David McElroy

Bessie has lived her entire life in fear.

Well, maybe that’s not entirely correct, but she’s at least lived her life just on the edge of fear. She can go from relaxed and happy to tense and terrified in a split second. She’s not just scared of people who might try to hurt her. She’s even scared of the one person in the world who’s fed her and taken care of her for two and a half years — me.

I wrote about Bessie’s sister, Molly, last week. You can read that story if you’d like, because most of it applied to Bessie, too.

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When news came Friday that there had been a bloody attack in Norway, many people assumed that it was done by Islamic terrorists of some sort. Those assumptions produced the kind of hate-filled displays such as the one you see at the right. If the copy is too small to read, it says:

“MUSLIMS ATTACK PEACEFUL NORWAY: WAKE UP CALL FROM HELL!

Once again proof that appeasement does not work! The time has come to declare World War III on Islam. The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.”

(The complete page is still online as I write this, but it might disappear.)

As it turns out, the attacks were actually carried out by a self-described conservative Christian Norwegian with blond hair and blue eyes. This sort of spoils the script for those who are eager to blame everything in the world on the people they hate.

The world is a far more complex place than many people realize. It seems that most people have a script in their heads about the way the world works. Their confirmation bias makes them only see the things that fit their script. The rest is simply ignored, as though it doesn’t exist. It’s bizarre, but it seems to be part of human nature.

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If you believe in the democratic system and want to be a serious part of it in this country, you can be a Democrat or a Republican. That’s it. Most of those who want small government join Team GOP, believing they’re pursuing small government. Sadly, they’re mistaken.

I have lots of friends who are still active in the Republican Party, as I once was. Many of them are very sincere believers in cutting the size of government. I certainly know some who are social conservatives and neo-conservatives, but most among my friends are fiscally conservative and fairly socially tolerant people who are opposed to big government. They honestly believe supporting the Republican Party is going to cut the size of government.

There’s absolutely no evidence to support that fairy tale.

I was reminded of that again today when I saw this story about Texas Gov. Rick Perry — a wannabe Republican presidential candidate — blasting the Obama administration for cutting jobs in NASA now that the space shuttle program is winding down. (The link comes via The Agitator, a site which is worth your daily perusal.)

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