Identity, inside or out: A post for National Coming Out Day

by liberal japonicus

There was a bit of a back and forth in the comments that started out with musings about changing citizenship and moved into the idea of this post, which, by a bit of synchronicity, goes out shortly after National Coming Out Day (11 Oct), though nothing in the post is specifically about that.

I don't mean to pile on here, but as someone who is going thru the process that was offhandedly mentioned, it really isn't as easy as some might think. You might say because I've chosen Japan, I've made it hard on myself and maybe it would be a lot easier for some other country. That may be true, I've not considered taking citizenship in any other country. However, I've always thought that the retort to libertarians about going to Somalia had its power not because libertarian principles in Somalia are writ large there but because the apparently simple process of picking up stakes and moving to that libertarian paradise would require so much work that it might wake up the libertarian to how intertwined everything is to our system of laws and government. The easier it is for someone to move to Somalia, the less likely they are to enjoy the privileges afforded by rules and regulations.

more below the fold

Anyway, it moved to a question of identity and wj wrote
You belong to whichever you feel you do. I can, and do, see myself as a Republican. Which is absolutely no impediment to me voting (as I mostly do these days) for Democrats.
[...]
The point is, what you see yourself as can be changed whenever you leap the necessary psychological hurdle. What you do is not really constrained by what group you see yourself as part of.

It was that last line that stuck me. While it seems like that should be the case, to my eyes, people who support Clickbait _are_ constrained by the group they see themselves a part of. Claiming membership in a group is intimately linked to what that group sees themselves as, which in turn is intimately linked to what that person wants to project. So the 'necessary psychological hurdle' is the big sticking point.

It is also not helped when people who are claimed to be Democrats are actually Republicans, as in the case of Salena Zito.

There is some difference between citizenship and party affiliation of course. We can't pick who our parents are, and we certainly can pick what polity we were born into, so judging a person for a country's sins seems a bit mean. One might want to say that given the sprawling nature of political parties and the political process, it's similarly not fair to tar someone with the behavior of a poll watcher or elected official from the same party. And if that were true for both sides, I'd be happy to hold to it, but I don't see that at all. From getting slammed for the group Robert Byrd joined, or what Teddy Kennedy did, or Franken or Obama or Hilary, I don't see that me making the same concession is in any way fair or called for.

While everyone likes to laud the American way, the way that we've actually gotten people to change has not been to incorporate their differences, it has been to make/point out that the group they are with is so toxic that people don't want to be associated with the group. So now, we have ISIS and MS13 at the forefront of reasoning for bans and actions. That way was the way we did it with anarchists, with leftists, with communists. I'm thinking that this is what has to happen to Republican party. We've reached the point where it has to be made so toxic that people preface their statements with 'Hey, I'm not a Republican, but...' in the way people disavow being racist or sexist.

(since we'll be talking about Native Americans a bit below, I read this piece as an example of how little we may know of our own history as a country.

As a fuzzy liberal, I only want people to change their minds _if they want to_. It seems a given that if you force people to change their minds under duress, you haven't really changed their minds, you've just guaranteed that if they have an opportunity, they will probably return the favor. But one way to change minds is to make the costs of being whatever add up and then spread out the collection of those costs to the wider population. Yeah, it's crappy, but after Kavanaugh, I don't see much else in terms of options. It seems like we are reaching a point (or may have already past it) where the Republican brand is going to be toxic for generations. Or maybe not, which is why we end up with endless discussions about what Americans 'really' think, with all the attendant noise they bring.

But going back to identity, what I do in Japan is always going to be constrained by my former identity as an American, (even though I am half Japanese American). You might say that me taking citizenship here is rather different than a political party affiliation and that is true. But my point is that one's identity constrains us all the time and often, making the underlying declaration is key. And the choice of identity is actually a lot more powerful than an identity that was chosen because of where your parents lived. The latter kind of identity often has the person rebelling against it. However, identity, when chosen, is not something we don, it is something that emerges from us. We certainly can go against the identity we choose, but if you realize that it is at the core, you realize it is not that simple a process.

The Count has mentioned how sometimes Peace Corps volunteers 'go native'. It happens a bit here in Japan, where people end up taking on Japanese culture. One friend used to say 'this kanji (borrowed Chinese written character), is one the Japanese don't know' and I'd observe that if the Japanese didn't know it, it wasn't really Japanese...

There is also literature about other interesting cases, like the case of Red Thunder Cloud. Not directly related to that, but related to what we are talking about here is the case of Chief Red Cloud

Chief Red Cloud/Elwood Towner was actually Native American (born on the Siletz Reservation and went to Indian boarding school in Chemwa) and was a lawyer fell prey to Jewish conspiracy theories. Of interest was the way that he was confronted:

By the early ‘40s, the Anti-Defamation League caught wind of the fact that Towner was appearing as Chief Red Cloud at Portland’s public high schools, speaking on the history of the swastika and offering his creative take on Native American history. This alarmed members of the local Jewish community, some of whom wanted him banned from the schools.

Feeling the heat of the pushback, Towner finally agreed to meet with Robinson to clear the air. An hours-long confrontation took place in Robinson’s office in 1941, witnessed by several associates, including Towner’s friend A.W. O’Connell, Towner denied charges of preaching “racial hatred,” downplayed his connections to the Bund, blamed the press for inaccurate reporting, denied he had a criminal record (he said he didn’t consider his assault conviction against his wife to be criminal), and insisted that nothing he said at any local schools was subversive.

Robinson wasn’t having any of it, and confronted Towner with a mountain of damning evidence in his own words, including copies of speeches, news accounts and other reports of his extensive Bund ties and anti-Semitic screeds. A partial transcript of the meeting captures the methodical way in which Robinson exposed Towner’s Nazi sympathies and hatred of Jews and calls for their extermination.

Towner couldn’t dismiss the record, and justified himself saying he was simply trying to defend his people against the Indian Reorganization Act.

One witness to the confrontation, Arthur Tarlow of B’nai B’rith, wrote up his impressions of the meeting and believed he detected some regret on Towner’s part. “The methodical and minute documentation of Towner’s anti-Semitic activities throughout the country seemed to convince not only his associates but Towner himself that his activities were not very patriotic and certainly not democratic and far from being ‘kosher’ for one like Towner [who] comes from an underprivileged minority group and who is loud in proclaiming sole interest in the rights of the American Indian.”

This also fails to acknowledge the role of the other people holding that identity and how they can apply pressure. For example, if just one senator would move from Republican to independent, a lot would change. But they would have to cross the aisle and would be treated to an astonishing level of opprobrium and threats. Look what is happening to Murkowski, who used a quirk to avoid voting no

That story about Red Cloud/Elwood Towner is interesting because Murkowski has traditionally gotten a lot of support from the Native American community, and her vote can be seen as trying to thread the needle. I wonder if Alaskan natives will see this and consider it when/if Murkowski runs in 2020.

I can't imagine what would happen if she said she was going to caucus with Dems, though, and as much as I think that Flake and Murkowski should show the courage of their convictions, I know they won't. They are too tied up into that network of connections to step away. But at some point, they need to be voted out. Maybe they will be able to retire, avoiding this cusp and convince themselves they were brave to have simply raised the question. Maybe in a decade or so, I'll see one of their faces peering out from the cover of some self congratulatory book in the remainder bin on how they had to wrestle with their conscience. Whatever.

The piece about Murkowski underlines the point that all politics is local. That phrase has obviously taken a beating lately, but I feel that what the Republicans have done is to mask what they do on the local level, and whip up feelings on the national level. Part of the 'playing dirty' that we've discussed lately is taking these vague issues (Terrorism! Communism! Government taking away your guns!) and using them to mask steps that are happening in North Dakota and Georgia. As the slate piece up above says

Before looking at [what happened] on the local level (really the only way to approach a history this fragmented and various), it helps to appreciate the sweep of the phenomenon.

I imagine historians of the future will have the same plaint.

To try and wrap up the rambling post, I know that there have been a lot of appeals (and flak) here to 'simply' stop being an R and walk over the D's, but if one's identity is wrapped up in being a Republican, I can understand how it is difficult to walk away from that. For me, I'm not so interested in changing anyone's affiliation except thru the application of presenting information and breaking down rhetoric: the blog offers such a tiny peephole into what is going on with people's lives that demanding that anyone else "do something" seems meaningless at best and egotistical at worse. What I think we can do is to interrogate each other's and more importantly, our own ideas and motives and try to be as honest about them as we can.

Comments

[cleek]

Learn? Not from her,

i'm pretty sure she didn't make up the numbers that went into that graph

[Marty]

I left out SS. I believe in means testing social security, including tiered payments.

[hairshirthedonist]

Commie!!!

[Tony P.]

Marty: I am not in favor of single payer for everyone, I am in favor of means tested Medicare as a solution for covering 100% of citizens.

"Means-testing" requires some sort of documentation, and some sort of bureaucracy to review it. Your "means" are not as straightforward to verify as your age. Is Marty advocating FOR more bureaucracy?

An age-independent Medicare "buy-in" option would be much less bureaucratic, but it of course sounds too much like a "public option", which would hurt the fee-fees of free-marketeers as well as the profits of their beloved insurance companies.

I am opposed to the sledge hammer Consumer regulations put in place by the Obama administration. Reasonable protections are fine, saving stupid, greedy people from themselves is not our job. In fact, the myth of government protection tends to exacerbate most peoples gullibility.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation allowed people to be "gullible" enough to NOT rush to withdraw their bank deposits at the first sign of trouble. But surely FDIC is "reasonable", while anti-usury efforts are not, since only "stupid, greedy people" fall prey to slick Free Market "financial engineers".

I am not against all environmental protections, nor is any Republican I know.

You should get out more.

I believe in the requirement for a picture id to vote, I do believe the state id required should be free if not a drivers license

So, no vote-by-mail, and absentee ballots have to be obtained in person. Anyway, how would you get the Red States to hand out free IDs to everybody? By statute, or by Amendment?

I will go Marty one better and advocate for a National ID Card, without which you would not only be barred from voting but from buying a gun, opening a bank account, renting a car, or even (to make the god-botherers happy) getting an abortion.

I am not a huge proponent of special circumstance sentencing, if the tougher sentence is appropriate it is appropriate to protect everyone.

Random graffiti on a park bench, random graffiti on a synagogue, swastikas on a park bench, and swastikas on a synagogue are all simple vandalism, right?

Oh, well, I know I'm just wasting pixels. Asking Marty to "learn something" is like asking water to flow uphill: first you have to pressurize it, then you have to shove it through a narrow pipe. Which is hard to do across the internet.

--TP

[Countme-a-Demon]

"I am not against all environmental protections, nor is any Republican I know."

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23022017/congress-environmental-climate-change-league-conservation-voters

mp doesn't know Mohammed bin Salman either

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1059971457

Neither of us knew Teddy Roosevelt.

He was a Progressive RINO. Alive today and the republican Bundys, Inhofes, Cruz's, Barrasso' and Lee's of the vermin underworld would shoot him in the head.

Tell me republicans favor environmental regulation at the local level.

Bullshit. They stand athwart all regulation, the easier to shoot them in the balls.

https://txlege.texastribune.org/topics/environment/

[Marty]

Yeah hsh, I also believe we should expand ss so it is an actual means tested retirement plan.

Essentially, I believe we should ensure a reasonable standard of living for every child and every senior. Discuss reasonable.

[bobbyp]

Essentially, I believe we should ensure a reasonable standard of living for every child and every senior. Discuss reasonable.

Admirable. But in practice this could be more easily accomplished via the taxing power.

How's this....every Republican should be required to pee in a cup to get their hands on a ballot.

[russell]

Reasonable protections are fine

Discuss reasonable.

If you want SS to continue as a program that keeps a lot of people who are past their working age out of poverty, then you should not support (R)'s. They want to either eliminate it, or scale it back to a point where that goal will not be met.

"We don't have the money!". We don't have the money because we pissed it away. And we don't have the money because every time the (R)'s gain sufficient power, they blow up the budget so that the nation sinks deeper and deeper and deeper into debt.

So, some people get tax cuts, and some special people get really really big tax cuts, and within a month or two (R) leadership begins the chant of "entitlement reform" - because the national debt is rising.

Because, wars and tax cuts.

It's fine to talk about what you want and don't want on a blog. The people you support will be happy to see millions of people reduced to poverty.

So, maybe stop supporting them.

[Countme-a-Demon]

"Essentially, I believe we should ensure a reasonable standard of living for every child and every senior. Discuss reasonable."

Send one case of Ensure annually to every man, woman and child in the country.

Give mp his customary cut to refurbish the gold leaf on his shitter.

One case for ALL of them. Sell tickets to the biting and kicking scrum over the single case and send the revenue to Lockheed Martin.

Also, let Sheldon Adelson, AMWAY, and the Devos family act as middlemen distributors for the single case. Don't tax the markups, which will ensure the 24 bottles in the case will be sold for steep markups in the black market and the bottles be refilled with republican piss for the intended beneficiaries.

That's the conservative discussion.

Tomorrow we'll discuss the American options.

[Pro Bono]

..there is almost no policy solution the Democrats offer that doesn't cripple our economic and international security over time.

I don't expect us to agree on policy Marty, but "over time" democracy can do its best on that. Right now, you have a President who is crippling the international security of the US every day he remains in office. Every foreign government knows what Trump is and what sort of Party he leads. They know not to share secrets with the US, because Trump may not keep them secret. Worse, they know never again to share a secret with the US, lest another Trump be elected. The only way to rescue the situation is to reform the Republican Party so that such a disaster can never happen again. Starting now.

[cleek]

Trump has done a bang-up job of showing the world that the US really shouldn't be trusted on anything. because so much power is in the hands of the President and the US election system is vulnerable to spasms of idiocy from the Stupid Party, other countries can't even could on continuity of policy from us. (but remember, BUSINESSES HATE UNCERTAINTY DERPDERPDERP)

Putin got his wish: Trump fucked us, globally.

thanks GOP, you're the best.

now go soak your head.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Karen Housley, republican racist c*ck, looks to the alpha chimp for something more than sex:

https://blogs.mprnews.org/capitol-view/2018/10/housley-looks-for-boost-from-trump-visit/

Housley's platform, made of leaves and sticks and her own feces:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY3sYX1Hpass

Housley, unavailable for comment and requiring extensive time to scratch her monkey ass, sends out her spokeschimp, who goes ape shit over allegations that Tom Delay fathered Housley's verminous ape children:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKwDJMtAmkA

Survivors of republican chimp attacks recount their suffering:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U78_TlApVEY

Not Marty's monkeys. He doesn't know them.

[Marty]

No russell. They want to means test, a curse word for every Democrat. They arent happy to make anyone poor.

On the other hand, no one wants what I want to do. So I have to pick on other policies.

[Countme-a-Demon]

How every Mafioso Don shows up in their Court appearances:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/manafort-significant-health-issue-jail

[Countme-a-Demon]

How Republicans murder those outside their chimp troupe, and even some inside their troupe:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/10/19/the-republican-health-plan-die-faster-its-working/

[Countme-a-Demon]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a23940579/georgia-signature-match-voting-north-carolina-unconstitutional/

Sound effects for the aftermath of the upcoming election:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqZGmrEBAqE

[liberal japonicus]

For anyone actually interested in discussing healthcare, going thru the New Yorker's articles on it, especially by Atul Gawande
https://www.newyorker.com/topics/health-care

I recommend this one especially
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/01/24/the-hot-spotters

This atlantic article explains clearly why means testing is basically dealing with the wrong problem
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/fixing-the-5-percent/532077/

[russell]

No russell.

Go look at the entitlement reform legislation proposed in the House this year.

Then come back and show all of us where it's about means testing SS.

[cleek]

the GOP is Trump. "conservatism" is Trump.

the "oh he's not a real conservative. he's not a real Republican" days are long gone. the party is Trump. the movement is Trump.

Marty has made his choice.

[russell]

I don't mind if he's made his choice, that's his business.

But don't come here and insult by telling me up is down.

[Marty]

You dont get to decide what I've chosen.

[Tony P.]

"Decide"? No. Judge? Youbetcha.

--TP

[bobbyp]

The Road to Hell is Paved With Means Testing.