a unifying theory of modern conspiracies (lol)

[2023 note: this was actually written a couple of years ago but for some reason (cough) I never hit publish ... ]

So, I had this great insight this spring that might be the key to explaining at least a lot of conspiracist things if not all of them ...

You see, all along, it's been the dandelions.  Secretly they are taking over the earth (this appears to be some kind of hive-mind activity -- I'd hate to consider them having individual sentience!). The ships from their home planet will be arriving soon, hoping to find us softened for the easy capture of our ever-less-hospitable-to-humans, but increasingly fabulous for dandelions, environment, so their human allies have been ramping up the pressure.  From the day they talked innocent children into planting them on roadsides to beautify the country lanes (for historical evidence see Anne of Green Gables -- it's book one or two, I think -- where the author cites this specific activity in passing) -- from that day, I think we all have to admit that they have gradually been taking over at least this country (possibly invading from Canada, per citation).

And this despite the creation of and amazing increase in the use of poisons designed essentially (perhaps actually?) specifically to kill them.  And teachings in our movies, on TV, and in our schools about tidiness and perfect lawns -- a propaganda blitzkrieg that was fairly successful at least into the 1970s, and still holds sway over many human minds today.

But my clue was watching my lawn this spring -- a remarkably perfect spring for dandelions, and a remarkably un-Portland spring: deep rains followed by a week+ of no moisture at all, with clear skies and happy shining sun, repeated over and over.  *Someone* must have been messing with the weather (seriously -- who ever heard of a dry day between January and Rose Festival?!), and there were no logical economic beneficiaries to the new weather ... but ... my *dandelions* were settling in for a long, deep-rooted summer, clearly with the goal of finally eradicating my grass!!

Could it have been the dandelions all along?!?

Could this explain the obstinate support by our federal government of Monsanto and related companies, which is otherwise so unjustifiable?!?

Could this explain why all the children, starting in the mid-1860's, have been herded into compulsory standardized schooling? Both sides have a stake in that: the dandelions want us all to be green hippie drug-addled brainwashees, and the anti-dandelion freedom fighters need to train up an army of citizens who are educated on lawn poison and its efficient application, and will react with drone-like rejection when faced with a dandelion threat!

(Of course you've never heard of the anti-dandelion freedom fighters -- who would have believed them?  I'm sure they are valiant truth seekers whose families pretend they don't exist ... or they are protecting their own families from both the unfaithful and the dandelion sympathizers, by faking their deaths.  That takes a truly dedicated and intelligent person to pull off ... .)

Of course with any alien-planet scenario it ought to be easy to wrap in the secret goals (or create new secret goals that fit better) of the space programs (although this is a pretty big leap from the Isis/Masons connection, so I'm still working on that ... anyone with better knowledge of the Masons / Isis-in-space / Knights of Templar stuff is welcome to chime in in the comments ;) ).

But I think a unified theory that wraps in chemtrails, brainwashing institutionalization + media saturation, government subsidies to highly suspect companies which don't clearly benefit the nation, AND (maybe) the "faked" moon program is a pretty good unification theory ;).

OH!  AND, I just figured out 9-11's connection -- the neo-Cons/military are the normal suspects (if one doesn't go all the way to the Masons or even the Illuminati) ... what if the neo-Cons/military are, like Monsanto, carrying a secret and noble, but praiseless and seemingly nefarious, burden of keeping up and building up humanity's battle capabilities?!  I'm sure the poor dears are horrified by the use to which some incompetent leadership has put the resources that ought to have been carefully maintained for the first significant extraterrestrial conflict!  (The oddly successful movie Independence Day, in colorfully justifying Area 51, was perhaps, then, a carefully crafted warning by the resistance, bringing the strange bedfellows of mainline shoot-em-up, minority leadership, and geek sympathies together in subconsciously supporting the preparations against extraterrestrial invasion!)

And apparently even the Illuminati might truly have been cast unfairly as devils all this time.  They may truly have the success of the human species at heart ...

Although, as a green hippie (with no drug-addling), I still strenuously disagree with the methods the freedom fighters seem to be choosing (mass destruction and poison are pretty clearly counterproductive in the long run), and I wonder whether they have sufficient objectivity on the larger historical picture to work logically past the terror-stories they may have had whispered to them as children.  I prefer to rip them out of the ground and hope I'm leaving no roots behind (and hope the "commercial composting facility" in town actually gets hot enough to kill the darn seeds, since they consistently have enough mojo stored in even just their leaves to fully transform from a yellow bloom to a puffball even after being removed!).  Also, I heartily support the Organic Consumers Association for encouraging the domestication and eating of them, as a preferable solution to poison and an ironic reversal for the eville plans (as yet unclear but clearly not for the benefit of humans) of these invasive plants!

So there you go.  A decent unified theory of all the truly crazyass shit the government has been foisting on us (as opposed to the merely annoying but I can imagine it made sense to someone at some point).  Have I missed any significant "conspiracy theories"?

I suppose the JFK assassination.  One could toss him, the CIA, the FBI, and the mob in on either side of the dandelion equation probably. It's more fun if the "goodguys" were actually the badguys, so let's put the mob/CIA/FBI arrayed against the dandelions and desperately trying to root out (ha ha), by intelligence work and some strong-arming, the dandelion supporters in the halls of government.  JFK would then I suppose be the pretty face on the dandelion movement, but it's probably not hard to argue he didn't know he was being used.

P.S. I've disturbed myself, by the way.  In case anyone wondered.  (No, I do not believe the dandelions are *actually* any of the outrageous things I've here stated.  They are, however, apparently annoyingly well adapted to live with humans in a temperate climate, like rats, corbids, starlings, and cockroaches.)

OK, I have a Thing To Say: on whether "it" can be "worth it," and general "moral" responsibility

OK so I finished that Adlerian-psychology book and started in on the Daniel Howell book and I need to stop and capture (YELL ACTUALLY BECAUSE I'M VERY ANGRY) this set of thoughts which has been coalescing for twenty years.

People are often saying "I'm so glad I didn't kill myself, it was all worth it because life is good now" and I just fundamentally object to the "it will all be worth it, just stick with it" platitudes as regards "I had a horribly hard and hurtful life but now it's OK so all that horrible stuff must have been OK too because it was Part Of My Journey(TM)."

FABULOUS if you feel better now -- yay you!, big fan!, love you lots!, I will honestly cheer and be happy for you in real time if we are interacting <3!

But don't give the bad moral actors any credit.  Their evil is not yours and there is NO moral requirement for you to accept ANY of it.

"I'm so glad I didn't kill myself"? Yay <3!  "All the shit was worth it?" Toxic toxic toxic.

-----

1) Just to get this out of the way, although most of my readers will have read this item once or twice from me before:  For some people (most people actually) life literally never "gets better."  Look at history and there are lots of people, probably actually the vast, vast majority of people, for whom life was shit and then they died.  Moments of happiness, small joys, but it never "got better."  People might find spiritual enlightenment or some other version of peace, people might find love, but most people in all of human history have in very practical terms had very, very hard lives, and those lives generally only got (and get) harder and more painful as humans age.

"It got better" isn't a thing for most people, most places, most times.

It isn't *actually* a thing in modern America for most people -- that whole "it's probably going to get significantly better" thing is a MYTH and most Americans self-medicate one way or another because the "truth" (lies) we are told about "how to acheive happiness" don't match reality but we are all working hard to do the "right" things and still everything hurts and therefore there is (quite logically if one accepts the baseline lies) no actual, workable answer, and deadening (or finding ways to otherwise deny) the pain is the best solution for psychological survival in a system designed both to inflict pain and prevent access to real remedies.

-----

2) But my actual Thing I Have to Say is that if someday my life actually manages to do this magical turnaround thing that some people insist on telling me it "will" do (if I just [fill in their preferred blank]), and someone tries to rejoice with me by implying or asking, See, wasn't it all worth it?  ...

Let's think big and say, on a talk show.

Let's think little and say, over quiet tea in a stable-seeming living situation.

THE ANSWER IS NO.

NO.  NONE OF THIS SHIT WAS "WORTH IT."

PEOPLE BEING CRUEL INDIVIDUALLY WAS NOT "WORTH IT."

PEOPLE ACCEPTING CRUEL EXISTING TEACHINGS AND SYSTEMS THAT HURT ME AND OTHER PEOPLE WAS NOT "WORTH IT."

I WILL NEVER, EVER BE IN ANY WAY GRATEFUL FOR, OR ACCEPTING OF, PEOPLE HAVING BEEN SHITTY.

NOT TO ME, NOR TO ANYONE ELSE.  FUCK THAT.

AND

ALSO:

!!!!!

I have quite a lot of friends and some relatives who believe (more or less literally depending on the person) in each of us literally having chosen, before birth, this specific life we each are living.

I am even willing to give y'all that (I don't find that in practical moral terms it makes a difference for me, so I don't actually care).

But let's play that game and look at the logic of most of the 'self help''ish books, videos, and teachers out there, regarding the idea that "you chose this life."

If I showed up in this life AND PEOPLE TREATED ME WITH CRUELTY

there is NOT ACTUALLY AN INHERENT, LOGICAL REASON TO ASSERT THAT I 

--> "ASKED FOR" THAT, 

--> "DESERVED" THAT, NOR 

--> "NEEDED TO LEARN SOMETHING FROM" THAT.

I categorically refuse that.  I refuse all of it.  People being shitty is ON THEM.

FULL.

FUCKING.

STOP.

I *can* accept that I showed up -- that we each showed up -- offering an open heart so that the people we came in contact with could choose to learn to be better humans, so that they could choose love, so that they could learn to *see* and to *care* better.

If the humans we showed up "for" (or nearby, anyhow) didn't *do* that, THAT IS ON THEM.

NO HUMAN ASKED TO BE BORN INTO CRUELTY.

ZERO.

I DON'T BELIEVE THAT HAPPENS.

PERIOD.

I do NOT accept that ANY being asks, at ANY level, to be abused.

And every "teacher" who has every told any "student" that that was true?  Is part of the deep structure that holds the lies and the abuse in place.

NO.

So fuck that whole "it was all worth it" idea.

And also all versions of "you are morally required to be grateful for what you receive in this life."

NO.

IF SOMEONE CHOOSES TO BE SHITTY, THAT IS NOT MY PROBLEM.  IT'S NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY.  IT'S NOT MY FAULT.

EVEN IF I, REAL-TIME, *ACTUALLY* ASKED SOMEONE TO BE SHITTY?

IT 

WOULD 

--> STILL <--

BE 

--> THEIR <--

MORAL 

CHOICE 

TO DO SO.

I ABSOLUTELY REFUSE TO BELIEVE *I* "NEEDED" TO "LEARN" SOMETHING THAT REQUIRED ANY OTHER PERSON TO BE HORRIBLE.

THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW (which -- current version -- is due to a really unfortunate-for-me confluence of structural inequities as opposed to people being individually nasty, so ... an improvement, and a testament to how much work I have *successfully* done to stop being buried in mean people's active individual shitstorms)

ALL THE TIMES PEOPLE CHOSE TO HURT ME OR CHOSE NOT TO STEP UP WHEN I WAS A KID

ALL THE TIMES PEOPLE CHOSE TO HURT ME OR CHOSE NOT TO STEP UP WHEN I WAS A TEEN

ALL THE TIMES PEOPLE CHOSE TO HURT ME OR CHOSE NOT TO STEP UP WHEN I WAS A YOUNG ADULT

NONE OF IT

NOT ANY OF IT

WAS EVER, IS EVER, NOR WILL IT EVER "HAVE BEEN, LOOKING BACK"

"WORTH IT."

That is all bullshit and I will *not* accept moral responsibility on any level for other people choosing fear in their actions instead of courage/love.  I will only take moral responsibility for the times I choose fear in *my* actions instead of courage/love.

How badly I've been treated was not something I asked for.  It's not something I believe ANY of us asked for, not even as Soul-Seeds in the Infinite Glowing Wisdom Space or whatever the current in-fashion words are.  If you offered to trust that people would love and care for you --  maybe, even, you did it as a generous gift of hope and love *to/for those people* -- if they didn't step up and be good (or at least decent) humans, that is *NOT YOUR FAULT.*

-----

I don't believe darkness is required to see the light.  I have never believed that, and I've never seen anything in my life experience that actually supports that, but I have seen the assertion used in real time by a lot of people to "justify" their dark spaces that are *actively hurting other people* [side rant here redacted].

There is a central core of reality -- somehow -- of truth and love, and the further away things are from it, the less true they are; there doesn't need to be "another side" to that.  There *isn't* "another side" of that.  We mentally construct it because we fear facing the full light of love, and would like to believe we are choosing "something" rather than just running away in fear.

"Balance" as a "moral value" requires us to accept both mediocrity and *evil.*

Nope nope nope'ity nope.

NO.

-----

And lest the "good Christians" in the crowd think you are getting off easy because I have particular beef with the new age'y post-modern Western-Civ versions of reincarnation-teaching, most of that "if shit happened to you it must be your fault somehow" teaching is definitely firmly in the "theological" foundations of nearly all "Christian" denominations in America and without exception *is the foundation* of every major cultural structure in our nation, because it was part of the "Christian" "theology" that was in vogue among the elites in the 1700s.

I've heard "it will all be worth it" from WAY more Christian-heritage or actively Christian people than from my pagan, new age, or secularist friends.

"It will all be worth it" is not a statement of hope.  It's a statement designed to bury the reality of structural inequalities in our society that literally guarantee that for most people it will never "all have been worth it."  It's a statement designed to suppress conversations around difficult but necessary changes.

Maybe we get to go to Heaven at the end of life.  But there is no logical requirement to experience pain to get to Heaven, and experiencing pain does not make a person more holy or worthy or any other thing that would theologically justify "it will all be worth it."

There is only a requirement to *love.*

The ONLY requirement, is to love.

A human succeeds or fails *as a human* according to whether and how strongly they chose *love.*  How much they chose to grow towards love, and matured towards love, and gave love, and accepted love.

(Real love.  Not just anything people find convenient to label "love" so they can abuse others, but with added-bonus, extra-effective gaslighting.)

Hurting people because we can't be bothered to face our own pain and fears is never, ever justified.  It's understandable.  It's forgivable, for those with a will to forgive.  But it's never justified.  And nothing about the results will be "worth it" that wouldn't have been better and more "worth it" if more loving and honest choices had been made in the first place.

-----

Anyhow I have a lot of feelings about this.

The last few years I'm just *really, spectacularly* tired of people telling me 

--> "well I'm glad you see *your* responsibility for *your* situation" (that was one of the most WTF responses I've ever gotten tbh -- probably because I rarely talk to people as deeply Americanized as that person was), or 

--> "it will all be worth it someday just hold on," or 

--> "yes it's a hard life but we each asked for what we got," 

or a million other versions of 

--> "when people are horrible it's probably at least partly if not wholly your own fault and also we must avoid having honest conversations about how much of this pain is structurally designed into society and actually entirely unnecessary if people in general weren't systematically beaten into being terrified of radical love."

The choices I made in my life should, in any *actually rationally healthy* society, not have ended up with me being housing insecure and food insecure and my children only seeing me every month or two simply because of my economic hardship (and not because anyone doesn't want to see each other, or they live far away, or ... ).

My situation is a reason to reevaluate anything you think is "good" or "working" about American structures, not a reason to hope for a fairy godmother or a winning lottery ticket so I can "be happy and well" and everyone can again conveniently repress how stupidly shitty our whole social assumptions-set is because somehow -- magically -- "it all turned out alright."

(I wouldn't say no to a winning lottery ticket, don't get me wrong.  But the level of bullshit is still the level of bullshit.  The value of the next moment does not change the value of this moment.  And anyhow I'd probably stay poor because I'd rather see as many immediate broad scale positive social changes as possible with the hope of preventing more of my situation, rather than 'rescuing' one of me, so after paying off debts and putting just enough away to reasonably prevent being a further drain on my safety nets I'd be spending/ giving away all the money -- carefully -- anyhow.)

-----

There is probably more but that is enough for now.

On objections to "the violence and destruction"

Trigger warnings: graphic descriptions of racist violence including lynchings

For those clutching their pearls, "but the violence and destruction! It's just not how democracy works!"

1) Democracy is clearly not working.

(a) It's not currently democracy, because there are people doing everything they can to prevent actual democracy and we never really got it set up right in the first place.

(b) Democracy is the method we chose to try to govern in a manner that preserves stated rights.  Pretty clearly, the most fundamental rights are more important than the tactic of democracy.  If the most fundamental rights are clearly and consistently trampled and the majority will not, for whatever reason, fix the problem democratically, then there has to be another mechanism, or we logically can't claim to *actually* value those rights.

Ok, so, the violence and destruction.  The two words are used together a lot, so we don’t think about them separately as much, but in the current context this is a white-supremacist/pro-“capitalist” concept-laziness.  (“Capitalist” because a lot of people feel very righteous about us living in a “capitalist” society, which we don’t.  We live in a wealth-protection racket with a veneer of righteous-sounding words.  The veneer is wearing away.)

SO: an important distinction: violence is against living things, destruction is against inanimate things.  In some times and places, violence was against *people* and destruction was against *not people* (including animals and whatever the local society considered to be subhumans ... in America, non-whites sometimes, Blacks in, if we are honest, most times).  In this essay I am aligning with the more modern usage, which exposes our inhumanity, and our knee-jerk "capitalism," better.

Violence is against living things, destruction is about inanimate things.

In the context of the protests, violence (from either side) is against *people.*

It is worrisome at a basic moral-value level that burning stores or police precincts stresses many viewers out more than the absolutely over-the-top violence perpetrated by the police on the protestors, sometimes because of real but almost completely not-actually-threatening violence from the protestors, but often, often, just because someone on the police force decided they needed to "assert their authority" or "control the situation."  In the situations when the protestors were flinging ONLY WORDS at the officers in question -- which was a bunch of situations of police violence against protestors -- I'm a little horrified that I have to point out that there was not a "situation" to "control."  There were citizens peacefully protesting.  That is not a "situation to control."  In the situations where the protestors were "complying" as best they could, even with highly questionable orders, by moving away, or being still and physically non-threatening if they had been handicapped by a police weapon or had a preexisting handicap -- again, I'm a little horrified that anyone needs to point out that that is not a "situation to control."  That is a situation that is *already under control,* and further violence *is not justified,* even if under the laws of that locale some arrests might be.  Kettling, when followed up with violence on the trapped people ... that was not a "situation to control."  That was straight-up entrapment by your government authorities for the purpose of torture.

The *actual violence* perpetrated by protestors against the police or anyone else has been nearly zero.  The destruction?  Sure some of that was protestors in some places, but 

(1) a lot of it was outside agents trying to make the protests look bad.  White supremacists, cops, random entitled teens and twenties who don't have a damn clue and think it will be a lark, have all been caught on videos or on chat strings planning or implementing this.

(2) are you demonstrating that you care more about a Target than about all the black people murdered and beaten up and framed and sent to prison by police in that city?  Are you really?

Statistical significance would discount the violence created by the current protestors compared to the violence levied against black people not only during slavery, when white oppressors had a general financial interest in keeping most slaves alive and physically capable of working, but in the Reconstruction years, when militias and sometimes just local communities on the fly -- you know, I got nothing to do after church this Sunday, you wanna? -- would get together and hunt black people.  When they assassinated elected black politicians one after the other in a targeted and deliberate way, and then started on black candidates brave enough to try to run for office to replace the dead.  When they burned and looted homes and communities.

Most of what I just described was flat-out shooting-blacks-with-guns, and mostly it wasn't battles, it was just massacre and murder.

And that's not even getting into what we think of as "lynchings," which were common enough that towns in the South sold commemorative, collectible photo-postcards. 

Because lynchings were such a public "good" at the time, they didn't, as we have been taught in our society if we are talking about them at all, just involve "hanging." They were a blood sport, for an audience (whether just a few guys or a town Sunday picnic on the green), where the hanging was not expected to kill a person quickly like an execution. Putting a rope around someone's neck and dragging them up into a tree guarantees a 'botched' hanging, a lingering and terrifying death (with an avid audience, it should be remembered) *even in the cases* when the white folks doing the lynching didn't ALSO ADD FUCKING FIRE. Late in the period when public lynchings were still an acceptable social event, the lynchers managed to keep a black male alive for four hours, burning him not all at once, but slowly and carefully.  Sometimes they killed whole families in lynchings.  Babies included.  Sometimes they experimented with fun things like poking out eyes or cutting out tongues or pulling out fingernails or cutting off fingers.  Some of those body parts were kept as souvenirs.

All of which ignores, by only considering the deaths, the severe beatings that always accompanied lynchings, to disable the victim (and for sadistic race-superiority enjoyment of course) ... and the severe beatings that were casually levied, everywhere and anywhere, in the last 150+ years on blacks who were not lynched, because white folks no longer had a financial stake in keeping "the blacks" capable of work anymore, and it's very psychologically satisfying to assert one's dominance.  In way too many places in America that is not only acceptable but encouraged, even still.  Dominance-assertion as a psychological jack-off is pretty common in every part of American society.  Certainly it is still visible from waaaaay too many police officers.

Dominance-beatings very effectively instill trauma and ongoing fear (which is the point), and sometimes permanent physical damages.  The deaths, however incredible the numbers are, are only a small part of the story of historical racist violence against the black community.  The same holds true now.  For every story I've seen over the last bunch of years about a black person murdered by police, there have been several other black people talking about the time(s) the police beat them.  And if I rouse myself enough to go looking around the internet on purpose for those stories, which I have sometimes done, it is quickly apparent that the sample making it through the social media algorithms is very small.

So yeah. There has been violence against some people and destruction in the last few weeks, and I'll even (unlike some) admit that some (although certainly and provably not all) of that was actually done by actual protestors. And that's not ideal. It's even, in a simple sense, bad.

But, those numbers, amounts, and types pale in comparison -- even the destruction (of inanimate things) numbers, amounts, and types, but especially, *especially* the violence (against people) numbers, amounts, and types -- to the overt violence and destruction that has been consistently enabled, encouraged, and accomplished against black people (and often their allies) by white supremacists (which in some places is still most white people) and the white-advantaging, black-disadvantaging power structures in our nation and in our cities.

AND the violence (remember: against people) perpetrated by protestors is in every instance VASTLY LESS than the violence perpetrated by the police, who are sometimes just *starting shit* without waiting for "provocation" or any actual physical threat. Why is the violence from protestors getting all your condemnation, but the often (cough cough) "proactive" (aggressive), and always larger and meaner, violence by the police is not?

It is notable that these demonstrators are very few threatening anyone or anything with guns. (Hence FOX photoshopped the same white dude with a gun onto several scenes in the Seattle situation, to make it look scarier. So much for gun rights I guess.  Even white people aren't allowed to be visibly armed, if the rights they are protesting for are for *black* people.)

I'm not a proponent of violence or destruction. But if you weren't complaining BEFORE NOW, the whole rest of your life, about, and trying to stop, and fix, and prevent, the much vaster violence and destruction -- the much greater suffering -- that was forced onto the black community in **all the other years** (AND STILL IS, witness a cop murdering a non-aggressive black man in the goddamn middle of this social crisis ... pretty sure I haven't heard of any black people murdering a cop during the protests, not even an armed and dangerous cop who was threatening them, which is thousands of opportunities a day in this country right now, not *even* lynching the one that slowly and with apparent personal satisfaction and zero remorse choked the death out of a black man, when white people lynched black men for nothing and everything) ... 

... if you weren't *more* outraged by all the earlier violence and destruction against fellow Americans, it's not reasonable to suddenly "find Jesus" and be some kind of moral pacifist 'in alignment with your political beliefs' now.   Your 'political beliefs' clearly value property and the current power structure over people's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (but mostly over "life," let's just start with the most basic one) and JUSTICE.

Yeah, I'm against destruction, and I think it's generally morally wrong unless for real it is a move toward something better.  I wish people wouldn't burn Target.  I don't see how that moves the needle in the right direction.  I wish people wouldn't loot, but I can kind of see the justice of impoverished people looting, in the big picture, even while I mourn the livelihoods of the business people involved.  Burning that precinct -- after there was noone inside -- or trying to burn the Justice Center in Portland, when the few people inside that night could be expected to escape -- those made some sense as political statements and effective actions, against public structures and investments that *actively hurt black people in those locales.*  I'm still not down with destruction, but ... when there is evil, and it's entrenched, sometimes destruction is necessary.

DESTRUCTION OF THINGS IS NOT MORALLY EQUIVALENT TO DIRECT MURDER AND TORTURE-ABUSE OF PERSONS.

If you want to condemn some Americans for their violence, black people are not where to start to root out the problem.  Almost all black people have been conscientiously and deliberately choosing NOT TO TRY TO KILL the rest of us for 150+ years, despite having an arguable moral right, in the Old Testament sense (tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye), to *totally* do so.  Black people generally have consistently shown amazing humanity and restraint in the face of bald racism and hundreds of years of dehumanizing violence tolerated by their nation.  The fact that they've always trusted that actually, someday, the rest of us would finally step the fuck up is remarkable, and pretty much based on nothing in history.  It's an act of faith they chose and choose, and a gift of grace they offered, and offer, to the rest of us.

"But ... but ... the violence and destruction and looting!!"

Yeah, no.  Step up to fix the root causes, every day, at all levels.  If and when you have helped build a better system, so that the violence from the system pushed on black people is smaller than the violence done by black people protesting for justice and rights and basic safety, *then* you can totally complain about those evil looters and be taken seriously.  

Except, oops, there won't be any ... which is the implied goal of your freak-out, right?  

No protestors wreaking violence and destruction?

Win-win.

Why rejecting the idea of abolishing the police is intellectually dishonest

Pointing out the logical gap:  It is not necessarily true that the police need to exist, so people wanting to abolish police forces is not logically inherently worrisome.  It's worrisome based on fears, not reason.

If public safety and services can be more effectively and humanely delivered/ acquired/ designed in other ways (which we don't know yet because alternative solutions have not been tested), why is there a concern -- why logically -- with the police eventually being abolished?  Some version or part of the police might end up being socially necessary.  OR, we as a society, maybe we as a species, have just not asked the question seriously enough before and so have not yet innovated and tested less damaging answers.

We change how we answer social-management questions all the time.  Overall, that change is toward more recognition of individuals' right to manage their own lives, and our shared responsibility to help others when accident and circumstance lands them with need they cannot themselves supply.

Some activists are calling for abolishment.  Acknowledging that I (currently, personally) see a real need to police ourselves as a society, I don't see that a police force is necessarily the best answer for that.  

Abolishment should be on the table, and in some people's minds a goal, or we will never have cause to imagine how deeply we can unwind the authoritarian assumptions that keep us all enslaved to the current power-structure.

Acknowledging the possibility is necessary for most-effective discussion.

Parallel "necessary for the discussion" assertion in a very different arena:

I attended a conference about artificial intelligence development in vehicles in Michigan, with most of the attendees from the Midwest and a significant chunk from the NE.  I was the only West Coast attendee.  I was also one of maybe three people in the room whose impression was that truly autonomous vehicles were possible.  Most of the people I associate with, in related industries or on the streets, on the West Coast, believe that truly autonomous vehicles are at least possible, and lots of us believe they are basically inevitable.

The people at that conference, mostly researchers from academia and vehicle production companies, were seriously considering all sorts of mechanical, security, and social questions about the current situation and the future.  And maybe they were all right, and the West Coast research community is wrong, and cars will never get past level three or mayyyybe level 4.  BUT, because they couldn't seriously admit the possibility, there are reams of really important questions raised by others that they, and therefore all the demographics they each represent, are not really considering, and are not participating in the development of answers to.  And, they are not contributing their concerns by asking questions -- and given their apparent lack of trust in actually-autonomous machines, I can guarantee you that the questions they would ask, if they participated, would be qualitatively and importantly different than the questions *actually being asked* on research teams and in facilities on the West Coast, where generally we are (my quick-take impressions) either more optimistic or more resigned to the coming dystopia.

They have removed themselves from a conversation that might lead to radical social shifts in every aspect of life, because they reject at the start, "instinctively" (but not, since lots of other humans don't) the assertion that the change could ever be that deep.  They therefore risk people whose entire psychological approach to the question accidentally excludes them (optimism and resignation are neither of them deliberate exclusions of skepticism or pessimism) -- they risk that those thinkers, with an essentially foreign cultural-mindset, will make all of the decisions at the cutting edge of testing and implementation, just because those foreign mindset people believe the cutting edge, and the eventual goal, are way further out than the "sensible" people at that conference do.

In a third arena:

I can't get most artists to understand that no matter how cool computer art tools now are, until very recently they were exclusively built by mathematicians and logicians, not artists, and that means they serve a different type of mind and problem-solving process than most artists have/use.  As the computer-native generation comes into its own, that is already changing, but artists should be aware when they step into a computer programmer's best approximation of what they think the artists said they wanted, that that is *not* the same as what the artists wanted, and it limits the questions that can be asked artistically and the answers that can be levied.

I love the new computer tools; they can do really amazing, neat stuff.  But conceptualizing what the questions *look like* in the mind of The Other can teach you a lot about the tool that is proposed or handed to you.

And so: It is necessary to accept that abolishing the police is a legitimate consideration, and might be the best-case end goal, in order to participate honestly (in the mathematical/logical-honesty sense) in the change-discussions that are going on.

*And* rejecting the idea is just intellectually dishonest.  It's not at all apparent that it's impossible. It's definitely massively inconvenient to a lot of people's psyches and understanding of the world, and makes most people in America very, very uncomfortable.  But that doesn't mean keeping the police as such is either necessary or logical.

It might be the best solution.  It might be not the best solution but better than what we have going on.  It might be a very bad solution indeed (in which case I have little doubt that reimplementing a police force will be way less hard than dismantling it was).

It needs to be an honestly accepted part of the discussion.

Corona virus social-media snapshot from around April 15

(recording this here as it was posted by a friend on Facebook to capture the chaos of the 'information' right now)

-------

It's clear as mud! 

Clear as a Biden speech! 

Clear as the space between Trump's ears!

The Covid19 Coronavirus Rules:

(Subject to change with USA Presidential Agenda and/or the Conspiracy Theorists Bright Ideas)

1. Basically, you can't leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can.

2. Masks are useless, but maybe you have to wear one, it can save you, it is useless, but maybe it is mandatory as well.

3. Stores are closed, except those that are open.

4. You should not go to hospitals unless you have to go there. Same applies to doctors, you should only go there in case of emergency, provided you are not too sick.

5. This virus is deadly but still not too scary, except that sometimes it actually leads to a global disaster.

6. Gloves won't help, but they can still help.

7. Everyone needs to stay HOME, but it's important to GO OUT.

8. There is no shortage of groceries in the supermarket, but there are many things missing when you go there in the evening, but not in the morning. Sometimes.

9. The virus has no effect on children except those it affects.

10. Animals are not affected, but there is still a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February when no one had been tested, plus a few tigers here and there…

11. You will have many symptoms when you are sick, but you can also get sick without symptoms, have symptoms without being sick, or be contagious without having symptoms. Oh, my..

12. In order not to get sick, you have to eat well and exercise, but eat whatever you have on hand and it's better not to go out, well, but no…

13. It's better to get some fresh air, but you get looked at very wrong when you get some fresh air, and most importantly, you don't go to parks or walk. But don’t sit down, except that you can do that now if you are old, but not for too long or if you are pregnant (but not too old).

14. You can't go to retirement homes, but you have to take care of the elderly and bring food and medication.

15. If you are sick, you can't go out, but you can go to the pharmacy.

16. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn't wear masks or gloves. But you have to have your groceries decontaminated outside for 3 hours. Pizza too?

17. Every disturbing article or disturbing interview starts with " I don't want to trigger panic, but…"

18. You can't see your older mother or grandmother, but you can take a taxi and meet an older taxi driver.

19. You can walk around with a friend but not with your family if they don't live under the same roof.

20. You are safe if you maintain the appropriate social distance, but you can’t go out with friends or strangers at the safe social distance.

21. The virus remains active on different surfaces for two hours, no, four, no, six, no, we didn't say hours, maybe days? But it takes a damp environment. Oh no, not necessarily.

22. The virus stays in the air - well no, or yes, maybe, especially in a closed room, in one hour a sick person can infect ten, so if it falls, all our children were already infected at school before it was closed. But remember, if you stay at the recommended social distance, however in certain circumstances you should maintain a greater distance, which, studies show, the virus can travel further, maybe.

23. We count the number of deaths but we don't know how many people are infected as we have only tested so far those who were "almost dead" to find out if that's what they will die of…

24. We have no treatment, except that there may be one that apparently is not dangerous unless you take too much (which is the case with all medications).

25. We should stay locked up until the virus disappears, but it will only disappear if we achieve collective immunity, so when it circulates… but we must no longer be locked up for that?

science credentials, science thinking, and vaccines

Following the asterixes is some material that happened in a conversation on a friend's Facebook page, during a remarkably respectful conversation about a purported coverup by the CDC of some statistically significant correlation between vaccines and autism rates in a couple of sub-populations.

As most people who know me probably know, I was open to questioning the AMA/CDC line on just about everything because my upbringing with Old Boys Skool doctors was ... less than confidence-building.  And then I got pregnant.  And then, even on the gentler vaccine schedule I was trying to meet the CDC halfway with, my four month old had a grande mal seizure 12 hours after receiving two vaccines.

And I'm realllllllly tired of *anyone* dismissing the anti-vaccine citizens as "anti-science."  Because, while I am sure there are some that are proudly "anti-science," most parents I know that have struggled with this decision understand "science" and agree with "science" and made their decisions (usually not one simple decision, and there is usually ongoing evaluation of new information and one's own historical thinking) based on science and/or statistics.

And at the 'end' of the facebook convo, when people were agreeing to disagree for now, one of the CDC-or-bust participants used the knee-jerk, nail-in-the-coffin phrase "fear-mongering anti-science conspiracy theories."  And that was not a respectful standing down.  And I stood right back up.

But here's the thing.  I've have the vaccine-people-aren't-raving-lunatics interaction before.  This time I think I came through with extra clarity.  But I made it a point to *unapologetically* credit myself.  Because too often lately, I've been seeing people who lean on "you have no degree" or "you have no job in the field" and that's SUCH. COMPLETE. BULLSHIT.

Actually, I'm gonna go find a different interaction with a different friend and append that after this.

But here is the first one, and I challenge readers to consider how comfortable they are with(/how uncomfortable it makes them to read) me being reasonably in-the-face about my intellectual qualifications.  Because, as a woman in America, being in-your-face competent is generally considered bitchy (even without being "better than you," which is stupid to assume about anyone, and actually is bitchy/jerk'y).  It was *really* uncomfortable to put it that plainly, and the only reason I could is because I was conscious that my discomfort was probably a cultural artifact and it was probably healthy to stand forth and state truth.

Because no conversation can reach healthy solutions if people with pertinent skills and knowledge are being prejudicially dismissed by the power structure.

I have re-ordered my comments to hit the item that concerns me the most first.  I added (x) numbering if anyone cares to reconstruct the original order.  You can tell I was terribly (in the serious, not snotty, sense) serious because not even once in three long passages did I use an emoticon ... .

And the thing of it is, although this was a huge mental/emotional exercise, coming back and reading it a couple of days later, I was *still* stinting myself.  But I think it was an appropriate level, as [the appearance of bashing people on the head] is not conducive to [them listening to your content].

I just had no patience with being discounted.  I'm soooooo damnably tired of that.

*        *        *

(2)  When I had my first child I was working in a respected AMA-affiliated medical statistical analysis office and getting very high reviews; at one point they sent me as the office representative to learn a new analytical methodology and bring it back to present to the office. My degree is neither in statistics nor a science field, because I didn't enjoy them enough to choose those fields, but I am highly competent in both types of thinking with a broad knowledge base in science. And, although this is less true now, I used to attract and seek likeminded science-competent people.

It is due to science and statistics that I left the medical system for my children's births. Awareness of science and statistics, and the general interest monied medical establishment has in stretching the scientific truth in the direction that keeps their expertise "trusted" (it is not like the medical truth hasn't been vastly stretched before) made me aware of the potential pitfalls in vaccine statistical presentations ... and cautious enough, because of the genetic predisposition, to alter the recommended schedule even with Baby1. Actual medical/scientific malfeasance by my damn doctors, which only was corrected in terms of the CDCs publishable stats because I (1) chose to, (2) understood how to, and (3) was personally strong enough to fight the pressure, put pox on what little trust of the CDCs stats I was trying to preserve "for the good of society." A person, and probably especially a woman (as most are still taught to question themselves instead of the Authority, especially when it comes to mothering), who was less capable than I was, would probably not have gotten that grande mal seizure into the records (much less the "extra fussiness, fevers," or etc that the CDC form claims parents and doctors are supposed to report for 14 days after each vaccination, but I know noone who does).

(1)  [Name], please recognize that although there are certainly anti-science theories that are the source of some anti-vaccine decisions, it is the case that most people I know who have questioned, avoided, or altered the CDC's vaccination schedule for their children did so based on research into biological processes / data collection practices ... questions triggered by the anecdotal freakouts? Yes. Unthinking or uneducated or merely reactively fearful? No. It is not fair to the debate, nationally nor interpersonally, to allow yourself to "other" the people who have dissented by tossing the entire lot into a psychological category you feel comfortable dismissing as intellectually valid.

This reactionism is like when Rosie O'Donnell came out as gay and all the anti-gay people were like, "See? She has batshit crazy political opinions and is a bitch! Lesbians are maladjusted and horrible! We have to ignore them and make sure all the kids growing up know they are morally wrong in every bit of their thinking!" (If you didn't know any reactionary social conservatives at that time, trust me: it was ugly.)

The decision to avoid or alter the vaccination schedule can be, and is at least often, quite scientific indeed. Even if there are those who decide based on things not within the current sphere of science (and therefore not currently scientifically justifiable, whether or not they might someday prove accurate, about which I make no assertions -- as a scientist should reasonably state, unless something has been reasonably disproven, and even then there should be acknowledged awareness that revolutions in knowledge and discovery happen).

The inconvenient requirement for honesty and accuracy in medical assertions -- enough honesty and accuracy that *in fact* only the non-scientific thinkers can still question the presented conclusions, and your prejudice can be reasonably justified -- is firmly in the interest of society as a whole. We *are* fighting for the best health of our nation and humanity (not just our children and our children's children), or we wouldn't have engaged in making ourselves hated and despised by (what I assume is) the majority.

(3)  What I want is for vaccine safety stats to be accurate in both collection (this is the major gap as far as I can see) and analysis (with probable vast underreporting, it is unlikely even someone who wanted to cover up "bad" stats needs to inaccurately report what little they collect), and for a clear scientific explanation of which parts of the immune system the vaccines trigger and which parts they don't to become part of the common understanding. As a scientific thinker, raised by and among scientific thinkers, with a mind respected by every science professional who has ever worked with me in school or professionally, I HATE not being able to rationally trust the CDC on this. It is enormously frustrating that logic and ethical scientific concern will not allow me to trust what should be a proudly scientific institution (including one that corrects itself with alacrity and publicly, but without shame -- we all make mistakes -- for accidental or even prejudicial errors, in order to maintain public trust, and corrects itself with deep apologies when and if it discovers malfeasance has led to publishing misinformation).

I am sorry that this is so long, but it is really quite important to the entire set of discussion that noone discount someone else based on their conclusions -- the thinking that got someone to an end with which someone is uncomfortable is not legitimately dismissable by the force of that discomfort.

*        *        *

(There was a bit after that, but this part qualifies as "my blog" rather than "the particular argument.")

(Following, as an addendum, was actually a mental precursor to the above.  It is me reacting to a friend who did specifically complain about people citing "science" who weren't professionals.  This friend is all-out on blogs etc and so I feel confident quoting his half of the convo, although it's the content I'm getting at and so I've removed names for now.

*        *        *

HIS FACEBOOK POST:  i appreciate science too, but claiming that your argument is 'science' (as opposed to my own) is one way to turn me off on the rest of what you have to say. (unless you are actually paid to be a real scientist.)

ME:  Problem is, a lot of people are paid to do science but don't actually hold the necessary truths to be self-evident.

HIM:  that makes them scientists, no?

HIM:  Science, like Patriotism, is the last vestige of a scoundrel...

ME:  Nope, it makes them science professionals, maybe. Scientists remember things like what a theory is (it's a best-we-can-right-now), and accept -- nay, and the best rejoice for the awesomeness of science! -- when their beliefs turn out to be disproved by new science work. Science is about hanging loose, because the next thing that happens might alter or disprove "your" thing.

HIM:  'science professionals'... means 'i'm in it for the paycheck'.. like making boxes or writing bail bonds... its not science at that point,

ME (continuing):  For sure, though, there are peeps who cite "science!" and expect the rest of the world to keel over dead from the irrefutability of their assertion. Sometimes it's reasonable science, sometimes not so much. And people's reactions in either case are usually in line with whatever they already believed, and remarkably little to do with the validity of the science asserted.

Did you see the "scientific study" a few weeks ago about Bible kids being less able to identify what is and isn't actually possible in stories at age 6? Seriously. The methodology was decent if one ignores basic child development, but the assumptions were prejudiced and (between ignoring standard awareness of young human animals and being prejudiced) the conclusions ended up nearly completely useless. Annnnnnd ... several of my anti-religious friends posted it to Facebook like it proved something besides "kids tend to believe the adults in charge of them, at age 6."  :-P.

HIM:  i didnt see that.

ME (responding to his previous 'paycheck' comment):  yes -- that is what I meant. Although you have to add the cache' that "science" currently gives to a professional

ME (about the 6 year olds):  'twas a frustrating case of could have been interesting science gone boring/stupid/anti-useful : P

ME (paycheck again):  The computer industry has some of this problem as well ... there are now millions of people out there who can write code (program the computers, in olde tyme speak ;-) ), but there aren't that many who actually understand how to do it well (right) or make sure to do it well. It used to be that only the folks who really found it fascinating would get involved, which cut down on the idiot noise level. Science is terribly important now, and industrially is a huge source of jobs and GDP and suchlike, but there are too many people with a "science" degree but who don't think in a way that keeps their work scientifically healthy (if they are allowed to consider doing so in the first place by their money-focussed, stock-value-aware employers, right?). It's frustrating.

ME:  Do you want the link to the kids/Bible article? It's pretty much what I said, but snarkier against all the ridiculously irresponsible parents who teach their kids the bible ...

HIM:  i'm not a science type... but i think science is supposed to be boring unless you are of the science type.

HIM:  minutae doesnt inspire me.

ME:  ;-) and yet the details are often where the holes in one's assumptions are exposed ...

It is nice when a scientist happens who also can handle media well, so the inherent excitement science-minded people feel can be transmitted, some, to everyone :-)

*        *        *

(at this point it was 2:24am and the conversation ended)

and here is the article about how credulous 6 year olds are, which apparently was worth trumpeting about, and how prejudiced the researchers were, which they, of course, completely missed ...)

*        *        *

Oh ho ho!  That article is no longer linked on my friend's page!  I wonder if the publishers took it down or whether he did.  I think it was NYT, I'm pretty sure the study was in Chicago ... it also might have been the WSJ ...

Well, crap, because my commentary was a good one.  Let me see if I stored it someplace, or can at least search the article ...

Sigh.  Nope, gone forever.  Essentially, though, the researchers tried to take stock of what kids would believe and then consider what they had been taught ... and then discredited the bible-exposed kids as thinkers because they had learned from their grownups in exactly the same way every 6 year old does, and the researchers were themselves prejudiced against not-currently-explicable-by-standard-issue-science occurrences.  As I stated there, as a person who grew up with highest-caliber scientific and mathematical thinkers AND high-level miracle work, this differentiation into "false" and "true" is not valid (and believe me, living with what the world yells and yells and yells is a dichotomy was not fun to grow up with and is still a pain often enough in my middle age), and their conclusions were psychologically self-serving rather than scientifically bounded (there was no sense of 'perhaps' or 'we suspect' or even 'according to broad scientific consensus' ... just, 'these kids are better at discerning what is actually possible than those kids.'  Which of course leads to kids who can't think outside the box even *if* one ignores the possibility of miracles.

Altogether quite irritating :P.

Ironically, I did just find an article from the WSJ that captures, from essentially the same (maybe actually the same?) data and metholodogy, a different angle on the mind-closing/open-thinking piece ... http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703344704574610002061841322

(And wow is there some disturbing stuff about 6 year olds and credulity on the internet -- because of course this is a major question in some very upsetting court cases :-(.  So, be careful if you go searching it as well.)

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on the Hobby Lobby decision: two alternative lenses and two additional thoughts

Granted that the decision itself is apparently preposterously non-specific, and from what I have read I am totally willing to believe it opens the courts and the law to all of the "religious exemptions" that are now being asserted (jokingly and seriously).  I have (so far) two basic alternative angles (not fully explicated, just *directions* of perception) from which to consider this decision.  (I am partially in favor of and partially against it myself, probably in a non-resolvable way, and so have been working on sorting out what it is I'm thinking/reacting to.)

1) It's an interesting question whether the right to physical autonomy or the right to autonomy of the mind (decision making and immediately derivable action or refusal to act) is in fact a more definitive human right ... perhaps particularly because there is clearly, when one gets down to brass tacks, no such thing as physical autonomy (probably there is no such thing as true autonomy of the mind either, but it is somewhat easier to ignore or theorize away psychological/emotional interdependence). 

I think a lot of the same people who are screaming foul right now would usually argue (and have historically argued) for the right of mind as *the primary* human right -- certainly until recently most of the moral choices now being espoused were not considered any kind of legally or even intellectually defensible in the first place: "opening minds" to conceptualizing a different moral basis and to making real concrete choices based on those changed intellectual constructions was a primary goal.  Certainly the nation's founders were pretty hot to trot about freedom of thought (including religious beliefs or lack thereof).  It's my impression that just about all revolutions-toward-liberty, worldwide, start with the right to have and express non-establishment *thought* ... and physical expression is a derivation of that right, once acquired (so, it is secondary).

From this point of view, the decision of the court might be leaning toward protecting the more fundamental human right as established in American legal (and social) thought, however fundamental a right to bodily autonomy is (and the latter is definitely not a universally agreed upon "truth," whether among women regarding childbearing or among men regarding other sacrifices of body/life for others, even just in America ... if we open to other cultures, indigenous or invasive, the possible variations increase).

I do note that such a prioritization of rights, even if historically and/or philosophically justified, does not imply that the specifics of the decision are necessarily reasonable, even if they are logically derived (I am under the impression they are at least logically derived -- but one can logically derive many things from any social assertion; Naziism is one logical social descendant of Romanticism).  But the fundamental *direction* of the majority is, I think, less screamingly indefensible than many people are currently busy asserting.

2) Second major alternative lens: There is some sort of fundamental difference I haven't gotten quite formalized yet between "my religion objects to non-human blood transfusions because I sincerely believe makes a human into something unable to attain heaven" and "my religion objects to abortion because I sincerely believe it actively kills in real earth-time an individual, living human" ... this doesn't necessarily make Monday's Hobby Lobby decision legally sensible, but it's not reasonable to compare debt forgiveness, or pig blood derivatives, to "I refuse to participate in active murder or even potentially active murder, particularly of an innocent and dependent human."  That's really a very different level of moral concern than "I think you are hurting yourself" or "I think you should be less meanspirited" or "I don't like how you think children should be raised."  The only "joke" I've seen so far that might approach the seriousness of the concern is about Christian Scientists denying medical treatment to their children (another area where there is *no* correct legal answer, although I recognize that people who have not experienced medical miracles would perceive it as a clean-cut legal decision to make).

Anyhow, our nation has a very spotty record of being actually logical about human rights, even on the occasions where we've at least manged good-sounding rhetoric; I doubt we will suddenly start being perfectly logical today (if it's even possible), and I doubt that there is an answer that will work for both sides in this division because we think and work from quite different moral priorities (individual "freedom" is a verrrry sketchy "absolute," and many cultures don't value it highly -- America is an extreme case sociologically, as has recently, and fascinatingly, become the in-thing to scientifically and statistically assess). 

I do believe abortion murders a human being (and the most innocent, most defenseless type of human being), and it is a real and concrete problem for me that anyone can be coerced into being party to financing it (yes, including "contraceptive" methods that probably aren't but might be abortifacient).  I'm also pretty damn horrified that we can't solve hunger and environmental destruction, not even in our own country(!), that we watch foreigners die as if they aren't extensions of (and measures of) our own humanity, and that people watch demeaning (to both sexes) pornography.  I am human-centric enough to consider human life a particular kind of sacred, and all of these forms of dehumanization are, to me, different facets of disrespect of the sanctity of human life.  I can't be surprised that a nation that is largely OK with migrant workers taking their chances with weather, farm equipment, and pesticides in order to justify cheap food prices for the convenience of citizens is not interested in considering a zygote as a human individual that deserves protections of any sort (and, yes, I am extremely offended that many who scream about the rights of a zygote are somehow OK with non-citizens being abused, poisoned, and starved ... talk about "arbitrary"!).

There are no yes/no, "simple" answers to any of these, and there are many partially right, partially messed-up answers.

I can't be against a decision that allows people like me to not support abortions in any preventable way.  I celebrate the concept that there would be a large, even an extreme, degree of freedom-of-conscience around this issue (as I also celebrate conscientious objection to military service and some other related things).  But I'm not at all sure I'm "for" Monday's decision either.  I wish that the justices had been clearer about why this line was somehow legally pertinent, and what they then assert the lower boundary should be on the now-allowed exemptions.  My sense is that the life/death issue'ness of it affected the outcome of the deliberations ... and I haven't heard that they captured any such thing in the ruling.  I wonder if they know themselves why it came down this way -- or if maybe they do in fact realize and consider it the Right Thing to blow open the doors of religious exemption just as much as most commentators think they have done.

So, yeah.  I don't have a lot of conclusions there, but two lenses that might cast a different color on the paths to the decision.

*     *     *     *     *

As a side note, I don't think most pro-choice people are conscious that, at 40+ years, most people who are for one reason or another against abortion have spent the vast majority (or all) of our lives on the losing side of this question (and many years on the minority side, although I know the first 10 or 15 years were transitional and the last few years have been hotly argued by different statisticians).  The victim(/oppressed minority) storyline was fundamental to energizing the "right to abortion" fighters, ironically similarly to the odd psychological construct many Bible Christians live within, that conservative Christianity is a heroic minority viewpoint in America (self-fulfilling prophecy?)  ... so it's not like most pro-lifers/anti-abortion activists haven't confronted the questions of the defensibility of, or the potentially incorrect nature of, our belief(s).  It's not like many of us haven't dealt with the baby-or-abortion decision ourselves (I have) or with friends (that too).

While there are definitely admit-no-doubt pro-lifers, I don't think they are anywhere near the majority, and I don't think any of the Supreme Court Justices are among them, especially nowadays when one has to be both extremely politically savvy and very, very legally literate to even get nominated to the SCOTUS.  If your reaction to Monday's decision was any version of "they weren't thinking well," you probably need to examine your reactive psychological assumptions for interpretive reasonableness.

*     *     *     *     *

Eden Organics has apparently filed for an exemption.

I am interested in whether this will bring more conservative Christians into the organic-food fold, to try to support Eden Organics by counteracting the boycott which was pretty much instantly called.
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