So How Did We Get Here?

So, how did we get here? How did we get from the nation that I grew up in, a nation full of promise, a nation capable of landing a man on the moon, a nation that looked at its faults with an eye toward actually correcting the faults and not perpetuating the faults? How did we get from a nation of hopeful high school and college graduates whose worst crime might have been hanging a disagreeable professor in effigy instead of reality, from a tree in the center of the campus? How did we get from there to a nation where students march in masse protesting something, they have no actual knowledge of, while cheering the burning of our flag and destruction of the dreams of small business owners in the name of racial justice?

On the flip side, how did we go from nation of law-abiding citizens who identify themselves as conservatives; from a nation of people who accepted the outcome of an election regardless of who won because we trusted the system that counted the votes to do it honestly and let the chips fall where they may. How did we get from no need for conservative voters to gather in-masse, to support a president who, in spite of all the good he did, was not re-elected under a cloud of suspected corruption of officials in 5 states?

We didn’t get here overnight. We didn’t get here in a year. We didn’t even get here in a decade. We got here after years of careful and deliberate efforts of groups who had a fear of individual accomplishment. People who achieve through individual effort are feared by others who only find comfort in group think and group function.

When I was on the high school debate team one of the questions was “Should the federal government aid in funding public education?” (I paraphrase that question). One of the primary arguments on the negative side of that question was that local education systems would become too dependent on that source of funding and the result would then be encroaching federal control of the school curriculum. In other words, if you’re going to accept our money then you must accept our directions on what to teach and what not to teach. What was never expected was how non-government entities would eventually have far more influence than state and national government edicts.

It wasn’t the fault of politicians in spite of what we have come to think of them. It was the realization by non-governmental entities that what they had in their possession was something far, far more powerful than any government. Think about it … Who were the majority of those marching in support of Black Lives Matter and the call to defund the police? They were students. Black, white, brown; the color didn’t really matter. They had been conditioned by 12 to 20 years of sitting in front of “educators”; a group that had under their influence, as Rush Limbaugh would say, “young skulls full of mush” for a minimum of four to six hours a day. How many hours a day does the average parent spend on the mental development of their children? One? Two, maybe?

So, what kind of ideas are being stressed during those four to six hours a day? Well, as I noted in my last blog, 96.1% of the political donations made by the NEA in the last fifteen years have gone to democrat candidates. What kind of world to democrats want for our children? The last ten days should be your answer. They want to squelch any form of dissent to their ideas and their ideas are based on their belief that the average person is not capable of making rational decisions about their own lives. In addition, to that arrogant opinion of the average person’s intelligence is the belief that anything, and I do mean anything, they have to do to gain and hold that control is justifiable as evidenced by the obvious irregularities in the election results in five states during the last election. They have no moral compass whatsoever.

If you want to know then, how we ended up with such corrupt victors in our last election, look not to the politicians, look to how the people who elected them and the people who got them elected arrived at their justifications for their behavior. Those were arrived at through years of being under the influence of educators who themselves spent years under the influence of those who went before them.

I ask myself how did two educated conservatives such as my parents raise two broad minded conservatives, my brother and me, and then a decade and a half later a relatively narrow minded extreme liberal like our sister? It was a matter of how we were educated, when and where. Our parents didn’t change, the education systems changed.

I said in my last blog that if we are to effect lasting change in our country it has to start in our schools by getting involved with the local school board and administration. Weed out anyone who believes that their job is to shape minds. It isn’t; it’s to teach the basics not the morals of the teachers. It’s the parents’ job to shape the minds of their children.

Security vs Freedom

I recently referred to our not-over-yet election period as the silly season. It wasn’t silly at all. It was tragic. As a person with a gender identity at odds with much of society I am supposed to be a liberal democrat and I am supposed to stick to gender identity issues. I’m sorry but that’s just not me.

I have been berated and chastised by many in that group referred to as LGBT, and whatever other capitalized letter of the alphabet that people choose t0 attach to their personal identity. I suppose that would be appropriate if I chose to make my gender identity the major issue of my life, my interests and the north pole of my political beliefs. But I don’t. I am a human being first, a Christian second and a conservative third.

Regardless of whatever point in my life I have found myself at, I have always had very specific beliefs and understanding of what makes a society great or not so great. President Lyndon Johnson ushered in what was referred to as “The Great Society”. A society that was supposed to cure all the ills of our republic; eliminate poverty, equalize outcome regardless of effort or ability. In case you haven’t noticed, all the things that “The Great Society” was supposed to cure, have for the most part remained. Why, you ask, is that the reality of our nation?

The reality is, that whether or not the intention behind that effort was to actually improve lives it actually perpetuated the very ills that it purported to eliminate. So, how did that happen?

I am not an expert on the subject, but I am a keen observer. Part of what was included in the Great Society was a program championed by Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird. It was called “Headstart” and to my knowledge it persists today. The idea was to help the less fortunate children get a leg up on the rest of the education that lay ahead of them in the normal public education system. I can’t give you any statistics that support my theory, but from the current condition of the communities it was intended to help I would venture a guess that it has been a near total failure. Before you jump to point out some successes of the program, accept my acknowledgement there have certainly been some successes, albeit few and far between. Otherwise, the overall success would be shouted from the roof tops of Washington.

If one could point to any success in that program it would be the success of beginning the conditioning of young minds to accept whatever ideology was headed their way once they entered the remainder of their educational process. That primary ideology is what is on full display in the Democrat Party and the people who adhere to the principle that government is more suited to making decisions about the lives of the people it claims to care so much for.

The continuation of shaping the minds of the youth of this country is the sole aim of the National Education Association. And their goal is not the goal of teaching our youth to think for themselves. If it were, their contributions to political candidates would be evenly split, which they are not.

In the last twenty years, the NEA has donated in excess of $153,000,000 to political causes and candidates. Of the at amount 96.1% has gone to Democrat candidates and causes. A mere 3.9% has gone to Republican candidates and causes. Is it any wonder, then, that the vast majority of the marchers in last spring and summer’s demonstrations were, from casual observation, under the age of 30? Is it any wonder why the politicians from Democrat cities and states feel justified in enacting ordinances limiting the activities of the people they are supposed to present, but feeling above adherence to those same edicts?

Our education system, with the support of Democrat politicians, I believe, has intentionally dumbed down the last two generations in preparation for what our country is now facing in Georgia. The last two generations of voters don’t have a clue what Obama meant by “It’s time for a change”. I don’t have to be a mind reader to realize that what he meant was that it was time to change from a nation of self-sufficient freedom to a nation of people who want to live with their hands in the pockets of others.

There is no moral compass left in the hearts of Democrat leaders. The country I grew up in is no longer a place of opportunity for all. It’s become a place of equal outcome for all regardless of contribution or effort. The mere fact that Democrats, liberals and progressives are so close to destroying what so many have died for in the last two hundred forty-four years means that all of those lives will have been in vain. The country they sacrificed for will cease to exist. It is a hopeless feeling for those of us who love our heritage.

If there is any hope at this point it is that ordinary people who have a moral compass get involved, beginning with the school board, local city elections, county elections, state elections and finally national elections. We didn’t get here in one generation and we certainly won’t get back to our roots in one generation, but we have to start somewhere.

And when your children come home with some stupid pronunciation that socialism is better than capitalism do what my mother did when I came home with the stupid notion that communism was good for some countries, a statement from my history teacher. She set me straight immediately. We need more parents like her.

Frustration is turning to Anger

My frustration is turning to anger. Maybe the final straw was seeing a mob; that’s the only word for it; pulling down a statue of Francis Scott Key in San Francisco. So what if he was a slave owner. If what I recall of my education is correct; and I’m pretty damn sure it’s because the NEA hadn’t corrupted the system yet; most of the signers of the declaration of independence were slave owners. My guess is that there wasn’t a single one of those fools involved in the destruction of that statue that’s had any seriously accurate education in our history.

It’s highly unlikely that any of the people who did own slaves were the ones to go to Africa and kidnap the people they “owned”. The slave traffickers in many cases weren’t even the ones to kidnap the people they trafficked in. In most cases the unfortunate people to be sold into slavery were captured and sold by other black tribesmen or Arab Muslim slavers.

But all that knowledge is secondary to the root cause of all the turmoil in our country. That root cause is total and complete lack of basic education and sense of responsibility for one’s own actions. Parents are turning the education and upbringing of their children over to the state. And the cities and states that are the most affected with the problem are those run by liberal politicians like Bill DeBlasio of New York City.

I know that conservative news and commentary outlets see this, but why don’t people on the left at least give lip service to the issue? Can it be possible that they really don’t want to see it because it’s such a glaring example of what liberal progressivism does to the soul of the communities it has taken root in? I tend to think that is the case.

Everything Marxism and Maoism teach is on full display with each and every march and riot that’s occurring on a daily basis. Has our education system become so badly directed that the average person is totally convinced that they owe nothing to the society they live in and that the government is there to provide them with not only the necessities of life but all the goodies that come from a free enterprise form of economy?

So yes, I am angry that people I know, people I care about and people I love are so totally ingrained with an attitude of hatred toward everything that has made this country the one place on the face of the earth where everyone wants to live.

I’m angry that everything about this country that I love and hold dear has become a target of hatred and a form of reverse prejudice.

I’m angry that the press in general, the liberal politicians, the entrenched bureaucracy in Washington, the public education system have all been co-opted by the notion that only a relatively few elites have the vision and correct idea of what is right and what is wrong.

I’m angry that those same people who have made common sense a thing to be laughed at and belittled, are the ones making decisions that affect my life and the pursuit of happiness embodied in our declaration of independence.

And I’m angry that those people who are supposed to be the defenders of free speech; the educators, the liberal politicians and most of all the press, think that I am ignorant because I am a Christian, a politically conservative Christian, a politically conservative Christian trans-sexual; that since I’m all these things, I can’t have an opinion worth voicing.

I could go on indefinitely about what started out as frustration and has now become anger and how that anger makes me want to lash out, but I don’t believe that’s productive, so I won’t.

If you’ve read this far, I think you get my point. I’m angry.

6/20/2010

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 …

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.

I agree … to disagree!

Sometimes I just don’t know what to say or where to start when I do figure out what to say. So I think that I will, in football lingo, just backup ten yards and punt.

I have been silent the last two weeks because I have been preoccupied with politics and the machinations of our political parties. I never cease to be amazed by the stark differences and how they can be construed as being so similar. This past week and a half has brought home to me what Mom said to me when I asked her what the difference was between Republicans and Democrats. I’ve shared this statement recently, but I will share it again here for purposes of clarifying what I’m about to say.

Mom said, “Republicans believe that the individual is better suited to make decisions about their own lives than government and Democrats believe that government is better able to make those decisions for us.”

In the intervening years I have seen nothing to change that understanding, aside from the fact that at times, some Republicans tend to behave and vote more as if they are smarter and more capable of making decisions that affect my life than I am.

Cases in point: The last Republican president that I felt had a genuine concern for my self-determination was Ronald Reagan. When it came to George H. W. Bush, a.k.a “Bush 41”, while I thought he was a decent man with the courage to confront Saddam Hussein he lacked the courage and conviction to confront the enemy at home. I read his lips as well as his subsequent excuse for backing down from confrontation with Democrats over taxes.

In subsequent elections I voted for what I considered the lesser of two evils when I voted first for Bob Dole, then George W Bush, although I felt after the fact that he did turn out to be the right man for the time … internationally speaking, though not domestically.

I held my nose when I drew the line on my ballot indicating my choice of John McCain and then overcame a case of the vapors in order to do the same for Mitt Romney. In each case I clearly understood that the “establishment” was not adhering to Mom’s definition of a Republican. But, I also clearly understood that the ideology of the democrat party was not even close to my belief in my own right to self-determination. And that brings me to our current national dilemma and its relation to my personal identity.

In a recent blog post I share the reaction of a woman I met recently when I told her I was a Republican. She was aghast because in her experience the Republican party had shunned people like me, and to a degree she was right. But … she was right only in the sense that certain individuals within the party were extreme in their “hyper-conservative Christianity.”

In the years since I became involved in the community of people who, when lumped together are known as “LGBT – Q,” I have come to the conclusion that a majority of the misunderstandings the rest of our society have of us is due to the fact that, for the most part, the “community” does not make much of an effort to blend. Instead they tend to pursue a policy of separate but equal with special consideration for their personal identity. They make their sexual and/or gender identity the primary identity ahead of their humanity.

My gender identity has absolutely no more to do with my politics than the color of my eyes. Right is right and wrong is wrong, or in this case, the Right is correct and the Left is wrong … at least for me.

I am simply not willing to surrender any more of my freedoms for the lip service support of the Democrat party and its leadership.

I am simply not willing to overlook the dishonesty and corruption at the head of that column for the sake of using the bathroom of my choice.

I am simply not willing to overlook the fact that if all the promises made by Hillary and Bernie were kept that our nation would be bankrupt before the next election.

I am simply not willing to overlook the fact that well-meaning people whom I love have failed to live up to their personal promises, such as “When I have the right to marry the person I love, then I will come to your side of the aisle.”

I am simply not willing to abandon my principles for the sake of a free lunch. I choose to work for a living and buy my own lunch, thank you.

When I state that I can find no Christian ethic in the progressive/liberal policies of today’s Democrat party the usual response is this. “Jesus told the wealthy to go and sell their possessions and give the proceeds to the poor.” That’s what the Democrats are trying to convince us that they are accomplishing by wanting laws that take money from the wealthy and dole it out to the poor.

That is not what Jesus meant at all. He didn’t demand that emperors and kings take money from the selfish wealthy and dole it out. He intended it to be a voluntary effort to show their “Christianity,” for lack of a better term in this discussion. I doubt that if Christ were alive today he would approve of society absolving people of personal responsibility to those less fortunate by voting for those who would “rob the rich and give to the poor.” Where is the virtue in that? There is none is there? It’s a simple fact that the more money confiscated by the IRS the less is collected in the plate on Sunday mornings, and that is where Christian charity lies.

If you are shocked by my political philosophy because my gender identity seems to dictate that I support a progressive/liberal/socialistic agenda consider this: in my experience, any attempt to share my political views, and reasons for those views, with members of the aforementioned group, generally leads to one of two responses. I’m either flatly informed that the person isn’t interested in my views or, “We’ll just have to agree to disagree.” That last statement would be reasonable enough if it followed an intelligent two-way give and take conversation … but it never does. It’s always a way to avoid reasonable discussion.

I have found it far easier to have a reasoned discussion about gender identity with a hyper-conservative Christian than I can a reasoned discussion about politics with a progressive/liberal/socialistic democrat. So with that said I will involve myself in activities of groups like the Log Cabin Republicans, the Tea Party and with the majority of conservatives who I have found to be willing to accept me for who I am rather than what I am.

Dirty Diapers? … “Oh Poor Me. Ain’t it Awful!”

Okay so I’ve been thinking it over, you know all the things that have been going on in the last few days, and even though I’m still upset I think it’s time for me to state my case. But, let me review couple of things first. In my early childhood in Oklahoma, there was no such thing as integration; equal rights, integrated schools, and integrated neighborhoods. The schools I attended through the fourth grade were strictly segregated. From a child’s perspective that’s just the way things were …That’s the way things were always going to be.

I don’t recall thinking that anything was wrong with it any more than I thought anything strange about where different people went to church on Sunday. That’s just the way American society was … That is until “American Society” began to change to “The Great Society” as a result of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which by the way, would have never passed without a lot of Republican support since a lot of Democrats were dead set against it..

Up until that point in time, two parent homes were the norm. Divorce, though it happened wasn’t a common occurrence and to tell you the truth, I have no memory of any child I knew living in a single-parent home. Off hand, I don’t know the exact percentage of marriages which ended in divorce in what we call today, white households. There were very few families I knew in which the parents were in their second marriage.

The limited exposure that I had to black families, the story was pretty much the same. On one of the broadcasts of the recent week I heard one statistic quoted that said at about that same time 70% of black households were two-parent households. So what happened?

Today, fewer than 50% of marriages in general avoid divorce. The statistic quoted on black households does not address divorce. It simply states that fewer than 25% of those households are two-parent households. Again I ask so what happened?

I can tell you what I think happened, and it all started with the Great Society. The Great Society ushered in an era of over tolerance. In other words, while the Great Society did make society aware of past intolerances that were unacceptable, it opened the door to what my grandmother and mother would call “Oh poor me. Ain’t it awful!” That was her way of pointing out to us that we were feeling sorry for ourselves and not accepting responsibility for our own actions and situations.

What the great Society did was to institutionalize and legitimize “Oh poor me, ain’t it awful!” In other words, it became legitimate to feel sorry for yourself and not accept responsibility for your own situation. This was followed by a certain segment of our political society; liberal senators and congressmen specifically, and gutless Republicans in name only, (Rino Republicans), guaranteeing their own reelections with Great Society handouts.

So what we have now is a whole segment of our society that believes they are not responsible for their own situations. They are being told by the media and liberal politicians that it’s not their fault; that it’s society’s fault for not nursing them properly. To be blunt about it we have a whole segment of our society which is still in emotional diapers and they are waiting for the rest of us to change their dirty diapers.

And that brings me to the events of this past week. While I do believe that there are a small number of good honest people involved in the black lives matter movement, I am convinced that the vast majority of them are waiting for someone to change their dirty diapers. They accept no responsibility whatsoever for their situation. To make it even worse the liberal progressives in our country pander to them by telling them it’s not their fault, that the Republicans are supposed to be changing their diapers for them.

Something I learned from the late Dr. Wayne Dyer years ago, was that what ever situation I found myself in at any given point in time was that if I tracked my own actions back far enough I would eventually come to a situation where by my own free will action I was led to the current situation. In other words, whatever situation I find myself in I am ultimately the one responsible for being there and no one else.

While those same politicians, pundits, civil rights advocates are not specifically responsible for the deaths of the five policemen in Dallas they most certainly set the stage for it. How is that you say? When people feel absolutely no responsibility for their own actions they become terribly suggestible and prone to doing whatever their particular segment in society encourages them to do. The vast majority of our news media are the ones who are doing the encouraging by broadcasting every stupid and violent act committed in the name of civil rights while airing more “Oh poor me. Ain’t it awful!” interviews with protesters.

What it’s come down to is this; the lie begun in Ferguson, Missouri that a man was holding his hands up and pleading “Don’t Shoot!” has been perpetuated as a truth by both the media and liberal politicians alike, irrespective of the irrefutable evidence to the contrary. That lie has spawned the notion that black lives matter more so than other lives.

So now we have hundreds of angry people parading up and down streets demanding that their dirty diapers be changed. And five policemen who were out there protecting all those dirty diaper people are dead. And they are dead because the liberal press and liberal politicians have refused to condemn the people who won’t change their own dirty diapers.

In closing, I only ask the following question of the protesters, who in my opinion are indirectly responsible for the death of those policemen, because after all if you hadn’t been out there marching those men would still be alive and with their families today; is it really equality you want or payback? If it’s payback you want, exactly what coin do you want that payback in? If it’s equality you want why don’t you act like you deserve it? Maybe you would feel that you have achieved that equality if the 136 black people killed by police in recent history, compared to the 275 white people killed by police in the same time period, had been killed by black police officers. Which is it?

So back to my original point referring to the number of households with two parents back then, compared to the number of homes with single parents now. Just a question and a thought; what percentage of those people out there marching the other night do you think came from two-parent households that taught personal responsibility? It’s not such a great Society anymore is it? Don’t cry on my shoulder until you’ve walked a few miles in my high heels.

I’m done.

The 4th of July … What it means to me!

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.

And, In other news …

And in other news … ? What other news? There really isn’t any other news today that doesn’t somehow relate to politics. It doesn’t seem to matter what you’re most interested in, it will somehow manage to find its way to a matter of politics. This presidential election year has become so contentious and so polarizing that everything has become an issue for the media to relate to politics. No matter what the issue is, it’s now a political issue. So far I’m amazed that the story of the three-year-old who fell into the gorilla habitat in a zoo, leading ultimately to the death of the gorilla, hasn’t been blamed on a politician or a political party. On the other hand, maybe it has and I just haven’t paid enough attention.

Politics even came up in the discussion I related in my last blog post with the author from Italy. I can’t even remember how it happened. I just know that she was appalled by the fact that I am a political conservative; a very politically conservative person. I have written on other occasions about why I am conservative but since I have attracted a new audience I’m going to explain it again … since it’s the only thing in the news and the only thing referenced in popular culture or social events these days.

To begin with, I am not necessarily a fan of Mr. Trump. He’s not conservative enough for my taste. To say that I’m conservative in LGBT circles can tend to attract a certain number of sneers and exclamations of disbelief. That’s okay because I really don’t much care if people disagree me, but I do care if they attempt to force their beliefs on me. It’s my experience that the practice of attempting to force beliefs on others, while certainly not limited to liberal progressives, is however far more common on that side of the political spectrum. And I’m asked … “How can you say that? Look at the North Carolina Bathroom Law.” Okay, let’s look at the law, but let’s look at what generated the law in the first place.

President Obama, by imperial decree decided that anyone and everyone should be able to use whatever bathroom they chose depending on their present and/or momentary gender identity. I’ve not had time, nor do I intend to take the time, to research his reasons for choosing this place in time to issue such a blatantly political decree. I really don’t care what his reason was, because whatever it was, it was just plain wrong. It is one of the big reasons that I think the “T” in LGB”T” and whatever other letters are tacked on, the “T” should extricate itself from that alphabet soup of identity.

LG and B are a matter of who you are attracted to sexually. T is not a matter of who you sleep with but rather a matter of who you sleep as.

In the last episode of “I am Cait” the collection of “tranies” that have attached their collective wagons to Caitlyn Jenner were all over her because she is, at least up to present, a Republican. Good for her. What the people around her don’t get is this. They have isolated themselves to the whole of our society. They take the minority of conservatism, and I do mean minority in every sense of the word, who are the hyper-conservative Christians and make them out to be, not just the majority of the conservative moment, but the totality of it. And it’s not. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s been my experience that I can sit down and have a reasoned and intelligent conversation about my lifestyle with any conservative. They will listen and if they don’t understand, or even if they think I’m wrong in the way I’m making my way in the world, they will calmly and without rancor tell me how they feel and why. They may tell you that they know you are wrong and may well go to hell but … they will never, not in a million years tell you, with vitriolic rancor, that they hate you or attempt to physically harm you.

Frankly, with few exceptions, I’ve never been able to conduct a reasonable conversation about politics with a liberal progressive. I know that on occasion there have been some rude inappropriate actions on the part of some conservatives but I have never known of or seen a group of conservatives storm a gathering of liberal progressives in an attempt to silence their voices. Why is that? It’s a matter of respect for others and rights and freedom of others to express their opinions. Liberal progressives have no, absolutely no respect for the rights of anyone disagreeing with them.

President Obama’s decree has done more to harm the cause of equality and acceptance for the trans community than any recent action by any person in public life. If anything it has set our cause back years, even decades. While there are some activists in our community who make their mark by attempting to force acceptance on society, the vast majority of us in the trans/gender identity world, simply want to live our lives as who we are just like “normal” people want to live their lives without reference to what their chromosomal makeup is.

I said in the beginning of this piece that I didn’t care what Obama’s reason for issuing this decree was, but I will tell you what I think it was. I’ve seen nothing in his words or actions that gives me reason to believe that he isn’t the kind of man that cares one whit about anyone different from him. He knew that what he was doing would bring out the craziness on the extreme right; case in point North Carolina’s bathroom law; and that it would be picked up by the liberal press who would use it to smear all of us who fall into my mother’s description of Republicans: “Republicans believe that individuals are better suited to make the decisions that affect their own lives than bureaucrats and politicians.”

In closing … Liberal progressives, you don’t want people interfering with what goes on in your bedrooms … I don’t want you holding the door to my bathroom open for any confused/curious adolescent or pervert who wants to put on a bra and heels so they can take a walk on the wild side.