Mystery Man

So who is the man sitting in the People's House? As the election draws nearer and the campaigning begins to take full swing, we still know relatively little about our Commander in Chief. He's a skilled shapeshifter. He can be Barry or Barack, African or American, moderate or liberal depending on his audience. It troubles me that we may never really know who we've placed in the Oval Office. Obama may be a bad president, but he's certainly a heck of a chameleon.

Political snack time for grown-ups...

True leaders have natural confidence.  Poor leaders are insecure. When insecurity leads, people do cruel and ridiculous things to prove they belong... This never ends well.  We have an insecure president. God help us if his legacy is an insecure nation. It is our responsibility as United States citizens to reconnect to the liberty our founding fathers established for us.  This is the fulcrum of our current national journey. Liberty or invisible tyranny. 

The Problem with Trolls

Ladies and gentlemen...   and all the rest of you...

In recent months, I’ve noticed a growing number of “TROLLS” on friends’ social media pages and many online message boards. For those of you who don’t know, Trolls are anonymous/semi-anonymous provocateurs who scour the internet and attempt to flood it with inflammatory insults, threats, and in some cases, profanity.

The term “trolls” comes not from children’s stories, but from the technique of dragging a baited hook behind a moving boat.  These “trolling” internet pests sling insults, post false statements and often visciously attack others in order to confuse or completely distract from an issue, thus dragging those involved away from a productive .  Trolls are not a new phenomena. They’ve been around since the early days of the internet chat room, but lately they seem to be popping up in greater numbers.  And these venomous, tit-for-tat, name calling brats seem hell-bent on replacing reasonable political discussion with their own brand of childish hate.

Venting or having a difference of opinion is nothing to be condemned for, but the appeal for these individuals goes far beyond impassioned debate.  Trolls have an ax to grind with the world in general.  They are the grown up versions of the kid on the playground who always tried to pick a fight for the fun of it.  The internet is a perfect breeding ground because they can attack without any real consequence. On the net, you can say things with more vigor and impunity than you could to someone who cut you off in traffic.  And because there’s no moral consequence, they aspire to a new kind of verbal violence, to a higher level of trouble they can cause in an environment.  For Trolls, destruction is more important than any one issue and Politics, Religion, Gender, and Race serve as lightning rods for their vitriol. 

So what can be done to control or suppress this particular brand of bile?

In the UK, a law has been passed banning the posting of “grossly offensive” and “indecent, obscene or menacing” messages online.

And in March of this year, Arizona passed H.B. 2549 that stated:

1. It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate,threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use ANY ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL DEVICE and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or  property of any person. It is also unlawful to otherwise disturb by repeated anonymous ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS the peace, quiet or right of privacy of any person at the place where  COMMUNICATIONS were received. (http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/weblogs/)

Legislators withdrew this bill after freedom-of-speech activists protested that it violated the First Amendment... and rightly so.  In this country, citizens have a Constitutional right to express their views on a given subject and the internet has created a place for people to debate the issues that are important to them. Shutting down free speech is hardly a price worth paying. Especially now, when more and more groups who speak out against the current administration are finding themselves under attack by the very government originally designed to protect them.

It’s also incredibly expensive to police the internet. (Big companies like Starbucks, Chevron and NPR pay ICUC Modernization Services handsomely to keep their message boards clean.) And equally difficult would be a total ban on anonymity for social media. New Facebook and Google+ users are required to use their real names and email addresses when creating accounts, but this will hardly deter the most vicious of Trolls.

Ignoring them won’t make them go away and giving credence to their comments isn’t productive either.  

Far better, I think, to simply remove them when possible, or let the comments stand... if only to hold up a mirror to their own human depravity.  In the end, Trolls are simply internet bullies, nursing some sad inner inadequacy by throwing punches at whoever they think they can bruise.  So the next time you read some nasty, substance-lacking, counter-productive comment that makes your blood boil, pause before you respond.  Ask yourself Who, Where and Why.  Try to recognize it for what it most likely is: fluff with little or no validity... and move on accordingly.  Save your energy and passion for those who can give you an intelligent debate and leave the tantrums, name-calling, and playground politics where they belong... at the kiddie table.

Night Rhymes 1

23 books in my bed

a million thoughts in my head

and for all that I’ve read

still feels like decency’s dead 

for the true test of a line 

won’t be measured by time

but by the worth of a dime

and how bright liberty shines

I’m the new kid in the back

can’t think of askin’ for slack

gotta catch up with the pack

and brace my mind for attack

22 books in my bed

sifting thoughts in my head

full of hope and of dread

and so much still left unread

Thoughts on God and Country...

There has been so much talk in the media lately about religion’s place in our country’s political arena.  Huge debates about the continuing use of the words “under God” in our pledge of allegiance, whether or not we should be overly concerned about our leaders religious beliefs or lack there of, etc...

And it got me thinking, what role does religion play in our political system?  The founding fathers were Christian men.  They built this country’s constitution and established its laws on Judeo-Christian beliefs.  

I grew up in the Presbyterian faith.  As a kid I was submerged in it.  I went to Sunday school, youth groups, camps, retreats, served on the statewide youth subcommittee and worked summers during my college years as a counselor at those same camps and retreats.  Some of the most beautiful summers of my life were spent in the mountains of West Virginia at Bluestone or at Montreat in North Carolina.  I led worship services just as often as I MC’d talent shows and Cabin Skit Nights.  But these days, I am hardly a strict practicing Christian.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been to church, but the values I learned in those early years have always stayed with me.

I have many friends who feel the same way I feel.  One of my oldest and dearest friends (with whom I used to get into a considerable amount of trouble for talking to during church service) and now a self described atheist, has said that while she no longer believes in Christianity, she still holds the values that her Christian upbringing instilled. These values are described in the Declaration of Independence as “certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  Our founding fathers were trying to hammer out a reasonable way of life for themselves free from the dysfunctional and secular traditions of Old Europe. 

Ronald R. Cherry writes that our founding fathers “separated Church from state, but they wisely didn’t separate God from state.”  Churches can oppress you, values cannot. They believed that God was the source of our human rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That belief caused biblical morality to be infused into our laws and ingrained into our national character.  This morality is so much a part of our American lives that we rarely give it a passing thought.  Our sense of right and wrong, our belief in truth and honesty, our understanding of justice and freedom are all based on the things our forefathers valued and included in the documents that birthed our nation.  And these things are part of the American value system regardless of most religions practiced in the modern United States.  It is this morality and national character that have kept us safe from tyranny and totalitarian rule.  By keeping Judeo-Christian values in the state, as opposed to the church itself, and using those values as a basis for our laws, the founders insured that they would become a part of the fabric of this country, the national character we think of as American Exceptionalism.

There is a direct connection between Liberty and God in the Judeo-Christian sense.  In America, the equality is under God and the Law. Since it is the belief that God is the giver of Liberty and our rights to life and happiness, all men who stand equal under his gifts are equal unto each other and must govern each other as such. In socialist and communist societies, however, equality is based on economic equality.  Economic equality is not the same as Liberty.  It is a redistribution of wealth and resources in which everyone gets an equal share. 

Let’s really think about this for a moment.

There can be no God in a socialist society.  Socialism suppresses any freedom for a society to work and and pursue anything... especially happiness.  Socialism is the opposite of happiness.  It demands nothing of it’s citizens.  There is no incentive to work hard for anything.  Socialism robs the people of pride, hope and desire.  It stifles human creativity.  Why work hard for anything when it’s all taken by the state? And adversely, why work at all when the state provides?  It stagnates it’s people and promotes ingratitude.  Look around at the disenfranchised generations of welfare kids who become welfare adults, blaming the state for their situations even while they take government assistance in the form of welfare checks and food stamps.  

For a free citizenry, it’s important to remember that your rights come from God (whoever you believe that divine power to be) and not the government.  The Founders knew that.  They were smart and insightful enough to understand that a people who believe their rights come from God, not a monarchy or a dictatorship, can learn to rule themselves and not be subservient to one man or group of men.  Because in a monarchy or dictatorship, those rights given can also be taken away.  Not so with a gift from God.  And so in doing this the founders gave future generations of Americans the ability to stand against tyranny, by understanding that the source of our rights comes not from other men.

As our country grows more and more multi-ethnic, we need to keep a clear idea of what these values are and what they represent.  Please note that multi-ethnic is not the same as multi-cultural.  In a multi-ethnic society, people from different backgrounds and cultural heritages live together under a common social belief system and rule of law.  In a multi-cultural society, people are encouraged to embrace their culture to the point of separatism.  If groups of people in our country are encouraged to keep themselves separate from the rest of American society, they can never truly learn to embrace and appreciate our value system, therefore, they can never truly assimilate to our laws and way of life, and thus dilute the strength of our national character.  As Americans, we must strive to ensure that the people of our nation are taught to appreciate our value system and respect the law.  It is the very thing that makes the United States of America unique.  It is what makes us AMERICAN.

Ronald Reagan once said, “Americans don’t care what your origins are, they care what your destination is.”  Well said.

The US is a melting pot of people and cultures that span the globe.  A melting pot, not separate cultures on separate plates.  In this country we are equal under the law and under the idea that our rights are divine.  This is the GOD in our country.  This is the GOD in our pledge, on our money and woven throughout our legal and political system.    Without this value system, this biblical morality, we are susceptible to those who would have us lose our national identity, our American Exceptionalism, and insert socialism or totalitarianism in it’s place.  We must make sure to preserve our Judeo-Christian history, and to teach it to all our citizens, whether they inherit their nationality or adopt it. Without God, our nation falters.  

We must keep God in our pledge, our judicial system and our national identity...  And more importantly, we must teach our citizens why...  our future depends on it.

What price is paid... ?

I was woken up this past Saturday by a phone call announcing the news that some 20 navy SEALS had died when their helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan. Heartbreaking to think of such a loss and the holes blasted into the lives of those who knew and loved them...
Hearing about these tragic events gives me pause. I cannot help but relate it to my own experiences and my place in this world.
Ever since I met the Warior and listened to him talk of patriotism, war and the history of this country, I have thought a lot about my biological father. I don't really know him. I never have, but he IS a part of me. He is the mystery of my history; my own personal question mark. I have been told all my life that I look like him, move like him, sound like him. This has always terrified me. Most of what I know of him is less than complimentary and hard to hear. He seems to me a strange, manipulative creature who grows more pathetic with age. And yet, this is my blood. He is half my maker - at least physically. My mother would argue that I am nothing like him, but then, I have always fought to be so... I thought that if I were the opposite of what he was, I would turn out ok.
But as I have gotten older, instead of a great distance, I want to get in close and understand it all. Why did he go to Vietnam? Why did he keep going back? Why did he throw himself out of airplanes over and over again? And why, now, is he such a broken man? What made him so cruel? Why did he turn to drugs? Where did life change for him? Was it before he joined the military? Was it after the war? And why did he leave me/us?
He held me in his arms once. I've seen the photos. But he walked away from his family and (to my knowledge) never looked back. He's never given me an answer with any substance and I don't expect to ever be given one.

My mother is a tough woman. She is self-sufficient and fiercely independent. I suppose I get that from her.  But BOTH of us are incredibly loyal and have a high moral code.  I know my mother made the decision to leave with me when I was only a few weeks old. What made her do that? Where did she get the strength to walk away and raise me on her own?  Once, he had been the man she loved and promised to spend her life with... Did war change that? Was he different before he left for Vietnam? Did he live inside himself so completely that he was able to deceive her, and maybe himself? I won't ever know.

What I do know is that we are at war now. We don't see it and many of us don't really even think about it, but it's there. It's real and it's uglier than I can imagine.

I wonder how many soldiers were different before they saw war. How many are broken inside? How many walk away from any real connection? How many live differently inside themselves?

And I think of their families... How many are mourning the loss of the person they knew before deployment? Did my Granny get back the son she knew before Vietnam? How many family members and friends have had to say goodbye before they were ready? How can we ever show enough gratitude to those people who paid the ultimate price so that we could live lives untouched daily by war?

I am humbled and silenced by such awesome sacrifices.

Military families face hardships many of us removed from daily military life find hard to comprehend.  But maybe we can try.  Maybe we can seek out information to better educate ourselves about the world and our country's place in it. Maybe we can be a more supportive citizenry and create a more respectful atmosphere for and towards those who fight to protect us - and their families.

These are individuals who have made (and continue to make) the tough choices we don't want to make. They stand in places we can't or won't stand.  And they do it without the expectation of praise. When praise does come, it is almost always without fanfare.

These are the great HEROS of the United States of America.

Today they are less in number. We should not forget that it was a choice made by a rare few.  It takes a unique person to stand and fight for the safety and well being of people they will never meet.

May these brave and noble warriors rest in peace. May their souls be heralded throughout heaven and and may we never forget to stand with thankful hearts when we are reminded of their honor and sacrifice.

And so it begins...

So here I am... typing the first entry in my first blog.  It's been a long time coming...  but now what?  What do I share?  Thoughts on life, recipes, dreams, gripes, photos of adventures?  Yes.  All of it.  The world according to me.  After all, isn't that what blogs are for?  I'll write what I know and contemplate what I don't and maybe learn a little in between.
But tonight I have waited too long to begin.  I'm sleepy from work and travel...  and really only needed to take the first step.  To start before I talked myself out of it...

And now I have.  :)