Rufus, over at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen, ties this self-deception, or lack of self-criticism, to the tea-party movement. I label it self-deception because the tea party folks believe they are rebelling against an unjust system…in which most of spurned active participation. Don’t believe me?:

Earlier today, Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips, organizer of the convention, told a crowd, “Complaining is not enough. We need to replace bad leadership with good leadership.”

He asked, “How many of you – before the tea party movement – were never involved in politics?”

Phillips smiled and scanned the room as more than 90 percent of people in the crowd eagerly raised their hands. To which he responded: “Thank you, Barack Obama.”

Even their name is seeped in self-deception. The Boston Tea Party was an act of sabotage in protest for the British government awarding a monopoly over colonial trade and for taxing the colonies without allowing them representation in Parliament. Compare that with today when the protest is…kind of muddied. But no one can accurately say that they don’t have representation in Congress. It may not be good or the kind of representation they want, but it is there.

In short, the Boston Tea Party didn’t happen because people had some input into the government and were rebuffed, or lost an electoral cycle. It happened because they had absolutely no input, by design, in their political system.

These sorts of things are easy to dismiss. Except that we are confronted today with two examples of how self-deception can have deadly consequences.

The first is from Kansas City. The short version is that a man, known to be violent and use weapons, was confronted by the police. He grabbed a woman and held her hostage, putting a knife to her throat. The cops shot him.

If you read the story, you’ll discover the tragic fact that the hostage was also the man’s mother. She was, understandably, distraught at her son’s death by police sniper. But, honestly, only someone lost in the depths of self-deception could have seen any other outcome. I know it was her son, but this guy was a career criminal. Anger at the police is simply misplaced…better to be angry at the dead son who willfully decided to cause destruction in the lives of those around him (what sort of son takes his own mother hostage?). It doesn’t change the tragedy, but the way it ended shouldn’t surprise anyone. Sadly.

The same is true for Joseph Andrew Stack. His manifesto is riddled with self-deception, leading to blaming other people for his own shortcomings. This isn’t to say he didn’t get a raw deal a time or two. He did. Tellingly he riffs on the “taxation without representation” issue…all the while neglecting the fact that he did have a representative.

He talks about how hard he worked to get a Congressman, any Congressman, to talk to him. This shows his political ignorance. No Congressman other than your own ever wants to talk to you. They aren’t there to represent people outside of their district. He’d have been better served to simply trying to elect a more responsive person in the single district in which he lived.

A bit later on, we find that he willfully entered into a tax evasion scheme, believing it was legal, but with the purpose to keep from paying taxes. Only the self-deceived would take that action and then be surprised when they earned the ire of the IRS. Yet, it seems, he was exactly that.

Ignorance has consequences. And mixing ignorance with flammable rhetoric is irresponsible because it leads to predictable tragedy. My friends from Armenia once told me that a wise man has the duty to share his wisdom, otherwise all of society will end up run by very likable fools. I think it’s time the wisdom was shared a bit more broadly. Even if it angers a few people to tear down their self-deceptive calves of gold.

The answer is that “the community” collectively determines that. But that is just sidestepping the issue. What part of the population do we talk about when we talk about “community standards?” Because there is a rather large part of the population that uses “vulgarity” on a regular basis.

What, after all, is the difference between “fuck” and “intercourse” or “shit” and “feces” or “piss” and “urine”…not a thing, of course. They refer to exactly the same things. But NBC wouldn’t be apologizing if Bud Keene had stuck to one set of those words. So why is the word offensive if the meaning isn’t?

I’m not someone who actively tries to achieve a high level of vulgarity when talking to the tender ears of children. But I’m also well versed in the use of vulgarity – six years in the Navy, plus a lifetime spent around working men in the oil fields, farms and ranches, and labor trades. The choice of non-vulgar words doesn’t change the meaning of a sentence, and it sure doesn’t make anyone involved more intelligent or a better person. So why pick on a few words as being so horrible that we can’t broadcast them, or if we do, then we must apologize for potentially offending someone?

I’ve spoken about the word “brother” in this context before. I know people who put every bit of hate and racism into the word “brother” when talking about black men as anyone ever put in using the word “nigger.” On the other hand, the up-and-coming generation has never really heard widespread use of “nigger” as nothing other than a hate-word. They tend to look upon it, when used in the proper context, as a term of endearment and affection. So are the racists somehow better and smarter people for not using the word “nigger?” Dear God, I hope not.

There’s a story told about a young pastor who gives his first sermon, in its entirety, in this fashion:

Right now, there are millions of people who are doomed to spend eternity in Hell. And you don’t give a damn about them, because if you did, you’d try to stop it.

I’ll let you decide on your own whether such a pastor should be kept around or not…but the message is an authentic Biblical message.

So…what is really vulgar about vulgarity?

Racism, as all isms go never completely goes away for it is a condition of moral decay, spiritual deficiency and part of imperfect human nature. What has changed is in recognizing the isms as well as societal policing of certain behaviors that manifest themselves from those thoughts. Whether there are negative ramifications for violating terms and standards of such behavior is what matters.

So I have to wonder what Texas Democrats will do with the likes of Farouk Shami:

“A majority of the people are going to be Hispanic and African-American. You don’t find white people who are willing to work in factories. And our history proves, you know, lots of time when they, you know, the white people come to work in a factory they either want to be supervisors or they want to be, you know, paid more than the average person. And unfortunately they exit.”

This is the same Farouk Shami who showed up for a MLK celebration with a prayer shawl proudly proclaiming “Palestine: Jerusalem is Ours.”

Back to the first link:

We are all violators on some level at some point. We can all do things that erase other people. There is a difference though from making mistakes due to our imperfections, not having honest conversations, willfully being ignorant, removing yourself from anyone with clearly defined or visible differences or insisting any of the above is all in someone’s head. When these violations occur we must be willing to examine them but they shouldn’t be cause for us to lose focus. We don’t need a Utopia to be successful in life but we do need focus and discipline. I find a lot of the sloppy behavior, lowered values and little expectations to be at critical mass for people across the board in Western countries where greed and avarice have taken over. If find the excuses some make about being free (to be mediocre) for more damaging than historical inequalities. I’m of the opinion we need to be adding something of value to society but lending a hand should not take precedence over self-care. Elevation doesn’t require opting out of participating in a larger collective or actively placing barriers for others.

Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League, told Politics Daily: “Not only is the pose inappropriate, the timing is offensive.” (Catholicism’s most sacred season begins next Wednesday — Ash Wednesday — with the start of Lent, the annual period of pentinence and abstinence that leads up to the Easter celebration.)

First, Catholicism doesn’t own Lent – it is celebrated by many denominations. Second, if something is sacrilegious, then it doesn’t matter what time of year it is. Third, the photo is for a French fashion magazine – which is, last I checked, far beyond the range of an American instituted special interest group.

Beyond that, the whole idea of art is to invoke powerful emotions in people. Then you discover what it is within yourself that responds to what it without. Why, for instance, are people finding this offensive? Is it because it is a woman posing as Christ? Is it because Lohan is not a Christian (actually, I don’t know if she is or not)? Is it the unspoken message that being Christian is simply a fashionable thing to do…like a garment you put on for others to see?

That brings up another point. Catholics United says that Lohan is an “ex-Catholic who is spiritually homeless.” Well, how do they know about her spiritual home? If, as the Catholic Church teaches, there is one baptism for forgiveness of sin, and she’s been baptized, then she’s not an “ex-Catholic” so much as she’s just a Catholic who isn’t attending church. But if she is an “ex” Catholic, then she presumably left for some other belief – they mention Karma, as if she had converted to Hinduism. Again, I don’t know if she has or not, but that’s up to her…and if she has converted, then she isn’t homeless, she’s just found a home she likes better.

Maybe if self-important pricks like Donohue didn’t set themselves up as judge and jury for what is and isn’t appropriate for everyone in the world to do; then Lohan and a few more “ex-Catholics” would never have felt like they had to leave that church. At any rate, she has nothing to apologize for. We are all supposed to live our lives as the image of Christ, and it looks like maybe she was a bit more literal than others.

In concept, DADT was a step forward for gay rights. When I signed my enlistment papers, I was asked, point blank, if I was or ever had been gay. If I’d have said, “yes,” I wouldn’t have been allowed to serve, no matter what. For comparison, a person could also be disqualified for being a drug addict, but in the case of drugs, it could be waivered. Not so for being gay.

The idea was that, under the old rule, a person had to actively lie to be both gay and in the military. If we just didn’t ask people; then it would simply be a lie of omission – since you could still be discharged for being gay. I suppose, in the rank of things, lies of omission are less onerous than lies of commission, but they are both lies.

But in the general course of things, a person’s sexual orientation shouldn’t even pertain to their job…so DADT was a perfect answer, right? Yeah, if you totally ignore the nature of life in the military. When I was on board the USS Saipan I slept in a berthing compartment with well over a hundred other men. We saw each other naked, we saw each other in the bathroom, and – if I can be blunt here – we knew when the guy in the next bunk was masturbating. It’s sort of difficult not to know. Now, what other job have you ever had that you knew when your coworkers were pleasuring themselves?

But it’s more than just that. As a work-center supervisor, I was told that I could not allow my men to hang up photos of women that they had ripped out of Playboy because it might force someone to reveal their sexual orientation. Just telling everyone that made them all wonder about the guy next to them. As far as I know, no one in our shop was gay, but it was a valid consideration.

But here’s the thing: At one point, I was cleaning up and I found a gay porn mag in the head (toilet room). If I had known who it belonged to I would have been required to report them to the Master-at-Arms and they would have been prosecuted and thrown out of the Navy, losing all of their veteran benefits in the process. If I failed to do so, I could have been prosecuted in exactly the same manner for failing to uphold the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Another point: While I was serving on the Saipan a ranking officer who deployed with us was thrown out of the Navy because he was forcing some of the enlisted men that worked for him to pleasure him sexually. Not a single one could actually lodge a complaint because, if they told the Master-at-Arms that they had actually had sex with another man, even if it was coerced, then they would be thrown out for being gay. So the DADT policy not only failed to protect my fellow sailors (who may or may not have been gay), it actively promoted this predator’s ability to control his victims.

I can also tell you that a large number of my fellow sailors hit the nearest whore-house every time we pulled into port. Anyone who didn’t go with them was suspect…unless they were known to have a wife or girlfriend back home. Anyone who didn’t fit in was subjected to ridicule and harassment.

Could a complaint be lodged and the harassment stopped? Well, it isn’t that simple. In a perfect world, yes. In the world we live in, supervisors can actually be the people who instigate harassment. So a formal complaint can actually be a risk to someone’s life or well-being.

For all of these reasons, DADT does not work, and it is not effective. The idea was that DADT would let gay people serve with honor. It hasn’t worked out that way. That’s why it needs to be repealed.

In a closed courtroom in one of the few government buildings still standing here, Laura Silsby and nine other American missionaries were charged Thursday with abducting children from this earthquake-ravaged capital.

snip

or Ms. Silsby it was the latest in a series of wrong turns on a road her parents and others who know her in Idaho say was paved with the best intentions.

snip

Ms. Silsby had purchased a two-story house in Meridian, where a neighbor said she was known for her blue Lexus convertible and her dog, Bentley. Her financial difficulties mounted last year. Idaho court records show several judgments against Ms. Silsby in 2009. Activity in the offices of Ms. Silsby’s business, Personal Shopper Inc., visibly slowed, said Scotty Bates, a manager at SpeedyQuick Networks Inc., an Internet service provider whose office is in the same building as Personal Shopper. On Thursday, Personal Shopper’s offices were locked and dark.

Personal Shopper, whose Web site personalshopper.com, promises to guide shoppers to products that fit their needs, won Ms. Silsby a 2006 award as International Businesswoman of the Year from eWomen Network, a Texas-based international businesswomen’s group. By last year it also was facing suits.

One suit, filed in federal court in Miami, alleged that Personal Shopper owed more than $320,000 to Florida-based TSG Media Inc. The suit was settled in November 2008, according to an attorney for TSG, David Filler. He declined to disclose the terms of the settlement, but he said that Personal Shopper failed to make good on the settlement.

snip

Last week, the group entered Haiti from the Dominican Republic, met with the pastor and gathered a group of children, Mr. Ham said. The group had signed permission “to take children from Haiti back to the Dominican Republic,” as well as documentation from the Dominican Republic itself, he said. But when the group got to the border, Haitian officials told the group they lacked “one document,” Mr. Ham said.

Carlos Castillo, the Dominican Republic’s consul general in Port-au-Prince, gave a different account: In an interview he said he met with Ms. Silsby on Friday and told her she lacked any documents to transport children, and warned her not to try or she could be arrested.

Yeah, this story is just sad and sick in all too many ways.

Get thee post haste to Haiti and swipest thou some darkling children in their tender years so that thou mightest destroy the ties of culture and family, and takest them thou to the ironically named “black market” to sell them for adoption to holier-than-thou couples who will congratulate themselves on supporting human trafficking because they love in My name!

Yeah, I’m sure I remember reading that in the Bible.

A major British medical journal on Tuesday retracted a flawed study linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism and bowel disease.

The retraction by The Lancet comes a day after a competing medical journal, BMJ, issued an embargoed commentary calling for The Lancet to formally retract the study. The commentary was to have been published on Wednesday.

snip

Since the controversial paper was published, British parents abandoned the vaccine in droves, leading to a resurgence of measles. Subsequent studies have found no proof that the vaccine is connected to autism, though some parents are still wary of the shot.

In Britain, vaccination rates for measles have never recovered and there are outbreaks of the disease every year.

Ten of Wakefield’s 13 co-authors renounced the study’s conclusions several years ago and The Lancet has previously said it should never have published the research.

“We fully retract this paper from the published record,” Lancet editors said in a statement Tuesday.

Last week, Britain’s General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield had shown a “callous disregard” for the children used in his study and acted unethically. Wakefield and the two colleagues who have not renounced the study face being stripped of their right to practice medicine in Britain.

For the study, Wakefield took blood samples from children at his son’s birthday party, paying them 5 pounds each ($8) for their contributions and later joking about the incident.

OK – for those of you paying attention – the guy who said MMR vaccines cause autism has been completely disgraced, stripped of his ability to practice medicine, and the publication has apologized for allowing such crap to sully its pages.

So get your kids immunized. Please.

Sometimes the grilling our candidates takes pays off. Thank God this man never made it to the White House.

Richard Dawkins, the Worlds Most Militant Atheist, has a different answer – anyone who believes in God and is appalled at Robertson is hypocritical. And Dawkins answer shows the shallowness of both answers given by Wallis and Standish. But Dawkins fails to see that there are different types of faith within the Christian tradition, including some that do not look for supernatural explanations for natural events.

There are actually two tragedies in Haiti. One is the natural tragedy caused by people being at the epicenter of an earthquake. So long as our planet moves, such things will happen. It doesn’t take the will of God for the earth to move. The forces of science explain it quite well.

While the 7.0 quake was strong, it wasn’t devastatingly strong. In 1999, Turkey was struck by two earthquakes, both of which were even stronger than the Haiti quake. But the death toll for the two quakes combined are less than that for the single quake in Haiti. The reason why is the second tragedy in Haiti.

A month ago, no one cared about Haiti. A month ago, Haiti had the highest poverty rate in the western hemisphere with 80% of its population living in poverty. No one really cared that two-thirds of Haiti’s exports are in the apparel industry, with workers making less than five bucks per day. No one really cared that nearly half of all Haitians are illiterate and the only real resource the island nation has is unskilled labor. Even before the quake, nearly 90% of Haitian children suffered from waterborne diseases and intestinal parasites.

In the absence of anyone actually pushing Haitian governments to improve the lives of their people – and the lack of any real ability to do so – Haiti has long been a sort of living hell for the people stuck there.

The question about Robertson is easily answered: Pat Robertson believes in a whimsically vengeful God. To my mind, he isn’t worth noticing. The problem is that you then have to deal with the underlying question: Why did God let this happen? Then answer is that God didn’t let this happen. We did. We should ask, not why God let an earthquake happen; but why did we turn away from such suffering for so long?

And, as I’ve pointed out already – are we really going to change it or are we just going to do enough to say that we did “something?”