The Politics of Fear

I've lived through quite a few election cycles now. I cannot recall a cycle in my lifetime that was as fearful as this one.

Many on the left are so terrified of Donald Trump that they will overlook and rationalize anything Hillary Clinton says.

Many on the right are so terrified of Hillary Clinton that they will overlook and rationalize anything Donald Trump says.

And many of them do so on a regular basis.

Both sides freak out at the idea anyone would vote third party. "A vote for [third party] is a vote for {Trump,Clinton}" (insert whichever one they are afraid of). And each side is utterly convinced. (Apparently if I vote third party they will both end up in office. That actually sounds like a deal to me, as they'd be too busy fighting to do much else.)

People are losing friends over this. Almost every day I see someone threaten to unfriend anyone who will vote for {Clinton,Trump}. Or see that they have done so. There's a lot of bad "theology" in Star Wars, but sometimes Yoda is right:

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

It's not guaranteed, but it often happens, and I see it running amok in the USA.

I refuse to live in fear. I refuse to be angry at any of you. I refuse to hate. I refuse to inflict suffering.

Whether you believe in the God of the Bible or not, I urge you to consider the following:

"There is no fear in love. Perfect love chases away fear." (my translation)

Choose to love those around you. Listen to what they are really saying. Talk with them instead of at them. Hold them. Hug them. Walk with them.

Fear will ultimately destroy you. It will steamroll everything and everyone you care about, if you feed it. Love will free you, and offer freedom to everyone around you. Which one sounds like the better deal?

I don't want Ms Clinton or Mr Trump as president. But I'm not going to unfriend anyone over their vote for either.

Blowing up Syria... and the World. Why?

In May, a UN investigator stated that the rebels were at fault for the chemical weapons used in Syria. In July, Russia handed the UN a 100 page report backing this (no, I haven't seen it). Some source or sources apparently claimed it was not an attack, but a mishap while handling the weapons. I have heard interviews on NPR with rebels who claim that al-Quaeda related groups had them moving the weapons without telling them what they were transporting.

What is the truth here? I have no idea. (If you claim to, you better provide some rock solid evidence.)

The President claims he will explain to us Tuesday night why we need to attack the Syrian regime. He will "lay it all out".

Questions for the President... and you:

• Why couldn't he lay it out before? (Perhaps that will be answered. Given his track record, I sincerely doubt it.)
• Why has he not said ONE WORD about the evidence that it was the rebels? If only to dismiss it?
• Why has he steadfastly refused to answer the question, "If Congress does not approve the attack on Syria, do you intent to attack, anyway?" I heard one of his non-answers in entirety on NPR. They reported he did the same thing when asked in Russia. He "very frankly" talked about how he fully expected Congress to approve it. he did not even come close to answering the question.
• Why... WHY... does he think we can lob cruise missiles at Syria and not see retaliation? (Assuming we have incontrovertible truth it was the regime who used CWs.)
• It keeps coming back to the red line he drew in the sand, which he now refuses to admit he drew, but which he feels obligated to defend (although he now blames Congress and "the world" for that line). Do you really want a President to drag us into another mid-east (or any) war because of his own pride, insecurity, arrogance, cluelessness, or whatever combination of problems this is?

Let Congress know what you're thinking. let the President know. Those of you who believe in God, pray. Hard.

And love your neighbor, including the one who supports the President no matter what. We as a country have been divided and conquered from within far too long.

Avoiding War with Syria

It's clear to me that President Obama has boxed himself in. He doesn't really want to go to war with Syria so he's looking for a way out, or at least to get plenty of buy-in for the blame. If he can get Congress to agree then he will feel safe saying, "this is what the American people wanted and agreed on".

But there's another exit strategy, and I keep waiting for it to re-appear. We can't just recycle the old excuse and blame the Syrian problem on a movie, but maybe a book would work. Maybe Salmon Rushdie's latest tome incited the violence; it made someone so mad they just couldn't think straight. But of course they calmed right down after seeing the carnage they caused with the chemical weapons, killing a whopping thousand or so compared to the mere one hundred thousand killed by projectiles, explosives, and edged weapons. (Those apparently don't really count.)

And they're really, really sorry, and they'd love to stop but the other side won't, so they have to keep fighting in order to survive.

It's not their fault.

It's Rushdie's. Or whomever's. Maybe mine. They could easily find all the proof they needed in the vast treasure trove of all the data the NSA (and DEA!) mined this year.

I could live with that. I'll just get a deal like Snowden and "flee the country" and "request asylum" and live happily ever after far, far away.

Do I really believe all this? Nah. But if they take the bait and I disappear to, say, Kosovo, I won't mind a bit. I'm pretty sure Kosovo is the code name for Honolulu.

Aloha!