“Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer,” I’d sing loudly with my parents’ Nat King Cole record in a way only little kids can do. Today is one of those wonderful lazy, hazy, crazy days with time to ruminate on current events: the Olympic trials, the Presidential debate and the 4th of July. The hypocrisy of fairness. What if the presidential debate was more like the Olympic tryouts than historical politics?
The Olympic Trials: In the Olympic trials, athletes compete to be the best in the country to represent the US in the Paris Olympics and it’s methodical. There are qualifying heats and rounds, there are disqualifications, all to do two things. Ensure fairness and select the best. We wince when a gymnast gets a yellow penalty flag, there are false starts for the runners and swimmers. Sometimes, someone just has a bad day, an injury or an illness, but overall, it works.
The Presidential Debate: To state the obvious, this was not the brightest and the best. It was a meeting of mediocrity, just a notch above a confederacy of dunces. The CNN hosted debate, that included two commercial breaks was 90 minutes. Just doing rough math, each candidate had equal time, allowing for questions to be asked, that’s about 40 minutes per candidate. Fact checking shows that Donald Trump lied 301 times. Thirty – that averages to a lie every 90 seconds. Alas, there were no penalty flags, no warnings, no point deductions and no disqualifications. Nope, this was more like the social media phenomenon of who wore it best, style versus substance.
The Cognitive Dissonance: What if the Olympics trials were like the debates. Start anywhere you want, like at the finish line and say you beat the other runners. Knock the high bar over and say you cleared it. What kind of Olympic team would we end up with? Ok, ok, this is a presidential debate, but, it doesn’t seem to follow any of the 6 types of “debates.” It really is a case of who said it best. In an Oxford type debate, a poll is taking before and after to determine if the debate shifted the opinion of the audience. With Thursday’s debate, it’s just a poll of opinions of who won and who lost, but, is the point of a convincing argument lost without a poll of shift in attitude. We can “debate” the merits of this, the conclusion is, the debates are not fair when the facts are not true. You can prove anything with falsehoods.2
Law & Order: Hypothetically, if you inherit 10 million dollars, is that money yours? It’s stated in a will and trust that you get all the funds, is it yours? Of course, if all the paperwork is legally sound, it’s your’s even though, you did nothing to earn it, it’s yours. No argument. Now, you have this money, this new money and you find out 2 million is owed to creditors. Ugh, you want to keep it, but, it’s fair and besides you’re still have millions you did nothing to earn and it’s yours and it’s cool. That’s fair. But the US does’t have a strong history of fairness to all.
The Fourth of July: This week is the 4th of July, celebrating America’s birthday, freedom from Britain. Fairness would say, victory in the war along with the vision of the revolutionaries would undo slavery’s legitimacy. The enslaved were lied to and told, help fight and you will be free. Our legacy from the start has been falsehoods. The funny thing now, efforts to correct this, dare I say that word “reparations” has been met with fierce resistance. Fireworks!
“I didn’t do it. I didn’t own slaves, why is this a discussion? Reparations is not fair.” To that I respond with the inheritance example. You were born into a position to inherit privilege. This isn’t taking away anything you already have, it’s paying a debt. It’s a debt that can never, be repaid but there can be an attempt at amends. It’s simple, back to the revolutionary war salvo of no taxation without representation. Easy, descendants of the enslaved do not pay taxes for a set period of time. Done. Instead of historical politics, what about pay the debt and be done. This is an opportunity to move on rather than bury fact and cover it with lies.3
Boom: The thunderstorm have started and, I’m enjoying my lazy, hazy, crazy day of summer.This week, enjoy your summer and ponder the concept of fairness. Maybe reflect on the parenting tip for fighting kids; one child gets to split the French friess into two piles and the other gets to decide who gets which pile. Fair?
1 From AP: CNN’s Daniel Dale offered a report in which he said Trump had made at least 30 false claims, and Biden at least nine. But it wasn’t shown on the air until more than an hour after the debate ended — just shy of midnight on the East Coast.
Balancing on Unstable Surfaces 