Can you cut that on the bias?

It's a ranty one. Just to warn you.

Okay, so I was going to stay away from politics for awhile but I have to post something that has been bugging me for a week and I just can't hold it in anymore.  It's all about bias and how it colors your world and in particular how you are ruining things by letting it do so. Or in particular one thing. Which I will get to in a second.

Bias is really interesting to me. I'm always fascinated to see how it plays out in life. Reading yet another book right now that talks about how we make judgements based on biases that we might not even realize we have. I've read a lot of books like this. I've read a lot of articles about this. I find it incredibly interesting. I also really try to be aware of them when I am talking to people about their beliefs. The more strongly biased they are in one direction or the other the less likely you are going to be successful in changing an opinion.

I also know that I have my own biases that color my thoughts and I know that I have some I'm not even aware of. And when I become aware that I have already made a judgement about something I try to figure out if it's valid or if it's strictly my own bias. As you all know there are some things that you are never going to change my mind on. I'm strongly biased in one direction. But there are other things that I am willing to look at other ideas and ways of thinking and shift. I lean left in my politics but I am much more centrist than a lot of my other left leaning friends. And much more centrist than a lot of my right leaning friends. And because of this I feel I am in a pretty good position to tell people to stop a certain behavior that is driving me crazy. Just stop it. STOP IT.

What is it? Ruining a joke. Political jokes to be specific. I want to point out something that should be obvious but isn't. You cannot just substitute one president or prominent political figure for another and expect the joke to work. Presidents and other figures have personas. Those personas work within a joke. Last week in my feed was a joke that was popular in the Bush era with Bush as the punchline and I saw it again yesterday from someone else. It's a clever joke all about word play. I'll link it here and another version here. Now this joke is making the rounds again but with Obama substituted for Bush. And it doesn't work. Let me tell you why and it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with personas and the story.

When you think of Weapons of Mass Destruction whose presidency do you think of? Bush or Obama? When you think of a President who would have to count on their fingers for a math problem who do you think of Bush or Obama? See? It doesn't work to drop in Obama. You can dislike the man and his policies but being a bit on the lighter side academically isn't part of his persona. It would be like if Mitt Romney had won the election and someone sent out this joke, "The Presidential luncheon took longer than planned as President Romney realized that Speaker Boehner had more croutons on his salad than Representative Pelosi and wouldn't move forward until they were redistributed equally."  Doesn't work for Romney because that's not his persona, it's Obama's.

And it works with all jokes. My brother sent me one today (the tipping point for the rant) that I originally read years ago as stupid things people ask airline employees. It was funny, even if you doubted the veracity of some of them. But being from New Mexico I can absolutely vouch for the general lack of geographical awareness of some of our fellow Americans. (It's the GIANT state between Texas and Arizona) But the version he sent me had been changed so every stupid thing was now supposedly said by a prominent Democrat in Congress. I get it, it's fun to make fun of politicians but now the joke doesn't work. It goes from being slightly unbelievable to completely unbelievable  From being a general oh my gosh, some people! To a specific, THOSE people. And it stops being funny. Because it doesn't work. It wouldn't work if you changed them all to Republicans either. I can't stand Newt Gingrich's politics, or smugness, or religious hypocrisy but I also know he's extremely smart.  A Gingrich joke has to focus on multiple marriages or overconfidence, not on a lack of IQ, or it doesn't work.

So let's all try to agree, when making jokes try very very hard to set your bias aside and make sure the joke works before you send it out.

For instance:
Jokes about chasing women: Clinton
Jokes about marrying women: Gingrich
Jokes about binders of women: Romney
Jokes about living with a lot of women: Obama
Jokes about misspelling women: Bush the Younger

My name is Denise Mastenbrook and I approve this message.

Here comes the politics....

Okay, I have to get this blog out of my head because I need room for more fun subjects.

First I am going to start out with letting you know that as political season heats up there will be more and more political blogs. Can't help it. It's what will start to take up more and more of my mind space because it will take up more and more of what is being presented in the news. Now I also know that no matter what I say if you disagree with me you won't "hear" me. I've linked it before and I will link it again, political bias breaks your brain.  So I know that most of what I post will be met with either nods from the people who agree with me or head shakes from those that don't. And that's okay. I will post because I need to get the argument out of my head to make room for other things.

Now all of that aside, we get to today's blog. And in this one I will actually make both the right and the left shake their heads. It's part of the joy of being an independent. Sometimes just when you have me all figured out, you find out you don't. Or even if you know my stance on an issue you don't fully understand why that's my stance. This is one of those issues. And because I always like to start out with why I take the position I take before I post the rest I will do that now.

I am pro-choice. Strongly, staunchly pro-choice. It's one of my cornerstone issues and I have changed my mind on who I will and will not vote for based on this fact. But I am also very much anti-abortion. I believe that it's amazing each and every time a woman gets pregnant. If you ever read the biology on all of the pieces that have to work together just exactly right in just exactly the right time window and then keep on working just exactly the right way for the child to make it to delivery, well it amazes me that babies are born at all. Let alone so many of them!

My own history is tied to the debate. If I had stayed in the church it would be part of my "inspirational story" and as it is it's part of my mother's. My mother should not have had me. The birth control failed or I wouldn't have been conceived. Once I was conceived the doctors warned her that carrying me to term would surely end up with my death and her death as well. And it almost did. The amount of blood my mother lost while delivering me put her right in the path of dying. But she didn't. And I didn't. Doctors are sometimes wrong. But for my mother having an abortion, even though her life was as risk, wasn't an option. It just wasn't something she was willing to do. And I would be insane to say I wish she had made a different decision. Because I'm here. And she turned 80 this year. We both came through in the end.

When I became pregnant with C I knew from the very start, before the test, that I was pregnant. And I knew that I was having a boy long before the results from the ultrasound came in. I just knew these things. And I would sit in the rocking chair in what would become his room and rock and sing and read to him long before he made his appearance in to the world. I felt that he was a child, my child, from the start. And I loved him. When he was 2 we decided that we didn't want any more children. That one was good. About 6 months later my period was late. Then it was later. Then later still. I started to have all of the symptoms I did when I was pregnant with C. So I took a test. It came back with a light pink wash over the positive side instead of a clear pink line like a positive would be or a white pane like a negative would be. So we waited another week and I took another test. Same result. It was a weekend and I decided that I would go in to the doctor on Monday for a blood test but sort of reached the conclusion that I was pregnant. Didn't matter that we had decided we wanted one child looked like we were having two. Then the cramping started and I miscarried. But if I hadn't, even though we knew we only wanted one child, we would have had two. There wouldn't have even been a question to ask, we just would have gone forward with the new plan. The same way we would have if C had come when we were 18 and not ready for kids instead of 24 and fully planned for him. It's what I feel is the right thing to do.

So now you ask, why am I pro-choice, and staunchly pro-choice after all of that? Because I feel like abortion is the wrong thing to do. I feel that way. Science doesn't back up my feelings. The science is very clear. What I miscarried was a clump of cells that had just started on their pathway to eventually becoming a child. Maybe. If everything worked out exactly right. We didn't lose a baby that weekend, we lost a clump of cells. That's the science. I might have cried over the potential. We might have had another discussion on if we really did only want one child after that, but there was never a second baby. I wasn't that far along. And I cannot justify voting for laws on what I feel instead of what I know. Abortion isn't murder. That clump of cells cannot exist as a person on their own even with breathing tubes and feeding tubes and the fullest advances of our medical science. Just because the potential for a human life begins at conception doesn't make it a human life at the moment of conception.

And what I know is that what I feel isn't what everyone feels. And it shouldn't be. But what I know is that I should vote based on the facts. Laws should be made based on facts. Not on feelings. Feelings vary from person to person, facts are facts.

Okay, so where is this blog going then? It's about the abortion debate and the piece that makes me absolutely bonkers. The exception for rape, incest and the life of the mother clause that gets added in to legislation. It's a complete piece of bullshit. It is. And anytime either side uses it someone should point out that it's a complete piece of bullshit. So here I am pointing it out.

If you believe, truly believe, that abortion is murder then you do not believe in those exceptions. You can't. Paul Ryan said in an interview that the method of conception doesn't matter when asked about the rape exception specifically. This is what he truly believes. And if you believe, truly believe, that a life is a life at the moment of conception you have to agree with him. You have to say that you cannot punish a child for the crime of the parent. Incest is the same. Potential death of the mother? Tricky. But do you trade the murder (remember if you are in this camp this is how you think of it) of a child to save the mother or do you put your faith in your God that he will deliver you and the child through the pregnancy safely? You know the choice my mother made. And it worked out for us. You hear about those stories, the ones like mine, where it was the right call. you don't hear as many of the ones where it wasn't. But they are out there as well. Sometimes the doctor is wrong, but more often they are right.

If you believe, truly believe, in choice then you have to hate the rape, incest, safety exception discussion because it doesn't make sense. If you think abortion should be legal and the choice of the woman who is pregnant then saying that's it okay to have it be illegal except in those cases means that you are saying it's not okay. Why? Because you are not going to find a doctor that is willing to take the chance on performing an illegal abortion. In states where it is pretty much illegal (except for the big three exceptions) you would be hard pressed to find a doctor who will do the procedure. This is the way it works. You say you are pregnant due to a rape, but do you have a rape conviction yet? And what are the odds that the justice system will move quickly enough to find your rapist guilty in time for you to have an abortion? And incest? You say that's how you are pregnant but we need to make sure we do screening and how far along do you have to be before that would be conclusive? And can you get a DNA sample from the relative? How long would that court order take? Safety of the mother? How many doctors do you have to get to say that you would die before you can get an abortion? It's considered a victory for the anti-abortion group to get legislation passed that makes abortion illegal even with the three exceptions because they know that it makes it illegal in point of fact.

The reason why it even gets brought up is because it makes people feel better. You can take a stance against abortion but still feel like you aren't punishing the woman who has to carry her rapist's baby. You can take the stance that abortion needs to be kept legal in the case of rape, incest or health of the mother and feel like you are really doing something for the pro-choice movement. But it's bullshit. No matter which side you take, it's bullshit. And it drives me crazy when people harp on it. When it's pointed out that though Ryan doesn't believe in the exceptions Romney does so we should all feel better about that position.

Big picture time again. Just using the abortion debate as the canvas for the discussion. What I feel is that I would carry a baby to term no matter what. It's what I feel is the right decision for me. For me. But what is the right decision for you? That's up to what you feel about it. That's what feelings are for. To drive personal choices. I feel this way so I do this thing. You feel that way so you do that thing. But when you vote, when you make laws, when you are making decisions that affect everyone? Then you need to step away from what you feel and find out what you can know. Facts. Science. Rational Thoughts. It's hard. I know it is. It's much easier to make your decisions based strictly on what you feel. But it's bullshit. You know it and I know it.

Feelings are different than facts. Please oh please, try and keep that in mind when looking at all of the political debate this year and all of the issues. And please oh please, make sure you are voting based on facts not on feelings this Fall.

Don't look now, your bias is showing...

Earlier this week a friend of mine who leans decidedly more right politically than I do sent me a link to the latest news on George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin. In the video clip you can watch as Zimmerman leads police through his version of what happened that night. And when they sent me the clip they said, "Don't you feel foolish now?" Which of course led to quite the heated debate on what my issue had been all along in this case versus what they interpreted it and then to what they were saying.

Let me break it down for you.  Brent and I actually heard about the story before it broke as big as it did nationwide. When we heard the basic details about it I said to him, "That's just not right. There is no way he shouldn't have been arrested. Dead body on the ground, gun in your hand, that's pretty much all you need to justify the arrest." And that has been my stance all along. It's the prosecution's job from that point forward to see if there is enough evidence to take the crime to trial or to see if there was a crime in the first place. Because of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" laws (which Oregon has as well, to be completely fair, in fact A LOT of states have them) Zimmerman might very well not be guilty of anything. But it's not the job of the police at that moment to make that call. Dead body on the ground, gun in his hand.

Do I believe the media added fuel to this fire? Absolutely. There was the 911 tape that NBC edited to cut out the dispatcher asking Zimmerman for a description of Martin so it sounded like he was just announcing Martin was black out of the blue. Which was so wrong it's crazy. You don't edited the evidence to fit your narrative, if you are the news you just report what happened. YOU have no narrative. There was Fox News insisting that Zimmerman did nothing wrong and that the "mainstream media" was just looking for a victim. Which I have issue with, because see, we had a victim. That would be the body on the ground. And then you had the emails that went out where they showed pictures of Zimmerman in a nice suit instead of his old mug shot (not recent because he wasn't arrested that night) that the media had been using and a picture of a gangbanger with his tattoos throwing his signs and holding a beer that was the most recent shot of Martin. Except it wasn't. The pictures were of some other kid, I guess who ever put that clip together didn't realize that you can't just drop in one black teenager for another and have no one notice. So yes, things got heated. But my stance was still, we have a dead kid and a guy walking around who hasn't been arrested for the shooting which he admits to doing. There is a problem here.

Then Zimmerman was arrested and I was glad. This same friend thought it was just awful and wrong that he had been. We argued about that at the time as well. If he is not guilty under Florida law then he will go free. That's the way it works. We have no doubts that he shot the kid, we just don't know if it was justified. That's the point of the investigation. Yes, I realize that most everyone has an opinion on this, I think he should have stayed in the damn car and all of this could have been avoided, but there is a legal answer to the question. And finally we were going to get to it.

Then the videos of Zimmerman walking the police through his version hit and I was asked, "Don't you feel foolish." Why would I feel foolish? Did we not expect Zimmerman to feel he was perfectly justified in what he did? Just because he says this is what happened doesn't mean this is what happened. Now will it be hard to say anything different? Yes, because the only other witness is, well you know, dead. So no, I don't feel foolish to hear Zimmerman walk the police through a series of events that portray him as acting in self defense. I question it, because it sounds, from his description, that a kid who was smaller than him was kicking his ass pretty seriously right up until the time he reached for Zimmerman's gun and at that exact moment Zimmerman got the upper hand in the fight and was able to over power him....it doesn't seem logical to me. But I wasn't there, and I won't have to decide if he acted in self defense or not, which I am glad of.

I also won't have to weigh in on the fact that even if everything happened the way Zimmerman described it couldn't it be said that Martin was acting on the "Stand Your Ground" laws as well? He was being followed in the darkness by a man with a gun. I would say that's a pretty good reason to be fearful for your life. And in his case it seems he was justified.

My friend said I was just biased. That I was too much of a bleeding heart liberal to be able to say that a young black male was out doing no good and this was the consequence. Which gave me pause. Is that true? Am I so determined not to be prejudiced that I am blocking out everything else? Now, I do have experience in this area as a peripheral player. When I was in college in San Diego the Trolley stop that serviced the school was at the junction of two different area gang territories. They didn't fight at the stop (much) and it was really pretty safe, but you did keep your head down when things were going on. No sense calling attention to yourself for troubles that weren't yours. And in San Diego in this area the two gangs were made up of predominantly young black men. As opposed to the gang problems I was used to in New Mexico where the members were mostly young Hispanic men. Does saying that make me racist? No, it makes me observant.

Anyway...one day leaving my business law class the police came screaming up to the side street and grabbed one of my fellow classmates. They put him against the car and started patting him down and he kept asking what was going on. Calmly, quietly, patiently. Much better than I would have done in the same situation but he was a young black male who had been taught to expect this sort of treatment and to know what to do about it. Right as this was happening my professor came out and I pointed out what was happening. He went over to speak with the police. Older white gentleman so he got treated differently from the start. When he also let them know he was a lawyer and a law professor they got even more careful. Seems there had been a robbery down the street and my classmate fit the description. Which was young black male. He wasn't wearing the clothes the robber had been described as wearing. He wasn't running from the area. He wasn't carrying anything but a book and a notebook when they started patting him down and they wouldn't even answer his questions as to what was going on. But they would for my law professor. So yeah, it happens. You hear about it. You see it. Being a young black (or Hispanic depending on the town or part of the town) male is a justifiable reason to worry about your behavior in a lot of people's eyes.

So does it make me biased to try and factor that out of the equation? Am I being a bleeding heart liberal to say that Zimmerman shouldn't have suspected Martin was up to no good because he was walking around while black? I can live with that if that's the case. Because if my bias is going to show I'd rather it show in that way. That people of all colors can commit crimes and it doesn't make you more or less guilty depending on the color of your skin. And that walking to your girlfriend's house in the rain while wearing a hoodie doesn't necessarily add up to being up to no good.

And just so you know, if Zimmerman is found not guilty (which I think there is strong possibility that he will be) I won't feel foolish. I don't think I will ever feel foolish for wanting the right thing to be done. And in my mind the right thing has always been to arrest and investigate Zimmerman. Body on the ground, gun in his hand.