Tag Archives: America

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. “American genocide.” Every year at this time there are a flurry of opinion pieces telling us that we’re supposed to feel guilty about the arrival of Europeans on America’s shores. Since I wasn’t there at the time, I have no intention of feeling guilty about it – and I certainly won’t pretend to feel badly about my lack of guilt. You see, back in the 16th century, there was a principle called the right of conquest, which meant if you were strong enough to occupy and hold a territory, it was yours to govern. Under the banner of the many of the crowned heads of Europe, those early arrivals during the colonial period did just that. They occupied and then they governed under the well-established rules of the day. I don’t feel any more guilt over that than I do the Norman conquest of England in 1066 AD or the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC.

2. Just unfriend me. If your response to an opposing viewpoint on social media is something like, “If you think X, just go ahead and unfriend me,” chances are we probably shouldn’t be friends anyway. See, I value the debate, the discussion of ideas, more so than I value the “rightness” of my own opinion over all others. I think there should be loud and voluminous debate about important issues of the day. An approach of “just unfriend me” cuts that off and ensures that neither side of the debate can never be fully informed. I don’t pick my friends because I happen to agree with all of their politics, but if that’s what you expect of me, maybe you should go ahead and unfriend me after all. And if at some point in the heat of a moment I’ve ever thrown down that gauntlet, I abjectly beg your indulgence and forgiveness.

3. Working the holiday. Over the last 20 years I’ve had many jobs. Some of those jobs required I work nights, or weekends, or holidays, or be prepared for “call outs” on short notice. Because I liked getting paid, that means there were many family parties, weddings, funerals, and yes, even holidays I missed because I needed to be at the office. I’ve enjoyed traditional Thanksgivings around the family table and I’ve celebrated them with a turkey sandwich on the clock. I don’t expect anyone to be out there doing the job because they love it, but if holidays and weekends are part of the position description, it pretty much is what it is.

Why it’s different…

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It took about 36 hours before Facebook posts started trickling onto my feed implying that anyone who mentioned the attacks in Paris without talking about attacks that also took place in Lebanon, Nigeria and Baghdad, earthquakes in Japan, and all other manner of very bad things that happen every day around the world was a hate-spewing bigot.

The fact is, bad things happen all over the world every day. What makes Paris different, to me, is personal and simple. I’ve walked the streets of Paris. I’ve drank coffee in her cafes and rested my head in her hotels. I stood at the base of the Arc de Triomphe imagining the 24-wide mass of the US 28th Infinity rounding the monument and parading down the Champs Élysées when the city was liberated from German occupiers. I’ve stood on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower and marveled like millions of other tourists at a city that was already a millennia old when our own country was founded.

In the French people America found its first ally in our struggle for independence from the British crown and one of our harshest critics during the Cold War and years that followed. Here, now, in the 21st century, France and America are once again marching towards the sound of the guns and a foe who has stated loudly and often the intention to kill as many of our people as possible and drag the whole world back to the 7th century.

It’s different because on September 11th, 2001 the French people stood with America on what was the most shocking and appalling day in living memory for most of us. It’s different because in this new war the great democracies of the Western world must stand together or risk facing a new dark age sweeping across the globe like a plague.

You can choose to believe I think it’s different just because I share the same pale skin tone with many in France, but I know better.

What’s changed?

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The great debate over the virtue of the Second Amendment rages today as loudly as ever. Both sides scream past each other, fearing that giving an inch of ground will inexorably lead to the tide running hard against them.

There have been firearms in the United States since before we were the United States. The first colonists to wade ashore in Jamestown brought ball and powder in equal parts to hunt on and defend the new world they intended to carve out of the American wilderness.

What you don’t hear about them doing is walking into a tavern or church and taking a pot shot at their neighbors. I’ve not done an exhaustive study on the topic, but I can’t think of a large number of historical example of what we’d commonly call random acts of “mass violence” in schools, businesses, and public places until the latter half of the last century. I have no doubt they happened, what with humans being a particularly violence prone species and all, but a quick look doesn’t point to seeing it happen with particularly great frequency.

So my question, then, is what’s changed? What makes the average American in 2015 more likely to walk into a church to unload both proverbial barrels than his counterpart in 1815 or 1915? Access to firearms isn’t a satisfactory answer. If anything, a gun was easier to get throughout most of American history than they are today. They hung on the mantle, were propped in the corner, or lived in bedside tables without benefit of trigger locks or gun safes. I’m old enough to remember a time when a rifle behind a truck’s bench seat in the school parking lot meant that hunting season was open, not that one of the students (or the teachers) was plotting mayhem and chaos.

What’s changed? Are we intrinsically worse human beings than our predecessors? Are we less able to judge the relationship between action and consequence? Or do we just tend more towards being batshit crazy than our saintly ancestors?

On the beauty of being offensive…

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If the media can be believed, we live in a country that could currently be best described as offended that we’re offended by the offensive offending that may or may not offend you, me, or the neighbor and if any one of those people are not offended, we’re unilaterally offended by their lack of offense.

It’s enough to make a poor blogger’s head hurt. It’s probably only a matter of time before the Court is asked to find that we Americans have a heretofore undiscovered and absolute right to not face any issue at any time that may hurt our chickenshit little feelings. That way we can prevent anyone from saying anything.

I can only hope that it doesn’t come to that.

I want to be offended by people. I want them to express ideas that are different than my own. I want them to challenge me – because that means I have to better understand my own positions and arguments. It means I have to work just that little bit harder to know my own mind. It means I don’t get a free pass when my poor little feelings aren’t validated.

While we’re at it, could we maybe “feel” a little less and “think” a little more – as in “I think this is important and here’s why” instead of “I feel that we should eat granola instead of eggs because chickens are people too.” All I’m asking for is a little intellectual rigor instead of running the country like some kind of damned new age encounter group.

As for me, I’ll continue to speak my mind. If anything I say offends you, good. That means I’m doing my part.

Spectacle…

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Since I don’t yet live in a cave sequestered from human contact, I switched over to the game in time to see the halftime show. Say what you’d like about Americans in general, but I have to admit we put on pointless spectacle better than any other group of people I know. Most other places on the planet seem content with having a sporting event, a concert, or a fireworks display at completely different times.. but not us, my fellow Americans. No, not us. We want it all crammed into one very telegenic package so we can consume it all at once.

I’m not at all sure if that makes me proud or fearful for the future of the republic.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Protocol. Apparently over the last week we’ve had royalty in America. The reason I know this is because on several occasions, I ran across articles written to advise my countrymen on the proper manner of bowing before the future English sovereign and his future queen. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Brits – their television, their sense of humor, and yes, even their quaint old fashioned notions of nobility… but here in the States, we’re citizens rather than subjects. On points of procedure for when it’s appropriate for an American to bow to the future monarchs of a foreign power, even one with whom we have a long and special relationship, the correct answer is simply “it isn’t.” We’re Americans. We don’t dip our colors and we don’t bow to royalty (or anyone else for that matter).

2. Sweats. In conversation many months ago a friend was shocked when I mentioned something about not having worn sweat pants since some time in the George H. W. Bush administration. She was shocked – possibly appalled – at my lack of concern for issues of comfort. In an effort to show that I do occasionally try something new, I picked up a pair recently and was duly impressed by their level of comfort compared to my usual Wrangler jeans. I supposed the biggest problem is I’m not exactly the type to go through the day just lounging about. Generally I’m doing something even if never leaving the confines of historic Rental Casa de Jeff. My real problem was what the hell you’re supposed to do with all the ephemera that usually ends up in my pockets – a pen knife, my phone, keys, etc. Sure, they were plenty comfortable, but I found myself trying to reach into pockets that weren’t there for objects that over the course of the day ended up scattered all over the house. As far as I’m concerned that level of inconvenience is too high a price to pay for a stretchier pair of pants.

3. The 113th Congress. The honorable members of the House of Representatives once again are spending the dying hours of a continuing resolution haggling over what amounts to peanuts in terms of the federal budgetary process. While no one is seriously talking about another shut down at midnight tonight it’s a possibility at the outside if they can’t find their way clear to passing a CR to cover the next few days while they rehash the omnibus spending bill before them. That they finish this way sums up the totality of this Congress nicely – even unto the end they’re collectively incapable of exercising one of the very few responsibilities entrusted to them in the letter of the Constitution. How very typical. Asshats, one and all.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Mobile check deposit. I learned a fun fact about my credit union’s new mobile check deposit process this morning. That little nugget is if you deposit a check by phone and the transaction doesn’t complete, there’s nothing in place outside of their website letting you know that something has gone amiss. No email, no text, just an envelope that shows up on their website when you get around to logging in. That would have been nice to know before going to the ATM this afternoon and finding the account dropped to a zero balance. I’m sure part of the issue is my insistence on using different financial institutions for different services and therefore using mobile check deposits to avoid transfer fees to keep money in motion, but still, I don’t think an email letting a guy know something went sideways or at least that there is a new message waiting on their website is too much to ask.

2. Suing POTUS. This is just one of of the many reasons I left the Republican Party (or maybe it’s really an example of how the party left me). The House of Representatives thinks they’re being cute by trying to drag the courts into the ongoing drama between the legislative and executive branches. The reality is a political solution already exists to remedy the Representative’s grievances. Of course they realize exercising that option creates nothing but problems for them. So basically what you have is just another example of my former party lacking the courage of their misguided convictions. I may disagree with any number of decisions made from the federal bench, but those judges tend not to be complete idiots, so I’ll be amazed if they ever find one to let this kind of asshattery move forward. Then again, I’m not entirely sure anything coming out of Washington can surprise me anymore, so don’t take any of that as a prediction.

3. Ebola. Honest to God, I can’t believe this is even a discussion we’re having in the 21st century. It’s even worse that there are reports circulating about a “special plane” owned by the Centers for Disease Control that could isolate and import ebola victims into the United States for treatment. I’m all for taking care of American citizens who find themselves afflicted in Africa. Import a whole damned hospital wing and treat them on site, but loading them into a jet and bringing them and their virus here just sounds like a ridiculously stupid idea. Surely I’m not the only one who thinks willingly importing a deadly virus into the country is a monumentally bad thing to do, right?

What a difference…

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Forty-five years ago today Americans walked on the moon. Let that sink in for a minute. Three guys strapped themselves on top of the largest rocket ever built and were blasted away from the surface of the earth, traveled three days, and then landed for the first time on an alien world. Every other human being alive or who had ever lived was 238,900 miles away. If that’s not the stuff heroes are made of, I don’t know what is.

Today, we can’t even get a man into orbit without bumming a lift from a country who seems determined to start World War III. Seriously. What happened, America? In the last century we freed Europe, decisively crushed the Japanese Empire, and then raced into the heavens as a victory lap. Today, we can’t seem to find our collective ass with both hands and a flashlight. What happened?

This country has done great and remarkable things. We can do them again. If only we could find a leader or two who weren’t out playing small ball while Rome burns.

Sweet Jesus what a difference 45 years makes.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Irons in the fire. If there was ever a recurring them up in this place, it would have to be that time is fleeting. There’s never enough of it and there’s always too much to cram into the hours available. I hit that wall once every five or six months – when it gets to the point when you’ve got to start making uncomfortable decisions about what stays and what goes; what you’re willing to invest time into and what you’re going to toss over the transom. It’s why I don’t golf any more – I loved it, but carving out four or five uninterrupted hours at a time eventually fell into the too hard to do column. It’s getting to be one of those times again and it’s just a matter of racking and stacking the things that are eating up my day and deciding what makes the cut and what doesn’t. I’m absolutely convinced that I can do it all, but I equally sure I can’t do it all at once.

2. Failure to lead. Once upon a time, the United States was the voice of reason on the international stage. Winning two world wars and forging an international economic order, we managed to keep the cold war from turning hot and kept enough of a lid on a dozen other regional conflicts to keep them from boiling over and dragging the rest of the world down with them. Now, with our oldest alliances fraying and our “great power” influence on world events waning, we seem more or less content to let others lead while we fall back. We’re in retreat from the world around us and our responsibilities in it; worse, we’re letting other countries call the tune to which we’re going to have to dance. I see the growing notion at home and abroad that the United States is “just another country.” Philosophically, I’m horrified by the very notion and know full well that the road we’re on doesn’t end well either for us, or for the generations who have looked for us to lead the way.

3. Modern convenience. I have a light on my truck’s dash that is supposed to tell me when one of my tires is low on air. It’s been on for six months because what it’s really telling me is that I have a bad air pressure sensor. When I was informed by Toyota that the pressure sensor was a $300 fix, let’s just say that after laughing at them my next question was whether I could get behind the dash and just take the bulb out of the idiot light. I’m sure some people consider knowing their tire pressure from the pilot’s seat an incredible convenience. I’m not one of them. Back in the dark ages when I got my driver’s license, we had to manually check our tire pressure from time to time with a $.99 handheld analog gage. If it means not spending $299.01, I’m happy going right back to doing that once a week just like I did from 1994-2008. I’m pretty sure this is a case of modern convenience being more trouble than it’s worth.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

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The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

– He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

– He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

– He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

– He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

– He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

– He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

– He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

– He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

– He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

– He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

– He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

– He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

– He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

* For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

* For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

* For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

* For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

* For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

* For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

* For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

* For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

* For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

– He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

– He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

– He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

– He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

– He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock

Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple

Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton