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Competition vs. Conflict

~ patponderslife ~ Leave a comment

I have an abundance of empathy. I apologize to furniture when I bump into it, and I try to imagine what people, animals, and trees are thinking and feeling. Consequently, since I always feel bad for the losers in any matchup, I’m not always comfortable with competition, even though I know it can be healthy. And an effective teaching tool. When competition bleeds over into conflict—an easy slide—is when it can become unhealthy, granted, but still educational..

I naively thought that competition in politics was supposed to go like this: Your side does all it can to put forth your candidate(s), perhaps even including hyperbole and an obscene amount of money, while my side makes every effort to promote my candidate. Fair, for the most part, and healthy. But, when competition becomes conflict is when your group seeks to achieve its goals with efforts to prevent my group from achieving ours. Take voting for a particular candidate, for example. If your group suppresses or interferes with the voters who might be likely to vote for my group, conflict has been introduced. If your candidate wins because you kept the competition from having a say, or at least made it unusually difficult, what have you won? Tie one hand behind the back of a person and he is no longer a worthy opponent. Beat him—that one-armed man—and what do we call that? Cheating, right? You cheat, and you’re no longer worthy to win the trust of your constituents. Is that what I see happening? Of course it is. Cheaters are winning by cheating.

I want a fight fair. That’s what America deserves. In the meantime, since we can’t get that–yet–is there a way we can learn from the current conflict?

We can try to open our minds to the concept that our adversaries have beliefs that are as sacred to them as ours are to us. They believe that their way of life is being threatened and that God is on their side. We can try to understand and empathize with how the experiences they had led them to these ideals they hold dear. When the discourse is civil, we can listen. When we are questioned, we can answer honestly, with tact.

We can see ‘them’ as human beings with a different view from ours and a different interpretation of the guiding principles of our founders rather than seeing them as wrong, ignorant, and uninformed. We can treat those adversaries as we want to be treated and seek to find common ground with them, noting that at least we both love our children, fresh vegetables from the garden, and sunsets.

But what if they are unwilling to do the same?

We can continue to adhere to our deeply held principles of fairness and accept that we are in a war for what we believe is the right, just, fair, and moral path. We can insist on free and fair elections. We can volunteer at the polls. We can advocate for a national holiday on election day. We can fight against the unlevel playing field as hard as we can as often as we can for as long as we can, proving that obstacles in our path only serve to make us more determined.

We can acknowledge that the others will fight dirty, that they will do anything–no matter how underhanded–to accomplish what they fervently believe is right for the America they believe in. They will see some Americans as unworthy to vote. They will not be shamed because they believe that the ends justify the means.

We can let conflict teach us rather than defeat us.

We can hope the kids do a better job.

Re-thinking my thinking

~ patponderslife ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been remiss in keeping this blog alive, and I can’t promise I’ll do any better, which hurts me a whole lot than it does anyone else, and I know I tend to be focused too much on politics, but, well, there’s a lot to focus on. I admit to left bias, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but sometimes I’m willing to listen to reason from a reasonable person. Musa al-Gharbi, from the Guardian wrote most of this, in his own words, many of which I’ve blatantly stolen and wanted to share, along with my own observations. I’d appreciate any comments you want to make.

I’m rethinking my hard stance on vaccinated vs. unvaccinated. Unvaccinated people can give it, if they catch it, to other unvaccinated people, mostly. Sure, they can give it to the vaccinated people, but are not as likely to, and it’s not as likely to kill them if they do. Besides, if you’re unvaccinated and you catch it, you’re more likely to get sick and go to bed. I’m still unhappy about you going to the hospital, because the chances are if you’d gotten vaccinated, you wouldn’t have had to burden the already over-burdened medical staff. But I don’t want you to die, either. And I still hate your argument that you won’t do it because the government told you to and you live in a free country, blah blah, blah, because you don’t. You obey rules and regulations every damn day because the government has put them into place to protect people around you. You wear seatbelts, go the speed limit, don’t smoke in public places, take a driver test and pay for a license and obey a whole slew of rules, and you know it, in addition to all the vaccinations you had to get and had to make your children get, so stop using that one.

But, here’s why I’m less rabid about the whole “Get your damn shot” thing:

  1. You’re right, the Covid-19 vaccines were developed, approved, mass produced and distributed at record speed, so if you have concerns about proper protocols, I get it.
  2. The current administration originally expressed grave concern about the “Trump vaccines,” but backed way off from that stance to the point of calling your hesitancy “irrational and immoral.” That’s politicizing medical care—not cool.
  3. Pre-Omicron, the vaccines were portrayed as providing more than 90% effectiveness. That didn’t hold up to the light of day, which is why we ended up with boosters.
  4. Dr. Fauci even acknowledged that he has engaged in “noble lies” with respect to herd immunity vaccination targets to push more people to get vaccinated.
  5. In the wake of Omicron, even people who have been boosted are experiencing breakthrough infections, so rather than being sold as a means of preventing infection altogether, we’re now to believe that the main benefit is more to reduce severe infection.
  6. Once we were told we were fully vaccinated with two shots, now it’s three. What’s next?
  7. Vaccine manufacturers are becoming billionaires. Pharmaceutical companies have a clear stake in advising multiple rounds mandated for as many people as possible at as high a price as possible, and they are exploiting that advice.
  8. The FDA approved J&J vaccine as safe and effective, then advised against it.
  9. Nearly 12,000 Americans have died shortly after receiving Covid vaccines, possibly as a result of side effects or allergic reactions, and while these casualties represent a tiny share of all doses, and are radically offset by the number of lives saved, still, 12,000 lives ain’t nothin’.
  10. People who are harmed by vaccines are generally not eligible to seek financial recompense. Trump evoked federal powers to completely shield pharma companies from being sued.
  11. Over the course of the pandemic, legislators and other gov’t. officials have invested heavily in the stock of vaccine manufacturers and reaped the benefits. Pharma companies have reciprocally poured millions into the campaign coffers of sympathetic congress members. Biden endorsed a Covid vaccine patent waiver, but the administration has not followed through with any concrete action. Democrats have abandoned proposed legislation the would have allowed the federal government to negotiate down the price of drugs.

Any of these factors alone could reasonably contribute to the mistrust, yes?

Also, let’s consider that aggressive policies justified on the basis of dire projections of death have cost a lot—from lost years of learning in schools, to financial losses for individuals and businesses, increased social isolation, mental health strain and substance abuse, to increases in antisocial behaviors. The highest payors of these costs are people who were already disadvantaged and vulnerable—and already inclined to be skeptical of authority. We haven’t won any hearts and minds by deriding them as selfish and ignorant.

Finally, overall, the CDC estimates that roughly three-fourths of US adults are fully vaccinated and 87% have received at least one dose. Outright refusal is relatively rare, even though many seem to have taken one dose and decided not to pursue a second dose or boosters. Many hesitant folks are not resolutely anti-vaccine, nor do they believe the eccentric theories out there. The reality is that hesitant people across the country are stepping forward voluntarily to be vaccinated in ever larger numbers. Many of them are more opposed to the vaccine mandates and passports to Covid-19 related lockdowns, closures, and masking requirements—as well as coercive and sometimes dubiously effective state policies–than they are to the shots. Whether we agree or disagree with these campaigns, it’s misleading and unhelpful to conflate these dissenters with anti-vaxxers as has been done. All that said, and despite all the problems, the Covid-19 campaign has actually been one of the most ambitious and successful rapid vaccination drives in US history. Pockets of skepticism remain, which is unfortunate, possibly even tragic; however, bear in mind that many have legitimate reasons to be apprehensive. We need to stop shaming them.