Boo! And Fuck You.

As we all know, the first thing you learn in Power University (Dean Machiavelli’s office hours are posted on his door) is that some people can get scared easily and respond by taking the opposite stance of the scary thing. “Terrorists! Gay people! Death panels! Boo!” “Ahh! I agree with you! Also, you have cured my hiccups.” Not a new insight, I am aware: “Believe in Jesus or go to Hell! Boo!” “Ahh! I’m a Christian now. Hiccups are back though.” Same general principle throughout history, yadda yadda blargh.

Today in the health care adventure, we have thousands gathering in the capital to protest big government, yelling “Liar! Liar! Liar!”, some of them perhaps wearing T-shirts that claim “I’m With Joe Wilson” (as my friend Anthony King discovered). An odd choice, since, as Joe Wilson’s accusation has been proven false, it rules out “truth” or even “the search for truth” as a motivating factor for their discontent. (Now on the one hand, philosophy grad students may debate whether there’s an objective, absolute state of “truth.” On the other hand, they have goatees.) So fans of Joe’s outburst aren’t championing a debatable opinion, they’re just championing the concept of disagreement for disagreement’s sake. It’s as meaningful as yelling “I love angry yelling! I LOVE ANGRY YELLING!”

Senator Jim DeMint - whose stated intention to “break” Obama is certainly just as helpful as finding a way to help millions of uninsured Americans - uses a telling choice of words when he says, “I just hope the Congress, the Senate and the president recognize that people are afraid of what’s going on.” Indeed, he certainly doesn’t hope that people understand what’s going on, just that his party’s (and 24-hour news networks’) talent for circulating clever, scary and false phrases (“death panel,” “socialism,” etc.) has again succeeded in providing people with the heebiest of jeebies.

I used to love politics - I’d get psyched about a good debate, some good protests, some good arguing about pros and cons. But I find that I can’t get impassioned about this stuff any more, since words, ideas and anything approaching an actual dialogue have taken such a backseat to this media-perpetuated cycle of fear and anger. It’s hard to imagine progressive changes being made in a world where everyone’s content to wander around in the dark screaming “Boo!” and “Fuck you.”