When wealth becomes murder...

I have nothing against the reasonable accumulation of wealth. Please, go out and work hard and earn a good living. Make a comfortable life for yourself. Provide well for your family. Buy that nice car, heck, buy two or three. Build your dream house, if you want have a second one on a tropical beach somewhere. Travel the world, enjoy nice meals, I hope that you can accumulate enough wealth to have a pleasant and wonderful life.

But do you need 100 cars? Do you need ten mansions? Do you need a Swiss bank account overflowing with money that you will never spend?

Have you ever considered what all of your wealth means to other people? You may think you are a wonderful person because you use your wealth to build business empires that employ large numbers of people, but that has nothing to do with generosity. Employment is a transaction, you exchange money for labor, and in most cases you pay as little as you can possibly get by with. You don't provide jobs out of the goodness of your heart or to make the world a better place, you hire the minimum number of people and pay the lowest possible wages to get the benefit you desire, more wealth for you to hoard.

Wealth is not a zero sum game over a long period of time. New wealth can, in rare circumstances, be generated from nothing. But at any given moment there is a set, limited, amount of wealth in the world. The gains of one mean that others will loose, at least in the short term. When a person has more wealth than they can ever use they are denying that wealth to everyone else. They are removing that money from the economy. They are preventing others from having the money required to feed their children properly or to get the medical care they need or to have suitable housing. When laws are passed to reduce funding for programs that help those in need so that the wealthy can gain even more wealth that they have no real use for it is even worse. It is promoting the suffering and death of those in need, It is, in my opinion, the indirect killing of those without wealth. It is class based genocide happening slowly enough that we don't notice it. It is murder.

In many countries around the world you will find "Duty to Rescue" laws on the books. These laws state that if you see someone in immediate danger you have a legal obligation to try and help them if you can do so without risking your own safety. If you stand by and do nothing you are breaking the law. We don't have laws like this in the US, the tax bill just passed shows that we favor the exact opposite idea. We know we have people in our country who are homeless and hungry and unable to get the medical care they need and we want to make things even harder on them. We want them to die.

There is nothing wrong with wealth, but excessive wealth should be seen for what it is, a crime against humanity. For now it seems we are happy living in a society where we think there are some perfectly acceptable, even commendable, ways of killing people. We can change this, at least we can change it if we haven't become too comfortable with the killing.

Trump is a huge problem, but Trump isn't THE problem

Saturday my newsfeed on Facebook was filled with shock and horror at the events unfolding in Charlottesville,VA. White supremacist protesters using repulsive words and imagery turned to violence and terrorism against those who disagreed with them. Donald Trump tried to place the blame on everyone who was there when it was more than obvious who as truly to blame. Soon my newsfeed switched from reports of what was happening to attacks on Trump. People said he was the reason this terrible event had happened, they placed 100% of the blame directly on his shoulders.

It is easy to understand why they posts I was seeing moved in this direction. Trump has use racist rhetoric again and again. He has attacked the rights of transgender Americans. He has adopted hate as the primary message of his presidency. But Trump is not to blame for the events in Charlottesville.

Yes, Trump emboldened the Nazis and white supremacists and other un-American protesters that were there, there can be no doubt about that. But it can also not be denied that racism and hate existed long before Trump was ever born. America has a long history of hate and oppression and using hate to divide and oppress us. What we saw last Saturday was just a continuation of what has been going on in America since before it ever existed as a country. Trump did not cause this, he has simply opened the curtains and let the light shine in on this hate so some of us can see it more clearly, though for many it has always been crystal clear.

Now we are seeing more and more people speak out. That is a really wonderful thing, but they need to be speaking out about the real issue.

If you watched that horrible scene of a car running over pedestrians and thought to yourself "Trump has to be stopped" you need to stop and rethink things. Trump is terrible for America and I hope we can find a legal and peaceful way to make his stay in the Oval Office as short as possible. The thing is that getting rid of Trump won't solve our problems. Putting all of our efforts into getting rid of Trump is like taking a cough drop for lung cancer. Trump isn't our problem, he is only a sad symptom of our problems.

If we could some how manage to impeach Trump, an almost certain impossibility as things currently stand, we would all have a period of celebration, but in a few years we would find someone else, more or less like Trump back in the White House. Our House of Representatives and Senate and our state legislatures would still be filled with people more or less like Trump. Our problems would still remain, we would just be enjoying a few moments of false celebration over our accomplishment of very little. We shouldn't be as concerned with stopping Trump as we should be with stopping the hate that put him into office. If instead of fighting Trump we begin to fight hatred and misinformation and propaganda we will defeat Trump. More than that we will have defeated future Trumps. If we refuse to let racism and bigotry easily exist in America we will make it impossible for any more Trumps to ever get elected. If we take the time to escape our own bubbles, if we realize that while we are decrying racism on Facebook all of our friends on Facebook look just like us, if we put the effort into disowning our privilege, this is how we will defeat the present and future Trumps. If we only focus our anger on Donald J. instead of working to end the hate and ignorance that put him into power, we will fail and the Trumps will own our nation for the period of time they can avoid destroying it. Fight the disease,not the symptom. Work for the cure, not for self satisfaction. Worry about winning the war for the soul of our country, not the election. This is how we will make America greater than it has ever been.

I am an artist

Please forgive me, this post may be a bit rambling. I have indulged in my weakness for my favorite beverage tonight and that will probably effect my writing. But here goes, I hope you can make this journey with me.

I am an artist. This is a statement that may seem to be of great importance or it may just seem pretentious and self serving, both views are equally valid. The thing is that it took me a long time to be willing to say this, to admit this, to put this label on myself.

I have been fascinated by photography for a long time. It fits me. I am not a painter, I can't put what my mind sees down on a piece of paper or a canvas with a paint brush, I can't reproduce my thoughts with a pencil. But with a camera I can take what is in my mind and what my eyes find themselves drawn to and reproduce it in a form that others can see. This is wonderful and frightening because I have no idea how my thoughts and visions will be received. In the images I produce I am turning myself inside out and putting myself on display. You see all my talents and all my faults, all my insanity and all my rationality printed out on a piece of paper or presented on a screen. I am laid bare, I am naked in a way that taking all of my clothes off does not expose. I put myself out there as vulnerable and open as it is possible, at that moment, for me to be.

My images come from serious thought about science and rationality and how to represent these concepts in a digestible way. Most of the time I fail, not because I am wrong but because I am distracted. Distracted by the world, both inside and outside of my mind. I am a victim of my own perception and my inability to fully understand how the rest of the world perceives the world. When I see the color red I have no way of knowing if it is the same way that you see the color red. That prevents me from succeeding and gives me the drive and reason to keep trying. We do not live in a world, we live in a mass of interconnected worlds. All related but none identical.

This is why I hate being an artist, because I will always fail to achieve the goals I set for myself. It is also why I have no choice in what I am. I am an artist and I can't be anything else. My mind is only concerned with your mind, even if I have no idea who you are, my eyes only exist to explore what your eyes see, even if I will never know what that is.

I am currently working on an exhibit of my photographs that will be on display for just a few hours. I like that. What we all see is very temporary, it only seems fitting that my images will be on display for just a few hours. After this they will vanish, at least they will vanish for most people. A few will make my visions a permanent part of their world by purchasing my images or by searching them out on the internet. My images will become zombies, they will be neither dead nor alive. They will be undead and they will exist on paper, as digital files, and in a few people's minds, maybe feeding on them.

Art is not easy, this is why we aren't all successful artists. I remember being in an art museum and hearing someone say "I could do that" as they looked at a painting. They probably could, but many would say their ability doesn't matter, what matters is that they didn't do it. I disagree, the difference is that they weren't courageous enough to do it. They weren't willing to be critiqued, to hear the disparaging remarks. Or maybe they weren't willing to hear the compliments? Maybe they weren't willing to take the risk to try and feed their souls and stomachs by producing something that has no intrinsic value. Art can't protect you from the weather, it normally won't feed you, art rarely will put a roof over your head, but artists have no other choice, they have to do what they do, damn the consequences.

I am an artist, I finally had to admit it to myself. I didn't choose it, I am not sure that I want it, my value as a person is linked to how others perceive me and my work. I just hope that I don't waste who I am, I hope at least a few see value in what I do. I hope I am not a waste of oxygen. I am an artist. I hope I survive it.

If you are in the Nashville area I invite you to come see my work, to see me that I can't express any other way. Beautiful and Banal; Exploring the How and What of seeing

Impeachable offenses

Every day I see a new story from one of the major media outlets asking if what ever it was that Trump did that day is an "impeachable offense". So far, the answer, no matter what the issue, has to be no.

This is not to say that Trump hasn't and isn't committing acts that would fall under the definition of a high crime or misdemeanor. It just takes more than the commission of a high crime or misdemeanor to get impeached.

The first step in impeachment is for the House of Representatives to pass articles of impeachment. Currently we have a Republican controlled House and nothing that Trump has done, so far, has been bad enough to get articles of impeachment passed in the House and so for all practical purposes Trump has yet to do anything impeachable.

This of course doesn't mean it is impossible for Trump to be impeached, he could do something so terrible that the Republicans in the House would decide that not voting for impeachment would be worse for their political careers than voting for impeachment, but I hope that doesn't happen. If Trump were to do something that destructive we would all be suffering and so I consider this a really horrible possibility.

There is also the possibility of Democrats winning a majority in the house, or at least a large enough minority that impeachment could be a possibility. This means,of course, waiting until after the mid-term elections in 2018. It also means that Democratic candidates will have to over come the effect of the gerrymandered districts that are designed to prevent them from winning. There is a tremendous amount of backlash against Trump currently and the party in the Oval Office tends to not fare very well during mid-term elections so it isn't impossible, but it won't be easy.

The only other option for impeachment is staying so informed and so involved that enough Republican House members feel the pressure to a point that they would stand against their party's leader. This won't be easy but it may be the best possibility. We have to remember though that this won't be about any particular action Trump takes, it is going to be about holding him accountable for all of his actions. We may be stuck with Trump for a while, so that is something we need to be doing no matter what.

A few things about conservatives us liberals just don't get.

Liberals don't understand conservatives, this is pretty easy to grasp. We often times see liberals asking why poor conservatives vote against their own best interests, why religious conservatives vote for someone who is as far from Christian values as you can get (like Trump has shown he is), or why they are constantly attacking the poor in America. The reason we don't understand them is because we neglect to see the real source of their beliefs. We keep going after the things we see on the surface, but if we are interested in having a conversation with conservatives and getting them to think about things differently we have to go deep. This election brought up a term we hadn't heard in the media very much prior to the elections, "authoritarianism". We learned that Trump supporters tended to score quite highly on psychological tests that looked for authoritarian tendencies. Sadly too many of us didn't delve deeply enough into this to realize what authoritarianism really means. Someone with authoritarians tendencies is not necessarily a person who wants our country run by a dictator or who identifies with Nazis. Normally these are people who see appeal in a political candidate who talks about issues of law and order. They are people who see a great deal of value in the social and cultural norms of the places thy live. They are people who place, to some extent, a higher value on the society than on the individual. The average authoritarian is more correctly called a collectivist and the opposite of a collectivist is an individualist. Liberals tend more to the individualist side of things. We are proponents of individual rights, pro-choice, pro- marriage equality, pro freedom of expression. We support social welfare programs because they make a poor individual's life better. We support universal health care because it helps individuals. We wrap these ideas up in a society wide wrapper sometimes but the core reason for our support is individual rights. A collectivist takes a different view of things. Free expression is wonderful as it brings new and beneficial ideas into a society, but it must be tempered so these new ideas do not become so varied and widespread that they dissolve the foundational ideas the society is based on. Anything that threatens to upset the social norms is suspect. Women's rights, civil rights, gay rights, legal abortion, new technologies are suspect, the list goes on and on. Collectivists see society as a thing they owe their rights and existence to and they want to protect it. Individualists see social and cultural norms as something that can prohibit the development of the individual and societal progress.

Let's take marriage equality for an example. Liberals often have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to stand in the way of two men or two women getting married since it doesn't affect anyone else's life. Conservatives, because of their collectivist principles see it quite differently. They look at our society and see that heterosexual marriage has been the norm for a very long time. They see that families are an important facet of our society. A change to this structure could lead to unforeseen consequences and they therefor see that change as threatening. Many will say that their arguments against same sex marriage are based on religious principles, but when confronted with Biblical arguments that disagree with them their opinion doesn't change at all. This is because their feelings about same sex marriage aren't based in religion, they are based in collectivist ideals. This is why we have heard so many people refer to heterosexual marriage as "traditional marriage", this is why they say they believe that same sex marriage will destroy the institution of marriage. They aren't concerned with religion, they really aren't even concerned with marriage. They are concerned that any change to an institution like marriage, which has such great importance to our society, will cause the downfall of our society.

We see this in all sorts of issues. Why would anyone care about having to press a one or a two to select a language when they place a phone call? It isn't that they feel inconvenienced, it is because they feel that our society is an English speaking society and to accept another language could disrupt our society. They may love to go to Mexico and have formed friendships there on vacation, but be in an uproar about Latino immigrants coming to the USA. They don't hate Mexicans but they see increasing numbers of Mexican immigrants as a threat to our social norms.

We see social welfare programs as a way to help individuals move forward. They may not hate low income people but they see our society as a meritocracy and see our society helping someone who isn't working as a threat to us all. This doesn't mean they wouldn't be willing to help that same person individually but for our government to do it is a threat to our way of life.

When we think of collectivist societies we tend to think about places like India and China, but after living in the Netherlands for a few years I found that Northern European societies were much more collectivist than the US. The problem isn't that conservatives tend to be more collectivist and liberals tend to be more individualistic, the problem is that both sides think their way should be the only way. This causes them to create false narratives for why the other side does what it does. We are one of the most individualistic societies in the world, even our collectivist tendencies are quite mild compared to some other places. We can get past this, without having to change who we are. But first we have to realize that people are allowed to think about different things in different ways. We have to stop looking for the simple explanations. We have to be willing to try, that is the only way we can protect the rights of the individual while also protecting our society.

Violence, the sure fire way to bring about defeat.

On the day Donald Trump was inaugurated a racist, white supremacist, leader of the alt-right movement was in an on camera interview on the streets of Washington DC. As he was speaking someone ran up and punched him in the face. The video of this has been widely spread on Facebook and I have seen many people who oppose Trump celebrating this act of violence. They are saying that the man deserved it and a few are suggesting that this type of act should happen more often. They are saying that the people who are speaking out against this stupidity are somehow in a conspiracy to support Trump. The people who are saying this are not only wrong, they are brazen hypocrites.

These individuals claim they want to fight fascism and yet they are praising the use of violence to silence someone they disagree with. That is the very definition of fascism. They, and luckily they are a small minority, are asking us to use a tactic that will make our fight dramatically more difficult and will probably lead to our defeat. Violence from our side will not frighten the other side into submission, it will embolden them and give them justification for what they are doing.

Dr. Martin Luther King led a non-violent campaign seeking justice for African Americans. But this call for non-violence was not a call for a violence free campaign, Dr. King was too smart to think that was possible. It was a call for a non-violent response to violence. When the marchers arrived at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Alabama and saw all of the people on the other end they knew what was about to happen. They could have stopped and turned around if they were trying to avoid violence. Instead they continued forward and were met with an incredibly violent beating. But they didn't fight back.

If the Civil Rights marchers had fought back it people across America would have said "See, they got what they deserved." By not meeting violence with more violence they gained empathy, their attackers were seen as monsters, and the Civil Rights movement was advanced.

The cowardly sucker punch we saw in the video mentioned above did not help us, in fact it may have created more white supremacists and emboldened the alt-right. Now a blatant racist has become the empathetic figure and a young person in a hoodie who punched and ran could be cast as the face of all of those of us who oppose Donald Trump. Violence from our side is exactly what Trump wants. It will allow him to do whatever he wants to do. He will use it as justification for taking rights away from people. It will gain him even stronger and more fervent support from the people who voted for him. It is the biggest gift we could give an authoritarian narcissist like him.

We have to stand up against any violent act from anyone on our side. Yes, even things like breaking windows and setting trash on fire in the streets, even though it is an understandable response from those of us who are fearful and frustrated by what Trump wants to do, will give them further justification. This is not a revolution. We are not looking to overthrow the US government. We, at least the enormously vast majority of us, just want our government to work for all of us, equally. We should march and scream and use civil disobedience to get our point across. We should gather in huge numbers and call out every lie Trump tells. But violence will only make Trump and the most deplorable of his followers victorious. We don't need a violent revolution, if that is what we start we will almost certainly lose.

How to stop Trump

Yesterday the world watched Donald Trump take the oath of office and become the 45th President of the United States. Today we saw millions of people join together in marches all over the country to let the new President know that they will not sit idly by as he attempts to take away the rights of women, racial minorities, religious minorities, or anyone else in America. More people showed up in Washington DC to protest against Donald Trumps policies than showed up yesterday to see his inauguration. This has obviously not made President Trump happy as he sent out his press secretary to wrongfully accuse the media of misrepresenting the numbers but every one of his statements was demonstrably untrue. There is no reason to sugar coat this, he lied through his teeth.

Obviously America, as a whole, isn't falling in line behind Trump. Sadly it may not matter that the majority of Americans don't support Trump (it didn't matter in the election after all) because he has the Oval Office, he has support in the Senate and the House, he may not have most of us, but he may have the people he needs the most.

So what do we do? Demonstrations such as the Women's March we saw today are very important. They show that Trump has a serious lack of support in a way that can't be denied even though many Trump supporters live so deep in their bubbles they will find it hard to accept. It will be very difficult to have regular demonstrations on this scale though, so there must be more that we can do.

We can write and call and email our elected representatives on the federal level, ESPECIALLY the ones who are supporting Trump. They need to see that the voters they rely on to get elected do not support Trump. We can also write our state and local representatives so they can be urged to use more local legislation to fight against Trump's initiatives. Most importantly we can talk to Trump supporters.

Too many people are expressing anger at anyone who voted for Trump. They are calling them all racists and all sexists and all xenophobes. Some of them are. Many of them, however, didn't vote for Trump out of hate. Some just wanted change and didn't care where the change came from. Some are frustrated by hearing how much better the country is doing since President Obama took office since they don't feel it themselves. Some were looking for someone who they believe will uphold the social and cultural norms of America and enforce our laws as strictly as possible. Trump doesn't really offer these people what they are looking for, but he at least validated their concerns and desires for these things. That's why they voted for him. If we can stop hating these people, if we can stop looking down on these people, if we can listen to them and hear their concerns, if we can stop treating them like our enemies and start treating them like fellow Americans, we can help many of them see that Trump is not the answer to any valid question and together we can stop Trump.

Trump supporters turning away from Trump will be one of the most effective ways to reduce the amount of support he has in the federal government. If the House and the Senate turn against him, he will have to throw in the towel (and as big of a narcissist as he is, I believe he will probably resign as soon as he stops getting his way). We can tell Trump supporters that we will push for effective economic development policies that will help rural areas and urban areas that have lost their manufacturing jobs. We can talk to these people about the exact kind of change they were hoping for and get into a conversation with them about the possibility of Trump providing it. We can discuss the fact that Trump will not uphold our social and cultural norms as he doesn't believe in them himself and how his ideas about law and order are at odds with the Constitution which is the set of laws the entire country operates under. The truth and the facts are on our side and if we are willing to try we can bring the Trump supporters out of their bubbles. Of course to do this we have to be willing to step outside of our own bubbles and that can be hard to do. We have to realize that some of their concerns are actually quite valid. We have to recognize that many of us are in latte sipping, stark white, highly educated, comparatively well off economically bubbles ourselves and that we may not understand the state of our nation over all as well as we think we do. We have to realize that the best solution to an issue can vary from one place to the next. We have to realize that people always vote for what the believe is in their best interests and stop telling people we know what is in their best interest. Normally what we are telling them is what is actually in our best interest.

Some may resist doing this because they say the other side wouldn't do it for us. This is probably true, but somebody has to start it. We believe that we have our country's best interests at heart, and I believe we do. If that is really true though shouldn't we be willing to take the first step and make the first move? The conversation isn't going to happen if no one starts it.

We can stop Trump and help unify our nation all at the same time. But we can only do this if we are willing to give up our own biases and bigotry. So, are we willing to try?

In Defense of SOME of the People Who Voted for Trump.

I probably shouldn't be writing this. I am afraid that this will cause some of my friends on the left to hate me while at the same time causing some of my friends on the right to feel a bit of justification that they really shouldn't feel. So while I am a bit worried about what the reactions to this post might entail I am going to write it anyway because I feel it needs to be said.

As the title says this is about defending some Trump voters, not all of them. Some of them are white nationalists and some are ignorantly anti-Muslim and some are blatant sexists. I am not defending them. The Trump voters I am defending are the ones who feel so left behind and so frightened by the way they see things going in America that they voted for anything to cause the country to change direction in the hope that things might get better for them. These people would have never voted for Hillary Clinton because to them she represents more of the same, or worse. I am a liberal city dweller. I like the way things are going. The economy is doing much better, jobs are plentiful, every state in the country now recognizes my marriage. Things are pretty good for me. But if I wasn't a liberal city dweller I might have a different outlook.

In rural America the unemployment rate is much higher than it is in urban America. Rural America is shrinking, the factory jobs have left, it is very difficult to make a living farming, drug usage is on the rise, and the rest of the country looks at you as backwards, racist, at best "quaint". People are seeing their small towns dying right before their eyes and it frightens them. Things did not seem to improve much for rural America during the Obama Administration and many rural Americans wondered if they could survive 4 more years of the same kinds of policies. This led many of them to vote for Donald Trump.

Many of these voters would have voted for Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio if one of them had won the Republican nomination, but when Trump was nominated as the Republican's presidential candidate their votes followed. I don't believe most of these rural voters are racist (at least not any more than any of the rest of us white folk who are benefiting from a racist system are), I don't believe most of them go out of their way to be sexists or anti-Muslim either. I'm sure some of them have some pretty unsavory traits but it is hard for me to believe they are all terrible people. What they are is desperate people, frightened people, people who feel like they have been ignored and left behind and this turned their votes to an outsider. In this case the outsider was Trump.

I have heard friends ask how I can say they aren't racist or sexist or anti-Muslim when they voted for a candidate who is a racist and a sexist and anti-Muslim. To answer this I think we need to look at ourselves.

In 1992 Bill Clinton ran for president and during the campaign we found out that he had been less than faithful to his wife. We were told by Gennifer Flowers that she had been involved in a 12 year affair with Bill Clinton, something Clinton denied. Then Flowers produced recordings of conversations she had held with Bill Clinton and Clinton was actually forced to apologize to Mario Cuomo for comments he had made about him on the tapes. There was no way to not take Flowers' claims seriously. Even though I knew all of this I voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. Does that make me a cheater or a womanizer?

In 1993 the subject of gays in the military came before President Clinton. As Commander in Chief he could have simply removed the ban on gays serving in the military. Of course he realized that this could have cost him a huge amount of political capital and so instead of acting he turned the decision over to Congress who produced a convoluted piece of legislation that President Clinton signed and which led to a dramatic increase in the number of gay and lesbian service members being kicked out of the military. In 1994 President Clinton pushed for passage of his Omnibus Crime Bill which expanded the death penalty and led to a massive increase in the number of people incarcerated in America, African American men making up a huge part of the increase. This was a racist piece of legislation. Some may say that its effects were unintended but this legislation was publicly promoted by President Clinton and his wife by using exceptionally racist language which can leave no doubt about the legislation's intent.

In 1996 Bill Clinton ran for reelection and I voted for him a second time. So I voted for a candidate who threw gay and lesbian service members under the bus to avoid problems for himself and who pushed for the passage of a racist, fear mongering, piece of legislation that was promoted with horribly racist language. Since I voted for this candidate, twice, does that make me anti-gay and racist?

I don't bring any of this up to attack Bill Clinton, plenty of people have been doing that for years and he isn't even in the same league of terrible as Donald Trump. I bring this up to show that we all choose to ignore some pretty terrible things in the candidates we vote for because we like at least part of what they are saying, or just as often we ignore their faults simply because they are on our team. If Bill Clinton had been a Republican Democrats would still be talking about him like he was the spawn of Satan. Instead we stand up and cheer him, with his racism problems and his problems with throwing gay folk under the bus and his womanizing as part of our consciousness. If we had acted towards Bill Clinton the way we are now expecting Trump voters to have acted we would have elected Bob Dole.

I think Donald Trump is a racist, a sexist, a xenophobe, and completely unqualified to be president. I don't believe all of the people who voted for him are racists and sexists and xenophobes though because I don't think I am an anti-gay, womanizing, racist even though I voted twice for a person who could be accused of being these things.

All politicians are carrying around some pretty heavy baggage and every time we vote we choose to ignore most of the baggage of the candidate we are voting for. Most of Trump's supporters did the exact same thing, and while Trump is hauling around a lot more and a lot heavier baggage than any other presidential candidate in my lifetime it doesn't mean that all of the people who voted for him are carrying the same matching luggage. If we are honest with ourselves we are all hypocrites in some way, we become even more hypocritical if we refuse to admit this.

Trump is an embarrassment to our country, some of his supporters are also pretty horrible people, but not all of them. Probably not most of them. If we treat them like terrible people they will all go out and vote for Trump again in 4 years. We don't want that to happen. Treat good people well, and voting for Trump, by itself, does not keep someone from being a good person. Lets show people what we really stand for, and I don't think what we stand for involves condemning anyone we disagree with.

Clinton vs. Sanders, a matter of style...

As the Democratic primary race has tightened nationwide, my FaceBook feed has been filled with angry rants from both Clinton and Sanders supporters (I freely admit that some of those rants were my own). As I have thought about the two candidates though my anger has subsided a bit.

This is a very good time to be a Democrat. We have two candidates who are both strong proponents of civil rights and LGBT rights. We have two candidates who both care about health care reform and income inequality (although to different degrees). We have two candidates who care about the environment and women's rights. All of us who are Democrats can rest assured that no matter who gets the nomination they will be vastly better than any of the candidates offered by the Republican party. Of course having two good candidates can cause a problem. How do you decide who to vote for in the primaries? Should we just flip a coin before we flip a lever in the voting booth? Of course we shouldn't, while there are good reasons to vote for either candidate there is one important difference that has helped me to make my decision and might help you with your decision as well. That difference is the opposite political style of each of the candidates.

Style is a word that sounds frivolous in this context but I think it is the word that works best. I'm not talking about hair or clothing, I am talking about the candidates approach to governance and their approaches are considerably different.

Let's look at health care for an example of this difference and why it matters. A few weeks ago Hillary Clinton's daughter Chelsea Clinton was making a speech for her mother's campaign in which she said that Bernie Sanders wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. This was a bit disingenuous as it made it sound like Sanders wants to return to the completely broken system that existed before the ACA was passed. In fact he wants to expand health care coverage and lower costs by instituting a single payer system, but the statement said a lot about the political style of the candidates.

Hillary Clinton would claim that Sanders is a radical with his head in the clouds. There is no way he could get a single payer system passed through Congress and she may very well be right about that. However, she says this in a way that implies trying to put a single payer system in effect would destroy the ACA. I believe that it would do just the opposite, even if Sanders failed to implement a single payer system just the effort put into trying would do a considerable amount to protect the ACA. Let me tell you why.

As soon as the ACA became law, Republicans started to attack it. A lot of Democrats seem to take a bit of joy in the fact that the Republicans keep failing to repeal the ACA but we shouldn't get too cocky. The Republicans have already managed to reduce the effectiveness of the ACA with a US Supreme Court case in which a majority of the justices ruled that states could not be required to expand their Medicaid programs. In my home state of Tennessee this has meant many still can't find health care they can afford, which means that they are being fined for not having health care, which also means they still can't afford to go to the doctor or hospital when they need care, which means that hospitals in Tennessee are laying off health care workers or shutting down completely because they aren't receiving an increase in patients to compensate them for the reductions in Medicare payments required by the ACA. So yes, the Republicans have failed to repeal the law but that doesn't mean they haven't done quite a bit of damage to it and limited its effectiveness. We should also remember that recently an attempt to repeal the law didn't just pass in the House, it also passed in the Senate. Luckily it didn't pass with a high enough margin to make it veto proof but it is a sign that the Republicans could be getting closer to their goal. So how will Clinton and Sanders respond to this?

Clinton seems to be interested in taking a defensive position to deal with this issue. She wants to continue to hold off the Republican attacks on the ACA with her veto power and rallying Democrats in Congress to not vote for the Republican bills. This has worked so far for President Obama, but we don't know that it would continue to work for Clinton. Clinton is not well liked by Republicans, in fact they may dislike her even more than President Obama. Putting the word "president" in front of Hillary Clinton's name is only going to enrage them even more. She may face a tougher fight than Obama has to protect the ACA and we have no idea how many Democrats there will be in Congress to help her. We know it would be almost impossible for Democrats to gain a majority in the House because of gerrymandering and regaining a majority in the Senate will not be at all easy, we could even lose seats in both houses. This could mean Clinton would have a massive battle on her hands that we can't be certain she will win.

Sanders, on the other hand, wants to introduce legislation to set up a single payer system. If he succeeds, we will have a new health care system that will provide universal coverage, lower costs, and might even find support in the business sector as it would prevent them from having to provide health insurance to their employees and create considerable savings for them. Of course it will face a very negative response from Republicans and no one could say with a straight face that it would be an easy piece of legislation to pass. Of course just focusing on if it could pass or not doesn't tell the entire story.

Under a Clinton presidency Republicans would be free to put considerable time and effort into repealing or weakening the ACA, and they might wind up being successful. Under a Sanders presidency the Republicans wouldn't be able to focus on repealing or weakening the ACA because they would be forced to fight against Sanders' single payer plan. If Sanders' plan didn't pass, well guess what, we would still have the ACA in effect. We might also, as the fight against the single payer plan unfolded, manage to get the Republicans to agree to some measures strengthening the ACA in order to prevent a single payer plan from taking effect. In other words the Republicans would have to stop fighting to move us backwards on health care and instead would have to fight against moving forward on health care. I like our odds in that fight a whole lot more and I believe if nothing else Sanders' single payer plan would effectively safeguard the ACA from future attacks, at least for a while.

Of course Sanders' style of playing offense has advantages across the board. We have to try for more to even know what we can get. If we keep the Republicans in a defensive stance, if we make them fight against progress and fight against making people's lives better, their popularity will suffer. If we, with Clinton take a primarily defensive position it puts the programs we support in peril. We give the Republicans a strong advantage. You can only score when you have the ball. We have let the Republicans hold on to the ball for far too long.

The governing styles of Clinton and Sanders look like they would be very different even if they share a lot in common on the issues. Democrats have taken the position as fighters for a long time, it is time we have a leader instead of a fighter. Political style makes a tremendous difference and I believe that Bernie Sanders has the exact style that we need right now.

Why do Republicans keep voting for Republican presidential candidates?

I have quite a few conservative friends, some who identify as Republican and some who don't, and I have noticed something a bit odd about them. You see most of my Democrat friends hold reasonably high opinions of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, even Jimmy Carter, everyone's favorite presidential punching bag, is held in rather high esteem. It seems to me, however, that Republicans aren't as big of fans of the recent Republican presidents. Let's take a look at the recent presidents elected by Republicans.

George W. Bush - Not terribly popular with anyone, especially Republicans. He grew the federal debt (after eliminating the surplus), he got America into a war we had no business being in, and he bailed out the big banks and automakers. Not the favorite president of most Republicans.

George H.W. Bush - During his presidential campaign Bush said "Read my lips, no new taxes!" and as president he broke this promise. This has made him a minor hero among Democrats but not among Republicans. Like father, like son, neither of the Bush presidents is terribly popular among Republicans.

Ronald Reagan - Before you start thinking I have gone crazy, yes, I know that Ronald Reagan is very popular among Republicans. Consider for a second which Ronald Reagan we are talking about though. Republicans love the horseback riding, flag waving, cowboy hat wearing, Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan, but they really aren't that big of fans of President Ronald Reagan. Reagan raised taxes several times, he sold arms to Iran, he made the federal debt soar, he created a program to give amnesty to millions of undocumented workers, oh, and he also supported gun control in the Brady Bill. They love the Reagan image, but the actual Reagan presidency? Most of the Republicans I have spoke with don't seem to be big fans.

Gerald Ford - Ford is a bit of an outlier as he was never elected, but many Republicans still don't like him because he pardoned President Nixon. That of course bring us to...

Richard Nixon - Do I really have to say why Republicans, and most everyone else, don't think very highly of Nixon? Of course it just wasn't the national embarrassment of Watergate, Republicans also don't tend to care for the way he made friendly with communist China or his plans for universal single payer health care or some of his other liberal leanings. Again, he is not a hero of the Republican Party.

So who do the Republicans like? Of course they have a high regard for Lincoln, the first Republican president, but often times you will also hear them offering praise for Truman and Kennedy, neither of whom were Republicans. I'm not saying that Republicans love all the presidents the Democrats have elected, let's face it, they don't have many (any) nice things to say about Clinton or Obama, but if they don't like their own presidents and they don't like the Democrats who should they vote for?

I think the time has come for Republicans to finally realize that they just shouldn't vote, that way they can reduce their chances of being disappointed. Plus it will be fairly easy to change over the presses that make the "I didn't vote for Obama!" bumper stickers so they can print out "I didn't vote for anybody!" bumper stickers and they can feel free to complain about whoever gets elected. Seems like it would be a win for Republicans and a win for America as well.

Why I support Bernie Sanders for president...

America is a great country, our history is far from perfect, but our people have a hopeful spirit and we believe in our ability to accomplish things and move forward. We believe in entrepreneurship and innovation, we believe in taking risks and doing things differently, we celebrate the success of those who have achieved great things and believe that if our own list of successes is not that vast it is only because our time has not yet come. All of these things have led to America becoming what it is today, the wealthiest nation in the entire history of the world, a place where people have lifted themselves out of poverty to become titans of industry, and a place where we know that hard work combined with ambition and determination can make a real difference. We have freedoms and liberties undreamed of in some other countries and we take great pride in who we are. This is why America is a great country and it fills me with pride to be an American. I am also filled with sadness to see all of this threatened by a government controlled by individuals who care less about what makes America great and more about what increases the size of their personal bank accounts. We are now in the midst of a presidential campaign, one that started off looking as though we would have no choice other than to elect someone who was a wealthy, well connected, member of a political dynasty, one who would continue the status quo and push us further down the path that has led us to our current position. Luckily for America this election has turned out to be much more interesting and lively than anyone could have expected. It looks like we may wind up having a real choice, a real chance to alter the path our nation is on, we might actually find that our votes don't have to be for just one side of the coin or the other. This is a great thing for America, if Americans put the effort into really learning about the issues we face and how the people running for president will respond to these issues. My own research into the issues and the possible solutions and which candidate stands for what, along with some additional information I have that many Americans don’t has led to select Bernie Sanders as the candidate who I think is best for America and her future.

So all Americans are faced with making a very important decision. We are being offered a real choice this time around and the outcome of this election will undoubtedly impact the future of our country in some very important ways. We will turn to the nightly news and our friends and coworkers to get their opinions. We can study the candidate's voting record or history in the business world, we can look for answers in the Bible or the Koran, we can listen to the speeches and late night talk show appearances the candidates make. All of these things can help each of us reach a decision on who to vote for and I have been paying attention to all of them. I also have another set of information that I can rely on that isn't available to the average American and I want to share this information with you so it can be included in your decision making. It might sway you or it may not, but what I have seen and experienced over the last couple of years makes me believe that it is very much worth considering and that if we all included this information in our decision making process it could be very beneficial for America.

The information I want to share comes from living outside of the United States for a couple of years. Specifically I have been living in the Netherlands, a small country in Northern Europe wedged between Germany, Belgium, and the North Sea. The time I have spent here has allowed me to see, first hand, what happens when a country takes a different path than America. To see the results of certain policies and programs with my own eyes instead of just watching what one talking head or another with a particular agenda has to say on TV. I have been surprised by many of the things I have seen here and my mind has changed on several issues. It has affected who I will be voting for, I hope you can find this information valuable to your own decision making process.

The Netherlands is a democracy with a very strong work ethic and capitalist background. In its colonial past the Netherlands acquired new territory mainly through making business deals instead of through military force. Its cities and villages are filled with businesses run by large corporations as well as by individuals and families. Making money is considered a very worthwhile pursuit in the Netherlands. If a demand exists, a business will also exist to meet that demand. In many ways it is very similar to the United States, but there are some important differences as well.

Here in Holland everyone has health insurance, it is not typically provided by the government but is instead provided through employers by private health insurance companies. The health care system is effective, efficient, and care is provided with less waiting time than it is in America. It isn't free, but costs are kept under control so that everyone can afford it and everyone is required to be part of the health care system.

The Dutch education system is amazing. Children go to schools that are funded by the government but normally run by private organizations. Often times these are religious organizations or civic groups that are required to meet government regulations while at the same time being allowed to bring their own culture into the educational process. Higher education is also funded by the government through a series of exceptionally high quality universities and technical schools. Higher education is not free, but costs are regulated so that everyone can afford to get an education if they choose to.

The cities and villages around the Netherlands are all very well connected by a public transportation system that makes it easy and affordable to get from place to place and it is well utilized by all sectors of society. This allows many people to have the option of not owning a car saving them large amounts of money they would have spent on fuel, insurance, maintenance, taxes, and parking. Instead they can put this money towards other things that they feel are more important in their personal lives.

Homelessness is very rare in the Netherlands as the government will find places for you to live and make sure you have access to healthcare and food if you can't afford it any other way. Unlike the situation in America, if you are homeless in Holland it is much more likely to have been an actual choice on your part.

Crime rates, when compared to America are exceptionally low in Holland. Muggings and pickpocketing exist, but shootings and other violent crimes are very rare when compared to the United States. You feel safe when walking the streets at night in the vast majority of places.

While the national government of the Netherlands is quite strong it does not hold all of the power. Local governments, the sections of the government closest to and most connected to the people, have considerable power here. The national government may provide funding to local governments that has to be spent on roads or on education or on cultural initiatives but the municipalities get to determine how those funds are specifically spent in their areas. This allows tax money to be spent in the most effective ways possible and so it can benefit the largest number of people possible.

As in much of Western Europe there are more regulations imposed by the Dutch government than in the US. This doesn't mean that business are more highly regulated here than in America though. First of all there are numerous regulations handed down by the government that businesses must follow in America, but on top of that America is a country where lawsuits, sometimes frivolous and sometimes not, are exceptionally common. These lead to a secondary layer of self imposed regulations that most businesses follow. The next time you see a warning label on a product remember that there is a very good chance that it wasn't placed there by the government, instead it was placed there by a group of lawyers doing their best to try and protect the company from getting sued. This, from what I have seen, leads to businesses in America being much more highly regulated and restricted than they are in the Netherlands.

Wages in the Netherlands are higher than in America, this probably comes as no surprise, but they have also instituted a tiered minimum wage system. If you are 16 year old student the minimum wage for you is not as high as it is for a 25 year old. The 25 year old is much more likely to not be living with his or her parents, to have a family to support, to have other additional expenses and so they need to make more money to make sure they are a productive part of society. This allows young people to find jobs easier in entry level positions where few skills and little experience is needed, while making sure that older, more experienced workers can make a real living wage. Do not forget, however, that the 16 year old is still making more than minimum wage in America.

The infrastructure in the Netherlands is amazing. Not just the roads and public transportation systems, but also the electrical grid, internet speeds, telephone service, water and sewage, and airports. No one in the Netherlands lives very far from an international airport. Since all of the phone, internet, and electrical lines (except for high voltage transmission lines) are underground, storms rarely cause outages. Internet speeds that would be too expensive for most to afford in America are commonplace and cheap here. All of this exists because the government is involved. In my hometown of Nashville I had very little choice in who I could obtain high speed internet service from. Here, since the lines are controlled by the government but open for many companies to utilize, I have a wide variety of companies to choose from and the competition keeps the costs down to very affordable levels.

I could go on and on, but this should give you an idea of how the government makes life better for people in the Netherlands. At the same time the Netherlands is a place where you are free to practice your religion, or not. To say what you think, or keep your mouth shut if you choose. To own a gun provided you are willing to meet the requirements for owning a gun. It is a very free country, possibly more free than America in many ways because the elected officials in the government aren't allowed to be bought and sold by billionaires. This means that they respond to the wants and desires of the majority of the people they represent instead of really only representing a tiny minority of the people. The Netherlands is far from a perfect place, but I think there are many things America could learn from it.

People in The Netherlands work hard and take risks not because of a lack of a safety net, but because a strong safety net exists. In America if you start a new business and it fails, you can lose everything. This prevents many people from starting a new business or trying to turn their ideas into great new inventions. The rewards may be great, but the risks are just too high. In Holland you know that if your business fails you at least will still be able to feed and house your family and send your kids to college, this makes taking risks much more worthwhile and means that the entrepreneurial spirit is very much alive and well in Holland.

In Holland almost everyone speaks English extremely well along with their native Dutch and often times German and French as well. This allows the Netherlands to be very competitive in the global market. This is only possible because the Dutch place great importance on education, schools are well funded, teachers are well paid, higher education is kept affordable. All of this allows the Netherlands to be a center of high tech industry and a world leader in innovation. You need well educated people to compete and lead in the world today, America is falling behind in this area. Sure, we have of the best paid college presidents and coaches in the world, but many students can’t afford college or are forced into crushing debt to attend and our country has suffered as a conequence.

In Holland seeing your primary physician never costs you a penny. This means that people are willing to go to the doctor sooner which means a simple problem can be more often kept from turning into a serious condition. This means less sick days and a more productive workforce. Also adding to the high productivity levels here are a minimum of 4 weeks paid vacation per year, paid maternity leave, and higher wages that make employees willing to work harder because they don't feel like they are being cheated every time they see one of their pay stubs. This also allows more families to have a parent who is able to be at home with the kids at all times which of course is better for the children who become the next generation of well educated, well paid, and highly motivated workers and entrepreneurs. Workers in the Netherlands are pretty much just as productive as workers in America but American full time workers put in an average of 46.7 hours a week while Dutch workers average just 29 hours per week. Think about overtime pay and regular pay combined and see if it really seems that American companies are saving money by paying their employees less and offering them fewer benefits?

I know what many of you are thinking, what about taxes? It is true that taxes are considerably higher here in the Netherlands than in the United States, there is no doubt about that. But to stop the conversation there wouldn't tell the entire story. You have to compare the cost against the benefits. For example, if someone could move into a city and be closer to work, have more free time and spend less on fuel because of a shorter commute, spend more time with their family, get an extra hour of sleep every day, and generally live a higher quality of life but they refused because their rent would go up by 10%, something they could easily afford, you would think they are crazy. We should think the same way about taxes. Yes, taxes in the Netherlands are higher, but they result in lower healthcare costs, lower educational costs, lower transportation costs, a higher quality of life, and many other benefits that greatly outweigh the higher tax rates. The problem isn't high taxes, the problem is feeling like you get nothing in return for your taxes. In America we could lower our taxes by 90% but if we didn't feel like we were getting anything for our money we would still think our taxes were too high. This is why the higher taxes aren't a big problem in the Netherlands, they still feel like quite a bargain.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe that we could learn a tremendous amount from a country like the Netherlands but so far in the presidential race it only seems one candidate has paid attention to these lessons. Bernie Sanders has stood up for workers and American families, he supports policies that will benefit the middle class and help the poor work their way out of poverty. He is the only candidate who is not being supported by billionaire donors who want to maintain the current policies that are benefiting them in the short term but destroying America over time. This means he is the only candidate who can act on these lessons because he isn't beholden to the 1%. He sees the ripple effects of policies like these, fight poverty and you can't help but be fighting racism at the exact same time. Increase educational opportunities and you increase business opportunities as well. Creating a better public transportation system creates more jobs and gives people more access to opportunities. All of these things could happen in America. All of these things could benefit everyone in America, even the wealthiest among us. Bernie Sanders wants to combine the best ideas from countries like Norway and Denmark and the Netherlands with the drive and ambition of America so that the United States can work better, be more efficient, and make opportunity a concept that is available to everyone.

Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who wants to help America live up to its potential and he is the only candidate who will be able to do anything other than simply serve the desires of the wealthy. Bernie Sanders is the one candidate who really understands and supports the American dream. That's why I support Sanders for president.

The Supreme Court didn't do what you probably think it did...

Kim Davis, the county clerk from a rural Kentucky county, has reignited the arguments over same sex marriage. I will talk later about her demonstrably false claims that she shouldn't have to issue marriage licenses because of "religious liberty". Starting off I want to talk about a claim that the right wing keeps making, that the US Supreme Court created a new right to gay marriage in their ruling.

Many on the right argue that there is no right to same sex marriage, or marriage in general in the US Constitution an so it is a matter left up completely to the states. In a way they are correct. The US Constitution does not address marriage, gay or otherwise, and the Supreme Court can not make new laws. They use this information to try and say that the SCOTUS decision is invalid and some are saying that states, or individual clerks or judges, should not issue marriage licenses if they don't want to. Of course this is an argument without any merit at all.

While I agree that the US Constitution does not directly address marriage, it does address the way states deal with the laws on their books. It does this in one way in Article 6, Clause 2 of the Constitution, a passage known as the Supremacy Clause. This clause states that federal law is the supreme law of the land and that state law can not conflict with federal law or the US Constitution. If state law does fall into conflict with federal law then the Supreme Court can invalidate the state law as it first did in Ware v. Hylton in 1796. The Supremacy Clause is not some esoteric bit of legalese, it is a well recognized and firmly established part of US law. So all of those people who tell you that the Supreme Court can't over turn a state law, well they are 100%, completely, and totally full of shit.

Of course those people will respond by saying in this case the Supremacy Clause doesn't apply because nothing in the Constitution or federal law establishes a right for a same sex couple to get married, and they are kind of right while at the same time being totally wrong and ignorant of what the Supreme Court actually did.

The Supreme Court didn't say that the Constitution grants same sex couples the right to marry. Sorry, they did not do that no matter how much you want to believe that they did. Instead the Supreme Court looked that the facts and found that all 50 states allow and regulate civil marriage. They also found that all 50 states recognize marriages between qualified couples from other states and countries. So every state is in the marriage business. If you look at Section 1 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution you will see a few words stating that all laws must be applied equally to everyone. This is known as the Equal Protection Clause. This prevents a state from saying that men can get drivers licenses but women can't. It says that a state isn't allowed to say that a particular ethnic group can't hold certain jobs. It says, in general, that if a state passes a law it has to apply to everyone. Guess what, a law stating that a man and woman can get married but that two men or two women can't get married is not applying the law equally to everyone. The Supreme Court didn't say that there is a constitutional right to same sex marriage, instead it said that we have a constitutional right to be treated the same under the law. This means that all laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman are in violation of the Constitution and were therefore over turned by the Supreme Court. It wasn't really about gay marriage, it was about fairness and equality.

I can already imagine that a conservative Christian would read what I said and bring up the fact that two 5 year olds can't get married and that states have the right to set limitations on and qualifications for marriage. This is of course, well, a stupid argument. You see those five year olds can get married, they just have to wait until they are older, which is something we can reasonably expect them to do. It is not, however, reasonable to expect one of the men in a gay couple to change his gender and so any law preventing them from marrying based solely on their gender would be in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

There are some who still won't be happy with this and will say that federal law doesn't regulate marriage and therefore the Supreme Court should have kept their noses out of what is and always has been an issue for the states. Once again they would be wrong. In 1882 President Chester Arthur singed the Edmunds Act into law which made polygamy a felony, not just in the states that agreed with the law, but everywhere in the United States. The federal government said that marriage could only be legal when the marriage consisted of no more or no less than 2 people. It doesn't end there, in 1967 the Supreme Court heard Loving v. Virginia a case which was brought after the State of Virginia exiled a married couple from the state because the man was white and his wife was African American. This was also an equal protection case, and just like the decision discussed above the Court said that everyone had to be treated the same under state marriage laws, no matter what their race. The federal government can and has changed state marriage laws before, either through legislation or by the Supreme Court ruling that those laws violated the rights protected by the Constitution. Nothing here is odd, strange, illegal, or unconstitutional at all, it is exactly how our government is supposed to work.

What about religious liberty? you may ask. Well yeah, what about it? The Supreme Court is not going to issue a ruling that conflicts with the Constitution. This ruling had absolutely nothing to do with religious liberty because it in no way forces a church or a clergy member to take part in a same sex marriage (unless a clergy member is also a government employee or elected official involved with issuing marriage licenses). If someone works for the government in a position that involves dealing with marriages and they disagree with same sex marriage then they are free to resign, no one can force them to issue a marriage license they don't think they should because no one can force them to keep that job. In some states (less than half) there are anti discrimination laws which protect gays and lesbians, in those states a public business must serve the public unless someone is being disruptive or creating some other sort of nuisance. This means, in those states, if you own a bakery and don't want to bake a cake for a gay wedding because of your religious beliefs that you have got into the wrong kind of business. You see there is no such thing as a "Christian business", businesses are legal entities, not religious entities, and they exist to make a profit, not to save souls. If you are in a state that has laws protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination and you own a bakery that refuses to serve gay customers, well you aren't a religious martyr, you are a law breaker and you may very well suffer legal consequences. But hey, you decided to break the law so that is on you.

I hope this clears a few things up about marriage equality, because really, the issue isn't just marriage, it is also equality.

Symbolic confusion

Today as I was scrolling through my FaceBook feed I saw a link to an article that caught my attention. Not only did it catch my attention, it shocked and disgusted me. The link sent you to an article about a group of people calling on others to do something rather disgusting with the American flag and then post pictures of this act on the internet. The goal was to protest certain aspects of American society that the promoters of this protest disagree with. Just so you will know I think I agree with the protesters in that these specific parts of American society, which aren't very important to this article, are things that we should be working against. I can't say for sure though, because the images they showed didn't allow me to focus on the issues they were concerned with. The images flipped switches in my brain that didn't allow me to think about what they were saying, instead I could only focus on how they were saying it. This, in my mind at least, means that there attempt to draw attention to something has failed. Instead of getting people to think about their issues they will mainly cause people to reject them and only think about the poor way they were trying to get their point across.

Something else about this article disturbed me even more than the images of the American flag being disrespected. When I read the comments left by people who had read this article, or at least looked at the images posted with it, I saw people calling for the protesters to be forced out of the United States or stating that they should be locked away in prison, or worse, that they should be beaten or killed. The protesters were disrespecting the flag, but the people posting these comments were disrespecting it just a much if not more.

The US flag is an important and powerful symbol of the United States of America. It symbolizes the rights and freedoms that the vast majority of Americans claim to hold dear. We look at the flag and remember what it is that makes America as great of a country as it is. But we have to remember, the flag, while it is a symbol of freedom and liberty, is itself not freedom or liberty.

The protesters in the article mentioned above, people who try to make a point by burning the flag, even those who some would say disrespect the flag by wearing it on a skimpy bathing suit, these people are making use of the actual freedoms that the flag represents. To say that they should be jailed or killed or forced out of the country for these acts is saying that freedom of speech is something that you don't really respect. Saying these things, or acting upon them, is the most extreme way I can think of to disrespect the flag. You are saying that the symbol means more than what it symbolizes. You are twisting the meaning of the flag and turning it into something that has no meaning. You are doing more damage to the flag than anyone ever could with a match. If we idolize the flag we diminish what it stands for. If we outlaw the desecration of the flag we turn it into a meaningless piece of cloth that represents nothing. Free speech is one of the ways in which America is truly exceptional, in many other countries that have democratic governments, often times more democratic than the US government, in countries where people have the right to speak out against their government, in places where the media is free to operate as it sees fit, there are still laws to limit speech.

In many Western European nations there are laws against hate speech, there are laws banning the sale of particular book, there are laws outlawing the display of certain historical symbols. We don't have these laws in America because we value the right of free speech to a point that we are willing to put up with distasteful and hateful speech. We protect all speech to guard against a slippery slope of laws that could lead to a great restriction of our speech and expression. We do this because we realize that our own personal comfort and desire to not be offended is secondary to our need to be able to express ourselves. This is, to a large extent, what makes us America.

You will often hear that the flag should not be disrespected because of all of the brave men and women who fought for the flag. I don't think this is true. I hope that these brave men and women were fighting for the rights and liberties and freedoms the flag symbolizes, I hope that they were fighting for the things that truly make America special, I hope that they were fighting for their fellow Americans. If they were actually fighting for the flag, fighting for the symbol instead of what it symbolizes, then they weren't fighting for America, they were fighting for a nice piece of graphic design made out of cloth.

The American flag is a wonderful symbol that I take great pride in, but not in the symbol itself, but instead in what it symbolizes. The flag you see flying against a bright blue sky was probably made by underpaid workers in a factory in China, the things it symbolizes actually came from America. The flag itself is employed to sell used cars and soft drinks and amusement park tickets, but what it symbolizes is a great country where we respect everyone's right to think and believe and say what they want, even if we disagree with them. The American flag should, in my opinion, not be disrespected, but we have to remember all of the ways it can be disrespected. Making the flag more important than what it symbolizes, valuing a piece of cloth more than the ideals it represents, is the worst way possible to disrespect the flag.

What it means to me to be a Southerner

I may currently live in the Netherlands, but I am an American, more than that I am a proud American. I am more than just a proud American though, I am also a proud Southerner. I was born and raised in Nashville, I have hiked most of the southern half of the Appalachian Trail. I have spent decent amounts of time in most of the South's big cities and many of its small towns, I have experienced my homeland in almost every way it exists and I love its variety and all of its virtues. Don't get me wrong, I know that it isn't perfect, but I also know how close to perfect it can be.

The thing is that the South has a self esteem problem. I lived in Seattle for a while and I was somewhat shocked at how negatively the South was viewed. Many people outside of the South seem to only think of it is an uneducated, ignorant, racist place. There are pockets of those faults in the South, there can be no doubt about that, but there are also areas facing those same issues in every other part of America. Not only do some individuals from outside of the South gloss over their own problems while associating those same issues with the South they also ignore all of the great things about the South. We have an amazing literary, musical, and artistic heritage. No other part of America and very few in the world can claim a culinary tradition as rich and wonderful as the South. Very few places on Earth tend to be as warm and friendly as the South. Still most people think of us as hillbillies who do nothing but make moonshine, walk around barefoot, hate minorities, and marry our cousins. This makes it hard for Southerners to find something to be proud of.

So we rebel. I am not talking about the act of the states succeeding from the Union, but I am talking about the biggest thing the South ever did, breaking away and forming its own country, as something that many cling to as a source of pride. Sure, you can make fun of us but we have already shown that we are willing to set out on our own and make our own way in the world. We decided we didn't need the rest of America and we put our money where our mouth was. We are rebellious, we see ourselves as self sufficient, we are risk takers, and we have the history to prove it. Many take extreme pride in that, because it is seen to be the truth, because it pisses other people off, and because we have not been allowed to be proud of much of anything else. Our pride is just as rebellious as our actions.

The problem is that the thing we take pride in is very complicated. It is all of the things mentioned above, but it is also inextricably wrapped up with slavery and racism and religion and many other things. You can not in an honest fashion remove slavery from the Civil War, the Civil War would almost certainly not have happened if not for slavery. Yes, other issues were also at play, but slavery was, by far, the primary issue.

This is a problem for a lot of Southerners. We want, we need, something to be proud of. The thing that many choose to be proud of has a lot of problems and so they have decided to ignore or deny those problems and focus only on what makes them proud. This is not an honest way of looking at the issue. When we look at the Civil War honestly it becomes something much more shameful than we would like it to be. This is, in all reality, a problem for the South.

I think I have an answer though, it isn't an easy answer, but I believe it is an effective one. We need to find something new to be proud of.

If the South put the hard work into changing the way the South is seen by the rest of the world, if we made it our primary goal to eliminate racism, through not only laws but by looking at our personal actions and beliefs as well, if we made sure that everyone truly had equal opportunities and was equally welcomed everywhere, then we would have something to really be proud of. In taking on this challenge we would have to face our past, all of it, the good and the bad, We would have to also take a good, hard, look at our present and figure out how to make things better for all Southerners. When I say all Southerners I mean all Southerners including all races, nationalities, skin colors, genders, and sexual orientations. We can, and should, be willing to admit to the racism in our past, the racism that still exists, and to do everything we can to eliminate it. If we do this no one could talk bad about us any more. They would have to face their own problems with race and other forms of bigotry and work to eliminate those. They would then probably wind up seeing the other wonderful things that exist and have always existed in the South. To borrow a phrase, if we did this then the South would truly rise again. Not as the old South, but as a new and vastly better South, and we wouldn't just rise, we would exceed and would become the leaders for the entire country. We could help all of America become a better, more welcoming, more fair, and more equal place. This is what Southern pride should be about, not a past where we have to cherry pick things to be proud of.

Why I am a Christian...

I am a Christian, some may think that that is an unlikely statement from someone like me, a gay, liberal, same sex married, living in one of the least religious countries in the world, to make, but it is true. I am a Christian.

I wouldn't have always said this. I was raised a Christian, for years I went to church every Sunday with my parents and listened to preachers talk about heaven and hell and sin and righteousness,but it never really clicked with me. I couldn't accept that the Earth was only 6,000 years old when there are 10,000 year old trees in California. I couldn't believe that a flood covered the entire planet when there was no evidence to support that this event ever happened. I couldn't accept that people would go to hell just because they had never heard of Jesus, or if they had they had they may have only heard of him as a myth perpetuated by capitalists in the west. I certainly couldn't accept that I was going to hell for something that I had no choice in and so church and me didn't get along very well.

As I got older I went to church with a few of my friends, here I was either treated like someone they wished wasn't there because my gayness or strange appearance (yeah, I am an old punk) made them uncomfortable or I was embraced by people who seemed to only care about the fact that I was gay and seemed to believe that church was a place to mainly commiserate on how badly we had been treated by other churches. None of this seemed to fit very well into what I had read in the Bible and I came to the conclusion that churches only existed to give people a chance to either wallow in their own misery or as an imaginary high ground that allowed its members to look down on others. Either way I didn't want to be there.

This wound up changing when I found a church that seemed to have a greater reason to exist than complimenting or commiserating with its members. You see, quite by accident, I found a church, Hobson United Methodist Church in Nashville Tennessee, that existed for more than this. It exists because people exist that are hurt and left out and disenfranchised for any number of reasons. I didn't know that this place would renew my faith, I didn't know that this place would welcome me, and I certainly didn't know that this place would open my eyes to the world around wider than they had ever been opened before, but it did, and I am very thankful for it.

Hobson is an unusual church, it is a multi-racial church though most of the members are African American. It promotes a theology called "Black Theology" that looks at the words of Jesus Christ and sees not only teachings about salvation and forgiveness but also profound lessons about and a call for justice. It sees all of us as imperfect people, equal in our imperfections but also equally worthy of love. Black theology reaches beyond the selfish reasons many people believe, their quest for personal salvation, and sees that all of us are sinners and that none deserve salvation, so we are, in all ways possible, equal. We can not condemn others unless we are blind to our own faults and shortcomings. We can not see ourselves as superior to anyone else unless we have bought into a lie. Black theology says that God loves us all equally and to deny this is an injustice that must be spoken against.

My church looked at me and didn't see a strange looking gay man, my church looked at me and saw me, George, a man trying to live my life as honestly as I can. One Sunday we had two women preach about a story in the Bible where a man prayed to God to let him win a battle against his enemy and if God let him do this he would return home and sacrifice the first person to greet him. This person turned out to be the man's own daughter. Many preachers see this story and talk about how strong this man's faith was, the two women who preached that Sunday, two women in love with each other, told us there was a different way of seeing this story. They made us aware that what we read in the Bible represented what the men who had written down the story thought of it. They reminded us that this may have not been the way God wanted us to see it. You see a young girl lost her life in this story but she was never named, but God knew her name. At Hobson we know each other's names. You aren't the homeless man at Hobson, you are Victor. You aren't the divorced woman at Hobson, you are Pam. I wasn't the white guy or the gay guy at Hobson, I was George because none of us were different, we were just who we are and God loves us as who we are. We aren't qualified to second guess God and so we love each other as who we are because that's what Christ tells us to do.

Tonight I was reminded of why I am a Christian as I was searching through youtube looking for videos of one of my favorite musical groups, The Blind Boys of Alabama. This is a group of gospel singers that started out at a school for black, blind children in Alabama decades ago and that are still making amazing music. One of the videos I watched was the Blind Boys singing "If I had a Hammer". This is, of course, a well known folk song, but when the Blind Boys sing it there is no doubt that it is also a gospel song. When an elderly back, blind man stands in front of a crowd and sings about a hammer of justice and a hammer of freedom there is no doubt that you are hearing the gospel. Hobson taught me this and for this I am forever blessed. This is why I am a Christian, not because it will get me into heaven, although I hope it will, but because the entire world is just as deserving of heaven as I am and the entire world is as deserving of a decent life and justice while we are here on Earth. Christ didn't teach us to look down on or condemn anyone, he taught us that we are all equal and to do what we can to lift each other up. Christ's message was one of love for everyone and this is why I am a Christian.

If you are in the Nashville area I encourage you to pay a visit to Hobson United Methodist Church some Sunday, it doesn't matter who you are or what you wear, the only thing that matters is that you are ready to be loved and to love others. That's why we are all here in the first place.

Things are changing, in more ways than you might expect.

Gay marriage is a huge topic in America these days. In the past few months the number of states recognizing gay marriage has increased dramatically and currently more than 70% of Americans live in states where gay and lesbian couples can get married. Soon the US Supreme Court will hear a case from my home state of Tennessee along with cases from Ohio, Kentucky, and Michigan that should determine the fate of same sex marriage in all 50 states. These seem like pretty good times, but along with the good news there are stories about new laws being passed to allow businesses to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples based on the religious beliefs of the business owners. The chief justice of the Alabama supreme court is ordering probate judges in his state to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples in defiance of a federal judges ruling. While some local governments are passing non-discrimination ordinances for their cities that include LGBT persons, states are passing laws to invalidate those protections. Obviously not everything is good, but it seems like everything is changing.

One of the main reasons for the changes we are seeing is the growing acceptance of gays and lesbians by the people of the United States. Poll after pool show majority support for gay marriage across the country, but in some places it seems like this support is progressing at a much slower pace than in others.

Christian churches are some of the places where the wave of tolerance and acceptance we see sweeping the rest of the country still seems more like a small ripple. Churches are becoming more accepting or are at least discussing the issue. I am a member of the United Methodist Church which has been having a rancorous discussion about gays and lesbians in the church for years. It seems that lately it has been making some small but positive moves. Several other denominations have moved towards full acceptance and there is even signs of change in a few evangelical churches.

Why are we seeing so much change so quickly when it comes to marriage equality and LGBT rights? Part of it is simple, the Supreme Court ruling overthrowing the Defense of Marriage Act (which didn't defend any marriages, it just hurt some of them) has allowed a group of law suits to move forward and advance through the court system. Greater awareness of LGBT issues in the general public has increased the knowledge that anyone can have gay friends and gay co-workers and gay family members and we don't want to see people we love mistreated or denied their rights. People are changing their minds about what being gay means, even in churches and this is leading to a lot of positive change. These positive changes have been met with varying levels of backlash leading to a few negative changes. But we can't ignore the fact that gay marriage and growing acceptance of gays and lesbians isn't just changing the world for gays and lesbians. Straight folk and straight institutions are changing as well.

Think back to those churches that have started to change their minds about this issue. This is a difficult thing for them to do, faith and belief are strong things and they do not tend to move quickly. The Bible does have a very few statements about homosexuality that can and normally are taken to mean that homosexuality or homosexual acts are sinful. It is true that the Bible also condemns a lot of other things that most churches seem to be OK with but when you look back it took time for the different denominations to become accepting of these things as well. To further complicate matters today there is a relatively new group within Christianity, fundamentalists.

Fundamentalist Christianity is a fairly new trend when compared to the length of time Christianity has been around. The belief that every word of the Bible is 100% factual has not always been common and the people promoting this idea tend to have a serious problem with homosexuality because it is mentioned in a less than glowing way a few times in the Bible. They are basing their ideas 100% off the text in the Bible and this strikes me as a bit strange. As a Christian I believe that the Bible contains invaluable information on how to live your life and on salvation and forgiveness. So do I follow every word in the Bible? No, I do not, furthermore I don't know of anyone who does. I believe that most Christians understand that the Bible represents a narrative about God. It relays to us the teaching of Jesus Christ. It also talks about a man willing to give his two daughters up to an angry mob so that they will rape them instead of his house guests and that slavery can be acceptable. Most Christians when they read this type of thing realize that it does not follow the narrative about God's love and forgiveness and so they rightly choose to not own slaves or hand their daughters over to people who would harm them. I believe that most Christians realize that a single verse that may have been mistranslated hundreds of years ago or misinterpreted by someone reading it through modern eyes is not as important as understanding the over all story being conveyed to us. Some others don't seem to see it this way. In my opinion they seem to equate the Bible, God's word, with God himself. They forget to worship and praise God and instead spend their time worshiping and praising the Bible. The Bible is a wonderful thing but it should not be seen as God incarnate. To do so would be a form of idolatry which is specifically forbidden in the Bible. We can't turn the Bible into a god made out of paper. It exists to teach us about God, not to replace him. I noticed this in a Time Magazine article linked to earlier in this post;
"The Family Research Council’s vice president Rob Schwarzwalder wrote, 'Those professed Evangelicals who are willing to jettison the Bible’s teaching regarding homosexuality can no longer claim to be persons of the Gospel–Evangelicals.”
Mr. Schwarzwalder doesn't seem to worry about God's teaching of love and forgiveness and acceptance and welcoming, he only seems concerned with "the Bible's teaching" and I have to wonder if those might not be two different things some times?

I give churches some credit though, this is a very hard change for them, this is a subject that has and still is tearing some churches apart. I am more than willing to give them the time that they need to adjust and to reflect and to hear God's answers to the questions they are asking. I just won't let them stand between me and the rights that I and every other American deserve. They need to take their time for thought and prayer and not waste it on hate and supporting ridiculous and discriminatory laws. God loves us all, we should follow his guide and try to love each other, every last one of us. Together we can and will find our way through this, hopefully we won't lose anyone along the way.

A note on political discourse in America and how to make it better...

In America we say that you should never discuss religion or politics, I think the reason why this is said is because no one in America seems to know how to discuss religion and politics. Our ideas about American exceptionalism don't just apply to our nation, we apply them to ourselves as individuals and assume that what we believe is 100% correct and anyone who disagrees is either stupid, crazy, or in need of an education. I am fully guilty of this myself but I know my own faults and I want to improve myself and maybe help you improve yourself as well.


1. If you say you love the Constitution make sure you mean the entire Constitution. If you only love you right to free speech or your right to own a gun don't say that you love the US Constitution as there is a lot more to it than just the 1st and 2nd amendments. Not only is there a lot more text in the Constitution itself but there is also a ton of case law that is used to interpret the Constitution. There is probably no one in America who can claim to have read the entire Constitution because that would involve reading the Constitution itself and every decision handed down by the US Supreme Court which can be used to aid in making rulings in future court cases. Unless you are a recognized and respected Constitutional scholar it is probably best to preface your comments about the Constitution with a phrase like "I believe" or "as I understand it". Having an opinion is fine, trying to equate your opinion with facts is pretty darn dumb 99% of the time.


2. Do not think any person can be defined with a single word like "liberal" or "conservative". I have friends who support legalizing marijuana, gay marriage, and legalizing prostitution. Before you decide you know their political ideology you should also know that they think that medicare and medicaid should be abolished, that no one should get unemployment benefits, and that public school systems across the country should be shut down. There are republicans who support gay marriage and democrats who want to lower taxes on the wealthy. Forcing everyone in America to conform to the platform of one out of two political parties has seriously degraded the state of political discourse in America and we should stop letting ourselves fall victim to it. Stand up for a candidate, lend your support on an issue, avoid supporting a political party whenever possible.


3. Don't use the same defense a five year old would use. Say you saw a five year old named Billy doing something wrong and you decide to confront him about it. There is a good chance that his response will be something to the effect of "Bobby was doing it too!" Of course this is a terrible defense because it in no way makes either child less guilty. Adults do this as well, if you dislike a politician and that politician does something wrong you may find yourself saying something like "I can't believe he/she took this totally unprecedented action!" which of course implies that you think if someone else had done the same thing before it would make the act that you disagree with perfectly O.K. You should also be aware that if you make the above statement to someone who holds a higher view of the politician in question they will likely respond to your claim with a list of politicians who they suspect you will admire, who have taken the same or very similar actions. Again this proves nothing but that you both think the action was bad and that you think the action suddenly gets worse if it is committed by someone on the other side of the political aisle. Oh yeah, it may not be as bad if someone had done the same thing before. In other words none of these arguments are logical and they should be avoided.

And finally, 4. Do not claim you want law makers to work together unless you really mean it. Everyday people say this, politicians say this, everybody seems to think it is a great idea. A lot of people, however, seem to have no understanding of what they are claiming to support. All too often someone in one of the two parties will say that both sides should work together when what they actually mean is that the other side should simply bow down and accept whatever their side is promoting. This isn't how compromise works. In real compromise each side brings their ideas to the table and they see what they can agree on and what they can't agree on. They then work to come u with legislation that is acceptable to both sides, sure, neither side gets everything they want, but legislation gets written and passed that holds the possibility of helping Americans. As it stands now the two sides don't talk to each other, they just scream at each other on the cable TV networks that favor them the most, and legislation doesn't get passed. Working together doesn't mean one side gives up, that would be very bad for America. Working together means having real conversations, forgetting about party affiliation for a little while, turning off the rhetoric and spin machines, and working for what is best for America instead of what is best for your party or your own campaign. America needs legislators who will do this and our greatest hope for getting legislators who will do this is for us non-politicians to set an example for them. If you are a democrat you need to stop hating every piece of legislation brought to the floor by someone with an "R" in front of their names. If you are a republican you need to do the exact same thing. Look for something in the legislation you can support and tell your representatives that you support that part of it. If nothing else this will break your habit of only looking for the things you hate. There will be some legislation, no matter which side you are on, that you can't find anything likable and that is understandable. But until you start actively searching for things that you like, or at least can live with, all you are going to do is promote the "us against them" way of doing things that is keeping anything from getting done. Do you want our elected officials to really work together? Then prove it.

These are just a few ideas on how to avoid the traps so common in political discourse in America today. Traps that keep us from hearing good ideas, traps that keep us promoting bad ideas, and traps that keep anything from getting better. So get out there and discuss politics, just do so in a reasonable and logical way because while people will disagree with you, they can't dislike you for being reasonable, well informed, logical, and willing to listen.