At the end of my first year in college, I learned what it means to be a man.
I had attended school on an athletic scholarship for track and field. The coach and I didn’t get along very well. His personality clashed with mine, and I felt as though he was being too hard on me.
So toward the end of the season, I contacted the coach of another college in hopes of transferring away from the school—and the coach—that I was competing for.
Of course, the other coach was bound by law and the ethics of his profession to notify my coach that I had contacted him.
You can probably imagine how well my coach took the news that I was trying to transfer away from his program behind his back.
That was my first mistake. I didn’t want to face my coach, because I was afraid of him. I was afraid of how he would react. So I thought I could do this secretively and he would only find out at the beginning of the next school year when I didn’t show up.
Well, naturally, my coach was upset. That’s a nice way of putting it. Actually, he was livid.
And now, looking back on things, I don’t blame him at all for the way I treated him and made him feel.
Sure, he was a hard ass—even a jerk more times than I cared to count—but he deserved some measure of respect, which I failed to show him. I didn’t have the gumption to tell him how I really felt. I think that if I had, then his reaction would have been markedly different. He probably would have surprised me.
But the last thing I wanted to do was confront the man. I feared being yelled at and humiliated by him. I let my pride get in the way of doing what was right and what a man ought to do.
Consequently, I still got humiliated after I tried to transfer behind the coach’s back. I was forced to humble myself before him. I had to demonstrate humility and contrition when it was the last thing I wanted to do.
My dad and I had a long talk about my decision to transfer away from one college to another. Dad understood where I was coming from. He had his problems with coaches and instructors when he was in college, too.
But one thing he told me was that being a man oftentimes means doing things we don’t want to do, being somewhere we don’t want to be, and taking things we don’t want to take.
He was right.
I had made a mess of things all because I was uncomfortable and felt like I was being forced to be somewhere I didn’t want to be and do something I didn’t want to do.
I was acting like a little boy who didn’t get his way.
But I wasn’t a little boy anymore. I was legally a man, and my choice was to begin acting like it, or continue acting like a child.
Needless to say, my father talked some sense into me. I decided to humble myself before the coach and apologize for my behavior. He then surprised me by accepting me back and preserving my athletic scholarship. From then on, our relationship was significantly improved and I finished my second and final year of the scholarship on much better terms with the coach. We had come to an understanding about each other, because in my humility, I had opened up to him about how I felt.
Now, if I had just done that in the first place, then none of the ugliness that followed would have happened.
But learning is all part of growing. It is what must happen in order for a boy to transition into manhood. I’d like to think that I learned the easy way; but the truth is that I had learned the hard way. In fact, there is no easy way to learn how to become a man.
We learn by trial and error, by making mistakes and learning lessons from them. Learning and growing often hurt. They are painful and uncomfortable most of the time; but they are also necessary. This is how a boy becomes a man.
My first substantive lesson on manhood turned out to be the most important, because all other lessons I’ve learned since are related to doing the right thing.
That’s what manhood and being a man really boils down to: Do the right thing.
Doing the right thing is never easy, and it’s rarely ever painless, but we get rewarded when we do it. And we get punished when we don’t.
The reward is often subtle: The way someone else regards us when we’ve done right. We know it by the look in the other person’s eyes; by the tone of their voice; or by their gestures. We also know because our conscience is clear.
A man who has done the right thing is able to live with himself free from guilt, shame or regret. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t painful or difficult for him to do the right thing. But when the storm has passed, all is calm and right with the world again.
Conversely, the consequences of doing the wrong thing are never subtle. Rather, they are monumental.
When I had elected to transfer behind my coach’s back, the consequences hit me like a tsunami. My coach was preparing to revoke my scholarship, and the coach at the other school could not offer one to me; my relationship with my coach worsened; my integrity and character suffered; and so did my confidence and self-respect. I had proven to be a spineless wimp who couldn’t look another person in the eye and tell them how I felt or what was on my mind. I also was conniving, dishonest and self-serving. The way doing the wrong thing made me feel was punishment enough without all of the external consequences to my actions.
I was still an immature little boy at heart, and not yet a man. I wouldn’t have gotten there when I did, either, if I hadn’t decided to follow my father’s advice and done the right thing.
This leads me to the second lesson of manhood: Men are determined by their actions, not biology.
While I’ve been a physically mature male since I was a teenager, I didn’t become a man until I did the right thing and made a habit of trying to do the right thing.
Just because a guy develops physically doesn’t make him a man. He may be a matured male by virtue of biology; but he remains an immature youth until he learns what it means to be a man.
Doing the right thing and being a man are oftentimes hard; especially in a world full of pride, ego, temptations, violence and anger. The male gender, after all, is naturally more physically and sexually aggressive than its female counterpart.
As such, men tend to be more easily predisposed to violence, anger outbursts and sexual stimulation. This means that men tend to have greater weaknesses when it comes to acting out physically and succumbing to sexual urges.
Consequently, this makes doing the right thing a challenge, to say the least. Honestly, it is just downright difficult.
But do it we can, and do it we should.
If you want to be taken seriously in life, then you should make a habit of doing the right thing. And if you want to be respected as a man, then you ought to act like one.
I’ve heard lyrics and rhetoric from so-called gangsta rappers clamoring for respect from their “peeps” and others in the ‘hood. But then in the same lyrics they rap about violence towards others, and advocate for the same.
Do these guys really understand what it takes to be respected? Perhaps they ought to listen more closely to the words of Aretha Franklin to appreciate and understand what respect really is and how it’s gotten.
To get it, you must first give it. Nobody is entitled to unconditional respect. There is no such thing. Respect is earned by our choices, our actions, and our deeds. When we do the right thing, we earn some respect. When we choose to do the right thing consistently, then that respect becomes a part of our character.
A human male becomes a man not by doing the right thing occasionally, but rather by doing it consistently. When a guy’s character is defined by doing the right thing, then he has crossed the rite of passage into manhood. He has earned the right to call himself a man.
That is the third lesson of manhood: It isn’t enough to do the right thing once, every now and then, or occasionally. To be a man, you must develop a pattern of responsible behavior and accountable actions. Maturity is demonstrated not just by what we do, but also by how often we do it.
If you help your neighbor one day, then ignore him the next, how is that demonstrating manhood and a willingness to do the right thing? More importantly, how does such inconsistent maturity earn respect?
It doesn’t.
Respect is not quantifiable; it is qualitative. Just because you resolve to do the right thing once in a while doesn’t entitle you to any measure of respect. You can tell the truth one day and lie the next; but you won’t be respected any more for the one time you were truthful, because of the other time you were not.
To be respected, you must choose to do the right thing consistently, and more often than just whenever it suits you. As I’ve said before, doing the right thing isn’t easy. Neither is it convenient nor appealing most of the time.
But to be a man, to be taken seriously as a man, and to earn respect, nothing less than doing the right thing time and again will suffice.
It is what character and credibility are built upon, and it is at the very heart of what being a man is all about.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Stay out of the locker room
There has been a lot of buzz the past few days about Mexican Azteca Television reporter Ines Sainz and her accusations of sexual harassment against members of the NFL’s New York Jets football team.
Evidently, the harassment began on the field during practice and continued in the locker room afterward while players were changing, showering and dressing.
I will state on record that the behavior of these professional athletes was completely inappropriate, and those responsible for their lewd behavior should be punished. They are supposed to be “professional” athletes, after all, and the reporter is a professional there to do her job. There ought to be common courtesy given to all professionals involved in the sports entertainment industry.
This includes some common courtesy by the news media given to the athletes.
I find it rather interesting that Ms. Sainz persisted into the locker room even after the incidents out on the practice field. If nothing else, those should have served as warning signs to her that if she entered the locker room, things were not going to get any better. In fact, events got predictably more out of hand.
To make matters worse, still video footage of Ms. Sainz showed that she was wearing a pair of tight-fitting blue jeans that accentuated her backside, and a white snug (form-fitting) button-down blouse that clearly showed her curvature. I’m not suggesting that the reporter dressed this way on purpose, because I really don’t know what her motivation for dressing this way was. But one could make a reasonable argument that she was dressed to make a certain impression with certain people. To assume that a naked man in a locker room would have no reaction to seeing an attractive young woman in tight-fitting clothes stand before him is both naïve and unrealistic.
In fact, an investigation of Ms. Sainz shows that she makes a habit of wearing marginally provocative clothing while on the job: Miniskirts, tight-fitting tops, short-shorts or above the knee dresses, and heels. While this clothing may be marginally appropriate, when it in the presence of naked men, it is wholly inappropriate. What should a young, attractive woman wearing tight jeans and a form fitting button-down blouse expect when she is standing in front of a naked male athlete, whose testosterone level is through the roof having just come in from an arduous practice? This is not "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," Ms. Sainz.
Somehow, though, I doubt that she was expecting such. I suspect that she may even have anticipated the reactions she got. This is a woman who is not at all camera shy, and no stranger to provocative photo shoots. Do a Google search and several photographs of her in skimpy clothing or bathing suits come up. She knows what she's got and she flaunts it. That is pretty plain for even a Neanderthalithic Y chromosome male like me to see.
In fact, it is entirely possible that Ms. Sainz knew exactly what she was doing when she got up that morning. As a result of the Jets' stupidity, Ms. Sainz is front page news and either a book deal, a Playboy shoot, or both await her now.
After all, that's essentially what happened to ESPN reporter Erin Andrews after she strode into the Chicago Cubs' clubhouse in 2008 wearing a short dress showing plenty of leg and cleavage, and high heels. In 2009, her image appeared on a Playboy spread.
Not bad for a few moments of embarrassment. I'd say Andrews has been well-compensated for her humiliation, wouldn't you?
And if my hunch is right, Ines Sainz may be looking at a comparable pay-out.
But Ms. Sainz apparently possesses every desirable asset save one: Common sense.
I understand that reporters have a job to do, and that they cannot be legally barred from entering the locker room. I was a newspaper sports reporter for a while, so I know this.
However, common sense would seem to dictate that if a female reporter enters an area where male athletes are undressed, then she does so at her own risk.
Is it realistic to expect testosterone-charged men to act normally when a member of the opposite sex enters what really has become the last bastion of male bonding, a gathering place where guys can let their hair down, so to speak, without worrying about who they might offend? Moreover, is it too much to ask that men be given some personal space, a small measure of privacy, and a little bit of basic respect for the sake of human dignity?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that I think many American men today feel hen-pecked by a society that appears to have embraced femininity over masculinity.
The pendulum has shifted into the other direction, and women now have the power, the upper hand that men once held.
When I watch television commercials featuring the interactions of male and female characters, more often than not, the male character assumes the passive-aggressive role of an idiot while the female character is the assertive one with the brains, the wisdom and the know-how. It is simply a sign of the times we live in. Men are portrayed as idiots and their women counterparts as savvy.
As a man, I am fed up with a popular culture image of manhood that, frankly, appears disparaging. To be a man in pop culture today is not to be a person of worth and value, but rather a hairy, sexually charged knuckle-dragger; a mindless, brainless brute with a one-track mind.
Idiots, in other words.
There are several ladies with whom I work who seem to enjoy taking shots at the male gender, referring to them as the “Y” chromosome.
As a man, I am offended at how blatant this condescension is in the workplace, the media, and sometimes even at home. There is really no place sacred where a man can avoid it. And there is really no longer a safe place exclusive to men anymore where they can escape a society that has overdosed on estrogen and become deliberately testosterone deficient.
Ladies, this is not a matter of men being chauvinist or sexist, but rather about men just wanting to socialize with and be around other men without their spouses, girlfriends or other members of the opposite sex present.
Sometimes men just want to get away for a short while from the estrogen that surrounds their lives. They just want to exert some testosterone and enjoy being male.
Just as women like their “girl time,” men want their “guy time,” too.
Militant feminism has succeeded in making men feel ashamed for simply wanting to be male and exert their manhood. Women’s rights groups have literally busted down the doors of any and all institutions that men used to claim as their own. While many occupational barriers have justly been razed, there are still a few areas where I believe the barriers between men and women should persist.
The locker room is one of those.
A woman has no business entering the men’s locker room any more than a man would have entering the women’s locker room. I know that some European countries offer and even encourage unisex locker rooms, and that these countries are much more sexually uninhibited than the United States of America. Well, good for them.
But who the heck really cares what Europe does or does not do?
Does America need to be more like Europe, or should she continue to be more like herself? Frankly, I think sexual modesty is a good thing, because it promotes appropriate boundaries, personal space, dignity, and self-control.
Men and women both deserve to preserve their dignity through modesty if they so choose. But that becomes a mighty difficult task for a professional athlete when the rule of law permits reporters to enter the locker room and go wherever they want in pursuit of an interview.
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s equal access ruling in the late 1970s, women can literally stand beside a naked male athlete with pad, paper or microphone in hand.
There is something perverse about that regardless of what the law now says.
This is not the same situation as a man being examined by a female health care professional. Doctors, nurses and physician’s assistants are all expected to not only have comprehensive knowledge of human anatomy—the entire male and female human body—but also have the training, skills and techniques to be able to examine, diagnose and treat. It is their job to look at the body and figure out what’s wrong with it.
My primary care provider is a female APN (Advanced Practicing Nurse). My urologist is also female. They don’t bother me, because (1) they are professionals doing their job, which is to examine, diagnose and treat; (2) I am in a safe and professional clinical environment where my dignity and modesty are preserved with gowns, garments and other coverings; and (3) it is just me and the clinician; not an audience in a casual environment.
A reporter in the locker room is hardly the same case as a doctor and patient in an exam room. Besides, there is nothing in a reporter’s job description that requires him or her to enter locker rooms for an interview. I should know, because I’ve done the job myself.
The topic of female reporters in the locker room is not new. The debate has gone on for 30 years.
It wasn’t until 1990 when a female Boston Herald reporter named Lisa Olson was sexually harassed by members of the NFL’s New England Patriots football team while conducting post-game interviews in the locker room that the issue became a really hot-button topic.
After the Olson incident, many NFL clubs began to remodel their clubhouses to accommodate the press with separate, partitioned interview areas that preserved the integrity, modesty and dignity of the rest of the locker room for the players.
I’m unsure how or why that changed, but it seemed to be a good idea and solved the problem that a lot of coaches and players were having with open and unrestricted access to locker rooms. But things have apparently reverted back to the pre-Lisa Olson days when reporters could literally stand at the entrance of the shower area and pluck an athlete away buck naked for an interview. Since the Olson incident, there have been other cases of female reporters being treated unprofessionally by athletes in the locker rooms.
It seems pretty clear to me that had the NFL maintained separation between media accessible areas and players-only areas, then some of what happened to Ines Sainz last week may not have occurred; especially the ogling and teasing that occurred in the locker room.
If she wanted an interview with quarterback Mark Sanchez, then why didn’t she just make that request with his agent, a club public relations representative, an assistant coach, or team manager, who could have arranged for Sanchez to meet with her outside of the locker room.
Considering the antics that went on during practice, I am flabbergasted that Sainz would even think about entering the locker room, a place where men should be able to relax, unwind and let loose with what they can’t say or do in front of the cameras.
Give the athletes their privacy and just leave them the heck alone for a few minutes.
I find it inappropriate for the press to insist on accessing the locker room. After all, there are other places where the media are often not permitted or can be restricted by law: Court rooms, medical examination rooms, laboratories, police interrogation and evidence rooms, crime scenes, military installations, government offices, corporate board rooms and, of course, private property.
You can deny the press access onto your own property and entry into your own home because of private property laws.
Most NFL property is also private, and media access is granted at will as a courtesy to those in the sports entertainment industry. The idea that reporters can arbitrarily enter a locker room is taking that courtesy for granted.
How would Ms. Sainz feel if a reporter showed up at her gym, demanded to interview her right away, and then proceeded to enter the women's locker room while she was in the middle of drying off from a shower? Most people would not appreciate or even tolerate such an invasion of privacy.
I can’t imagine that most professional athletes would, either.
I don’t think it would be fair to ban only female reporters from men’s locker rooms. Rather, it would seem only right to ban all reporters from the areas where players undress, shower and change. Give them a few minutes of dignity to regain their composure and present themselves before the public.
That is all I ask of the news media. As a former colleague, I can speak with some authority on this. I think it is unprofessional to just walk in on an athlete toweling off from the shower. I don’t care if the reporter is a man or a woman. It is an invasion of privacy and can be embarrassing for the athlete.
Use some common sense. Having the right to access the locker room at any time is not the issue here. What this is about is doing what’s right.
I keep going back to my premise of essential liberty: Do what you should do in spite of what you can do. In other words, exercise good judgment to do what you should do rather than just do what you have a right or a freedom to do. Just because you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean that you should.
If more people practiced doing what they should instead of doing what they are free to do, there would be a lot fewer incidents like the one experienced by Ines Sainz.
That goes for everyone involved.
Evidently, the harassment began on the field during practice and continued in the locker room afterward while players were changing, showering and dressing.
I will state on record that the behavior of these professional athletes was completely inappropriate, and those responsible for their lewd behavior should be punished. They are supposed to be “professional” athletes, after all, and the reporter is a professional there to do her job. There ought to be common courtesy given to all professionals involved in the sports entertainment industry.
This includes some common courtesy by the news media given to the athletes.
I find it rather interesting that Ms. Sainz persisted into the locker room even after the incidents out on the practice field. If nothing else, those should have served as warning signs to her that if she entered the locker room, things were not going to get any better. In fact, events got predictably more out of hand.
To make matters worse, still video footage of Ms. Sainz showed that she was wearing a pair of tight-fitting blue jeans that accentuated her backside, and a white snug (form-fitting) button-down blouse that clearly showed her curvature. I’m not suggesting that the reporter dressed this way on purpose, because I really don’t know what her motivation for dressing this way was. But one could make a reasonable argument that she was dressed to make a certain impression with certain people. To assume that a naked man in a locker room would have no reaction to seeing an attractive young woman in tight-fitting clothes stand before him is both naïve and unrealistic.
In fact, an investigation of Ms. Sainz shows that she makes a habit of wearing marginally provocative clothing while on the job: Miniskirts, tight-fitting tops, short-shorts or above the knee dresses, and heels. While this clothing may be marginally appropriate, when it in the presence of naked men, it is wholly inappropriate. What should a young, attractive woman wearing tight jeans and a form fitting button-down blouse expect when she is standing in front of a naked male athlete, whose testosterone level is through the roof having just come in from an arduous practice? This is not "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," Ms. Sainz.
Somehow, though, I doubt that she was expecting such. I suspect that she may even have anticipated the reactions she got. This is a woman who is not at all camera shy, and no stranger to provocative photo shoots. Do a Google search and several photographs of her in skimpy clothing or bathing suits come up. She knows what she's got and she flaunts it. That is pretty plain for even a Neanderthalithic Y chromosome male like me to see.
In fact, it is entirely possible that Ms. Sainz knew exactly what she was doing when she got up that morning. As a result of the Jets' stupidity, Ms. Sainz is front page news and either a book deal, a Playboy shoot, or both await her now.
After all, that's essentially what happened to ESPN reporter Erin Andrews after she strode into the Chicago Cubs' clubhouse in 2008 wearing a short dress showing plenty of leg and cleavage, and high heels. In 2009, her image appeared on a Playboy spread.
Not bad for a few moments of embarrassment. I'd say Andrews has been well-compensated for her humiliation, wouldn't you?
And if my hunch is right, Ines Sainz may be looking at a comparable pay-out.
But Ms. Sainz apparently possesses every desirable asset save one: Common sense.
I understand that reporters have a job to do, and that they cannot be legally barred from entering the locker room. I was a newspaper sports reporter for a while, so I know this.
However, common sense would seem to dictate that if a female reporter enters an area where male athletes are undressed, then she does so at her own risk.
Is it realistic to expect testosterone-charged men to act normally when a member of the opposite sex enters what really has become the last bastion of male bonding, a gathering place where guys can let their hair down, so to speak, without worrying about who they might offend? Moreover, is it too much to ask that men be given some personal space, a small measure of privacy, and a little bit of basic respect for the sake of human dignity?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that I think many American men today feel hen-pecked by a society that appears to have embraced femininity over masculinity.
The pendulum has shifted into the other direction, and women now have the power, the upper hand that men once held.
When I watch television commercials featuring the interactions of male and female characters, more often than not, the male character assumes the passive-aggressive role of an idiot while the female character is the assertive one with the brains, the wisdom and the know-how. It is simply a sign of the times we live in. Men are portrayed as idiots and their women counterparts as savvy.
As a man, I am fed up with a popular culture image of manhood that, frankly, appears disparaging. To be a man in pop culture today is not to be a person of worth and value, but rather a hairy, sexually charged knuckle-dragger; a mindless, brainless brute with a one-track mind.
Idiots, in other words.
There are several ladies with whom I work who seem to enjoy taking shots at the male gender, referring to them as the “Y” chromosome.
As a man, I am offended at how blatant this condescension is in the workplace, the media, and sometimes even at home. There is really no place sacred where a man can avoid it. And there is really no longer a safe place exclusive to men anymore where they can escape a society that has overdosed on estrogen and become deliberately testosterone deficient.
Ladies, this is not a matter of men being chauvinist or sexist, but rather about men just wanting to socialize with and be around other men without their spouses, girlfriends or other members of the opposite sex present.
Sometimes men just want to get away for a short while from the estrogen that surrounds their lives. They just want to exert some testosterone and enjoy being male.
Just as women like their “girl time,” men want their “guy time,” too.
Militant feminism has succeeded in making men feel ashamed for simply wanting to be male and exert their manhood. Women’s rights groups have literally busted down the doors of any and all institutions that men used to claim as their own. While many occupational barriers have justly been razed, there are still a few areas where I believe the barriers between men and women should persist.
The locker room is one of those.
A woman has no business entering the men’s locker room any more than a man would have entering the women’s locker room. I know that some European countries offer and even encourage unisex locker rooms, and that these countries are much more sexually uninhibited than the United States of America. Well, good for them.
But who the heck really cares what Europe does or does not do?
Does America need to be more like Europe, or should she continue to be more like herself? Frankly, I think sexual modesty is a good thing, because it promotes appropriate boundaries, personal space, dignity, and self-control.
Men and women both deserve to preserve their dignity through modesty if they so choose. But that becomes a mighty difficult task for a professional athlete when the rule of law permits reporters to enter the locker room and go wherever they want in pursuit of an interview.
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s equal access ruling in the late 1970s, women can literally stand beside a naked male athlete with pad, paper or microphone in hand.
There is something perverse about that regardless of what the law now says.
This is not the same situation as a man being examined by a female health care professional. Doctors, nurses and physician’s assistants are all expected to not only have comprehensive knowledge of human anatomy—the entire male and female human body—but also have the training, skills and techniques to be able to examine, diagnose and treat. It is their job to look at the body and figure out what’s wrong with it.
My primary care provider is a female APN (Advanced Practicing Nurse). My urologist is also female. They don’t bother me, because (1) they are professionals doing their job, which is to examine, diagnose and treat; (2) I am in a safe and professional clinical environment where my dignity and modesty are preserved with gowns, garments and other coverings; and (3) it is just me and the clinician; not an audience in a casual environment.
A reporter in the locker room is hardly the same case as a doctor and patient in an exam room. Besides, there is nothing in a reporter’s job description that requires him or her to enter locker rooms for an interview. I should know, because I’ve done the job myself.
The topic of female reporters in the locker room is not new. The debate has gone on for 30 years.
It wasn’t until 1990 when a female Boston Herald reporter named Lisa Olson was sexually harassed by members of the NFL’s New England Patriots football team while conducting post-game interviews in the locker room that the issue became a really hot-button topic.
After the Olson incident, many NFL clubs began to remodel their clubhouses to accommodate the press with separate, partitioned interview areas that preserved the integrity, modesty and dignity of the rest of the locker room for the players.
I’m unsure how or why that changed, but it seemed to be a good idea and solved the problem that a lot of coaches and players were having with open and unrestricted access to locker rooms. But things have apparently reverted back to the pre-Lisa Olson days when reporters could literally stand at the entrance of the shower area and pluck an athlete away buck naked for an interview. Since the Olson incident, there have been other cases of female reporters being treated unprofessionally by athletes in the locker rooms.
It seems pretty clear to me that had the NFL maintained separation between media accessible areas and players-only areas, then some of what happened to Ines Sainz last week may not have occurred; especially the ogling and teasing that occurred in the locker room.
If she wanted an interview with quarterback Mark Sanchez, then why didn’t she just make that request with his agent, a club public relations representative, an assistant coach, or team manager, who could have arranged for Sanchez to meet with her outside of the locker room.
Considering the antics that went on during practice, I am flabbergasted that Sainz would even think about entering the locker room, a place where men should be able to relax, unwind and let loose with what they can’t say or do in front of the cameras.
Give the athletes their privacy and just leave them the heck alone for a few minutes.
I find it inappropriate for the press to insist on accessing the locker room. After all, there are other places where the media are often not permitted or can be restricted by law: Court rooms, medical examination rooms, laboratories, police interrogation and evidence rooms, crime scenes, military installations, government offices, corporate board rooms and, of course, private property.
You can deny the press access onto your own property and entry into your own home because of private property laws.
Most NFL property is also private, and media access is granted at will as a courtesy to those in the sports entertainment industry. The idea that reporters can arbitrarily enter a locker room is taking that courtesy for granted.
How would Ms. Sainz feel if a reporter showed up at her gym, demanded to interview her right away, and then proceeded to enter the women's locker room while she was in the middle of drying off from a shower? Most people would not appreciate or even tolerate such an invasion of privacy.
I can’t imagine that most professional athletes would, either.
I don’t think it would be fair to ban only female reporters from men’s locker rooms. Rather, it would seem only right to ban all reporters from the areas where players undress, shower and change. Give them a few minutes of dignity to regain their composure and present themselves before the public.
That is all I ask of the news media. As a former colleague, I can speak with some authority on this. I think it is unprofessional to just walk in on an athlete toweling off from the shower. I don’t care if the reporter is a man or a woman. It is an invasion of privacy and can be embarrassing for the athlete.
Use some common sense. Having the right to access the locker room at any time is not the issue here. What this is about is doing what’s right.
I keep going back to my premise of essential liberty: Do what you should do in spite of what you can do. In other words, exercise good judgment to do what you should do rather than just do what you have a right or a freedom to do. Just because you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean that you should.
If more people practiced doing what they should instead of doing what they are free to do, there would be a lot fewer incidents like the one experienced by Ines Sainz.
That goes for everyone involved.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Have you forgotten?
For some of us, the memory of Sept. 11, 2001 is becoming more distant with each passing year, each passing day. Soon, it may well be regarded as little more than a page in history that can be safely turned.
Sadly, fewer people today care to be reminded of the horrors experienced on that pleasant, otherwise ordinary late summer morning. Due to the natural courses of time, generations and mortality, there were more people eight years ago who remembered the terrorist attacks than there were seven years ago, six years ago, and so forth until, decades later, there will be no one left to personally relate what was seen on the televisions and heard over the radio waves that day, because we the living today will eventually die and cease to exist. And unless we pause to remember those who perished on 9/11/01 at least once a year, the memory of what happened and what was at stake will fade much sooner than you or I will.
A cold, indifferent news media doesn’t see fit to show the images of the terrorist attacks, claiming that it doesn’t want to stir up old vices against Muslims, or remind us of the bitter memories of our losses. And yet, it has no problem showing footage of terror attacks in other countries, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, storming the beaches at Normandy, the assault on Iwo Jima, and various engagements in Vietnam, Korea and the current War on Terror. These images are no less disturbing than those from 9/11/01.
But, alas, the images have been put into storage, never to be reopened again for the benefit of current and succeeding generations.
Out of the shadows of this event have come sinister voices trying to persuade us that what actually happened on 9/11/01 wasn’t really true. Some of these voices are propagating bold-faced lies that Israel and the Jews were responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Others claim that the U.S. government—the White House, in particular—was the mastermind behind the carnage. Filmmaker Michael Moore and his controversial film, “Fahrenheit 911” is a perfect example of these sinister voices.
Now, if we eventually forget what we saw, forget what we heard, and forget the experience of Sept. 11, 2001 altogether, imagine what succeeding generations will come to learn about this event if the sinister voices prevail. Do you want your children’s children’s children to believe what you know to be lies?
Don’t think that will ever happen? Think again.
Already, there are sinister voices undermining history by claiming that the Holocaust did not really happen. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already said so. Fortunately, there are still people alive today who lived through that time and can tell us what really happened. But their numbers are shrinking. And once they are gone, who is to stop another Ahmadinejad from making the same claim? Who will be able to refute the lies if we, too, have forgotten the truth?
The surest way to keep the truth alive is to never forget it—and never let it die with us.
Just as the generations before us have done to preserve the truth of the Holocaust, so must we do to keep the truth of Sept. 11, 2001 from passing away into obscurity and leaving it open for interpretation by those who want others to believe a lie.
The memories may be unpleasant, even painful, but we must do this for the sake of future generations who will have no first-hand knowledge of the attacks and what they mean for the survival of the western world.
So, may I please ask, have you forgotten? More to the point, have you chosen to forget? God help us all if you have.
Sadly, fewer people today care to be reminded of the horrors experienced on that pleasant, otherwise ordinary late summer morning. Due to the natural courses of time, generations and mortality, there were more people eight years ago who remembered the terrorist attacks than there were seven years ago, six years ago, and so forth until, decades later, there will be no one left to personally relate what was seen on the televisions and heard over the radio waves that day, because we the living today will eventually die and cease to exist. And unless we pause to remember those who perished on 9/11/01 at least once a year, the memory of what happened and what was at stake will fade much sooner than you or I will.
A cold, indifferent news media doesn’t see fit to show the images of the terrorist attacks, claiming that it doesn’t want to stir up old vices against Muslims, or remind us of the bitter memories of our losses. And yet, it has no problem showing footage of terror attacks in other countries, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, storming the beaches at Normandy, the assault on Iwo Jima, and various engagements in Vietnam, Korea and the current War on Terror. These images are no less disturbing than those from 9/11/01.
But, alas, the images have been put into storage, never to be reopened again for the benefit of current and succeeding generations.
Out of the shadows of this event have come sinister voices trying to persuade us that what actually happened on 9/11/01 wasn’t really true. Some of these voices are propagating bold-faced lies that Israel and the Jews were responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Others claim that the U.S. government—the White House, in particular—was the mastermind behind the carnage. Filmmaker Michael Moore and his controversial film, “Fahrenheit 911” is a perfect example of these sinister voices.
Now, if we eventually forget what we saw, forget what we heard, and forget the experience of Sept. 11, 2001 altogether, imagine what succeeding generations will come to learn about this event if the sinister voices prevail. Do you want your children’s children’s children to believe what you know to be lies?
Don’t think that will ever happen? Think again.
Already, there are sinister voices undermining history by claiming that the Holocaust did not really happen. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already said so. Fortunately, there are still people alive today who lived through that time and can tell us what really happened. But their numbers are shrinking. And once they are gone, who is to stop another Ahmadinejad from making the same claim? Who will be able to refute the lies if we, too, have forgotten the truth?
The surest way to keep the truth alive is to never forget it—and never let it die with us.
Just as the generations before us have done to preserve the truth of the Holocaust, so must we do to keep the truth of Sept. 11, 2001 from passing away into obscurity and leaving it open for interpretation by those who want others to believe a lie.
The memories may be unpleasant, even painful, but we must do this for the sake of future generations who will have no first-hand knowledge of the attacks and what they mean for the survival of the western world.
So, may I please ask, have you forgotten? More to the point, have you chosen to forget? God help us all if you have.
Who's the extremist anyway?
The U.S. Senate race between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, and Republican challenger Sharron Angle is among the highest profile political races going into this November’s mid-term elections.
Angle has an established track record from her years in the Nevada Assembly as an uncompromising hard-line fiscal and social conservative. For that, the Reid re-election campaign has labeled her an extremist.
She’s an extremist because she believes Social Security is a troubled program doomed to failure under current federal fiscal practices, and that it either needs to be phased out or fixed and padlocked so that politicians cannot touch the trust fund that our payroll deductions go to fund. She’s an extremist because she believes that younger workers should be given a privatized choice with regard to their retirement and how best to fund their future supplemental security income.
She’s an extremist because she believes that the federalizing of public education under the U.S. Department of Education has hurt the quality of classroom education, and that most decisions should be kept at the local level.
There’s no question that Angle is a hard-liner on many issues, and that makes her appear extreme to those on the political left.
But let’s talk about the extremism of Harry Reid for a moment, shall we?
This is a guy who agrees with President Obama’s fiscal strategy of arbitrarily raising income taxes on people earning $250,000 or more, regardless of whether that income is tied up in small businesses or not.
This is a guy who supported federal bailouts and stimulus spending under both Presidents Bush and Obama, favoring expenditures into the trillions of dollars that have done little to improve the economy or end the recession. The national jobless rate remains at or near 10 percent despite the last stimulus bill passed a year and a half ago. Unemployment in Reid’s own state, in fact, is currently above 14 percent in spite of all of Reid’s so-called “help” to his state. This figure is among the highest in the nation.
Reid is the same guy who at one point earlier this year rather recklessly stated that the number of people who lost their jobs was down to only 36,000 for a given month, and that this was good news.
Moreover, Reid’s home state of Nevada continues to lead the nation in real estate foreclosure and loan default rates, personal and business bankruptcies, and declining median home prices, among many other economic statistics.
Furthermore, Harry Reid supports the status quo in Washington, D.C. The concept of “change” that Reid wholeheartedly stood behind in 2008 has proven to be little more than the campaign slogan many of us thought it would be. Nothing has changed in the nation’s capital with regard to the way the government is run or how politics is played. It is the same game; just with different players.
Reid wants to keep the U.S. Department of Education as-is in spite of solid evidence that federal control over public education has contributed to its decline in quality. Drop-out rates nationwide are higher than they’ve ever been; and in Reid’s home state of Nevada, in particular, drop-out rates are among the highest in the entire country. Graduation rates in Nevada are among the lowest nationwide, too. The number of K-12 students requiring remedial education is at an all-time high. And the number of high school graduates requiring remedial education in college is also at an all-time high.
The deterioration of education quality has coincided with the establishment of the U.S. Department of Education under President Jimmy Carter, and has gotten progressively worse in the years since. Coincidence, or perhaps explanation?
Harry Reid is an extremist in my opinion because he thinks that money solves all of our socio-economic and political problems. He throws federal pork at anything and everything, just so he can claim that he did something about it. He isn’t willing to do the real hard work, because that would require him to take some rather unpopular stands with many of his constituents.
Harry Reid is also the same man who said, rather prematurely and ill-timed, in the last year or two of the Bush Administration that the Iraq War was lost. He said this during a time in which our forces were struggling against the guerilla tactics of al-Qaeda and other insurgents. He said this at a time when morale was already at its lowest point during the entire “War On Terror.”
He’s fortunate that our servicemen and women were not listening to him, and that they continued to do their jobs to the best of their abilities; because if they had taken what he had said to heart, then I doubt even the troop surge of 2008 would have made much difference at all.
But the reality is that the troop surge strategy did work. We took out a number of high-profile targets, and helped bring more control into the region. This is because our troops believed in the mission, and believed that a change in strategy would work. They didn’t listen to the defeatist rhetoric of Sen. Harry Reid, who could have single-handedly lost the conflict for our fighting men and women.
Sharron Angle is the extremist in this race? I beg to differ.
I think what it comes down to is the individual voter. What may seem extreme to one person may seem reasonable to another. Harry Reid appears reasonable to the political left; but his views, his policy support and his very own words and actions appear extremist to others.
If the Reid Campaign is going to base this election on painting its opponent as an extremist, then it would do well to take a good hard look in the mirror at its own candidate. What’s good for the goose is also good for the gander. Depending upon who you talk to, Harry Reid may just be more extreme than Sharron Angle.
Angle has an established track record from her years in the Nevada Assembly as an uncompromising hard-line fiscal and social conservative. For that, the Reid re-election campaign has labeled her an extremist.
She’s an extremist because she believes Social Security is a troubled program doomed to failure under current federal fiscal practices, and that it either needs to be phased out or fixed and padlocked so that politicians cannot touch the trust fund that our payroll deductions go to fund. She’s an extremist because she believes that younger workers should be given a privatized choice with regard to their retirement and how best to fund their future supplemental security income.
She’s an extremist because she believes that the federalizing of public education under the U.S. Department of Education has hurt the quality of classroom education, and that most decisions should be kept at the local level.
There’s no question that Angle is a hard-liner on many issues, and that makes her appear extreme to those on the political left.
But let’s talk about the extremism of Harry Reid for a moment, shall we?
This is a guy who agrees with President Obama’s fiscal strategy of arbitrarily raising income taxes on people earning $250,000 or more, regardless of whether that income is tied up in small businesses or not.
This is a guy who supported federal bailouts and stimulus spending under both Presidents Bush and Obama, favoring expenditures into the trillions of dollars that have done little to improve the economy or end the recession. The national jobless rate remains at or near 10 percent despite the last stimulus bill passed a year and a half ago. Unemployment in Reid’s own state, in fact, is currently above 14 percent in spite of all of Reid’s so-called “help” to his state. This figure is among the highest in the nation.
Reid is the same guy who at one point earlier this year rather recklessly stated that the number of people who lost their jobs was down to only 36,000 for a given month, and that this was good news.
Moreover, Reid’s home state of Nevada continues to lead the nation in real estate foreclosure and loan default rates, personal and business bankruptcies, and declining median home prices, among many other economic statistics.
Furthermore, Harry Reid supports the status quo in Washington, D.C. The concept of “change” that Reid wholeheartedly stood behind in 2008 has proven to be little more than the campaign slogan many of us thought it would be. Nothing has changed in the nation’s capital with regard to the way the government is run or how politics is played. It is the same game; just with different players.
Reid wants to keep the U.S. Department of Education as-is in spite of solid evidence that federal control over public education has contributed to its decline in quality. Drop-out rates nationwide are higher than they’ve ever been; and in Reid’s home state of Nevada, in particular, drop-out rates are among the highest in the entire country. Graduation rates in Nevada are among the lowest nationwide, too. The number of K-12 students requiring remedial education is at an all-time high. And the number of high school graduates requiring remedial education in college is also at an all-time high.
The deterioration of education quality has coincided with the establishment of the U.S. Department of Education under President Jimmy Carter, and has gotten progressively worse in the years since. Coincidence, or perhaps explanation?
Harry Reid is an extremist in my opinion because he thinks that money solves all of our socio-economic and political problems. He throws federal pork at anything and everything, just so he can claim that he did something about it. He isn’t willing to do the real hard work, because that would require him to take some rather unpopular stands with many of his constituents.
Harry Reid is also the same man who said, rather prematurely and ill-timed, in the last year or two of the Bush Administration that the Iraq War was lost. He said this during a time in which our forces were struggling against the guerilla tactics of al-Qaeda and other insurgents. He said this at a time when morale was already at its lowest point during the entire “War On Terror.”
He’s fortunate that our servicemen and women were not listening to him, and that they continued to do their jobs to the best of their abilities; because if they had taken what he had said to heart, then I doubt even the troop surge of 2008 would have made much difference at all.
But the reality is that the troop surge strategy did work. We took out a number of high-profile targets, and helped bring more control into the region. This is because our troops believed in the mission, and believed that a change in strategy would work. They didn’t listen to the defeatist rhetoric of Sen. Harry Reid, who could have single-handedly lost the conflict for our fighting men and women.
Sharron Angle is the extremist in this race? I beg to differ.
I think what it comes down to is the individual voter. What may seem extreme to one person may seem reasonable to another. Harry Reid appears reasonable to the political left; but his views, his policy support and his very own words and actions appear extremist to others.
If the Reid Campaign is going to base this election on painting its opponent as an extremist, then it would do well to take a good hard look in the mirror at its own candidate. What’s good for the goose is also good for the gander. Depending upon who you talk to, Harry Reid may just be more extreme than Sharron Angle.
Friday, September 3, 2010
One too many
I just read an Associated Press story about the drop in the number of children in foster care nationwide.
That's good news...sort of.
It's good that the numbers are declining. However, what isn't good is that there are still close to half a million children in foster care nationwide this year. The story reported a nine percent decrease around the country from 2008-09 to 2009-10, and an 11 percent drop in foster care populations in the state of California.
Good news, right?
Consider that there are still 60,000 children in foster care in California and 423,000 nationwide for federal fiscal year 2009-10. While the decreases are certainly significant, they are by no means a reason to celebrate.
As one who runs a volunteer foster care home, I can speak with some authority on this.
My wife and I just received our latest placement today; an infant seized by Child Protective Services because he was the victim of severe physical abuse. Suffering multiple broken bones throughout his fragile little body, this baby, born premature, could easily have succumbed to his injuries. Thank God he didn't, and thank God he is healing. However, he has suffered perhaps the cruelest of fates: To serve as a living, breathing example of what people in their anger and carelessness are capable of; a sad testament to, and a sorry reminder of just how cruel and heartless people can be.
This little boy's parents are both doing time for the crimes against him. God willing, they'll remain locked up for at least the next 18 years.
Our newest foster placement is just one example of what is wrong in our society, and that a return to traditional American values is not only right, but imperative. If the public doesn't embrace the traditional values of the American Revolution, the values that made this country great, then I fear we will continue down the slippery slope to social ruin.
We are nearly there now. Some may argue we're there already, but I'm trying to be optimistic.
I haven't the slightest clue what was going through the minds or coursing through the veins of this baby boy's parents, but I'm certain it wasn't love thy neighbor as thyself or do unto others as you would have done unto you.
We have reached a social crisis in this country, perpetuated by some ill-conceived notion that we are entitled to do our own thing regardless of the consequences, and to heck with anyone else. Self-centered narcissism has been a human trait as old as time and as far back as our origins. But here in the United States of America, it had a rebirth in the 1960s with the pleasure-seeking, me-first hedonists who lived to get high, fry on acid, and tell "The Man" where he could stick it.
Thanks to the free-loving, dope-worshipping generation of 50 years ago, several generations of like-minded individuals since have been spawned. Now, this self-centered, me-first mindset has permeated society to such a degree that it is no longer uncommon or unheard of for human beings to inflict unimaginable harm on the weakest, most vulnerable of the population. How many stories of child abuse are we subjected to on a weekly, even daily basis?
There are so many cases, so many incidents of abuse and neglect out there that it no longer astonishes us to read about them in the newspaper. We almost come to expect it the way we expect obituaries or sports scores.
We are a country that has turned its back on God, on His Ten Commandments, on the Beatitudes of Christ, and on Biblical principles. America has turned from God in the name of tolerance.
But take a good, hard look at the results of that tolerance: Pervasive and widespread drug abuse and addictions, because people have no God of their own, so they invent one to worship and foolishly cling to it as though it is going make all of their problems go away.
Relentless pursuit of pleasure, because serving others and attending to their needs first before our own is a waste of the one life we have to live. Consequently, America is suffering from its highest concentration of communicable diseases ever in its history; spread either through intravenous drug use or sexual contact.
Intolerance toward temperance and restraint. To advocate and insist that we practice self-control is to be intolerant of others, because we are trying to impose our morality on others.
Is it ironic, a coincidence, or perhaps justice that the degeneration of American society and the degradation of her traditional values was accelerated from a point in our history where millions of Americans in one voice declared their independence from God? When the Sixties generation gave God the "up yours" sign, that's when America's social fabric began to unravel at an alarming pace.
Today, people by and large do not practice restraint or temperance. They've been told by previous generations that it's okay to do your own thing however you want to do it, and regardless of anyone else; to heck with the consequences. Messages of doom and gloom have been ingrained into peoples' heads as they conclude that life is a hopeless mess, and all that's left for them is a pile of ashes upon which to weep. So, they turn to drugs, casual sex or any number of self-pleasing and self-promoting activities as their coping mechanisms, because life is already too fouled up to deal with; too far gone to do anything about anyway. Who should care whether a person fouls his or her life up further with drugs, sex, gambling or other potentially self-destructive behaviors?
Today's younger generations have taken the "me first" attitude of the Sixties to a whole new level: "Who cares?"
Yes, indeed.
Who cares?
Who cares that I screw my life up with drugs, sex or violence, then screw the life up of my children? It's not your problem; it's mine, so leave me the heck alone.
The trouble is that one person's problem can easily become a community's problem.
Child abuse, neglect, and endangerment; drug addictions, abandonment, exposure and exploitation. These all become society's problems, having stemmed from one or two peoples' personal problems.
Children in foster care are often the result of self-serving, hedonistic, licentious, negligent and careless behavior. We've only ourselves to blame.
It may sound as though I am blaming the Sixities generation for current child abuse incidents. I'm not. But I do hold that generation responsible and accountable for the destructive messages that it sent to succeeding generations; some of whom have interpreted and taken those messages to violent extremes, such as child abuse.
In more ways than one, today's generations are reaping the consequences of the seeds sown by the counterculture revolution from 45 years ago. The way that some adults today treat their children is a result of the self-centered messages propagated and pushed by that generation.
So, it is up to each one of us to fix the problem, one person and one family at a time.
Children deserve better. They deserve to know that there is a God who loves them. They deserve to know the truth about life: That it isn't about them, but about serving others. They deserve to be given a chance to right the wrongs of their parents and preceding generations.
When I look at the new infant in our home, I tear up, because one more child like him in foster care is really one too many. Sadly, there are thousands more with stories similar to his. So, even though the numbers are going down, in my humble opinion, the number of children currently in foster care is still unacceptably high.
One more abused child in the system is one too many.
That's good news...sort of.
It's good that the numbers are declining. However, what isn't good is that there are still close to half a million children in foster care nationwide this year. The story reported a nine percent decrease around the country from 2008-09 to 2009-10, and an 11 percent drop in foster care populations in the state of California.
Good news, right?
Consider that there are still 60,000 children in foster care in California and 423,000 nationwide for federal fiscal year 2009-10. While the decreases are certainly significant, they are by no means a reason to celebrate.
As one who runs a volunteer foster care home, I can speak with some authority on this.
My wife and I just received our latest placement today; an infant seized by Child Protective Services because he was the victim of severe physical abuse. Suffering multiple broken bones throughout his fragile little body, this baby, born premature, could easily have succumbed to his injuries. Thank God he didn't, and thank God he is healing. However, he has suffered perhaps the cruelest of fates: To serve as a living, breathing example of what people in their anger and carelessness are capable of; a sad testament to, and a sorry reminder of just how cruel and heartless people can be.
This little boy's parents are both doing time for the crimes against him. God willing, they'll remain locked up for at least the next 18 years.
Our newest foster placement is just one example of what is wrong in our society, and that a return to traditional American values is not only right, but imperative. If the public doesn't embrace the traditional values of the American Revolution, the values that made this country great, then I fear we will continue down the slippery slope to social ruin.
We are nearly there now. Some may argue we're there already, but I'm trying to be optimistic.
I haven't the slightest clue what was going through the minds or coursing through the veins of this baby boy's parents, but I'm certain it wasn't love thy neighbor as thyself or do unto others as you would have done unto you.
We have reached a social crisis in this country, perpetuated by some ill-conceived notion that we are entitled to do our own thing regardless of the consequences, and to heck with anyone else. Self-centered narcissism has been a human trait as old as time and as far back as our origins. But here in the United States of America, it had a rebirth in the 1960s with the pleasure-seeking, me-first hedonists who lived to get high, fry on acid, and tell "The Man" where he could stick it.
Thanks to the free-loving, dope-worshipping generation of 50 years ago, several generations of like-minded individuals since have been spawned. Now, this self-centered, me-first mindset has permeated society to such a degree that it is no longer uncommon or unheard of for human beings to inflict unimaginable harm on the weakest, most vulnerable of the population. How many stories of child abuse are we subjected to on a weekly, even daily basis?
There are so many cases, so many incidents of abuse and neglect out there that it no longer astonishes us to read about them in the newspaper. We almost come to expect it the way we expect obituaries or sports scores.
We are a country that has turned its back on God, on His Ten Commandments, on the Beatitudes of Christ, and on Biblical principles. America has turned from God in the name of tolerance.
But take a good, hard look at the results of that tolerance: Pervasive and widespread drug abuse and addictions, because people have no God of their own, so they invent one to worship and foolishly cling to it as though it is going make all of their problems go away.
Relentless pursuit of pleasure, because serving others and attending to their needs first before our own is a waste of the one life we have to live. Consequently, America is suffering from its highest concentration of communicable diseases ever in its history; spread either through intravenous drug use or sexual contact.
Intolerance toward temperance and restraint. To advocate and insist that we practice self-control is to be intolerant of others, because we are trying to impose our morality on others.
Is it ironic, a coincidence, or perhaps justice that the degeneration of American society and the degradation of her traditional values was accelerated from a point in our history where millions of Americans in one voice declared their independence from God? When the Sixties generation gave God the "up yours" sign, that's when America's social fabric began to unravel at an alarming pace.
Today, people by and large do not practice restraint or temperance. They've been told by previous generations that it's okay to do your own thing however you want to do it, and regardless of anyone else; to heck with the consequences. Messages of doom and gloom have been ingrained into peoples' heads as they conclude that life is a hopeless mess, and all that's left for them is a pile of ashes upon which to weep. So, they turn to drugs, casual sex or any number of self-pleasing and self-promoting activities as their coping mechanisms, because life is already too fouled up to deal with; too far gone to do anything about anyway. Who should care whether a person fouls his or her life up further with drugs, sex, gambling or other potentially self-destructive behaviors?
Today's younger generations have taken the "me first" attitude of the Sixties to a whole new level: "Who cares?"
Yes, indeed.
Who cares?
Who cares that I screw my life up with drugs, sex or violence, then screw the life up of my children? It's not your problem; it's mine, so leave me the heck alone.
The trouble is that one person's problem can easily become a community's problem.
Child abuse, neglect, and endangerment; drug addictions, abandonment, exposure and exploitation. These all become society's problems, having stemmed from one or two peoples' personal problems.
Children in foster care are often the result of self-serving, hedonistic, licentious, negligent and careless behavior. We've only ourselves to blame.
It may sound as though I am blaming the Sixities generation for current child abuse incidents. I'm not. But I do hold that generation responsible and accountable for the destructive messages that it sent to succeeding generations; some of whom have interpreted and taken those messages to violent extremes, such as child abuse.
In more ways than one, today's generations are reaping the consequences of the seeds sown by the counterculture revolution from 45 years ago. The way that some adults today treat their children is a result of the self-centered messages propagated and pushed by that generation.
So, it is up to each one of us to fix the problem, one person and one family at a time.
Children deserve better. They deserve to know that there is a God who loves them. They deserve to know the truth about life: That it isn't about them, but about serving others. They deserve to be given a chance to right the wrongs of their parents and preceding generations.
When I look at the new infant in our home, I tear up, because one more child like him in foster care is really one too many. Sadly, there are thousands more with stories similar to his. So, even though the numbers are going down, in my humble opinion, the number of children currently in foster care is still unacceptably high.
One more abused child in the system is one too many.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
No place for God in science
World renowned physicist, Dr. Stephen Hawking, has come out with a new theory about the origin of the universe: God had no part in it.
This is evidently a departure from earlier views that God didn't need to intervene in the creation of the universe, known as the "Big Bang" Theory. Now, the doctor states unequivocally that God did not create the universe. Period.
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing." he is quoted as saying. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing..."
One question, Dr. Hawking: If there was nothing before the Big Bang, then how could any law have existed at that time to substantiate your theory? The law of gravity exists as a result of the creation of the universe, our solar system and, ultimately, planet Earth. It evolved consequent to the evolution of the universe.
Besides, the "law" of gravity was established by man to explain why things that go up always come down. Of course, we know that the law of gravity does not apply in parts of the universe were gravity doesn't exist.
Gravity is the result of atomic forces relating to the Earth's atmosphere, the rotation on its axis, the orbit of the moon, and earth's orbit around the sun. Without all of those elements, gravity wouldn't exist here, and there would be no law.
I think what Dr. Hawking was trying to say is that the law of gravity is proof that spontaneous events occur in the universe.
No doubt.
But how can anything spontaneous--any event at all--happen out of nothing? There would have to have existed some forces to create the bang that created the universe; atomic or chemical forces, at least. But if there was absolutely nothing before the bang, then how can a spontaneous bang even occur?
Nothing is nothing, until it becomes something. And how does that happen? From creation, either man-made or natural.
Something had to have created the Big Bang, but what? If there was nothing before the bang, then nothing could have created it.
Except, perhaps, divine intelligence.
But we don't want to admit that the existence of God and His hand in the creation of all things is still a possibility. Sure, we cannot prove that God did create the universe. But we cannot disprove it, either.
Hawking's basis for his new epiphany is a series of new theories about the beginning of the universe.
What?
So, Hawking all but establishes that God had no part in the Big Bang based on some theories.
Hmmm.
The last time I checked, a "theory" is an unproven hypothesis. It is a question without answers yet.
That's what science really is, after all. It is the pursuit of answers to questions. It is a process, a method of obtaining answers to our questions.
Science is not the search for truth or fact; although, occasionally, truths and facts result from the application of science.
The law of gravity, to name one.
But Hawking's latest revelation about God's role in the creation of the universe is based upon a series of new theories. Essentially, then, his conclusion is based upon questions that haven't been answered.
My philosophy about God is rather simple: I don't know for a fact that He does exist, but I don't know for a fact that He doesn't. So, I have chosen to believe that He exists, that He is good and just, loving and merciful. I figure the existence of God will never be established in my lifetime or anyone else's. There are just some things we human beings are incapable of knowing as fact...until the One who created us wants to reveal Himself to us.
God is incomprehensible to us, because our knowledge and understanding are limited to our senses: What we see, hear, touch, smell and taste. God transcends our physical senses, so it is impossible to establish His existence as fact until He reveals Himself to our senses.
And that will likely not be until we are standing before His Great White Throne on Judgment Day.
I, for one, have chosen to be ready for that day by believing in what I don't know for a fact, because I know that mankind could end up being wrong in his assumptions. He usually is.
This is evidently a departure from earlier views that God didn't need to intervene in the creation of the universe, known as the "Big Bang" Theory. Now, the doctor states unequivocally that God did not create the universe. Period.
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing." he is quoted as saying. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing..."
One question, Dr. Hawking: If there was nothing before the Big Bang, then how could any law have existed at that time to substantiate your theory? The law of gravity exists as a result of the creation of the universe, our solar system and, ultimately, planet Earth. It evolved consequent to the evolution of the universe.
Besides, the "law" of gravity was established by man to explain why things that go up always come down. Of course, we know that the law of gravity does not apply in parts of the universe were gravity doesn't exist.
Gravity is the result of atomic forces relating to the Earth's atmosphere, the rotation on its axis, the orbit of the moon, and earth's orbit around the sun. Without all of those elements, gravity wouldn't exist here, and there would be no law.
I think what Dr. Hawking was trying to say is that the law of gravity is proof that spontaneous events occur in the universe.
No doubt.
But how can anything spontaneous--any event at all--happen out of nothing? There would have to have existed some forces to create the bang that created the universe; atomic or chemical forces, at least. But if there was absolutely nothing before the bang, then how can a spontaneous bang even occur?
Nothing is nothing, until it becomes something. And how does that happen? From creation, either man-made or natural.
Something had to have created the Big Bang, but what? If there was nothing before the bang, then nothing could have created it.
Except, perhaps, divine intelligence.
But we don't want to admit that the existence of God and His hand in the creation of all things is still a possibility. Sure, we cannot prove that God did create the universe. But we cannot disprove it, either.
Hawking's basis for his new epiphany is a series of new theories about the beginning of the universe.
What?
So, Hawking all but establishes that God had no part in the Big Bang based on some theories.
Hmmm.
The last time I checked, a "theory" is an unproven hypothesis. It is a question without answers yet.
That's what science really is, after all. It is the pursuit of answers to questions. It is a process, a method of obtaining answers to our questions.
Science is not the search for truth or fact; although, occasionally, truths and facts result from the application of science.
The law of gravity, to name one.
But Hawking's latest revelation about God's role in the creation of the universe is based upon a series of new theories. Essentially, then, his conclusion is based upon questions that haven't been answered.
My philosophy about God is rather simple: I don't know for a fact that He does exist, but I don't know for a fact that He doesn't. So, I have chosen to believe that He exists, that He is good and just, loving and merciful. I figure the existence of God will never be established in my lifetime or anyone else's. There are just some things we human beings are incapable of knowing as fact...until the One who created us wants to reveal Himself to us.
God is incomprehensible to us, because our knowledge and understanding are limited to our senses: What we see, hear, touch, smell and taste. God transcends our physical senses, so it is impossible to establish His existence as fact until He reveals Himself to our senses.
And that will likely not be until we are standing before His Great White Throne on Judgment Day.
I, for one, have chosen to be ready for that day by believing in what I don't know for a fact, because I know that mankind could end up being wrong in his assumptions. He usually is.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Regarding Harry
I admit that I’ve been pretty hard on Sen. Harry Reid, D-NV. Part of it is because he represents my state; so naturally, I’m going to be more critical of him than most elsewhere around the country.
But critical as I am of him, I should also be fair when evaluating the current U.S. Senate Majority Leader.
My wife has always held him in high regard. She met him a couple of times when she was advocating for research funding of her chronic illness. He proved to be an effective ally in her fight to see that the condition that afflicts her not only received proper national recognition, but that it was also treated fairly by the feds in appropriations.
Sen. Reid had been a gentleman toward my wife, and for that I thank him for his decorum. He was very helpful to her cause, expressing a willingness to go the extra mile for her.
Of course, all of this was before Harry Reid became a Washington, D.C., power player. This was before he decided that being a career politician, party mouthpiece, and Beltway insider was more important than representing people and advocating for each of our petty individual causes and crusades.
I am convinced that Sen. Reid has been corrupted by the very political machine that he once claimed to stand against. He used to stand on his own and was more independent in his actions. He didn’t always side with his party, and his views were usually more blue-dog conservative and moderate.
But again, this was before Harry Reid began climbing the political ladder. Evidently, he wasn’t content just to be the senior U.S. Senator from Nevada. He wanted more, so he maneuvered himself into being selected as Senate Democrat Minority-Majority Whip and later Minority-Majority Leader.
To be honest, I don’t really know Reid’s motivation for seeking more powerful political positions; but I am certainly free to guess.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Reid thought he could better serve his state in the senate leadership. But as savvy as Reid has been through his years in Washington, D.C., I find it hard to believe he’d be that naïve.
A politician doesn’t enter party leadership to help his or her constituents. They do so, more often than not, either to help themselves or the party. The motivation is usually more personal and self-aggrandizing.
Why else did Reid work so hard over the past 24 years to get money for the people, enterprises and projects of his state? To please them? Apparently not, or else he wouldn’t have jumped so eagerly into national party leadership like he did.
Sure, he was maneuvering for votes; that’s part of the reason. But I believe the primary reason why Reid has been so good at bringing home the bacon for Nevada is because doing so has propelled his political career. His savvy efforts have ushered him into the national spotlight as the third most powerful politician in the country. I think his motivation is personal and self-aggrandizing; like the rest of us in pursuit of career advancement.
And like the rest of us, Reid has an ego to stroke. Serving his constituents was a means to that end.
He hasn’t secured billions of federal dollars for Nevada just because he cares about us, loves us, and wants to be our friend. He’s done it because it has helped him advance through the ranks of average Washington politicians to the elite.
Sen. Reid is now a member of that exclusive circle of influential power brokers whose single words can affect national policy.
When a politician is elevated to party leadership, the expectation from the party is that it will receive the lion’s share of that politician’s time and energy. The party becomes numero uno; not the constituents.
Case in point: In Reid’s first two years as Senate Majority Leader, he spent (not surprisingly) an inordinate amount of time attacking President Bush and his policies. As minority leader and party whip in the senate, his job was to attack the other party.
This should come as no surprise, because being an attack dog, a stooge and a mouthpiece are what party leadership is all about.
Reid didn’t receive national media attention for anything he did for his state, but for what he said or did on behalf of his party.
Harry Reid has changed…and not necessarily for the better, in my opinion.
Yes, he’s still very effective at bringing home the bacon, securing the pork for Nevada. You’ll get no dispute about that from me. Nobody has delivered or probably ever will deliver pork for Nevada like Harry Reid.
But I’ve said it before and I will say it again: There is much more to representing one’s state in Congress than sending money back home. First and foremost, Congressional U.S. Representatives and Senators must be advocates for their respective states and the people therein. They are to be the voices of the people they represent. That’s what representative democracy and our constitutional republic are all about.
But when an elected representative places the party above the people; seeks approval of party over approval of the electorate; and seeks advancement in party leadership rather than attending to the business they were elected to perform, they are no longer representatives. They are not statesmen anymore.
Rather disappointingly—but painfully true—they become career politicians who are all too often corrupted by a culture and a system that places greater importance on money, power and influence than on humanity and doing the right thing.
Harry Reid has traded in his statesmanship for salesmanship. He’d rather sell party rhetoric than the concerns of his constituents before Congress.
Reid has given up his service as a representative in favor of serving his political party and its powerful national interests. Because Reid chose party politics over the interests of the people of his state, he’s made it quite clear to me that he prefers to be a Washington power broker, who makes deals for money and influence, than a voice for the common Nevadan.
When a representative goes from statesman to politician, in my opinion, they aren’t worth a darn anymore. I don’t care how much pork they secure for my state. A diet rich in bacon, after all, is not very healthy.
I hope Harry Reid is reading this. I hope he takes notice. I hope he takes this criticism to heart. And I hope he realizes what a destructive choice he has made before it’s too late; because on November 3, 2010 it just may well be.
But critical as I am of him, I should also be fair when evaluating the current U.S. Senate Majority Leader.
My wife has always held him in high regard. She met him a couple of times when she was advocating for research funding of her chronic illness. He proved to be an effective ally in her fight to see that the condition that afflicts her not only received proper national recognition, but that it was also treated fairly by the feds in appropriations.
Sen. Reid had been a gentleman toward my wife, and for that I thank him for his decorum. He was very helpful to her cause, expressing a willingness to go the extra mile for her.
Of course, all of this was before Harry Reid became a Washington, D.C., power player. This was before he decided that being a career politician, party mouthpiece, and Beltway insider was more important than representing people and advocating for each of our petty individual causes and crusades.
I am convinced that Sen. Reid has been corrupted by the very political machine that he once claimed to stand against. He used to stand on his own and was more independent in his actions. He didn’t always side with his party, and his views were usually more blue-dog conservative and moderate.
But again, this was before Harry Reid began climbing the political ladder. Evidently, he wasn’t content just to be the senior U.S. Senator from Nevada. He wanted more, so he maneuvered himself into being selected as Senate Democrat Minority-Majority Whip and later Minority-Majority Leader.
To be honest, I don’t really know Reid’s motivation for seeking more powerful political positions; but I am certainly free to guess.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Reid thought he could better serve his state in the senate leadership. But as savvy as Reid has been through his years in Washington, D.C., I find it hard to believe he’d be that naïve.
A politician doesn’t enter party leadership to help his or her constituents. They do so, more often than not, either to help themselves or the party. The motivation is usually more personal and self-aggrandizing.
Why else did Reid work so hard over the past 24 years to get money for the people, enterprises and projects of his state? To please them? Apparently not, or else he wouldn’t have jumped so eagerly into national party leadership like he did.
Sure, he was maneuvering for votes; that’s part of the reason. But I believe the primary reason why Reid has been so good at bringing home the bacon for Nevada is because doing so has propelled his political career. His savvy efforts have ushered him into the national spotlight as the third most powerful politician in the country. I think his motivation is personal and self-aggrandizing; like the rest of us in pursuit of career advancement.
And like the rest of us, Reid has an ego to stroke. Serving his constituents was a means to that end.
He hasn’t secured billions of federal dollars for Nevada just because he cares about us, loves us, and wants to be our friend. He’s done it because it has helped him advance through the ranks of average Washington politicians to the elite.
Sen. Reid is now a member of that exclusive circle of influential power brokers whose single words can affect national policy.
When a politician is elevated to party leadership, the expectation from the party is that it will receive the lion’s share of that politician’s time and energy. The party becomes numero uno; not the constituents.
Case in point: In Reid’s first two years as Senate Majority Leader, he spent (not surprisingly) an inordinate amount of time attacking President Bush and his policies. As minority leader and party whip in the senate, his job was to attack the other party.
This should come as no surprise, because being an attack dog, a stooge and a mouthpiece are what party leadership is all about.
Reid didn’t receive national media attention for anything he did for his state, but for what he said or did on behalf of his party.
Harry Reid has changed…and not necessarily for the better, in my opinion.
Yes, he’s still very effective at bringing home the bacon, securing the pork for Nevada. You’ll get no dispute about that from me. Nobody has delivered or probably ever will deliver pork for Nevada like Harry Reid.
But I’ve said it before and I will say it again: There is much more to representing one’s state in Congress than sending money back home. First and foremost, Congressional U.S. Representatives and Senators must be advocates for their respective states and the people therein. They are to be the voices of the people they represent. That’s what representative democracy and our constitutional republic are all about.
But when an elected representative places the party above the people; seeks approval of party over approval of the electorate; and seeks advancement in party leadership rather than attending to the business they were elected to perform, they are no longer representatives. They are not statesmen anymore.
Rather disappointingly—but painfully true—they become career politicians who are all too often corrupted by a culture and a system that places greater importance on money, power and influence than on humanity and doing the right thing.
Harry Reid has traded in his statesmanship for salesmanship. He’d rather sell party rhetoric than the concerns of his constituents before Congress.
Reid has given up his service as a representative in favor of serving his political party and its powerful national interests. Because Reid chose party politics over the interests of the people of his state, he’s made it quite clear to me that he prefers to be a Washington power broker, who makes deals for money and influence, than a voice for the common Nevadan.
When a representative goes from statesman to politician, in my opinion, they aren’t worth a darn anymore. I don’t care how much pork they secure for my state. A diet rich in bacon, after all, is not very healthy.
I hope Harry Reid is reading this. I hope he takes notice. I hope he takes this criticism to heart. And I hope he realizes what a destructive choice he has made before it’s too late; because on November 3, 2010 it just may well be.
Who's afraid of the big, bad Beck?
Apparently a lot of little piggies on the political left.
Who would have thought that conservative radio talk show personality and author Glenn Beck would create such a stir among left-wing progressives that news stories debating the actual size of the crowd at his "Restoring Honor" event in Washington, D.C., last week actually became headliners?
Glenn Beck. One man, one voice.
And he causes the left such pain that he is actually considered "dangerous" to America, a threat to her freedom and her way of life.
That figures. Whenever anyone dares to challenge the political left, its headhunters are summoned en masse to start chopping.
The assaults against Glenn Beck are so asinine that all I can do is laugh. Getting angry seems inappropriate somehow, because the accusations are so baseless that it is comical to even think about them.
Glenn Beck the racist.
Oh, yes, this is usually the first accusation leveled at any conservative voice that speaks up and out against the political left. The very first thing lefties do when a guy like Beck speaks is to liken him to Adolphe Hitler.
Well, of course. Beck, like Hitler before him, is a white male. Also like Hitler, he's an effective speaker who inspires his audiences. Other than that, I fail to see any further similarities.
Listen more critically at the messages of the two, and you will find they are distinctly different.
Hitler advocated for a return to German national pride by blaming a scapegoat for his country's economic problems. Beck has consistently spoken about traditional American values on his radio program; the same message he conveyed at last week's rally.
What's wrong with wanting a return to the traditional values of the American Revolution? To regard certain unalienable rights--life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness--as God-given through grace, and not ordained by men. To value that all men (and women) are created equal under God and are deserving of His unalienable rights. To self-govern and self-regulate the way our nation's founding generation intended. To choose to do the right thing instead of the wrong thing without the government having to tell us what that right thing is. To treat others by God's Golden Rule--Do unto others as you would have done unto you. To love thy neighbor as thyself. To care for and about one another. To take responsibility and hold ourselves accountable for our own actions. To believe that hard work pays dividends and that things must be earned. To trust in the individual instead of the individual's government. To set the individual free to follow opportunity and pursue his happiness...Those are traditional American values. Those are the values Beck has spoken of consistently.
Those are not the values that Hitler spoke of. They are not the values of a tyrant, a demagogue and a racist. They are the values of an American citizen who believes his country has strayed dangerously away from them and toward the values of Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao and others who "inspired" their people to their own destruction.
The fact that Glenn Beck held this rally on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech in the exact same spot (on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial overlooking the National Mall) does not make him a racist. I know Al Sharpton wants us to believe it does. He wants us to believe that Beck did it to spite King and to insult the memory of America's most profound civil rights leader.
It never even enters the mind of the progressive leftist that perhaps Beck did it out of respect and reverence for MLK. That maybe, just maybe, Beck held the late Rev. King in such high esteem as to stage his own positive message of change on the anniversary of MLK's historic message of change.
No, no, that can't be it. It is impossible for a conservative, a right-winger, to revere MLK, because all conservatives are racist. The intent had to be sinister. It just had to. There is no other rhyme or reasonable explanation for it.
And so it goes. Glenn Beck is a racist because he organized his event to coincide with the memory of MLK. There's just no way the man could have done that to honor MLK. No way at all.
Beck is also a racist because, as the Associated Press reported, the crowd was vastly and predominantly white.
Naturally.
Any time a largely white crowd gathers, they can have only one thing on their mind: Racism. Makes perfect sense.
I am amused at how progressive leftists react toward conservatives. There is no attempt to debate, or even understand. No invitation to compete in the arena of ideas. No rules of engagement. No sportsmanship. Leftists approach conservatives with a cutthroat attitude: Kill or be killed.
There is no debate; understanding is for conservaives to practice and the left-wing to preach; the arena is closed to anyone right of center; the only rules that apply are the ones the left makes; and sportsmanship is only for conservatives to follow.
Leftists are predictable in their knee-jerk reactions toward conservatives. Everything is akin to a five-alarm fire. It's an emergency. A conservative as influential as Beck has become represents a clear and present danger to the left's political power, entrenched in Washington, D.C. for over half a century.
I remember when Rush Limbaugh crashed the left's party, going national with his talk show in 1988. He was summarily dismissed as a rabble-rowser, a racist and neo-Nazi, a chauvinist, a homophobe, and especially a blowhard.
Because he said things the left didn't want itself or anyone else to hear, he was not taken seriously. But after the 1994 Republican Revolution, the left couldn't ignore Limbaugh anymore. Every chance the left got, it took words out of context, ignored context, and focused on what it wanted to see and hear, so that the public would see and hear it, too. The left tried to sabotage Limbaugh by using his words against him.
But the trouble was that 20 million listeners completely disagreed when the left tried to paint Rush as a racist, sexist, homophobic bigot; an uncaring, mean-spirited Scrooge. Why? Because 20 million listeners actually listened to what Limbaugh really said and what he meant. Rush was always very good about qualifying his remarks; but the left didn't want anything he said qualified. What mattered is that he said it; therefore, he must be exactly what they tried to paint him as.
Funny, isn't it, that the left is trying to do the exact same thing to Glenn Beck that it tried to do to Limbaugh and failed? It is leveling the exact same accusations against Beck that it leveled against Rush.
What the left historically does is try to defeat its opponents through character assassination. Attack a person's character and you place their credibility in question. Do that and the debate suddenly shifts from the issues to the individual debating them.
It is classic evasive maneuvering.
Avoid debating the issues at all simply by attacking the debater.
Leftists are masters at this, because debating the issues is the last thing they want to do. When it comes to reason, rationale and right, conservatism just makes more sense to most people. Get into a rationale over the economy with a conservative and you might as well arm wrestle a Gorilla.
The left does not want to be humiliated any more than it already has by those throughout history who have plied the socialist trade only to fail miserably. So, debating opponents would be self-defeating. It is far easier and more gratifying to the hyenas on the left to just go below the belt and assault someone personally. It weakens them and their argument, turning them from formidable foe to easy prey.
Unfortunately, bringing Beck down is going to prove just as hard for the left as bringing down Limbaugh, an effort now 22 years in the making and still counting. Meanwhile, the listenership for both continues to rise. Go figure.
But try the left has and try it shall continue, because debating conservative voices is not an option. Going tete-a-tete over the issues won't work; and besides, the political left is afraid of guys like Beck and Limbaugh.
The political left is truly afraid of anyone willing to stand up to it and say that it is wrong. Why? Because the left knows it. But it would sooner eat its own crap that it dishes out to the rest of us than a slice of humble pie.
Case in point: Former President Bill Clinton in his first four-year term whined over national airwaves that Rush Limbaugh had three hours a day to say whatever he wants, and that he (Clinton) didn't have that.
Well, boo-hoo, Mr. President. Cry me a river. Rather than challenge Rush on the issues, Clinton, one of the most savvy left-wing politicians around, just whined. He couldn't spin his way out of Limbaugh's web of reason, so he avoided it like the plague.
Imagine the President of the United States, the most powerful single person on the planet, afraid of engaging a single other obscure individual in a debate of ideas. The President, who on a whim could have dozens of cameras on him at any moment, and dozens more microphones at his disposal, complained that one man had three hours a day to speak his mind.
I know the lefties on here probably don't think it's funny, but I sure do. A vast, powerful political machine like left-wing progressivism, entrenched for decades in the culture and infrastructure of Washington, D.C., afraid of the voice of one man.
After all of this, I realize why.
Because tens of millions of ears are listening to him. And what's more, they think he makes sense and they agree with him. He is articulating what they believe in their hearts, but have felt silenced and intimidated by a culture that seeks to punish conservatives simply for being who they are.
Now, that's scary if you're a left-wing progressive. Millions of conservatives suddenly inspired to stand up and shout, "no more." Not even the little piggy's brick house can stand up to that.
Who would have thought that conservative radio talk show personality and author Glenn Beck would create such a stir among left-wing progressives that news stories debating the actual size of the crowd at his "Restoring Honor" event in Washington, D.C., last week actually became headliners?
Glenn Beck. One man, one voice.
And he causes the left such pain that he is actually considered "dangerous" to America, a threat to her freedom and her way of life.
That figures. Whenever anyone dares to challenge the political left, its headhunters are summoned en masse to start chopping.
The assaults against Glenn Beck are so asinine that all I can do is laugh. Getting angry seems inappropriate somehow, because the accusations are so baseless that it is comical to even think about them.
Glenn Beck the racist.
Oh, yes, this is usually the first accusation leveled at any conservative voice that speaks up and out against the political left. The very first thing lefties do when a guy like Beck speaks is to liken him to Adolphe Hitler.
Well, of course. Beck, like Hitler before him, is a white male. Also like Hitler, he's an effective speaker who inspires his audiences. Other than that, I fail to see any further similarities.
Listen more critically at the messages of the two, and you will find they are distinctly different.
Hitler advocated for a return to German national pride by blaming a scapegoat for his country's economic problems. Beck has consistently spoken about traditional American values on his radio program; the same message he conveyed at last week's rally.
What's wrong with wanting a return to the traditional values of the American Revolution? To regard certain unalienable rights--life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness--as God-given through grace, and not ordained by men. To value that all men (and women) are created equal under God and are deserving of His unalienable rights. To self-govern and self-regulate the way our nation's founding generation intended. To choose to do the right thing instead of the wrong thing without the government having to tell us what that right thing is. To treat others by God's Golden Rule--Do unto others as you would have done unto you. To love thy neighbor as thyself. To care for and about one another. To take responsibility and hold ourselves accountable for our own actions. To believe that hard work pays dividends and that things must be earned. To trust in the individual instead of the individual's government. To set the individual free to follow opportunity and pursue his happiness...Those are traditional American values. Those are the values Beck has spoken of consistently.
Those are not the values that Hitler spoke of. They are not the values of a tyrant, a demagogue and a racist. They are the values of an American citizen who believes his country has strayed dangerously away from them and toward the values of Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao and others who "inspired" their people to their own destruction.
The fact that Glenn Beck held this rally on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech in the exact same spot (on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial overlooking the National Mall) does not make him a racist. I know Al Sharpton wants us to believe it does. He wants us to believe that Beck did it to spite King and to insult the memory of America's most profound civil rights leader.
It never even enters the mind of the progressive leftist that perhaps Beck did it out of respect and reverence for MLK. That maybe, just maybe, Beck held the late Rev. King in such high esteem as to stage his own positive message of change on the anniversary of MLK's historic message of change.
No, no, that can't be it. It is impossible for a conservative, a right-winger, to revere MLK, because all conservatives are racist. The intent had to be sinister. It just had to. There is no other rhyme or reasonable explanation for it.
And so it goes. Glenn Beck is a racist because he organized his event to coincide with the memory of MLK. There's just no way the man could have done that to honor MLK. No way at all.
Beck is also a racist because, as the Associated Press reported, the crowd was vastly and predominantly white.
Naturally.
Any time a largely white crowd gathers, they can have only one thing on their mind: Racism. Makes perfect sense.
I am amused at how progressive leftists react toward conservatives. There is no attempt to debate, or even understand. No invitation to compete in the arena of ideas. No rules of engagement. No sportsmanship. Leftists approach conservatives with a cutthroat attitude: Kill or be killed.
There is no debate; understanding is for conservaives to practice and the left-wing to preach; the arena is closed to anyone right of center; the only rules that apply are the ones the left makes; and sportsmanship is only for conservatives to follow.
Leftists are predictable in their knee-jerk reactions toward conservatives. Everything is akin to a five-alarm fire. It's an emergency. A conservative as influential as Beck has become represents a clear and present danger to the left's political power, entrenched in Washington, D.C. for over half a century.
I remember when Rush Limbaugh crashed the left's party, going national with his talk show in 1988. He was summarily dismissed as a rabble-rowser, a racist and neo-Nazi, a chauvinist, a homophobe, and especially a blowhard.
Because he said things the left didn't want itself or anyone else to hear, he was not taken seriously. But after the 1994 Republican Revolution, the left couldn't ignore Limbaugh anymore. Every chance the left got, it took words out of context, ignored context, and focused on what it wanted to see and hear, so that the public would see and hear it, too. The left tried to sabotage Limbaugh by using his words against him.
But the trouble was that 20 million listeners completely disagreed when the left tried to paint Rush as a racist, sexist, homophobic bigot; an uncaring, mean-spirited Scrooge. Why? Because 20 million listeners actually listened to what Limbaugh really said and what he meant. Rush was always very good about qualifying his remarks; but the left didn't want anything he said qualified. What mattered is that he said it; therefore, he must be exactly what they tried to paint him as.
Funny, isn't it, that the left is trying to do the exact same thing to Glenn Beck that it tried to do to Limbaugh and failed? It is leveling the exact same accusations against Beck that it leveled against Rush.
What the left historically does is try to defeat its opponents through character assassination. Attack a person's character and you place their credibility in question. Do that and the debate suddenly shifts from the issues to the individual debating them.
It is classic evasive maneuvering.
Avoid debating the issues at all simply by attacking the debater.
Leftists are masters at this, because debating the issues is the last thing they want to do. When it comes to reason, rationale and right, conservatism just makes more sense to most people. Get into a rationale over the economy with a conservative and you might as well arm wrestle a Gorilla.
The left does not want to be humiliated any more than it already has by those throughout history who have plied the socialist trade only to fail miserably. So, debating opponents would be self-defeating. It is far easier and more gratifying to the hyenas on the left to just go below the belt and assault someone personally. It weakens them and their argument, turning them from formidable foe to easy prey.
Unfortunately, bringing Beck down is going to prove just as hard for the left as bringing down Limbaugh, an effort now 22 years in the making and still counting. Meanwhile, the listenership for both continues to rise. Go figure.
But try the left has and try it shall continue, because debating conservative voices is not an option. Going tete-a-tete over the issues won't work; and besides, the political left is afraid of guys like Beck and Limbaugh.
The political left is truly afraid of anyone willing to stand up to it and say that it is wrong. Why? Because the left knows it. But it would sooner eat its own crap that it dishes out to the rest of us than a slice of humble pie.
Case in point: Former President Bill Clinton in his first four-year term whined over national airwaves that Rush Limbaugh had three hours a day to say whatever he wants, and that he (Clinton) didn't have that.
Well, boo-hoo, Mr. President. Cry me a river. Rather than challenge Rush on the issues, Clinton, one of the most savvy left-wing politicians around, just whined. He couldn't spin his way out of Limbaugh's web of reason, so he avoided it like the plague.
Imagine the President of the United States, the most powerful single person on the planet, afraid of engaging a single other obscure individual in a debate of ideas. The President, who on a whim could have dozens of cameras on him at any moment, and dozens more microphones at his disposal, complained that one man had three hours a day to speak his mind.
I know the lefties on here probably don't think it's funny, but I sure do. A vast, powerful political machine like left-wing progressivism, entrenched for decades in the culture and infrastructure of Washington, D.C., afraid of the voice of one man.
After all of this, I realize why.
Because tens of millions of ears are listening to him. And what's more, they think he makes sense and they agree with him. He is articulating what they believe in their hearts, but have felt silenced and intimidated by a culture that seeks to punish conservatives simply for being who they are.
Now, that's scary if you're a left-wing progressive. Millions of conservatives suddenly inspired to stand up and shout, "no more." Not even the little piggy's brick house can stand up to that.
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