My advice for the GOP

I'm pretty sure the GOP doesn’t actually want my advice about its failures on the 6th, you know me being a homo and all, but hey I'm a generous guy. I read a really great article that inspired this post (some of which is paraphrased from said article) and I think it really captures my feelings as to what I think is wrong with the GOP and why they lost so badly this election cycle.

1. Recognize your brand isn't selling. You can’t call yourself  the party of fiscal responsibility at this point; your record for the last thirty years makes this laughable. Bush shot your international relations standing in the foot. All you have left is social issues, and — surprise! — on social issues, most people who are not you think you’re intolerant at best and racist, sexist, homophobic and bigoted at worst.

Seriously, guys: What does the GOP actually want to be the party of? At this point, and for the last few years, it’s been “The Party of Not Obama.” Running the country seems to have slipped your minds.

2. Deal with your base. Your presidential nominee slate was downright terrifying this year. I know your base was excited about them, but from the outside we were all, like, “seriously, WTF?” The fact that an unrepentant bigot like Rick Santorum managed to pace Mitt Romney for the nomination as far into the process as he did should have sent up enough red flags to rival Beijing on May Day. Then it makes the (relative) moderates who eventually win the nominations spend too much time tending to its issues and selecting awful vice presidential candidates. Sarah Palin terrified the non-base voters she was supposed to attract. That Paul Ryan counts as an “intellectual” in GOP circles speaks to the almost unfathomable poverty of your brain trust at the moment. That these two were brought on to bolster their respective presidential candidates with the party’s base should throw up all sorts of warning signs.

Your base is fine for now with mid-terms, when you’re dealing with house races, and districts that have been gerrymandered to allow for genuinely horrible politicians to be elected (yes, on both sides, but we’re talking about you for now). For presidential elections, when you have to deal with a national electorate? They’re a bad foundation. They’re going to keep making you fail. If you don’t want to believe it, two words for you: Akin, Mourdock. If you think they only lost their races, think again.

3. Accept that the US is browner and more tolerant than you are, and that you need to become more of both. By “tolerant” I mean being okay with gays marrying and women deciding what to do with their own wombs and believing science doesn’t want to shiv Jesus in the night when no one is looking. By “browner,” I mean, well, browner. There are lots of ethnic minorities out there. With more every day. And very few of them want to have anything to do with you. This means that lots of younger white people don’t want to have anything to do with you either, because — again, surprise! — many of the people who they love and grew up with in this browner and more tolerant nation are the folks you spend a lot of time railing against, in code or just straight up. And that’s bullshit.

I'm white and gay. And in my family and close circle of friends I have Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, gay, bisexual and trans people, religious, agnostic and atheist, able-bodied and disabled. You lose me when you classify me or any of them as the other. They’re not the other; they’re us, the national electorate. When you classify me or other minorities as other you aren't just losing my vote. You are losing the votes of everyone in my family and friends and probably more beyond that.

4. Stop letting your media run you. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh don’t actually care about the GOP. They are in the business of terrifying aging white people for money. To the extent that your political agenda conforms to this goal, they’re on your side. But when you step outside of their “terrify aging white people for money” agenda, they’re going to stomp on you. How many GOP politicians have had to grovel at Limbaugh’s feet because they said something he didn’t approve of? Stop it. Tell him to fuck off every once in a while. It’ll be good for you.

And while you’re at it, tell Grover Norquist to fuck off, too. The fact this dude keeps the lot of you from facing economic reality with that damned pledge of his is an embarrassment.

Do I expect the GOP to consider this advice? Not really, no. What I expect them to do is the same thing they’ve been doing for the last twenty years, which is to decide that the problem with the GOP is that it’s not socially conservative or fiscally irresponsible enough, cull anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the new tighter and angrier level of orthodoxy and go from there. If that’s the direction you go, I wish you joy in it, and look forward to years and years of Democratic presidents.

2012 - The End of the world?

No, I'm not talking about the Mayan calendar. I'm talking about a month before that ,when the United States has its next elections. Honestly I'm scared for my future and the future of my fellow citizens. If Republicans take the presidency and the senate we're going to be in for a world of hurt.


Republicans recently blocked a bill that would rescind tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs overseas and reward companies with breaks that bring their jobs back to the United States. That's just the latest in a long series of toxic policy the Republicans have been spewing. I feel it's long past due for our politicians (on both sides) to stop working for the rich and powerful and start working for "we the people".


You can't keep sending jobs overseas, you can't keep buying oil from foreign companies, you can't keep letting American economic sectors run amok (think oil and coal), you can't ignore the paramount importance of developing renewable energy sources, you can't play one group off another, you can't shovel buckets of money into the hands of people who are already wealthy and expect a majority of Americans to do well. It isn't going to happen. But that's where we're headed if Republicans get back into power. They have no ideas except old ideas that have never worked.

Then of course we have Health Insurance. Our health care costs are on a run away train ever higher with more limitations than ever. Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Care Act that ensures you can't be denied health insurance for preexisting conditions but even that law isn't enough. Anyone who says they are satisfied with their health insurance hasn’t been sick yet. Once you are sick and labeled, branded really, then  talk about how satisfied you are with insurance that could evaporate if you lose your job, get too sick or blow through your plan's cap. And, by the way, losing your job becomes much more likely when you are sick.

Satisfaction is the wrong question asked the wrong way. The real issue is control and believe me you ”satisfied with our current health plan” people you have none. Like all of us, you have insurance under our current system until you don't. If you can make it to 65, or whatever the age becomes, you will receive the only insurance that can’t be revoked – Medicare - a government plan (with limits of its own) that Republicans have been trying to dismantle for decades and if Romney wins and we lose the senate they may well finally succeed. This affects me personally since medicare is my only source of medical coverage. If Republicans win in November it could literally be the beginning of the end of my life.


My personal fears aside, there's also the world at large. Republican efforts to deregulate everything has led to Wall Street speculators going to town with oil futures and inflating the price of oil and thus gas. For the past 4 years Republicans have obstructed every effort the President and Democrats have made to create jobs. In addition they support their corporate buddies in shipping jobs overseas for cheap labor and abusing immigration law to import cheap labor from out of the country. This leads to less jobs in the U.S. and several jobs being given to non U.S. residents. Unless you are part of the 1% the future for our children is bleak. Republican deregulation will lead to future generations growing up in a polluted environment where their opportunities will be limited, their quality of life will be substandard and their health will constantly be at risk. Our children's lifespans will be less than our own right now and their standard of living will be much lower than what we enjoy in 2012... and yes I realize that standard isn't exactly high right now especially considering the economy.

If the Republicans do win in November, I hope the whole Mayan end of the world thing actually happens in December, so I don't have to watch them destroy our country. If you've managed to read all of this remember it when you go out to vote in November. Don't let Republicans end the world.

A Father Should Be

In honor of Father's Day I thought I'd share the lyrics of a beautiful song by a fictional young Vietnamese orphan named Ba Nee. I've always wished my own father had been more like how Ba Nee envisions hers. Unfortunately, mine did not live up to this vision, but I've had other male role models in my life who have, such as my Uncle Mike, family friend Robert and others. So for Father's Day here's "A Father Should Be":

A father should be a good man
A father should be wise
A father should be tall and strong
With laughter in his eyes

A father should be behind you
A father should be there
A father should be someone
Who always treats you fair

I know the kind of man
A father ought to be
A shining knight
Who fights the good fight
And wins it just for me

A father should be a hero
A father should come through
A father should be someone
Someone just like you

To all the good fathers out there who live up to that vision... Happy Father's Day!

Let Me Be

 Today I am not going to rant about anything. Instead I'm going to tell a story.

Once upon a time, in a fictional universe not too dissimilar to our own, there was a boy named Rory Llewellyn. Rory grew up on U.S. Army bases all over the world in a strict household with his mother and army officer father who tried to force his values onto him. Born with a love of music encouraged by his mother, who taught him to play the piano and bought him his first guitar, Rory was looked down upon by his father, who did not want any son of his to become a "sissy" musician.

In an attempt to please his father, Rory joined the army, but went AWOL in West Germany to play guitar in a rock band. After being dishonorably discharged, Rory returned to Los Angeles to visit his mother, and was disowned by his father. Working odd jobs to save enough money for the plane fare, Rory returned to Germany to rejoin the band he left behind. When he had a falling out with the band's leader, Rory, and keyboardist Ingrid Kruger, left the band and, with a guitarist named Phoebe Ashe, formed their own band.

In this fictional universe, Rory's band became a success and eventually came to the United States where they were not only signed to a major record label, but made half owners of it as well. Even with all his success, Rory's relationship with his father was deeply strained over the years. Age and the stress of being torn between husband and son, took its toll on Rory's mother and she fell terribly ill. Between Mrs. Llewellyn's illness and the efforts of a good friend to reconcile them, Rory and his father made amends and their relationship greatly improved. Mrs. Llewellyn recovered soon after.

Rory wrote a song that really exemplifies everything he wanted to tell his father:

Let me be
Let me be the man I'm meant to be
Let me be
Though I may not suit you perfectly
Set me free, to follow my own star
Let me be, can't you see
We are who we are

If there's room to grow
And love to show
We'll make it you and me
All I ask of you is
Let me be

Let me grow
Let me show you more of what I know
Let me fly
Let me touch your heart and make you cry

Set me free
To follow my own star
Set me free, can't you see
We are who we are

Am I trading my humanity for something else?

I don’t believe the soul is some sort of mystical thing. I think of it as a person’s humanity, the very essence of who we are. I see a person’s humanity as their deep and abiding connection to themselves and to others. So when I see how many American citizens out there have so little regard for their fellow man I am truly and deeply disturbed.

It's no secret that the political climate today is a mess. There's so much backroom dealing, manipulation and good old fashioned mud slinging that I can't help but be frightened by the notion that these are the people running our country. I can't deny my liberal leanings and bias. So I'll get that out of the way right now. I am staunchly liberal socially... but I am surprisingly moderate fiscally. But nothing bothers me more than when I see comments like this:

Oh, I know you are in that half of the country that pays no taxes.

I know I've talked about this before but it bears repeating. That "50% who pay no taxes", is actually paying quite a bit of taxes. The tax they don't pay is Federal Income Tax. What conservatives conveniently leave out is the WHY. I'll tell you why. They don't pay federal income tax because their incomes are so ridiculously low they don't qualify to pay it. When conservatives stop spewing their "50% pay no taxes" line as some sort of justification for millionaires paying less percentage in taxes than their secretaries, and start focusing on how to FIX the low income problem, then we might see that deficit start to move downward and a higher percentage of Americans paying federal income tax.

That's the rub, the secret, the hypocrisy. They don't actually WANT to fix the problem. They want the problem to go away. Not be fixed, but to simply vanish. And by vanish they mean end any and all expenditure that helps the poor and disenfranchised. Conservatives are hopeful that these people die off or move somewhere else so they wont have any taxes spent on them because contributing to someone else's well being, helping someone who is down, is somehow a bad thing. Actually fixing the problem means higher wages for workers and more jobs. That is the last thing corporations want. They want as much profit for as little investment as possible and employee wages and benefits are the biggest expense out there. That's why they keep shipping jobs overseas and destroying benefits for workers here.

With that in mind, I go back to my first statement about humanity. I think the first step of a life choice lies in asking “Am I trading my humanity for something else? The “something else” could be material gain, hedonistic gain, or an idea among other things. If the answer to that question is yes, then you should stop. The acts of these conservatives are cruel towards their fellow man. Many of them purport to be Christians but they are anything but Christ-like in their actions. Jesus was all about caring for the poor and the sick and the disenfranchised.

When we are cruel towards ourselves or others we damage our humanity instead of supporting and strengthening it. Among the most damaging forms of that cruelty are those that use distinction and labels as a rationale to promote treating others as outsiders. That kind of cruelty and selfishness is a direct expression of “casting aside your connection to others”. As such it is fundamentally opposed to the well being of a person’s humanity. 

When I see comments like this:

I've worked two jobs, sometimes even three at a time to make ends meet. It made me realize at a very young age that hard work is the only way to make it and get ahead. I was referring to the people who expect cradle to grave entitlements for doing nothing but sitting at home and making babies like it was a hobby.

I really have to wonder how conservatives can spread such poison out into the world. Conservatives put it in peoples heads that someone else is getting a free ride on their back that somehow that someone is taking advantage of them and laughing at them for their naivety. It is manipulation at its most dark. It plays humanity against itself. This type of manipulation divides us as a people and this division between us as human beings damages our collective humanity as a whole. We are a nation that cares for our poor and disenfranchised. I can agree we need less of that... but to achieve that we need to reduce the number of poor and disenfranchised people out there. Conservative policies do the exact opposite of that and in fact pushes to get more power and wealth into the hands of the powerful and wealthy while ensuring those without stay without while more join their ranks.

When people like the above quoted individual simply assume that those who aren't doing as well as they are aren't struggling to get by or aren't making an effort and simply not succeeding, and are just trying to bilk the system for a lifetime of handouts, I know I am seeing first hand the toxic talking points of conservatives poisoning the very humanity of our country. I am seeing the connection to ourselves and others being eroded because of greed and selfishness.

You Have The Right To Be A Douchebag...

...but you don't have the right to ignore the law because you're a douchebag.

I know that seems pretty obvious right? Apparently not to everyone it seems. The Kansas House on Wednesday advanced legislation that would allow a religious defense to discriminate against gays. If the Senate follows suit and Governor Sam Brownback signs the bill, as he has indicted, then anyone could opt out of anti-discrimination laws that protect gays and lesbians by claiming they violate their "religious freedom."

Lets really examine that. If this actually became law it would allow people to opt out of ANY anti-discrimination law on religious grounds. I often wonder how people like this haven't stopped breathing yet due to lack of brain function, let alone got elected into public office. Do these people realize that this blade they are so eager to wield cuts both ways? If my religion says Christians are bad people for whatever reason then this law would allow me to discriminate against them. I don't think these people realize that.

If this law passes an employer could fire someone if they discovered the employee was gay. Or a landlord could kick a renter out of their home. The religious exemption extends past places of business to universities, where students or instructors could opt out of a school's anti-discrimination policy.

Now lets look at that paragraph a few more times with one change.

If this law passes an employer could fire someone if they discovered the employee was Christian. Or a landlord could kick a renter out of their home. The religious exemption extends past places of business to universities, where students or instructors could opt out of a school's anti-discrimination policy.

If this law passes an employer could fire someone if they discovered the employee was Muslim. Or a landlord could kick a renter out of their home. The religious exemption extends past places of business to universities, where students or instructors could opt out of a school's anti-discrimination policy.

If this law passes an employer could fire someone if they discovered the employee was Hispanic. Or a landlord could kick a renter out of their home. The religious exemption extends past places of business to universities, where students or instructors could opt out of a school's anti-discrimination policy.

I don't think the people trying to push this forward realize just how easy it is for a religion to be formed and recognized by law as a religion. I don't think it ever crossed their mind that this could be used to discriminate against the very people who want to do the discriminating.

Anyone with any sense can tell this whole idea is just wrong. Our country was founded on the concepts of freedom. This includes freedom OF religion and freedom FROM religion. But we have laws to protect people and religion is never an excuse to ignore the law. Like the title says... You have a right to BE a douchebag but you don't have the right to ignore the law BECAUSE you're a douchebag.