Why Does Anyone Care When Celebrities Die?

The recent heroin death of noted actor Philip Seymour  Hoffman was covered widely in the media with stories highlighting his losing battle with addiction and the loss to the entertainment world.

 

Of course, the actor’s demise was tragic in the sense that it was largely self-inflicted and hence avoidable.  But people suffer every day tragic ends similar to Hoffman’s and only family and friends notice.

Ah, but Philip Seymour Hoffman was a celebrity!

What does that mean?  The term certainly means more – and less – than that he was celebrated.

There is something about publicity that makes people view the object as larger than life, as more important than they are in their largely anonymous lives.  “As seen on TV” used to be a common phrase in printed advertisements as if electronic images provided a stamp of approval, denoting excellence or superiority.

Reading about someone (even seeing a still image) may generate emotions and interests in the subject but seeing an individual in movement on television, computer monitor or screen does much more.  The person comes to life, and we are inclined to think that we know them.

 

For some, that acquaintance becomes a friend to be admired, maybe even worshipped.  Emotionally, the distinction between virtual and reality blurs.

Think of the plainly genuine outpouring of grief displayed years ago when Princess Diana died in a car crash.  Few of those mourning her passing had met her in the flesh.  But thanks to mountains to publicity and her visual exposure to the public, many must have felt a level of grief commensurate with that if they had actually lost a beloved, close family member.

Thus, for those who follow the lives of celebrities, there is an emotional connection.  They join in the highs and share the lows.  A life may be a life in an intellectual sense, and hence of equal value, but we relate to those we know with feelings that are not present for those seen as strangers.

It’s easy to say that such people are out of touch with reality and thus unworthy of respect.

But then humankind are wont to do or things their better natures would discourage.

People do what they do for reasons.  Do celebrities fill a void in the lives of many?  Why is there a void?  What’s missing?  Has emptiness always been a condition humans seek to remedy?

 

Most likely.

Long before the electronic era, truly ancient times, the Greeks had their Homeric myths of Helen of Troy and the gods of Mount Olympus.  Weren’t they celebrities in their time whose perceived travails were closely followed by many people?

 

Bewailing human nature doesn’t change it.

The Cost of Challenging Liberal Orthodoxy…

“You’re a racist.”

 

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan received variations of this epithet when he recently commented on the connection between culture and poverty:

“We have got this tailspin of culture in our inner cities, in particular, of men not working, and just generations of men not even thinking of working, and not learning the value and the culture of work.  So there’s a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.”

The response was immediate from the denizens of the left, including MSNBC commentators and congressional liberals.

 

Typical was the reaction of Ryan’s fellow representative and Congressional Black Caucus member Barbara Lee of California:

“Ryan’s comments about inner city poverty are a thinly veiled racial attack and cannot be tolerated.  When he says ‘inner city’ and “culture”, these are simply code words for black.”

This reflexive response from the left, in a broad sense, is disheartening if not unsurprising.

 

I do not know Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, so I am unable to offer a personal assessment of his motivation.  But as a House leader and former Vice Presidential candidate, apparently well regarded both for his intellect and industriousness, he deserves a serious hearing without being called names.

 

Let’s start with some undisputed facts.  In the poor areas of most major American cities, unemployment is higher than in places not impoverished.  Many of these poor areas – inner cities – have mostly black residents.

You might say that’s a meaningless observation.  Of course, if people don’t have jobs, they’re poor.  But that fact begs the question.  Why?

 

To the Barbara Lees of the world, the only agreeable explanation is racial prejudice (or “racism” as the attitude is now commonly termed).  Otherwise she might, as a black leader, have to assume some responsibility for a problem caused by factors not related to race.

Has the blight of racial bias in America weakened over the past sixty years, for instance?  That’s another indisputable fact.

So what conclusions can we draw from another historical reality?

In 1954, the unemployment rate among blacks was 10%; in 2013, it was over 13% [the American economy was stronger in 1954 than last year suggesting that in a healthy economy the black unemployment rate would be lower than the current level].

 

If racial prejudice were the sole – or primary – factor in determining black unemployment levels, one would have expected dramatic declines over the last sixty years.  In the same period, the unemployment level for whites was relatively stable at roughly one-half the black rate.  With the change in attitudes in the workplace and broad enforcement and anti-discrimination employment laws, why hasn’t the rate dropped to the “white level”?

Logically, therefore, there must be other explanations for the high jobless rates among blacks that make more sense than “race”.

Ryan referred to “culture”.  I doubt he used the word in the sense that a “cultured” person would appreciate the opera.  He meant the values, ways and customs that influence the manner in which all of us conduct our lives as they pertain to our employability. 

Those with education, skills, discipline, proper attire and a desire to work are people who possess traits sought by employers.  Those who have them are more likely to find jobs than those who don’t.

A healthy community fosters such a culture.

Alas, over the past sixty years, such a culture has become less evident in many black communities.

Traditional families – critical to the inculcation of the positive virtues recited above – have become a small minority of black households.  The illegitimacy rate was 20% in the 1950s.  It’s now over 70%.  Dependency saps the incentive – need – to work.

 

Government dependency has become increasingly common.  Nearly one-third of American blacks are on food stamps!  That percentage is dramatically higher than, say, twenty years ago.  [White Americans are also susceptible to the siren call of Uncle Sugar – 11% receive such benefits – again, sharply more than decades ago.]

Negative culture is color blind but has apparently made greater inroads in some communities than others.  This is not a matter of race.  All people are subject to negative influences.  For instance, such negatives appear to be accelerating at a higher rate among non-black households.  To illustrate, the white illegitimacy rate was 2% in the 1950s.  It’s now nearly 30%.

The demagoguery of people like Barbara Lee is dispiriting.  How about fighting the problem instead of those who identify it?

What Happens When Government Benefits End?

Despite the panic warnings from liberals of impending catastrophe, long- term unemployment federal benefits were allowed to expire at the end of 2013.  The concerns of the left were over-wrought.

The truth is that people adapt to reality.  Human nature inclines people to choose the path of least resistance.  So when unemployment benefits cushion the economic consequences of not having a job, some people will delay serious searches for work while government checks keep coming.  Thus, historically, those covered by unemployment insurance are more likely to find a job the closer they come to the benefits cut-off date.

None of this should be startling news.  We are all susceptible to incentives, positive as well as negative.  If a person receives money for not working, that hardly serves as encouragement to seek employment ASAP.

 

Liberals, however, have difficulty in understanding this fact.  They underestimate their fellow humans.  They seem to expect people to be without recourse when government aid is halted.  It’s as if the will to survive is not recognized.  So the choice, as seen by the typical liberal, is dependency or abject poverty.

But most people reject that their options are so limited.

The Washington Post recently highlighted a person who had spent the maximum time on the unemployment insurance rolls.

What was she to do?  She turned to what she calls “legal hustling” to pay her bills, including her daughter’s college tuition.  Among her income-generating activities was driving neighbors on errands and helping others fill out paperwork.

She knew what she had to do.  “If you’re not creative in the economy, you’re going to be squashed”.  Bluntly put, to be sure, and so illustrative of the American “can-do” spirit (and of human nature in general).

Self-reliance is a trait the left is loath to acknowledge.  It detracts from its preconception that people need guidance from them and support from their government.  They choose to ignore the character of individuals and the role of the private sector (which is available to help those who do not lack the ability or character to survive without government help.)

Liberals Wanting To Be Fair To Putin

Why is it that some liberals feel compelled to place America’s foes – even our outright enemies – on the same moral plane as their own country?

Consider the case of Erin Burnett who hosts a daily CNN prime time show.

Last  week, she commented that one could understand why Russian Leader  Vladimir Putin would be angry with the West’s reaction to the presence of his troops in Ukraine.  After all, the thirty-seven year old graduate of a prestigious college in New England noted, the U.S. sent troops into Iraq and Afghanistan.

So?

Do not motives and intentions matter?  Of course they do.  The fact that two people engage in violent acts does not necessarily mean that their conduct is morally equivalent.

 

Is a police officer firing his weapon at a bad guy committing a crime no better than the bad guy firing back?  They both resorted to violence.

The U.S. went into Afghanistan to get Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.  We invaded Iraq in search of WMD.  The fact that our efforts did not then bear fruit does not devalue the motivation for the efforts.

 

Why did Putin invade Ukraine?  No one believes the purported Kremlin justification that ethnic Russians were in danger.  Undoubtedly, the real reason is that the autocrat saw the Kiev turmoil as an opportunity to expand Russia’s “sphere of influence” which had receded in the wake of the collapse of the USSR twenty-five years ago.

Vladimir Putin doesn’t care if American news people approve of his conduct.  Yet who would think that a seemingly intelligent, well-educated liberal like Erin Burnett (and she’s surely not alone) would be so naïve.  But maybe naivety is not the right term.  That word connotes  ignorance due to a lack of experience or knowledge.

But the correct explanation for the Burnetts, and the President is properly included, of liberal American is that there is a willful quality to their ignorance.  Their theory that the U.S. lacks moral superiority on the world stage causes them to reject reality which is inconsistent with their perspective of moral relativism.

 

Consider the phrase “sphere of influence.”  That’s a term in common usage among historians and foreign policy scholars.  Applying it to nations nearby a country such as Russia, China or the U.S. is a neutral designation.  The bigger and stronger try to influence, if not control, the smaller.  That has always been the way of the world.

 

But do you think that Ukraine or any other former member of the Soviet Union chooses to accept “membership” in the Russian sphere?

Plainly the fact that Putin wants to extend his sphere hardly means that Ukraine should be obligated to acquiesce, particularly considering the evidence that its people want to align with free, democratic Western Europe. 

It would have indeed been nice, but of course ideologically incompatible, for Ms. Burnett to have pointed that out.  She could also have commented on the hilarity of an aggressive, anti-democrat like Putin claiming to be looking out for the democratic rights of Ukrainian Russians.

 

Note:  other Russian apologists besides Erin Burnett have suggested that Russia is legitimately concerned about Ukraine’s possible joining of the European Union and eventually NATO since that development would pose a military danger to Russia.  That simply is ridiculous.  NATO was established in response to the aggression of the Soviet Union against Western Europeans.  NATO has never been the aggressor.  Ukraine’s fear of Russia is historically legitimate.  Russia’s supposed fear of a NATO member such as Ukraine is historically preposterous.  

Furthering Homosexual Rights – the Ongoing Conflict Between Religious Liberty and Government

Arizona’s governor, a Republican, recently vetoed legislation that would have permitted residents “substantially motivated by a religious belief” to refuse commercial services to potential customers.

Although no mention was made of homosexuals in the proposed law, the apparent motivation was to protect those businesses that did not wish to participate in such events as “gay wedding” by providing photography services, for instance.

Assume that you believe that discrimination against homosexuals is wrong, and I don’t (which, if it means I oppose same sex marriage, is correct) because I consider its practice to be a religious sin.  Further, assume that your position – contrary though it is to the doctrine of all major faiths - becomes law.

 

Where does that leave me?

 

In America, I’ll be relying on the First Amendment to the Constitution which states in part “ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Well, does that mean I can do whatever I want as long as the activity is done in the name of religion?  What if I’m a worshipper of Satan who sanctions what others consider evil conduct?  And what if, like the ancient Aztecs, I conduct human sacrifice to appease the gods in whom I believe?  Or I am a 19^th century Mormon practicing polygamy?

 

Plainly, relying on the simple language of the Bill of Rights alone is not the complete answer.

 

In reality, various practices of religion are permitted when they do not offend the broad society in which they occur.  And, of course, societal attitudes are subject to change.

Venomous snake handling as a part of religious ceremonies in Appalachia used to be tolerated and, although still practiced by a few, legal proscription is the rule. The same holds for polygamy in Utah.

But, contrary to the wishes of the liberal media, religious opposition to homosexual remains strong among tens of millions of Americans.  They are hardly a fringe group like Satanic worshipers or snake handlers.

Their numbers alone give them the right to demand respect and to invoke the First Amendment.

On another level, the conflict between the extension of “gay rights” and those who oppose it, is in fact a clash over whose rights will prevail.  In the classic liberal (or libertarian) sense, every individual has the freedom to do as he wishes so long as he does not interfere with the life, liberty or property of another.  He can chose with whom to associate and discriminate against those whom he wishes to exclude.

A collection of individuals formed into a government should operate by different rules.  With the development of modern society, equality before the law became an objective and unjustified discrimination was outlawed.

In America, during the 1960s, the opposition to racial discrimination was extended from the government to private citizens.  Laws were passed baring racial discrimination by individuals and companies selling homes,  serving food, offering accommodations, etc.

 To be sure, the previously existing rights of whites as individuals to discriminate against blacks were eliminated.  Accordingly, the rights of the latter to go or do as they wished were expanded at the expense of the prior rights of the former. 

This observation is not mean as judgment on the wisdom of the policy  (although requiring a colorblind economy undoubtedly promoted national cohesion) but it does make clear that when government mandates private behavior, it restricts individual freedom.

Such limitation may be justified when the target is racial discrimination.  Surely no respectable person in this day and age endorses color bias.  But can the same truly be said of laws aimed at the foes of homosexuality whose position is endorsed by the major religions around the world?