Objectively, things keep improving. Seriously.
Crime is down. Life expectancy is up. Accidents are down.
Computers are doing more. Medical science is saving lives that would have been lost only ten years ago.
The air and water is cleaner. Our food is safer. Products we buy are safer.
More countries are democracies than ever before. People have more rights than ever before.
Graduation rates are up. Teenage pregnancies are down.
Things are better.
You’d never know this from watching the news, though, for two main reasons:
First, the news stations and the internet sites need you to watch so they blow everything out of proportion to get you to pay attention.
Second, news that never would have gotten attention outside of your local area now is known everywhere. That makes it look like there is something terrible happening every day and gosh darn it, I don’t remember that happening when I was younger! Clearly, things have gotten worse. No, you’re just more aware of it now.
It’s like reports about police brutality. Every day, there is another one, but I’m pretty sure this has always been going on and we’re just hearing about it more now, especially since everyone carries around a portable movie camera in their phones these days.
This is not to say everything is improving. Anti-science movements have censored schoolbooks and brought back diseases that had been practically eliminated. Gun deaths have increased thanks to the lessening of gun control. Income inequality is at the highest it has been since the Great Depression. Forest fires, storms and temperatures are more extreme and deadly thanks to climate change.
But when you sit back and wonder why there seems to be so much bad news these days, remember: There really isn’t. It just seems that way.
There’s an old joke that goes like this:
“Why are you banging that drum so loud?”
“It’s to keep the tigers away.”
“There are no tigers within a thousand miles of here!”
“You’re welcome.”
You might have heard of the crazies in Texas who are convinced that a regular military exercise being performed there is actually Obama’s evil plan to have them take over Texas and instill martial law, because, after all, once Texas goes, the rest of the country is helpless. These people think that the military, which swears an oath to the Constitution and not the President, will simply ignore such an illegal order; that the Republicans who have never said “yes” to Obama on anything will simply roll over and agree; that the press won’t contest it; and that liberals — who by definition hate totalitarian governments — will be completely in favor of this scheme.
To make this paranoid delusion even more amazing, these people also believe that they, and they alone, have the power to stop this thanks to their God-given right to their guns — because they and their rifles will be able to hold back tanks, missiles, drones, and the most powerful, best trained military in the history of the world.
They’re really looking forward to it. Some have posted on the internet about how anxious they are to “kill liberals.” I am not making this up.
But here’s what’s going to happen: Nothing.
And then these same people will bang their drums and brag:
“If it hadn’t been for us being so prepared, Obama would have taken over America by force!
You’re welcome.”
By wanting to know what I was talking about, I have disqualified myself from ever being considered a Republican.
I guess that’s a good thing, really.
You see, when Obama announced the deal with Iran, I started reading articles about it to see exactly what it said. I went on my Facebook page and asked for advice from those who follow these things closer, and otherwise tried to educate myself before making an opinion.
Not so the Republican party, whose motto is “If Obama is for it, we’re against it.” As soon as the 100-page treaty was announced, Marco Rubio had a commercial denouncing it for “allowing Iran to build a nuclear bomb.” From what I have read, it does the exact opposite, but hey, when have facts ever stood in the way of a good Republican rant?
Before the treaty, there was a policy of cutting Iran off from all trade. We had a lot of other countries working with us as well. The policy worked, because it got them to the negotiating table. The new treaty reinstates trade (good for business) and allows us to investigate and make sure they’re not building bombs (something we didn’t have the power to do before).
Now, did we get everything we wanted? No, of course not. That’s how negotiations work. That’s how treaties with other countries work. You get as much as you can, and it’s better to get 50% of what you want than 0% any day.
But that’s not how the GOP sees it: In their mind, it’s far better to go to war. (It’s also more profitable to the industries that bankroll the GOP.) And whatever is in the treaty doesn’t matter, because they’re against it, especially because they haven’t read it and think it does things it doesn’t do (“Don’t confuse my opinion with facts!”).
Keep in mind that the real reason they’re against it is because it was a treaty from Obama, who may have finally earned his Nobel Peace Prize. Had a Republican President made the exact same treaty, he’d be a great hero, like Nixon opening relationships with China.
We have 16 months until the Presidential election, but that won’t stop the pundits from making absolutely ridiculous predictions based on polling numbers.
“Donald Trump is ahead in the polls!” they say. Yeah, but to beat 14 other people in a poll, you only need to get what, 7% of the vote? 
Trump is ahead among Republicans only and even then in a small amount, and I’d be willing to bet that a lot of the support for Trump is because of name recognition. You think the average voter out there knows who Scott Walker is?
Remember 2012? As the primary season approached, Romney was the clear front runner in the Republican polls. Then suddenly it was Gingrich, who famously declared that the race was over and he was the winner. That lasted about a week and then Herman Cain was the guy ahead. Then it was Santorum for a short period before moving back to Romney again. All that happened within a few months from November through February or so, and all of those polls only had meaning to people who needed something to talk about in order to fill the 24 hour news cycle.
So far, not one of the Republican candidates comes anywhere close to beating Hillary Clinton in the polls — in fact, Trump does the worst (out of the main candidates). There’s a reason Democrats are cheering on his campaign.
But even so, that polling is just as meaningless. Anything can happen between now and election day. At this point back in 2008, Hillary was way ahead in the polls against this new guy called Barack Obama …
People who continue to display the Confederate flag fall into three categories: racists, assholes who don’t mind being insulting, or the willfully ignorant.
The first category is simple: This is a flag that has, from the moment it was sewn, stood for slavery and racial inequality. After the Civil War ended, it was not seen again for many years — until racists in the 50s resurrected it as their symbolic flag in their fight against integrating the schools. (And it wasn’t even the real Confederate flag!) The KKK adopted it soon thereafter and racists everywhere winked and nodded at each other when they saw that flag on each other’s cars and clothing. They know what it means.
The second category are those people who know that people associate it with racism and are insulted by it but don’t care. Why? Because at the root of it, they’re just assholes. There will always be assholes. There are assholes on the left, too, and there’s no cure for it, apparently.
The third category is the one we can deal with: The willfully ignorant. I say “willfully” because the facts are out there, but they are refusing to accept them (in much the same way people deny evolution or climate change). Some of my southern friends fall into this category. (I grew up in Richmond, home of the Confederacy). I don’t think they’re racists; they just are sticking their fingers in their ears and saying “La la la I can’t hear you” about the evidence.
First of all, understand that “ignorance” is not an insult. Everyone is ignorant about something. I am ignorant of particle physics, brain surgery, and fashion. But ignorance is something that can be cured, through education. It’s only something to be ashamed of if you are willfully ignorant and insist on holding a viewpoint while refusing to educate yourself.
When I said this on my Facebook page, I had a huge reaction that I did not expect. Allow me to summarize the arguments people gave and my responses:
But not everyone agrees that the flag symbolizes racism.
Those people who deny that are fooling themselves. They’re not facing reality. To pretend that that flag means something innocent and pure is to ignore (a) what it has meant since the day it was created; and (b) what the vast majority of Americans think it means. You can’t take a symbol and magically make it something nice.
You could fly a swastika and say that it’s an ancient symbol used by American Indians and be absolutely correct, but that’s not what it means now.
That’s the distinction. You don’t get to wave a wand and say “Poof! This flag no longer means what it once did!” Society picks meanings. You don’t get to choose your own meaning. Americans know what that flag means. Those who embrace it and claim otherwise are being intellectually dishonest or are willfully ignorant.
“Nuh uh, it means something else” is not a really strong argument.
No, that flag stands for the fight for freedom.
This one always gets me — the war was fought for “freedom.” The freedom to own other people as slaves. It was fought for “state’s rights” — the right to own other people. It was fought for “economic issues” — like the right to use slaves to make the economy work.
It all boils down to people wanting to hold other people as slaves. Any other interpretation is a whitewashing of history.
The flag stands for Southern Pride.
You want to honor “Southern pride”? Pick another symbol for southern pride other than the flag of treason, slavery, and intolerance, because that flag means you’re proud of those things.
And why don’t the north, east, and west have a flag for their own regional pride?
No, the only part of the country that thinks it needs a symbol to separate itself from the rest of the United States is the part that used that same symbol to try to leave the United States.
The flag stands for those Southerners who sadly died in the Civil War, many of whom did not necessarily support slavery.
Just like many Germans fought in WWII but who were themselves somewhat innocent victims of their leaders. But we don’t fly the Nazi flag to honor them.
Look — this flag stands for racism. There is a reason the Klan is angry about its removal from South Carolina’s state house. There is a reason they are holding rallies about it. There is a reason black churches are burning all over South Carolina. It’s not because of “freedom.”
Even when I was a kid growing up in the south in the 60s, I knew what that flag meant. None of my close friends ever wore anything with that flag, and at no time did I ever say to myself “Geez, I really like the south so I’m going to fly a flag that is usually associated with a cartoon drawing of an old confederate soldier saying the south will rise again.”
It’s not about the flag; it’s about freedom of speech!
This is a red herring. No one is trying to ban the flag (as I previously pointed out). You have every right, under the 1st Amendment, to display that flag. And I have every right under that same Amendment to criticize you for it. Freedom of Speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of that speech.
You probably want to ban “the Dukes of Hazzard” too!
I don’t want to ban anything. It’s just a TV show that represents the attitudes of the times. We can’t erase history, nor should we deny it. People who claim the flag isn’t about racism — they’re the ones trying to rewrite history.
The United States flag hasn’t always stood for good things either, you know.
The American flag has stood for things good and bad; and we are constantly fighting to make things better and right the wrongs of the past. The American flag stood for freedom but admittedly only freedom for white men at first, but we changed that. That flag stands for progress and has been used by groups fighting for their equality for hundreds of years.
The Confederate flag, on the other hand, stood for slavery and discrimination from the start — and still does. That’s why it was used by bigots in their fight against integration and equality and why the KKK flies it today. There has been no civil progress made with that flag as its symbol. That flag has never been the flag of equality or justice and has never been used by any group wanting to expand rights and make the US a better place.
No matter what category you may fit into, if you are displaying that flag, people are going to assume you’re a racist. Do you really want the KKK on your side? If they support it and are using it as their symbol, does that make you reconsider in the slightest? Do you really want people to think you agree with them?
That’s what the flag means, no matter how some people have tried to rewrite history. If they don’t think you’re a racist, they’re going to think you’re an asshole or willfully ignorant. None of those categories are flattering.
So don’t go whining and complaining when that happens.
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