About an hour ago I got of the phone with a pollster from “Midwest Research” who asked me a series of legitimate questions about how I was most likely to vote this November 7. Specifically, the pollster wanted to know whether I was more likely to vote for Tim Walz (DFL) or Gil Gutknecht (R). (Both are running for U.S. Congress in Minnesota’s first district.)

There was one issues based question at the very end of the poll. It went something like this: “Given that North Korea now has nuclear weapons now and Tim Walz is not in support of missile defense legislation, would you be more likely to vote for Tim Walz or Gil Gutknecht.” I had to think for a second, flustered that an objective pollster would phrase a question that way.

“Tim Walz,” I said.

I’m guessing that “Midwest Research” was hired by a conservative special interest group. But I really have no way of knowing who was behind it. Next time, I’ll ask more questions of the pollster to find out more about “Midwest Research.” Fear mongering at it’s finest.

“Cold Comfort” is the title of a recent article in The Economist which explains that the current treatment of terrorist suspects isn’t going to get any better:

Not only does it permit the CIA to continue its harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists in secret prisons abroad, it also strips foreign detainees of one of the civilised world’s most ancient legal protections-the right to challenge their detention in court.

While politicians argue that we cannot be soft on suspected terrorists, they’ve failed to emphasize something very important: these are suspected terrorists. In other words, a percentage of detainees who do not have the right to challenge their detention in court are, in fact…are you ready for this? INNOCENT.

With all the political negotiating and haggling going on, the presumption is made that all prisoners currently held in prison camps, (where-ever these camps might be), are all guilty. For one, I don’t agree with torturing anyone, let alone guilty prisoners, but the thought of torturing someone and holding them in prison when they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong is absolutely nauseating. It’s the same feeling I get when I hear about how Saddam’s militia actually buried people alive. How do we let a bill like this pass?? And what was the point of passing it in the first place? The Economist’s article concludes:

Defendants will now be entitled to see all the evidence against them, though some of it only in “redacted” form. But that will be of little comfort to the mass of detainees who still face the prospect of languishing in Guantanamo without ever being charged or tried and without any possibility of challenging their detention.

Wow, my tax dollars went toward passing an entirely useless, human rights violating piece of… legislation.

Walt Whitman’s poem, “All is Truth,” poses some interesting questions which I think are worth discussing. I’ll quote the second stanza because, for me, it is a bit more astonishing than the first:

Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see
that there are really no liars or lies after all,
And that nothing fails its perfect return—And that what are called
lies are perfect returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself, and what has preceded
it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as
space is compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth—but
that all is truth without exception;
And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,
And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.

Read the lines in bold closely. (The whole poem is quite profound, but I’m choosing to focus my effort on those two lines because a readable blog entry can only be so long.) Is Whitman going postmodern on us, suggesting that lies are actually something called “perfect returns”? What are “perfect returns”?

Walt Whitman, are you making excuses for liars? Are you saying that even if someone has lied, they haven’t really…because their words and their actions are merely “perfect returns”? Well, if I may, I think what Whitman is suggesting is that lies are the result of circumstances, situations, consequences, and all the dark shadows in between what is known and unknown about human behavior. No lie is simply a lie unto itself, told from an unaffected island of malevolence.

Though I’m not an emperical determinist, believing that there’s a formula for human behavior and if we simply crack the code we can find out exactly how someone is going to behave, I do think each and every human life and word is of consequence…and are themselves consequences or “perfect returns.” The danger with a notion like this is that some might suggest “perfect returns” are knowable. They aren’t, but the point is not in knowing how everything in life is going to turn out. Rather, the point is that we know life is what it is, not by random chance, but because everything that comes into being is contingent upon that which has come before it; every word, thought, and deed.

Where and I going with this? Forgiveness. Forgiveness isn’t about forgetting the pain that someone has caused us, or about erasing an insult or injury from our minds to ‘let bygones be bygones.’ Instead, forgiveness is the realization that no one is exempt from “perfect returns.” Does this excuse from being held accountable for behaving poorly or for using words we shouldn’t? No, it doesn’t because our lives are married to conseqence, and there will always be good fruits from good actions and bad fruits from bad actions. But it does show us that if we can step back and see “perfect returns,” we find grace, not only for ourselves but for those we encounter in life’s journey.

If we cannot see the “perfect returns” in others, we’ll never be able to see them in ourselves. Which is why, I believe, Jesus says, “Judge not, that ye not be judged.” Whitman concludes, “And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am, / And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.” Here’s a poem I wrote, which is based on Walt Whitman’s “All is Truth.”