By Matt Purple on 8.5.10 @ 6:08AM
One of the simplest ways of measuring political ideology is the famous baseball diamond. The bottom corner is labeled "Statist" while the other vertices, going clockwise, are "Left," "Libertarian," and "Right." The lower-left and lower-right sides of the diamond measure Personal Freedom and Economic Freedom respectively. Bill Kristol is about halfway up the first base line, Lindsey Graham is somewhere near the pitcher's mound, Tom Coburn is hugging the Green Monster, Ron Paul is in far center field, and so forth.
Where does that put Barack Obama?
I found myself asking that question the other day after reading something mind-bending. The Obama Administration wants to add e-mails to the list of records the FBI can peruse without a warrant or court approval. In fairness, the content of the e-mails would supposedly remain private. But the feds could access information like the name of the sender, the time of the sending, and other information like Google searches.
All this is curious because, as leftists gleefully sang in the streets for most of 2009, this isn't the Bush Administration anymore. According to the MoveOn.org storybook, George W. Bush was a psychotic fascist who rode roughshod over our civil rights in the name of prosecuting an endless war. Barack Obama was supposed to be the savior who would dissolve the mortar of the police state with hope and change on day one of his presidency. Instead, it looks more like he's riding roughshod over our civil rights in the name of prosecuting a different war.
The great civil liberties revolution that Barack Obama promised during the campaign died shortly after Barack Obama was inaugurated. Early on, the Department of Justice went to court and fought to continue the Bush Administration's practice of indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without a trial. The DOJ also asserted a "states' secrets" doctrine that allowed the government to withhold national security information for virtually any reason. Guantanamo Bay, considered a scab on the American spirit by most progressives, remains open for business. Oh, and a little resolution called the Patriot Act was renewed this year.
Civil libertarians spent most of the Bush Administration conjuring up images of government spooks listening in on phone conversations and FBI agents kicking down library doors. Obama seems determined to extend that power to the internet as well, the final frontier of unfettered capitalism. The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 gave the president power to shut down portions of the internet and the secretary of commerce unrestricted access to internet communications. The FCC is hammering out a way to give itself regulatory power over the web. It's statism for the digital age.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. In March, 2008, New York Times columnist Jeffrey Rosen wrote a column called "A Card-Carrying Civil Libertarian." Cooed Rosen, "If Barack Obama wins in November, we could have not only our first president who is an African-American, but also our first president who is a civil libertarian."
For those of us on the right who had grown jittery about the Bush Administration's vast claims of executive power, Obama's election had a (very slim) silver lining. If nothing else, we thought, an Obama Administration would pay more heed to our civil liberties. What a naïve and fatuous assumption.
Back to the baseball diamond. Where do we place Barack Obama? The answer seems to be squarely in the statist corner, perhaps somewhere behind the catcher, so far back that the fans seated in the first row behind home plate could touch him. The man doesn't seem to have an ounce of economic or personal freedom in his body.
It's sometimes hard to understand the philosophy of someone like Dennis Kucinich, who lovingly trusts the government with his money but not his civil liberties. But with Obama, it's coldly, calculatedly, simplistically logical. He trusts the state over the individual in every aspect of American life. Period.
This administration just rammed through a bill forcing everyone to purchase health insurance. Its bureaucrats are hard at work on a campaign to make Americans less fat. Its ideological peers in Congress just passed a financial reform bill requiring government diversity czars at every major private bank. Its Department of Justice has gone after, among other targets, a school district in New York because a male student was being bullied for dressing like a girl.
The president doesn't seem to believe the private sector deserves any breathing room. There's no nook or cranny of American life that's beyond regulation.
It's been written that we live in a post-constitutional age where serious checks on the federal government, like the Tenth Amendment, aren't respected. That's not entirely true, but to the extent that it is, our only defense is leaders with limits. If the Constitution doesn't check the growth of government, then our statesmen must check their desires to grow government.
Barack Obama doesn't have those restraints. That's why it's so crucial we elect leaders who will limit his statism
Thursday, August 5, 2010
NO MOSQUE
By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 8.5.10 @ 6:09AM
WASHINGTON -- There is an awful lot of blowzy thought swirling around the proposed mosque to be raised two blocks from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. Frankly, I doubt that at any other time in our history, such a debate would be taking place. People would know that when thugs intoning "Allahu Akbar" have slaughtered hundreds of innocent Americans on American soil, it is inappropriate to raise a mosque nearby. The majority of Americans alive today know this. Polling indicates that with them it is a nonstarter. Now the Anti-Defamation League's national director, Abraham H. Foxman, has weighed in on the side of good sense. One hopes this debate is coming to an end.
In the current issue of The American Spectator Angelo M. Codevilla posits two Americas. The first is the Ruling Class: "Today's ruling class," he writes "from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits.… Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector.… Hence whether formally in the government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not orientated to the government." The majority of Americans comprise the Country Class.
The Country Class or the Country Party has come down against the mosque, and it goes far beyond New Yorkers. It embraces Americans from all over. They oppose the mosque and their opposition is growing. On the other side, the Ruling Class's spokesman is not surprisingly Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, though he could be from Chicago or Boston or Washington, D.C. Apropos of the mosque, he says: "What is great about America, and particularly New York, is we welcome everybody, and if we are so afraid of something like this, what does it say about us?" First of all, we do not welcome everybody, not drugs lords, not Nazis, not Islamofascists. Secondly, we are not "so afraid of something like this." Rather, we recognize it as an affront to the fallen and to the Nation. Ad arguendo, the affront might not be intended by those wishing to put up the mosque, but it will be recognized by others throughout the world as an affront. Possibly it will be recognized as a sign of the triumph of Islam over non-believers. It ought not to go up.
The latest to join with the Country Class is Abe Foxman. He has done so at great cost to himself. He has members of the Ruling Party all around him. Yet even he has been guilty of blowzy thought. He says that "Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational." Likewise, the families that lost loved ones in September 11 are entitled to feelings that are irrational, he claims. "Their anguish entitles them," says Foxman, "to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted." Thus because they object, Foxman would build the mosque "a mile away."
There is nothing irrational or bigoted about thinking that a mosque does not belong at Ground Zero or at the Pentagon or on the Pennsylvania countryside where United Flight 93 crashed. Americans traditionally raise on such sites monuments to freedom, to courage, to the sacrifices of those lost. Now the Ruling Class wants to place a mosque at the site of September 11. It is the only time I can recall the Ruling Class ever being in favor of placing a religious manifestation anywhere. Yet in favoring this mosque, the Ruling Class does put itself squarely in opposition to the Country Class, so it does have a logic to it.
Will the Ruling Class have its way? I have my doubts. The Country Class is getting stronger. It is not opposed to the building of mosques, just not on the sites of where so many brave Americans were killed by people who hated them because they were American. The Country Class will decide the monuments for the brave. The Ruling Class can eat cake
WASHINGTON -- There is an awful lot of blowzy thought swirling around the proposed mosque to be raised two blocks from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. Frankly, I doubt that at any other time in our history, such a debate would be taking place. People would know that when thugs intoning "Allahu Akbar" have slaughtered hundreds of innocent Americans on American soil, it is inappropriate to raise a mosque nearby. The majority of Americans alive today know this. Polling indicates that with them it is a nonstarter. Now the Anti-Defamation League's national director, Abraham H. Foxman, has weighed in on the side of good sense. One hopes this debate is coming to an end.
In the current issue of The American Spectator Angelo M. Codevilla posits two Americas. The first is the Ruling Class: "Today's ruling class," he writes "from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits.… Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector.… Hence whether formally in the government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not orientated to the government." The majority of Americans comprise the Country Class.
The Country Class or the Country Party has come down against the mosque, and it goes far beyond New Yorkers. It embraces Americans from all over. They oppose the mosque and their opposition is growing. On the other side, the Ruling Class's spokesman is not surprisingly Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, though he could be from Chicago or Boston or Washington, D.C. Apropos of the mosque, he says: "What is great about America, and particularly New York, is we welcome everybody, and if we are so afraid of something like this, what does it say about us?" First of all, we do not welcome everybody, not drugs lords, not Nazis, not Islamofascists. Secondly, we are not "so afraid of something like this." Rather, we recognize it as an affront to the fallen and to the Nation. Ad arguendo, the affront might not be intended by those wishing to put up the mosque, but it will be recognized by others throughout the world as an affront. Possibly it will be recognized as a sign of the triumph of Islam over non-believers. It ought not to go up.
The latest to join with the Country Class is Abe Foxman. He has done so at great cost to himself. He has members of the Ruling Party all around him. Yet even he has been guilty of blowzy thought. He says that "Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational." Likewise, the families that lost loved ones in September 11 are entitled to feelings that are irrational, he claims. "Their anguish entitles them," says Foxman, "to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted." Thus because they object, Foxman would build the mosque "a mile away."
There is nothing irrational or bigoted about thinking that a mosque does not belong at Ground Zero or at the Pentagon or on the Pennsylvania countryside where United Flight 93 crashed. Americans traditionally raise on such sites monuments to freedom, to courage, to the sacrifices of those lost. Now the Ruling Class wants to place a mosque at the site of September 11. It is the only time I can recall the Ruling Class ever being in favor of placing a religious manifestation anywhere. Yet in favoring this mosque, the Ruling Class does put itself squarely in opposition to the Country Class, so it does have a logic to it.
Will the Ruling Class have its way? I have my doubts. The Country Class is getting stronger. It is not opposed to the building of mosques, just not on the sites of where so many brave Americans were killed by people who hated them because they were American. The Country Class will decide the monuments for the brave. The Ruling Class can eat cake
Friday, July 9, 2010
RELIGIOUS LEFT AND ISREAL
By Mark Tooley on 7.9.10 @ 6:07AM
The nearly 3 million member Presbyterian Church (USA) is pondering yet one more condemnation of Israel, which ranks along with the U.S. as the world's nearly only sinful nation, at least according to liberal Mainline Protestant elites. Several years ago, Presbyterians approved an anti-Israel divestment policy that was quickly revoked after enormous criticism from Christians and Jews. On July 3, the denomination's General Assembly will meet across 10 days and consider a new anti-Israel policy from its Middle East Study Commission.
Like the failed divestment policy, the new proposed anti-Israel policy stance is meeting considerable resistance, including from former New York Times religion reporter Gustav Niebuhr (nephew of the famed Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr), and Christian Century magazine, the longtime flagship journal of liberal Mainline Protestantism. In the 1940s and 1950s, liberal Mainline Protestants elites were typically ardent Zionists. The radicalism of the 1960s and 1970s shifted them to pro-Palestinian, under the guidance of Liberation Theology, which portrayed Israel as the colonial oppressor. But extreme anti-Israel stances still arouse the vocal ire of some liberal Protestant voices, who cherish Jewish interfaith ties, and who also remember Israel's early history, when America's Protestant elite, including the elder Niebuhr, were enthusiastic boosters.
A former long-time editor and publisher of Christian Century who remains a contributing editor, James Wall, himself an ordained United Methodist, is responding angrily to the liberal dissent against the proposed Presbyterian condemnation of Israel, especially on the pages of his former journal. In a recent blog, he virtually slammed the critics as Israeli inspired provocateurs trying to disrupt a Christian denomination. Indeed, his blog's provocative headline was: "Israeli 'Agents' Infiltrate Presbyterian General Assembly." Ominously asking why two publications, Christian Century and Newsweek's religion blog, are presenting "one side" before the church convention, Wall explained they are "merely following the lead of other American media who, either wittingly or unwittingly, are following the guidance of the Hasbara propaganda army, Israel's public information program designed to sell Israel as a peace-loving and misunderstood victim surrounded by hateful neighbors."
Exasperated by Hasbara's supposed success, Wall opined, "One of the mysteries of collective human sin that will plague scholars of this century for generations to come, will be to find some rational explanation of why Americans, who otherwise find the violations of human rights to be repugnant, have been, and continue to be, such easy targets for Hasbara propaganda." For good measure, he also decried the New York Times's Tom Friedman as the "high priest of Hasbara," though Friedman has not seemingly directly addressed the proposed Presbyterian stance, but is merely guilty of occasionally defending Israel.
The so-called Israeli "Hasbara" control of American public opinion is an ongoing preoccupation for Wall, who has led many anti-Israel ostensible fact-finding missions to the Middle East over the years, and whose nearly three-decade reign over Christian Century included frequent salvos against Israel. Tracking with liberal Mainline Protestantism as a whole, that journal which once represented mainstream Protestant opinion fell into near collapse in the wake of Wall's long editorship, partially reviving since his departure as editor by shifting towards the center. Recently, Wall also blamed White House correspondent Helen Thomas's disgrace and retirement on Hasbara, which supposedly wanted to punish her and shift attention away from the Israeli confrontation with the Gaza flotilla. Wall derided Thomas's critics as PEP's, or Progressives Instead of Palestine. Progressive Protestants like Martin Luther King, Jr. once championed Zionism as social justice. But the hard Religious Left, so entrenched against America, Israel and Western Civilization, often reacts peevishly against any reminder of liberal Protestantism's nobler, earlier decades.
Angrily, Wall is wondering whether voting commissioners at the Presbyterian assembly will be "duped" by Israel's "Hasbara Warriors" or more thoughtfully will "listen to our Presbyterian Commissioners who have studied, prayed about, and witnessed the gross injustice of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian people?" The supposedly Hasbara-inspired Christian Century column that irked Wall came from two Vanderbilt University professors who wrote about the proposed Presbyterian policy: "Despite numerous attempts by mainline Protestant denominations to promote historically informed studies of Judaism, repudiate supersessionist theologies and engage in conversations with Jews, the old habit of bearing false witness against Jewish neighbors lives on." They concluded: "In recent years this practice has thrived, especially in mainline Protestant statements on the Middle East."
Niebuhr's critique of the Presbyterian proposal in the Newsweek blog, which he co-authored with a Presbyterian seminary president, similarly denounced the anti-Israel stance as "unbalanced, historically inaccurate, theologically flawed and politically damaging." They also reported signing "a letter circulating among Presbyterians nationwide, calling on the General Assembly to reject the Middle East Study Committee's report." Wall naturally denounced these signers as "whether they know it or not, in the Hasbara army."
Evidently a stranger to nuance, at least on this topic, Wall slammed Israel as guilty of the "the slaughter of the innocents [which] began with the Nakba [Palestinian term for "catastrophe"] in 1947," while bemoaning the "harsh reality of Israel's six decades of immoral and unethical treatment of the Palestinian people," and the "prison-like conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live."
Wall does not seem to get similarly exercised over the sins of Israel's neighbors, or of virtually any other government in the world. And the Presbyterians do not have study committees or proposed human rights critiques aimed at Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, or other non-democracies notorious for abuses and oppression.
At the risk of being accused of serving in the Hasbara Army, here is my Presbyterian colleague Alan Wisdom's own critique of his church's proposed anti-Israel stance. Religious Left anti-Israel zealots like Wall believe their opponents are simply tools of Israeli propaganda. But by the same conspiratorial measure, whose tool might Wall be
The nearly 3 million member Presbyterian Church (USA) is pondering yet one more condemnation of Israel, which ranks along with the U.S. as the world's nearly only sinful nation, at least according to liberal Mainline Protestant elites. Several years ago, Presbyterians approved an anti-Israel divestment policy that was quickly revoked after enormous criticism from Christians and Jews. On July 3, the denomination's General Assembly will meet across 10 days and consider a new anti-Israel policy from its Middle East Study Commission.
Like the failed divestment policy, the new proposed anti-Israel policy stance is meeting considerable resistance, including from former New York Times religion reporter Gustav Niebuhr (nephew of the famed Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr), and Christian Century magazine, the longtime flagship journal of liberal Mainline Protestantism. In the 1940s and 1950s, liberal Mainline Protestants elites were typically ardent Zionists. The radicalism of the 1960s and 1970s shifted them to pro-Palestinian, under the guidance of Liberation Theology, which portrayed Israel as the colonial oppressor. But extreme anti-Israel stances still arouse the vocal ire of some liberal Protestant voices, who cherish Jewish interfaith ties, and who also remember Israel's early history, when America's Protestant elite, including the elder Niebuhr, were enthusiastic boosters.
A former long-time editor and publisher of Christian Century who remains a contributing editor, James Wall, himself an ordained United Methodist, is responding angrily to the liberal dissent against the proposed Presbyterian condemnation of Israel, especially on the pages of his former journal. In a recent blog, he virtually slammed the critics as Israeli inspired provocateurs trying to disrupt a Christian denomination. Indeed, his blog's provocative headline was: "Israeli 'Agents' Infiltrate Presbyterian General Assembly." Ominously asking why two publications, Christian Century and Newsweek's religion blog, are presenting "one side" before the church convention, Wall explained they are "merely following the lead of other American media who, either wittingly or unwittingly, are following the guidance of the Hasbara propaganda army, Israel's public information program designed to sell Israel as a peace-loving and misunderstood victim surrounded by hateful neighbors."
Exasperated by Hasbara's supposed success, Wall opined, "One of the mysteries of collective human sin that will plague scholars of this century for generations to come, will be to find some rational explanation of why Americans, who otherwise find the violations of human rights to be repugnant, have been, and continue to be, such easy targets for Hasbara propaganda." For good measure, he also decried the New York Times's Tom Friedman as the "high priest of Hasbara," though Friedman has not seemingly directly addressed the proposed Presbyterian stance, but is merely guilty of occasionally defending Israel.
The so-called Israeli "Hasbara" control of American public opinion is an ongoing preoccupation for Wall, who has led many anti-Israel ostensible fact-finding missions to the Middle East over the years, and whose nearly three-decade reign over Christian Century included frequent salvos against Israel. Tracking with liberal Mainline Protestantism as a whole, that journal which once represented mainstream Protestant opinion fell into near collapse in the wake of Wall's long editorship, partially reviving since his departure as editor by shifting towards the center. Recently, Wall also blamed White House correspondent Helen Thomas's disgrace and retirement on Hasbara, which supposedly wanted to punish her and shift attention away from the Israeli confrontation with the Gaza flotilla. Wall derided Thomas's critics as PEP's, or Progressives Instead of Palestine. Progressive Protestants like Martin Luther King, Jr. once championed Zionism as social justice. But the hard Religious Left, so entrenched against America, Israel and Western Civilization, often reacts peevishly against any reminder of liberal Protestantism's nobler, earlier decades.
Angrily, Wall is wondering whether voting commissioners at the Presbyterian assembly will be "duped" by Israel's "Hasbara Warriors" or more thoughtfully will "listen to our Presbyterian Commissioners who have studied, prayed about, and witnessed the gross injustice of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian people?" The supposedly Hasbara-inspired Christian Century column that irked Wall came from two Vanderbilt University professors who wrote about the proposed Presbyterian policy: "Despite numerous attempts by mainline Protestant denominations to promote historically informed studies of Judaism, repudiate supersessionist theologies and engage in conversations with Jews, the old habit of bearing false witness against Jewish neighbors lives on." They concluded: "In recent years this practice has thrived, especially in mainline Protestant statements on the Middle East."
Niebuhr's critique of the Presbyterian proposal in the Newsweek blog, which he co-authored with a Presbyterian seminary president, similarly denounced the anti-Israel stance as "unbalanced, historically inaccurate, theologically flawed and politically damaging." They also reported signing "a letter circulating among Presbyterians nationwide, calling on the General Assembly to reject the Middle East Study Committee's report." Wall naturally denounced these signers as "whether they know it or not, in the Hasbara army."
Evidently a stranger to nuance, at least on this topic, Wall slammed Israel as guilty of the "the slaughter of the innocents [which] began with the Nakba [Palestinian term for "catastrophe"] in 1947," while bemoaning the "harsh reality of Israel's six decades of immoral and unethical treatment of the Palestinian people," and the "prison-like conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live."
Wall does not seem to get similarly exercised over the sins of Israel's neighbors, or of virtually any other government in the world. And the Presbyterians do not have study committees or proposed human rights critiques aimed at Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, or other non-democracies notorious for abuses and oppression.
At the risk of being accused of serving in the Hasbara Army, here is my Presbyterian colleague Alan Wisdom's own critique of his church's proposed anti-Israel stance. Religious Left anti-Israel zealots like Wall believe their opponents are simply tools of Israeli propaganda. But by the same conspiratorial measure, whose tool might Wall be
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
THERE ONCE WAS A TIME
There once was a time,....
I carried my home on my back.
A grimey bedroll tied up like a pack.
My shoes were holed,... my pants were torn,
My beard was scraggley,....my hair unshorn.
I tried to forget all the things in my mind,...
Just tried to remember a much better time.
It seemed I had wandered hither and yon,
Trying to make the memories forever be gone.
The pain and the anguish ate at me each day,
As I wished I could make it all go away....If I could find me a hole
And pull the lid in, ...Nobody would know just what I had been.
They wouldn’t know that in battle I killed,
Nor would they know that in killing I wept..... They wouldn’t know
All the blood and gore I had seen..... The smell, the sounds, the pain and the screams...... All of these things still haunting my dreams.
These are the things I carried on my back
Along with my dirty,..filthy,..old pack.
Once a warrior,...... now.... just an old man....
Wondering how can WAR,... be part of ANY GREAT PLAN?
Remember, FREEDOM ISN'T FREE, everybody pays.
I carried my home on my back.
A grimey bedroll tied up like a pack.
My shoes were holed,... my pants were torn,
My beard was scraggley,....my hair unshorn.
I tried to forget all the things in my mind,...
Just tried to remember a much better time.
It seemed I had wandered hither and yon,
Trying to make the memories forever be gone.
The pain and the anguish ate at me each day,
As I wished I could make it all go away....If I could find me a hole
And pull the lid in, ...Nobody would know just what I had been.
They wouldn’t know that in battle I killed,
Nor would they know that in killing I wept..... They wouldn’t know
All the blood and gore I had seen..... The smell, the sounds, the pain and the screams...... All of these things still haunting my dreams.
These are the things I carried on my back
Along with my dirty,..filthy,..old pack.
Once a warrior,...... now.... just an old man....
Wondering how can WAR,... be part of ANY GREAT PLAN?
Remember, FREEDOM ISN'T FREE, everybody pays.
What would you do?
How much do you love your children? Would you die for your children? Would you do anything in the world for your children? We go through most of our lives with the goal of raising our children to be good people, honest, caring, and just in general decent folks.
We try to protect our children, nurturing them and installing the values that have been handed down to us by our parents, by which we lead our lives. Every parent to ever lived and really wanted and loved their children only wanted a better world and life for their child or children.
You can only imagine my surprise and consternation when my eldest son approached me one day (at the age of 35) and informed me that he could no longer live the life you’ve been living and he had to tell me that he was transgendered. At first I thought he was joking but I soon came to realize he was dead serious. You can’t imagine the thoughts that began to run through my head. I was totally surprised. Here was a man that was my son, my firstborn son, I had literally watched come into this world. Here is a man that as a child did everything every normal boy did. He climbed trees, and he went fishing, in later years he went hunting, he worked on cars, he did many things and everything normally associated with what boys do. I had to ask myself how could this be? What have I done wrong? I had to ask where did I fail? My first response was a perhaps he should see a psychologist, he replied that he had seen a psychologist, that these feelings of confusion been with him since he was 10 years old. He kept trying to live as a male because he was afraid of letting me down. He kept trying to live as a male because society said he had to. He told me I didn’t know( which is entirely true) how miserable he been in his adult life and how many times he contemplated suicide. This revelation caused an immediate alarm in me. The last I want to see or hear is my child committing suicide. I was honest with him and told him I did not know how to deal with this but that I would try to work my way through it is best possible
The first emotion that comes to mind was anger, but who was I angry at, Me or him? And I had to decide how revolting as this? How repugnant is this? I mean this person is going to change their whole body. He informed me he had been taking hormones for some time now and that his body was starting to change. He also informed me he had been getting his prescriptions and paying a doctor in Florida for consultation and treatment. Furthermore he informed me he had been saving his money for a sex change operation. Oh boy here we go, I can’t believe what I’m hearing, this is BS, what the hell happened to my son? What am I going to tell my friends? When would I tell my brothers ( his uncles)? What will I tell everybody that knows us? How kind face any of these people? Just think of the shame that I would feel just think of the rejection by all these people mentioned.
But wait, how about my son? How was he been feeling for the last 20 years of and? How miserable must it be to live a lie, to hide the feelings you have and appear to be something you aren’t. I tried to put myself in that position and I realized it must have been a miserable life to have to live in peaceful totally unhappy. In examining my emotions, and examining my anger, I did not find my anger to be genuine nor justified. I found my abhorrence and shame to be at best hollow and shallow with only my interests at heart. I love my children with all my heart, perhaps I have a closer bond than many males as I was a single parent for many years. I changed all their diapers, I got up with them the middle of night gave them their bottles, with both mother and father to them for many years. Was it for naught? I don’t think so. I worked my way through my emotions, my fears and my false embarrassments that are wrongly thought were put upon me by my transgendered son. I love my children no matter what they do or where they are. I love them unconditionally.
It is been two years now since that shocking moment when my son informed me that he was going to be a woman. I have watched him change ( somewhat in amazement) and I find this man/woman to still be the same person I raised. I still see the same values, the same morals ( yes morals) and the same commitment to family I instilled in him/her as a child. She goes to group meetings and tells me of the horror stories she hears there about parents and loved ones( brothers and sisters aunts and uncles) that totally disown them. She tells me of lost jobs, of the terrible repercussions of coming out and the sacrifices that had to be made. She tells me how grateful she is that she still has her father and her brothers.
Do I understand all of this? Hell no. Am I going to try to force my way of life on my son/daughter? Hell no. Do I have gotten off to stand up to my brothers to my friends and proudly say this is now my daughter? Hell yes.
I have decided that even though I don’t understand it, even though at first it was repugnant, and I am going to love and support my child in any way I can. Those of you reading this and saying no way I would disown him I would turn my back and throw him out of my family, think about it. Just take the time to think.
His/her goal now is to have enough money for a total sex change operation in the next year and a half. There have been ups and downs and times where he/she has become disheartened. There have been times when he/she wanted to give it up. I have found myself supporting her and encouraging her because I have seen the happiness that was lacking in her life prior to this and like any parent I live to see my child happy.
I will write more later( for those of you that are interested) for those of you that are not and find this revolting and disgusting then I suggest you ignore this blog and go somewhere else. To the rest of you thank you and your comments are welcome.
We try to protect our children, nurturing them and installing the values that have been handed down to us by our parents, by which we lead our lives. Every parent to ever lived and really wanted and loved their children only wanted a better world and life for their child or children.
You can only imagine my surprise and consternation when my eldest son approached me one day (at the age of 35) and informed me that he could no longer live the life you’ve been living and he had to tell me that he was transgendered. At first I thought he was joking but I soon came to realize he was dead serious. You can’t imagine the thoughts that began to run through my head. I was totally surprised. Here was a man that was my son, my firstborn son, I had literally watched come into this world. Here is a man that as a child did everything every normal boy did. He climbed trees, and he went fishing, in later years he went hunting, he worked on cars, he did many things and everything normally associated with what boys do. I had to ask myself how could this be? What have I done wrong? I had to ask where did I fail? My first response was a perhaps he should see a psychologist, he replied that he had seen a psychologist, that these feelings of confusion been with him since he was 10 years old. He kept trying to live as a male because he was afraid of letting me down. He kept trying to live as a male because society said he had to. He told me I didn’t know( which is entirely true) how miserable he been in his adult life and how many times he contemplated suicide. This revelation caused an immediate alarm in me. The last I want to see or hear is my child committing suicide. I was honest with him and told him I did not know how to deal with this but that I would try to work my way through it is best possible
The first emotion that comes to mind was anger, but who was I angry at, Me or him? And I had to decide how revolting as this? How repugnant is this? I mean this person is going to change their whole body. He informed me he had been taking hormones for some time now and that his body was starting to change. He also informed me he had been getting his prescriptions and paying a doctor in Florida for consultation and treatment. Furthermore he informed me he had been saving his money for a sex change operation. Oh boy here we go, I can’t believe what I’m hearing, this is BS, what the hell happened to my son? What am I going to tell my friends? When would I tell my brothers ( his uncles)? What will I tell everybody that knows us? How kind face any of these people? Just think of the shame that I would feel just think of the rejection by all these people mentioned.
But wait, how about my son? How was he been feeling for the last 20 years of and? How miserable must it be to live a lie, to hide the feelings you have and appear to be something you aren’t. I tried to put myself in that position and I realized it must have been a miserable life to have to live in peaceful totally unhappy. In examining my emotions, and examining my anger, I did not find my anger to be genuine nor justified. I found my abhorrence and shame to be at best hollow and shallow with only my interests at heart. I love my children with all my heart, perhaps I have a closer bond than many males as I was a single parent for many years. I changed all their diapers, I got up with them the middle of night gave them their bottles, with both mother and father to them for many years. Was it for naught? I don’t think so. I worked my way through my emotions, my fears and my false embarrassments that are wrongly thought were put upon me by my transgendered son. I love my children no matter what they do or where they are. I love them unconditionally.
It is been two years now since that shocking moment when my son informed me that he was going to be a woman. I have watched him change ( somewhat in amazement) and I find this man/woman to still be the same person I raised. I still see the same values, the same morals ( yes morals) and the same commitment to family I instilled in him/her as a child. She goes to group meetings and tells me of the horror stories she hears there about parents and loved ones( brothers and sisters aunts and uncles) that totally disown them. She tells me of lost jobs, of the terrible repercussions of coming out and the sacrifices that had to be made. She tells me how grateful she is that she still has her father and her brothers.
Do I understand all of this? Hell no. Am I going to try to force my way of life on my son/daughter? Hell no. Do I have gotten off to stand up to my brothers to my friends and proudly say this is now my daughter? Hell yes.
I have decided that even though I don’t understand it, even though at first it was repugnant, and I am going to love and support my child in any way I can. Those of you reading this and saying no way I would disown him I would turn my back and throw him out of my family, think about it. Just take the time to think.
His/her goal now is to have enough money for a total sex change operation in the next year and a half. There have been ups and downs and times where he/she has become disheartened. There have been times when he/she wanted to give it up. I have found myself supporting her and encouraging her because I have seen the happiness that was lacking in her life prior to this and like any parent I live to see my child happy.
I will write more later( for those of you that are interested) for those of you that are not and find this revolting and disgusting then I suggest you ignore this blog and go somewhere else. To the rest of you thank you and your comments are welcome.
Just an angry, Bitter,Old man?
Angry and bitter you bet,
Some of you, no correct that, many of you have accused me of being just an angry bitter old man. I suppose in many ways I am.
Our forefathers and the founders of our country shed their blood, and many gave their lives to lay down rules to live by in this country guaranteeing everybody freedom, pursuit of happiness and so on. They didn’t just happen to come on the rules laying on a desk somewhere covered with dust, they didn’t just dust them off and say oh what have we here? Many hours, many days, much soul-searching and talking and debate went into establishing the rules of a new country. Our forefathers and founders of this country wanted to make sure they got it right. They wanted to make sure that their ancestors would be guaranteed certain unalienable rights as well as restrictions on government and clearly spelling out governments responsibility.
Yes I become angry when I realize that just 234 years after our country was founded, just a short 234 years after our forefathers and the founders of this great country put pen and ink to paper detailing the rules and conditions that their heirs would live by and hopefully never again have to endure tyranny and oppression, this great country and Republic was destroyed from within.
Rome was considered a superpower in its day. The Romans governed for hundreds of years. Egypt was considered a superpower, they reigned for hundreds of years. The United States was a superpower its reign lasted a short 234 years.( I do not consider us a superpower any longer nor do I think the rest of the world does either) our current president grovels at the feet of world leaders like a beggar.
Yes I become angry when I hear people today mocking the Constitution, claiming it to be a living breathing document that can be changed at will. I become angry I realize these same people wanting to change the constitution have no respect for the Constitution of the United States of America as well is no respect for history, the sacrifices, and the supreme prices paid by many of their fellow countrymen so that they could may remain free.
By the very nature of this document( the Constitution of the United States of America) and the Bill of Rights, we have to allow subversive organizations such as Nazis, Communists, Socialists, just to name a few to exist in this country for as it is written every man woman and child has a right to think and do as they please so long as it does not harm or interfere with another person or their rights.
Also find I’m bitter, bitter because I feel I have wasted my time. Bitter because I feel many of my friends who gave their lives did so needlessly and there sacrifice was unappreciated. We and many before us bought for your freedoms. I know many of you don’t believe that, you believe it was corporate money and evil wicked corporations but there again, you are entitled under your freedoms to believe what you wish. I become bitter when I see lack of respect for the banner that around the world stands for freedom, better known as the American flag. I become angry and bitter when people talking who are American citizens have nothing good to say about our country, about the good we’ve done, the people we fed, the medicines we supplied, the lives we saved. I become angry and bitter what I remember how we were a nation that would rally together to fight evil in the world. Now we will fight (with congress interfering)for a short tome or until congress says enough, How we were a nation that produced things, the whole world knew if it was made in the USA it was good. NO LONGER SO. Now, we make very little. We have become a nation of self-indulgent lazy consumers, we have sold our nation to foreigners and to this day we continue to do so placing ourselves under their power either through leverage or threats. We have become a nation willing to alter or destroy even the Constitution and the Bill of Rights upon which this nation was founded just so we can join this so-called one world order and bring socialism into our nation. We have become a nation of entitlements without personal responsibility.
Am I angry? You bet, am I bitter? Absolutely. By allowing the formation of a socialist type group( they call themselves progressives or Democrats) by apologizing to the world, claiming we at times were arrogant, by becoming so politically correct we have tied the hands of law enforcement as securely as if they were handcuffed. By allowing corruption to grow, by allowing business as usual in our capital, by allowing lobbyists to by law and allowing our Supreme Court to make law instead of interpret law our country is being destroyed from within am I bitter? Am I angry? You bet
Some of you, no correct that, many of you have accused me of being just an angry bitter old man. I suppose in many ways I am.
Our forefathers and the founders of our country shed their blood, and many gave their lives to lay down rules to live by in this country guaranteeing everybody freedom, pursuit of happiness and so on. They didn’t just happen to come on the rules laying on a desk somewhere covered with dust, they didn’t just dust them off and say oh what have we here? Many hours, many days, much soul-searching and talking and debate went into establishing the rules of a new country. Our forefathers and founders of this country wanted to make sure they got it right. They wanted to make sure that their ancestors would be guaranteed certain unalienable rights as well as restrictions on government and clearly spelling out governments responsibility.
Yes I become angry when I realize that just 234 years after our country was founded, just a short 234 years after our forefathers and the founders of this great country put pen and ink to paper detailing the rules and conditions that their heirs would live by and hopefully never again have to endure tyranny and oppression, this great country and Republic was destroyed from within.
Rome was considered a superpower in its day. The Romans governed for hundreds of years. Egypt was considered a superpower, they reigned for hundreds of years. The United States was a superpower its reign lasted a short 234 years.( I do not consider us a superpower any longer nor do I think the rest of the world does either) our current president grovels at the feet of world leaders like a beggar.
Yes I become angry when I hear people today mocking the Constitution, claiming it to be a living breathing document that can be changed at will. I become angry I realize these same people wanting to change the constitution have no respect for the Constitution of the United States of America as well is no respect for history, the sacrifices, and the supreme prices paid by many of their fellow countrymen so that they could may remain free.
By the very nature of this document( the Constitution of the United States of America) and the Bill of Rights, we have to allow subversive organizations such as Nazis, Communists, Socialists, just to name a few to exist in this country for as it is written every man woman and child has a right to think and do as they please so long as it does not harm or interfere with another person or their rights.
Also find I’m bitter, bitter because I feel I have wasted my time. Bitter because I feel many of my friends who gave their lives did so needlessly and there sacrifice was unappreciated. We and many before us bought for your freedoms. I know many of you don’t believe that, you believe it was corporate money and evil wicked corporations but there again, you are entitled under your freedoms to believe what you wish. I become bitter when I see lack of respect for the banner that around the world stands for freedom, better known as the American flag. I become angry and bitter when people talking who are American citizens have nothing good to say about our country, about the good we’ve done, the people we fed, the medicines we supplied, the lives we saved. I become angry and bitter what I remember how we were a nation that would rally together to fight evil in the world. Now we will fight (with congress interfering)for a short tome or until congress says enough, How we were a nation that produced things, the whole world knew if it was made in the USA it was good. NO LONGER SO. Now, we make very little. We have become a nation of self-indulgent lazy consumers, we have sold our nation to foreigners and to this day we continue to do so placing ourselves under their power either through leverage or threats. We have become a nation willing to alter or destroy even the Constitution and the Bill of Rights upon which this nation was founded just so we can join this so-called one world order and bring socialism into our nation. We have become a nation of entitlements without personal responsibility.
Am I angry? You bet, am I bitter? Absolutely. By allowing the formation of a socialist type group( they call themselves progressives or Democrats) by apologizing to the world, claiming we at times were arrogant, by becoming so politically correct we have tied the hands of law enforcement as securely as if they were handcuffed. By allowing corruption to grow, by allowing business as usual in our capital, by allowing lobbyists to by law and allowing our Supreme Court to make law instead of interpret law our country is being destroyed from within am I bitter? Am I angry? You bet
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