More from Dr. Bob...

REAL Conservatives can
say "I made a Boo-Boo",
Heck, they can even admit

To MISTAKES!

In all the years I have been following the whole modern neo-con evangelism era we find ourselves living in the last days of now, I have never heard a neo-con pundit ever make a serious apology for anything they have ever said. No matter how minor that indiscretion it may have been. Oh wait! There is one exception. If they truly believe it is going to keep their self important keester out of trouble with the law (See Rush Limbaugh and his Oxy Cotin bust) or they think they can fool their shills when they know there is a scandal heading their way that there is NO WAY they can wriggle out of (ala Jimmy Swaggert and his string ‘o hookers). They will swear up and down that by some perverse pretzel logic they are the victim (ala Rush) while apologizing for what the evil (fill in the blank) made innocent, law abiding them do OR they will actually fall down on bended knee and with heart wrenching sobs admit to everything they have done and how Satan lead them away from the path of righteousness and made him into a depraved animal...

HEY, wait...notice anything about these “apologies?”

Notice that vibrato like echo? Neo-cons call it the “Ring of Truth!”. I call it an empty echo echo echo. Notice how even though they admit that they did it, that it really wasn’t their fault... OH NO! It was the evil drug that made them do it!It was Satan that made them do it! It was never because they enjoyed what they were doing and were having a ball thumbing their noses at the rest of the world while getting away with it! OH NO! Personal responsibility, it would seem, is not a neo-con value... interferes too much with the cash flow.

But for those of us 50 or older we can still remember when it was no big thing for a politi-pundit to admit that they had messed when they got caught with their hand (much less when it was their arm up to their waist!) in the old cookie jar. Then again, in those days the press pretty much kept quiet when a politician or one of their own got caught if they could help it. Still, it would be refreshing to hear a little honesty from one of these self appointed mouth pieces of the people.

Ahhh... Now before I forget what got me going off on this moralistic rant, I would remind you of the last issue of the 1/2 Kracked Kup which I turned over to Dr. Bob and his column on “The Law of Unintended Consequences”. It seems Bob made a minor faux pass for which he makes his Mia culpa today as follows...

Hi all:
In defense of mediocrity.
 
Dr. Bob
 
I made a mistake in my column last week. Maybe you caught it. Maybe you didn't.

 

Maybe you don't care. Maybe your mind is so made up about the whole abortion controversy, on one side or the other, that nothing anyone could say or do would induce you to even look at the thing again.

 

Such is your right. My intention with these columns is not to butt heads with people who are so intransigent in their thinking that they won't even acknowledge the legitimacy of opposing points of view. This is an opinion column. If you don't want to hear another's opinion, why would you even bother with this?

 

And conversely, nothing deflates me faster than to have people simply agree with me about stuff without even questioning my logic.

 

Any kick I get out of putting my ideas out here for public scrutiny comes from the chance to stimulate a little thinking. Just arguing, or simply having readers' heads bob up and down in agreement, gives me no satisfaction, whatsoever.

 

Thinking about the complex issues of modern life can be fun. It can be instructive. It can certainly be frustrating. But it is never going to make all those complex issues go away.

 

Thinking is just that. Thinking, debating, teaching and learning, are what separates us from those cattle up on the hill. We think, therefore we are.

 

Thinking can induce uncertainty. Ah, but uncertainty is so unsettling for us. We are supposed to know all the answers, so we can mark a or b or all of the above in the box and move on to the next question. We need to know what is right or wrong, so we can chose the one correct way to think or behave or live. We are frustrated, even paralyzed by unanswered questions.

 

Thus it is so easy to let others do our thinking for us, if they will give us those answers or simply not to question at all.

 

People stop me on the street, and tell me they read this column. When they say they don't always agree with me, but I make them think, I know that on occasion I have done my job.

 

Others drop me a letter, or an e-mail, and they tell me I am a Nazi or a jerk or some similar expletive, and I know I have not stimulated them to think. Perhaps I have failed on these occasions, or perhaps they are out of the habit of thinking, and just don't wish to start.

 

Nobody has to play this game. I do it for fun. Other people do other things. That's fine.

 

My job is not to change anyone's mind. Heck, I may change my own mind next week, so it would be pretty silly of me to expect anyone to copy me. Changing our minds is what we sometimes do as the world itself changes. Not ever changing our minds is what rocks do.

 

So what was this mistake I made in last week's column? I was talking about the possible link between the rise in the number of abortions post Roe v. Wade and the drop in crime rates. And might one have actually caused the other.

 

I said there was a drop of 50% in some crime rates. Well, crime rates didn't fall that much. What I should have said was that up to 50% OF THE DROP in crime rates might be attributed to the rise in abortion numbers. Subtle difference, but possibly significant.

 

For what if we are willing to think, and we haven't cemented our ideas pro or con about say, abortion, and what if we count things up and we put one bad thing, abortion, in one column and say the other bad thing, crime rates, in the other column. And we compare the bane and benefit. At what point do we as a society, or as only one thinking person, choose the lesser of evils as the better choice?

 

Well, if we are willing to go this far, we should at least have the right numbers to compare. For only then can we think, and conclude, and enter legitimate debate.

 

So, sorry about that.

 

Because as long as we live in an imperfect world, we are going to be faced with such debates. For this is not just about abortion, or guns or pitbulls or prayer in school or who is allowed to marry or any of dozens of other hot button topics in this world.

 

We are faced with a myriad of serious issues, and some people are going to think about them, and the more accurate information they have as ammunition for their brains, the better their thinking can be. And then maybe, just maybe, we will chose the best solutions.

 

I suggested last week, that when we do get around to selecting the next Supreme Court justices,  we should ask the candidates more than just one question. That is simply because we are hiring them for only one purpose: to think.

And people wonder why this old dyke loves this straight man so much.

That's my opinion and you are welcome to it.

Julie Johnson aka “The Great Spoon“