Poem after a prompt

 

I live inside my own world of make-believe

It's like a second home, the dreams that I can weave

Here I am free, and I can be the person I would like to see

In the mirror when I wake and make it reality.

Harry Potter wizards are the worst humans imaginable

Yes,  ALL of them. Even the supposedly "good" ones.

Consider:

They have a means of transportation - Portkeys - which could be set up to be used by Muggles. It costs nothing to produce, it's zero-carbon, it's safe, it's instantaneous. Buses, planes, taxis, all could be set up so there's a wizard at a terminal in each major city. And they can produce incredible amounts of energy just by wishing for it. Overnight, they could make strip-mining and fossil fuels obsolete. And while the inbreds who haven't even talked to a muggle for generations could be excused for not knowing why that's important, the Muggle-borns would sure as hell know. BUT... they keep all that to themselves.

They can heal any injury or illness with a touch or a potion. Broken bone? Poof, mended. Tumor? Poof, disappeared. Fucked-up weird-ass disease like dragon pox? Drink this, you'll feel better in the morning. And YET, instead of setting up hospitals for Muggles who can't be cured by conventional medicine, they just let people suffer and die from injuries and diseases that could just be wished away.

They can conjure food from thin air, yet they let people starve.

They can remove traumatic memories with a word, and yet they let people suffer for a lifetime with PTSD.

They can build houses the size of tents just by thinking about it, and yet they let homelessness continue.

They can set up impregnable wildlife reserves for dragons, and yet they let lions and elephants continue down the path to extinction.

They can hypnotize people and compel them to do things, and yet instead of telling dictators to abdicate power and hand it to someone sane they let people suffer under dictatorships. INCLUDING THEIR OWN PEOPLE who live in those countries.

These people have the power to solve every problem society has. They could do so without losing power. They could be hailed as heroes for solving those problems. And yet, they sit back and do nothing, because they would rather keep all the power to themselves. Even though these problems affect them too.

What kind of monsters would do that?

Can you imagine an entire class of people who have the power to make sure the sick get treatment, the hungry get food, the homeless get houses, climate change is halted, oppressors lose their power to oppress, and endangered species are protected, but choose instead to live in an insular world of their own where they can pretend those problems don't affect them?

What's in a name?

 

Today, a co-worker from the Netherlands told me that many Dutch surnames translate to terms like "Two shits" or "Big Boobs". She said that traditionally the Dutch didn't use surnames, but when they were conquered by the Romans they often would insult the census-takers who demanded to know their surnames. And the Romans, who didn't know any different, wrote those names down. 

So basically the conversations went like this:

Roman centurion: Okay, we need your name for our census.

Ben the farmer: Ben.

Roman centurion: Ben... what?

Ben: What do you mean?

Centurion: What's the rest of your name? 

Ben: Just Ben.

Centurion (writing): Just... Ben...

Ben: No, it's Ben, dumbass.

Centurion (writing): Ben... Dumbass...

Ben (exasperated): Ben Dover. My name is Ben Dover.

Centurion (writing): Ben... Dover... Thank you, Ben Dover. We tried to talk to the farmer next door but he wasn't home. What's his name?

Ben now-Dover: Joe.

Centurion: Joe... who?

Ben Dover: Joe Mama.

Centurion: Thank you. Could you describe him, please?

Ben Dover: Joe Mama is super fat and, like, REALLY ugly.

Centurion (writing): Mama... is... fat and ugly... Have I got it?

Ben Dover (nodding enthusiastically): Absolutely, yes. That is a perfect description of Joe Mama.

Centurion: Thanks for your cooperation with the census.

Ben Dover: No problem, Shit-For-Brains.

Centurion: I... didn't catch that last word?

Ben Dover: Shit-For-Brains. It's a title of respect that we reserve for Roman centurions.

Centurion: Sounds like I should have people call me that to show respect, then.

Ben Dover (silently blessing his gods for this golden opportunity and straining every fiber to keep a straight face): YES. You should absolutely INSIST that everyone calls you Shit-For-Brains. You should start with telling Jason Eat-My-Entire-Ass-You-Pig-Fucking-Roman-Asswipe over there.

Centurion (girding loins): I certainly will, Ben Dover.

"Useless fields of study like art"

There are many big, important ways in which ignorant people saying and doing ignorant things cause a great deal of harm, and usually when I get angry about ignorance it's related to those things.

But sometimes it's petty little things that make me angry at people for choosing ignorance, in a world where it's possible to find literally any information that exists just by asking for it.

One example of this is when I occasionally see someone comment on social media that people are poor because they studied something useless like art instead of learning a useful trade.

And it's pointless to talk to people this willfully ignorant. They won't bother listening. But if I thought they WERE willing to learn, I'd want to ask them this:

Have you ever watched a movie, played a video game, read a book, or listened to music? Have you ever lived, worked, shopped, or worshiped in a building that was constructed by people following a blueprint? Have you ever used a website? Have you ever assembled or repaired something by following a diagram? Do you wear clothes? Do you sleep with a blanket? Do you eat food that was cooked by someone following a recipe?

If the answer to any of those questions is "yes", then congratulations: You rely on products that were designed by artists. Don't you think maybe the people who provided you with these products, which you most likely have no idea how to create, deserve to make a living for their work?

Are you tired of winning yet?

Well, Evangelical Republicans:

Looks like you’ve done it.

By all the signs, you’ve gotten Roe v. Wade overturned.

You now have what you’ve spent decades praying for – but more than that, what you’ve been working for, and voting for, and canvassing for. (And what your politicians have gerrymandered, and pandered to racists, and pretended science isn’t real, and virtue-signaled about abortion while paying for their own mistresses to abort their bastards, and paid off porn stars, and held open a Supreme Court seat for a year, and ignored everything the Bible says about how nations and their rulers should treat the poor/ elderly/ disabled/ foreigners, and put a probable sex offender on the Supreme Court, to achieve). But you held your nose and put up with all that, and now it’s finally paid off. You got the one thing that mattered to you.

Congratulations.

Now what?

Women won't stop having abortions. They'll just stop having legal and safe abortions in red states. They'll come to blue states for as long as that's possible, and if you do manage to outlaw it nationwide they'll go to Canada, or get illegal and unsafe abortions from doctors near them who are willing to risk their license.

But let's imagine that you do manage to significantly decrease the number of abortions. 

Don't imagine for a moment that you've solved anything.

Because unwanted pregnancies ALSO won't stop happening. Teens will still get knocked up by other teens or by grown-ass men. Women will still have ectopic pregnancies. Couples who can't afford kids will still have surprise failures of birth control. Women will still fall for a guy thinking he's decent and then get left by him the moment he finds she's pregnant. Women will still fall for a guy thinking he's decent and then find out who he really is and realize she can't stay with him but can't afford to raise a child alone. Women and girls will still be impregnated by rape, will still be too scared to report the rapist but will also be unwilling to co-parent with him. All the things that cause unwanted pregnancies to happen, will continue to happen. Those fetuses don't suddenly become planned pregnancies just because you changed the law.

But now, in your best-case scenario, a million unwanted babies will be born every year, to two million unprepared parents. 

(Except for the women with ectopic pregnancies, they'll just be dead. Way to be pro-life, I guess.)

Can you BEGIN to fathom what that is going to cost you, if you actually get what you want? 

Whether via Medicaid, or via higher premiums due to increased emergency room use by uninsured families... you're gonna pay for health insurance on a lot of kids whose single moms wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise. 

You're gonna see a lot more kids in the foster system... and one way or another you're paying for that.

You're gonna see a lot more of those "welfare moms" you hate so much... and you're paying for that.

You're gonna see a lot more kids in the school system needing food and counseling and a whole lot of other things their parents can't provide... and you're paying for that.

You're gonna see spikes in child abuse by parents who weren't able to handle parenting but were compelled by law to try anyway. You're gonna see spikes in domestic abuse against women trapped in bad marriages with awful men by the fact that they can't afford to raise kids on their own. And so you're gonna see a lot more being spent on police and courts and jails and social services to deal with the problem... and you're paying for that.

And if you think there's any way for you to NOT pay for that, you're sadly mistaken. If you don't pay for preventing crisis via social services, you'll pay even more for addressing crisis via jails and hospitals. That's how it always has been, that's how it always will be. 

If you doubt that any of the above is accurate: Bear in mind that I've been working in the social service field for decades. I have seen over and over and over again what happens to cause childhood trauma, to cause the kind of brain damage that leads to kids (and eventual adults) that end up unable to function in society and costing society an incredible amount of money and labor and resources to deal with. It's a fire that was already raging out of control, and you've just poured gasoline onto it by adding another million kids, ANNUALLY, to an already overburdened and broken system.

So congratulations on your fiscal conservatism I guess? And congratulations on saving the children I guess?

Back in 2016, when you elected Trump for the sake of this moment, I warned you about making deals with the devil. You may get what you asked for, but you won't get what you want, and in the end you will always pay. 

Was it worth it to you, to solve no problems, create far more problems, and along the way also sell out every value you've ever professed to have? Was it worth it to spend four decades abandoning everything that was ever worthwhile in both conservatism and Christianity, in your frantic efforts to push a "conservative Christian" political agenda? 

Congratulations I guess. Even as you win, you lose. 

The good old days?

I have a hypothesis.

People on both sides of the political spectrum often point to the 1950s as the "good old days" in this country. Conservatives look back with longing on the days when a single income was enough to buy a house, jobs had pensions and full coverage for health insurance, there was enough income and leisure time left over for a yearly vacation, anyone who wanted to go to college could pay for it by working a summer job, and infrastructure was improving rather than deteriorating. Liberals respond "Yeah, that's because the unions were strong and the rich were taxed appropriately." And they're right, of course. But I think both sides have forgotten something:

The 1950s were also the era of McCarthyism, of the Cold War, and of general fear that Communism would take over the whole world.

And the 50s, 60s, 70s, and early 80s were the years that ordinary citizens in this country got the most out of their tax dollars and ordinary workers got the best pay and treatment. Social service programs were being created rather than defunded, transportation and communication networks were being built rather than falling apart, urban and rural areas were being improved right along with suburban areas, most people had health care and no one's health insurance made them pay thousands in co-pays, deductibles, and fees every year.

But around the time the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 80s, the trend started going the other way - wages got stagnant but prices didn't, college and healthcare got increasingly unaffordable, infrastructure stopped getting funded even as military spending grew exponentially (despite no longer having the threat of another nuclear power becoming aggressive and expansionist, until this year), normal people couldn't afford homes or vehicles anymore, the rich got obscenely rich while the rest of us worked more and more to get less and less. 

And conservatives got more and more hysterical about our country having a "radical Left" even as our "left-wing" party drifted further and further to the right. (Seriously, with the possible exceptions of Bernie and AOC they are to the right of Eisenhower. They only get called left-wing in comparison to the people who are so far to the right that they honestly think Joe Biden is a leftist, rather than the centrist conservative he actually is.) They think that "Please could we spend some tax money on making sure the poor don't starve" is authoritarian Communism because they've forgotten what ACTUAL authoritarian Communism looks like.

In other words, my hypothesis is this: 

It looks like the decades that were best for ordinary Americans - the decades in which workers got paid and treated the best, and government spending was doing the most for middle class and poor people - were the decades in which the rich and powerful were afraid that if they didn't do those things there would be a bloody Communist revolution and they would be first against the wall.

Now, I'm NOT saying we actually need a Communist revolution. The outcome would be, if possible, even worse for ordinary workers than the status quo. A totalitarian Left would be indistinguishable from a totalitarian Right. 

I AM saying that maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if the rich and powerful were afraid of that possibility again.

If you're gonna wear the uniform, you have to do the job...

During sophomore year of college, I spent pretty much the whole year wearing a Santa hat everywhere. It was my own way of trying to be a quirky, unique individual at an age when that was important. One evening, I was walking down a city street with a group of friends, and a homeless person approached us to ask for money. We walked past without acknowledging him, and he called to my retreating back “Aw, come on, Santa!”

I did an about-face, abashed, and went back to him and gave him some money.

Because if you’re wearing the uniform, you have to do the job.

 I couldn’t wear the symbol of generosity, of a saint renowned for taking risks to give, and giving anonymously with no expectation of receiving anything in return, and then refuse to behave like Saint Nicholas when called upon. I had to either behave like Santa, or take off the hat.

 

I’ll come back to that thought in a while.

 

Recently, I’m seeing Evangelicals post online that they’re tired of being attacked by our culture generally, and liberals in particular, for being Christian.

I assure you, Evangelicals, you are not.

You have never in your life been criticized for loving your neighbor as yourself.

You have never in your life been shamed for feeding the hungry.

You have never in your life been hated for taking care of the sick, the elderly, the orphan, people with disabilities.

I promise you, no one has ever seen you engage in self-sacrificial generosity, pointed to that behavior, and shouted “See! I told you, religion does more harm than good!”

I guarantee, no one has ever seen you show mercy or compassion to those who need it and said “What’s wrong with Christians?”

To the extent that the behavior of Christians has been Christ-like, it has always been applauded.

On the occasions that people see Christ-like behavior from Christians, they say “Wow. If I could find a church full of people like that, I would go.”

Christianity isn’t under attack, at least not in this country. The cross is not under attack, any more than Santa Claus was under attack that evening when I was asked for money. What’s under attack is something that all too often wears the uniform, but doesn’t do the job.

Evangelical Christians in this country are known right now for their thoughts and prayers, and their political activism, and their ichthus bumper stickers, and their not-very-good music, and their rich megachurch pastors, and their feelings about LGBTQ people and abortion and liberals. Those things have been very visible.

What they are NOT known for right now is their love. That has been largely invisible to society at large.

In this country, churches take in HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars annually. Tax-free. With that kind of money, a group of people whose Golden Rule is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” should be able to do all kinds of good in the world. There should be no one hungry, no one homeless, no one sick and lacking treatment, no one lacking for help with addiction, or vocational training, or child care.

And yet, the hungry are still without food. The sick are still without treatment. The outcast are still without community. People always hear “I’ll pray for you” from Christians when something horrible happens to them. They seldom hear “Here is some money to help with the medical bills. Let me take the kids out for the afternoon so they get to have some fun and you get to have a break. I’ll make dinner when we get back.”

Collectively, the church wears the uniform, but doesn’t do the job.

And so, if you as an individual Christian personally ARE doing the job… if you are sincere in your belief, are doing everything you can to be Christ’s incarnate love in the world, are giving self-sacrificially… remember that people won’t always know that when you tell them you’re a Christian. They see creatures like Joel Osteen and Roy Moore calling themselves Christians, and think “You’re one of THEM.” They’ve seen too damn many people wearing a cross walk right past the person in need. If someone assumes that when you say “I’ll pray for you”, that means “I can’t be bothered to DO anything for you”, you can be upset about that. But you can’t blame the person who’s lashing out at the uniform. Be upset that the uniform has been tarnished by the church failing utterly to live worthily of it. And hold yourself and your brethren accountable to do better and be better.

Because even non-Christians know what Christianity SHOULD look like. They see that it DOESN’T look like that. That’s often WHY they’re not Christians.

You won’t change their minds by being defensive when they’re angry at you for what Christianity has come to represent to them. You certainly won’t change their minds by abandoning the principles you preach in order to gain political power over them.

But you might change their minds by showing them what Christian love looks like in practice.

If Christianity can’t do that, then it is dead. And the thing that has replaced it, deserves to die.

Either do the job, church, or take off the uniform. Stop wearing the cross, take the bumper stickers off your car, stop having revivals where everyone comes to the altar just as they are and leaves just as they were. Stop telling people how important your values are, unless you’re prepared to live them even when it hurts.

Because if you’re wearing the uniform, you have to do the job.