The Boogyman

If you've read my stuff at all, you know that I'm a basically conservative guy.  However, I've found myself listening to Sirius Left on satellite radio quite a bit lately.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  One, frankly I've heard all the arguments that are made on the right and it gets a bit repetitious after a while.  Second, I think it's good to hear the other side of the coin and make sure that I am diligent to see the other argument.  Sometimes, I hear something that will make me pause. Sometimes I just hear the kinds of things that reinforce my beliefs.

So the other night I'm listening to Sirius Left and I listen to a couple of guys (I forget who) make a very protracted yet coherent argument to support their position.  I can't even honestly remember what the discussion was about now.  I don't even think it probably was something that would've shaken the foundations of my position but it was at least logical and thoughtful.  I was pretty content though with the conversation and then one of the hosts screams "Yeah Yeah Yeah! It's the Military Industrial Complex!!!"

What?!

First off, while I don't remember the full context of the discussion, I do remember that that had nothing to do with it.  It was simply a trigger word to get his base audience all fired up.  And this is one of the main problems with talk radio, 24 hour news networks and the creep that comes from them and into our own personal discussions.  We want to create Boogymen.

Who is the Boogyman?  It's the military industrial complex, the religious right, the media, unions, the insurance companies, big business, Hollywood, lobbyists, and on and on.  Basically it's any nameless and faceless group of people that we can come up with to blame for anything.  Curiously no one usually stops to consider that if it's a group of people, they usually have names and faces.  That's what makes them people.

What we're really doing is transferring responsibility and sometimes guilt.  If it's some group "out there", then I can live my life however I want, and that usually means as lazily as I can, and not feel bad about the actions I do or don't take.  I don't doubt that there are times when a group abuses power, or steals, or does any number of things that are immoral or illegal.  Instead of just screaming "Military Industrial Complex!!!" in your mic though, why not name names?  If there is a company or organization that has actually committed a crime, bring it to light.  With facts. I'm guessing most of these talking heads and many of the people who throw this stuff in my face from day to day, rarely have any actual facts. In fact they probably purposely don't name names because they know they'd be held liable (or is that slander, I always forget) for making specific claims against specific people.   I don't care what side of the isle I'm on or you're on, if people are breaking the law or doing things that subvert the good of the community, I want them stopped.  Simply throwing out the Boogyman claims aren't doing anything other than keeping people's eyes closed and brains shut down.

One last note:  Big thanks to Stryker for the new blog grahics.  WOOT!