Category Archives: Gender identity and politics

Break’s over … Back to work

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It’s been a long time since I posted anything here. The reasons are multiple … brain freeze, work, lack of inspiration; you get the idea. I have always been of a mind that if I don’t have anything relatively intelligent to say it’s better to not say anything at all. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not, but nevertheless it’s been my line of thinking.

The events that have taken place in my personal world and the world in general have evoked plenty of thoughts in the interim but none that I felt were worth sharing … until now.

The fact that I exist in a category of humankind that is, in many cases shunned at best, abhorred at worst or completely misunderstood, results in a peculiar kind of attitude about the things that should and should not concern me. For instance, there is a part of me that says I should concern myself only with issues involving gender identity, since that has been such a huge issue in my personal journey.

There is a second part of me that says I should concern myself only with the expression of my Christian faith and sharing how that has shaped and forged my day to day life. That part of me says that sharing my faith with the gender and sexual orientation community that I now find myself in should be my total focus; my mission, as if I was venturing into the jungle to devote my life to saving the souls of the lost.

A third part of me is extremely political. And that part has a tendency to generate some rather unpleasant reactions from the gender community, where it is generally assumed by the vocal majority that I should be worshiping at the altar of political correctness and liberal progressivism. That rankles me to the core.

The last part begs to just be left alone to live a relatively pressure free life, a relatively ordinary life of a kitchen designer at The Home Depot. Left alone to put in my 8 hours and come home, check my mostly junk e-mail, eat dinner and either putter around the house and yard or sit down and watch another rerun or two of Gray’s Anatomy. And that generates visions of coming face to face with God and hearing Him ask me what I have to show for the few talents He gave me.

I’ve been there, done that in each of the stated options. So, with each of those parts of me, each of the options stated, what future am I going to pursue?

All of the above.

I have finally realized that each of these parts is an integral part of who God created me to be. If my the experiences of my life are to be of value, if they are meant to be shared with a world that might not otherwise pay one lick of attention to what I have to say then maybe the reason God created me the way He did and led me through the myriad of experiences He has, to result in the package that is Georgia Lee McGowen, then I must integrate them all into who I am and have become.

The person I am and have become is a unique human being with a message. All of my beliefs and convictions stem from a life that, to say the least, has had more twists and turns, more false starts than most. I have occasionally thought of it in terms the method used by the teacher in The Karate Kid. Each of the processes, senseless as they seemed at the time were eventually revealed to be a learning exercise. Each of the apparent failures have led to a new experience. And the one thing I have learned from each was that I gave up too soon. I always realized later that my blueprint for a success had been correct. I just didn’t follow through. I may not have been intended to follow through and that was the lesson intended to be learned for the really important reason for my life as it is.

I am an unusual combination of male and female expression that has chosen to live my life in a surgically altered body and believes that I am exactly how God designed me to be. That fact means the world considers me a transsexual. So be it.

I am a dual gendered Christian transsexual who believes that God loves me this way and is going to use me in a way that he couldn’t use me otherwise.

I am a politically conservative Christian transsexual. And that alone makes me extremely unique. What better way to attract attention than that? Just makes perfect since.

So, in the future you can expect me to express opinions and beliefs that reflect all those parts. If any one or more of those offend you, for that I apologize in advance. Just don’t expect anything resembling political correctness.

Sometimes living life takes precedent over doing life

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It has been some time since I posted anything here, but I do have an excuse.  As I stated in my blog of September 3 2018 we, The Blue Magnet and I, are married. And, we did finalize the purchase of a home. It had been 16 years since I had owned a home so needless to say I was a bit rusty when it came to remembering all the things that begin to take up the hours of one’s life when one owns a home and takes pride in that home … especially a home with a very large yard, front and back as well as that consumer of time, a swimming pool.

As I worked on the various projects, like refurbishing a large patio table and chairs, mowing the lawn, repairing and improving the sprinkler system etc, etc, etc, there was always a daily awareness of what was going on in the world. I was still getting my daily dose of world and national news via my preferred source FOX News Network. And as I worked, I became increasingly frustrated over what I viewed as the inability of a large segment of society to deal with reality. I really wanted to have the time to create a post here to express my opinion, but Sometimes living life takes precedent over doing life.

I am, first and foremost, a human being. I am a human being who was born with a male body and two sets of emotions; male and female. I am a human being born male who chose to live the last years of my life in a body that suited that female set of emotions. As such I have an interest in issues affecting the LGBT community. But I am not consumed by those issues. They are, in my opinion, secondary to issues involving the well being of society in general. And that seems to set me at odds with most of the LGBT community.

When I was much younger, I wanted to be a farmer. I was a farmer for a time and in that time, I learned some very important lessons and gained and understanding of the difference in my emotions and my God given ability to think logically. The life of a famer is a constant race against time. Storms and bad weather really don’t care if you’re upset and emotional over the cost of a prescription or sex education in middle school. The critical thinking required in that lifestyle gets to the root of how you apply the hours of you day and what you allow your mind to focus on. That has led me to realize that the political environment as it exists today is divided by that same difference. One side of the political equation is guided exclusively by emotions. The other side is guided, not exclusively, but primarily by logic. I’ll demonstrate.

The new green deal is a prime example. Dreaming of a world with no animals emitting flatulence, no machines burning fossil fuels, is just that … dreaming. But because our education system has had two to three generations to program our youth to thinking that the prior generations have poisoned our environment there has developed an entire segment of society that is incapable of critical, logical thought. They are governed entirely by ginned up emotions the flames of which are fueled by liberal politicians and members of the press. Logical people almost immediately realize that the new green deal would quickly destroy civilization as we know it.

Another example is the absurd notion that Medicare for all is just and affordable. It’s not either of those. But, once again our public education system has systematically gone about producing a couple of generations of people who are not taught critical thinking. Instead they are taught to accept at face value anything that they see on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. It apparently never occurs to those people to follow the reasoning they are given to its ultimate result. Worse yet, is the fact that they are guided by pure emotion spurred on by the same media sources that created the malaise in the first place. They have never been exposed to the simple fact that socialism always fails because “You eventually run out of other people’s money”. People who apply logic to the situation quickly realize that fact while the emotional left thinks they can just print more money.

So, yes … these and many other examples too numerous to mention have absolutely nothing to do with LGBT issues beyond the fact that many in that community blindly and unquestioningly follow the progressive/liberal lead.

They are ideas and thoughts that have germinated in my head while I’ve mowed the lawn, sprayed for weeds, hung pictures on the wall and all the other things that are a part of home ownership. They are ideas and thoughts that I have separated from emotion in order to arrive at logical conclusions about the political climate of the time.

Living life doesn’t always take precedent over doing life … sometimes they get co-mingled.

“Taradiddle”

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“Taradiddle!” When that word popped up as my M-W Word of the day it happened to correspond with the frustration and growing anger I’ve been feeling about the current state of our nation’s political situation.

I don’t know exactly when I realized a very basic difference between the appeal of liberal political thought and the ideas behind conservative political thought. That difference has been described as the difference in emotion (liberal appeal) and logic (conservative reason).

When I listen to the statements and appeal of the liberal democrat party members of congress and their acolytes I’m left with a sense that what I have just heard is what is described in the definition of the word “taradiddle.” All too often they are stretching and distorting a partial truth into a “small lie,” a “fib”. Or, at best, in terms of an alternate definition of taradiddle “pretentious nonsense.”

Trying to get a liberal democrat to have a conversation on ideas, right and wrong, is nearly an exercise in frustration. The common response to that attempt is an immediate “let’s just agree to disagree.” There is in liberalism a fear of reason and logic. Regardless of the origin of a liberal’s adherence to the tenets of liberalism; one grew up in that environment and has never questioned or investigated the ideology; one sees people who have a degree of financial success, whether earned through hard work or inheritance, as winners in a perceived life lottery.

There is a fear of risk embodied in liberalism, and the vocal spokesmen for the liberal left capitalize on that fear by pushing the idea that the choices one makes in life are not responsible for their situation. Losing at life’s lottery is the reason for their situation. It doesn’t seem to make any difference what their situation is; it would always be better if it wasn’t for that evil life’s lottery.

Another cause for liberal “reason” is, in my opinion, a desire to be absolved of the idea embodied in Christs admonishment that it’s our individual responsibility to help those legitimately less fortunate individuals in society. The idea they seem to follow is that the government is more capable of determining who is deserving of help. Coupled with this is the notion that those with wealth are a stingy lot and it’s up to the government to see to it that they pay their fair share in helping the less fortunate. Frankly, my experience has been that liberals with money are the stingy ones. After all they pay taxes to help the poor so why should they contribute anything of what they have left to help the poor.

The result is now several generations, of educators and media filling “young skulls full of mush” with more “mush” about their lack of responsibility for their actions and the lack of responsibility for their individual situations. Liberalism is all about lack of an individual’s personal responsibility for whatever situation they find themselves in. In other words, liberalism is all about keeping people from growing up; becoming adults. Because if they do grow up and become adults they will never succumb to the notion that other people are better suited to controlling the direction and outcome of their lives.

So, here we are, “spoiled children” being told that their temper tantrums; marching in the streets, destroying other people’s property in the process, shouting down any and every point of view not their own; that these temper tantrums are excusable and justified. After all, they aren’t responsible for their behavior; someone else is.

When that behavior erupts into violence we have liberal leadership behaving in one of 2 ways: either silent acquiescence or outright encouragement of the kind exhibited by Representative Maxine Waters and others of her ilk. I cannot remember any circumstance where a conservative leader has ever encouraged the kind of physical violence that is being encouraged by liberals at all levels of leadership.

What liberals, due to their total lack of reason, do not realize is the backlash that will result if they are successful at depriving the hard-working people of this country their shot at a society where hard work is rewarded by financial security of their own making. What the liberals also fail to recognize is the backlash that will be forthcoming if they are successful at removing the president who was elected by those hardworking people who were sick and tired of liberal politicians deciding what the hardworking people could keep of their own money.

What liberals also fail to recognize is that people, like me, see them for who they really are; power hungry individuals who want to maintain or gain power by continuing the lie that hardworking people are responsible for the condition of those who, either do not want to achieve through their own efforts or through the efforts of others. Or, have come to believe that they will never achieve their life’s dreams so why try. Just accept the liberal mantra that it’s not their fault.

Just accept the liberal “taradiddle” and spend the rest of one’s life miserable.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with gender identity issues? Not much. I am a human being first. And I despair when I see my ideals and common sense disparaged and my dreams threatened by self-centered egotistical politicians and activists.

6/20/2010

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Eight years ago today, June 20, 2010 at 1:37 AM in the morning I posted the following on my Facebook page.

“I’m done! I’m done! I’m done! I’m done! I’m done! I’m done! I’m done! I’m done! I’m done! I … AM … DONE!!!!! HALLELUJAH! THANK GOD ALMIGHTY!! I … AM … DONE!!”

After 3 years of remembering, researching my own past and writing down the results, I had written the final sentence in “Dear Mom and Dad.” Had it been published in that original form it would have been in excess of 700 pages long. Thankfully, the person I’d been dealing with at iUniverse advised me that unless I was James Michener it was entirely too long. Following that advice, I began a slash and burn editing process. Well, I didn’t actually burn anything. I still have the original hard copy script in a 2” black binder on a shelf in my bedroom along with all the notes I used creating my original outline. In addition to that, I have several flash drives with the various edits in my desk drawer.

When I think about writing another book I find the prospect daunting. After all I had an accumulated 60 plus years of events and people to make writing easy. All I had to do was write about those people and events as they were, though not accurately  remembered in the first draft. Accurate memories came only when I realized that the people written about would actually be reading what I wrote. Now with a mere 8 years accumulation of people and events I wonder if it would be of any value.

I also wonder if I could add anything to the dialogue engaged in by the majority of the transgendered activists and their accomplices in the LGBT (I refuse to use the “Q” since that is a term earlier used to describe gay men) community. I have, since the publication of “Dear Mom and Dad”, written about issues that are near and dear to my heart with respect to the trans community and I have written about issues unrelated to gender identity; faith and politics in particular. My opinions on the latter have met with approval and with disdain. Writing another book is somewhat immaterial it seems. What is material to me is that whatever I do in the future be of consequence. It that includes the inspiration to write another book so-be-it.

My involvement in the lgbT community has left me with a few impressions which have had a lasting effect on my attitudes regarding “activism”. The most significant of those is the impression that the demands of the community to be treated equally are accompanied by demands for laws that in essence require not equal treatment but special treatment. It seems to me that the demand for special treatment trumps the request for equal treatment. It’s an attitude adapted from the racial equality movement which approaches their situation in the same manner. In both cases, it seems to me that the demands are equally exclusionary. Granny would have said something like, “Make up your mind. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” To me, demanding equality is the equivalent of admitting that one does not feel equal or at least doesn’t see one’s self as equal.

I am firmly convinced that what our community needs are more people like Dr. Marci Bowers who has gone about her life without wearing her gender transition status on her sleeve, helping make the lives of innumerable people more enjoyable and complete.

Another person that I see as an example of getting on with life and using her abilities and education without wearing her gender status on her sleeve is Amanda Renae Simpson. While I acknowledge that her liberal political activity was largely influenced by her gender affiliation, I am not by any means going to discount her contribution to our community by using her training, education and experience to move about the halls of government in both Arizona and Washington DC exposing those realms to the notion that gender identity does not exclude one from making a significant contribution to society by productive use of their training and abilities.

These two people are not the only ones in our community who have made the transition and gone on with their lives using the training and abilities they possess for the good of society, but they are 2 that I have a personal connection with and knowledge of. They have made life more livable and enjoyable for the rest of us by virtue of their willingness to take personal risks without making demands on society for special concessions for them; at least none that I’m aware of. That’s what “people” do. They don’t make an issue of their gender; they simply apply their extensive training for the betterment of society.

For myself, I realized long ago that getting on with life without making a stink about my gender identity made life so much easier. I freely admit that I have been extremely fortunate in my physical make-up but I have also made it part of my attitudinal make-up to not expect special treatment. The expectation of special treatment generally leads to disappointments and there are enough of those already. For me, being treated as if there were nothing special about me is the highest compliment I can receive as a transgender person. The only thing I want special recognition for is the application of my skills and training in my field and the application of my talent in my writing.

“Dear Mom and Dad” finally hit the market July of 2012 and my first blog entry was posted by the publisher the same month. Since then I have posted nearly 120 more. Altogether they could equal another book I suppose. But it would be rather disjointed since my subject matter has varied so much. All in all, I will continue writing one way or another. It might be another book …it might be a more blog. It might even be some of what “ended up on the cutting room floor” as the saying goes, in that original draft..

Stay tuned …

I’m Fed Up …

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That’s right! I’m fed up! And I’m sick and tired of cry babies who enjoy thinking they are victims of society. I don’t care what your issue is … quit blaming society, the world around you, for your situation. With the exception of skin color, or birth defect (and I think some people of “color” consider the color of their skin a “birth defect”) it is my firm conviction that whatever your situation, if your actions are traced back to the very source of that situation you will find inevitably that where you are now is the result a decision that you made on your own in the past. That is a hard fact in my own life.

I ‘ll start with gender identity issues.

As you undoubtedly know, I have a gender identity issue. The body I was born with didn’t match the set of emotions I was born with. And, as most of you know already, it took me years to come to grips with why I didn’t feel like I fit in … anywhere.

I eventually began to unravel the various emotional conflicts that had been lurking beneath the surface of my conscious thought processes. I had to deal with the fact that the people in my life who had known nothing but the person of “George” rejected my emergence. They didn’t like who I was. They didn’t like how I looked. In many respects I didn’t like how I looked. I could see “George” through the makeup and the mannerisms.

Through all the processes of learning who and why I was who I was, it never once occurred to me to blame society for my situation … not once. If it came to blame I realized that there was only one entity to blame for my situation. That was God.

Why did He fashion me in a way that confused me and made me a subject for derision and jokes on late night television?

That is an answer I will probably never get in this lifetime. It will be the first question I ask when I at last stand before Him to have my life judged once and for all.

It was up to me to deal with the fact that society had trouble accepting me. The first thing I had to come to grips with, was my own attitude about the way God created me. As I shared in “Dear Mom and Dad”, that solution was to verbally and aloud, say that I would accept His creation as a gift and not a curse. It was undoubtedly the most freeing moment of my life, in more ways than one.

When I eventually became involved in the gender community, the very first thing I realized was that a substantial portion of the gender variant people are an unhappy lot. They seldom smile. They walk around with a chip on their shoulder just begging someone to try to knock it off. Why would anyone want to live their life that way?

I know it’s a simple answer but it is answer that I have found no way to refute. They appear to enjoy being victims of their circumstance. And as such they are required to don a certain persona. That persona is crowned by a furtive frown. It’s as if they walk around looking for rejection and take solace in finding exactly what they are looking for. The problem is that it’s not because of their gender appearance; they exude a fear of what people think about them.

When I finally accepted the way I was, the way God made me, I was free to be happy and when I was happy I smiled. Have you ever noticed that people who smile are practically never ridiculed or scorned? People who are smile and laugh draw people to them … regardless of their gender identity and they seldom suffer discrimination.

And that brings me to the issue of racial discrimination.

I personally have never, ever in my life discriminated against any human being because of the color of their skin … and I know very few people who do

Victimhood is a pernicious disease that I simply have little patience for.  If a person feels that the color of their skin is a reason for being “victimized” then blame God. After all He is the one that made you that way.  I have never in my life been the least bit racially intolerant. When I see a bunch of overpaid ungrateful athletes disrespect our country, and those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, by refusing to stand and place their hand over their hearts at a football game it makes me angry.

I think they should all be required to visit central Africa to see first-hand how the majority of “people of color” live in this world.

Get over it. If your skin is black, or some mixture of same, quit feeling sorry for yourself. Knock the black chip off your shoulder and face the fact that everyone faces some sort of discrimination in their lives.  Accept the fact that it was God who made you that way. Society did not make you that way for the sole purpose of discriminating against you.

I don’t discriminate against you because of the color of your skin. I discriminate against you because you choose to be a victim, just as I discriminate against any person fortunate enough to live in this country and chooses the role of victim.

Victimhood is a handy excuse for failing do whatever is required to live up to one’s potential.

Short of being the victim of a real crime, like robbery, assault or murder, no one in this county has a right to the claim of “victim”. (Well, maybe the good people who paid good money to see a sporting event and have to observe the crybaby athletes’ refusal to honor the country, have a right to the claim of “victim.”) In their number I doubt you will find any who have ever served their county, with the exception of the one real hero, Alejandro Villanueva of the Pittsburg Steelers.

In closing I will say it one more time … I don’t care if your issue is gender identity, sexual orientation or race … get over it and smile and thank whoever you thank, because you live the greatest country, with the greatest level of acceptance and opportunity to ever exist on this earth.

Transgendered and Military Service … Apples and Oranges?

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When it comes to the issue of transgendered individuals serving in the military there appears to be a serious abundance of ignorance to go around … on both sides. And it all stems from the simple truth that both sides of the argument are clouded by a lot of emotion.

Let’s look at it from the military point of view.

I can do that with a certain amount of experience. I am surrounded by former military; The Blue Magnet is former Air Force; Her oldest son is former Marine corps; Her youngest son and his wife are former Army. One of her brothers is former Army and one is former Airforce.

My youngest son is military through and through. A West Point graduate, he was a Ranger Lieutenant in the Balkans and Captain in Special Operations in Iraq. He is honest with me when he says that he frankly doesn’t understand the set of emotions that have driven me most of my life. And, why should he? His emotional make up matches his physical body. It took me years to understand why normal people didn’t accept that my gender identity didn’t match my body. Understanding why another person isn’t like you is fairly easy when it involves just about anything but gender identity. And therein lies the problem.

The military for all the grand notions we have of bravery and honor has just one function … kill or be killed in defense of that which you hold dear. It’s the “be killed” part that drives the decisions of most military members. The driving mindset in our military is defend by conquest. In the minds of most military personel that leaves no room for experimentation with the way emotions affect the outcome of armed conflict.

I ask you, the reader, if you were facing a real live enemy bent on killing you without a trace of mercy in their eyes, wouldn’t you want the person next to you, backing you up, to have a set of emotions that matched the male gender identity 100%? I would. Pay close attention to the word gender and its meaning. I didn’t say sex. Sex is a physical issue that determines whether you can carry a child and give birth and physically nurture that child or plant the seed that creates the child. Gender identity is who a person senses themselves to be emotionally. Sadly, it has become synonymous with the term sex.

So, in an effort to get the proper perspective I posed the question of transgendered military service to my “family”. The Blue Magnet and my youngest son feel that as long as a person, any person, can meet the standards set for men to meet then they should be allowed to serve. I tend to agree.

The Blue Magnet’s youngest son, a friend who was also former army and was there at the time, as well as her daughter in law, feel that there is no place in the military at all for transgendered individuals and even extended that to the gay and lesbian community as well.

The greatest hurdle the trans community has to clear on a daily basis is “other acceptance”. In other words, acceptance by the other people, the normal people that they come in contact with every day, and that includes family members as often as not. That is a hurdle that exists everywhere but without personally experiencing it, I can assume that the highest hurdle is the one posed by the requirements of military service. However, even if that hurdle did not exist there is one that I don’t think the trans community realistically addresses. It’s this; just as in the “normal” world there is a difference between male and female only in this case it’s a difference in MtF (male to female) and FtM (female to male). Those differences are markedly different.

For instance, I know FtMs who are as physically fit as any ideal male military specimen. The male hormones they take make that physical transition very possible. On the other hand, and in this I speak from personal experience, MtFs tend to lose muscle mass and their features become very feminine in time. I’m not suited for military service and never would have been if I had transitioned at an age suited for military service.

The argument for trans inclusion in the military is based in notion that we shouldn’t be excluded just because our gender identity doesn’t match our bodies; we should have the same opportunities to serve as normal people. My question, and the question many others ask is, where does that stop? Where is the dividing line? Do we then let paraplegics join the military and serve in combat units? That is not a stupid question? It’s a question meant to highlight the fact that a line has to be drawn somewhere.

When I began this piece, I was of the opinion shared by my son and The Blue Magnet; “If they can meet the same standards that are required of normal everyday men then they should be allowed to serve.” However, that was before I ran into the vehement opposition of other family members as well as some other former military acquaintances. The opinion that I hold now is somewhat modified by some thought projection.

Let’s face it, it takes a certain unique mindset to place yourself in a position of possibly having to lay your life on the line for your country. Part of that mindset is a love of the regimented lifestyle. But a big part, possibly the biggest part, of what drives the military mind is the rush of encountering and overcoming impending danger and we should all be thankful that there are those people to whom that way of life appeals.  They are the ones that give us the freedom to voice our opinions, express what we think in spite of what others may think.

To sum it all up, I don’t particularly like the fact that I was born with a gender identity that doesn’t match my body because it has made some big parts of my life far more difficult that they would have been otherwise. But, facts are facts. I am who and what I am. Society doesn’t owe me a damn thing. Society doesn’t owe the transgendered world, of which I am a part a damn thing. Quite the opposite. As members of society it is we who owe a debt. We owe a debt of gratitude for being able to live our lives as we see fit in almost every part of society. The chip, that many of us carry around on our shoulders, just daring someone to knock it off, makes us targets for society not part of it.

That society is protected by our military and if our military feels that it can better protect us when it doesn’t have to serve as a petri dish for social experimentation then it should definitely not serve as a petri dish for social experimentation. I believe that those who have been serving should be allowed to serve out their current commitments, and to re-commit as long as their gender identity issues do not interfere with the mission. But, to open up the military to further experimentation will only lead to degradation of the military. It’s a tough line to draw but it’s a necessary line in my view.

Our community needs to learn that if we are to ever become acceptable to our society as a whole, and treated as normal people, then we have to act like normal people and not make every single issue one that demands special treatment. Normal people don’t get special treatment. Normal soldiers, sailors and airmen don’t get special treatment.

The 4th of July and what it means to me

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Yes, it’s the 4th! The 4th of July! July 4th! July the 4th! Independence Day! For me it’s a day filled with memories and meanings. Great events have unfolded for me on July 4th. My most joyous and happiest 4th was the 4th of July 1952. I wrote about it in “Dear Mom and Dad.” That was the day that my old gray mare Ginger, presented me with a colt which I subsequently named Skyrocket. I think that from that day on I always expected great things to occur on July 4th. There were times when that did indeed happen.

In the early ‘50s do-gooders hadn’t yet stolen much of the excitement of American childhood by banning the stuff of a real 4th of July like real firecrackers, M-80’s, bottle rockets and the like. Of course that was supposed to protect the children, right? No, that was to absolve inattentive parents from the exercise of prudent judgement. But before that came to pass, there were battles along the shores of Kiddy Lake which involved small battlements of dirt and sand on which bottle necked bear cans were propped up. Then with the added assistance of small rocks and firecrackers those beer cans were converted to cannons. The battles would rage on for a couple of hours a day until that year’s supply of firecrackers was spent. From there we would move on to the latest model of sling shots or pea shooters.

The second greatest 4th of July event would of course happen 12 years later when I stopped for a midnight hamburger at the “Frostop” drive-in where I met the woman who would become the mother of my first 2 children. Although that memory does recall moments of joy it also recalls moments of hurt, betrayal and sadness.

Sadly, though the memories of 4ths of years past remain in vivid recall details, the meaning seems to have faded; not for me but for entirely too many of my fellow citizens. Without fail, there will be people like Jesse Watters of FOX news, interviewing what I can only classify as moronic products of an education system which has degenerated into a politically correct, though historically and educationally impotent production line which is aimed at determining time spent at a given level of education rather than lessons learned at a given level of education.

The question you might well be asking yourself is, why am I talking politics and education instead of gender identity issues? That’s a fair and reasonable question, especially on the subject of the 4th of July. I must admit that I think that answer should be fairly obvious. The independence declared on this date two hundred-forty years ago was a declaration of belief in the right of self-determination. Nowhere is the right of God given self-determination more infringed upon than the right of people like me, to determine to live lives that are congruent with our emotional and mental makeup as opposed to a life that is congruent with society’s norms based on the combination of 2 chromosomes.

Those 2 chromosomes are necessary for one simple reason … procreation. That’s it. They are not a determining factor in political outlook, who you love, where you live and who you associate with … and at the time the founding fathers stepped up to the plate and signed, what in many cases was the equivalent of their own death warrants, no one even knew how our anatomies would be determined. Furthermore, I don’t think they even cared. They simply wanted the freedom to determine the course of their own lives and the course of the lives of generations to follow.

The next question that’s asked of me is why would I choose to align myself with a political opinion which, on the surface is the very antithesis of the decision I’ve made about how to live my life? Another good question. The answer is just as good.

I’m not aligning myself with personalities. I’m aligning myself with a set of principles. It’s personalities not principles which condemn my choices. The principles of self-determination and personal freedom don’t give a damn what’s under my skirt. The principles of self-determination and freedom dictate that I make a careful examination of who in the government, established as a result of the declaration of July 4th, 1776 is going to best defend my right to self-determination and freedom.

It’s been my experience that while a certain segment of our political spectrum relies on a few biblical verses to restrict my freedoms, the other end of that spectrum demands laws which purport to defending me, i.e. hate crimes bills which are totally unnecessary if existing laws would just be enforced. In general, with each and every law passed another of the freedoms envisioned by the founding fathers all those years ago is eroded just a little bit further. And with each of those laws passed under the guise of helping the less fortunate, the people who are willing to work to achieve the results alluded to in “the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”, another chunk of our freedoms is taken away.

For me … what I fear is that the same freedom eroding efforts of the people we elect to protect those freedoms; those efforts will eventually be turned against my community when our votes are no longer needed. Those same people who seem to not care what goes on in my bedroom want total control over everything that goes on in my life the minute I step out of my bedroom to, oh say to buy firecrackers, bottle rockets and M-80s. That is not what our founding fathers had in mind … at all.

What the 4th of July has come to represent for me is a time to re-commit to the principles which allow me the freedom to be … me.

The Counterfeit Coins of Politics

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As much as I would love to have something else on my mind of late, it’s just been damned hard to avoid political opinion. I would love to say political discussions but what’s been going on for the last few months bears little resemblance to the definition of discussion or discourse. It has been nothing like the dictionary definition of those two words. Quite the contrary.

The term “freedom of speech” has become the target of a vicious and narrow minded segment of our society. That segment, however small, is of the mindset that it’s only their speech and actions that are protected by the first amendment to our constitution. Anyone who disagrees with them seems to have somehow forfeited their right to speak their minds and share their thoughts and philosophies. That notion has become so ingrained, that even otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people are mysteriously tolerant of the violence and viciousness.

I’ve seen viciousness in my life and I’ve even been the target of it. I accept that, like evil, viciousness will always exist in any population. The key question is this: Why has it become so acceptable to such a large portion of the population? Narrowmindedness used to be used to describe politically conservativeness. To my way of thinking the term can and should be applied to anyone who refuses to consider any point of view other than their own. People who, for instance, used to refuse to consider the compelling nature of sexual orientation apart from the societal norm of heterosexuality, were considered narrow minded … and they were.

The question then arises, aren’t those violent persons who attack anyone with a conservative political point of view in an effort to silence them, also refusing to consider any other point of view other than their own? Narrow minded? Absolutely!

Consider this also; There have been instances where members of the LGBT community have been physically assaulted and even murdered, but let’s get real here; they have generally been cases of a small handful of hateful bigoted individuals targeting a single individual. But, not since the 1960s has there been such hateful action taken by so many people against so many people. The difference here, of course is that the shoe is on the other foot … the so-called open minded peacenics of the past have now morphed into a violent hate filled mob … and people like our past president Obama have stood silently by. When they did speak to the issue it has always apologetically and in a voice so soft that it couldn’t be heard. That failure to speak out against the violence with the same vigor as that directed at conservatives is, in itself, a tacit approval of the violence.

In a couple of past posts I have highlighted my reasons for why I think it’s a monumental mistake for the LGBT community to blindly follow the democrat party line. (July 11, 2016 “Dirty Diapers … Oh poor me. Ain’t it awful.”) and (July 16, 2016 “I agree … To disagree!”) In addition I posted video on YouTube titled This Tranny’s for Trump” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVfFPqVrGgA) Text for that post is at this web site dated October 7, 2016.

My sentiments and reasons are given further credence by the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, Gregory T Angelo in an April 4, Los Angeles Times op-ed piece titled “Without Republican Support, much of the recent progress on LGBTQ rights would have been impossible.” (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-lgbt-republicans-support-20170405-story.html) In that article Angelo makes the important point that when the democrat party held the White House and both houses of congress they did practically nothing to advance or support the LGBTQ cause.

Another point to be made is this: Historically the democrat party has been the party of segregation and restricted rights for the African American community. If it hadn’t been for the Republican party, the civil rights movement and subsequent “Civil Rights Acts” would have never passed due the number of democrats who voted against it. Here’s the breakdown for the 1964 Civil Rights Act: only 63% of democrats in the house and 65% of democrats in the senate voted for the act. Compare that to 80% of Republicans in the house and 83% of Republicans in the Senate who voted for the act. The Civil Rights Act of 1965 was pretty much the same break down for Republicans but the democrat party still wasn’t along for the ride. Only 61% of house democrats voted for it and barely two thirds of the democrat senators voted for it.  A truly sad statement of fact if you ask me.

I think a comparison to the fictional “Highlander” films where in sword wielding Scots from the past magically exist in the present, is a quite appropriate comparison to the democrat party of today. Has much changed for the majority of the black community in the last 50 years? No. Why not? Because the party that has been in the majority for most of that time has put in place programs designed to “feed them a fish each day instead of really teaching them to fish for themselves.” That has guaranteed the democrats votes in perpetuity.

The willing accomplices in the press have played along, billing the Republicans as the villains who want to keep them in chains. Former Vice President Joe Biden stated that specifically in a campaign speech a few years ago. The same could be said for the democrat party attitude toward the LGBTQ community … just give us enough support to keep our community voting for them but never really doing anything concrete.

The bottom line for me is this … The democrats play directly to emotions. It’s their coin in trade. Republicans play to practicality and common sense. I will take that coin to the bank any day thank you.