Cupps and Saucers: NY to Arizona

Today's "person whom I choose to ridicule for a comment made on 'Morning Joe'" is NY Daily News Staff Writer S. E. Cupp. Here is what she had to say about the upcoming continuation of the debt and deficit talks:

"We have got to address this problem and if we have to get creative and innovative and think outside the box and maybe even make some compromises, I think the American people would really appreciate that."

No, actually we expect it.

Ms. Cupp, a conservative, doesn't sound like she is willing to encourage the Super Committee's Republicans to do any of the things that their task requires. I knew the Repubs had made "compromise" a bad word, but had no idea they wanted to add "creative" and "innovative" to the list. If we have to...she starts out. And maybe even...she continues. Do these sound like the phrases a negotiator should embrace?

And then there's Arizona. C'mon, man! Take off the damned hobo shoes already.

• Daylight Savings Time-----NO THANKS!
• Signing right up for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday---NO THANKS!
• We don't really need to see your papers----NO THANKS!
• Being cool with President Obama getting an honorary degree to speak at a college commencement----NO THANKS!
• Being cool with President Obama not needing to prove his "worthiness" for their 2012 ballot---NO THANKS!
• Upholding the Voting Rights Act--NO THANKS!

I'm sorry but I can only come to one conclusion and I don't think I have to spell out what I mean. Let me just tell a story instead. I remember several years back watching an "Oprah" show where her interviewees were specialists in the field of anthropology that focuses on eye color. The audience was divided into the "blue-eyed group" and the "brown-eyed group", and as the study findings were laid before them both groups got more and more angry. Stereotypes offended both groups, and the suppositions they created made the entire audience defensive. Before shouts became blows, Oprah had her "Allen Funt" moment and broke it to the audience that the whole thing was a ruse: they'd been fooled. Everyone laughed, and the discussion that followed was honest and illuminating.

No one likes to be profiled, pre-judged, or have an assumed stereotype applied to them; we are members of groups but not representatives of preconceived notions. Oprah's little stunt showed those who had perhaps never found themselves in the persecuted group what that membership card carries with it, and they didn't like what the saw, what they felt. Arizona seems to take a similar stance with certain groups far too often. They are not alone--look at the disgraceful "cameras on Pakistanis" tactic that is rightfully under fire in New York--but Arizona is building quite a resume of intolerance.

I hope I'm wrong and that these are just coincidences. I hope I'm the one guilty of the hypocritical rush to judgement of that beautiful state. And I hope that we can all learn, and soon, to move off of our concrete positions long enough to make some good decisions for the fiscal future of our nation.

I'm gonna have my say, tell my truths, and show my stripes. I just don't know any other way to be me. And I'll call someone out when I think they're being wrong-headed. But I will also listen to their truths and allow them to find me ludicrous if they so choose. It's a two-way street, this whole opinion racket. But if we start out with S. E. Cupp's language and keep the ingrained images of the other guy in the forefront of our minds the way some of Arizona's decisions seem to do, we are never going to hear each other's point of view much less have an actual conversation about the work that needs to get done.

And then the ayes may not "have it", but the eyes will.