David’s Three Rules of Reality

Originally published March 3, 1995, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1112

Well, my column in issue #1100 caused a bit of a stir.

For those of you who came in late, that was the column in which I postulated that campaign organizers for the GOP in 1996 could develop a platform geared around “saving” America’s youth, (S.A.Y.) and that comic books might very well come under fire as a consequence of that. That it would happen as a result of a backlash against the entertainment media that had supported Clinton. And that it was attractive and made convenient sound bites.

I postulated that the industry should decide ahead of time how it’s going to react or—even better—get a jump on portraying comic books as a medium offering a variety of entertainment for all ages, rather than as purveyors of child-destroying crap as recent magazine articles have claimed.

I have seen little in the time since then to convince me of the unlikelihood of that scenario. In fact, chips would appear to be falling into place to make it even more likely, to wit:

1) Clinton himself is haranguing the entertainment media, the very Hollywood support group that helped put him in office. He’s also “declaring war” on teenage pregnancy. If both Democrats and Republicans are fighting over the same youth/entertainment turf, it will just speed up the process.

2) Public television is under fire. Think about it. The GOP is attacking educational, commercial-free television. I feel like saying, “Hello? Excuse me? Educational? Commercial-free? These are good things.” The argument is that tax dollars shouldn’t be made to support PBS—but polls of the American people indicate they do support PBS.

Then again, Americans would uniformly like to see the baseball strike end, and Clinton received zero congressional back-up on that as well. Thank God congressional leaders are in touch with the American people’s mindset, huh?

Actually, this strike business dovetails with a New York-related news story. Apparently New York City is starting to run short on grave sites. Cemeteries are starting to approach capacity. [Cue Crypt Keeper voice cackling, “People are dying to get in!”] Nowhere to put dead bodies, eh? Well… y’know, there are 50,000 empty seats at Shea Stadium…

At first I was appalled by the notion, but then I started to think about it, and it makes a perverse kind of sense.

What, the notion of filling the seats at Shea with corpses is too grotesque for you? Think about it. They won’t boo. They won’t curse. They won’t throw stuff at the players. They won’t puff cigars or spill beer on you. No more obnoxious “waves.” And everyone, no matter how high up, will be able to attract flies. Just strap ’em in, shove some of those big spongy We’re #1 fingers on them, and yell “Play ball!”

Oh sure, there are downsides. They won’t be able to cheer. Then again, no one was doing much of that anyway at Shea the past couple years. And granted, particularly on hot days, they’ll give off a fairly pungent odor. But c’mon. Do you really think they’d stink up the joint worse than the Mets have already been doing? Hëll, you don’t have to settle for them just being spectators. Use them as replacement players. Stick uniforms on them, put them out on the field. Living fans (what few there are) can complain all they want. Shouts of “This guy’s a stiff!” will be pointless because the obvious response is, “Yeah? And?”

Best of all, any other opprobrium will simply fall on deaf ears.

But I digress…

The first and fastest response my column drew was from CompuServ, where plans were immediately made to try and spread a more positive view of comics using computer boards. I’m not sure of what’s come from that, but hopefully there’s motion on that.

And then I started getting letters (edited for space, although no content was changed or distorted).

Michael L. in New York wrote:

Yes, ‘It’s tough for the average parent in the average home to do something immediate about drugs or guns or abortion.’ If your daughter, Shana, can see the stupidity of Gingrich’s pointing at children as the cause of pregnancy and crime, the adults can, too. Most parents understand that they are liable for their children. Maybe I’m too optimistic.

Yes, I can see (and have seen) politicians wave adult comics around and sound a whoop. It’s not funny. (Who will be the next Mike Diana? The next Friendly Frank’s?)

“I am hoping that comics will continue to grow in the minds of the general population. Maus and Twisted Sisters and Understanding Comics are out in the chain bookstores. The books are bought and the idea that comics can be for different audiences is being accepted.

Indeed, as Michael will see from other letters received, maybe he is being too confident. Then again, as an illustrator of a book called Classical Music for Beginners, he would probably be lumped in with the dreaded “Cultural Elite” that so concerns Rep. Gingrich. Far more comfortable with the current atmosphere was John C. in Illinois, who wrote:

You are a talented writer of fictional works, I consider you one of the best writers in the comics industry today… but, your judgment of the Republic Party and public policy lacks any attempt at the truth. Once again this proves that bleeding heart liberals twist the words of conservatism because you refuse to comprehend.

The GOP, for the most part, believes that individuals are better able to take care of themselves and their families than government. The majority of conservatives are not interested in government censorship, they believe in freedom of choice. Let the parent be the ultimate censor, let the parents be responsible for the children that they have brought into this world. Yes, there are a few extreme wackos in the GOP as there are in the party of the donkey.

As far as comics, if you recall Dr. Wertham was a half-baked psycho, a liberal psychiatrist. He wrote Seduction of the Innocent which along with the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, almost destroyed the comic industry. This Subcommittee, as with any, was bi-partisan. Estes Kefauver and John F. Kennedy, liberals, were on this committee.

I would like to know if when you attacked Rep. Gingrich, you actually listened to his entire speech at the Heritage Foundation, the Republican Governors Meeting, or any of his appearances on Meet the Press, Nightline, etc. If you, or any of the many who distort his thoughts had listened, you would realize that within the details of his policies he makes more sense than ‘midnight basketball.’

Yes, there is a serious problem with our society today. Many are ignorant this is because, for the most part, the ignorant are lazy. This is not my fault or the fault of those who are responsible enough to try and achieve. Responsible parents (and it does start with the parents) know that if they do or do not have the financial resources they must supplement, if not control, the academic and the conduct of their children. Read to children who are too young to read; reinforce academics through homework, even if it is not assigned; set up standards at home such as being home by 8 p.m. on a school night, respect your elders, etc.

This is the basis on which we live. Civilization advances from experience. Unless the parent transfers the knowledge they have to their children, civilization decays. Most children lack the experience to know what will happen if… When the child is then old enough to know better, it is their turn to accept the responsibilities of their own actions, whether the actions are positive or negative.

The only paranoid parents are those who do not educate themselves, who do not participate in the arena of ideas. This is not society’s fault, it is their own.

One must understand guns don’t kill—people do! A sick individual can use anything he wants to accomplish his goal, even his hands. The party of the donkey wants to take everything away from us that may harm us, they want to protect us from the moment we enter this world until the day we leave it. They do not believe that able bodied Americans can and should take responsibility for themselves.

The common denominator is individual responsibility. Republican conservatives believe we the right to choose our individual destiny, get government out of our lives.

Mr. David just replace GOP in your article with liberal and you can become a public policy genius. Oh, it’s been 40 years since Republicans were in control. Most living have no clue how well Republicans can fix what the liberals have destroyed in as much time. For the most part the Congress does play a big role in public policy. Assuming Reagan was another demon to you, realize most of the problems of the 80s were caused by the liberal controlled Congress.

Stick around in a short while you may realize your career as a fictional writer may be saved—by the GOP.

I went back and reread the column to make sure it was still as I recalled it.

Here was a column that described the Democratic part (mine) as unfocused and unaggressive. As Will Rogers said, “I do not belong to any organized political party. (Pause) I’m a Democrat.”

Furthermore, the column focused not on GOP governing policies, but rather on the GOP campaign planners’ unequaled knack for creating campaigns based on irrelevancies, sound bites, and issues that were either trivial (such as the Pledge of Allegiance) or racist (Willie Horton). Yet no one wrote in and disputed any of that. Instead I got fairly holier-than-thou letters that came across as if I had produced a treatise that lionized the Democratic party and discussed topics that were—while passionately expressed—completely irrelevant.

No, I did not read the entirety of the speech, merely what was covered in the newspaper (but then, I forgot, Rep. Gingrich doesn’t like the press much either, does he?) But I did see a number of his TV appearances. It was easy to tell from anywhere within a two block radius, since I’m sure I could be heard shouting back at the screen

Why does John C. waste several paragraphs telling me that censorship isn’t limited to the conservative GOP? Beats me. I would have thought my statement in the column, “First, it’s not like censorship is the sole province of the GOP” would have done the job. Indeed, bringing up Kefauver only underscores what I was saying. (Thank you, John.) There was tremendous speculation at the time that part of the motivation into the investigation of juvenile delinquency (and comics) was Kefauver’s angling for the presidency (which he wound up doing in 1956 as a VP candidate).

My point was that comics have been used as fodder by presidentially-inclined politicos. And since the GOP has gotten only savvier and sharper in the manipulation and exploitation of such things, that makes the GOP campaign strategists even more likely to take the initiative.

“The only paranoid parents are those who do not educate themselves, who do not participate in the arena of ideas.” What is that supposed to mean? It’s nonsense. Parents are paranoid because the world is a scary place, period. Drugs are everywhere, bullets are flying, sex can get you dead. To sit there and say, in essence, that if a parent is doing his or her job right, then he has nothing to worry about… John, you can’t be serious.

“Guns don’t kill… people do!” No, John. People argue with people. People hurt people. People hit people. Guns kill people (not to mention deer, eagles, and daughters hiding in closets to play a practical joke on fathers). Guns are designed to kill people. Assault guns are designed to kill lots of people. Anyone who takes the opposite view is at best, disingenuous, and at worst, kidding themselves.

“(Democrats) do not believe that able-bodied Americans can and should take responsibility for themselves… Republican conservatives believe we have the right to choose our individual destiny, get government out of our lives.” Unless, of course, that “individual destiny” involves a choice conservatives don’t like, such as… oh… a woman making decisions about her own body. Then the government can issue gag orders or discuss constitutional amendments… and that’s okay.

“Stick around in a short while you may realize your career as a fictional writer may be saved… by the GOP.” And here I thought I was real; turns out I’m fictional. Since I didn’t know my career, fictional or otherwise, was in trouble, I guess I’ll just have to be pleased that the GOP is watching out for me—unless, of course, I’d intended to write for PBS.

I also got a kick out of the letter from Rodney D. in Pennsylvania, in which he wrote:

I felt personally insulted by this column. I wasn’t this upset when Tony Isabella slammed Rush Limbaugh. Ninety percent of your column was nothing more than an attack on the Republican party, and as such it did not belong in CBG…

For the past two years the Democratic party has owned both Houses of Congress and the White House. So face up to it, ‘bud’, the Democratic party blew it big time…

Newt Gingrich was not blaming the youth of America for their problems. He was blaming the Democratic party for creating a welfare system which rewards kids for having babies, and for policies which lower the moral standards of America, such as removing prayer from schools. Don’t try to tell me this hasn’t had an effect on America. If you do then please explain to me why we have kids pushing other kids off of tenth floor balconies, dying from drug overdoses and killing each other with guns.

If you want to write about possible government censorship of comics that’s fine with me, but how about keeping the extraneous political commentary out of the column, it doesn’t belong in CBG. If you want to write political commentary then send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, or start your own nationally syndicated column. I probably wouldn’t agree with it, but I would read it…

In the future, let’s keep the politics out of CBG.

Several things immediately came to mind after reading this one:

1) Tony Isabella should be making more of an effort to upset people.

2) Yes, the Democrats did blow it; they were naïve, something the GOP rarely is. Can we presume that screw-ups in the Democrat-controlled Congress was the fault of the Democrats—but screw-ups in the GOP-controlled Congress will be the fault of the Democrats? I suspect so.

3) So your theory, “bud,” is that if we ignored that annoying “separation of church and state” thing and put prayer back into school, that would take care of murder, drug ODs, and people killing each other with guns (Hey! I thought guns didn’t kill people! Paging John C.!)

4) Thanks ever so for telling me precisely where and how I should be expressing my political views. And as soon as the comics industry exists in its own little insular, insulated universe, untouched by the nasty old real world, I’ll be sure to take your opinion to heart.

5) The welfare system, ah, the beleaguered welfare system. A system begun out of a sense of wanting to help people, now frowned upon and stomped on by those who feel that people could only need help because they are unwilling to help themselves.

George Carlin had his famous routine about the seven dirty words that couldn’t be said on television. I think we stand at the cusp of a new set of seven dirty words, to wit:

Democrat. Liberal. Tax. Government. Poor. Compassion. Help.

I suppose what ultimately annoys me the most is that all this rhetoric boils down to three tunes:

1) Remember when America was a wonderful land of family values and safety and happiness?

2) The Democrats have wrecked America for all the real, patriotic Americans.

3) The GOP is going to provide a bright, shining future.

Unfortunately, these attitudes violate David’s Three Rules of Reality. I don’t pretend they’re up there with Asimov’s Laws of Robotics or even Sturgeon’s law. But they’re mine.

The Three Rules of Reality—which I freely admit I myself violate from time to time, so slips are pardonable—are what you should keep in mind when confronted by people who try to restructure reality to suit their bombast. David’s Three Rules of Reality are as follows:

1) The past was never that good.

2) The present is never that bad.

3) The future is never that certain.

Keep them close to you. I suspect you might have need of them in a very, very uncertain future.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. This is a reminder that the “Stupid Instruction” contest is almost over. Remember, what we’re looking for are instructions that either clearly show Americans are now considered to be drooling morons needing to have everything spelled out for them, or just simply make no sense. Example: [I use this one because half a dozen people have sent it in] The hand-held hair dryer that cautions, “Do not use while sleeping.”)