Alliterates with Eeyore.
Once upon a time, a congressperson was asked about border security. The congressperson then made a comment to this questioner about the vigilante border security organization styling themselves as “minutemen”. Specifically, he called them “murderers”. This was not without some justification.
That’s when self described “rodeo clown” Glenn Beck gets involved.
Mr. Beck has a different point of view from myself, and from Congressperson Stark. This country was basically founded on trying to figure out how we could have a functional government, but still have wildly divergent ideas of what constitutes the good life. Some of Mr. Beck’s viewers, however, are not merely just a bit crazy. Rather they cross the line from crazy into violent. Yes, that last incident happened a few days ago, and in the backyard of Representative Stark.
Naturally, things were a bit on edge. The minutemen had activated their network, and the open carry people got their networks involved– and I naively thought that “open carry” was referring to a right to walk around with a bottle of beer. The Congressperson decided to go ahead with his regularly scheduled townhall meetings. Right after a minor terrorist attack* While the gun people got involved. With the vigilantes promising to be vigilant. And that’s when I got called in to volunteer.
I basically believe that one has a fundamental duty to be kind to those you hire– unless those people you hire are governmental representatives. In that case, they’re paid to take abuse, so flame on. This wasn’t shaping up to be the usual good natured “fix my potholes and my unemployment without raising taxes” sort of abuse, though. This was abuse by people advocating for the right to use guns to overthrow a government that proves itself incapable of fixing unemployment without raising taxes.
Not to sing my own praises here, but a large part of why you call me out is that you need someone capable of standing in front of an angry mob, smiling, and inviting them in for tea and cookies. It’s the smile that does it, really. People are wired to smile back. It works about 80% of the time**. I use this technique to ruthlessly cut down on hostility, and savagely force people into better moods.
It is possible to become a US Congressperson without being particularly savvy as a politician. I’ve met these people. Pete Stark is _not_ that guy. He knew that nothing he could say would cause these people to like him. He also knew that what they wanted more than anything else was the opportunity to be heard. So he sat there and took it.
Every insult and innuendo, every sling and arrow of outrageous rhetoric, he took it. And listened. And of the roughly 150 people who showed up to yell at him, about 20 were so disgusted by their fellow partisans, that they got up and left.
There are 3 incidents I’d like to relate.
The first one is just sort of funny. We had a simple policy: Signs are ok, signs on sticks are not. So this woman starts… she almost looked happy. She paused, messing up our line, and said “so I can’t bring in my flag? You’re saying I can’t bring in my flag?” Please, dear reader, remember that no one had said anything to her about her flag. We all paused for a moment, myself and a couple congressional staffers. After about a lifetime of thought, compressed into a heartbeat of actual time, I said “of course you can bring your flag into the meeting room!” She looked almost unhappy.
During the meeting, after we hit capacity (don’t tell the fire marshal, we might have gone over), a woman knocks on the door looking very distraught. She had been hoping to speak with the congressperson, you see– only he could help her. I flagged down one of his aids– looks like she had some work to do on this cheerful Saturday morning–an American citizen had issues with immigration. In my experience, congressional aides don’t complain about helping people with this stuff. It’s their basic function to do this shit and smile.
And that brings up incident number three. Some jackass decided to complain to me that the Representative isn’t very “accountable”. Excuse me? I didn’t say do you not see one of your fellow Americans out there crying because things in her life are so bad that only congress can help her? Do you not see the person out there being accountable to said fellow citizen by actually helping her at a time on Saturday morning when we’d all prefer to be in bed? I’m not there to judge the man, though, or lecture him. I’m there to listen to him.
I think more than anything else, the desire to be listened to is the the great human yearning. Plato called us “social animals”***, and I think most of that comes from wanting to be in close enough contact with other humans that we can yammer at them.
Anyway, this guy looks right at the security guard and said “I, a white guy, am going to say this to you, a black guy– and I think we’re all equal–” and that’s where he got unintelligible. I think he wanted white guys and black guys to make common cause against Mexicans. But I’m not really sure. I guess it’s progress that this white dude can look at a black guy and– even though he still sees all black guys reflected in this one black guy– see someone fundamentally the same as he is. I prefer racism the way I would any burn on the body politic: mild.
*stopped, by the way, by law enforcement. Seems that this can be an effective anti-terror tool. Despite what our friends across the isle will say
** I made up that number. But it really is extraordinarily high.
*** The word “politicon” can translate as “social”, as well as “political”
This is a wonderful post, and partly for me because I work in policy in D.C. I have no idea what the situation looks like on the ground.
I am only thankful Glen Beck’s ratings are getting ever lower. Although, I think it means it will be the crazies that cling to him as a fount of “wisdom,” and keep getting more dangerous.
It’s funny you mentioned that we are social animals. The only statement that I have ever been able to make across the board about human beings – not that men are more aggressive, or women can mother, none of that evo psych stuff – is that human beings are fundamentally social. I actually didn’t know Plato said that until just now.