Rape and domestic violence are matters of public discussion. And a developing cultural consensus that gay people don't actually have an agenda, aren't contagious, and aren't trying to convert the rest of us has most people pretty much figuring they've got better things to worry about than if Adam prefers Steve to Eve.

Are things perfect? No. They aren't even as good as they should be. Injustices persist, and will for some time. But it's a long game, and no matter what happens tomorrow, I like our side's chances.

A Note To John Kerry

Jokes aren't your thing. Please, for the love of all that is (or isn't) holy, don't try to tell them anymore.

A note to George W. Bush and his machine:

You're even more disgusting than I thought. You are liars and cheats. You know damned well Kerry (who, unlike most of you, actually was a soldier) wasn't attacking or insulting the troops. You, in fact, insult us and the troops by exploiting Kerry's remarks for cheap political showmanship. If you hadn't botched a war that has led to the deaths of literally countless thousands, your manufactured hysteria over a botched punch line might not be quite so repugnant. But you did, so shut the hell up.

A note to the media:

Would you please stop being such patsies? Don't let yourself be manipulated so easily. You know as well as W that Kerry wasn't attacking the troops. Say so. Or, at the very least, play more than the botched line. Play the set-up, which makes crystal clear that Kerry was talking about the president being less than adequately intelligent for his current job.

And finally, a note to any voter who actually believes Kerry was attacking the troops:

Don't be such an idiot. Think about it for half a second and you'll realize there is no way any politician, of any party, would attack the men and women who have been sent to risk their lives on our behalf. If you let yourself be so easily misled into believing something that is so obviously not true, and if you vote, then democracy in this country is in a lot of trouble.