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!

Barack Hussein Obama, a Man

So today, we watch the inauguration of the first black United States President.  Millions of people have flocked to D.C., a kind of political pilgrimage, to see history made, and around the world, people are saying, "It's about time you got someone other than a white, male president in there.  We've been doing it for years.  Now get back to work." 

Sorry.  Maybe it's not that pessimistic.  Perhaps since the U.S. is such a young country, we can give ourselves a little leeway not electing a female or minority president until 2009.  But I still wonder amid all the hype and partying and celebration, that being caught up in the moment will soon jump up to bite me in the behind later.  Between the outgoing, unpopular President and an incoming President with a message of hope and responsibility, therein lies a country torn to bits by their feelings about war, about economic strife, about whose fault it was that we can't pay our credit card bills and mortgages, and about watching their jobs disappear.  

Let's step back and ask ourselves why we are so excited.  I am, to clear the record, so proud of President-elect Obama (he's still got a couple hours to go before inauguration) that he has made this journey and given hope to a constituency that has long waited for - shall I say it? - justice.  It seems that much of the black population is finally seeing change, seeing retribution for past injustices by a community largely white and middle class.  I don't doubt the historic implications.

However, our excitement lies in many different places.  A well-spoken gentleman from the bitter, embattled Illinois government has preached and taught a message to us, and it goes against everything that we cried for when Bush was in power.  After 9/11, we cried for blood.  We cried for retribution.  Don't think you didn't want revenge; you're lying if you think that the loss of over 3,000 innocent souls on U.S. soil didn't anger you and want you to point a finger at someone.  We screamed for Bush to find who did this and destroy them.  I don't care if you were Republican or Democrat; we saw our lives crumble with those towers, with the Pentagon, with those four airplanes.  

Then war began and we thought it would be over in, oh, six months.  A year, tops.  How sadly we are mistaken.  Do we not remember wars of our past, and how long it took before peace was restored?  Wars are not about turning governments or countries into parking lots and leaving behind the mess.  We made shock and awe and now are trying to teach an Iraqi police force how to do jumping jacks and dealing with Marines ghost riding government vehicles.  We listened to Lewis Black talk about Hans Blix and Colin Powell, and the government's search for weapons of mass destruction or "ice cream."  It quickly turned into a parody of our current President, the big ears and the honky-tonk accent, standing on an air carrier with the banner "Mission Accomplished."  We went from a country scorched to a country scorned, and other countries' support waned through a leaky ideology of "staying the course."  Eventually, we were left with not knowing what we wanted.  People died; we tried to get revenge; it didn't work.  The man likely responsible is hidden in the Afghani mountains, probably passing on ideas or leadership to other sects who scream jiahd, not unlike our screams for revenge after 9/11. 

Is it so hard to understand that we are like those we despise, more so than we'd think?  What makes us so different from President Bush, or Osama bin Laden?  What makes you different from the woman who wears a hijab or a Muslim who celebrates Ramadan?  How are you different from murderers on death row or white supremacists?  In the same vein:  Is it so hard to understand that we are also like those who we love and glorify, more so that we'd think?  Is Obama so much of a political savior that we put him on a pedestal, clamoring for just a glimpse of him as he swears an oath, or is he more like us that we should be able to say to him, "We elected you - enjoy your party today, but please get to work."  I don't doubt he is ready for that, and even doubt further that he will want to sit back and enjoy taxpayer's money on an additional five days of celebrations before starting on his likely first order of business.  

I have anticipated this day as much as anyone.  Like I said, I want the Obama family to be celebrated today and congratulated.  At the same time, however, I wonder how long it will be before we realize his humanity and start screaming for the change he has so long promised.  It didn't take long for Mrs. Biden to open mouth, insert foot, according to CNN; her husband's not even Veep yet.  Will Obama's smooth talking get him better luck with the red tape that blankets our nation's capital like a Sherwin-Williams globe?  Will Obama's withdrawal or re-allocation of troops prove success or civil war in Iraq?  What will we judge are his successes?  Will he be judged less stringently than his past fellow Presidents because of his poorly-liked predecessor or the color of his skin?  Should we take it easy on him because he has such a huge mess to clean up?  

Answer honestly.  The man - and he is only a man - will have to face his own humanity sooner or later, and we will flame him for it, no matter what kind of intelligence he receives, no matter how well he can utilize our military to protect us.  We will judge him based on the end result, not the sleepless nights or the necessity of pissing us off in order to keep us safe.  I would like to give Bush the benefit of the doubt in that regard, but history will write his Presidency soon enough, and those who write history will decide if he was a success.  As will we decide if Obama is truly the Presidential salvation we all voted for. 

Sharp[ton]'s Container

CNN has reported that The Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the several Democratic Presidential hopefuls from 2004, is outraged that a federal probe is being opened to investigate that particular Presidential bid, including subpoenas to 10 of his associates for financial information from the bid, some of his for-profit businesses, and even personal financial information from Sharpton and his spouse. A hearing is set for the day after Christmas.

Sharpton, apparently, is angry about the whole thing, saying that it was "suspicious" that a probe was being opened so shortly before another Presidential campaign, and also because of his involvement in the Jena Six case, among others.

Can someone clear up when Sharpton hasn't been angry about this kind of thing? Anyone? The guy makes his living and his place in the spotlight by getting angry about all sorts of grave injustices, but this, I'm afraid, is quite a stretch, even for the Reverend. First: Since when has Al Sharpton not been involved in anything that includes a racially charged case or event? He's all over the news when blacks are at the injustice of the American system. He's on the news all the time. I doubt this is why the feds opened an investigation about him; the FBI and IRS are notoriously pokey about these kinds of things, and they've probably been tailing something suspicious since Sharpton abandoned his bid. It's not because you support the Jena Six, Reverend, I can tell you that much.

Second: You're not the only one who has been questioned about your Presidential bid, sir. Former VP Al Gore was grilled by Justice Department lawyer and released this transcript. Heck, even if Sharpton were elected President, the amount of federal probing going on should tell him that he is not being profiled - some of the most notorious investigations did indeed involve the Top Dude in the White House which, last time I checked, has always held someone white in color.

So, Rev. Sharpton, please don't flatter yourself too much. We all appreciate what you are doing to promote the equal treatment of blacks in this country, but blowing your top while promoting that agenda is unnecessary and, quite frankly, tiring and nearly cliche.

In possibly related news, I wonder if more black men took this kind of initiative to instead turn the finger inwards, just once in a while, to examine how they might help the civil rights agenda. (I'm not saying all black men are irresponsible babydaddys - take the tone of the article into consideration.) Everyone would do good to examine their conscience every once in a while, for sure, not just blacks. But the fact remains that there are going to be just as many people angered by Sharpton's outbursts as helped by it. Can we all find common, peaceful ground someday in which to start a discussion? Mudslinging never did anyone's campaign any good, Presidential or not.