Tag: Pushing the Buttons

I try to go swimming several times each week for exercise. I go during what is called “Senior Swim.” I call it “Old Farts Swim,” for the elderly wrecks of humanity who show up there plainly exhibit the ravages of time. I sometimes have wondered what the adolescents from preceding classes during summer think when they view in the locker room these shambling husks of once healthy men. Are they able to foresee their own doom, or can they not relate?

There are some nice people who show up during Senior Swim. There is one particular man and one kind woman that I usually talk with. I often swim back and forth, head out of water, discussing world events or various pleasant topics. I try to avoid negative or disturbing topics.

There is a group of old farts, however, who appear to embody all the worst of the all-too-numerous Neanderthals of our society. Actually, I should not use that word to describe them; that would be denigrating Neanderthals. Because they appear to rely primarily upon the reptilian core of their brains, perhaps I should refer to them as “dinosaurs.”

These old farts appear to be politically and socially delusional. Fact and reality have no value to them and consistently are ignored. They are proud of the fact that their only source of information is Fox Noise, the attack-propaganda outlet for the extreme right-wing. Ironically, they believe that all other news sources are left-wing, socialist propaganda that should not be listened to. They do read books, especially Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly.

These old farts also seem to be filled with hate. They use that word a lot. “I hate Jimmy Carter. I hate Ted Kennedy. I hate Obama. I hate Nancy Pelosi,” and on and on. When they choose to orally attack someone or something, that emotion of hate is clearly evident in their voices and facial expressions.

I generally am very tolerant and always civil with people. The cumulative effect of the dinosaurs’ harangues, either overheard as I swim by or shared with several of us, can eventually become an irritation. I remain civil, but I sometimes succumb to the desire to “push their buttons.” I have created a persona for myself of being a very conservative thinker who, on occasion, becomes mystified and frustrated by the transgressions of the dinosaur-politicians, media pundits, and fundamentalist preachers who are far too numerous and influential in our nation. Then, I say something to old farts, “in all innocence” and as though I am hoping that I may gain from their responses a glimmer of understanding of why such “good conservatives” would engage in such terrible deeds or why they would say something so hypocritical and ironic in view of what these people have said or done in the past.

In short, I actually am trying to get them to think rationally based upon fact and reality. If I were to sound combative in my oral responses, they would explode into anger; so I do not. Because I speak to them with civility, the content of what I’m saying simply mystifies them. For a moment, they have blank stares and no comment. Then, they either go on with what they have been saying without any acknowledgment that something was presented to them for consideration, or they return to the same delusional claim made previously.

For example, one dinosaur stated, as though matter of fact, “Jimmy Carter is the worst president that nation ever had.” Of course, he ignores the facts that Carter is an honest man, continues to do good for the country and did a lot internationally, which won him the Nobel Peace Prize, secretly got six of our diplomat-hostages out of Iran, and would have had all the rest out before the next election if some influential right-wingers had not secretly gone to Iran and offered to sell weapons to the Iranians if they delayed releasing our remaining hostages until moments after Reagan’s inauguration. Of course, that was treason and denied Carter a second term, but that is how dinosaur-politicians operate. The response of the farts often is, “I haven’t heard that,” which means, “that can’t be true.” Still, I was able to do a little bit of button-pushing. Ironically, the dinosaurs speak of Democrat’s fictitious efforts to “steal elections,” ironic and hypocritical also in light of what we now know what happened in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

Then one day, one of them related a whole string of national and international accomplishments that he attributed to Nixon. My response was, “That’s puzzling. All the historical documents attribute those successes to President Carter.” The dinosaur responded simply with a mystified look and stated, “I thought it was Nixon.“

On another occasion, one dinosaur adamantly asserted that, “America has the number-one healthcare system in the world.” I answered with, “That’s curious. Some in-depth studies of healthcare systems throughout the world list the U.S. as number 37th behind Slovenia.” After a moment of confused silence, the dinosaur responded with, “But, we still are number one.” The facts were not accepted, but at least I may have received a little satisfaction from my button-pushing.

Another of the herd of dinosaurs often ejaculated the claim that “Kennedy was a terrible president .” After the umpteenth time that he said that, I “innocently” asked him, “Aren’t you pleased that Kennedy gave you and your family another fifty years of life?” Of course, he has no knowledge or what I’m referring to; and if he did, he would deny the facts. That fact that we now know about the Cuban Missile Crisis is that our own military wanted to invade Cuba and, supposedly out of consequential necessity, have a nuclear first-strike against the Soviet Union. The U.S. may well have done so without the intervention of Jack and Robert Kennedy. The Kennedys, instead, solved the crises through political back-channels. The fact from Russia is that Khrushchev’s own son revealed that his father told him that he was ready to respond to any U.S. action with a retaliatory nuclear strike had the U.S. attacked Cuba. The dinosaur gave no response. He just turned off his mind and refused to consider that information. Again, my button-pushing probably satisfied only me.

Of course, the dinosaurs believe that Republicans can do no wrong. One of them sternly announced to me, “Republicans never have done anything wrong Only the Democrats have; and it’s not just because they are incompetent, it’s because they have a conspiracy to destroy our nation!” Isn’t interesting that they believe that our nation in divided into two groups of people, good – – meaning Tea Party bloviators, radical Republicans, and right-wing militias, versus evil – – Democrats, socialists, professors, Hollywood, and pot-smoking hippies. Fortunately, I don’t appear to them to be in one of those evil groups, although they may hate me behind my back if I have required them to attempt to engage in factual, logical thinking.

The dinosaur’s’ blindness and hypocrisy regarding sexual transgressions is mind-boggling. Over the years, a bunch of conservatives have professed to be obedient, God-fearing Christians. They sign the conservative pledge of monogamy and faithfulness, and then have had sex with mistresses, prostitutes, underage girls and boys. Some of those politicians even were sponsors of legislation against the vary acts they have committed. When yet another naughty dinosaur makes the news, I may be attempted again to push the old farts’ buttons by “innocently” expressing consternation that an “otherwise good Republican” was caught stalking Congressional pages even though he had written legislation against it; or a homophobe, who wrote anti-gay legislation, was caught having sex with an underage boy. After I have pushed their buttons, they respond with the usual, “I never heard that on Fox.”

Dinosaurs have a third way of responding to unwelcome news by immediately trying to deflect that bad news by pointing out that a Democrat recently had done something terribly wrong, such as being arrested for speeding and given a traffic ticket. For some reason, they don’t see the discrepancy between the Republican’s immoral and illegal acts such as corrupting the democratic process versus the Democrat’s traffic offense.

And finally, the fact that Bill Clinton had extramarital sex warranted his being impeached, whereas the Bush gang lied to the nation, started an unwarranted war that cost the nation thousands of lives and five trillion dollars, put our nation’s reputation into the dumpster, violated international treaties by engaging in torture and crimes against humanity, all of which were similar charges against the Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials that resulted in the perpetrators being hanged. Apparently however, the Bush junta’s crimes did not warrant impeachment of Bush or bringing criminal charges against the whole evil bunch.

Yes, on occasion, I have succumbed to the temptation of pushing the dinosaurs’ buttons. I few times, I have expressed supposed mystification and confusion at the egregious transgressions of that unelected Bush administration and the terrible, continuing consequences to the nation and the world as a whole. The old farts are beginning to muse that the U.S. should never have gone into Iraq and Afghanistan, but usually they respond just by repeating how terrible Jimmy Carter was.

Over the years, I have grown older and perhaps more weary, because I seldom feel the urge or have the energy to push dinosaur buttons. I understand that I never will change them, never be able to encourage them to learn real facts and to practice high quality critical thinking skills. That’s a lost cause. Nowadays, my occasional expressions of mystification and consternation may be expressed only to like-minded friends. There is little practical purpose in doing so, however, other than just “venting my spleen.” As the old saying goes, sharing similar observations with friends is like “preaching to the choir.”

© 05 May 2014

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.