Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. -John Adams

It's very hard to find your own words - and you don't actually exist until you have your own words. -Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

...Male and female He created them. -Genesis 1:27 

After a seven-year hiatus with another Presidential election on the line - armed with a brand-new pair of reading glasses - it's time to break the silence.  

Looking through several of my previous posts, I'm impressed with the thoughtfulness, the attention to detail, and (surprising myself) the glimmers of wit and brevity as someone closer to her college graduation.  It's been almost two decades, now, since that occasion.  The eyes have gone a little dimmer; the skin, a few more wrinkles and dimples.  A surgery or two with scars.  Many Tough Mudders under my belt.  Four growing children, one who can vote by my side in November.  Too few words read, even fewer originally written.

But even then, what I read and wrote during a worldwide pandemic was so important, its impact cannot be overstated.  I found a community during the pandemic and we activated peacefully, locally, and strongly.  I earned some hateful insults ("grandma-killer" and "not-a-doctor" being two of my personal favorites, although sorely lacking in imagination).  The quiet observation of how a school board operates, admiring its processes but also observing how quickly it can turn against the public (unlike myself who was only nearly arrested, radio show host Shannon Joy was arrested during a school board meeting in New York for an improperly fitted mask.  She's currently pursuing legal action). 

And there's some wisdom acquired, too - not much, but enough to break silence and start existing (here, at least - ask my kids and husband based on Dr. Peterson's advice, I'm very much well in existence at home).

The two above quotes struck me not for the applicability to today's times, but also how they'd likely piss off a lot of people I know.  There are things I don't bring up during the holidays because I respect the peace my family enjoys.  But the other day during conversation with a friend about the general temperature of the country with gender "theory," I mentioned I'd come to know someone who had become a "transwidow" (a woman whose husband is no longer a man).

No one really addresses how the wife feels, I said while my friend listened.  It really is like losing a family member.  They even have a name for calling someone by their previous name - 'deadnaming'! 

Now in places like Canada and the UK, there is a concentrated effort pass laws to jail those who use wrong pronouns.

Now there are men taking victories from women at every level of sport. 

Trans-identifying male convicts (some violent) are being jailed alongside women in women's prisons - even with those who have been abused in the past and fear for their safety.

Then I said something somewhat out of character for me:  My gender is not for dressing up.  Just as people take offense to Blackface, I take huge offense at womanface. 

I'm not someone who is accustomed or adept at hot takes.  It's one reason I never really took a liking to X (formerly Twitter) because of the character limit.  Even though the char limit has been basically removed, I've never enjoyed the wit and brevity that some tend to have in spades.  I like the deep dives, the philosophical analyses, the jab and parry of ideas that simmer, not shock. 

But womanface is exactly the word I'd use to describe men who confuse themselves for women, and how men are able to enter into women-only spaces where we are quite literally naked and vulnerable.  We're in a country now where these men can claim to bleed, get sore breasts, and cramp.  We're where women in manface can claim that men get pregnant and have babies.  

So not only have men claimed bathrooms and periods, but now have claimed our wombs. 

The smaller vapid joys of womanhood - the makeup, the pretty dresses, the shoes, the sassiness - I didn't mind sharing that.  Whatever.  Fashions come, fashions go.  Makeup on, makeup off.  Drag queens love it.  I say enjoy it - that's not what makes a woman (although some could really fool you now, like those who were ironically defeated by a Catholic woman in the Miss Universe pageant). 

These men do not have to walk in a dark parking lot with keys clutched in hand, head on a swivel, with their parents' advice in their heads: keep alert, go straight to your car, do not dawdle. 

These men do not have to bear the burden of a sexual encounter gone wrong at the wrong time of the month (although babies are a glorious burden).  There's no morning sickness, no stretch marks, no counting baby's kicks, no OB/GYN visits, no Pap smears, no glucose tolerance tests for gestational diabetes, no kankles, no vaginal birth tears, no c-sections, no postpartum depression, no mastitis, no cracked nipples from breastfeeding.

These men do not have to bear the pains or the messiness of monthly cycles, the complex hormonal changes (and no, taking artificial hormones does not even come close to mimicking the organic hormonal cycle), the emotional burdens thereof, or the unique womanly burdens of healing from both regular and traumatic births, higher rates of eating disorders, perimenopause, hot flashes, or pelvic floor disorders.

Men don't get to lay claim to the fun, pretty parts of being a woman and leave the burdens to women.  At least with drag queens, we could get some entertainment out of it in an adult setting (although my bar is definitely higher than just slinging dead baby jokes around). But even that line is blurred when parents now take their kids to the shows.

My gender is not for your mental delusions.  It's time women took back what is fitting to us alone, because in order to enjoy the fruits of womanhood, we must also bear its burdens.  And men pretending to be women do none of that.

Whatever God has in store for this country in 2024, we likely deserve a leader much, much worse than a tripping, barely coherent, quadruple-jabbed dementia patient who should be in a home battling his nurses during his sun-downing hours and not trying to shake hands with an armless veteran while the sieve at the Southern Border makes the Great Replacement Theory look more like actual practice. 

More people need to turn to God.  There are a lot of Bible thumpers who don't do much other than thump, and thumping isn't doing squat in the spiritual war. The Great Experiment by our forefathers may indeed be coming to a disappointing, if predictable end.  Or it is just being rocked by predictable challenges as we accept more and more ridiculous premises like men can be women. 

Religious people, of those there are few, now more than ever after the pandemic; but I believed to be a time where at least most were moral.  Now, not so much - my time in public discourse has proven to be a place where many heartily enjoy embarrassing, aggressive, vulgar, and downright violent insults of especially women who simply don't agree with their ideas.  

By Dr. Peterson's criteria of words, their existence is amoral indeed.

May God have mercy on the United States this year and all years!

Let's Dissolve Labels in a Glass of Water

From The Nation, in which a woman writes to Liza Featherstone for advice under the headline "I'm a Marxist-Feminist Slut - How Do I Find an Open Relationship?": 

"I’m a 32-year-old woman who would like to have kids and a life partner in the not-so-distant future. And lucky me! I’ve recently started dating an excellent candidate. But I can’t even pretend to think it’s possible (or desirable) to have sex with just one person for the rest of my life or even, frankly, for a few years. 
 

Monogamy feels antithetical to the type of feminism and anticapitalism I subscribe to. I am repulsed by the idea of being a man’s property. Also, monogamy—like capitalism—requires us to believe in a false scarcity: that we have to struggle for every little bit and that everything we gain comes at someone else’s expense. The kind of liberatory future I’d like to see is one of abundance and generosity and sharing. One of the few places we can experiment with that now is in our love lives. 


But ALL the decent men I’ve dated are really opposed to open relationships, while the men I’ve slept with who say they fancy the idea don’t ever stick around long enough for the “relationship” part of an open relationship. This leaves me feeling like once I find a partner, the options are: 1) cheating (crummy and unethical, also a big anxiety-inducing headache); 2) waiting for the mythical “one” who will magically make me never attracted to anyone else (I’m fairly certain this is a hoax); or 3) retire from my glorious days as a loud, proud slut and gradually wither away inside as I suffocate one of the parts of my life, personality, and politics I cherish most. Please tell me there is another option out there. 

—A Marxist-Feminist Slut
"

Dear MFS, 

I'm a 36-year-old woman who has four kids and a husband presently.  And blessed me!  We're still together after 14 years of marriage with no end in sight.  But I can't even pretend to think it's possible (or desirable) to limit yourself to only one choice of polyamory in your future, no matter how difficult you think it may be. 

Monogamy is likely antithetical to the feminism and Marxist leanings you subscribe to, just as polyamory is antithetical to the Catholic and conservative leanings I subscribe to.  But your assumption that monogamy is a false scarcity is quite untrue, let me assure you.  Let me break down the two items you highlight: 

"...we have to struggle for every little bit..."  Little bit of what?  Tapping enough booty in your lifetime, earning every dollar with some honest work, allowing failure to become the ultimate teacher and guide?  Let me tell you, if you find the right person, getting enough booty will never be a problem again.  Trust.  But I'll address the honest work and failure in the next item: 

"...that everything we gain comes at someone else's expense."  Capitalism is not a finite pie that you must grab enough of before someone else does.  Where capitalism creates opportunity for both failure and success, it also creates a space for opportunity, flexibility, and competition that puts you and me, the consumers, in full control.  Small business owners, when mostly unchecked by crippling governmental regulations and red tape, start to realize that the consumer is the one who can check and uncheck a business's success faster than any government agency could dream of.  

The government you dream of brokering abundance, generosity, and sharing is what is mythical, unlike a dude who likes sharing you with others.  Also, abundance and sharing are directly non-proportional in a socialist society (see Venezuela), and so the third quality, generosity, gets thrown to the wayside when citizens don't even have enough for themselves to live.  It leaves a vacuum where desperation, violence, and eventually rebellion are inevitable. 

As a Catholic married prude, however, I wonder if I can't convince you that a monogamous marriage has not withered and suffocated me from my life, personality, and politics.  

In the commonwealth where we were married, my husband and I didn't have to sign any document that stated I was his property.  In fact, if that were the case we'd like have found another state or commonwealth that DIDN'T have that obligation listed.  The marriage contract we entered into (recognized by my community) and eventually the marriage covenant we entered into (recognized by God) did not have anything to do with ownership.  The key here is sacrificial love.  

Yes, I gave up my maiden name and took his; it makes our family unit easily identifiable, my children a living and breathing testament to our singular unity.  

Yes, I gave up working outside the home; this enables me to provide abundance, generosity, and sharing of love in our home of my own free will.  

Yes, I gave up making choices exclusively for myself; I now practice budgeting, instruction, cleanliness, and sacrificial love for the benefit of five others.  

In return of giving myself up for the betterment of my spouse and family, my husband has done the same.  He travels extensively and I'm lucky to see him 50% of my week.  He works incessantly and tirelessly, many nights dragging himself to bed as the sun peeks above the horizon.  He makes choices not based on whether it is healthy for him to be sleep-deprived and sitting in a car or at his desk for thousands of hours a year, but for what he can do to provide peace of mind and abundance for his family's future.  

Think of a marriage as each person having a glass full of water, representing their very self, their identity, their political and religious beliefs (even lack thereof), the core of their being.  Marriage is not the exchange of a portion of that water.  It is not the exchange of an unequal portion of that water, in which one person gives more than the other; you're just going to have wet socks.  It is not instantly dropping your glass and withering away as a dependent on someone else's water.  Marriage is the free will to exchange your glass with your spouse's.  Kinda scary, right?  You're still you and your spouse is still them; yet in your hands rests the most precious part of your spouse, and in his hands, yours. 

Now, if you find that you have similar values and beliefs in politics or ethereal beings, you might see how you might treat this glass of water as carefully as your own.  Sometimes, you may get scared and try to take your glass back.  You may try to hold both glasses at the same time.  You may purposefully empty part or all of your spouse's glass.  You may break your spouse's glass, intentionally or not.  If you have kids, then you both are juggling their glasses that eventually you need to give back to them, hopefully intact and full to the brim, when they go into the world.  And yet, in the context of the relationship, the goal is the same: Observing your spouse handle the most cherished part of yourself will show you how much they love you.  

So, don't despair if you have to give monogamy a go.  My gentle final suggestion?  Perhaps you should consider practicing capitalism in your community and elements of socialism in your relationship/marriage and not the other way around.  

-- A Concerned Catholic Citizen

P.S.  Liza's lamentation that "radicals can be conservative in their personal lives" is wholly exclusionary.  There are radicals on all sides of the political spectrum, even if we don't have the fortitude to study and recognize it.  I'd take on the rest of Liza's advice to you, MFS, but frankly I don't have the fortitude to offer enough charity to that "advice columnist" this late in the day.  Perhaps another time. --CCC

Pussy Hats Galore

She's baaaaaack.

After over four years of media blackout, it's time I spoke up again.

Eight years ago, I wrote about Barack Hussein Obama, a man.  He is now a former President, and this country elected Donald J. Trump in his place.

No one is more bowled over by the fact that the SOB actually managed to get elected to the White House.  It's two months after election night and I can't believe he pulled it off (and now many more think the election was illegitimate as his opponent, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote by nearly 3 million, and blasted the Electoral College is unfair, antiquated, racist, or a combination of the three).

Electoral College aside, the election was a slinging mudfest of the highest order.  Many on the left side of the aisle are wailing and gnashing their teeth today, the day after inauguration, and suddenly clinging to the Constitution have decided to start protesting and paying attention to the Executive Branch, worried that the abuses that Obama exercised on executive orders and more will be used by the incoming President.  (Common sense and foresight don't necessarily go hand in hand, apparently.)

Today marks the Women's March on Washington.  As you can see from CNN, women are marching all over the globe, including DC, New York City, Chicago, London, Paris, and Berlin.  As you can also see, there's a lot of pink in those photos, mostly because leading up to the event there was a campaign to knit as many "pussy hats" as possible to wear to the event, because women can't make a statement about rights or injustices without wearing genitalia on their heads to ensure a listening audience.  I had thought those events were called bachelorette parties.

But that's not the point.  In a social media conversation yesterday, I was told that if a pro-life lady like myself wanted to march, I would not be welcomed.  I wondered aloud why the Women's March was called as such when the aims and goals of the march were only for certain classes of women:

-Non-Christian women
-Liberal-leaning women
-Pro-choice women
-Non-white women
-Women who are not cisgender or straight
-Women who are not citizens of the US

And yet, in the next paragraph:

This march is the first step towards unifying our communities, grounded in new relationships, to create change from the grassroots level up.

The social media conversation went on a little longer, and I insisted that title of the march was misleading.  This was not a march for all women.  The criteria to march was not only to own a vagina, as the title inferred.  Why not call it the Women's Rights March?  Why not Women's Choice March?  How about the Women's Equality March (because it's impossible for men to get an abortion)?  I'm not following the logic here.  Men were welcome, too, apparently, but only if they were non-Christian, pro-choice, etc. (see list above).

Unification our communities will not happen the further we divide each other into smaller and smaller bento boxes of classes.  When we slap labels onto each other, we enable others to see us as only part(s) of our whole.  Humans were actually made as more than the sum of their parts; seeing a face and calling someone by name will make them real and whole to us.  It's a lot easier to bash someone when you only see them as a meme.

Upon the close of the day, we see that Madonna thought about blowing up the White House.  Someone please remind her to check her privilege for being able to freely admit to terrorist thoughts in public.

PER: Post-Election Ramblings

If you wanted an organized post... this ain't it.  But the election did wake me from a kid-imposed reverie, so how do you do, long lost readers!

The guy I voted for didn't win.  No surprise there though - he was just trying to get 5% of the vote.  He racked up about 348,000 votes with $1 million while it took the other two major candidates over $6 billion to get elected.  Neither candidate's campaign money would have bought much, though, so we enter into another deadlocked government in which everyone's voice is heard but nothing gets done.

To wit:  There's been so much focus on the economy, and right now the only economy I would care to focus on is my own right now.  I think every generation goes through this - some precipice they feel the country is standing on, looking over an abyss of unknown, wondering where the future and elected politicians will take them.  Every era has a defining moment, and yet the sun still rises.  We've still got thousands of people living in Third World country conditions in NY and NJ after Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy and now Winter Storm Athena is setting her wintry sights on the NE seaboard.

Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire this year, and there's no indication now that they will be renewed.  For folks who have shored up their monetary resources to ensure a comfortable retirement (i.e. not depend so much on government resources at end of life), this is now a serious problem.  And with the baby boomers entering retirement age and flooding Medicare and Social Security, I see only one thing (and this I am very graphic about):  The stuck pig is about to be bled dry.  And this doesn't even include other social programs that have yet to fully come to fruition.

We're in the midst of another cultural revolution right now, which is an exciting time for many people.  The youth vote turnout is high, states are decriminalizing pot and gay marriage, the discussions about equal pay for men and women have finally been taking hold, and the racial demographic of our landscape is changing rapidly.  It's also a discouraging time for others, as discussions about women's rights and contraception are still forefront on the men of Capitol Hill.

Speaking of culture, I want to point out that American culture has always been tied to racial diversity, even if over the last generation it seems that white folks are just white folks. The Germans, Polish and Italians in my grandparents' day are today's Latinos, Middle Easterners and Chinese.  Maybe it's a matter of labeling.  But not every immigrant in this country is looking for a handout - in fact, there are many more who came here from socialist countries and found the United States to be a wide-open land of opportunity, one that was not tied down to a militaristic or socialist stronghold, where even the worst days in poverty on U.S. soil didn't come close to comparing to life in their home territory.

So what does this have to do with the Presidential election?  I think there are a few things to point out:

- Obama may have won, but by a very small margin.  If there's any hope for the Democrats to retain Presidential power post 2016, his policies must be sold better to the American public.  They are still incredibly polarizing; as we move through the months toward each deadline in Obamacare, the stakes will simply be higher.

- Note to elected officials:  Public assistance cannot be sold, voted on or based on race, skin color or age anymore.  All demographics in varying degree are now demanding it.  

- It is bad when men try to talk about women's rights.  At all.

- Duuuuuuuuuuuuude.  More tax income!

- The financial preparations my husband and I must make for us and our children are now more solidly tied to public policy than ever before.

This last point is what sticks in my mind while we move forward and hope that our three elected branches of government might work together on compromise.  And it's not just asking Republicans to stop filibustering and play nice with Obama's ideas - that is not compromise.  It means Obama and Democrats taking a step back from the left, Republicans taking a step back from the right, and stopping the pendulum from swinging so hard.

Perhaps the scariest precipice of all?  Living free.  I think a friend of mine said it best - when it comes to social justice, there's a difference between giving a leg up and being the legs.

Censored Content xxx

Oppose SOPA/PIPA.  Tell your Senator.  Tell your Representative.

Stop using this "quote" by Thomas Jefferson

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and and give to those who would not."

This is not Thomas Jefferson's quote.  The earliest appearance of this statement was 1986.

However, he did say this:

To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it. 

If we're going to do a movement right, let's start with not inserting words into our Founding Fathers' mouths.

OWS: "You may be passionate but it is not enough to resolve the crisis"

Some dude from the UK put it best, and I think every American should be embarrassed of this.  Education is the best start to figuring out a solution, not just protesting with a vague list of demands.  The wealthy know that the middle class and poor are dumb about money and the economy (and it's true).  Once we figure this out, we can have an intelligent conversation about this and find solutions.  In the meantime, I'm getting back to work. 

This is taken from the comments section of the article "Here's What the Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About," in reference to a slew of charts depicting what the OWS are protesting (even though they don't really know it?) 

Jatin Luthia · Ealing, United Kingdom

Though the data is correct, the context of analysis is definitely incorrect. American labor has been winning compared to the rest of the world for a long time. The current disparity has largely risen from the fact that while capital has largely stayed in the US and labor has partially equalised over the rest of the world. Bear in mind though that wages in India and China are indeed less. With businesses getting more complex and global, CEOs are likely to get paid more (Though some amounts are obnoxious). It is businesses job to be competitive and make profits and it is labor's job to be competitive. If it is too costly to hire someone, economics will dictate that labor will move elsewhere. If wall street protests do make wall street dysfunctional, then capital will move away too and it will just be a double-whammy for labor as capital is a very competitive resource that US has especially as the Dollar holds out as a currency of choice. Such simplistic graphs and comments distort long-term economic realities and the result of years of trade and labour barriers followed by the developed world. Once the barriers started lifting, economic reality became different. I think more people need to understand economics than simply blame capital as capital has no direct social commitment. Its commitment to society is more indirect and derivative.

Reply ·  1 · Like · Follow Post · 15 hours ago

• Henry Harvey
  So what you're saying is that it's the job of business to be competitive and make profit, even if it means throwing out of work the people that live in the country where that business originated.
  
  
  The inherent unfairness in globalization is that a company can relocate whereas I can't realistically move my family to another country.
  
  
  I don't think one could be seen as opposed to capital per se if the wish is only to see a situation in which the people who manage corporations invest capital in the countries and the people who have helped them to get so rich and powerful.
  
  
  Much of the rage in the Occupy Wall Street movement comes from the realization that the multinational corporations and the financial institutions are selling us short, both literally and figuratively.
  Reply ·  1 · Like · 11 hours ago
  
  
  
• Jatin Luthia · Ealing, United Kingdom
  Henry Harvey Your comments are not economically driven. I am saying what incents each section of business. It is definitely the job of business to be competitive and make profits. Origination of business is very relative. Most American conglomerates earn more revenues overseas. How do you define "Origination"? Incorporation is not sufficient to define origination. You may be passionate but it is not enough to resolve the crisis. I think a matured response combining passion, economics and politics would be more useful. Otherwise, it may sound like irrational rabble-rousing and leave the US insular and lagging. The key to success of the US economy has been its adaptability.
  Reply · Like · 6 hours ago