Black and Blue

When will we all come together?  When will we realize that those who want to rip people apart, put them in categories, and pit them against each other are evil?  Why do we feed into it?  Why do we allow it to happen?  Why do we allow the media to help facilitate this?

My heart is broken.  I watched videos posted online of two black men dying this week.  I pray to the Lord that justice prevails in both of these circumstances.  From the video I saw, it did not appear that Alton needed to be killed.  And while there was no video of Philando being killed, the video of the aftermath of it was heart-wrenching.  I mean, I really felt a bit sick.  The moment near the end where the little kid who witnessed the whole thing tries to comfort the mom shooting the video was just about unbearable.  And if it truly happened the way she said it did, the officer should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  But this should not be turned into a blacks vs. police officers war, or a black vs. white war, or any war whatsoever.  Actually, the officer who killed Philando wasn't even white.  And really, we don't know whether these officers were just too quick to use deadly force and unfit for the job, actually scared for their lives, or racist against blacks.  But it sure does not help black people trust police officers, as it again shows why many black people fear police officers.  But does anyone really think that those officers woke up that morning thinking, "What I really want to do today is shoot a nigger."  I would highly doubt that very highly.  Are there racist police officers?  Yes.  Does our nation have an unfortunate history of racist police officers?  Yes.  Are black people more likely to get pulled over for little to no reason?  It sure seems like it.  But do police officers kill black people at an alarming rate?  That depends entirely on how you spin the statistics.

Let me explain what I mean here.  I love statistics, especially baseball statistics, but that's not important right now.  In my love for statistics, I've figured out that if you're clever enough, you can find a way to spin and twist most statistics to fit what you want them to say.  To take a ficticious example from baseball, let's say Hitter A plays shortstop for the Red Sox.  He hits .300 before the All-Star break and .333 after the All-Star break.  Hitter B plays shortstop for the Yankees.  He hits .297 before the All-Star break and .330 after the All-Star break.  Which player has the better batting average?  The Red Sox player, right?  I mean, the statistics don't lie!  He had a better average before the All-Star break AND a better average after the All-Star break!  But there's something I chose not to tell you here (besides the fact that I'm a Yankees fan).  The Red Sox player had 90 hits in 300 at-bats before the All-Star break and 59 hits in 177 at-bats after the All-Star break.  The Yankees player had 89 hits in 300 at-bats before the All-Star break and 99 hits in 300 at-bats after the all star break.  Thus, the Yankees player had the better batting average!  He hit .313, versus the Red Sox player hitting .312.  So, bringing this back to my point, which person is correct?  The person who says that black men are 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police or the person who says that white men are 1.3 or 1.7 times more likely to be killed by police than black men?  Well, the answer is both.

This guy (http://www.copinthehood.com/2015/04/killed-by-police-2-of-3-race.html) explains it pretty well actually and shows all of the stats.  More whites are killed by police than blacks in the United States, which is an indisputable fact, but there are more white people in the United States than black people, so that is essentially a meaningless fact.  What would make more sense is to see how many black people are killed per capita, and when you look at that, you see that blacks are far more likely than whites to be killed per capita (3.5 times more likely, in fact).  But, if you adjust for the homicide rate of whites compared with blacks, white men are actually 1.7 times more likely to be killed by police than black men, or if you adjust for the for the rate at which white men commit the felony of killing a police officer versus the rate at which black men commit the felony of killing a police officer, white men are actually 1.3 times more likely to be killed by police than black men.  There are countless more ways you can spin these numbers, comparing and contrasting one statistic with another to get the narrative you want.  Statistics don't lie, but if you don't know the entire story behind them, they sure can be misleading.  Take what you want out of this analysis, but I don't see a disturbing trend of racist police officers murdering blacks in today's America.  Yes, there are certainly individual incidents that show that we still have a problem in this country, and we may have just seen some of those, but the perceived trend is probably fueled largely by disproportionate media coverage of black men being killed by law enforcement officers.

In fact, in most homicides, victims and killers are of the same race.  There's no way that I can see to spin that data to make it appear to show something else.  Here are the numbers straight from the FBI for the latest year for which they are available, 2014 (https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2014.xls):
Whites killing Whites: 2488
Blacks killing Blacks: 2205
Whites killing Blacks: 187
Blacks killing Whites: 446
With white people being about 65% of the U.S. population and black people being about 13%, you don't see a 65:13 ratio of homicides committed by blacks to homicides committed by whites, and 446 incidents of black-on-white homicide versus 187 incidents of white-on-black homicide is disturbing, no matter how you spin in.  Certainly there are other statistics at play here, but regardless of how they are used in conjunction with this data, there is no way you will end up with a 65:13 ratio of white-on-black homicide to black-on-white homicide, which, with all things being equal, is what you would expect to see.  But all things are not equal.

I'm just presenting statistics here, and perhaps it's uncomfortable to see these statistics, but we need to analyze what's going on in order to stop it.  Yes, it has now come out that Alton was convicted of raping a 14-year-old when he was 20, but he was not killed for that reason here, although being a convicted felon, he could not have legally possessed a firearm.  But police officers should use deadly force only when lives are in danger.  Sometimes things don't happen that way, but I really believe that police officers are generally good people trying to do their jobs to serve and protect, and make it home to their families every day.  Sure, there are some bad cops, but we can't paint them with a broad brush and say that they're all racist because of the actions of a few cops, just like we can't demonize black people, calling them all thugs and implying that they deserve to be killed, for the actions of a few of them.  What happens when we do this?  We sew more fear and hate, and we cause more deaths.  More police officers die, more black people die, more people in general die.  And now we have five police officers murdered in Dallas and a bunch more shot.  There are bad people who want these kinds of wars. Stop the generalizations.  Stop the hate.  Black lives matter.  Blue lives matter.  Every life matters.

One thing I really don't understand is how this has become a Liberals vs. Conservatives issue once again.  We should all be upset about all 7 of these deaths, but you wouldn't know that from looking at social media.  It seems to be a mentality where "you took two of ours and we took five of yours" and vice versa.  I don't understand how we've gotten to that point as a nation.  I've seen disgusting things said on both sides, justifying the deaths of the officers, or showing callous indifference to the deaths of the black men.  But the hypocrisy is cringe-worthy as well.  When Alton and Philando were killed, a number of Liberals called out Conservatives for their silence after having said so much about Hillary Clinton (who was going to be the topic of this post until these terrible things happened, by the way).  Fair point really.  But then when five officers were killed in Dallas?  Crickets.  Maybe they had spent all of their energy trying to tear down the second amendment, but there was not a word from most of these folks about the police officers who were murdered.  There were more words about Alton and Philando from many of them.  A few implied even implied that the officers had it coming, a few acknowledged and decried the shootings of the officers, and some expressed disgust that officers killed the shooter, using a robot bomb, instead of taking him alive.  Ironically enough, the officers shot in Dallas were actually there SERVING AND PROTECTING the very people who were protesting the shootings of Alton and Philando.

Both sides must stop the rhetoric, which will only encourage more crazy people will come out of the woodwork and murder more people, whether they are police officers, Blacks, or Black police officers.  Conservatives must not blame what happened in Dallas on Black Lives Matter or Barack Obama or imply that the shooter is somehow representative of all blacks.  Go ahead and point out issues with Black Lives Matter or the way Obama has led the country, but neither wanted the shooter to shoot those cops in Dallas.  Liberals must not blame what happened in Louisiana and Minnesota on rampant racism or guns themselves or imply that the shooters are somehow representative of all cops.  Go ahead and point out issues with racism and gun control, but we don't know if racism sparked these particular deaths, and they certainly had nothing to do with gun control.  There are about 320 million people living here in America.  That means that, based on the 2014 FBI homicide statistics, every one of us has a 0.00086% chance of being murdered by a black person and a 0.00086% chance of being murdered by a white person.  Let's stop living in fear and work together to bring these numbers down even further, rather than fostering an environment in which they will rise.

Only Love Can Save Us Now

I've seen a lot of ugliness on social media in the last few days.  A lot of ignorance, a lot of hate, and a lot of views that are just plain wrong.
Was what happened in Orlando because of mental illness?  Yes.
Was it because of homophobia?  Yes.
Was it because of Radical Islam?  Yes.
Was it a hate crime?  Yes.
Was it terrorism?  Yes.
Was it because someone who shouldn't have had guns had them?  Yes.
It was all of these things.   Why are we arguing about which of these things to blame?  It's all of these things.  Anyone who opens fire in a packed club is mentally ill.  Anyone who holds radical Islamic jihadist views is necessarily homophobic, because they believe homosexuals should be punished by death.  Anyone who kills a person because of sexual orientation has committed a hate crime.  Anyone who kills people because of religious extremism is a terrorist.  Anyone who sympathizes with or pledges allegiance to terrorist organizations should not have a gun, especially someone who was investigated by the FBI multiple times for terror ties and beat his now ex-wife.  The two most contentious issues here have been over Islam and gun control, but both are missing what should be the biggest issue.  I'll get to that in a moment, but first touch on those two issues.

On one hand, you have those who are actually being Islamophobic, saying that we should deport all Muslims, implying that they are all terrorists, and encouraging violence against them.  Those people are fucktards.  On the other hand, you have people who are genuinely worried about the violent threat posed by Islamic extremists, Radical Islamic terrorists, jihadists, or whatever you want to call them.  Maybe they want to halt immigration of Muslims until we figure out what's going on, or maybe not, and maybe they know parts of the Quran that incite violence for Fundamentalists, but these people are not saying that all Muslims are terrorists, nor are they encouraging violence against them.  These people are realistic.  Let's face it, if people are killing people in the name of any religion or anything in the way we've seen in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on 9/11, or in Boston, Paris, San Bernardino, and Orlando more recently, we should probably take a long, hard look at the beliefs that these people are subscribing to.  But then there are the Liberals who go out of their way to point out that Islam is a peaceful religion, that anyone who says anything against it is Islamophobic, that we shouldn't use certain terms like "Islamic extremists" to describe these terrorists, and that we need to make sure Muslims in this country feel safe, especially now, because this rhetoric does not make them feel safe.  Yeah, because rhetoric questioning religious beliefs is what should make people feel unsafe, not extremists who want to shoot up or blow up places because they believe the people in them to be infidels or sinners.

And speaking of shooting, shooting is done with a gun.  Several of my Liberal friends on social media pointed out that this shooter should not have been able to get a machine gun.  He did not have a machine gun.  Some of my Conservative friends posted pictures of a few guns and asked which should be banned and why.  That's a good point actually.  Banning a gun because it looks or sounds scary is not a good reason, although it is an excellent way to make people feel good because then it looks like we're actually doing something to help stop this from happening in the future.  But in reality, the terrorists will either use another gun, get a gun illegally, build bombs, or use some other method to carry out their evil plans.  So, the Liberal solution that seems to come up the most is the banning of assault rifles.  Would that ban have stopped this tragedy or lowered the death count?  I doubt it, very highly.  And a lot of the Conservatives have said that everyone in that club should have had a gun on them, and that would have stopped this from happening.  To be fair, that would have guaranteed that the death toll would have been a lot lower, but it's also a horrible idea.  For one, mandating that everyone carry a weapon is ridiculous and irresponsible.  For another, people carrying guns into a nightclub where people typically drink alcohol is ill-advised for obvious reasons.  It would almost certainly cause more deaths than it would prevent over time.

But how do we stop guns from getting into the hands of people like the killer in Orlando (whose name I refuse to repeat, per my standard procedure)?  Hillary actually stumbled on to something when she said that people under investigation by the FBI should not be allowed to purchase guns, but her statement was problematic in a few ways.  For one, SHE is under investigation by the FBI, and somehow she's running for President.  Go figure.  So, at least the reason for investigation needs to be a factor.  And the second issue with this?  Well, now we've stumbled upon the real problem that we need to solve.  The shooter was NOT currently under investigation by the FBI.  He had been investigated multiple times, but the FBI had CLOSED those investigations, having found nothing.  Whoa.

We need to fix National Security.  The FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, the Secret Service, and other organizations have failed us.  Even our President has severely downplayed the threat of ISIS.  Look, if the FBI has investigated you multiple times for possible terrorist ties, how do they not know that you beat women, what you're searching for on the internet, and what guns you are buying?  No, he should not have been able to get a gun.  The FBI should have never closed the investigation, and it may not be a politically correct thing to say, but if someone is suspected (multiple times in this case, even) of being an Islamic terrorist and has a history of violence, then yes, that person should FAIL a background check when he or she goes to buy a gun.  Isn't this the reason why we do background checks, which SHOULD be done when people buy guns?  Of course, terrorists can still get guns illegally, which is why the FBI must do a better job monitoring potential terrorists.  But, as a nation, we're too busy fighting over whether or not a Christian baker should be forced to bake a cake for a gay wedding, and how much he should be fined if he refuses.  And we're too busy trying to make everything into a "Safe Space."  The world is not a safe space.  True safe spaces don't exist.  Pulse was a safe space for many, and it became the opposite of that in the most extreme way possible when a terrorist walked in and opened fire.  Not with uncomfortable or hateful words.  With a gun.

The FBI will never be perfect, but the American people must help stop terrorism and mass shooting before they happen.  Often times, there are signs, and people may even know of the evil being planned.  There is NO EXCUSE for the shooter's wife, who KNEW about the plot ahead of time and actually drove with him to the club to scout it out for the shooting, not reporting her husband to the authorities.  How were reports today saying that the FBI was considering whether or not to charge her?  She could have prevented 50 deaths and 50+ serious injuries!  She should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, as should anyone else who is found withholding information in this case or any like it.  We need to report things that we know, things that seem like they might not be quite right, and domestic violence.

Now, as a Christian, let me say right here that it is appalling to me for any Christians to preach that these homosexuals got what they deserved, that Orlando was God's judgement, that God hates fags, or anything of that nature.  There is no way that the people who say this can possibly know that this happened because God was judging.  Actually, every single person who ever lived, regardless of sexual orientation, deserves to go to hell for their sins, apart from Jesus.  God allows tragedies to happen, and we don't always know why, but we live in a fallen, sinful world, where God has allowed freewill.  But it is not acceptable to call out people for specific sins and not others.  God loves every single person.  In fact, he loves us so much that he sent Jesus here to die for our sins, and if we accept him as Savior, we have eternal life.  But Christians are also called to act like Jesus.  The Bible says that God is Love.  Jesus is God, so if God is Love, then Jesus is Love, and if Jesus is Love, then we are called to Love.  And in Love, there is no hate, "And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love..."  Shout out to Lin-Manuel.  So instead of going to that gay pride parade to tell homosexuals things that are directly opposed to the Bible, like "God hates fags", go there to hug people in the queer community and tell them that God loves them and so do you.  Tell your Muslim friends that you love them, and so does God.  Hate does not overcome hate.  Love does.  We need to be vigilant, and we need to be wise, but only love can save us now.  To further quote fellow Wesleyan Alum Lin-Manuel Miranda's recent speech,  "We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger, we rise and fall, and light from dying embers, remembrances that hope and love last longer, and love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside."

The Deadly Hate We've Been Ignoring

At least 50 people are dead, and 50 more injured, after an Islamic terrorist opened fire inside of a Gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  In an act of terrorism fueled by hate from the very pit of hell, a lone terrorist, reportedly pledged to ISIS, carried out this massacre.  This man was a coward in every sense of the word.  Reports have come out that the reason he and his wife divorced was because he beat her.  And in the wee hours of the morning in a place where firearms are not allowed, where most people were drinking and trying to have a good time on a Saturday night, in a club packed largely with gay people, this man chose to murder people he hated who could not fight back.  The result was another shooting in a gun-free zone, with the largest death toll of any shooting in the history of our nation, and this time, the targets were homosexuals.  It was a hate crime.  It was terrorism.  Break the fuck out of your chains of political correctness and acknowledge the fact that this was an act of Radical Islamic terrorism, carried out by a Radical Islamic extremist.  Ignoring the elephant in the room is no longer an option when that elephant goes on a deadly rampage.

You are not speaking out against all Muslims by condemning the extremist followers of Islam who are terrorists.  Why won't you say it?  You'll condemn the Christian baker who won't bake a specific cake for a homosexual wedding.  You'll applaud as the government allows the lives of the baker's entire family to be ruined by a six-figure financial penalty for not baking that cake.  You'll talk about those intolerant Christians and say that they're what's wrong with America.  It's not like they have the right to hurt your feelings by not selling you baked goods customized for your gay wedding if they take religious exception to it, right?  And they're against women's rights too!  They're trying to make abortion illegal.  How dare they try to limit the situations in which you can murder the child living inside of your own body?  And then you'll say that they're not just homophobic and against women's rights.  They're Islamophobic too.  How dare they say that Muslims don't worship the same God as them?  How dare they point out that Islam's great prophet married and had sex with a prepubescent girl?  How dare they use the term "Islamic Terrorist" and accuse any Muslims, all of whom are peaceful, of being against women's rights and homosexuals?

I think that maybe the Left in this country was under the delusion that they had an unspoken deal with all the Muslims.  They'll go to bat for the rights of Muslims in exchange for them not acting out against homosexuals or women.  Perhaps they believed that Muslims, homosexuals, and women in this country were all united together somehow, against the Right.  You see, while the majority of Muslims in the United States are indeed peaceful, there are some here and many around the world who are not.  They follow Islamic teachings in which violence against women is accepted, and the punishment for homosexuality is death.  Following through with the latter belief is a textbook example of Islamic terrorism.  And that's what we have here.  A mass execution of homosexuals by a militant follower of Islam.  He would have killed all 350 people in that club if he could have.  And every single mosque in the world is under the obligation to condemn this act, but not every single one will.  Because some of them are indeed breeding grounds for more terrorists like him.  To them, homosexuals deserve to die, so he is a hero.  And to Westboro Baptist Church, he is an agent bringing God's judgement upon homosexuals.  We must condemn radical, evil religion of all types, including those who are or claim to be Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or whatever.  It is never acceptable to kill people because of their sexual orientation, their race, or their gender.

For those of you who don't know, Westboro Baptist Church is a hate group masquerading as a Christian church.  They hate a lot of things, but they especially hate homosexuals.  The Jesus they follow is not the Jesus of the Bible.  The Jesus of the Bible ate dinner with prostitutes and thieving tax collectors.  The Jesus of the Bible would eat dinner with homosexuals today.  Christians are supposed to show the love of Jesus Christ to the world.  This is not what Westboro Baptist Church is doing when it spews its hate and directly contradicts the Bible by stating that "God hates fags."  This is not true.  The Bible is crystal clear that God loves all people.  What the people who belong to this group do and say is appalling, no doubt, but at least they are not going around killing homosexuals, even if they take sick joy in those who do.

And in this particular case, in the worst mass shooting in the history of our nation, "those who do" boils down to one Islamic terrorist who pledged allegiance to ISIS and apparently acted alone.  Yet the FBI had been monitoring him as a possible terrorist before he carried out the mass murder.  If I say that it's problematic that he was able to legally buy a gun, I'll upset the Left if I say that the reason he shouldn't have a gun is because he's a Muslim who might be a terrorist.  That's not politically correct.  If I say that the reason he shouldn't have a gun is because people suspected of being terrorists by the government shouldn't have a gun, I'll upset the Right.  What we can all agree on is that he shouldn't have had a gun.  So why don't we fix the terror watch list so it doesn't suck as bad as the rest of the things that the government runs, and then we can not allow people like him to have guns?  If the FBI thinks that you might be a terrorist pledged to ISIS, you should not have a gun!  Also, were there not any previous complaints against him for viciously beating his wife?  We have violence against women, and violence against homosexuals.  He beat his wife without a gun, and he killed those at the club with a gun.  There are hundreds of millions of other guns in this country that were not used to massacre 50 people in a gay nightclub, where guns are not allowed.  At the very heart of this tragedy, beyond whatever violent means are used, is homosexual-hating, woman-hating Radical Islam. 

Hateful religious extremism kills.  And gun-free zones are easy targets.  The target was not a Gays with Guns club.  It was a Gay nightclub, where the only people with guns were the authorities who came in and killed the terrorist after he had already killed 50 people.  Fifty.  Thinking about that makes me sick to my stomach.  And this happened in Orlando.  I've been to Orlando.  Disney World is in Orlando.  It's supposed to be the happiest place on earth.  On this day, it was the saddest place on earth.  These people did not deserve to be murdered.  I am a Christian, and while I do indeed believe that homosexual acts are against the Bible, I do not take issue with the Supreme Court's ruling that allows them to get married.  There must be separation of Church and State, and the case considered was a matter of State, and thus the decision made sense, but I would vehemently oppose any legislation that would mandate a church to perform a gay marriage ceremony.  However, Christians are called to show everyone the great Love of Christ, especially homosexuals.  They will know we are Christians by our love.  And while I have friends who are Christians who would refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding, and I respect their decision, I am on the side with my friends who would not refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding.  I don't care.  It's just cake.

But while we are distracted fighting over baked goods, evil lurks and plots its move.  Like many people, I have friends who are Christians, Jews, Atheists, Agnostics, and Muslims.  My Muslim friends are peaceful.  If you have a Muslim friend who beats his wife and/or has pledged to ISIS, please report him to the authorities immediately.  If you have a friend of any religion who appears to want to murder people, please report him or her to the authorities immediately.  The signs of extremism are often there long before a massacre is planned.  We must take action when we see these signs.  Evil is lurking in our midst.  We can no longer ignore it.  And lately, it has manifested itself in the form of Radical Islamic Terrorism.  While I may not agree with Donald Trump's idea that we should ban all Muslims from entering the United States, it sure makes a hell of a lot more sense than refusing to accept that we need to acknowledge and vanquish our very serious problem of Radical Islamic Terrorism.  My heart aches for the victims and their families and friends.  God help us.

Hey, Now We Won't Be Raped

A top story in the news and in discussions on social media over the past several days has been the case of the Stanford student athlete who was found guilty on three felony counts stemming from raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster last year.  Normally, this would not be a big story.  There was no doubt he did it, and if he was found guilty, justice would be served.  However, the judge decided to sentence him to 6 months in prison for this (which could end up at 3 months with good behavior apparently).  That's why this is a story.  And it's sickening.  This man raped an unconscious woman.  The heroes that came across him doing the deed pried him off of her and held him until police arrived.  There was no consent whatsoever.  This was a very clear case of rape.  Rape is a felony.  It's a serious felony.  It's right up there with crimes against children and treason, just below murder.  There are misdemeanors that carry a longer sentence than 3-6 months.  This is a very serious miscarriage of justice, and the judge should be removed from the bench.


A lot of the outrage over this case has come from what the man's father said--that the sentence that the prosecution was seeking was a steep price to pay for his actions in 20 minutes of his life, after 20 years of otherwise good behavior.  That is a despicable argument.  Remember the Newtown shooter (who I won't even dignify by stating his name)?  Five minutes of his life defined him, despite 20 years of not having a criminal record.  If you rape or murder someone, you are a rapist or a murderer.  Yes, that defines you, and it should.  You are not the victim.  If someone raped or killed a member of this father's family, I cannot imagine he would have written a letter to the judge saying that the penalty that the prosecution was seeking was too steep.  Not a chance.  But I don't blame the father nearly as much as I blame the judge for what happened with the sentencing.  Of course the father is going to go to bat for his son.  The judge should not have taken pity on a person who raped an unconscious woman.  Whatever impact years of prison would have on his life would have been deserved.


The rapist blamed his decisions that night on alcohol.  Alcohol does not turn you into a rapist.  If I drink alcohol and become drunk, nowhere in my mind will I think it's acceptable to rape an unconscious woman behind a dumpster.  Alcohol can lead to poor decisions, and alcohol can make you more apt to do things that you want to do anyway but were holding back on doing while you were sober, but alcohol does not turn you into a rapist.  That is not an excuse.  It actually makes less sense than getting caught for drunk driving and blaming it on alcohol.  At least alcohol is the cause of drunk driving.  It is not the cause of someone being a rapist.  Now, the victim here was unconscious because she drank too much alcohol, thus became unconscious and could not give consent.  She was inebriated from ingesting an unsafe and dangerous amount of alcohol.  This was not a case of two conscious young people hooking up after drinking alcohol.  That's not rape, even if one or both regret it the next day.  This was a case of one conscious young person raping one unconscious young person after they both drank alcohol.  That's rape.  That deserves a lot more than 3-6 months in prison.


Now that we've defined what this is, let's talk a bit about what it's not.  This is not about race.  I've seen some articles and plenty of posts on social media comparing this white student athlete's lenient sentence with a heftier sentence for a black man who was sentenced to prison for a rape that he did not commit.  Both cases are miscarriages of justice, but that's about all they have in common.  Not everything is about race, despite what the race baiters would have you think.  There is no indication that the judge is racist or that this would have gone any differently if the rapist were a black student athlete.  It doesn't matter whether he was white, black, purple, or striped.  If we turn this into a racial issue, we've really lost sight of the key problems with what went on here.


This also is not about making a point that we should all beware of white student athletes because they are rapists, as I've seen in a few misguided social media posts.  Yes, anyone may be a rapist, despite how they look, how nice they seem, or how much money they have.  Most of us never expected that the rich, mild-mannered, fatherly Bill Cosby would have turned out to be a serial rapist, giving women pills and raping them while they were unconscious for several decades.  But rapists are not always black men, or white men, or men in general.  And rape victims are not always women either.  I know men and boys who were raped by men.  I know men who were raped by women.  Men are not very apt to report rapes either, often because they are ashamed or because of the presumed reaction they would get, with folks not taking them seriously or asking how that could happen to a man.


There is a double standard at work here.  Look no further than the cases of teachers having sex with underage students if you don't believe me.  If the teacher is an attractive woman and the victim is male, most males in our society want to congratulate the boy on his conquest.  It's every boy's dream after all, right?  But if the teacher is a man and the victim is female, we don't want to congratulate the girl on her conquest.  We want to throw that man in prison for a long time.  The idea that men are always the rapists and women are always the rape victims does not help create a healthy culture.  It's also not healthy to unquestionably believe someone who says he or she was raped, because that mindset allows things like the Duke Lacrosse incident to occur, where a woman falsely accused multiple men of rape, the general public believed her and judged those athletes from the media stories before the facts came out, and the lives of the student athletes in this situation were turned upside-down.


Unfortunately, most of the time when a rape is reported, it actually occurred (and there are many more that are never reported at all).  We have a very serious problem with rape in this country.  I think it's in part because young people think they are entitled to what they want and are not used to not getting their way.  Moral relativism and the defense of religions and cultures where the rape of women is permissible makes the problem worse.  It is not acceptable to rape, even if you are a Muslim and the Quran says it is in certain situations (it's also not acceptable for a U.S. soldier to be dishonorably discharged for stopping the rape of young boys).  It is not acceptable to rape, even if your Christian church tells women what to wear, because if they wear something too revealing, men will lust after them and not be able to control themselves.  Victim blaming is NOT acceptable.  Remember that passage in the Bible where King David saw Bathsheba, who was married to Uriah, bathing naked, and then committed adultery with her and had her husband killed?  Remember how God said it was all Bathsheba's fault because she should have put on some clothes?  Me neither.  Because He never said that.  He blamed and punished David.  While no rape occurred here, the point is that it is never acceptable to blame anything that occurs on what a woman is or isn't wearing.


There is no excuse whatsoever for raping an unconscious person, male or female.  There is no excuse whatsoever for a judge to give only a 3-6 month sentence.  There is no justification of the idea that the punishment for the crime would make a rapist into a victim, or that a few minutes of bad judgment should be outweighed by a life otherwise free of a criminal record.  Can you imagine a judge sentencing a murderer to 6 months in prison for murdering people, because it was a few minutes of bad judgment and there was no prior criminal history?  Me neither.  But maybe we're not far from that, because what happened here is pretty unimaginable too.

America's Gas Problem

This isn't a post about farts (apologies if you're looking for fart jokes here, not today) or even gas really (apologies if you thought I was going to go off on how we need to use less gas).  It's a post about my frustration with the new gas containers.  I grew up in the 90s, during which time my dad taught me how to do basic things like mow the lawn.  He had a very simple gas container that is still in the shed at my mom's house.  For all I know, it could have been his father's gas container before it was his.  It is durable.  It has always worked properly.  It has never failed.  It is very simple to use, even for a child.

I bought my own house a few years ago, and naturally I needed to buy my own lawnmower and my own gas container.  The lawnmower thing was simple enough.  I have a small lawn, so it takes about 20 minutes to mow the entire thing with a push mower.  I found an inexpensive one with a Briggs and Stratton engine.  Easy enough.  But I couldn't seem to find the gas container I wanted, which is one like Dad had.  It has two holes in it.  One hole is where you uncapped it and poured the gas out of, and the other is the vent.  But every place I went had this terrible looking thing that looked like it could never possibly function properly.  I went to Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart, the local Hardware Store (Goody's).  None of them had what I was looking for.  I didn't understand it.  Did this weird looking thing that I would have to actually read directions in order to use work that much better?

I finally asked a worker in one of the stores if they had what I was looking for.  They did not, nor could they or anyone else.  In the name of environmental protection, the Government/EPA had passed new laws and regulations regarding what could legally be sold as gas containers (dafuq?).  I wondered if one person somewhere had somehow misused the old container and destroyed something.  Nope.  Turns out, there were concerns about vapors escaping from the vent, air quality, spills, smog...  Look, I'm all for helping the environment, but I was skeptical that this new container could help anything at all.  But what choice did I have?  Unless a store broke the law or I came across one at a tag sale at some point, I had to buy this thing.  So I did.

I read the directions on how to use it.  It didn't work quite how it was supposed to.  It was even worse than the complete piece of plastic crap it appeared to be.  In fact, pretty much every fucking time I used it, I spilled gas.  It got on my hands, it got on my grass.  I know I'm not the only one either.  I guarantee you these things have made the environment much worse overall.  What the hell were wrong with the old ones that worked and were made far better?  The ones that didn't come with instructions because you didn't need them?  Who got paid off to turn something that has never been a real problem into something that turns simple tasks into a headache?  Everything smells like gas.  My grass smells like gas.  My hands smell like gas even after washing them for several minutes.  It's a good thing I don't smoke cigarettes.

So finally, somehow, this monstrosity of a contraption in my shed ended up getting to the point where one of the crappy plastic mechanisms must have gotten stuck, and this has caused it to actually work significantly better.  I've figured out how to avoid gas from dripping out of it, and since I'd probably end up breaking it if I tried to force the disassembly that's supposed to occur after each use, I just leave it as it is.  There's something disconcerting about there not being a vent where there should be one though.  I hope that if Donald Trump gets elected President, bringing back the old gas containers will be one of the ways in which he plans to make America great again.

NEVER Hillary

I don't particularly care for Donald Trump.  I really don't.  I wasn't a big fan of Ted Cruz either.  I think I actually started to like him less than Trump in the final days of his campaign.  John Boehner obviously likes Trump better than Cruz.  Of the final three Republicans, I endorsed John Kasich.  He grew on me over the course of his campaign, and he became the only voice of reason, but the American people decided against voting for reason this time around, and he was nowhere even remotely close to clinching the nomination, so he eventually had to drop out of the race as well.  That leaves Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee.  Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are still fighting it out for the Democratic nomination, but Hillary will more than likely be the nominee (assuming she's paid off enough of the necessary people to avoid an indictment).  Without any truly viable third party candidate at the moment, it looks like I may be casting my vote for The Donald.  Trump is not the Hitleresque Racist Misogynous Xenophobe that the media makes him out to be.  He's Donald Trump, not Donald Sterling. He's said some unfortunate things, no doubt, but he's not who he's pretending to be either.  This isn't the first time a candidate has pretended to be something that he's not (see John McCain 2008, ugh...).  In any case, Trump could be a not-so-good President, or he could be a good one.  Hillary on the other hand?  There is no doubt in my mind that she would be a TERRIBLE President.

A leader in the KKK endorsed Hillary a few months ago.  A lot of folks on the Left said that it was a sham designed to hurt her and aid Trump, a candidate who all White Supremacists must clearly support (wait, didn't his daughter convert to Judiasm when she married a Jewish guy?  I thought the KKK was anti-Semitic...).  I'm not so sure that this was a sham after all.  Yes, a former House Representative, David Duke, who was involved in the KKK decades ago, is apparently supporting Trump.  And that was big news why?  Why does Hillary get a pass on support from someone currently in the KKK?  What was Hillary Clinton doing in 1964?  Supporting racist Barry Goldwater for President (apparently she only supports Republicans when they are against civil rights for Black people?).  Oh, and she's really tight with and supportive of former Klan member Senator Robert Byrd.  But it's cool because he's a Democrat.  David Duke is a Republican, so it's not cool.  It's not like it's the Democratic party that was pro-Slavery and has held countless positions detrimental to non-White folks over the course of many decades.  Oh, wait, it is!  Just look at all the cities that have had Democrats in control, uninterrupted, for many decades if you need modern day evidence.  It's sickening.  But that's just the tip of the iceberg that is Hillary Clinton's body of work.  I will never vote for Hillary Clinton for President.

Why not?

Benghazi, lying, lost money, more lying, illegally obtained money, even more lying, defending a child rapist, discounting her husband's accusers, big donors, absurd payments for speaking engagements, disrespect for people who serve, telling a secret service agent to fuck off when he said good morning to her, supporting murder in the form of abortions, not supporting the second amendment, so many lies, oh yeah... the personal e-mail account with classified information on a private server thing too, and didn't she have to give back the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff she stole from the White House when her family moved out, she wants to get rid of the coal mining jobs, millions of other jobs will go out the window too if she tries to raise the National minimum wage to $15 per hour, may as well get rid of guards on the borders altogether if she gets into office, she wants to make the government bigger and more powerful, taxes will skyrocket, is she that forgetful or just a terrible liar, maybe she's senile, her views change based on convenience, I'm getting tired of making this list so I'll stop with saying that perhaps worst of all are the devastating choices she would make for Supreme Court Justices...

Never Hillary.

Never.

Trans People Poop Too

There's a lot of talk lately, especially on social media, about the law in North Carolina that mandates that people must use the bathroom of the gender on their birth certificate.  If you were born a man, you must go into the men's room.  If you were born a woman, you must go into the women's room.  For most of the population, this presents no problem at all.  But for transsexuals, it's not that simple.  You see, the title of the classic children's book "Everybody Poops" is also a fact.  Everybody pees as well.  Thus, regardless of what their genitalia looks like, transsexual people must also poop and pee.  But, because we have nothing better to do in America than literally have debates about shit, where transsexual people defecate and urinate is now a controversy.

Those who are in favor of the law are especially fond of pointing out that they do not want their daughters to see someone with a penis in the women's room, which seems like a perfectly reasonable concern to me.  They also point out that, without this law, predators can, under the guise of identifying with a different gender than they appear to be, and without any way to prove whether or not that is actually the case, take advantage of the situation and become legally-protected peeping toms.  This, also, is a reasonable concern.  However, it is NOT reasonable to say that transsexual people using the restroom of the opposite gender on their birth certificate ARE predators.  Very few people are making that argument though, although those who are could indeed be labelled as bigots.  But those who are not using that argument should not be put into the same category as those who are.

Those who are not in favor of the law are especially fond of pointing out that they do not want their daughters to see someone who looks like a man (apart from having a vagina) in the women's room, which seems like a perfectly reasonable concern.  They also point out that, with this law, transsexuals would not be able to use the bathroom they are most comfortable using, which is another reasonable concern.  Additionally, the law does not stop predators, as they can certainly prey on folks in locations other than restrooms, and predators who are attracted to the same sex rather than the opposite sex exist as well.

So, what both sides seem to agree on is that they do not want someone who is or appears to be a man using the women's room in front of their daughters.  Apparently, this is what makes the most people uncomfortable.  Of course, most restrooms have partitions, and no one ever sees genitalia.  In reality, it's locker rooms, where people shower and change in the open, where any of this would actually be an issue.  However, we can't modify the law to say that people can use the room of the gender that they most appear to be either, because this would offend transitioning folks, among others.  So what's the solution here?  Is there any way to please everyone?  Probably not, but I will offer my thoughts.

Home bathrooms are gender neutral, as was the bathroom in the hall of my college dorm.  That bathroom was used almost exclusively by horny college students, and I never heard of anything predatory occurring in there.  I never saw anyone's genitalia in there either.  So, personally, I don't have a problem with gender neutral bathrooms.  I wouldn't even have a problem if they were all gender neutral.  I really don't care whether I'm sharing a bathroom with a man, a woman, a transsexual, or all of the above.  But that's me.  If you're not like me, maybe you need to grow a pair (pun intended), or maybe you have a different way of thinking based on your own life experiences.  So I suggest that, in many places, we ought to have a men's room, a women's room, and a gender neutral room that anyone can use.  Men can use it, women can use it, those who were born a different gender than they now identify with can use it, and those who don't identify as either male or female can use it.

As far as people who use the men's room or the women's room, I really don't think anyone is inspecting genitalia.  At least I hope not.  So if a transsexual person uses a men's room or a women's room, let common sense and decency prevail.  If someone actually thinks a person is in there for a predatory reason or if they are deeply emotionally scarred by sharing a restroom with this person for some reason when there exists a gender neutral restroom option, then hopefully the authorities have wisdom when the case is reported.  I have a feeling this will be a pretty rare occurrence though.  Really, there are so many more important things to worry about in this world right now than where someone goes to the bathroom (human trafficking is one example, and also pretty much everything else).  Who cares, as long as it all makes it into the toilet, right?