The Third Echelon

Good Advice

"You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic.  True power is restraint.  If words control you, that means you are controlled by others.  Breathe and allow things to pass."

The specific origin of this statement is unknown, but it has been circulated recently with Warren Buffett's name attached.

It's interesting that such a reasoned and rational encouragement would come from the anonymous cloud rather than from leaders. From the upper level of the power pyramid comes anger, unsubstantiable accusations, verbal insult and character assault from both sides of the aisle. Few in national leadership positions have suggested being reasonable.  One who tried has been called a traitor. 

How we frame what we say matters.

• Dr. Ford offered a credible testimony.
• Judge Kavanaugh offered a credible denial.
• There was no evidence confirming the alleged assault.

None of those statements are unreasonable.  However, consider the following statements ...

• If it was true, she would have said something thirty years ago.
• If it was true, she'd remember where it happened.
• If it was true, she'd remember how she got home.
• If it was true, she wouldn't need all those lawyers ...

• If he was telling the truth, he's have answered the questions.
• If he was telling the truth, he'd have wanted an investigation.
• If he was telling the truth, he'd have taken a polygraph test.

• The allegations were a hoax.
• The FBI investigation was a sham.
• The woman senator who voted to confirm Kavanaugh is a traitor.
• The senators who voted to confirm Kavanaugh are in the war against women.
• This has sent a clear message that women are not taken seriously.
• Kavanaugh has been 'proven innocent'.
• And my favorite from the NRA, "Today, Heidi Heitkamp put partisan politics above the rights of law-abiding North Dakota gun owners. Right now, the U.S. Supreme Court is split 4-4 on the basic right to keep a firearm in the home for self-defense. Therefore, a vote against confirming Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is a vote against the fundamental right to self-defense.”

Each such statement reveals biased judgment and unreasoned decision perhaps based on preferential interpretation rather than fact.  Each will trigger anger, will be perceived as an unreasonable attack, and will escalate the tension.

This is just one of many deliberately polarizing issues among us which, as a nation, we don't seem to be handling well.  So how do we personally respond in order to maintain a clear mind and good conscience?  And how do we instruct our children?

It can all be done quite well.

You might appreciate The Adult Mind and perhaps Adult Thinking.

What kind of world are we leaving our children?

Our preferred idea of safety -- safe community, schools, streets, and acquaintances -- is naïve and out of date.  None of those venues are as they were when our traditional American views were formed and shared.

While we might temporarily shelter our children from the world, we must equip them for reality.  They need to be armed for the day when they will face a difficult life in a difficult culture.  They will have to understand the battle or be swallowed up in it.

By their teen years, most have been bullied in school or attacked on social media. Most have been exposed to sexually explicit material. Most have learned sensual behaviors from popular standards of dress, expression, posture, and verbiage.  Most have been inculcated with prejudicial thinking and are unaware of their bias. Most have consumed hundreds of thousands of advertisements before they had the ability to distinguish between information and persuasion. It never occurs to them to ask why cute dogs are driving that car or why the skimpy bikini is on the cover of that sports magazine. They unquestioningly absorb facts and opinions from experience and their peers.

How will they know the difference between principle and privilege or the difference between enough and a hundred times enough?

For children, there are two important worlds -- the one that sweeps them along and the one they can discover, but only if they see clearly. 

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Bring up your children in God's ways.  Teach them His truth and the brutal battle that surrounds it.  No other task is more important if they are to see clearly.

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The alternative is Living life wrong ...

Fake News?

    Our information sources are in some measure controlled,
    and factual news is hard to find, perhaps to the detriment of
    our culture.  Thoughts?  How did it happen?  Where do the
    lies originate?

There's fake news, and there's propaganda.  The only difference, if perhaps there is any, is where the lie originates.

Sinclair Broadcast Group owns more than 190 local TV stations across the country now. ... Sinclair tells their news anchors to denounce 'Fake News' in a scripted commentary.  It's hilariously funny except when you consider the impact the corporation has.  They can impact public opinion, and they do.

We have a troubling history of misrepresentation by government officials that has cost the lives of many Americans and countless others.

Curious what similar difficulties our republic might face today?  

How America's largest local TV owner turned its news anchors into soldiers in Trump's war on the media: https://t.co/iLVtKRQycL pic.twitter.com/dMdSGellH3

— Deadspin (@Deadspin) March 31, 2018

... and world peace!

Okay, it's a funny movie, but we probably agree with the punchline.

If you sit down and talk with them, Reps and Dems are deeply concerned about today and tomorrow and the challenges we face on the way to ... peace, safety, security, and a meaningful life.

We want a safe place where our children can play, where we can work and earn a living, where everyone has a chance.  We want our community to watch out for our kids and to help them along.  We want to be treated fairly, and to be heard.  We want freedom to think and speak and to learn, and we want to choose the direction for our lives.

For the short-term, we might (individually or collectively) pursue some advantage for ourself despite the cost to others, a perhaps less noble goal.  That particular perspective leads to competition, of course, which wouldn't be bad except some get left behind and die.  And that competition, if unfettered by moral constraint, leads to classism, racism, nationalism, anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, and the suffering and death of innocents.  That's today, not some sad reference to past horrors.

We've been told to pray for for all those in authority, so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity.  We're also warned rather pointedly ... "They crown kings, but without asking me. They set up princes but don’t let me in on it. Instead, they worship that which they built from their wealth, and it will be their ruin."

Can we move forward together?  It's perhaps worth remembering that we're not adversaries and that we're reaching for the same goal.  I wish it were an easier task for us all.

A Nation ... Oddly Polarized

Americans understand that social inequality and discrimination are still a problem. More than half of Americans believe that to be true, and formal research supports their belief. 

Now note the differences between political parties.  

Less than 1 in 3 Republicans but almost 8 in 10 Democrats say discrimination is a significant problem. That's what political polarization looks like. What part is based on information?  Results are similar across party platform subject lines, and people of faith and conscience have a problem. 

When the racial discrimination question was first asked in 1994, the partisan difference was 13 points. By 2009, it was only somewhat larger (19 points). But today (2017), the gap in opinions between Republicans and Democrats about racial discrimination has increased to 50 points.

Regarding Islam, the details of which are unfamiliar to most, we find that no factual analysis underlies our strong opinions.  Other issues are positioned similarly by the parties. 

Now, 27% of Democrats and 36% of Republicans see the opposing party as a threat to national well-being, and biased media outlets fan the flame.

Perhaps the most troubling, the Pew Research Center (2014) found that this partisan trend is exaggerated at the polls; specifically, the more extreme an individual's political position, the more likely they are to vote. Now project the effect of that on candidates and governance over time ....

Recent studies conclude our political polarization is largely fear-based.  Today, we have the highest levels of straight-ticket voting since the American National Election Studies first began reporting in 1952.  The trend indicates we are voting against the opposition party rather than for individual candidates based on issues and information.  If, as the studies suggest, our partisanship is based on fear of (animosity toward) the other party, what risks and options do we have ahead of us.
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How bad is this problem? In “The Strengthening of Partisan Affect,” Shanto Iyengar and Masha Krupenkin, political scientists at Stanford, note that

We find that as animosity toward the opposing party has intensified, it has taken on a new role as the prime motivator in partisans’ political lives.

Iyengar and Krupenkin argue that

the impact of feelings toward the out-party on both vote choice and the decision to participate has increased since 2000; today it is out-group animus rather than in-group favoritism that drives political behavior.

Along parallel lines, Alan Abramowitz and Steven Webster, political scientists at Emory University, argue that

one of the most important trends in American politics over the past several decades has been the rise of negative partisanship in the electorate.

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Understanding the country is a citizen's task.