Of Aardvarks and Zebras - Politics and Me

I very rarely engage in political debate. Some have pointed out that this habit is very odd, for a lawyer. After all, don't lawyers like arguing? Especially about matters legal?

I have thought about that for a while, and this is my answer.

I do not judge people based off their words. Fact is, words are just too easy. Too easy to say, repeat, and eventually start believing. A man can build entire illusory palaces with his words, worlds that become real over time. So real, in fact, that he will start attacking anyone who threatens his ephemeral creation. It gets too easy to get embroiled in conflicts over things which ultimately are not real.

My first question, when considering any source of opinions, is "What has this person done? What do they really know, and what is just bullshit that they are guessing about?"

There is a certain authority that comes from taking action, and having real experience. I can talk about war, but my words are academic. They pale in comparison to those have gone through the visceral experience of life and death struggle in the service of one's country, witnessing the rending of flesh and the death of comrades. I can speak about war as an intellectual concept, but I do not know it.

And you bet your ass that when someone who actually knows war talks about it, I listen to his opinion and give it a hell of a lot of weight, because it ain't bullshit and speculation. The rest of us, despite how educated and respectful we might be, are only making guesses.

The guesses are not worthless. Some guesses have lead to revolutions in the way we live. But I give those guesses a certain weight. It is considerably less than observations based on direct experience.

This is why I avoid many political discussions.

In our political discourse, this country has developed a cottage industry of professional "opinion-havers", who say much but have rarely, if ever, actually had their "boots on the ground" in the areas they speak so passionately about.  I have a hard time having any meaningful dialogue with these people, or any of their devoted sycophants.

Strangely, it is often these people who are guessing the hardest that are the most vocal in their opinions. I am not a psychologist, but I suspect this is based off the insecurity that comes off of pure "guesswork". Look at it this way: if you've never seen a certain animal, and you think it is an aardvark, your conclusion is a pure construct of thought. The aardvark is a guess. If someone says it isn't an aardvark, their opinion is a real threat - it is an idea, just like yours. The two compete on equal footing. On the other hand, if I see a zebra with my own eyes, touch it with my hands, and know it's a zebra, you can call it an aardvark if you want to. That won't particularly threaten me. While I am willing to listen to your logic... I know I saw a fucking zebra. It isn't a mental construct. It ain't guesswork, either.

Knowledge and experience.

I'll share a particular illumination I experienced about immigration and this country. Like many Americans, I believed that coming here illegally was wrong and unfair to the citizens of this country. It was a nice, tidy, easy unilateral idea. Then, as an assistant public defender, I had the opportunity to really talk with and work with many people who had come here illegally. In my experience, the vast majority were decent, hard-working, and humble people. In fact, I found many of them to be more decent, hard-working, and humble than many natural-born Americans.

I had a good discussion with one man in particular, from Juarez, in Mexico. If you haven't been reading the papers, this is one of the most violent parts of the world, outside of war zones. The violence perpetrated by drug cartels is unbelievable. People are gruesomely and horrifically murdered. This man told me about his life there. He had a wife and three children. The picture he painted of his daily life was visceral and deeply unsettling. Nothing in his life was untouched by the shroud of violence and corruption that hung over that place. He explained that his options were to stay in that hellhole of misery and violence, at the mercy of corrupt government and drug cartels, or illegally come to the United States.

I imagined what it would be like if I was in his position. I imagined if my family was in such danger, and there was a safe place I could get to within a day's drive. It didn't take long to figure out what my decision would be if my wife and child were on the line: I'd do what he did, and I wouldn't lose a millisecond of sleep over it. Maybe this makes me ignoble, immoral or unpatriotic. I'm willing to live with those labels, but I suspect that there are a lot of folks out there that agree with me that the safety of their family trumps damn near everything.

How am I any better than that man? I won the freaking lottery. I was born to educated parents in a free country where people have rights and a good shot at prosperity. I didn't chose that. I just lucked into it. His situation was the reverse. From a moral standpoint, I just can't bring myself to look down on him. It is easy to talk about what he should or shouldn't have done when we, ourselves, have not been in that particular crucible.

I still agree that it isn't good for people to come here illegally, but that idea is seasoned with what I've learned from people that have really had to wrestle with the problem from a very human position. People who know that problem. Not just the talking heads.

Having said all this, I guess the reason I rarely discuss politics with people is that I have little to no desire to argue over imaginary aardvarks. I am willing to engage in political discussion, but it is only with people that A) are not trying to bludgeon me with a perceived threat to their imaginary aardvark and B) will appreciate a pure idea for what it is - an educated guess that always weighs less than actual zebra experience.