When I sit down to actually create a blog post, I have been thinking about how I want to word things all day, at least. And I don't stop thinking about it after I've posted it and notified Facebook. Inevitably there are instances where I make some great connection later or think of six better ways I could have said something or a better piece of evidence I should have brought forward.
Well, I've done it to myself again and I don't want to let this one go. Besides, I've done it before, where I posted the piece about things that don't love you back and was aghast that I had forgotten to mention celebrity worship as part of that same idea. In any case, here we go again.
I turned on the news again today and have been thinking further about anger as a motivating force. I don't deny that it was sparked my initial thoughts on the matter--in fact, I thought that was fairly clear. But I still have a couple more things to say, it seems.
Firstly, I want to say upfront that we have Bernie sticker proudly on our car, if you couldn't guess from the constant stream on Andy's Facebook page. My goal today is not to persuade you to sway to my side politically, though I would welcome a conversation outside of this post or Facebook. I want to mention something that was pointed out to me the other day. Bernie is angry. At first, I had thought "nah, he's passionate," and then I thought about it further. I could definitely draw that parallel--if nothing else--between his campaign and Trump's campaign. These are angry men.
And I think that they have every right to be. I'm angry about a lot of things going on in our world and in our country, too. But here we see the two sides: Trump's anger is unrestrained and lashes out in all kinds of negative directions. Bernie, well, he uses his anger to fuel change, certainly riled up but not dissolving to ad hominem/straw-man/**insert your favorite logical fallacy here**. For some of Bernie's own words on staying angry, feel free to check out this interview with rapper Killer Mike (the post also has some highlights at the bottom). Otherwise, for a brief comparison, check out this short complication with Barbara Walters.
That being said, not every time Trump opens his mouth is purely ill-used anger and not everything Bernie has done was necessarily the coolest solution to the situation, but I think that there is a much better balance on Bernie's side of using that anger toward productive means. It's a spectrum, when you're balancing between logic and emotion and some of those best solutions should have elements of both.
So that's the emotion part and using it to fuel. Let's talk about that logic part. There's a poll floating around (HuffPost, Washington Post, and Time for starters) where a significant percentage of people are in support of bombing Agrabah. Yes, Agrabah. Which is a fictional city from Disney's Aladdin. That as an example of the many, many things that get passed around the internet with many people reading the headline and sending it along its merry way.
There are some new rumors floating around, and I don't know what to make of them yet. The story is that there was a Trump supporter that was reported to the police, who then took three days to investigate, and ultimately found bombs in this person's home, with the express intent of bombing mosques. I have been having a hard time finding good resources for this, but there are enough important stories that we know don't receive adequate coverage anyway, so I'm not sure if this is an example of "we're just not going to talk about this" collectively decided by the powers that be (such as Bernie's endorsement by Anonymous) or a probable rumor. Because when we look at the inflammatory rhetoric and the tension floating around right now, let's be honest--this is a very probable rumor.
Court TV has taught me that it can be hard to pin down someone for inciting other people to incite violence or very easy, depending on where the drama takes me next. I have no real legal understanding of what kinds of charges can or cannot be made. I do know that that kind of hate speech has no quarter in my life. Freedom of speech means that people can say what they want, sure, but when it infringes upon the liberty and safety of others, that's where things get squiffy. I'm not talking about hurt feelings--and just because you can say whatever the hell you want does not mean I have to a) agree with you or b) even listen to you--but putting the whole "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" part up to question. When people are scared for their lives, something is wrong.
So where I seem to be coming together with this train of thought is that anger is not inherently bad, but we certainly need to put a stop to it when it is used to legitimately hurt people. Are we using that energy as a force for good or to propagate more negativity, in its various forms?
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