Participation Trophies
I'm seeing a fair amount of backlash regarding the commentary about the 1/20/20 VA rally, in general. Not my comments, my readership can be counted on two hands... ok, one hand, but about comments in general. So, let me make a few points....
"You weren't there, so you don't have a right to say anything." Wrong. That's a specious argument. While some things come down to arm chair quarterbacking to be certain, this is a hackneyed defense when the offended really has nothing of substance to say. This sort of stance negates all study of history, any oversight of any action of any organization, and is just plain foolishness. It sounds almost right because it plucks on the heartstrings of empathy, and, yes, empathy is required, but, it's always required at some level.
"Sure you would have committed egregious acts of violence if you had been there." This is more of a retort than a real response to any specific commentary I've seen. The internet being what it is there are probably some people, somewhere, saying they would have played Rambo, but that's not what I'm getting or seeing. And, it's certainly not the point I was making. To reiterate, the lack of violence was outstanding, but the lack of the threat of future, organized violence negated the point of the rally.
"I don't want to hear it if you weren't there, we were, and that's what matters." Again, this hints are something important and then places a prism over the reality to skew the point. People showing up is critically important, but, and here's my main point: participation trophies are worthless. If they don't work for your kid's soccer team, why would you apply that logic to a serious gathering of adults? Just showing up might be half of the game, but there's another 50% being ignored. There were goals and expectations for 1/20/20 rally which were not met.
Now, this isn't some moral failing of everyone there. The blame is shared and spread out. Yet, the organizers should have done more organizing. They could have seen that people milling around don't send the same message as, say, 20,000+ people sharing a minute of silence while all facing the same direction - at the VA politicians, shoulder to shoulder, armed to the teeth and scowling. Would that little moment have changed things? Behind closed doors it sure would have. "Did you see when all of them stared at us and got really, really quiet? Man, that was eerie." Or, more to the point, "If they can get everyone to fall into line to do that, what are they going to do when we send State Troopers into their small towns?" Imagine what the Troopers themselves would be feeling?
The good news is that a lot of people saw this as an opening action and not an end, which was of great concern. 2A rallies are popping up all across the USA. A fumbled start is much better than a failed ending. So, we shall see where this goes...
"You weren't there, so you don't have a right to say anything." Wrong. That's a specious argument. While some things come down to arm chair quarterbacking to be certain, this is a hackneyed defense when the offended really has nothing of substance to say. This sort of stance negates all study of history, any oversight of any action of any organization, and is just plain foolishness. It sounds almost right because it plucks on the heartstrings of empathy, and, yes, empathy is required, but, it's always required at some level.
"Sure you would have committed egregious acts of violence if you had been there." This is more of a retort than a real response to any specific commentary I've seen. The internet being what it is there are probably some people, somewhere, saying they would have played Rambo, but that's not what I'm getting or seeing. And, it's certainly not the point I was making. To reiterate, the lack of violence was outstanding, but the lack of the threat of future, organized violence negated the point of the rally.
"I don't want to hear it if you weren't there, we were, and that's what matters." Again, this hints are something important and then places a prism over the reality to skew the point. People showing up is critically important, but, and here's my main point: participation trophies are worthless. If they don't work for your kid's soccer team, why would you apply that logic to a serious gathering of adults? Just showing up might be half of the game, but there's another 50% being ignored. There were goals and expectations for 1/20/20 rally which were not met.
Now, this isn't some moral failing of everyone there. The blame is shared and spread out. Yet, the organizers should have done more organizing. They could have seen that people milling around don't send the same message as, say, 20,000+ people sharing a minute of silence while all facing the same direction - at the VA politicians, shoulder to shoulder, armed to the teeth and scowling. Would that little moment have changed things? Behind closed doors it sure would have. "Did you see when all of them stared at us and got really, really quiet? Man, that was eerie." Or, more to the point, "If they can get everyone to fall into line to do that, what are they going to do when we send State Troopers into their small towns?" Imagine what the Troopers themselves would be feeling?
The good news is that a lot of people saw this as an opening action and not an end, which was of great concern. 2A rallies are popping up all across the USA. A fumbled start is much better than a failed ending. So, we shall see where this goes...
