Loyalty to the Party

So I received the following letter from the Libertarian National Committee. (And, yes, it was indeed written in all caps, much like the writing of an indignant twelve-year-old on the internet for the first time.)

DEAR PHILLIP:

UNLESS OUR LETTERS HAVE CROSSED IN THE MAIL, OR THERE IS AN ERROR IN THE REPORT I’VE JUST RECEIVED, I WAS DISAPPOINTED TO LEARN THIS MORNING THAT YOU HAVE YET TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY FOR 2007.

THIS PAST MONTH, I SENT YOU AND OTHER LP SUPPORTERS OUR 2006 ANNUAL REPORT ALONG WITH A PRESIDENTIAL SURVEY.

DID YOU PERHAPS NOT RECEIVE IT? ALONG WITH THE REPORT, IN THE INTEREST OF KEEPING EXPENSES DOWN, I INCLUDED AN APPEAL FOR YOU TO RENEW YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR 2007.

EVERY SINGLE MEMBER AND SUPPORTER OF THE LP IS VITAL TO OUR OPERATIONS AND I WAS COUNTING ON HEARING FROM YOU BY NOW WITH YOUR GIFT.

PHILLIP, I HOPE IT IS JUST AN OVERSIGHT THAT YOU HAVE NOT RENEWED YOUR SUPPORT FOR 2007. I UNDERSTAND HOW THAT CAN HAPPEN. BUT PLEASE KNOW THAT WE NEED YOU ON OUR TEAM IF WE ARE TO REMAIN EFFECTIVE.

YOUR GIFT RIGHT NOW IN THE AMOUNT OF $10, OR EVEN MORE IF YOU CAN, WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR OUR NATION, YOUR STATE, AND YOUR COMMUNITY.

‘Kay. I’m gonna take a deep breath and not respond to this one just yet, and bring up another point by way of contrast.

At the last state convention, Bob Smith took the podium and made a very simple, direct, and somewhat moving plea for support. There was no bullying, no coercion: nothing more than a laying out of the facts and the consequences, and a respectful request for any aid that could be given.

Let’s compare this to the condescending “I’m not angry, just disappointed” tone being presented at the national level, shall we? This call to give them money for the sake of our glorious nation? This evocation to be “part of the team?” I’ve got news for you, mate: I’m not part of anybody’s team, leastways not the smegging shitwank who composed this letter. I’m happy to register with you guys, so you have one more head to count when you’re tallying up the numbers. And I’ll continue voting for your candidates for as long as they’re supporting principles that make sense to me. But I don’t owe you jack-shit. And nobody should talk about concepts like “loyalty to the Party” with a straight face outside of Communist Russia.

I grow especially impatient when alternative parties begin employing this sort of tone. I mean, the two-party duopoly? They have to be patronizing jerkwads. Their elections hinge on it. We, however, have the freedom to talk to adults like adults.

One thing I feel that I’ve learned in show business is that the idea of “selling out” is really kind of an illusion — you can’t achieve success by pretending to be something that you’re not. So why do the other parties feel that they have to legitimize themselves by adopting the demeanor of the ones that everybody else is voting for?

I just thought you should all know

Just got back from the LP convention, and the somewhat raucous post-convention get-together (that’s fifteen consecutive hours of argument about individualist feminism, anarchism, and the role of the state — my head still hurts, and not just from the alcohol), at which a drunken female referred to me as “sexier than Batman.”

This is the greatest compliment that anyone has ever been paid.

Finally, a tussle!

[For those who don't know, my writing here is being double-posted over at Liberal Media Elite. This post is a direct response to one located here.]

I hope nobody minds if I respond with another post — I have a few too many thoughts to justify a comment.

First of all, an apology. My last post was intended to be an examination of my own thoughts and impulses — not anybody else’s. I in no way meant to imply that there was anything wrong with your emotional response to tragedy — merely that I suspected that there was something wrong with mine. I don’t know you, and I have no desire to pass judgment on anything going on on the inside of your skull.

That said, I’m prepared to defend my, er, cheap ideological point — which is that, yes! Compassion and empathy are noble human impulses! And that, unchecked by other noble human impulses, such as prudence and careful self-examination, they can lead us to unintentionally harm others. Does that really qualify as defamation?

If I’m not belaboring the argument, I’d like to specifically respond to your point about Iraq. Whatever the motives of the people at the top, in a democracy, international crimes have to sold to the people. (Well, at least in theory.) Nobody (outside of weapons manufacturers) is pro-war. Everybody knows that war is an evil. The only way to sell it to a population is convince them that it’s *necessary*.

Points that were used to sell it to us:

1) Liberating the Iraqi people. Empathy. (Bullshit, of course — our own government’s done plenty to create or support oppressive governments when it suited their purposes.)

2) Strategic movement in the larger war on terror. Empathy — nobody wants to see anyone else die in terrorist attacks. (Bullshit — there are plenty of other nations that form a more credible threat.)

3) The development of WMD’s. Empathy — nobody wants to see *those* unleashed on the planet again. (Bullshit — see last point. And, y’know, there were none.)

4) Control of and access to oil. Okay, not really empathy — but nobody used that as an argument to *sell* the war to anyone.

The only way anyone could be convinced to sign up for this was through the *manipulation* of that noble impulse. The impulse isn’t evil. Sometimes the application of it is.

One more point — not only in response to your post, but something I’ve been meaning to say for a while and this seemed to an appropriate place to do so — I’ve been hearing a lot of people complaining about the apathy of the American public when it comes to Iraq. I don’t think that’s true. I think that people are every bit as angry and disgusted with the situation as they ever have been. The reason we’re not hearing about it anymore isn’t because we don’t care, it’s because we’ve been worn out — we’ve been shouting and complaining and arguing for going on four years now, and all we’ve really gained is the knowledge that we *don’t* have any real influence on the situation.

It’s like when someone close to you dies — eventually, you pick up and find a way to move on. This is like someone close to us has died, every day, for four years. We’ve never been able to heal our wounds and move on from it, so eventually I think we’ve just started shutting down.

I’m not condoning it. I’m not condemning it. I’m just saying that I think the response has been mischaracterized. It’s not apathy. It’s exhaustion.

And, y’know — I can justifiably be accused of being a lot of unpleasant things, but apathetic is hardly one of them. A big part of the reason I’m a Libertarian is because I genuinely believe that a free-market economy works best for people on every rung of the economic ladder, including the bottom. Outrageous nonsense? Perhaps. But sincere outrageous nonsense.

Empathy is the Enemy

Following up on the heels of my last post, I'd like to link to this excellent and articulate one that has spun out into a fascinating discussion. And one that's left me asking myself the question -- why do I feel so goddamn much? And I don't mean that in some positive "look-at-me-aren't-I-so-wonderful-for-being-so-compassionate" way -- I think I get wrapped in other people's tragedies in a way that's actively unhealthy.

I mean, 9-11 changed my life, and I don't mean that glibly. And it didn't happen to my city (hell, I don't even like New York), nobody I knew was involved -- but that day has been stamped on every play that I've written since. Somehow it left me wracked with a guilt and nausea that hasn't fully faded to this day. Why?

Thinking about this got me thinking (as most things do, sigh) about my Catholic upbringing, particularly a quote from Paul's Epistle to the Romans:

"For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."

See, Catholics have this concept called a sin of omission, which means that you're not only responsible for the evil that you do -- you're also responsible for all of the good that you fail to do.

There's a degree to which this makes sense. I mean, if I walk past a guy dying in the middle of the street and don't do anything to help him, then, yeah, I bear part of the responsibility for his death, even if I didn't, say, run him over with my '95 Ford Taurus myself. Or if I neglect to mention that the door labelled "FREE COOKIE DOUGH" actually leads to a pit of venomous snakes, then I bear part of the responsibility for the fat German kid who ends up in the poison control center.

But what if I don't actually see the dying guy? What if it's a kid starving to death on the other side of the planet, and there's something I could do to help him? Am I responsible for him, too? Following this line of reasoning, it's not hard to arrive at the conclusion that you're indirectly responsible for all of the evil that occurs in the world. And we laugh at this, like it's somehow harmlessly neurotic, but it's not. That mentality has destroyed far too many lives to be dismissed as harmless.

After all, what if we could invade the starving boy's country, and see to it that nobody went hungry again? The very concept of a sin of omission implies that if we have the power to do such a thing, we have the responsibility to do so as well. And this clearly isn't a hypothetical situation -- how many have died in Iraq, because our "responsibility" to liberate the people?

Assuming responsibility for that much pain and suffering isn't humility, it's arrogance, more than a desire to protect, more than a desire to liberate, it's a desire to be God -- the greatest sin of all. A world ruled by benevelont self-interest -- where everyone took care of themselves, reached out to help the people around them, picked the dying man up off the street -- that would be a good world to live in. But we forget that the ultimate root of fascism isn't selfishness, but compassion -- that desire to lead everyone to the promised land, and thinking that you have The Way to do so.

I'm no Ayn Rander. Altruism isn't evil. I believe that that impulse to help others is the one of the noblest of our species. But it's important to remember that it's almost impossible to help someone without hurting somebody else, and that same impulse that leads us to do good can also lead us to do great evil.

And I wonder if my strong emotional response to tragedy isn't a reminder that I, too, have the capacity for both. Which is why I don't own a gun. Which is why I'll never run for office.

The Virginia Tech Massacre: Six Contradictions

THE THOUGHTFUL RESPONSE

I don’t know what it is about school shootings. Usually I’m pretty good at maintaining a snarky demeanor in the face of tragedy — not because I’m callous but because it’s a coping mechanism for me — but something about school shootings really brings out this streak of sobriety. Maybe it’s because I was a social leper in high school who wore a trench coat at the time of the Columbine shootings, and I ended up getting a lot of the fallout from that. Or maybe it’s because I work with teenagers, and I have plenty of opportunities to recall what an eternal prison our education system appears to be from the inside. I never went to college, but I think these events have a certain resonance for all of us, because our time in school was so emotionally intense — it’s really not hard to imagine this kind of thing happening. What I don’t get is the shock — the real shock is that this isn’t happening all the goddamn time.

THE SNARKY RESPONSE

Finally, a large-scale act of senseless brutality from an Asian male! Perhaps this’ll finally dispel all that emasculated, “model-minority” bullshit that we have to put up with. We’re capable of being every bit as fucked up as any other race of people, thank you very much.

THE ANGRY RESPONSE

I’m growing truly tired of the e-mails flooding my inbox from liberals and conservatives alike — I’m hardly sure who to be more disgusted with right now. On the one hand, I’m annoyed with all of those on the left who are trying to take advantage of this tragedy to push through more anti-gun legislation — and all of those gleefully telling me that I’m directly responsible for this because of my support of gun ownership are welcome to go perform an anatomically impossible act upon yourselves.

On the other hand, folks on the right are welcome to go join them, especially if you’re posting shit like this:

“We can lay the blame on the ‘Red Star’ on their door step for all the deaths. They refuse to all individuals to protect themselves. They created the situation that lead to this. The paper needs to be picketed. May be a TV station or another paper like the Pioneer Press could cover an event like this. We would need a flyer to hand out explaining our position and creative signs to hold. This is I think a good oppurnity.”

Not that I disagree with the basic point. But if you’re prepared to characterize the deaths of thirty-two people as a “good opportunity”, then I don’t want to fucking know you.

It’s not the debate I object to, but the vitriol inherent in it. Emotions are running high right now. Isn’t some kind of mourning period in order before we go back to name-calling and mud-slinging?

THE LIBERTARIAN RESPONSE

I can’t help wondering how many of the students would be alive now if they’d been armed. Obviously, the campus’ ban on firearms didn’t prevent Cho from getting his hands on some. I look at events like the Appalachian School of Law shooting, a massacre averted by armed students, and a part of me worries that we’re doomed to repeat events like the Virginia Tech Massacre as long as we hold onto this illusion that weaponry is a substance we can effectively control. If I’m determined to kill a lot of people, I’ll find a way to do it.

THE NIHILISTIC RESPONSE

Above all, though, the aspect of this that troubles me most of all are the usual attempts to characterize the perpetrator as a “sicko” or a “wacko”, or often both at the same time, despite the inherent contradiction. We don’t know anything about him, and obviously the people around him didn’t, either.

Whenever someone does something truly heinous, from Adolf Hitler to Ted Kaczynski, we need to turn them either into a calculating villain or a raving lunatic — we have to turn them into something totally alien, something totally “other”, because the truth is so much more terrifying, that they’re human beings, that they have all the same parts that we do, that anyone’s capable of anything, and nobody has a fucking moral code outside of a Sergio Leone western.

THE PRACTICAL RESPONSE

After the Columbine shootings, we weren’t allowed to talk about what happened — I recall getting in trouble with teachers numerous times for trying to strike up conversations about it in the hallways — but we suddenly and without explanation began praying before every class.

When seemingly senseless events occur, there’s really nothing for us left to do but try to construct some kind of meaning out of it and go on with our lives, whether that meaning is religious, political, or artistic. But whatever that meaning is, it’s one that we choose to construct. We have to assume responsibility for our many contradictory responses, whatever they may be.

Because that’s the meaning I’ve chosen.

Sweet Mother of Christ, It's Been Too Goddamn Long

(After a Saturday evening performance.)

ME: Hey, so where's everybody going? Isn't anybody going out tonight?
SIARDE: Well, me and my girlfriend were going to go check out PI.
ME: PI? What, are we talking, like, Baker's Square pie, or the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean geometry pi?
SIARDE: Uh, it's a bar.
ME: Oh, okay. So, what, are there gonna be a lot of girls there?
SIARDE: Oh, yeah. Definitely. Tons.
ME: Sweet! I'll meet you there.

(At PI.)

ME: So, what are my chances of getting laid tonight?
SIARDE: Uh, probably not great.
ME: What, is there a cock detector at the door or something? Is some kind of alarm gonna sound when I walk in?
SIARDE: Yeah, something like that.
ME: Shit, you weren't kidding. There's a ton of hot girls here. Man, look at all of them! Wow, check out those two are doing! This place is...this...is a dyke bar. You brought me to a fucking dyke bar. Oh, fuck you, Siarde. Fuck you.
SIARDE: There's a five dollar cover. I don't really want to pay it.
ME: C'mon, we can cover it.
SIARDE: Fine. Let's go ahead and get raped.
ME: Uh, you mean economically, right?
SIARDE: Why don't you go ahead and get something to drink.

(Four drinks later.)

ME: WHAZZUP, MY SEXUALLY INACCESSIBLE BITCHES!
SIARDE: Uh, you doing all right, phil?
ME: Y'know, this is a lot like my idea of what hell would be. I'm gonna go home and masturbate so hard, bone marrow's gonna come out, you know what I'm saying?
SIARDE: Oh...oh yeah?
ME: I don't suppose there's a section for hot bi girls here, is there?
SIARDE: No. No, there isn't.
ME: Goddammit, I have all of this grade-A cock that's just withering on the vine.

Needless to say, I did not score.