Thoughts on the Occupy Wall Street Protests

When you come across some poor, unfortunate rich person who seems to be very, very upset that they do not pay enough taxes, send them here. It's a link to the address where anyone can send extra money to the US Government. And, unlike regular tax payments, they even let you have a say in where the money gets used.

So give them this address. Then hang around, anxiously waiting to see whether or not they start filling out a check. Offer to help them. In fact, maybe instead of just giving them the address, we should hand out pre-addressed, stamped envelopes.

For the record, despondent, non-tax paying billionaires have not been stepping up. According to this article, the total of all voluntary gifts to the US Government in 2010 was a mere $316 million dollars, which wouldn't even show up as a blip on the federal budget.

And yet, it's not that billionaires aren't generous. According to this article, the 50 richest and highest donating people in the US, the so-called "Philanthropy 50," was $3.3 billion. And that much higher number is reportedly the lowest number in years--it's gotten as high as $50.7 billion, one year when Warren Buffet gave $36.1 billion to the Gates Foundation.

The nation as a whole gave away almost $291 billion last year, so again, less than 1% of that was deemed worth giving to any government organization.

It just seems to me that, when the billionaires or private individuals are deciding how their money could do the most good, they think of places outside of Washington DC to do the job.

Right? Wouldn't you? If you wanted to feed hungry kids, would you cut a check to the federal government or would you donate money or time to an organization like Harvesters?

Once upon a time, that was how we did it. We didn't expect the government to feed our poor--we recognized it was an act of charity, one that everybody should participate in, and we did it through private organizations. Go re-read A Christmas Carol, and see what means people are using to try to help the poor.

The current Occupy Wall Street crowd would have you believe that conservatives believe in keeping all the money for themselves, and exploiting them. This simply isn't true. Conservatives believe giving should be done by everybody, to anyone they want, and that the government will just mess it up. I think most Americans agree the government would just mess it up, which is why so few of their giving dollars go to the government.

But do Conservatives put their money where their mouth is? The book Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism makes the case they do. George Will pointed out some of the book's more surprising claims:

Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).

People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.

I was actually shocked to find that, from a liberal perspective, this not only wasn't impressive, it was disappointing. That charities are not seen as organizations of compassion, but as the death throes of dying societies. Ralph Nader said, "A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity." That's an absolutely mind-boggling statement to me. Let me see if I can explain why.

To me, and I would think to most people, charity is an act of mercy and compassion. It's recognizing that someone is in need, recognizing that I have more than enough for my real needs, and giving to them. It's both an act of gratitude for what I have and love for the other person. When I'm the receiver, it's humbling and a chance to be grateful and a chance to feel like I'm cared about.

Justice is about making sure people get what they "deserve." It's usually seen in context of punishment for wrongdoing, although it can also mean someone has earned a reward. In some ways, it's the opposite of mercy and charity. It just means everyone gets what they are deemed worthy of.

So never mind the crazy irony of taking away things someone has earned and calling it "justice." This so-called "just" society would actually be eliminating altruism and kindness from giving. It would simply be doing what it thought was "fair." Would we be giving to this person because of love? Or because of compassion? No, it's simply because they deserve it.

But at the same time, the money we take from the wealthy would be taken out of anger and vengeance, money they didn't deserve. Money that, inherently, they had taken immorally.

In other words, there is no obligation on me, as the recipient, to have to feel grateful any more. I'm merely being given what I was owed. I don't have to look on the person who I got this money or food from with any degree of appreciation that they figured out how to get it or that they saw fit to give it to me. I get to look at them as simply selfish for having tried to accumulate the money to begin with and relieved that someone finally took it away from them.

It's everything I know and understand about charity, everything I've experienced both in giving and receiving, being turned on its head.

I have had serious financial struggles. And I have been the recipient of kindness. Most of my furniture has been given to me. I have never bought a refrigerator in my life--I've always had people give me their refrigerators when they bought new ones. When I moved into my home, a virtual battalion of men from my church showed up and filled and emptied the moving van in a matter of minutes. When I was struggling with money in the face of medical debt and other issues, my church provided food and other assistance. It's one of the most humbling, gratitude-inducing things in life, to have someone else do things for you that you aren't owed or haven't earned.

In other words, there was nothing like being the recipient of charity to make you realize that you don't deserve it.

That's not to say we shouldn't do it. It just means we should do it in a way that always recognizes that it's precisely because it isn't deserved that it's so awesome, that it's precisely because it's an act of mercy, not justice, that it's an act of compassion and love.

Complaining about other people's behavior will not change your world nearly as quickly as changing your own.

Want to make a real difference?

Occupy Harvesters. Occupy Second Harvest. Occupy the Salvation Army. Occupy your kid's school. Occupy your local blood bank.

Far from being an inadequate salve on an unjust society, these are the places that a genuinely compassionate, giving, kind society are born.

Regarding the Birth Certificate

All this talk about the birth certificate is so frustrating to me.

Listen, everyone who is mad that Obama "had" to show his birth certificate:

You know how you think it's all those right wing talk radio nuts who wanted him to show it? That they wouldn't shut up about it? How the President, in his speech, said people were talking about it instead of real issues?

I listen to a lot of right-wing talk radio.

No one, not one single radio talk show host who I've listened to in the past two years was an advocate of the birther theory. None of them. Not Michael Medved, not Hugh Hewitt, not Larry Elder. Not even--believe it or not--Rush Limbaugh. Not even--prepare to gasp--Glenn Beck. I barely even listen to Beck, but I heard his show the day before Obama surprised everyone with his birth certificate, and he was doing an extended segment making fun of people who believed that Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii. I believe he (or someone else on the show) used the words, "I have enough documentation that I am more sure Obama was born in the United States than anyone here in this room with me."

Are there people (like Trump) who doubted, despite the evidence?

Sure. Just like there are people on the left who think, every single year, that we will suffer global environmental disaster in the next ten years. They've been saying that since I was in high school, and they're still saying it today.

That doesn't mean it's what most on the left think. It doesn't mean it's what the left wing pundits are saying.

And it certainly would be ridiculous to point at those people and say, "This is what everyone on the left thinks."

Obama had already proved he was born in the U.S. He didn't need to prove it more.

And even if he really, really felt the need to prove it, he could have had some undersecretary or flunky do the press conference, or, at most, just had the press secretary release it at the regular White House press briefing.

So remember my rule, adapted from a Dave Barry quote, regarding how to figure out the truth: It's usually the opposite of whatever the politician or corporation is going out of their way to convince you of. If Coke and Pepsi are spending tons of money to convince you that one will make you popular and the other will make you an outcast, it's probably all just fizzy sugar water.

And if the President won't shut up about his birth certificate and how he wishes people would stop talking about it so he can get back to the issues of the day, there are probably issues of the day he really, really doesn't want people talking about.

So can we give it a rest, for heaven's sake?

If you think you still need to talk about it, because you have to complain about the "huge masses" of people who were calling for it, you can relax. Not nearly as many people gave a rip as you think.

If you think you still need to talk about it because there's something still worth talking about, nothing I'm going to say is going to change your mind anyway, so I'm not really talking to you.

Writing as Magic. Or Just A Joke.

Note: I wrote this article for a writer's group I'm in, but thought I'd share it here, too. Click the post title for the full text.


My 8 year old daughter made up a knock-knock joke a couple of weeks ago using some of her spelling words. It goes like this:

Emma: Knock Knock
You: Who's there?
Emma: (Very seriously) Never forget.
You: Never forget who?

Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln Coming Back to Disneyland

Text of the speech Lincoln gives:

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

What constitutes the bulwark of our liberty and independence? It is not our frowning embattlements, our bristling sea coasts. These are not our reliance against tyranny. Our reliance is in the love of liberty, which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, [that] if it ever reach us, it must spring [from] amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we [ourselves must] be [the] author[s] and finisher[s]. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time[s], or die by suicide.

Let reverence for the [law] be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, [in] spelling-books, and almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly [at] its altars.

[And] let us strive to deserve, as far as mortals may, the continued care of Divine Providence, trusting that, in future national emergencies, He will not fail to provide us the instruments of safety and security.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

I Like Clouds

Yeah. Like the title says.

It's probably my favorite part of the airplane ride--the part where you're up over the clouds, the sky pure blue, the clouds pure white and airy like brushing across the down of a swan.

For me, it puts life in perspective.

And having clouds put life in perspective reminds me of this quote from The Screwtape Letters.

The Screwtape Letters is a book C.S. Lewis (The Narnia guy) wrote about this demon named Screwtape who's trying to teach his nephew Wormwood how to tempt a certain human. It takes place during the second world war.

In this section, Screwtape's trying to help Wormwood see how to make the human believe that anything he thinks shows him there's real significance to life is just fantasy. He says:

. . . there is a sort of attack on the emotions which can still be tried.

It turns on making him feel, when first he sees human remains plastered on a wall, that this is "what the world is really like" and that all his religion has been a fantasy.

You will notice that we have got them completely fogged about the meaning of the word "real"'. They tell each other, of some great spiritual experience, "All that really happened was that you heard some music in a lighted building"; here "Real" means the bare physical facts, separated from the other elements in the experience they actually had. On the other hand, they will also say "It's all very well discussing that high dive as you sit here in an armchair, but wait till you get up there and see what it's really like": here "real" is being used in the opposite sense to mean, not the physical facts (which they know already while discussing the matter in armchairs) but the emotional effect those facts will have on a human consciousness. Either application of the word could be defended; but our business is to keep the two going at once so that the emotional value of the word "real" can be placed now on one side of the account, now on the other, as it happens to suit us.

The general rule which we have now pretty well established among them is that in all experiences which can make them happier or better only the physical facts are "Real" while the spiritual elements are "subjective"; in all experiences which can discourage or corrupt them the spiritual elements are the main reality and to ignore them is to be an escapist. Thus in birth the blood and pain are "real", the rejoicing a mere subjective point of view; in death, the terror and ugliness reveal what death "really means". The hatefulness of a hated person is "real"—in hatred you see men as they are, you are disillusioned; but the loveliness of a loved person is merely a subjective haze concealing a "real" core of sexual appetite or economic association. Wars and poverty are "really" horrible; peace and plenty are mere physical facts about which men happen to have certain sentiments.

The creatures are always accusing one another of wanting "to eat the cake and have it"; but thanks to our labours they are more often in the predicament of paying for the cake and not eating it.

Everything is Amazing, and Nobody's Happy

If You Watch The Super Bowl, Do Me A Favor

Okay, so pretty much everybody in North America is going to be watching the Super Bowl tomorrow. And of course, it's the one show where, in 2009, nobody is going to fast forward through the commercials.

So I want everybody's opinion on one spot: the G.I.Joe ad.

The new G.I.Joe movie is coming out this year, and this weekend is the first time they've released any moving pictures from the movie. It's just a 30 second spot, but if you watch the Super Bowl, and you see it, let me know what you think.

Even if you don't know anything about G.I.Joe--in fact, that's even better. I'm curious what everybody, fan or not, thinks about this one.

If you're not going to watch the Super Bowl, it's already online here. But I'm figuring by this time tomorrow most of America will have seen it, so I'm just asking you to say what you thought of what already flashed before your eyes.

Is Ancient Art Like Special Effects?

Last night, my oldest daughter and I did a Daddy/Daughter date and went to the art museum at Cal State San Bernardino. They had a great display called Excavating Egypt, which I guess isn't their normal Egypt display, but was a lot of fun.

Among the things we saw was this mummy mask:



And it made me wonder.

See, this thing is even more cross-eyed in real life. And one eye bulges out farther than the other.

So it makes me wonder--do you think they noticed it? Do you think they thought this thing was beautiful, or do you think they were going, "Thanks, man. You gave my Mom's mummy mask a lazy bug eye?"

I think about special effects from the early 80's. Now, they seem really bad. But at the time, you didn't get so worked up about it. They were special effects, and that's what we all understood special effects looked like at the time.

Was it that way for these things? Did people just know that the eyes came out a little wonky sometimes, and they didn't really think it was that big a deal, or did this guy just get jipped?

Either way, Daddy/Daughter dates are still a good time.

Saying Thanks

This Thanksgiving, Snopes.com reminds us that it's easy and free to send a thank you card to a soldier.

Dave Barry's Annual Gift Guide: 2008

Dave Barry helps you find that gift you'd have never thought of on your own.