A Test Of Democracy

Are you listening?

Since his inauguration, I have watched in horror as President Trump has fulfilled my worst fears about his administration. He has behaved exactly as I expected he would and I’ve spent the past several weeks in a cold stupor. It’s been a combination of disbelief and a deep visceral fear that has kept me in a daze. But I’m coming out of my political coma and starting to take action. I’ll be writing more articles in the coming days and weeks and today I wanted to share a letter I emailed to my representative in the House, Speaker Paul Ryan.

While I have little faith that he will even read my letter and I’m almost positive that even if he did, it would have virtually no impact on his perspective or his actions in Congress, I felt I had to start my journey into the revolution somewhere and that was as good a place as any.

Despite my cynicism about letter writing, I would suggest that if you are like me, if you’ve been watching with horror at the events unfolding around us and if you’ve been experiencing the same feeling of both helplessness and a desire to break free and take action, why not start by writing to your representatives in government. I’ll include links at the bottom of the article to assist you in finding contact information.

License to Lead – A New Beginning

I have a thought. Maybe it’s a good one. Maybe not. I’ll let you decide.

It occurred to me that in America, we love proficiency tests. We test teenagers with both a written and practical test before issuing them a license to operate an automobile. Many states even require employees of restaurants to pass an exam to get certified to prepare food. Lots of professions require schooling and proficiency testing before one can practice a certain field of expertise.

Yet here are the only prerequisites for becoming President:

• He/she must be a Citizen or Natural Born citizen of the United States of America.
• Must be at least 35 years of age.
• Must have resided in the United States for at least fourteen years.

That’s it. There is no requirement for the candidate to possess any type of knowledge or expertise in order to become the most powerful person in the world. The entire US military and our nuclear arsenal are in the hands of anyone that can raise enough money to campaign for the office and convince enough people (through a rigged electoral system – I’ll leave that for another article) that they should sit in the Oval Office. To be honest, I’m amazed that I never questioned this before. This is insanity.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is…

Saw this video posted on Facebook of Florida sheriff Wayne Ivey warning people that the terrorists are here and to arm themselves. I have only one response: Bravo! It’s about time someone told the truth. The terrorist infestation in this country is getting out of control. They’re worse than cockroaches. They’re behind every bush, around every corner. You’re not safe. Your kids aren’t safe. Your pets aren’t safe. Heck, even your plants may not be safe. You never know; a terrorist may want to rape and kill your rhododendron.

The only refuge honest, white Christian Americans have is in packing heat. The more guns you own, the safer you are. In fact, I think all licensing for guns should be suspended to make it easier for good, law abiding citizens to purchase an arsenal for home protection.

Everything you need for home defense. Or World War III.

Concerned Citizens

Scene opens in the basement of a small church in a small town in Alabama. A group of concerned townsfolk have gathered to discuss the looming threat.

Bill: “It just ain’t right, I tell ya. They’re practically on our doorstep. We’re all in danger.”

Mary Beth: Looking around the room at the others. “You don’t think it could really happen, do you?”

Buford: “If it does, I got my shotgun that’ll send ’em all back to Allah!”

Murmurs of approval from the group.

Harry: “They’re all terrorists, every last one of them, we all know that. Why is there even talk of letting them in?”

Carl: “It’s that damn Obama and his Liberal agenda, that’s what it is!”

More murmurs of approval.

Mary Beth: “I heard that not only are they all terrorists but that many of them are… GAY!”

Gasps of  horror.

Bill: “Oh good Lord Jesus… gay terrorists. It really must be the end of days.”

Carl: “Whaddya think they’d do? Do ya think they’d make you… you know… DO things before they killed ya?”

Mary Beth: In a shrill voice. “Of course they would, Carl. That’s what them gays do. They’re all rapists!”

Buford: “Sweet Jesus on a pogo stick. This is worse than I thought. Better start stocking up on my shotgun shells.”

Where is The Compassion?

A Syrian child refugee cries during the fourth day of school at Al Zaatri refugee camp.

In the wake of recent tragedies in Paris as well as the far less reported attacks in Beirut and Kenya, I felt the need to express my thoughts on the matter. I’ve been waiting and contemplating for several days now to determine what it is exactly that I really want to say. I suppose I’m still a bit confused because of my conflicting emotions.

You see, I understand the fear. I understand the anger. I understand the desire for hard-hitting retaliation against those who committed the recent atrocities. I understand the need to find blame with someone. I understand because I’m feeling all of these things. But I refuse to allow these feelings to guide my thinking or actions. Time has proven that ideas or beliefs rooted in raw emotion are never sound and decisions based upon those ideas lead to mistakes.

I’ve tried to think critically about all that has transpired and take a more reasoned approach to my analysis. In doing so, I am facing new emotions as I keep running into rampant demagoguery, xenophobia and fear mongering, mostly relating to Muslims in general and specifically towards the refugees from Syria that are waiting to come into the US.  It seems to be everywhere – comments from Presidential candidates, political leaders and social media.

Anarchy Devine

Would you vote for this man?

Huffington Post reports that Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, in his support for Kim Davis, the jailed Kentucky Clerk of Court, is now encouraging people to obey only laws they determine to be “right”. This is terrifying talk from someone who wants to sit in the White House and become the most powerful man in the land. It essentially encourages Christian anarchy. At a time when our nation seems more divided than ever, is this the kind of rhetoric we want to hear from our political leaders?

Does Huckabee actually think these things through? Is he so blinded by his faith that all reason has left him? (I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that he at one time possessed the capacity for reasonable thought) Can he envision the world he’s suggesting? Our entire legal structure would crumble if this were to happen. Anyone could break any law with impunity under the guise of “Religious freedom” or simply “I don’t think that law is right.”

We Can Do Better Than Monkeys

Who flung poo?

Jon Stewart is now gone from The Daily Show and I lament his departure. I could (and may) write an entire blog post about his tenure and the vacuum that he created by leaving, but that is for another time. At the moment, I want to take a comment he made and share my thoughts. As much as I respect and honestly revere him, he said something in the following article with which I disagree (at least in part).

NPR wrote about him leaving The Daily Show and in the article was this quote:

“I feel like politicians, there’s a certain inherent — the way I always explain it is when you go to the zoo and a monkey throws its feces, it’s a monkey. But when the zookeeper is standing right there and he doesn’t say, ‘Bad monkey!’ — somebody’s got to be the zookeeper. I tend to feel much more strongly about the abdication of responsibility by the media than by political advocates.”

I find no issue with his critique of the media. It’s been quite some time that America (or much of the world) has enjoyed a relatively unbiased examination of national and world news. Major “news” networks (and the quotation marks is intended as sarcasm for those that missed it) are really nothing more than propaganda machines for political and industrial powerhouses. I’m not just singling out Fox News here either.

Imagine All the People

I’ve been watching the political race for the US Presidency unfold, and I’ve been thinking about some of the topics that have dominated US news for the past few months and I’m struggling to understand why we as a nation, as a species even, cannot seem to agree on certain issues that seem to me to be very plain and not controversial at all.

For instance, let’s take the popular topic of the hour: Cecil the Lion and the backlash against trophy hunting. I can’t see anyone making a reasonable, rational argument to support  killing endangered or nearly endangered species. Setting aside the discussion about shooting deer as a supposed method to thin the population to prevent starvation in the winter months when food is scarce, (that’s probably another topic altogether), hunting for sport is cruel and serves no purpose. As Ricky Gervais said recently:

“It annoys me that it’s called ‘trophy hunting’ because it has nothing to do with hunting. There’s a big difference with, you know, hunting for food cleanly and honestly, as we said before, and wanting to know what it’s like to murder a majestic animal for no reason other than the thrill of what it’s like to murder something… Why is bullfighting fun? Why is torturing an animal the fun bit? It’s not fun to do, it’s not fun to watch. I wonder about the psychology of the people that like seeing an animal in fear or tortured or its life snuffed out for no good reason.”

Isn’t this something that we could all agree upon? Is banning trophy hunting really controversial?

Heritage of Hate

A rose by any other name…

I touched on this subject in my last post and I guess I didn’t get it all out of my system (as is often the case). I’d like to take a moment to counter all of the misguided and ignorant arguments in defense of the Confederate flag. If you live in America (and probably even if you don’t) you would be hard pressed to have missed the commotion recently about a particular symbol from American history: The battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, or as most people know it, either the Confederate flag or the Rebel flag.

A Slice of Tolerance

In recent weeks two stories in America dominated the headlines. At first they might seem unrelated, but closer examination reveals a few philosophical connections. The two topics of which I speak are the controversy over the Confederate flag and the Supreme Court ruling about marriage equality. Let’s take a look, shall we?

In the wake of the tragic shootings of nine people in a black church in South Carolina, public attention was once again directed towards a symbol that many feel represents hatred, oppression, slavery and treason: the Confederate flag. There is no end to the disagreements about the origins and history of this flag, and certainly a great deal of misinformation is flying around the internet. Two things, however, are painfully clear and cannot be disputed: