On Gay Cakes

There’s a lot of BS going around on the so called “gay cake” decision, so I’ll hopefully be able to sum up why this was wrong in a succinct way so that everyone can understand. I walk into a gun shop in Colorado, I am a gay person with no criminal record or other disqualifying reasons that would prevent me from purchasing a gun. The proprietor of that shop cannot deny me the purchase of a gun due to my being gay. This is not to say that I have the “special right” to demand that the gun shop craft a specific altered version of a rifle that has the full works of Oscar Wilde carved into the stock. That would undoubtedly be a “gay gun,” but it would also be a special request that the shop owner could decline based on religious objections or really any objections.

What happened today was that I was told not only do I have no right to a gay gun, I don’t have the right as a gay man to purchase a gun from a gun shop in Colorado, despite the fact that Colorado’s civil rights statues specifically protect gay people as a protected class. Ok, it’s actually not quite that bad because this was a “narrow ruling.” “Narrow ruling” also apparently needs some clarification, because although the margin of the vote was 7 to 2, which would seem like not so narrow a vote, the ruling was narrowly ruled on the basis that the Supreme Court felt that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission did not give the baker a fair shake. This is in fact not the case, but that’s what has been decided regardless. [Stop here for the succinct version, continue for the TL;DR]

This does still leave us with the eternal question of “why not go to a baker that wants your business?” I am going to put it to you that civil rights are a value worth upholding, and that is what this is. The argument is put forth that we should leave it up to the marketplace to decide which business owners will choose to sell to specific clientele. That is a BS argument on moral grounds, on economic grounds, on legal grounds, on basically every possible level.

Economically this is a bad argument because it allows for the subdivision of the consumer market in a way that would drive up prices for everyone. I might choose to sell only to people who are atheists, you might sell only to people who are Anabaptists, and the next person might sell only to Muslims, etc. Each of these clienteles gets so specific that you’d think we might not be able to make money from such small slivers of the pie, but because we’re not actually competing with each other we can charge each of those slices much more than they would otherwise pay if we were in competition. Even if someone decides they, just out of the goodness of their heart, decides that they will sell to anyone, we’ve seen that the individualization of commodities, especially news information, is very effective because people do like to be isolated from people they don’t like and will willingly pay extra to have their specially catered experiences. But at what cost?

As an analogy to this hypothetical universe, look at the high prices British people pay for rail services. As a result of rolling stock companies (i.e. the companies that lease the trains to train operating companies), British railways cost a heck of a lot more to operate. Why is that? Can’t the train operators simply buy from a different rolling stock company if the price is too high? No, in fact they can’t, for the simple reason that the rolling stock companies in practice tend to specialize on one type of train (diesel freight, overhead electric commuter, third rail commuter, different size third rail commuter, etc). So unless you plan on ripping up all your existing rails, to lay down new track to fit the models sold by a theoretical competitor, you’re stuck with what you’ve got. So unless you plan on ripping off your skin and changing it to a different color, converting to a different religion, falling in love with a sex of person different from who you’re naturally attracted to, you’re stuck with what you’ve got.

Legally, this is the exact battle we’ve fought in previous civil rights battles. Why couldn’t Rosa Parks just use a different public transportation company? Why did they have to sit at a whites only lunch counter? Why couldn’t they stop at a motel that would serve black people? All these questions should be seen as BS on their face as a legal matter because 1 they should be able to expect equal treatment as human beings and 2 in many cases there aren’t always infinitely ready alternatives. As a legal matter, we have noticed that in practice many groups face discrimination and have sought to ensure people are treated equally by passing laws saying that if you want to sell your products to the public, you must sell it to all the public.

Again, I need to differentiate between requiring merchants, service providers, etc to engage in commerce with all people and forcing them to provide special services to select groups. A BBQ restaurant that only sells whole hog is required to sell their product to everyone who asks for it, but they are not required to find a kosher alternative to sell to a potential Jewish client, because that is an unreasonable special request that would require them to effectively be a different business. The cake baker has, presumably, many cakes on display to sell for any reason. He did not offer any of those all purpose cakes to the gay couple in question, he refused any form of service to them. They did not even get to the point of asking for a cake that would have a two-male topper, if they were even going to ask for that. He refused service, basic service, to a protected class under Colorado’s civil rights statutes.

Morally this should be beneath us, but obviously in the era of Trump, there may very well be nothing beneath us anymore. But we need to do better as a society. It would be nice for it to be anathema for anyone to hear of bigotry, but as recorded by the SPLC and others, hate crimes have recently (as in since the general election) gotten more prevalent, not less. Hate groups have become emboldened and march in the streets and plow down innocent anti-racist, anti-fascist protesters while getting a “both sides” treatment from the highest levels. The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security are devoting no resources to combatting Right Wing, Fascist, and/or White Nationalist terrorist groups, especially compared with the much smaller domestic threat of Islamic terrorism. And getting those big issues wrong makes it next to impossible to get the little issues wrong.

Maybe this isn’t the greatest injustice that has ever been inflicted on any human being, but damn it we need to say here and no further at some point and the rational point was over a year and a half ago. Gay cakes are not the hill I plan on dying on, the ability for gay people to exist in a society as equal members, including when buying a freaking cake is. And if you still don’t understand the injustice being done, if you still don’t see how this fits into a larger fight over small slights and giant threats, then I don’t know what to say. We sure had a good run there with the whole society thing, it was nice while it lasted.

Now, where’s my gun? I wanted to finish the end of Dorian Gray.

Wash It Clean

Last Friday Donald John Trump proclaimed that today would be a day of remembrance for Dr Martin Luther King Junior. As he left the room a journalist asked him a question in good faith, “Are you a racist?” He obviously ignored that question, as he has ignored virtually every attempt to seek truth. There were people in that room with him, and none of them could bring themselves to definitively refute premise of the question, because it is at this point a forgone conclusion. A man can only show you the absence of his heart so many times before you have to acknowledge that it’s not your eyes that have failed to see anything there. And on this day we are told to remember Dr King.

There is, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, an inconspicuous marker in honor of Dr King. It is stepped on daily by people who simply don’t realize it is there. On a daily basis, the generally malice-less ignorance of sightseers crushes dirt and grit into the inscription that humbly marks the spot where on August 28, 1963, Dr King delivered a speech for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. What more fitting a memorial could there be?

I have often lamented that many people only have a vague understanding of the entirety of Dr King’s struggles, and that for most people it is the case that they would struggle to utter any significant words of Dr King. Of those who can, the vast majority only know a snippet or two from that one speech he delivered in Washington, which are frequently misinterpreted and distorted to become an attack on any who believe that the cause of the Civil Rights Movement is not yet done. Indignity after indignity, lobbed against the very memory of Dr King on a daily basis.

But now here we are. A man who dodged the draft of the Vietnam War multiple times dodges uncomfortable questions on a day he was supposed to consecrate the memory of a man, who I guarantee you he doesn’t know, worked diligently to end the Vietnam War. A man whose father has a checkered history of supporting the KKK, a man who has been sued for discriminating against potential tenants, a man who took out a full page ad calling for the death penalty to be reinstated against five innocent people of color, a man who refers to nations like Haiti in terms I won’t repeat here; that man is the distilled muck that is ground into the memory of Dr King every day from his position of prominence.

In pockets across America, there are still those who refuse to even give this minuscule dignity to the memory of Dr King, who choose instead to commemorate the birthdays of traitors. They are, perhaps without exception, avid supporters of the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They are, I expect, quite glad to see that Dr King’s memory has been eroded and tarnished. Perhaps they knowingly grind filth into the inscription on those steps, but I’m here to tell you that intended or not they are joined by the ranks of countless people who choose to not know and to not know better in demeaning the memory of Dr King. Their numbers are amplified and disguised by the countless many of us who choose not to see and choose not to learn and choose not to speak out.

It will not be today and it will not be tomorrow, but there will come a day when the stench that emirates from that odious bigot in chief dissipates. There will be a day when this country can reckon with its crimes, long past and ongoing. There will be a day when we as a people can remember the entirety of Dr King’s message of hope for the despondent poor and neglected; Dr King’s message of disgust at the indifference of the well-meaning, silent masses; Dr King’s message of urgency for the necessity of peace at home and abroad; Dr King’s message of justice for crimes committed against so many. When the sun rises on that day, when the specter of fascism and bigotry and ignorance has permanently vacated positions of prominence, I hope I will be there to go to that inscription with pure water to scrub the muck off. That I might wash away all that has been trod deep into the memory of Dr King. That I might join with all my fellow patriots to wash it clean.

It Could Have Been Worse: On The Normalization Of Fascism

As we move from 2017 to 2018, there’s one position that I see some political analysts taking that I find more repugnant and irresponsible than others. On the one hand there are still literal Nazis who are freely walking about today targeting various racial, ethnic, and religious minorities (among others), and one would certainly conclude that these drecks of humanity represent the absolute worst of who we are. But on the other hand, if the Overton Window could remain fixed far to the Left of literal Nazis, they would be an aberration that could easily be addressed by law enforcement and not by disingenuous discourse that treats all content of speech to be equal simply because the first amendment doesn’t explicitly condemn hate speech and calls for the violent end of pluralistic democracy. So I do find my stomach turns just a little more at the commentator who looks at what happened during approximately the first year of the Trump Administration and says, “2017 could have been a lot worse.”

This is, on one level, strictly speaking true. To the extent that we are not currently living in a dictatorship, wherein the various racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, gender, etc minorities are sent to death camps, yes it is true that it could be worse. To the extent that my face has not been eaten by a mountain lion in 2017, yes it is true that it could be worse. I frequently use the “could have been worse” mantra on a quotidian basis to try and keep a view of what privileges and blessings I have in my life, but to use that argument in this context is at best irresponsible and ignorant of the vast amount of work that went into keeping it from being worse, and at worst sympathetic to the positions and people who actively are trying to make it worse.

The single greatest asset the American people have, at this time, is the incompetence of Donald Trump as an individual, a businessman, and most importantly as a politician. His inability to form coherent sentences, let alone coherent policy, has limited his ability to enact a Muslim ban, for example. His inability to attract and retain talent has made it difficult for him to effectively get all of his horrendous policies pushed through the much more responsible career civil servants. However, there is a two edged sword to his impotence. His bumbling rhetoric and unhinged habit of lashing out can often do great damage, much like the directionless rage of a flailing animal is indeed still dangerous. What’s more, lurking in the wings are more competent ideologues who are just champing at the bit to pretend to be the adults in the room when Trump is finally vacated, while simply continuing his policies.

But I feel I’ve been rather vague, at this point. What is, after all, so bad about the Trump Administration in 2017? First off we’ve seen the ascendancy of the euphemistically labeled “Alt-Right.” These fascists have already taken the lives of people whose only crime is being opposed to fascism. Worse, the police sympathetically look the other way at fascist protesters while coming down hard on anti-fascists. Worse still, legislators in several states have attempted to pass laws in the last year to explicitly condone running over protesters with cars. The shift of the Overton Window to the Far-Right has been a steady effort for decades, but now we see what happens when a major political party feels comfortable openly embracing the worst of the worst of American society as a treasured foundation for their base. All of this is succinctly demonstrated when in the wake of the death of Heather Heyer, the president of the United States claimed that there were fine people on both sides, that there was violence on many sides, that opposition to fascism is morally equivalent to fascism, etc. Of course, it could be worse, we could have Brown Shirts marching the street, but for the moment all we have are Red Hats marching the streets.

CHIP has been left unfunded for months now, and most state programs will be lucky to get by on the funding they have through January. The Children’s Health Insurance Program should be the easiest thing to pass in the world, who could possibly oppose it? To be blunt, Republicans. Old guard Republicans like Orrin Hatch as well as the so called young guns like Paul Ryan assure us that we cannot afford such luxuries as keeping children from dying of preventable disease, because we need to inflate the military budget more and slash revenue by giving corporations massive tax breaks. Even charlatans like Marco Rubio see the benefit in at least pretending to be shocked at how crass the GOP has become at throwing the poor under the bus to give handouts to the rich because it’s gone so far. But hey, it could be worse right? At least they left in the charitable giving deduction in the tax bill… as far as anyone can tell.

The private prison industry has been booming under Trump as he funnels various DREAMers and DACA/DAPA recipients into de facto concentration camps. And before I hear people claim this is one Godwin’s Law too far, let me remind you Trump used his first pardon on Joseph Arpaio a man who bragged about what he called concentration camps, used to lock up undocumented immigrants. The window is fast closing to fix what Trump broke with the callous termination of programs that protect productive, law-abiding residents of this country, at which point we will get to see first hand how 2017 could have been worse.

Let’s next discuss judicial appointments. Trump supporters love to mention how many appointments Trump has successfully made over this first year, in part because it is one of the few metrics he hasn’t insecurely inflated. By blocking President Obama’s nominations for years, the GOP made a huge back log. You might recall that was the whole point of Harry Reid’s use of the “nuclear option” in the first place. They weren’t blocked because Obama’s nominees were unfit, but because they had President Obama’s taint on them. But Trump, by virtue of not being Obama, has been allowed to put forward ideologically pure, young nominees, with little or no experience and the Republican Congress looks the other way only unless it becomes a televised embarrassment just how unfit the nominees are. We will get to see just how much it will be over the next decades to have judges who are ignorant of the law, rule on important issues that just don’t sit right in their gut.

On the topic of nominations, Trump’s indifference to doing his job has the upshot of leaving vacant hundreds of positions that are necessary to the competent management of government programs. It’s never quite clear if this is intentional or not. Certainly the appointments he has made seem intentionally designed to be nihilistic sledgehammers, poised to undo the basic functions of government that go unnoticed until they go unfulfilled. One can’t look at Rick Perry, Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, and Scott Pruitt and imagine that these are the best our country can offer to manage our nuclear material, provide affordable housing, defend the right to quality education for all students, and prevent environmental abuse. However, Trump’s ignorance of even the most basic details of how government works is a plausible argument for why he’s incidentally destroying the various programs that everyone depends on, even if they aren’t immediately faced with that reality on a daily basis. But it could be worse I suppose, I don’t know how necessarily but I’m sure someone will inform me eventually.

I could go on like this, but even I have my limits when it comes to pedantry, so I’ll begin to wrap up by pointing out that what has kept things from being worse is the persistent resistance to Trump’s attempts to make things even worse. Trump and the Republicans tried to kill the Affordable Care Act several times, and only the dogged resistance to those callous bills kept things from being worse. Trump’s ban on military service by trans individuals seems to be overturned for the moment, and that’s because of the repeated efforts of patriotic Americans to uphold the rule of law against an administration that has open contempt for the legal process. Robert Mueller has thus far been successful in avoiding the unhinged and unfounded attacks made to try and stop the Russia Investigation, but only by repeated reporting on the facts and the dedicated effort of the people to remain informed in spite of cynical attempts to propagate “Alternative Facts.”

Look, it could be worse, and it likely will be worse in the next year. And that is because at every level the Republicans are in positions of power. All three branches of the federal government, the majority of governorships and state legislatures, and the judiciary all over the country are infected by a political party that has gone off the Far-Right cliff. The only way we will be able to make things better is to draw out this poison at the ballot box. The only way we could make it worse is to try and rationalize away all the huge threats posed by the Trump Administration by trivializing it, by shifting the rhetoric ever further to the fringes of the Right.

Fascist Rights

Heather Heyer died yesterday when a white supremacist plowed a vehicle into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters. This was a tragic and pointless loss of life, even setting aside the fact that there even needs to be such a thing as an anti-fascist protester in the 21st century. We are at a point where people seriously see acts of terrorism from racist, Rightwing extremists and the first thoughts that come to their mind is in the defense of nazi freedom of speech. Isn’t that right Corey Stewart? Oh wait, I’ve already forgotten that the supposed enemies of political correctness don’t like when people call those who yell “Hail Victory,” which in German is “Sieg Heil;” throw up a Nazi salutes, which they do in support of Confederate monuments; and who incessantly complain about the existence of non-whites in America, for which they clearly have a solution in mind. We’re supposed to pretend that the alt-Right is significantly different from the KKK and nazis, despite the fact that they all came together this weekend to “unite the Right,” and act as if the greatest crimes perpetrated were against the rights of fascists.

If Trump has been useful for anything in what shockingly has been only several months in office, it has been for cutting through the bullshit rhetoric the fascist Right in America has been using and bluntly show how they’ve been able to corrupt our politics, commandeer an entire party, and swing the national conversation back to some of the darkest times in human history. Black Americans are disproportionately killed by police, a group arises with the ludicrously tepid cry of “Black lives matter,” and we’re supposed to pretend that makes them the KKK because they don’t obfuscate the issue at hand and say what is implicit that “all lives matter.” An anti-fascist protester dies in the streets at the hands of a fascist and we’re supposed to believe that the real crime is the Left not condemning violence, because all violence matters? And this unified extremist faction on the Right states clearly that they feel emboldened because the man occasionally in the White House supports their issues and we’re supposed to condemn hate on both sides because all hate matters?

This is despicable in the corruption of language, rhetoric, and outright common sense. It is an insult to what dignity humanity still has these days and the reality that we have to start conversations three steps before square one is outright madness. But since we’ve insisted that what’s going on is a strange breed of debate about freedom of speech, let’s go there. Are there limits to freedom of speech, if so what are they, and do they apply equally to all positions?

Yes, there are limits to freedom of speech as much as there are limits to every right. The freedom of speech does not entitle you to lie under oath in a court of law, that is perjury and it is not a protected right because it infringes on the rights of others to a fair trial. Neither is libel entailed by freedom of speech, as it infringes on the rights of others to live free and productive lives. Incitement of violence is not covered by freedom of speech, again as it infringes on the rights of others. If you’re beginning to see a pattern here you should, because as the pithy phrase goes, “your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.” And all of this, to be clear, is talking solely about governmental responsibilities, not the obligations of a social media platform or a company, which may very well have the right to limit your speech further on their own property.

But now we come to the perhaps more fundamental question of to what speech do these rules apply before even getting to the limits? Here’s where we need to be clear what fascism is and why is does not have a place in a pluralistic democracy, and please hold all qualms about my intolerance of differing view points because we’ll get there. Fascism has a very different series of foundational beliefs than those we are accustomed to in liberal Western democracies. Whereas the foundational premise of a democratic republic is that people choose a government that will represent their beliefs within the limits of the rule of law to defend minority viewpoints, fascism sees democracy as illegitimate because it depends on the tyranny of the majority.

Fascism demands unanimity, not simply because it’s mean, but because they believe that if there’s dissent then you’re ignoring the will of a people. Their position is that a sufficiently distinct people would be able to form consensus and be one people with one voice, and that makes it legitimate because it has universal approval. But what happens when you have a number of the electorate who believe that democracy itself is invalid, and who given even a modicum of power would seek to disenfranchise, deport, or eliminate any dissent? To put it lightly, it doesn’t mix. This is why fascistic theocracies feel the need to convert or kill, and why fascist nationalism feels the need to defend “blood and soil.” By their very ideological underpinnings they cannot be part of a democratic society, because they ultimately don’t believe in a democratic society.

But am I being too harsh in my rhetoric? Is this the “tolerant Left?” Let me start by saying that conservatism, libertarianism, and Right wing ideology in the abstract are in fact compatible with democracy. When we all come to the voting booth and disagree over what level of taxation to seek, what services to provide, how best to provide them, etc there are any number of valid positions to take. In democratic society we do our best to seek as much agreement on policy as possible, but the majority does indeed get its way, so long as it does so without infringing on the rights of other participants in the democratic process. But for decades now Republican politicians have seen that they can boost their chances at winning votes by playing to the tune of thoroughly fascistic constituents, and that siren song is leading us headlong into the rocks.

The RAISE Act has, I hope, put to bed the ridiculous line that the GOP has been only attacking illegal immigration. America: the nation of immigrants, the nation of the children of former slaves and slave owners: has been fed a bill of lies by opportunistic politicians on one side of the aisle catering to their most extreme supporters. For example, they claim that immigrants cause crime, despite being less likely to do so than the native population. Truth doesn’t matter to their constituents though, the message matters and that message is that the new immigrants aren’t our people, they aren’t our blood, they aren’t from our soil.

The evisceration of the Voting Rights Act has led to millions of Americans being unable to vote, being purged from the voter rolls, being shoved into specific districts to limit their voice even when they do overcome the barriers, etc. There’s no indication that in person voter fraud is in any way an issue in the real world. There is evidence of interference from another nation’s government, but for some reason that is given a pass and the fictitious problem is the one the government focuses on, even when there are far more cases of Trump supporters voting illegally because they been lied to that illegal immigrants are doing it. The truth doesn’t matter to the constituents who call for these measures, only the message that only “our” people get to vote, and “our” people doesn’t mean law abiding American citizens.

Yesterday’’s violence didn’t come out of nowhere, it came from the steady drumbeat of the fascist Right working its way toward being main stream, while so called centrists try to sit on the middle ground between “kill all the Blacks” on one side and “the lives of Black people have value” on the other. There is no middle ground in that fight, you will have to curtail the rights of one side of that fight or the other, and silence in face of the question is most definitely an affirmation of the oppressor. The KKK and the Nazis didn’t need the help of the Republican Party to get what they wanted, they just needed silent complicity. But in state after state, and in the federal government, the GOP has been going above and beyond what they needed to grow and to get their way.

I know it sounds hyperbolic to a populous that sees it as unwritten dogma that we need to live moderately, that there’s extremes on both sides, and that both sides are equally bad. But I can only leave you with the phrase that Heather Heyer used as her cover photo, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”

The GOP is the Antichrist

I went to church basically every week growing up, I went to youth bible study, I took communion, I went on mission trips all over the US, I got baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church, I went to a Lutheran college, I’ve read the bible three times all the way through as well as countless readings of specific sections that speak to me. Nevertheless, I’m no longer much of a religious person. Every so often though, I do feel echoes of religious belief reverberate in my head, and despite seeing the horrific things certain members and sects of Christianity still do, I have a great deal of appreciation for the Good News as I understand it. With my bona fides on the table, let’s get to brass tacks… the modern Republican Party is the antichrist.

In the past I have described how I do not necessarily believe in visions of heaven, but that I am convinced that hell exists and we allow it to exist on earth. Today, I want to explore how despite my ambivalence on the accounts of Christ, the GOP stands in direct opposition to everything that makes Christ a noble figure, and stands for a perversion of his message so profound that they are indeed “anti” Christ. The reasons for why this is the case would take a good deal longer to explore, and indeed others have tried to explain why conservatism and Christianity look the way they do in America, e.g. “What’s the Matter with Kansas” and “One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.” But I would like to just briefly look at the disgusting golden cow that is the modern Republican Party.

Let’s start with what I consider to be the most basic and essential issue that we refuse to face as a nation because of the immoral positions of the GOP, i.e. health care. Setting aside for a moment responsible debates that need to be had about how best to meet society’s needs, live within budgets, etc; the modern Republican position on health care seems to be that sickness is a moral failing. Congressman Mo Brooks’s comments about what contributions people with pre-existing conditions ought to make in the healthcare system is just the most recent salvo in the immoral position that the larger conservative movement has taken on the whole debate. A position that can best be summed up with the often repeated question “Why should I have to pay for sick people’s health insurance?”

On the face of it, this position always galls me for not simply being coldhearted, but utterly ignorant about what health insurance is and how it works. Health insurance is not a health savings account, nor should it be. The strange love affair the Right has with HSAs is perplexing, until you realize it’s simply an attempt to muddy the waters. When you purchase health insurance, you’re paying as an ostensibly “healthy” person on the expectation that if something bad happens, you will be backed up by the collective resources of everyone participating in the health insurance program. If it were simply good enough to expect people to out of pocket pay for potentially huge expenses, then we wouldn’t require auto insurance; however, in the real world we understand that people don’t necessarily have thousands of dollars at hand at all times to cover an accidental collision, so it is required that people make systemic small investments to prepare for situations we hope won’t happen to us but which we know happen every single day to someone.

But this is just the inanity of the position, it’s not the fundamentally wicked part of it. Christ tended to the lepers (Mark 1:40-42) and the blind (John 9:1-6) and the lame (John 5:1-9). He did not see their sickness as justification to blow them off. He did not fill his ministry with only the “healthy” people making “good decisions” because he viewed all of humanity as fundamentally and equally unwell, requiring outside assistance for the bad decisions we constantly make by our basic human nature. (Romans 3:23) This position that sick people don’t merit assistance, that the “healthy” are put under undue burden because of it is completely at odds with the figure who commanded that “he who is without sin cast the first stone.” (John 8:7) I mean for the love of all things good and holy, the Sheep and the Goats explicitly tells Christians that if they do not tend to the sick that they will go away to eternal punishment. (Matthew 25:37-46)

But what more can be expected from the latter day pharisees who love to be seen praying? (Matthew 6:5) These blasphemers who can’t help but take the Lord’s name in vain, who even carve the name of God on currency, their true lord. (Luke 16:13) and (Mark 12:17) These are the people who insist on dividing the phrase “One nation indivisible” in the Pledge of Allegiance by using their feigned piety. They have made a terrible idol for themselves and called it devotion, they made the Gospel of the poor carpenter into a justification to seek riches, and their high priest of Mammon now sits in the White House, although admittedly only part time.

“Again I tell you it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:24) In the attempt to justify the prosperity gospel people have lied that this is a reference to a gate that never existed, in the hopes of avoiding the reality of their choice as Christians they sought lies to make it easier to sin. Jesus was painfully clear on this point, even those who keep all the commandments of the Torah, even those who refuse to eat meals with women who are not their wives, lack one thing “Sell everything you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” (Luke 18:22) It may not be money itself, but the love of money that is the root of all evil, and the modern GOP prizes money above all else: above the environment, above the poor, above the sick, above the imprisoned, above God. (1 Timothy 6:10)

The modern GOP sold its soul years ago when they put Ayn Rand on the same pedestal as the Gospels, but they proved it beyond a doubt with the head of their Party. Having read the Bible is not necessarily a shibboleth for faith, though it should be a tip off that someone hasn’t actually done much Bible study when they make up quotes like “Never bend to envy,” highlight Old Testament verses that Christ explicitly rejected like “an eye for an eye” (Matthew 5:38-42), mispronounce 2 Corinthians, and claim that they are both Christian and have never asked for forgiveness. This man who claims that he alone can fix everything stands in opposition to everything that redeems the scriptures, and this opposer is not an outlier, nor an aberration, but the exact culmination of everything the Republicans have strived toward ever since they abandoned actual Christian faith.

And here is the irony, I as an atheist find myself needing to defend the Good News from the very people who claim to believe it. I am not a Christian, but I’m far more Christian than these people who stand in direct opposition to Christ’s compassion and mercy, who lie that they believe in a God that commands them to do the exact opposite of what they do. We all fall short of what we aspire to be, but the GOP doesn’t even aspire to live up to the message of the Bible. They aspire to riches and make us all poorer as a result, they aspire to power and weaken the very soul of the nation. They claim to defend liberty, but they attack the freedom of the press. They claim to defend religion and refuse to defend the rights of liberal Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, etc. They claim to be the party of Lincoln, but now they defend White supremacist monuments of the CSA and claim that Andrew Jackson could have fixed everything.

So can we dispense with the charade that the GOP represents Judeo-Christian values? Can we stop deluding ourselves that conservative values exist in a moral framework or that the positions are based in evidence from this universe? Can we finally begin to recognize that on top of being anti-science, anti-choice, anti-diversity, anti-immigration, anti-working class, anti-LGBT, anti-environmental, anti-intellectual, and anti-woman that the Republican Party is beyond a doubt anti-Christ?

The Perversion of Dr King

Every so often there comes a time when you really wish there were someone who could pull a “I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. You Senator are no Jack Kennedy.” And I get the feeling that in the coming four years, those moments are going to come ever more frequently. So now on the holiday that we’re supposed to be remembering Dr Martin Luther King Jr, we are having one of those moments where some people are trying to corrupt the message of Dr King, to whitewash history; therefore, it might be nice to have someone we could look to: someone who served with Dr King, who knew Dr King, who was a friend of Dr King. If only there were someone just like Representative John Robert Lewis of Georgia’s 5th District. Oh, if only the Civil Rights movement weren’t so long ago that we might have a few voices like that of Representative Lewis’s that we could listen to in such times. Alas, we will have to simply believe whatever half thought out musings Rob Schneider might like to share on the subject of what Dr King stood for.

On the one hand, it is a sign of progress that Dr King’s legacy has gotten to the point where even the people who clearly would not have been and still not are on his side at least feel the need to recognize him as being on the right side of history. I mean, let’s not forget that it wasn’t until 2004 that John McCain recanted his decision to vote against MLK Day being a national holiday in 1983. But the trouble with the universalization of Dr King’s message is that it gets watered down and cut up into one or two soundbites that everyone recognizes, even though they lack any appropriate context. If I asked the average American to quote Dr King, I would get a paraphrase of, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” If I asked for more, maybe a handful of people would be able to pluck out a few words from “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” or else to quote the old spiritual “Free at Last.” And as great as those messages are, they are but a fraction of two speeches that comprise the tiniest bit of his life’s work.

First of all, to truly appreciate Dr King, it is critical that we recognize him as a human being and all that entails. When we set him up as some god of a bygone era, we minimize the struggle of those who worked with him, we set an impossible model for anyone to live up to including Dr King himself, and most importantly we set up a barrier for discussions about race and class and rights. Any time someone, in the cause of activism for the oppressed and the underprivileged, does anything wrong or controversial, the first thing out of the mouth of pundits will be a condemnation of their entire cause and an appeal to the better tactics and morals of Dr King. This means that any person who calls for justice is doomed to failure in the public eye, because the moment they prove their humanity and slip just a little bit, they give ammunition to their detractors and defenders of the status quo.

Dr King was a great man, but he was not a perfect man. If you cannot accept his lack of perfection, then you do not truly understand his greatness and decentness. For Jesus Christ to do a noble thing is ultimately boring, because as the son of God how can he do anything other than good? For a human being, an imperfect human being, capable of infidelity and plagiarism to inspire nonviolent resistance in the face of a brutal regime, to have that kind of fortitude in spite of human misgivings is what made him exceptional. He is inspirational because of, not in spite of, his imperfections. When we take away that humanity by putting him up on a pedestal, we take away the accessible model for civil rights activists and create a bludgeon for the enemies of justice to beat down any human being who dares dream of a better world.

Did Dr King call for violent resistance against the racism of the United States? No. Did Dr King own firearms to defend his family? Yes. Did Dr King fight racism in the South? Yes. Did he limit his scope to racism in the American South? No. Was Dr King a conservative? Well, according to J Edgar Hoover, the man was a communist. Dr King was everything that the modern GOP reviles, which is why his words have to be sanitized and his message simplified to the point where no one remembers his activism on behalf of unions, against the Vietnam War, in favor of Universal Healthcare, and his dedicated struggle alongside gay rights activists like Bayard Rustin.

But perhaps worst of all, is the perversion of his message of active nonviolent resistance. Near as I can tell, the only part of the words “active nonviolent resistance” that is acceptable to the vast majority on issues of race is “No.” And this is exactly the problem Dr King faced in his own time.
“I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

No matter how mild the resistance, no matter how nonviolent, the fact that there is any resistance at all causes a great many people to simply say “No.” Representative Lewis did not call for his supporters to punch or in any way hurt Mr Trump. Mr Trump has on numerous times called on his supporters to attack demonstrators at rallies. Representative Lewis is exercising his right to simply not participate in an inauguration ceremony, and that is somehow the real offense. A group forms with the audacity to claim that Black Lives do indeed Matter, in spite of discriminatory legal and police practices, and they are seen as the real racists. It is astonishing just how unbalanced the playing field is, yet even the most marginal attempts to balance it is met with condescension and condemnation.

It could not be any clearer what game is being played when the “Alt-Right,” the white supremacists, find their way into power and somehow find the gall to criticize an actual hero of the Civil Rights struggle for bringing race into this. And no matter how much dignity he shows in response to such crass hatred, we are expected to pretend like all sides are on equal footing. So I can only hope at this point that the mere fact that Archbishop Desmond Tutu is still alive will allow people to hear this message as one from a real human and not some myth of a bygone era. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

Paul Ryan is Trying to Kill Me

I’m not generally one for hysterics, but as we approach a new administration, I find it more than a little worrisome that the Speaker of the House is so dead set on repealing the Affordable Care Act before coming up with any replacement. At the present moment I am in between jobs (as the euphemism for unemployed goes), on a COBRA health plan, and still dealing with a chronic disease. Crohn’s disease is most certainly what would qualify as a pre-existing condition; one that has sent me to the hospital more times than I would care to remember. And the President-Elect’s newfound approval of certain ACA measures to bar insurers from denying coverage based on such pre-existing conditions notwithstanding, I am faced with the prospect of seeing those protections go up in smoke.

The GOP has still yet to clarify what their actual replacement to the ACA would be, and if there will actually be sufficient protections for people like me. All of which means that sometime after January 20th, 2017 I might not just lose insurance, but I might very well become uninsurable. And just to be blunt about why this is so viscerally important to me, my health insurance is what pays for the fairly expensive healthcare coverage that keeps me from endlessly vomiting and/or shitting blood. So I am left with the unmistakable reality that, no matter his intentions, the policies Speaker Paul Ryan wants to enact would very likely be the death of me.

Why does the current Speaker hate people like me so much? Is it because we are undeserving of the costs associated with medical attention? Is it because he watched A Christmas Carol one too many times and decided that Tiny Tim really was a leach on the generous Mr Scrooge after all? Well, if I were a betting man, I would have to guess that Mr Ryan is in love with ideology more than he is with governance. His ideology clearly tells him that government is incapable of doing anything good, and that the private market is always the answer. Incidentally, he is able to hear his ideology tell him this because the United States’ government has adequately funded a military to make sure the din of warfare is kept far from his ears. His ideology has so convinced him that government must be opposed that he has risen to one of the highest levels of the government to ensure that government never does any good for the people it was designed to protect.

It is astonishing to me that Mr Ryan is one of the highest ranking Republicans, because the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, described the proper function of government as doing “for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.” This seems like recognition that government is not simply a necessary evil, but rather a necessary good for those people who find themselves born, through no fault of their own, into a world that does not guarantee equal opportunities. A necessary good to unite the common efforts of citizens toward greater goals than mere subsistence. A necessary good to continue the efforts laid out in our founding documents and defend what were described as the unalienable rights of all people, e.g. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is astonishing to me that the group of people who claim the mantle of the party of Lincoln are capable of so coldly writing off the needs of their fellow citizens, the citizens they are bound to represent, for the sake something which must seem worthwhile to them but which I am clearly incapable of comprehending.

I do my best to understand viewpoints different from my own. I try to understand the people who say they value free markets above all else, and therefore shun any unnecessary governmental function. I just find myself at a loss how anyone can argue that protecting the sick from the worst incentives that do arise from the private healthcare system is anything other than a necessary governmental function. I find myself at a loss how people can think it is sound governance to defend a healthcare system that is almost designed to ensure that Americans spend as much money as possible for results that are just not terribly impressive. Particularly when we see a wide range of national healthcare systems that deliver better quality and length of life for a fraction of the cost. I find myself at a loss how Mr Ryan is capable of so distancing himself from the true human cost his policies will inflict on this nation. But then I am biased, because after all I will almost certainly be one of those human costs.

The Affordable Care Act is not perfect. Hell, the ACA isn’t even a left wing piece of legislation. We are talking about policies that were first proposed by Nixon and his colleagues, supported by the conservative Heritage Foundation, and first put in practice by Mitt Romney. All of that notwithstanding, we are talking about a piece of legislation that does more good than it does ill. The ACA is just about the best that can be done with the existing framework of private healthcare. Any further improvements to cut costs, increase accessibility, and produce greater outcomes would require the government to create a public option, as is done with the more progressive French healthcare system; or at least force the government to take a much more active role in dictating to healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies what kinds of prices they can charge, as is done with the more conservative Singaporean healthcare system.

I mentioned earlier on that I am now on a COBRA plan. Such plans have their origins in the Reagan administration, back at a time when the Republican party still had the capacity to care for some of the sick and dying Americans they are charged to represent. Granted, that same administration was more than willing to watch as members of the LGBT community were sick and dying of AIDS, but let’s give some credit where it’s due. Yes, even President Reagan was capable of recognizing that as much as he might like parts of Ayn Rand’s ideology, she was wrong when it came to defining what are necessary governmental functions. He agreed that the government should require hospitals to admit patients in emergency situations, irrespective of their ability to pay for it. I would argue, given the reality that ER care is the most expensive, it is more expedient to cover preventative medicine too, but I’m not some bleary eyed optimist who thinks the Paul Ryan is ready to do anything proactive to protect American lives.

So the party of Lincoln and Reagan becomes the party of Trump and Ryan; God have mercy on us all. What does that mean for you? Well, if you commit to never getting sick, and if you commit to never finding out that you have a pre-existing condition, then you might be able to live long enough to enjoy a good, old fashioned tax cut. Nice. Now, that is of course barring the possibility that the new administration sets off a nuclear arms race that accidentally turns hot when the new president goes off on a 3AM tweet binge and gives everyone some more pressing concerns, such as immolation. And you’ll need that sweet, sweet tax cut when Social Security and Medicare get cut. But I’m sure that you’ll be just fine. Me on the other hand, the future is less bright than a thermonuclear blast for me. See, I know that I have a pre-existing condition. I know what happens to my insurance once the ACA protections go away. I know that the Remicade that keeps me healthy costs up to $10,000 each infusion, an infusion I need every 8 weeks. I know what happens to me when my insurance goes away, and it ain’t pretty… unless you think all toilet bowls would look better with a candy-apple red coating.

So Mr Speaker, I’m begging you, don’t repeal the ACA. At the very least, come up with and pass a plan that will protect people with pre-existing conditions before you do repeal it. To do anything less is an admission that you are not the party of Lincoln or Reagan and you certainly don’t give a damn about my right to life. I wake up every morning hoping to find out that the election was a great big joke, and that we can all laugh about the big hoax that was pulled. Unfortunately, you and I wake up in the reality we actually inhabit. So sadly, it’s not because I’m laughing too hard that I have to say to the Speaker, “Stop it, you’re killing me.”
Happy Holidays!

We Let Terrorism Work

We’ve just about reached the end of summer. Kids are headed back to school, families are wrapping up vacations to the beach, but there may yet be time to watch Jaws, to remind you just how close you were to dying in a shark attack at that beach. Except that’s a movie, that’s fiction, that’s not the world we actually live in. Since we entered the 21st Century, 17 Americans have died in shark attacks. To put that in perspective, approximately 200 people died each year in that time due to collisions with deer, yet Bambi isn’t classified as a horror film. And that’s just it, the reason why we worry more about sharks than deer is because it makes a more compelling and scary story, irrespective of the facts. While that might make for good entertainment, the same phenomenon is in its own way contributing to an overarching problem we face in society, particularly where culture meets politics.

Fear works as a tactic, not just for terrorists but for journalists and politicians and advertisers and hell even me. There’s no reason I necessarily had to choose that title, even though it’s ultimately the thesis of this essay, but people are far more reluctant to read something entitled “On the Repercussions of a Society Misled by Emotions.” Fear is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. We evolved the traits of fear to avoid predators and to remember scenarios that would threaten our existence. In the service of keeping people safe, fear can actually be a very advantageous emotion. However, there’s a cost associated with anything, and the cost of fear can be the loss of rationality, growth, or even just a sense of well-being.

But seeing as I did mention terrorists, we need to remember why they’re called that. Terrorism operates on creating the sense that it is a much larger problem than reality would have us believe. Now, each life that is lost before its time is a tragedy, not only to the victim but to their families and their friends and those close to that tragedy. I would never want to diminish the real pain that those families feel, particularly because we as a society do not allow them the basic dignity that we allow families who grieve after a collision with a deer, which is to say silence. The families who survive victims of terrorism are never allowed a respite, never allowed a chance to heal in modern society because everywhere you look you can see images and stories of terrorist attacks. They are in the news, to be sure, but they’re on TV and on the radio and in the movies as well. Like a child who keeps picking at a scab, we never let these things heal over because somewhere in the world there is always some story that refuses to go unheard.

In a world that is as interconnected as ours, it becomes effectively impossible to avoid hearing about tragic stories 24/7 in real time. This is because in a world with more than seven billion people, almost all of whom can share their stories at the speed of light, the moment there is an explosion in Mumbai we hear about it in Memphis, when there is an attack in Paris we see it on screens in Phoenix, the moment there’s an earthquake in New Zealand it’s reported in New York. To be sure, we see the best of our common humanity when these stories come out as people donate to charities, volunteer their time, or even show solidarity on social media, but there is a cost as well. The constant barrage of news about attacks and violence and unending war gives a sense that each of these tragedies are part of some great and terrible monster lurking just out of sight. This is all the more terrifying because it simply isn’t true, because in spite of reality this ogre ceases to go away.

It is true that there are terrorists, it is true that they attack innocent victims, but it is not even remotely true that groups like ISIS are very powerful or winning or are some new threat. Terror tactics are as old as war; Genghis Khan avoided many battles by simply scaring opponents into submission. Modern terrorism has been around since the 19th Century and in my lifetime it has been getting less prevalent, not more. ISIS has been on its heels for months now, they will undoubtedly kill and maim more innocent people, but their time is drawing to an end. There will undoubtedly be other groups that emerge, who look and sound very much like ISIS and they too will meet the same fate of all terrorist groups, they will die out. It is quite difficult to promulgate a movement that instructs its people to kill themselves. But they seem like a huge threat. They seem like a humongous boogeyman because it’s always talked about, like an urban legend. And like an urban legend, the origin of the story is ultimately less important than its repetition and its corruption in the ears of the next person who hears it.

We live at a time when more information is available to more people than at any point in human history, yet we feel that people have gotten less intelligent. We live at a time when wars are less abundant and less deadly than at any time in human history, yet we feel less safe. When people claim that there has been an increase in the deaths of cops, it’s only true in the sense that 2015 set a record low for police fatalities and 2016 isn’t poised to beat that record. The fundamental problem is that so many of us, too many of us have learned how to shut up opposition. With all the information of humanity at our fingertips, too many choose to sift through only to the opinions that agree with their own, plugging ears against the whole truth. Attempts to present facts and evidence are met with faux skepticism that rests on the comfortable delusion that there’s no way I could be wrong and anything you might put up as a contradiction to that point is necessarily biased and inaccurate.

I don’t want to hearken back to the Bush Administration too much by saying that allowing ourselves to become divided and scared in this way lets the terrorists win, but when I hear the rhetoric coming out of the mouth of the GOP’s presidential candidate, I hear someone capitalizing on terror tactics. The assertions about immigration across the Southern Border are at their best when they’re only misleading, but are more often utterly devoid of truth. For some years now net immigration has been going into Mexico, not into the US. President Obama, far from being a president of open borders, has set the record for deportations. Immigrant communities, even those who are undocumented, commit crimes at lower rates than the wider population. But none of that matters, truth doesn’t matter, what matters is that people can be made scared and if they can be made scared enough they’ll buy snake oil cures and false promises.

The knee jerk reactions, on both sides, to pesky facts makes it impossible for quite a few to take it all in and see the world as it is. We are not facing threats on the level of the Great Depression or World Wars, in fact this is probably as good a time to be alive as there has ever been and tomorrow brings ever brighter promise. People listen to that and hear naivety, they assume that the world must be much darker and grittier because that’s what the movies look like. People assume that cynicism is equivalent to intelligence and so ignore the reality of the world we actually inhabit and in so doing allow themselves to see scapegoats and demons at the gate, instead of human beings.

This much is not new, it’s always been a struggle for us to see all our fellow men as human beings. We’ve demonized based on race and ethnicity, on religion and political party, on class and regional differences, on gender and sexuality. I would not point to America in 1960 as emblematic of a more unified time, nor 1860 for that matter. We’ve always had our divisions and we’ve not always been able to live with those divisions peacefully, but when you look at how far we’ve come it can give you hope that we’ll make it as far as we need to go. The Millennial Generation is the most diverse and among the hardest working generations to ever be alive. Yes, despite stereotypes to the contrary, it’s not every generation that accepted the challenge of seeking higher education on this scale, yet was still willing to accept unpaid internships as the prize.

There is quite a lot to be optimistic about, there’s quite a bit to be happy about, and none of this takes away from the reality that there is still so much inequality and injustice that needs to be accounted for. The world is hard but we’ve overcome much worse and the only thing that could possibly allow all that we’ve built to collapse is “fear itself; nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” See, this isn’t a new threat we face, and what was true then remains true today. But when the truth doesn’t matter, when humanity becomes a secondary concern, when we let ourselves be prey to fear and ignorance and greed we let terrorism work.

Lock Him Up

America has been presented with two starkly different visions of America as it is and as it can be. In the aftermath of two party conventions we have seen a Democratic Party that represents all the people: white men and black women, trans Americans, Muslim veterans, rich independents, working class Hispanics, and yes even displaced Republicans. The rallying cries of each and every speech spoke not only to the challenges we’ve overcome as individuals and a nation, but the inspiring message of America that remains today an exemplary vision of opportunity. What’s more the DNC positioned itself as the party of true patriotism, dedication, service, and action to bring about a future that creates a more perfect union that is truly inclusive of all Americans. This is why one of the most repeated chants at the DNC was “USA USA US,” without any shred of cynicism or feigned patriotism.

By contrast, while the closest they came to patriotism was putting a ridiculous number of flags behind their speaker, the most clear and determined chant that came from the RNC was “Lock Her Up!” Speech after speech portrayed America as a dystopian wasteland, mere days away from being turned into an Islamic dictatorship if it had not already occurred. It felt, at times, like a scene ripped out of the pages of “A Tale of Two Cities,” complete with a show trial, whose sole purpose was to let the mob unleash their fury on supposed enemies of the state. Or else it was the 2 minutes hate from “1984,” allowing the masses to shout how much they hated the traitors of their beloved Big Brother with the tiny hands. I bring this literature up, not simply to counteract the assault on the English language that is the unfortunate verbiage of the Republican nominee, but to point out that we’ve seen these kinds of vicious and heartless assaults on the idea of justice before and it’s worth remembering as we move forward.

The Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, lambasted Hillary Clinton as a criminal for her actions as Secretary of State. During this vapid exercise, Christie did not actually put forward a case that would lead to any actual decision of guilt, which is fitting because despite hundreds of millions of dollars to back up decades of baseless accusations, Hillary Clinton remains exonerated of the repeated attacks on her character. This is indicative of one of the real differences between Hillary Clinton and the Republican nominee. She isn’t in jail because she is proven not guilty time and again, despite a well funded effort to try like hell and come up with something, anything that might stick. He isn’t in jail because he can afford to settle out of court or pay whatever fine gets slapped on his wrist when he discriminates against black tenants, defames Native American tribes, defrauds supposed students, and reneges on countless deals with contractors and funders alike.

Yet you didn’t hear the DNC chanting “Lock Him Up,” you only heard accurate assertions that he is not as successful a businessman as he portrays himself, he’s not an honest dealer, he’s a dishonest campaigner, he’s a self-professed chauvinist, and he’s a thin skinned narcissist only capable of caring about himself without a clue on nuclear policy, foreign policy, economic policy, trade policy, military policy, etc. You didn’t hear “Lock Him Up” at the DNC because that was a meeting of adults from across the aisle who simply want America to remain in one piece at this point. You didn’t hear “Lock Him Up,” because the message of the DNC was not to debase the American people by giving into hatred but to stand with proud defiance like the Khans for all the things that have made, do make, and will make truly great.

The conventions are now long passed, but we still hear the echoes of the two narratives that were outlined in Cleveland and in Philadelphia. At every speech that the Republican candidates have made since being appointed the Presidential and Vice Presidential nominees, the crowds have invariably broke into chanting “Lock Her Up.” The Republican nominee himself has only recently stopped attacking the Khan family, just in time to kick a baby out of his rally for having the gall to cry. In contrast, Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine have been out talking with Americans about their positive vision of an America where the parents of war veterans are consoled and not chastised. In retrospect, this tragic episode was a perfect distillation of the reality that the Republican nominee is not merely a failure in political rhetoric, but that the assault on “political correctness” is merely a shorthand for an assault on basic human decency.

People who don’t want this madman to be let anywhere near the decision room breathed a sigh of relief when the polls showed a stunning lead for Hillary Clinton, showing strong leads in every swing state, winning traditionally Red states like Georgia and making other conservative strongholds like Texas and Utah competitive. Yet this respite is something of a wakeup call to those of us who’ve been asking how this was ever even close. These polls show not only that many people in America still are not willing to call out this deplorable facsimile of the Republican party for what he is, but that it takes something as dramatic as those two weeks of conventions to really get America to realize what the choice is between. Too often, this race has been painted with an utterly false equivalency, a race between two evils so similar it’s distasteful to choose between them, and that simply isn’t the case.

Most years we have the choice between two politicians who are less than ideal, but otherwise competent candidates. Most years we have to make a choice between two candidates who are just a little too conventional for their own good and so the choice seems arbitrary and unpleasant, but not this year. 2016 is a referendum on the very premise of a decent society, between the competent leadership of a longtime public servant or petulant tyranny. This should not even be a decision to anyone who enjoys waking up without seeing radioactive fallout. I fail to see how I can be hyperbolic when the nominee of the Republican Party has repeatedly shown that he not only doesn’t understand what our nuclear arsenal is or that he has no interest in learning about it, but that he is potentially willing to act on his ignorance on a whim.

This is my home and the nation I love, so irrespective of what we the people decide in November, I have every intention of helping our leadership move toward policies that make people more prosperous, more secure, freer, and more engaged with democracy itself. The trouble is that whereas I can see clearly how Hillary Clinton can steer the nation toward greater access to healthcare, toward a more competitive economy, etc; I can not imagine how the current Republican nominee for the presidency could possibly leave the world any better than a smoking crater. I wasn’t the biggest fan of President Bush, but I trusted he knew enough about government and cared about other people that he wouldn’t lead us toward armageddon. I have many disagreements with Mitt Romney over what constitutes sound policy on any number of topics, but I believe he is a devoted husband and statesman who would work toward the nation’s interest as he saw it and not simply his own interests. When faced with the choice this year, I find it unsettling that there is any state in the Union that could even consider this year’s nominee as viable, particularly when so many within his own party don’t think he is. Even someone like Rick Perry is so ill at ease with his party’s nominee that in his convention speech he uttered the name of that nominee the same number of times I’ve used it in this essay.

Unless the justice system finds him sufficiently guilty of the many real crimes he has committed, we obviously should not “Lock Him Up,” nor should we start chanting it. The rule of law doesn’t endow a mob with the power or right to decide who is guilty and who is not. But democratic government does endow the people with the right and the responsibility to choose who our leaders will be and what vision we as a nation wish to pursue. We can ill afford to fail at this basic responsibility, particularly when the choice is so ludicrously obvious.

Our Enemy

There was once a man walking down the pier of a coastal town to look out at the ocean the day after a huge storm. The man noticed a young child picking up objects from the beach and hurling them into the ocean with great purpose. The man yelled to the child to ask what she was doing and she yelled back that the storm had washed ashore hundreds and thousands of starfish, that they’d become stranded on the beach, and with the sun getting ever higher in the sky they would surely die if she didn’t throw them back into the ocean. The man did indeed notice the beach was strewn with starfish some of which were perceptibly still moving. The man, still perplexed by the situation, retorted that there was no way she could save them all, indeed many were already long past hope. What difference would it make to all those starfish she wouldn’t be able to save in time. The child paused for just a moment and retorted “to those I do save it makes all the difference in the world,” and she went straight back to throwing the starfish into the ocean. The man considered her point and joined her on the beach, throwing the starfish back into the ocean one at a time, saving as many as they could.

I first heard this story in a sermon when I was a kid. I’m sure it was told a bit differently, and I don’t necessarily remember what the main point of that sermon was, but it’s always struck me as a powerful image that just won’t leave the back of my mind. This story pushed its way to the front of my mind today after I felt depressed from the news of the mass shooting in Orlando. Actually it wasn’t so much the news itself, it was the certainty I felt in my heart that in spite of the lives lost, in spite of the grieving families, in spite of all the words and acts of mourning and compassion that nothing will be done to stop such tragedies from happening again and again and again. After all, if America was complacent enough to not let the deaths of school children be a line in the sand, what hope is there that the deaths of adults in a gay bar would spur any action?

It is that painful sense of futile inevitability, which comes from having seen this show before so many times, mixed with the realization that for the same reasons why the LGBTQIA community was targeted in the first place, there would be no call to save some crowd of queers. To be sure, there were indeed the same voices condemning gays to burn in hell, the same self-satisfied glee that other humans were suffering if only because of the people they loved, yet there was something different this time to give a little hope. For the first time in a few years, at least, I’ve allowed myself to feel just a small glimmer of hope in the wake of such a terrible tragedy, because many voices that had once railed against homosexuals, a surprising number of people who had remained silent before as Americans were shot down began to take their stand because this event broke their hearts too.

Hope. Hope has been a dangerous word for the last few years because it has seemed like every step forward has been met with a significant step backward. On one day we see the Supreme Court rule in favor of marriage equality and on the next day we see states draft legislation to entrench bigotry. We see the economy do better as unemployment goes down and we see the gulf between rich and poor gets wider. As the world grows more peaceful we are inundated with images that remind us that there are still children losing parents, still parents mourning children. And throughout all of this, hope can cut deep inside as it seems like it might be a worthwhile luxury to resign ourselves and stop the disappointment, to stop allowing ourselves to give into a false hope. Yet as Barack Obama defiantly challenged us in his first bid for the White House, “In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”

We have many enemies that challenge the progress of this nation, many enemies who make hope a painful choice, but we too often obstruct ourselves by misidentifying who those enemies are. Right now we’re having a fight over whether we can enact any meaningful and basic gun control to keep firearms out of the hands of dangerous people. This has been repeatedly hampered in the past by groups like the NRA, who fund politicians to fight bills that have wide public support and would make us safer, and would let us live freer in the tempered confidence of that security. But the NRA is not our enemy, the gun owners of America are not our enemy.

The perpetrator of this slaughter has been identified as Muslim, he supposedly did this act in honor of ISIS. We are still embroiled in a bitter fight against ISIS and Al Qaeda and the Taliban and so many other groups who claim to represent Islam. They do not represent the Muslims I know, the Muslims I’ve broken bread with, the Muslims who contribute to this country and make her a great nation. Our enemy is not Islam, our enemy is not Muslims and we do ourselves a disservice, we make the struggle that much harder when we define us and them to exclude the very people most harmed by groups like ISIS. They are not our enemy.

Our enemy is ignorance, our enemy is want, our enemy is fear, our enemy is indifference. Our enemy is the cold, heartless lack of compassion, the willingness to do nothing in the face of injustice. Our enemy is complacence in the face of adversity and the inability to do that most American of things, to hope. We can’t stop every criminal and we can’t stop every crime, but that is not a deterrence from stopping any criminal or any crime. Our military, our police, our defense forces work tirelessly gaining victories we will never hear about because they did stop murderers, they did stop those who would break the nation’s heart. To be American is to see the world as it is with all its flaws, to see the sum total of all our successes and our failures and to not only believe but to know deep within us that we can do better, that we must do better, that we will do better. To be American, and paraphrase an Irish writer, is to dream of things that never were and to ask ‘why not?’

Our national hope is at once our great strength and our great challenge. We have seen how much our nation’s hopes have achieved and so we become complacent in the knowledge that it will all be sorted out some day. None of the great strides this country has made came out of a vacuum; it came from the dedicated work of real people to not accept the status quo and to not accept the promise of tomorrow, but rather to demand that it come today. This was as true when Dr King challenged the complacent in the 60s as it is today. “It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, ‘Wait on time.’” The beautiful words and promises of people who were once willing to fight against the dignity of all human beings is a great beginning, but it is not the end, it cannot be the end. Now is the time that we transform hope into action and action into victory against the real enemies of our nation.

Hope invites pain and there will still be heartbreak in our future. To demand change is to run headlong into a brick wall again and again and again in the hopes of making a tiny chip so that the next person can make a still larger chip in that wall, but it has proven to be the only way we ever earn the things worth fighting for. We will win and we will lose and we will dust ourselves off to try again. And though we can’t win every fight, though we can’t save every life, it’s worth remembering that for all those we do save it makes all the difference in the world. That is why we keep trying, that is why we keep hoping.