Post No. 177: Life Imitates Art Again (Why All Politicians are Liars)

© 2011, the Institute for Applied Common Sense

Recently we took a trip into the little box to experience a movie starring Jeffrey Donovan, more popularly known as Michael Weston on USA’s Burn Notice. In Changeling, he plays a Los Angeles police captain in charge of a kidnapping case. When we entered the story, Donovan was ecstatic since he had returned the missing 9 year old boy to his Mother (Angelina Jolie).

While not trying to rain on the Good Captain’s parade during a press conference, Jolie’s character does not share the same level of enthusiasm – because she does not recognize the kid as hers.

To placate the captain, she takes the kid home and entertains the possibility that he underwent a major transformation during his 5 month absence. But once she checks his “manhood” to determine whether it was circumcised, she is absolutely certain. However, when she returns to the Captain the next day, he questions her sanity. Not long thereafter, he has her involuntarily committed.

To achieve box office success, a film can either flirt delicately with the implausible, or charge head-on into fantasy land. It cannot occupy the middle. We asked ourselves how the director of Changeling could spend so much time and energy on a film with such a ludicrous story line. We later found out that it was based on real-life events in 1928.

We live in an era where we are not quite sure what to believe. A large number of citizens have met success through bold face lies. We once heard a fellow say that if his wife ever found him in bed with another woman, he would simply respond, “What woman?”

Politicians have joined the ranks of policemen, priests, used-car salesmen, assistant coaches, and philandering spouses. They have figured out that they can lie to the public about job creation and people will believe them.

A few peanut gallery thoughts:

1. While a direct cause and effect relationship can be relatively easily proven in the physical universe involving physical objects, it is far more difficult (if not impossible) to prove such a relationship in the human / emotional universe. In the realm of human / emotional concepts, of which "job creation" and “job pursuits” are subsets, we distance ourselves from potential solutions, and complicate the search, when we politicize the discussion.

2. The history of technology is a relatively recent concept. A professor at Georgia Tech during the 1970s and 1980s, Melvin Kranzberg, Ph.D., was known as the "Father of the History of Technology." It is a subject taught in the "social science" arena.

3. Job creation is about technology. Technology is about creativity, innovation, and invention. Inventors do not stop to think one minute about any of the factors mentioned by politicians. They innovate and invent because that's who they are and that's what drives them spiritually and emotionally, sometimes to the exclusion of other things that drive other folks.

4. When you have a society where a sufficient number (critical mass) of your citizens are inventors, scientists, and engineers, new technologies result. New technologies create new businesses, and new businesses create jobs. Check out the number of scientists and engineers being produced by our universities as compared to past years.

5. Most good, profitable businesses have savvy people at their helm who figure out a way to make more money, no matter what the environment in which they find themselves. They also work 80-90 hours per week, not 40. They are not of the mindset that they let the crap spewed by politicians influence their pursuit of profit.

6. Technology waves occur in cycles. Non-politicians in the technology arena claim that "what the world needs now" is another earth-shattering, significant invention which advances the interests of all humankind, no matter the socio-economic status or geographic location: things along the order of the automobile, the airplane, the locomotive, the computer, the personal computer, the Internet. We have not had something of this magnitude in a very long time.

7. We are obsessed with sound-bites, the superficial, athletes, entertainers, and media talking heads. Some months ago, we published Does Any One Have a Real Job in America Any More. In our transition from a manufacturing to a service economy, the product (i.e. inventions and technology) production was shifted off shore for profit reasons (which some deem treasonous), and we were left with ad men, salespeople, fast food dispensers, and folks to collect your money.

8. We need more scientists, engineers and inventors to start the process of creating jobs. The cover story on Newsweek some weeks ago recounted some of our earlier successes, and noted how we are killing ourselves from a scientific perspective.

9. The Chinese are producing kids eager to pursue scientific and engineering careers (in massive numbers). We're about to get our butts kicked by the sheer numbers alone, unless we wake up and stop the partisan bickering over non-issues.

10. We need someone to admit to Angelina that the kid is not hers.

Post No. 153: Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones (Rated “C” for “Children Only)

© 2011, the Institute for Applied Common Sense

Since we started writing about personal responsibility in April of 2008, many have suggested that our approach is far too simplistic and child-like.

We frequently refer to sayings by “old folks” uttered “back in the day,” or bits of parental advice, e.g., “If you can’t say something nice about someone, say nothing at all.”

Sometimes we actually have to stop and ask whether the principles suggested are (1) universally and consistently true; (2) only capable of application in certain situations; or (3) applicable simply when the person choosing to use them finds it convenient.

Some of you may recall, “Sticks and stones may break my bones; but words will never hurt me.”

Over the years, we’ve generally been members of the Sticks and Stones School of Thought (originally known as the Turn the Other Cheek School). In our view, targets of racial slurs, inappropriate jokes, sexist comments and such might justifiably be offended, but should simply ignore the offending idiots and move right along. After all, with few exceptions, the offending speech is protected speech.

To some extent, our devotion to this school of thought stems from growing up in the South during the late 1940s and 1950s as a survival technique.

We’ve felt the same regarding symbols, like the Confederate flag. All the time spent organizing an anti-flag rally, traveling to and from the offending state, and participating in the rally, might be better spent generating income – income which could be used for scholarships for poor kids. Education makes people better equipped to prove their worth and value in society, despite what others might think.

We always recognized that our view did not apply to adult – child relationships, or perhaps adult, interpersonal relationships. Constant criticism and hostility in those relationships can potentially inflict long-term, emotional damage.

Where things get a little fuzzy is when the clamor and acrimony are in the public arena, and not directed at specific individuals, or are of a political nature.

During the debate following the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, we wondered about the role that, what some described as the poisonous, acrimonious state of political discourse, may have played. However, we initially felt that the acts of someone suffering from mental instability could not possibly be connected to a sufficient degree for the discussion to even continue.

That is until one of our readers, SmallFootprints, sent us a post by another blogger, whose blog is The River Wanders… but is never lost. In the article, entitled Campaign Silent, the author argues that an environment has been carefully crafted where violence is the new norm. The author goes on to note:

“Does one word, one sign, one blogged paragraph incite violence? Probably [italics in original] not. But I’m not talking about one careless word, one careless sign, one careless comment, one carelessly blogged paragraph. The sheer volume of hate-speech today is accessible and acceptable and toxic and seductive and probably does [italics in original] incite violence. The truth is this: the crazy is out there – the mentally ill who hear inappropriate sentiment as a call to action, the bitterly angry who don’t care who they hurt as long as we share their pain, and the disenfranchised coteries whose groupthink becomes their way of life. To all of us, but especially [italics in original] to these unique populations, language matters. Words matter. Images matter. Message matters.”

While we do not agree with everything the author has to say, and reading it did not convince us to pick up our toys and leave the playground, the piece forced us to re-visit our position.

There was something else we considered about the power of words and the environment in which they operate. For the past several weeks, the History Channel has been re-airing its series on The Third Reich. They chronicle the regime’s rise to power in the 1930s.

Throughout, before rolling film of the atrocities committed by Nazi troops, there appears a screen with simple words used as propaganda to urge the troops to proceed, and to justify the cruelty to the general population.

Arguably, we all have a responsibility to carefully consider the words that we spew out into the Universe, and the potential consequences when people hear them. It’s been said that, “All is fair in love and war,” and perhaps politics. That may not be the case with respect to public discourse.

And, although we, the Fellows of the Institute, may not be personally concerned about less than civil words hurled at us on an individual level (and we are not motivated to act on those words), we now appreciate that there may be others out there for whom words have a different effect.

Post No. 5a: RESPONSE TO COOP’S COMMENT:

Coop Responded to Post 5: Your thoughts are written as if you think this is a recent problem with our political environment. I submit that it is simply politics as usual…. [See remainder of Coop’s Comment.]

My Response: You are essentially correct that some aspects of politics have not changed. However, I would submit that there are some differences which should be taken into consideration:

1. As compared to times past, we now have advanced communications technologies which permit far more citizens (numbers, regions, ages, literate, illiterate, deaf, blind, etc.) to examine the lives of the candidates, and allow a more detailed dissection.

2. Because of the same advances, and the large number of communication devices, media vehicles, and outlets available, the depth and the breadth of the examination and subsequent dissection of candidates has changed. A correlative consideration is that there are far more commentators and candidate advocates with positions which can be easily disseminated.

3. Because of the absence of technology and the limited communication vehicles available in times past, it would have been far easier for an alcoholic, philandering, profligate, immoral candidate to be elected, or possibly control or influence the news vehicles, because they were so limited. Additionally, because of the relatively slow speed of the communication, the candidate might have been able to be elected before the disqualifying character factors were thoroughly disseminated.

The issue about which I am not sure is whether the public’s tolerance of, or attitude about, the activities of candidates has changed. Are we a more judgmental nation than in the past? Are we a more polarized electorate than in the past? Are the infirmities, about which the commentators speak today, disqualifying factors as compared to the past? Just raising some issues….