For Liberals and Conservatives - a note on feeling(s)

Feelings are not truth – Feelings are not truth – Feelings are not truth – Feelings are not truth -

Acting on your feelings doesn’t make you authentic, but it can make you reckless and ill considered.

Serial killers act on their feelings, rapists, abusers, racists – all are feeling driven.

Feelings are the source of racism, misogyny, prejudice, sexism, and bias of all sorts.

Less antisocial but equally valid as an example – people with bipolar disorder must regularly sort through what is a “true” feeling and what is a product of brain chemistry –

Children, before they’ve learned self-discipline, are examples of an unexamined emotional life capable of equal parts joyful and uninhibited; and cruel and unrestrained.

Narcissists believe in the truth of their feelings.

Feelings are sometimes just intrusive thoughts that need to be ignored. YOU may not be the author of them. They may be a product of conditioning through life experience – or chemical shifts beyond your control. In the medieval period, intrusive feelings were sometimes thought to be the product of Satan or a demon.

Everyday minor biases play out so that we privilege those we FEEL comfortable with over those we FEEL less comfortable with. The system is an accumulation of these choices. It’s not always or even often a conspiracy, but most often a byproduct of people with power helping those they feel comfortable with – generally with no ill (but ill considered) intent -

Feelings are how the system gets rigged.

When you meet someone and you instantly dislike them; when you automatically choose to hire the friend as opposed to the possibly more qualified stranger; when you assume the guilt of someone without evidence but based on what you imagine about them - (how you imagine someone’s motives or intentions absent evidence) … these are feelings at work and they lead to an out of kilter system.

Good news – you don’t have to feel guilty for your feelings, … just for not examining them.

I think it’s important that we consciously decide what principles we are committed to and then as objectively as we can apply ourselves to these. It’s important to build systems that remove the potential for bias as much as possible. We must test what we do against the logic of what we say we believe.

For example – if you believe that it is an ethical imperative that we love one another – then what you say or do should follow the logic of this. Just as some feelings are a negative product of conditioning, some positive feelings must be cultivated, and we must condition ourselves to them.

If we long for a system that is fair, a world where everyone begins on equal footing, then, we really do have to examine our feelings and cultivate those that make us who we hope to be, as individuals and as a nation.

The Rules for (Political) Discourse ...

I believe the world would be better if we could argue and debate without it turning into mutual loathing. I truly believe that if we could step back and allow ourselves to be moved sometimes –

Well toward this end these are the rules I’ve laid out for myself – and of course I won’t be perfect but I am going to try.

1. Do not betray your ethics. You know it may sound sappy but I believe in all of the love one another stuff. I’m trying. Evaluate what you say and do against that ethic. Try to be a decent human being.
2. Try not to bait people and try not to take the bait.
3. Try to stick to issues – try to lay out positions cleanly, without getting personal.
4. Let people you don’t agree with have room to speak. (I won’t defriend you for differing views but I will for hate speech.)
5. Don’t call people, known or unknown, what my mother would have called “ugly names”.
6. Try to find the overlaps. Seriously – TRY TO FIND THE OVERLAPS.
7. I don’t have to have the last word.
8. Let go of anger – it only closes us off from one another.
9. Work in the garden, read a book, run, walk, watch the sunset – make art – dwell on what you love - see things for what they are.
10. Life – the world – is an aggregate – do your best to make your part of it kind.

overturning the tables of the money changers - Why I'm Voting for Barack Obama.

I am voting for Barack Obama because I believe he believes in equal civil rights for all people. I believe he believes that women own their own bodies and should receive equal pay for equal work. I believe that he believes that it is wrong to judge people, to impinge their civil rights because of their race, gender or sexual orientation. I believe that he believes in equal access to education – both in quality and availability. I believe that I and the people that I love will and have fared better under Barack Obama.

I cannot vote for a man who would callously dismiss 47% of the population when he is behind closed doors and he thinks it’s safe to speak the truth.

I cannot vote for a man who has to be told that there are qualified, smart, able women.

I cannot vote for a man who would pass laws that would curtail the rights of people because his personal religious views tell him to …

I am voting for Barack Obama because I remember George W. Bush and the condition his policies and practices left the U.S. in. I remember the economic spiral down, the financial meltdown that followed in the wake of two terms of financial policies meant to support “the job creators”. I remember the deregulation that lead to Wall Street and the need for bailouts. I shudder that Mr. Romney and so many others have forgotten what those policies did to this country.

So much of the vitriol is dressed up as Christianity. Jesus said “My kingdom is not of this world.” He really didn’t seem interested in what the government was doing … He didn’t speak of it except to say “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” … but I wonder if people who would legislate Christianity’s directives wouldn’t be serving their faith better if they focused on the love and generosity part.

Give to every man that asks of you; and of him that takes away your goods ask them not again. – Luke 6:30

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. – John 13:34

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. – Romans 13:8

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. – Romans 14:13


I find these tenets more in keeping with Obama’s policies than with Romney’s.