Hurl 'em If You've Got 'em

Hello My Dear Friends! As you know, I've been lying low these days. There's just so much nonsense being tossed around that I just don't have the energy to battle it all. Today, however, after reading the lead story of our local paper, I just couldn't help myself. A little background...Wendy Long, a candidate for US Senate, tweeted out some questionable comments last week. Why it took an entire week for her comments to make front page news is a story for another day. Anyway, Long was on the city's Northside where a former Catholic church was converted into a mosque in 2014. Long tweeted: "Neighborhood where the mosque displaced the church. Crime, prostitution, money laundering. Nice Dem control of cities". That tweet was followed by: "Catholic Charities takes federal tax dollars to resettle refugees we can't screen. Leaves the Catholics to ISIS". As I said, questionable comments. But that is not what ticked me off. It was the response. Our illustrious Mayor said "I think it's (Long's comments) exactly what has become the Republican Party. It's xenophobic racism". "She has no objective evidence. She has nothing but a blatant appeal to racism and bigotry". Our self-aggrandizing US Rep added, "She obviously doesn't understand the Northside. I've been to a lot of those minority communities over there - the Bhutanese and everybody else - and I'm telling you right now those people are hard working people".  Okay. That's the background. Now, here's my problem. In this world, where we are soooo quick to slap labels of intolerance on everyone, there comes a point when those who label should actually learn the meaning of the labels they use!  Let me begin with the Mayor. "Xenophobic racism" isn't even a thing. Combining 'red flag' words for impact is juvenile. Long implied that crime followed the opening of a mosque. One would then infer that her issue is with Muslims. Since Muslim is not a race or a national origin, neither xenophobia or racism would apply. If anything, it would be Theophobia or the new and ever popular "Islamophobia". However, since she never implied that she was afraid of Muslims, there is no 'phobia' at all. What you have here is a simple case of prejudice. Here's a funny twist. Your repeated use of the word 'racist' implies that you believe that all Muslims are people of color. Your use of xenophobic implies that you also believe that all Muslims are foreign. Hummm. Someone's got issues. Here's a little more food for thought. Your opinion that Long's comments were "exactly what has become the Republican Party" is, by definition, BIGOTRY. Look it up. As for the Congressman; in the future it may be helpful to remember that referring to a minority group as "those people" is, in fact, racist. So, let's be clear. A "racist" is one who believes that one race is superior to another and the belief that race alone accounts for differences in character and ability. That's why referring to a minority group as "those people", as opposed to all people, is racist. "Xenophobia" is the fear of that which is foreign. Religion is hardly a foreign concept. Bigotry is the intolerance of any belief or opinion that differs from one's own. So, hurling labels at people you disagree with makes you the bigot. So, feel free to continue blindly labeling people, let's just try to use the correct labels moving forward. Thank You!
Po

It’s not the Politics, it’s the Hypocrisy

Hello My Dear Friends. It’s been awhile! I know that I’m not updating you as I should but, the truth of the matter is, I’ve just grown weary of it all. We are being so bombarded with “politics” that there is no escape; no reprieve. I’m not here to bash Hillary or to defend The Donald, I’m here because of a video I saw on Facebook. It really got my cat dander up. It was a video by leftwing blogger Ezra Klein. It wasn’t his video that bugged me. It was the header that read “I dare you to watch this and defend voting for Donald Trump”.  I dare you to watch this, as if he were speaking the Gospel, and defend voting for Donald Trump, as if my vote were anyone’s business but my own. You see, my friends, it’s this type of self-righteous hypocrisy that makes me want to scream. Let’s look at the latest “controversy”.  Donald Trump offended a Gold Star family. I get it. No one has sacrificed more for this Country than Gold Star families and they deserve nothing but respect. Trump was wrong. Let’s just get a little perspective here. During the DNC a Gold Star father called out Donald Trump, questioning if he had ever read the constitution and berating him for “never sacrificing a thing”. In a subsequent interview Trump said, in part, “You saw the mother, she didn’t say anything, maybe she wasn’t allowed to speak, I don’t know”. That set off a firestorm in the media because Trump only questioned whether or not she was allowed to speak because she was a Muslim. This, then morphed into an attack on all Gold Star families and “proof” that Trump was unfit to be President of the United States. OK. Here’s the perspective part. In 2012, a week after the Benghazi attacks that killed 4 Americans, including a US Ambassador and 2 former Navy SEALS, Hillary Clinton met with the parents of Tyrone Woods, one of the former Navy SEALS, and told them their son died in a “spontaneous protest over a YouTube video”. She went on to tell the Woods’ that she would get to the bottom of this and punish those responsible. When the truth came out and we learned that Mrs. Clinton had been lying about what happened, Mrs. Clinton claimed she never told the Woods about the video, affectively called them the liars! Then, when questioned about those inconsistencies before a house panel, Mrs. Clinton said, “What difference, at this point, does it make”. That made “news” for a minute or two and then it was gone.

OK, now, let’s take the names and the politics out of this and just examine the facts. Which do you find more offensive? Questioning whether or not a woman was allowed to speak based on her religion or lying to a family about the death of their son, then calling the grieving parents themselves liars, then saying how their son died was really that important.

I don’t know about you but, it seems to me, that this is yet another case of ‘it’s not what you say, it’s who says what’. But why let a little reality douse a perfectly good firestorm.

Po