I Disagree!! With Me!

This week I am going to disagree with my editorial last week as well as with parts of my friend Karl’s editorial. We both wrote on police-involved shootings and recommended restraint on the part of the people in conflict with the police.

This was an over simplification on our parts.

Fight or Flight

Bear with me, I am going somewhere important with this one.

Almost every creature on earth shares the “Fight or Flight” tendency as a survival characteristic. That means that when confronted by danger or perceived danger most creatures and people will either run or fight. If cornered or caught in flight almost everyone will fight.

If you catch a tiny mouse it will probably bite or scratch you.

As always there are exceptions. Eastern Hognose snakes, Texas Indigo snakes, some rabbits, Opossums, Tennessee Fainting Goats and a few others “play dead” instead of “fight or flight.” This is usually not a deliberate response. In fact, it is usually caused by the mental conflict between “Fight or Flight” and the creature “faints.” A Possum is NOT “playing possum,” it is unconscious.

Humans share the same tendencies with a few variations.  When our brains are giving us conflicting advice and there is a conflict between “Fight or Flight” we may “be frozen with fear” or “cower with fear.”

This is important. While writing the editorial on people getting killed by fighting with police, I realized this is simply “Fight or Flight” response.

“Fight or Flight” is natural and is in all of us. It even applies to disagreements with our significant others.  How many people walk out to avoid a fight?  They choose flight instead of fight.

There is a fourth option, BUT that one is a learned response. That is to accept the potentially dangerous situation and attempt to placate or deescalate the situation. 

I and many of you were taught to “respect authority.”  We would never even consider fighting with or running from a police officer. We would never consider hitting a teacher. We could never imagine letting the primitive parts of our brains take over in a situation like this.

In short, our learned behavior overrides our natural response.  However, we still have the “Fight or Flight” tendency with the resulting paralysis that comes when we cannot choose between the two.  I was once cutting a large dead tree that had been struck by lightning.  I didn’t know it but that tree had been split into hundreds of pieces.  It was standing there looking like a tree when in fact it was a Jinga tower, all stacked up and waiting to crumble.  When I made the first cut it started falling around me.  I was frozen. My total defense was putting my arm over my head. (Like that would help.)  I didn’t use both arms because I forgot to drop the saw. When it stopped falling and I could move, I was surrounded by a pile of wood as high as my chest. It was a miracle that I wasn’t hit. 

Last week I mentioned that the majority of people killed by police officers were engaged in “Fight or Flight” activity although I didn’t define it as such. This means we, as a society, have failed to educate a portion of society that there is another option to “Fight or Flight.”

It is not just a matter of saying, “comply with the police,” it will require teaching people an alternate option.

Police Brutality

Incidents like George Floyd and Tyre Nichols where Police beat a victim AFTER he was handcuffed or otherwise no longer a threat are inexcusable. The perpetrators should be charged, prosecuted, convicted and punished.

Police have every right to use whatever force is necessary to protect themselves and the public. But they should know when to stop.

Educated Idiots

The Educated Idiots (EI) at Stanford University included in their “Harmful Words List” the word Master and the Phrase “Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians” and the term “white space.” 

The first thing is to master the information necessary to analyze this.  This will require some critical thinking and possibly checking a dictionary for the definition – something the EI’s won’t do.

To master means to achieve excellence in something.  It is ubiquitous in our culture. You can master any skill. You can master playing the piano, you can master playing poker, and you can become a master at absolutely anything that requires a learned skill.

According to the EI’s at Stanford, “Historically, masters enslaved people” and recommends “to become adept in” in its place. Duh, that’s what the word means.  Regarding the EI’s first definition, which is the last one in the dictionary. Anyone who has total control of someone else is their master. Does this mean we can’t use the word “oversee” because slave owners had overseers?

Does this mean that when the Commonwealth of Virginia gave me a “Master Electrician” license I was authorized to control someone else?  Does my “Master’s Degree” from college have some sinister meaning? Years ago I could have joined a program that would have declared that I was a “Master Beekeeper.”  Anyone who keeps bees knows no person is the master of bees.  If anything, a beekeeper is a slave to his or her bees.

My youngest Grand-Brat is in Kindergarten. By the end of this year he should have MASTERED the requirements necessary to graduate Kindergarten and advance to the First Grade.

Maybe the Educated Idiots at Stanford will one day master critical thinking.

White Space

According to the EI’s I can’t use “white space” to describe the white space at the end of this article because that “assigns value to connotations based on color.”  They must have some “white space” where there is supposed to be brains. Are they saying that the “white space” at the end is somehow superior to something? That “white space” is only white because the paper is white. If this is printed on pink paper it would be “pink space.” If it is printed on black paper with white ink it will be “black space.”

AND FURTHERMORE some of these same politically correct people call me a “white man” in a derogatory way even though I am more beige in color.  Isn’t that rude and “assigning value to connotations based on color?”

“Too many Chiefs…”

This descriptive term has been banned by the EI’s. So what is the alternative? Can I say “too many chiefs not enough firemen”?
Can I say “too many chiefs, not enough sailors”?

How about:  Too many wolves, not enough sheep; too many supervisors, not enough workers; too many judges, not enough contestants; too many lead dogs, not enough followers; too many doctors, not enough nurses; too many trail bosses, not enough cowboys; too many CNA’s, not enough aides; too many carpenters, not enough labor; too many editors, not enough writers or reporters; too many generals, not enough troops; too many alphas, not enough betas; too many overseers, not enough workers, too many captains, not enough players; and so on.

I can say all of those but I can’t say “too many Chiefs, not enough Indians.”