Team D Versus Team R

Honestly, I have no idea who reads the tripe I post, but to whoever you are thanks.

I've had the privilege to live in a lot of different places, and interact with a lot of different people. I've lived with a Russian from Siberia, a capitalist Swede, an indigenous Mexican, an Australian that made his holiday money snatching ostrich eggs, a Wiccan from east Texas, a Chinese kung fu student, a couple of stoners, and a first generation American via Haiti. The list is far longer, but I learned and grew much from knowing each.

Why does this matter? Everyone sees the world through the lens of their experiences. Living with folks who see the world differently than you and are willing to intelligently discuss their point of view forces growth. Early on in the internet I remember folks being excited about the international, border-less, censor-less exchange of ideas. Instead we got Facebook and the cacophony of like minded echo chambers or the vitriolic name calling found in the internet comment section. (In the interest of full disclosure, I would at some point like to be crowned King of the Internet Comments...)

We have 150 channels available, yet so rare is the good show we settle for background noise rather than interacting with friends, family, or literature. My friends on the Right are so up in arms over the Wildlife Refuge building takeover that many actually support this knuckle heads regardless of the facts. Any attempt at engagement or conversation with either my friends on the Right about this topic, or my friends on the Left about the #BLM movement immediately escalates to either Government Oppression or Governmental Oppression because race... Yet they'd never see anything in common with the other side.

As a geobachelor chilling on a farm I'm detached, and as such I see so much similarities from both sides. Poor people in America feel disenfranchised. Whether intuitively or consciously the middle class and poor in America know they game is rigged against them. The folks acting the fool in Harney County are outsiders, just like the folks in Ferguson and Baltimore. The anger of being dependent on Federal largess, and the shame that comes with subsidies, be they food stamps or grazing is real. Knowing that you could be on the street based on nothing more than the dictates of a faceless bureaucrat who doesn't answer to you or your community makes folks feel powerless.

Lawlessness is lawlessness. The gentlemen who took over the Refuge Center should be arrested and charged with criminal trespass, just as should the folks who took over public parks during the Occupy movement, just as students who take over college buildings, or loot CVS. I understand the frustration felt by each group, but to keep a Republic functioning it must be a nation of laws and not men. Right now we're headed towards a schism, best case the states just stop paying attention to federal laws they disagree with, worst case you get full blown civil war.

Interesting times.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

The trending hashtag on Twitter this morning was #OregonUnderAttack. Immediately my friends on the left began to make it about race. If those guys weren't white... Send in the SWAT teams... If they were Muslims they'd all already be dead (ask Hasan Nidal)... It was a pretty vitriolic topic.

In fairness I'd like to point out that as far as I remember the SWAT teams in both Ferguson and Baltimore weren't arresting anyone. They were acting the fool in Ferguson with bad tactics and worse made for TV sound bite optics, but busting heads and shackling folks they were not. Ferguson burned. Baltimore burned. I doubt the morons who've taken over a remote federal building in Harney County have burned a single building or looted any stores in Burns, most likely because they would have been shot immediately by the locals. For the record the Morons are not at all local, but I digress.

Lawlessness increases by the far right and left, yet overall crime rates continue to drop. Both sides of the political spectrum just see the misbehavior of their adversaries. Taking over the dean's office at Yale is no less a criminal act than taking over a federal building in the middle of nowhere. Having a rifle slung on your back should increase your punishment for said act, by the way, but all participants should be punished similarly. A civil society rests on the consent of the governed, as soon as the fringe on either side figures out they can do what they want, havoc will follow.

All three areas are poor (Baltimore, Ferguson, Burns). Abandoned by industry, though Burns feels as though the logging industry was destroyed by the EPA's Spotted Owl policy.  All three areas feel disenfranchised. What my friends on the left don't seem to realize is the same feelings of mistrust that spurred the riots in Ferguson and Baltimore can be seen in Harney County as well. The numbers I found listed the median income for a family in Harney County at around $38,000. What my friends on the left fail to realize is that if you take away the BLM/Forest Service/USDA (name your federal boogie man) employees and State Employees I'd bet that median salary goes down by at least 25%.

I've spent a fair amount of time in Harney County. It's a hard place to make a living. Hell, it's a hard place to stay alive 8 months out of the year. The weather is extreme, cold and windy in the winter, hot and dry in the summer with not much time in between seasons. High desert, dry, desolate. Your best and brightest leave and never look back. The ones left behind feel themselves under the thumb of the folks in Salem or worse yet, DC. For anyone being told how to live, or what you can or can't do on your property is infuriating. When it's someone who doesn't understand you or your home, looking down their nose at your poverty and lack of education it exacerbates the resentment of local ranchers, loggers, and outdoorsmen.

I think this must have been how the 1850's felt like. My friends on both sides of the political spectrum are getting more and more polarized towards one another. Both see the other as simply Other, Enemy, Less. After my time living all over the US I don't know how the Republic holds, short of a police state, from Balkanization. Interesting times my friends. Interesting times.