Do you really know why you're all stirred up?

Imagine having no access to books, newspapers, or the internet.  Imagine living in a small village where 63% of the men and 90% of the women are illiterate.   Most knowledge comes handed down verbally from your family and the local priest.   Suppose you were told that you must beware of all outsiders because they will bring death and destruction with them.   Suppose you were told that the bombs that killed your family members and destroyed your livelihood were dropped by the Americans – who were trying to destroy all of Afghanistan.   Without access to the outside world, how can you know any different?  

As I prepared my company to deploy to Afghanistan, the doctrine of counterinsurgency was a constant theme in all of the training that had to be completed throughout the months of training prior to mobilization.   Most people have probably heard of the phrase “winning the hearts and minds” of the Afghan people.   Believe me, this was not an easy concept for a Soldier to embrace.   Soldiers were quick to dismiss the idea that “smiling” and “being nice” to Afghans and “giving them things” was not going to win their hearts and minds.    I agreed.   But what was important for the Soldiers to understand was that that was not counterinsurgency.   What the Soldiers had to understand was that the enemies of the Afghanistan people were merciless killers and destroyers.   Their enemy would rape their women and murder the men and children.  Their enemy had no respect for Allah, would take away all that they believed in and were infidels.  They had been taught that we were the enemy and our job was to not be that enemy.   Our job was to be true to the values of the U.S. Soldier, skilled, consistent, professional, civil and respectful of both the laws and the people whom the laws are to protect.    Telling the Afghans, with a smile on our face, that we are not their enemy simply wasn't going to work.  We had to walk the talk and assume that someone is looking at every move we make.  

I’m reminded of the story of Ishi, a Native American, the last surviving group of the Yana people of the U.S. walked out of the “wild country” for the first time at the age of about 49 years old.   This was 1911, when he was taken to San Francisco with all of its modern technologies.  He had been certain that upon being taken by the white man, he would be hanged.  That’s what he had learned. 

What got me thinking lately about these experiences was the incredible, present day, story of Malala, the then 13 year old, who was targeted and shot in the head by the Taliban because she is an advocate for education.  If you have not heard her speak, I strongly recommend you seek out her story.  She is the youngest person ever to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.   She rightly speaks on behalf of supporting education of all children, making the point, that education is the best weapon that a country can use to keep and maintain peace.    The Taliban, as Malala puts it, is frightened of woman becoming educated, because if they do, the Taliban will lose its power.   Truth will reign.  

I believe this is a message that the people of America must hear for two reasons.  First, after the U.S. provided the Afghan people all they needed to put an end to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. abandoned their investment in that country.   At the time, 60% of the Afghan population was under 14 years of age.   Those children never learned that the U.S. was their friend because education was nearly non-existent following the Soviet invasion.   We must encourage and support communication and education throughout the world. 

Second - and this is huge issue in the U.S-   we must educate ourselves.   The political climate is getting more and more toxic.   As a nation, we are becoming more and more divided.    But we don’t have the same excuse.   We have schools.  We have libraries.  We have the internet.  The opportunities for education are all around us.   The problem in this country is that so many people are only willing to hear what they want to hear.   Truth has become secondary to emotionally based opinions.   Too many people have become civically lazy.  This is a government of the people – a freedom bought with the blood, sweat and tears of our forefathers, and yet we seem unwilling to give such an awesome responsibility its due.

 

As a country, we claim exceptionalism, based upon the “genius” of our founding fathers to first declare our independence and the  construct a constitution to form this government that we cherish.    The thing is, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution didn't just appear as perfect documents.  They were both the result of great debates.   There were major conflicts that had to be addressed, and many of them still exist today.   But the founders were still Patriots.   Oratory and debate was a respected platform to express your position.   The free expression of ideas was valued.   But with that free expression came an expectation of civility and integrity within the argument.   The end result of the debate was to serve the best interest of the nation – not to beat the other side.  

Today, it seems the political environment has been poisoned.  There is no credibility in the arguments.  Misrepresentations “spin” and outright lies seem to be free flowing.   Apparently, the data suggest that the damage done from a lie outweighs the hit on a political party’s credibility.   To make an outrageous statement today will attract a huge amount of media attention and all that is required when the statement is debunked is for the politician or journalist to simply state that their source of information was wrong.  They are still superstars for making the outrageous statement.    Whereas, the politician that simply states their position based upon solid research and fact – well they’re boring.  They will receive little to no media attention. 

 

It’s embarrassing.  The latest Public Policy Polling found that Americans trust Fox News less than the Comedy channel for reliable news.   That has to make some people wince. Right?   Is this indicative of the lack of intelligence of Americans?   Do we really have a large population of gullible people?   Another public policy poll found that:

37% of Americans still believe that Global Warming is a hoax.

28% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sep 11^th attacks.

13% of Americans believe President Obama is the Anti-Christ.

14% of Americans believe the CIA was instrumental in distributing crack cocaine into America’s inner cities in the 1960’s.

11% of Americans believe that the U.S. knowingly allowed the attacks on Sep 11^th to happen. 

28% of Americans believe there is a secretive power elite with a global agenda is conspiring to take over the world through an authoritarian world government.

13% of Americans still believe Barack Obama is not a U.S. Citizen.

17% of Americans still believe Barack Obama is Muslim

To make matters worse, one in three Americans failed the same Naturalization Civics Test that immigrants must pass to become citizens.   

•85 percent could not define "the rule of law."

•75 percent did not know the function of the judicial branch.

•71 percent were unable to identify the Constitution as the "supreme law of the land." (With all of the people throwing around the Constitution as their source of objection to a law or policy, you’d think that more than 29% could identify the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. )

•63 percent could not name one of their state's Senators.

•62 percent did not know the name the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

•62 percent could not identify the Governor of their state.

•57 percent could not define an "amendment." (yet how many people claim their right under the 1^st or 2^nd  amendment to the Constitution)

This is the condition of the American people, whose opinion makes such a huge impact on policy, and yet the public often seem to know little about the policies they seem to have such strong opinions about!  Consider that 9% of the people who oppose “Obamacare” support the Affordable Healthcare Act.  If you are unsure why that is an issue, please open a new page and Google it before you go any further) 

In March, a poll reported that, 80 percent of Americans didn’t know whether their state would expand Medicaid under the law, 50 percent didn’t know whether their states would be setting up health exchanges, and 50 percent thought the law would give illegal immigrants health care subsidies. Forty percent of people thought the government would create “death panels” to determine whether a dying person could get health care or not.

The poll showed that 70 percent of people liked the initiatives of the Affordable Care Act when asked about each one, but only 37 percent of people said they liked the law itself. 

Debate is good.  Dissent is fine and needed.   There is nothing unpatriotic about disagreeing with legislation or policy.   It seems the country is split nearly in half in terms of political ideology so disagreements are expected.   There’s nothing wrong with that either.    It is not wrong to vote according to your values and principles.  That is good.  That is expected. 

There is something wrong however, with taking a passionate position on an issue and not even bothering to get the facts on the issue.   There is something wrong with stirring dissent when you have no real idea of why you are stirring the dissent.  There is something wrong with forwarding e-mails that contain outrageous accusations without doing the least bit of research to determine whether it is true.  (it’s really no different than any other form of destructive gossip.)   It is wrong to state that you are voting according to your values and principles when you have no clue how your vote will actually affect your values and principles.   It is wrong to blindly accept the conclusions of self-described entertainers at the expense of accepting truth. 

So…, back to my original point.  We have no excuse.   We have access to education.  We have the opportunity, indeed the responsibility, to participate in the legislative process.   It is not a “revolution” that is needed - it is education, coupled with serious and responsible participation in our government.