Differences

I was watching PBS last night briefly and saw Tucker Carlson. He bugs me. I want to like him, but I just can't. I know he is better than the Sean Hannity's and Bill O'Reilly's, but he is still a dick. And this interview really showed me why.

He was interviewing an MD who was talking about the sex offender who killed that young girl in Florida. Clearly a tragic case with a guy who had been caught before and released. Carlson was talking about how we needed to just lock up all the sex offenders and keep them locked up. The doctor kept trying to explain why that was a bad idea. He kept pointing out the wide variety of sex offenders from the sexual predator (clearly dangerous) to the inappropriate (flasher, perhaps). Mary Kay Letourneau is a sex offender, but we don't really fear her killing anyone, do we? Carlson kept wanting to lump them all together. That doesn't work, and isn't really American, is it?

The other part that really bugged me was when Tucker asked the Doc about what creates a pedophile. The doctor was great and tried to explain the complexities of it. He pointed out that no one chooses this--no one wants to be sexually attracted to pre-pubescent kids. That said, he was not excusing them, but noting that they were not doing this willfully. Many of them are abused themselves as kids--again not an excuse, but certainly important to note. The doctor said that when something like this happens in Florida, there is a lot of blame to go around--first and foremost the offender, but in this case, the legal system had just tried to incarcerate this guy into not doing this. No counseling, no help--just jail. The doctor said that our society as a whole had failed here.

Tucker would hear none of that, and it dawned on me that might be one of the differences between many liberals and many conservatives. Tucker wanted one cause, one cure, and one responsibility. He wanted it clear cut. I watched that and thought the doctor made a great point. There are multiple causations to most things. I can say that we as a society fail young men when we don't do a lot of things. If we leave them in poverty, with no education or way out, make guns readily available--we should not be surprised when they commit crimes. Is that an excuse for the individual criminal? No. They are responsible as individuals for the choice they made, but we as a society are also responsible for not doing more. I don't see a problem with that. No need to absolve the kid for doing the crime, but can also concede that with better opportunity and education, he might not have done it.

That might explain how conservative American responded to 9-11 v. liberals. Liberals like myself looked at that event and thought that there were a lot of reasons and history behind that event. Arming the rebels in Afghanistan made a lot of sense in the early 80s, but it came back to bite us. Our dealings with muslim moderates in the 1950s in Iran led us to support the Shaw of Iran. Our policy of valuing oil over human rights and playing cold war politics with third world lives had come back to haunt us.

That said, there was no excuse for what those hijackers did. That was an act of evil, I don't deny. Why can't we talk about both? Raising the first one tends to lead conservatives to accuse me of blaming America. Why? Why are the people who generally hate government and assume it is inefficient and dangerous so sure that our foreign policy has been perfect? Why is my suggestion that we had encouraged a good bit of hatred throughout the world seen as an apology for Atta and his fellow hijackers?

There are multiple things at work. Just as that child abuser is responsible for his actions, those hijackers are to blame for the dead on 9-11. But we play a role in both. It isn't about making excuses for evil, or blaming the US, but noting things that we can do to improve. We can take steps (not under this administration, perhaps) to try to reach out to developing countries and try to ensure those people that we don't bomb them capriciously. We can try to be more consistent in our dealings with leaders and avoid (when we can) supporting dictators and secret police simply because we both have a common enemy.

In the child abuse case, we can try to be more proactive. When we know of cases that send up flags, we should do what we can with therapy and counseling. In other words, we should do what we can to help people who are clearly broken. If they don't avail themselves of that help, or still choose to abuse, then we have the obligation to protect the public from such people.

I, for one, am tired of conservative bashing liberals as bleeding hearts who coddle people. I don't coddle. But I also think that life is more complicated than many conservatives seem to want to believe. And complicated situations--terrorism, child abuse, crime, poverty--take complex and nuanced approaches.

I don't think that makes me an American hater, nor an apologist for abusers.