The one about a parasite

America is torn sharply between the Republican view and the Democratic view. Both sides believe that the other is destructive. However, let's look at what is actually destructive about them.

Democratic governance, if we ever see it again, tries to limit the impact of excessive greed on the average citizen. It demands a lighter burden on the poor and lower middle class, a higher burden for the upper classes because they can shoulder the burden without diminishing their standard of living in the least. It demands that large corporations who benefit from the protection of the United States pay for that protection by paying taxes on their activities. Democratic governance tries to make sure that primary and secondary education are available to all in order to ensure the competitive edge America has traditionally enjoyed in the world. It refuses to consider the weak, handicapped, and elderly as useless appendages not worth the time and expense. It does not turn its back on children who happen to be born in poor families as unworthy of medical care simply because their parents are too poor to pay for it. Democratic governance uses the public money to invest in the growth, prosperity, and success of the nation collectively.

Republican governance tries to ensure a shield of separation for the wealthy that excuses them from paying taxes according to their ability. It makes sure that corporations pay little if nothing in taxes to the country that makes their activities possible. Republican governance tries to dismantle public education by undercutting the rights of teachers, introducing sectarian religion into the curriculum, planning to take apart the Department of Education, cutting education budgets, and propagating the lie that educated people are unproductive elitists. Republican governance sees no relationship between the prosperity and success of the United States and the skill of its population. It cuts money to train the handicapped. It takes away funding for the elderly and children. It fights to stop children from poor families receiving medical care. Republican governance uses the public money to prop up a tiny select class of wealthy patrons whose growth, prosperity, and success garner the nation nothing but more poverty, fewer job opportunities, and wider gaps between the social classes. The inevitable outcome of this short-sighted avarice is class warfare.

To look at the two sides honestly, it is obvious that one of them is destructive of society while one is not. One is a parasitical pest that uses the American public to gain obscene profits on the backs of the lower classes without any sense of obligation to help the nation that supports them. One needs to be swatted like mosquitoes, and I, for one, am willing to gladly join in the swatting.

The one about stupid people

I shouldn't, for my blood pressure's sake, but I do anyway.  I read and listen to stories about how the christ cultists around America are doing everything in their power to corrupt the educational system of our country.  Lately it's a bill in the Tennessee legislature that is about as blatant an attempt to make religious mythology a valid alternative to the life sciences as anything we've seen in the last 80 years.

I listened to a scientist from Vanderbilt University give a statement before the Tennessee lawmakers, a good statement, a solid statement, making the clearly reasonable point that the bill is religious in nature because there is no scientific controversy about evolution.  It is purely a religious controversy, hence any discussion of evolution as controversial is religious in nature and thereby beyond the purview of the government.  The logic is unassailable, and yet the religious lawmakers stumbled over themselves to declare the scientist's words mere "opinion" on a par with anyone else's opinion.  Let's call that what it is, stupid and arrogant.

It's frustrating to listen to stupid people.  It really is.  People who believe that religious dogma and doctrine are true are stupid people.  Can you think of a different word for those who take unfounded assertions and believe them as fact?  They don't "hope" there's a god.  They assert it as true in the face of no evidence.  They don't "wonder" if there was a universal flood 5 thousand years ago; they proclaim it as fact when there is no proof.  Stupid is the only fitting term for this behavior.  It is like knowing through observation and logic that the square of 9 is 81 and yet having to deal with somebody in authority who says it is not 81, it is something else,  and that this opinion must be allowed in math class.  That is not doing the young people of the state or the country a service.  It is not doing anyone a service except the business of church.

Evolution is a fact.  Natural selection is the only theory that anyone has put forward that has survived the countless tests and charges against it.  Religious mythology may, I mean a big MAY, have meaning to some people on an artistic level, but it is not fact.  Genesis is not true.  It paints pictures that may inspire something in the minds of its readers, but it is not history. It is not science.  It is not truth in any reasonable meaning of the word.

As the American public grows stupider and stupider (by choice), and as they continue to elect their stupid comrades to high office, it will not end well.  America will lose its scientific edge.  It will lose its leadership base to nations that do not put stupid people in charge.  America will lose. Period.

The one about mistakes

Here is today's email from the department I work in:

Dear teachers,

At first, I want to apologize to you about contract that you signed. I made a mistake again. Before as I know we have to get a signature from president, but it has been changed from this year. We need to get a signature from the chairman of the board. And Chairman said he want to get a contract in Korean, too.

So I want you to sign 4 contract. 2 - English version, 2 - Korean version After I get a signature from the chairman, I will give you yours. Second, you signed the contract before, we will destroy. But if you want to destroy, you could bring. We have your contract that you already signed before. Again, I am really sorry for this inconvenience. I will try to be more professional. I hope see you soon in the Lounge. Have a lovely weekend.

Sincerely,

[name withheld]

Our contract period begins on March 1st every year... every single year, the same date (our lowly status as faux-assistant profs makes us ineligible for multiple-year contracts). We are notified in mid-December if we are not going to be offered a new contract for the coming year. Those who are going to be offered a contract are not told anything one way or the other. I suppose it works, but what if they make a mistake... "again" ?

Since we are just now getting our contracts, what was that "contract" I took to the immigration office to get my visa a month or so ago? Hurried explanation from the office: that was just a generic contract to show the government. Great. Being a foreigner in a strange land and deceiving the government doesn't instill much confidence in me, but what if that's why they do it? Keep the foreigners off their balance. Make sure they're in a constant state of borderline confusion. And who signs what? Shouldn't that be known by the people who are drawing these papers up? Which contract is the legal one, the English or the Korean? My first contract here a few years ago, I discovered a discrepancy between the English and the Korean versions (which they fixed in favor of the English version).

When you come to Korea, there is a period, a grace period, I suppose, where the newbie expat is learning so much that he/she lets a lot of stuff slide to focus on basic survival skills. After the expat gets her/his feet solidly on the ground and is used to the landscape, then the bizarro world of Korea becomes the elephant in the room we kind of felt before but never looked at too closely. We complain about the nutty and incongruous behavior here, but then we learn that nobody likes to hear us complain, not even other complaining expats! And complaining does absolutely no good.

So we live with it. We live with the haphazard, slapdash way they do everything, from legal contracts and immigration law to painting the rusted out aluminum siding on the general store. We live (and sometimes die) with the reckless and irresponsible mania that passes for driving here. We tolerate the constant noise. We learn to ignore the thousands of children over the years who point at us on the sidewalk and scream "America person!" in Korean and run to their mothers' sides.

I'm not ranting about this email specifically. This email is simply another manifestation in a long string demonstrating what a fish out of water most of us expats are in this land. We were raised to try, try as best we can, to get and keep our ducks in a line, plan ahead so as not to make someone else's life a living hell for no reason, to drive politely and safely, to lower our voices in public places, to not stare at people who look different and certainly not yell out and point. (It's not polite to point, remember?)

Fourteen years of this, and what have I learned? I guess it's patience. Without patience, someone would have died by now.