Auchtoon!

With all that is currently going on (raging European land war, economic trauma, Lindsey Graham’s hurt feelings, etc.), it’s understandable if the trial for the four suspects charged with plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has fallen off your radar. It certainly has for me.

Yes, part of the reason is the overwhelming amount of other news to doom scroll. But another part is the four men themselves. I don’t like to think about them. They make me uncomfortable. Not for a reason you might expect — anger, fear, disgust. I feel sad for them.

This feeling likely comes from having grown up spending a considerable amount time with guys who smoked a lot of weed and said a lot of really stupid things making really stupid plans. I kinda know guys like this, and they were obviously way out of their league in dealing with the FBI.

Nevertheless, I absolutely believe they deserve to be on trial. Planning and plotting to kidnap and harm an elected official (and clearly having the means to do it) is definitely something our legal system is there to prevent. (January 6, 2021 is a pretty good example of what can happen when stupid plans are allowed to be executed.)

And while I may be inclined to feel sadness, it’s not hard for me to imagine what others might feel about this situation. There is a well-documented history of Black men in this country not being given the benefit of the doubt as reflected in their disproportionate rate of incarceration, especially when drugs are involved. So I’d expect that if “they can’t be held responsible — they were high” works for four White guys, it’d be pretty hard to reconcile.

Please note: I am going to accept my $400 per insured vehicle refund check from the state unreservedly and with a clear conscience. As should anybody who has been paying (almost certainly overpaying) into the catastrophic injury fund these many, many years.

Another way of putting it: Michigan auto owners did not create the harsh mistakes generated by the 2019 no-fault insurance reform law — the insurance companies and the state government did. And while I don’t believe cutting off severely injured car crash survivors from their at-home care was anybody’s specific evil intent, the end result is, well, pretty evil.

Michigan Radio has done a thorough job reporting on all this since the in-home care market started cratering. It’s not a simple problem to unwind. Frankly, it’s stupid that we have it in the first place. In a civilized country, those who are severely injured (by auto accident or otherwise) would not be left to fear losing proper, decent, human health care.

But this is where we find ourselves, and our government needs to work with the insurance companies to fix it. Because it’s literally killing people.

I’m loathe to give Robert “RJ” Regan any more media oxygen than he’s already gotten. But he is likely going to be my state representative in a couple months, so I felt compelled to say something. 

Regan’s recent “ha-ha, amirite guys?” quip about advising his three daughters that “if rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it” made national news this week. Unfortunately, it fully tracks with other miserable things he has said and done while running for public office these past few years. I won’t list them. Bridge Michigan has a summary if you’re morbidly curious.

How the hell did it come to this? Well, it’s not too difficult to figure out. There are lots of ways to describe Regan’s behavior, but “Trumpian” may be the most accurate. (Another guy I don’t really want to provide with any more media oxygen.)

Maybe it was because it was Ash Wednesday, and as a proper Roman Catholic, I was just looking for a reason to feel guilty. But as I was driving and listening to Michigan Radio and the latest news from the war in Ukraine, I passed a gas station. When I saw $3.79 on the marquee, I instinctively calculated the cost of my next fill-up and frowned in disapproval. Then the radio informed me that there are already one million Ukrainian refugees with up to four million expected soon.

So, yeah, poor me.

Now, I fully understand that rising gas prices are a significant problem for many Americans. But it isn’t fleeing our home. It isn’t exploding missiles. It isn’t violent death.

As Americans we are blessed with two oceans that have kept us well insulated. The last large-scale land war we experienced directly ended 157 years ago (and it was us battling us). I am absolutely grateful for this. But as a consequence, we don’t seem to have the proper context for what war is.

So, let us carry on with our kvetching about gas prices and other real and perceived inconveniences. I mean, we’re human — we’re gonna complain no matter what. But perhaps give some consideration for what real pain and suffering is.