Power to the People? Are You Sure?

I have a standard line I like to use when I am approached by people outside grocery stores.  It is genius.  My kids and their friends are highly amused by it.  I will share it with you now.  Whenever someone comes at me with a pen and asks for my signature on some petition, I always respond very simply and very clearly “I am a convicted felon.”

This is a lie.  As it turns out, I am not yet a convicted felon. 

But this is a good lie, and a funny one.  As I have explained to my surprised children and their friends more than once, a convicted felon cannot legally vote.  Therefore the signature of a felon on any petition targeted at a ballot initiative would certainly be invalidated.  Signature collectors, who in California are universally collecting signatures for some ballot initiative, hate when their carefully collected signatures are invalidated.  They never bother a convicted felon more than once.   

It is also a good segue into that awkward conversation all parents must eventually have with their children regarding their own troubled pasts.  For me this is an opportunity to share with my children the story of how I came to realize how bad an idea direct government really is.  Because there is nothing kids love more than to hear an old man ramble on and on about blah, blah, blah blah, blah. 

That’s what my kids are thinking right now if they are reading this. 

I remember being a 17 year old college freshman sitting in my very first political science course when the instructor asked me if I thought the California Initiative was a good idea.  I was stumped.  I had never considered it an option.  Growing up in California it had just always been there.  Every election I had ever been aware of had been surrounded by messages urging “yes” or “no” on some obscure proposition and its assigned number.  Much like fast food in my family, I had never really considered if it was a good idea or not, it had just always been there. 

My stunned silence earned me a topic assignment for my next paper.  And when that paper was due I submitted an extremely well researched argument that the California Initiative was in fact the greatest and most important example of government of the people, by the people, and for the people ever known to man.  It was in my mind a cornerstone of what I considered to be politically important, namely power to the people. 

Kids are dumb. 

As a grumpy old man I now clearly understand the California Initiative to be a really bad idea.  Don’t get me wrong, the Initiative is and has been a really great experiment in direct government. Therefore, it is a truly terrible idea.  I know it seems like a good idea.  But it isn’t.

As a pretty good experiment with a long history, even a cursory review of available data shows pretty clearly the real problem with the California Initiative (and similar ballot proposition processes in the 24 other states currently following a similar course to cultural devolution) .  I am sure countless graduate students have completed countless thorough and legitimate studies of the positive and negative effects of the Initiative process, but I prefer to cut straight to the useful information to illustrate what I mean. 

A quick scan of Wikipedia shows a list of the following “notable” (read: most talked-about) California Ballot Propositions:

Proposition 6 (1978) (defeated) on barring homosexuality in the public school system

Proposition 13 (1978) (passed) on property tax; imposing 2/3 requirement for budget vote, tax increases

Proposition 187 (1994) (passed, then declared unconstitutional) on denying illegal immigrants eligibility to receive public services (immediate stay was federally imposed and is still in effect)

Proposition 209 (1996) (passed) on banning affirmative action in public sector (employment, education, etc.)

Proposition 215 (1996) (passed) on legalizing medical marijuana

Proposition 22 (2000) (passed, then declared unconstitutional) on a statute banning same-sex marriage

Proposition 8 (2008) (pending appeal in the courts) on a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in order to override the In re Marriage (Proposition 22) decision earlier that year that legalized same-sex marriage

Proposition 19 (2010) (defeated) on the legalization of marijuana

Direct governance seems to bring out the worst in us.  As it turns out, any asshole with a couple hundred bucks and a pile of signatures can get a law on the ballot.  I mean an actual law, which needs to be enforced.  And regular people vote on this law.  No elected officials are involved.  There is no debate amongst any legislative body. 

In fact the process is so simple and straight forward even the stoners have managed to successfully organize efforts to get a couple initiatives on the ballot.  They apparently forgot to remember to vote for the last one but that is not the point.  Stoners can get laws on the general election ballot.  I hope that statement is as terrifying to my readers as I intend it to be.  They even managed to pull it off in Washington and Colorado.  If even stoners can be successful in this process imagine what someone like Hitler might be able to do with it?

And that brings me to my point about the California Initiative being a bad idea.  As you can see from the list above, more often than not, the asshole with the signatures just wants to use the Initiative process to be a dick to someone else. 

I am convinced that this is the reason our founding fathers designed the US government without a direct government initiative process.  I used to think it was just because they lacked the technology for direct government, or because they were lazy.  But this is not true.  I now think they understood that we don’t really want to give just any asshole the power to make laws.  Those were wise men indeed. 

It seems to me there is an additional amount of consideration that goes into the more traditional process of passing laws via elected officials.  Debate is good. Even competing special interests can sometimes inflict more reason and understanding on the process of creating laws than can the ability of any average Joe, and I do mean average, to simply vote yes or no.

And it is usually so easy to get people to agree with your misguided opinion this way.  Think about how it starts. If the average registered voter puts any  careful consideration at all into the votes they cast on ballot propositions, that consideration is entirely absent at the time they sign that petition outside the grocery store.  That petition is important, and we really should all think carefully before we sign them, but we never do.  In fact I contend that each of us more or less universally does the same thing.  If you are the type of person who gets annoyed at strangers asking you about something important when you are only thinking about what kind of bread to buy, you probably never sign any of those petitions, even if it is for a cause in which you believe.  Similarly, If you are the type of person who hates to be approached and who is uncomfortable saying no to a stranger, you probably always sign, because what the hell.  It is easy for you and it makes them happy.    

 
Even my own canned and lazy response to petitioners outside the grocery store is applied universally, for better or worse.  It got me some funny looks recently when I was asked by some particularly short activists if I wanted to buy some Girl Scout cookies.  Apparently “I am a convicted felon” was not the response they were looking for.

The Benefit of Being a Fat Asshole

Women are kind. I know this is not universally true. Nothing is universally true. There are no absolutes in this universe.  Still, when I think of women, kind is the first word that comes to mind.

The reasons why I believe, in spite of my own unfriendly history with several women, that women in general tend to be kind, are not important.  It may be a result of my relationship with my own mother, who in spite of the fact that I am and always have been particularly difficult to deal with, and not always very nice, has demonstrated only the finest example of maternal love and caring throughout my life.  It may be because most of my closest friends have always been women.  It may be because I have spent my career in a field dominated by women and have known many amazingly intelligent and talented women over the years.  But who really cares?  Why doesn't matter.

Women are kind, particularly in contrast with men.  Men are not kind.  And as a result I am not kind.  I am mean to my kids (just ask them).  I was a terrible husband.  I am selfish, lazy, and unapologetically unsympathetic. I ignore people's birthdays and hope they ignore mine.  I like neither kittens nor puppies.  I am a holiday grinch. And generally I can't wait to get old and yell at kids to get off my lawn.  Even women who know me well know I am not kind. I have been accused, recently, more than once, by close female friends, of being a misogynist, and it is probably true.  Again, why doesn't matter.  That's just how I roll.

I am also fat and bald.

The first time I got divorced I was 30 years old.  I had spent my teen years being a heavy-metal teen dad.  I spent my twenties as a 1950s husband and father, working for the man and bringing home the bacon to my perpetually pregnant stay-at-home wife and mother of my small children.  When I was suddenly single at 30 (and it was sudden for me, even if it wasn't for her, because I am selfish and insensitive and I never saw it coming), I had no idea what the real world was actually like.

One night, out at a bar with a friend, a couple of her friends, and some younger guys who were working hard to impress the ladies I was with, I had one beer too many, and spoke up in what I assumed was a fairly obnoxious manner.  These kids (the younger guys), in an effort to sound intelligent to some older ladies, attempted to wax philosophical about the beat generation. The only problem was they had no real understanding of how the movement fit into our culture chronologically or influentially, and they misunderstood, and subsequently misrepresented the major contributions of one of the movement's key players on our cultural psyche.  Basically, they had just read On The Road and considered themselves big fans of Jack Kerouac.

But really they were dumb kids who clearly had not even read the Cliff's notes.  Maybe they thought that merely mentioning a key novel and writer would help charm the women. They clearly knew something about women which at the time I had not understood.

I was drunk, and sad about my divorce, and I didn't give a fuck. Also I had an actual  literary degree from a college and had recently read and studied much of the body of work left by Kerouac, Cassidy, Burroughs, and Ginsberg, including their overlap and extensions into the work of Kesey and Wolfe.  Shit I had a recording of Howl on my iPod in my pocket. So I corrected them.  I stood, somewhat stumbling, ranted for about ten minutes about the actual societal contribution of the beats and specifically of Kerouac and On The Road, payed the collective tab, and split. I left to smoke and brood alone in the parking lot, generally feeling sorry for myself.

That was when shit got weird and my limited and naive understanding of women changed forever.

First the kids came out and found me.  There were three of them.  Each them shook my hand and proclaimed me their personal hero.  I guess they struck out but enjoyed the time regardless.  Thinking back now I think those kids were okay, and I probably didn't need to be so hard on them.

Next the ladies emerged and since they were my ride they directed me to the car we had arrived in, because I could not have found it on my own.  As we all shuffled in to the late model VW sedan I found myself in the backseat with a young teacher, a friend of my friend whom I had just met.  She was thin and pretty and I had not thought about her at all, considering her out of my league from the time of our introduction.

So imagine my surprise when by the end of a twenty minute ride back to my friend's house I found this young woman on my lap.  We were making out like teenagers.  I had no idea what had happened or how, or why, but I didn't really feel like asking any questions.  I just went with it and spent the next twelve or so hours with her.

Later I understood what had happened. Having had no interpersonal experience with single women since I was a teenager, I had assumed that at 30 women were more or less the same as they had been as girls, shallow.  I was wrong and it opened up a whole new world for me.  In fact the young lady I described was not even 30 yet.  She was several years younger than me.  She was different from most women I thought I knew, but I know now not terribly different from all good women.

It turns out she was attracted to intelligent men.  This is not news to anyone, except for me at the time.  In this particular case, it just happens that she is really into american literature, and Kerouac was her favorite writer. She knew those kids hitting on her had been idiots, though she didn't speak up like I did. She wasn't drunk like me.  The point was my little rant at the bar had not just earned me the respect of the guys at whom it was directed, but she admitted later that she was immediately more attracted to me than she could ignore.  The fact that I was fat, bald, drunk, and sad made little difference.  She was the first woman I knew explicitly to overlook all physical characteristics because there were other personal qualities in which she was more interested.

And she really liked me a lot for a little while.

Once I understood that unlike my tragic time as a teenager, which was the last time I had been single, grown women really appreciated intelligence and charm, I used it to my advantage, particularly following my second divorce.  I started writing a blog regularly and met a lot of new friends.  I took plenty of time to practice my barroom rhetoric.  And it all worked in my favor.  Using the same basic model, I have managed to have a pretty good time now for a lot of years.

Years later, a friend noted that being divorced in my thirties hadn't really damaged my social life said to me "being fat doesn't seem to slow you down that way."  I took this as a great compliment, because he was right, being fat and bald doesn't matter at all in my relationships with women.

This would never happen in reverse.  That is the sad truth.  While personally I like women with a little meat on them (I sometimes think it is because I am a vegetarian now), I still have fairly shallow standards for physical appearance. I suppose all men do, and even if our individual preferences are a little different from each other, it is a universal truth that when we describe what interests us most in women we always begin with physical traits.  Because men are shallow. I am shallow. I often describe the kind of woman I am interested in as having a pretty face, comically high intelligence, and a really sick sense of humor. That's all I am concerned with.  And while those last two traits may somewhat unique to my own preferences (and may also actually be a single trait), I still start my list with a pretty face.  I am not as good as the women who have liked me. I would have a hard time really appreciating a fat, bald woman no matter how smart or funny she is.

I understand that some women are shallow.  I know this.  In fact I might even assume that half of all women are shallow.  It may be that fully 50% of all adult vagina holders in this country would not give me the time of day, simply because of my appearance.  But that doesn't matter, because the other 50% will at least listen to (or read) my bullshit rhetoric.  And the good news is these two halves of the feminine population are not divided by any sort of type, some women of all varieties will prefer humor and intelligence over other characteristics.

This is the reason why when another friend asked me recently if I would consider online dating I immediately answered with a definitive negative.  Because I know in my heart of hearts that the type of women who are attracted to a fact-and-photo-based browsing service are the shallow ones.  Even if they are not shallow they are far too practical.  I look terrible on paper.  Combine a photo of me with just one basic fact, I have six children, and no woman on any dating site will ever look further than that.  I always say I don't "date" as a matter of principle, which is true, because I think it is dumb to pretend at my age.  But the truth is, fat, bald guys with six kids don't date, regardless.

If I am going to meet women, I need a chance to charm a bitch.  And sometimes I do.

This is how I know women are generally kind.  They are the better of the genders.  Women place value on all the important characteristics in a way that makes life easier for a guy like me.  Women are good, and so I don't need to be.

This Is Not About Robots

“Stop bitching about robots already.”

This is my twelve-year-old son London talking to me.

“I am just saying we should have way more robots by now. It’s 2013 already.”

That was me. And it’s true.

Those of us who were children during the cold war, an era which featured a nearly unprecedented growth in technological innovation, came to have a lot of expectations for our personal futures. We are all currently disappointed one way or another.

We have all seen the memes recently asking where our flying cars are, or jet-packs, or Marty McFly’s hoverboard (not to mention his self-tying sneakers). And we really were supposed to have all those things by now. As late as 1985 we were all positive that we would have them all by “the year 2000” let alone by 2013. But we don’t have any of them. And these are all now great examples of our collective disappointment.

But these are not my personal disappointments. Even when I was ten years old I knew those things sounded too good (read: far too dangerous) to be true. I understood enough about the regulatory nature of the American people to know not to expect the freedom to zoom about the skies at will like some kind of over-sized Alabama firefly orgy. I was a strange kid. But I did believe the future would be saturated by two things: Velcro shoes and Robots. Seriously, why would anyone ever tie shoelaces when Velcro exists in the world?

I live in a fairly large house with five transients. Sure, technically these proto-hobos are my children, but they are not like me. I sleep in the same bed in the same room every night. I like to think I don’t always sleep there alone, if you know what I mean, but really I pretty much do. My children do not. They are children of divorce. They each have a bed in a bedroom in our home, and they more or less keep all their stuff there, bathe there, make messes there, “forget” to brush their teeth there. But they don’t always sleep there.

Every night some of these children will sleep in the spaces I provide for them, but almost every night some of them sleep somewhere else as well, presumably with their mother. And while there is a nearly recognizable pattern to where each child may be and when, it is not a pattern one would want to use to make any kind of reliable predictions. It is a sort of controlled chaos. The uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics tells us that it may be impossible to observe the specific location of a particle while also knowing how fast it is traveling. I find this to be true of my children. If I know where one is, I can’t know when or how fast he might be going, and vice-versa. This is either because the field of quantum mechanics deals in the basic building blocks of the universe and so its probabilistic rules naturally extend to describe even complex organisms operating within the universe, or because I have too many kids. To a certain extent, divorce has made my children free as birds. They have options I never had.

I knew from a pretty young age I would not share my parents’ particularly behavioralistic religion in my adult years. It never made any sense to me. It still doesn’t. I used to spend hours daydreaming and imagining what my future might be like, because I knew it would be different from the way my parents lived. I made plans. I set goals and worked toward them. I was a chess player as a kid, and I heard someone say once that in a chess game, if you can think just twelve moves ahead, and imagine all possible outcomes, the best moves would become obvious and you could never lose. I know this now to be both incorrect and more or less impossible. But I believed it at the time, and from an early age I have always tried to think twelve moves ahead in life, and have always tried to imagine all possible outcomes. I was sure I knew, at the very least, all possible options for my future, so that one of the outcomes I imagined would be correct, and hopefully one of the good ones.

But the thing is, kids are dumb. I never imagined anything like the reality I am living now.

I still tie my own shoes, with laces, exactly the way I learned to do it when I was four years old, way back in the 1900s. Today I am wearing a pair of boots with one of those laces where the aglet has come off one end, and so to properly tie it I have to twist the end of the shoelace into some half-assed point and sneak it through the eyelet. It is 2013, and Velcro still exists in the world.

 I also spend a lot of time cleaning my house, doing dishes and laundry daily, and constantly sweeping floors, because five transients make quite a mess. These things piss me off on a daily basis, not because I hate the work, and not because I resent my kids, but because it is 2013 and I should have fucking robots to do chores for me. I was positive that by the time I was 40 I would not need to cook or clean or do any of the time-robbing daily maintenance which currently consumes my evenings. Just like the innovative sewing machine and the subsequent ability to purchase mass-produced clothing on the cheap freed up several hours daily my great-great-grandmothers once used to make clothes for their families (allowing them more time to pursue racism), robots were supposed to free me from the mind-numbing drudgery of my household chores, allowing me more time for drinking and watching reality TV (which is definitely better than racism?).

What did we get instead of robots? The fucking internet. And we never even saw it coming. I am not complaining about the internet, it is really great and all, and it is the only reason you are even reading this crap right now anyway. But the internet can’t take the clothes from the washer and put them in the dryer (and why the hell do we still have two separate machines for that?). In just twenty years internet technology has improved and changed our lives in ways we couldn’t have imagined just ten years ago. And yet the best robot I can buy will only vacuum my floor. No doubt if robots were useful for masturbation we would be awash in them. Pornography drives all relevant innovation. Think about it.

But even back in the day I knew, even without the robots I would at least have a wife. And yet here I am, thirty years in the future, a single, male, domestic slave.

 London doesn’t know that it’s not really robots I am bitching about.

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, if it isn’t truly descriptive of the nature of all life created by assemblies of the particles whose irrational behavior it describes, is at least a pretty good metaphor for life. In my life it is doubly effective. It seems I can know neither where I am nor how fast I am traveling. The only thing I know about the future is that it will not be, in any way, how I imagine it will be. The only thing I can be certain of is that my predictions are wrong. And strangely that works for me now. I am just sweeping the floor, waiting to see what happens next.