Letters to the Editor
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On the bright side
For years, I've trod a similar minefield at family reunions, and like you I absolutely adore my family. But there was always a layer of tension, held in place by the Fox News shows and talk radio that was always playing somewhere in the background.
This year was different, and I sincerely hope it's a sign of changing times. This year, my parents appear to have sworn off Fox and extremist radio. Their politics are still out there, but it seems they've finally gotten turned off by the senseless propaganda.
Let's hope they're just the leading edge of a wave of sanity.
A happy, peaceful and safe holiday to you all.
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The lure of absolute certainty
Like the author of this article, my now-deceased father and still-living siblings spent/spend way too much time listening to conservative talk radio (they work together in a family business that enables radio blather in the background). The O'Reilly/Limbaugh/Ingram/Dr. Laura et al. bloviators make a connection for them just the same as fundamental Christianity works for them. Everything is so neat and cleanly laid out without the bother of actual intellectual engagement, which pretty much works for them since they are heterosexual, white, small-town people who are certifiably in the majority-mainstream of life.
Which makes it pretty hard for me, a gay guy whose career interests and need for an accepting community drove me 20 years ago to live in a city 500 miles away. So every year I trek home for two or three days of stifled obedience. No one asks me questions about me and my boyfriend, they hardly understand what I do for a living (I am a person of accomplishment and have accumulated more financial assets than they'll ever know) and they couldn't begin to hold a reasoned conversation about why I (too) oppose the death penalty, am worried about their progeny's quality of life because of our dependence on fossil fuels, and see gay marriage as an obvious means of strengthening the structure of society (not to mention the constitutional fairness issue).
Just like I deal with limited people in daily life, I must endure my family with the same stoic resolve. They are an immutable fact, not going to change and I am best off tolerating them for short durations. But the people I truly connect with, spend time with and consider to be my family are not those blood relatives. I am jealous of people who have great flesh-and-blood relations, but perhaps I've been lucky too for having an expanded sense of family – most of whom get their news from objective sources and who consider problems from different perspectives. Shockingly, these friends include a few Republicans among many independents and Democrats; none of them are fans of the conservative radio blowhards, however.
But the bottom line, expressed by the author, is clear: such absolutism espoused by O'Reilly and others drives a wedge between members of families everywhere.
Merry Christmas, Bill.
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The real war on Christmas
In my case, it was the real war on Labor Day, 2004, when my staunchly Republican Dad went all medieval on my liberal ass. It's always been a joke in my family, how a right-wing, conservative Dad managed to raise a bleeding-heart liberal daughter. But we have always had a great deal of respect for each other's point of view, and talking politics was never an issue.
In 2004, my new fiancé and I had made the drive from Texas to Florida to visit my parents; I wanted them to get acquainted in a low-key setting. At dinnertime, the conversation got around to the president. I declined to comment, as I never like to discuss politics or religion over food. With no warning, my usually logical, calm Dad was transformed into a crimson-faced, foaming-at-the-fangs Rush O'Reilly, screaming at me at the top of his lungs about how at least this president wasn't Clinton, how he was bringing honor back to the nation...yadda yadda yadda. If it had been anyone except my Dad, I would have called 911 for involuntary commitment to the nearest mental institution. The transformation was stunning and quite frightening; not only in front of me and my Mom, but also in front of his guest, my fiancé.
Sure, I knew he listened to talk radio, and watched Fox News...what I hadn't realized, until that time, is that these outlets have tapped into time-honored brain-washing techniques (repetition, repetition, repetition; us and them; 9/11! 9/11! 9/11!) to transform normal, sane Republicans into talking point monsters.
What springs to mind is, "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles..." - to another time and place when a reasonable, politically thoughtful population was deliberately put under the sway of emotion rather than reason. I never thought it could happen here...I was wrong. When is this insanity going to end?
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Pot and Kettle Anthony - perhaps you missed this...
Anthony wrote: "But I don't see that the trend is any less apparent on the left than it is on the right. Yes, Bill O'Rielly is a demagogue who reduces complex issues to oversimplified schemas that reinforce the self-satisfied prejudices of his audience. And this makes him different than Michael Moore... how?"
Anthony, perhaps you missed the part where Wil Wheaton says in the article, "He should know when Rush is full of shit the same way I know when Michael Moore is full of shit."
The difference between Moore and O'Reilly is that the left knows Moore is full of shit. The right pretends that Rush, O'Reilly and their ilk speak the truth, and parrot it as gospel. THAT'S the difference here, and it's scary.
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We are all connected
One of the advantages of belonging to a family is that it positions us to love people with whom we might not otherwise choose to interact. Consequently, many families have drama of one sort or another, because it is a crucible to which nature binds us.
The ties that bind also intensify the feelings, whether they are harmonious or antangonistic. I find it helpful to frame the family experience as being like going to the gym. I know I'm going to get a workout, because I'm going to encounter resistance. The muscles of my own moral point of view are made stronger than they might be if I were in an environment where there was nothing against which to exercise them.
Is it not the nature of life to present us with dramatic situations? Each of us alone can choose how we react to these events. I believe there is a high ground here. We can focus on and experience the connection with those we love quite deeply, even when each of us is articulating an opposing point of view. Often the zeal of each point of view is comparable, because it springs from shared rather than disimilar impulses.
I do not believe in the death penalty. I take "thou shalt not kill" as unambiguous and without exception. Yet I understand that those who, like Will's Dad, support the death penalty are (ironically) coming from a comparable horror at killing. They see the solution to killing as killing those who kill. That is the nub of the philosophical difference: *how* do we stop the killing. It springs from a shared abhorence of killing. It is helpful, I think, to feel the point of connection there. I think it is always helpful to look for such points in those with whom you disagree, because we are truly all connected.
Oddly, polarization often depends on a strongly shared common passion. Political disagreements are about how to achieve these things we all treasure: freedom, peace, the pursuit of happiness. When we fight with each other, it is often as if we are fighting with parts of ourselves, because we want to get it right. Disagreement can be accomplished with love, however.
My advice to Will is to strengthen your own convictions. Recognize that light is more powerful than dark, and hold forth the candle of your truth with your father. Do it with conviction and affection -- because the dispute is not between you, it is between two solutions to the same problem that you both want to solve.
I send peace and goodwill to all (including Fox news, Republicans, and other piquant flavors of the human spirit).
--Duck