Protesting a Protest

I’m not against peaceful protest, when it serves a purpose, and it doesn’t cause division in a country rife with division.

I can’t recall a time in my lifetime when Left and Right have moved so decisively away from center. So much hatred is being directed at the president. We live in a republic, and we’re supposed to support those we elect to the office of the president, even those for whom we didn’t vote. Don’t like them? Can’t get behind their platform? Don’t like what they say or how they say it? Vote them out of office in four years; but until then wish them well, hope they succeed, because when they succeed, America succeeds. You succeed. I succeed.

NFL players apparently have a beef with America, our flag, our National Anthem. Some people applaud them for kneeling during the Anthem. Some have taken a knee in solidarity.

I won’t. I never will take a knee during the anthem. I don’t believe a sporting event should be politicized. I go to a ballgame to get away from the realities of my life and politics, the cruelty in the world. I go to watch young men play a kid’s game. I can’t use my job to promote my political views, so why should athletes on the field, or celebrities for that matter, at awards shows?

But I also believe in the flag, what it represents, even if our government and our citizens often fall short of the ideals the flag, the Constitution, the National Anthem represent.

I stand proudly at ballgames, hockey games, the Indy 500, hat off, hand over my heart, and tears in my eyes. I recall my dad, a proud marine who served in the South Pacific during World War II. I was ten when he drove my family to Washington, D.C. to attend a Marine Corps reunion. We stood at the base of the World War II memorial, based on Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photograph of the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, and my dad wept openly, unashamedly. I was too young to fully grasp the reasons behind his tears. But I understand now.

Dad taught me to honor my country, our flag, our anthem, those who defend us and protect us. I stand to honor him, his fellow marines who fought, many dying, to help shape the second half of the twentieth century. I stand to honor those who raised that flag on Iwo; three never came home. I stand to honor those who fought in Korea, in Vietnam, including a cousin, and another cousin who served in the Navy. I stand to honor those who fought in both Gulf wars and in Afghanistan, and who serve around the globe, in defense of our allies and our values and our country. I stand to honor a cousin’s son, now one of the few, the proud. A marine.

I will ALWAYS stand to honor them, even as I voice my discontent with our government, to speak out against liberals and the Left, against political correctness, against the destruction of all my father risked his life to protect.

So kneel if you feel you must, but you will never gain my respect, not the players, not the fans who support them, not for the way you protest your cause. Because you succeed only in creating more dissension, driving the wedge further between the Left and the Right, destroying what once was a great country.

God bless you, Dad. I remember you. I respect you. I honor you. Even though millions in this country you once said would fall without a shot being fired don’t.

You’re right. It won’t be long.

Semper fi.

Dad, a young, proud marine

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Liberalism: Bane or Boon?

I’m trying to remember if ever I was a liberal in my life. Nope, not in my youth. I voted for Ford, and then Reagan, twice. In my thirties I voted for Bush 41 (twice) and, when I turned forty, Bob Dole. With the new millennium I voted Bush 43, also twice.

I never considered myself a liberal when I voted for Obama—the first time I ever voted for a Democrat for president. But that I voted for Obama is really a misnomer because in essence I voted against McCain. The thought of Sarah Palin in the Oval Office if anything should happen to McCain kept me up at night. One term was enough to show me Obama wasn’t the answer.

But then if I’ve learned anything in my life it’s that, where government is concerned especially, there is no answer. If ambulance chasing lawyers are lowlifes, then politicians are the lowest form of life on the planet.

Once in office they’re beholden to the special interest groups who contributed to their campaigns. And, once in office, they spend more time raising campaign funds for reelection than governing.

One votes for one candidate or against their opponent and hope for the best, hope they make good on a few items on their agenda one supports.

But getting back to liberals: they’re for open borders because, after all, this country was built on immigrants. Never mind that my parents’ parents came here to embrace American ideals. To become an American was their dream, their goal. They asked, “What can I add to this great country to make it even greater?” They didn’t come to America to bend our culture, our laws, to their beliefs, their culture.

Today many immigrants are here illegally to take advantage of our Welfare system. Many don’t embrace our ideals. Case in point, a Muslim woman recently demanded pork-free menus in her child’s school or, “We will leave the U.S.” My first thought: Bah-bye.

Emigrating to America, or any nation, doesn’t grant you the right to make demands of your host.

The liberal left today supports a wide array of groups and promotes divisiveness and hate. They’re anti-gun and support gun-free zones, despite the fact many more shootings take place in gun-free zones than anywhere else.

Support pro-life and you’re accused of being backward and anti-women’s rights.

Support immigration laws—laws already on the books—and you’re xenophobic.

Believe in gender-specific public restrooms and you’re homophobic.

Believe in defending the flag and standing for the National Anthem and you’re racist, a white supremacist, despite the fact that many of our major cities have been governed by Democrats for decades, cities that suffer poor education, high employment, and high crime rates.

Support Donald Trump and you’re deplorable, accountable for hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and are wished painful, horrible deaths.

Disagree with the liberal left and you’re unflatteringly labeled.

Kathy Griffin, Stephen Colbert, and Shakespeare in the Park are all protected under the First Amendment. But conservative speech at our colleges and universities is labeled fascist and protested using fascist tactics.

Where on the liberal left is conservatism accepted? Where is civil debate invited? Only they can be right.

This isn’t America, certainly not the America my father fought in World War II to help create.

America is supposed to stand for unity, inclusiveness. Race, religion, culture are not anthropocentric: no single group is the central fact of the universe.

This once was a great country. No longer. Thanks to the liberal left.

Is the Novel Dead?

That nearly a half-million novels are published each seems to indicate the novel is not only alive, but thriving.

But the other side of the coin seems to indicate otherwise.

A couple years ago I read that in 2014 sixty percent of Americans admitted to not reading a novel. Additionally, forty percent of college graduates claimed to never crack another book after graduating. A former colleague of mine, a Millennial, backed that up by telling me he reads only non-fiction.

Oh, and that sixty percent, it was put forth, was only expected to grow.

Last holiday season I watched a roving reporter in Times Square polling shoppers what they were buying their kids for Christmas. When the reporter suggested to one mother, “How about a book?” she looked at him sideways and replied, “You’re kidding, right?”

So demand is dwindling while supply is increasing. So how can anyone not named James Patterson, Stephen King, or JK Rowling hope to compete with nearly a half-million new titles released every year, most poorly written, just as poorly edited (if at all), poorly packaged drivel?

Additionally, Internet shorthand, texting, and emojis seem to not only be destroying communication but the beauty of language as well. People no longer have to express their feelings with words; they simply click one of hundreds of emojis to relate what they’re feeling at any given moment.

It seems people no longer have the patience to read a novel. Many would rather wait for the book to be made into a movie, which is why the major publishers look only for manuscripts that can be sold to Hollywood to turn into next summer’s blockbuster movie.

Is the novel destined to become only a curiosity, something to be studied in school as an archaic art form?

Fascism on the Left

The Left continues to call the Right fascists. But today the Left employs everything they define as fascism. They’re trying to silence the Right.

Who is protesting conservatives at our colleges and universities? The liberal Left.

Who thought about blowing up the White House? A liberal Leftist.

Who protested in the streets for weeks after the election, destroying property, and berating Trump supporters? The Liberal Left.

Frankly, fascism has more in common with socialism, an intrinsically left wing ideology, than conservatism.

Don’t call me fearful, xenophobic, racist and uneducated when you know nothing about me. That’s a typical Leftist tactic: someone disagrees with you, label them with one of a host of phobias, the more the merrier, because the Left has no platform. They tried to buy the election in Georgia as well as the White House last fall. Neither worked out well, did they?

The Democrats have no platform other than “no borders” and “support sanctuary cities”, and attack the Right: you’re backward if you’re pro-life (an attack against religion); you’re xenophobic if you believe in borders (employing the laws already on the books); you’re homophobic if you believe in men’s and women’s public restrooms. You’re evil if you don’t agree with the Left.

Because I believe in borders, because I believe in legal immigration, because I believe a nation without borders isn’t a nation doesn’t make me xenophobic; because I’m pro-life doesn’t make me backward; and because I believe in gender specific public restrooms doesn’t make me homophobic.

Go ahead and call the new militant Left Antifa (short for anti-fascism) if you want. They’re still employing the same tactics they accuse the White House of using but that I don’t see. What I see is the Left trying to silence the Right through violence.

Our colleges and universities won’t let anyone with even a hint of conservatism speak at their campuses. That is an affront to free thinking. What is that teaching our youth about opposing views, that out of debate often comes the best solutions?

Just because liberals cite the dictionary definition of fascism doesn’t mean the Left can’t employ the same tactics. They do, they are, and it’s all sleight of hand to blame the Right for being fascists even though they’ve done nothing to warrant that label.

We had eight years of failed Left wing policy and look what it got us: wage gains largely confined to the rich. A toppling of the Libyan regime that not only did not include Congress but failed. A line drawn in the Syrian sand that was crossed and ignored. Race tension the worst it’s been in forty years. A “stimulus” plan to help recover from a recession that resulted in the weakest economic growth of any post-recession period since World War II.

There’s a reason why some called Obama the Bubble President. He entered office thinking, They love me, so they’ll love everything I do! But he had no plan for what to do if Congress worked against him. Every president has to negotiate with Capitol Hill, but Obama thought wheeling and dealing, negotiating—politics—was beneath him. So he signed executive orders to further his agenda, certain his successor, Hillary Clinton, would continue his legacy but that today are being overturned.

The voters wanted a change and so they voted for one. All you boo-hooers need to grow up. Vote Trump out of office in four years if you still think he’s doing a poor job, but leave him to do the job he was voted into office to do. We all want a better, safer America. Let him sink or swim on his own. He doesn’t need your help to fail. If he fails he’ll do it on his own. But no president succeeds on their own.

There are a number of items on Trump’s agenda with which I don’t agree. But there have been a number of items on every president’s agenda with which I haven’t agreed. So what? All Americans vote based on the choices presented. Trump was not my first choice in the primaries, but when it came down to him or Clinton, he was, for me, the only choice.

Disagree with me if you must, tell me I’m wrong, but leave the personal attacks out of it. I’m not evil, I just want government to do what it’s supposed to do: represent We, the People, who elect them to office. There is enough bickering between the parties. They’re so caught up in their personal agendas they’ve forgotten us.

Consider that solidarity is a two-way street: We’re all tired of gridlock in Washington; that’s why Middle America voted into office someone to “drain the swamp.” Maybe, just maybe, if we all got together to support “45” government might work a little better.