The Red Hair-ing

Part of me really loves politics and civil discourse and part of me really hates it. Most folks I communicate with can talk back and forth without much rancor or unpleasantness. There have been some who will throw up their hands in disgust and stalk off, or - more frequently - will simply slip away from my presence because (I think) they're sick of me.

And my wife - who is fairly well stuck with me - sympathizes.

We, as a country, are often divided up by Those Who Know into groups. Some of them are slef-evident: Young/old. Poor/rich. Black/White. Some of them are not: Pro-life/pro-choice. Green/...un-green. Cool/dorky (the line here is blurry, it's cool to read some comics but not to read others...there's a line between "cool" comic guys and dorky, I don't know where I stand).

I don't know if all of this dividing is really helpful, and in a couple of the aforementioned examples I think they do more harm than good. Most of all, I think they're illusory.

Two points:

Going green. We hear it alot. In casual conversation when someone tells me they're "going more green" I automatically re-calculate my estimation of their intellect downwards. [As a corollary, when someone says "this is my style" I REALLY lower my opinion]. The term "green" is illusory, a big fat red herring. There is nothing "green" about using paper bags instead of plastic ones. Or using woven handbags (which to me look like a total pain in the ass) to buy groceries. Planting invasive species isn't green. There is nothing about our human existence that IS green - unless you follow the credo of a guy like the late Christopher McCandless and live off the land, simply. You wanna be truly green? Stop driving a car. Lose the air-conditioning. Have less children. Eat less food. Cut the electricity to your house.

Pro-life. Another doozy. After the Roe decision anti-abortion activists coined this term and have force-fed it to Catholics ever since. Abortion can be managed by the several States but has been declared (in good old 1971) legal. Every election cycle we have the same silly argument over who's pro-life and who's pro-choice. Here's my stance: Abortion is murder, it takes a life and extinguishes it. Therefore, it's wrong. But, thanks to the Judicial branch, it's legal.

That's it. Until the Court re-visits the issue that's the last word. So, for some, elections become a way to weigh in on the abortion issue in the hopes that the new administration will appoint a Justice who will help change the Roe decision. OK. So they've been working at this for nearly 40 years.....to what end?

Assume someday Roe is overturned, then what? Some States will legalize abortion and some will not. What has been won?

This, of course, ignores the issue of why women abort pregnancy in the first place. I have no real-life experience to draw from. The myth is that women don't want the inconvenience of a child. I doubt that's true for most women, but it's probably a percentage. Poverty. Desperation. Fear. To my ear, those sound more likely than callousness.

In both cases, though, it's easier to slap the label on than get under it's skin and attempt to think it through. We cede the exercise of reason to talking heads who instruct us how to think and feel, getting us to holla "hell, yeah" instead of actually thinking. In a constant state of emotional appeals, reason and logic are lost to the ether.

Isn't it true that the point of "going green" is to reduce pollution? Yeah, I think it is. I don't know if you get credit for the effort as I don't know that any of the recycling centers or electric cars and the like do any real good but I believe that making those attempts can't hurt anyone. While I may dislike the label and consider it non-sensical -and perhaps a marketing term, it harms nothing to try.

The abortion divisions are likewise Frankenstein-esque creations of political manipulations. Neither side wants to be "anti" anything. There are pro-life believers who believe quite illogically and immorally that the death penalty is absolutely beyond reproach - thus having it both ways. There are pro-choice believers who maniacally resist any type of rational curbs on the practice of abortion (I'm speaking of parental notifications, for example, or trimester limitations).

I almost want to end this by telling my fellow Americans to "move on, there's nothing to see here." The green and anti-green forces bicker and profit from the fight. The abortion foes and their political stooges do, too. It's a constant state of detente in which only the citizenry loses....every few years there are small victories or defeats and these folks rally for another fight or crow over their win....then accomplish nothing.

And.... while we're all distracted, there's a war still going on. Move along, y'all, there's nothing to see here but red herrings. And please, whatever you do, think.