Mirror Image

even though we lived on beans and mush and weenies
when we sat down to eat, he said,
"not everybody can eat like this."

and because he wanted to be rich
or because he actually thought he was rich
he always voted Republican
--Father, Charles Bukowski

We are all murderers and prostitutes --
no matter what culture, society, class, nation one belongs,
no matter how normal, moral, or mature
one takes oneself to be
--R.D. Laing

If you talk to God, you are praying.
If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia
--Thomas Szasz

Dear Mummy, Dear Daddy,
Now I'm nineteen as you see,
I'm handsome, tall, and strong.
So what the hell gives you the right to look at me,
As if to say "Hell, what went wrong?"
--Bad Boys, Wham!
_____________________

Years ago -- more than are comfortable to remember -- Ranger learned a factoid about schizophrenics in a college counseling course that pertains to the U.S. citzenry today.

Schizophrenics are unable to identify their own bodies when tasked to identify themselves in a photo lineup. So disconnected are they from reality (or at least, perceived reality) that they cannot make this connection. Some otherwise normal people suffer "face blindness" (prosopagnosia), and fail to recognize themselves or others. As a society, it seems we share in this morphological disconnect.

A recent U.S. foreign policy initiative is to ensure gay rights on the international scene:

The Obama administration announced on Tuesday that the United States would use all the tools of American diplomacy, including the potent enticement of foreign aid, to promote gay rights around the world (U.S. to Aid Gay Rights Abroad, Obama and Clinton Say.)

This would be fair and equitable in an alternative universe, but how does this relate to ours? How can the U.S. force this initiative upon the world when we are so conflicted about the rights of gays at home? That's spelled h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y, folks.

Republican front-runner Rick Santorum just mistakenly compared gay marriage to polygamy. The military just rescinded "Don't ask, Don't Tell", and many cases like those of decorated aviator 18-year aviator Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach forced out of service due to his sexual orientation remain to be resolved. It took the U.S. 17 years to repeal DADT, and 220 years to end the prohibition of gays serving openly in the military, yet -- whammo! -- now we are the moral arbiters on all issues gay?

The issue of civil unions or marriage for gay couples remains highly contentious, as does everything issuing from that, including inheritance issues and deathbed rights to shared medical coverage for cohabiting partners.

A large portion of our society believes God does not approve of homosexuals, and certainly not of their coupling; may as well betroth Vietnamese pigs, far as they're concerned. For these people, how does their Christianity comport with the spreading of an ethos abroad in which they themselves do not believe? Do we view the rest of the world with disdain, and figure the heathens should "tolerate" what we reject?

May gays marry? Adopt children? Can they practice sodomy in all states? Is this rightly even a state or a federal issue? Do we as a society endorse the state department policy (outside of Portlandia?) Are our taxes earmarked to support gay rights issues?

Even if the goal is understandable, the mirror image is unrecognizable.

Flash in the Pan

Homer Stokes [as Grand Kleagle at a KKK rally]:
Brothers! Oh, brothers! We have all gathered here, to preserve our
hallowed culture and heritage! We aim to pull evil up by the root,
before it chokes out the flower of our culture and heritage!
And our women, let's not forget those ladies, y'all. Looking to us
for protection! From darkies, from Jews, from papists,
and from all those smart-ass folks say we come descended from monkeys!
. . .And so, we gonna hang us a negro!
--Oh Brother, Where Art Thou (2000)

If I owned Texas and Hell,
I'd rent out Texas and live in Hell.
- General Phillip H. Sheridan
_____________

Campaigning requires a certain skill set. That skill set is not necessarily consonant with good decision-making or leadership in a consensus-building way. It is like vying for Miss Congeniality, in a contest where winning that banner means you are top banana. Think a gushing Sally Field for the weightiness we are talking about here.

Why won't a one of them say, "I won't talk about my views on homosexuality. I won't tell someone who they may take as a partner. I will neither sanctify nor curse such private acts. I won't tell fertility labs what they can do with their surgical waste. I won't tell a family what to do with a member in a persistently vegetative state. . . These are matters beyond the President's office."

The front runners are all wealthy beyond the dreams of the average American taxpayer, who has little actual cash reserves, much like our Federal government. They never address this issue since they do not know what it actually feels like to live on the edge. Being out of touch with reality, or at least feigning ignorance, seems to be a requirement for holding national political office today.

Another reality is the U.S. is no longer the sole superpower in the world. When a group of rag-tag level one threat terror or insurgent groups can control the tempo of in-theatre military operations, the writing is on the wall. That's on the unconventional side.

On the conventional side, the picture is even bleaker. The U.S infrastructure of military training facilities has been eviscerated and the National Guard and Reserve forces are inadequate to address a general war scenario, like an actual WW III. The active forces are too thin to face say the Chinese or Russian armies. Imagine a war with Pakistan or India, or a combination thereof. Where is the money to pay for an international conflagration? Where's the draft to support an actual war?

Where is the will and the industrial base to face these potentialities? Yellow ribbon magnets don't help win or finance wars.

What is real is the future of the dollar is in foreign hands. If OPEC repudiates the dollar and if foreign investors dump their dollar-denominated holdings, then America is in a precarious posture.

If this happens, Social Security will be an immediate and non-deferrable crisis, as will all aspects of of American financial well-being. At that point, democratization of the world will be a moot point. Battles over gay marriage and all the other rhetorical bling will be overcome by a serious flash of reality.

The "values voters" want a candidate with values (that resonate with and therefore validate their own.) We need a candidate who concerns himself with matters of state, alone. There is no time for anything else. The rest belongs on the table in a college ethics seminar, or a Sunday school study group. Even the best man is no one's moral arbiter.

How magnificent it would be to have a candidate refuse to play God. Refuse to say he or she will mandate and legislate everything. A candidate who hands that terrible freedom and uncertainty back to the fundamentalist voter, who will then realize there is no absolute certainty available only to the elect (elected?)

Then you take a step toward real equality among men.