Month: October 2016

Leave a comment Posted on Don Rickles, George H. W. Bush

Anti-Americanism of Donald Trump

Words can inspire or they can injure.

Donald J. Trump’s words do the latter.  He gets the loudest ovations for using the most hurtful words.   If someone was deliberately trying not to be a role model, Trump has succeeded.

He mocks immigrants, the disabled, and women.  It’s as if Don Rickles is running for president, except that Trump isn’t that funny, his act isn’t in Vegas, and the audience isn’t in on the joke.

I understand the Mt. Everest-like aversion some have to Hillary Clinton.  As an independent voter with no political party affiliation, it is a shame that both the Democrat and Republican parties nominated candidates this election cycle who have high unfavorable ratings.

However, how much anger must you have within yourself to get behind such a despicable person as Trump?

Parents used to encourage their children to pursue their dreams, that one day maybe they could become president of the United States.   What parents would want their child to grow up emulating Donald Trump?

In the debates, it appeared that Trump was saying the first thing that came to mind, often interrupting Clinton with a childish “no, you’re wrong” rebuke.

While people continue arguing whether Donald Trump had ever sexually assaulted women or if it was just “locker room talk,” it doesn’t matter.

Words matter.

In order to talk that way, you have to think that way which is even more disturbing.

If Trump was that comfortable using slang for parts of a woman’s anatomy to a man he barely knew, that means he speaks that way to those intimate with him.

A student of mine told me that her 9-year-old brother heard the Trump tape and asked what some of the words meant.

If a videotape were released with Trump murdering someone, would people still support him?

Even elected Republicans struggle doing the right thing:  coming straight out and without reservation rebuking the nominee of their party.  It makes one wonder if there are any clear thinking people left out there where a sense of duty to one’s country overrides party loyalty.

When a twitter hashtag “#repealthe19th” surfaced referencing the constitutional amendment allowing women the right to vote, it is clear the one thing Trump does well:  bringing out the worst in people.

Like lifting a rock in a backyard to discover bugs underneath, Trump’s hateful messages that receive widespread play in the media he says opposes him have unleashed below the surface racism.

The irony is that Republicans, who view themselves as the family values party, support a candidate who has awful morals.

And this is why I do not belong to any political party.   Too many people ignore the character of a person running for office, focusing on the parenthetical letter that comes after a candidate’s name when casting their vote.

It wasn’t that long ago when Republicans and Democrats would work with one another respectfully.

A letter from former President George H. W. Bush written to his successor Bill Clinton on the day of his inauguration on January 20, 1993 has received renewed attention due to Bush’s civility in losing the election and wishing Clinton “great happiness” as “our President” and that “your success now is our country’s success.”

He finishes the handwritten note with “I am rooting hard for you.”  Apparently for Bush, “a kinder, gentler nation” was not just rhetoric.

Can you picture Trump using such non-locker room talk in a concession speech?

Instead, Trump threatens to jail his opponent if he wins, and not abide by the will of the American voting public if he loses.

If Trump wants to “make America great again,” he first needs to act as an American.

 

Leave a comment Posted on all-gender, transgender

The Anti-Gender Gang At It Again

Last week Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1732 requiring by March 2017 that all public places, including those in schools, have a single-user bathroom “designated as all-gender.” Just another one of those new laws that makes you scratch your head.

The Williams Institute reports that 0.6 percent of the U.S. population identifies themselves as transgender.  That means that 99.4 percent do not.

Surely there must be more pressing issues facing the 99.4 percent of Californians than this.

The groups behind this—California NOW, Equality California, Transgender Law Center (and don’t forget the ACLU)—must be bankrolling the campaigns of enough state legislators to allow such nonsense to be enacted.

Single-use bathrooms already exist for families and disabled people at several places. Even Starbucks has them.   So why is this law needed?

Only one reason:  to push the agenda of very small but vocal and politically charged groups whose ultimate goal seems to be to get the government to outlaw recognizing people as men and women.

The NBA made a big stink about North Carolina’s law that mandates people use a gender-specific bathroom that matches their sex at birth by pulling its All-Star Game out of Charlotte.

Are there that many transgender basketball players?

In its support of AB 1732, Equality California stated that “we must change our focus from segregating access to equalizing access to this solitary room [enabling] everyone to get in and out on the same terms.”

Talk about a sentence that sucks dry the humanity of people. What these anti-gender groups want is for people to no longer be identifiable.  Already stores like Target no longer categorize toys according to gender.

The bill’s backers point to “the bathrooms in people’s homes” as proof that all-gender restrooms are not novelties so it shouldn’t be a big deal for any establishment open for business to have a single-user toilet not marked by gender.

Actually for schools to meet the new law’s requirement will require more than replacing the sign on the door; except for some faculty and nurse station bathrooms, the vast majority of schools have only multi-user facilities.   So this will require money, money better spent in the classroom not on the toilet.  Unless you allow all kids, boys and girls, to share the same restroom.

Over at Santee Education Complex in downtown L.A. there already is a multi-stall restroom so males, females, and others may use the facility.    I wonder how parents feel about that one.

Where I work there are single-use faculty bathrooms for each gender.  I like that because, without going into too much detail, men and women have different plumbing and toiletry needs.

Equality California claims that people have become “accustomed to the traditional ‘male’ and ‘female’ designations in order to determine the appropriate restroom facility to use.”  Yes, that is correct.  And there is nothing wrong with that as long as the word “traditional” doesn’t get twisted into a slur as has happened with the word “normal.”

Even though I am “traditional,” I still try to cause the least attention when using a public toilet—I don’t want to look at anyone, and I don’t want anyone to look at me.   That would be more challenging in a multi-stall, multi-gender facility.

I don’t mean to be insensitive to transgender people.   But this notion of forcing a large majority to go along with the will of an infinitesimal minority must stop.

God forbid we identify ourselves as men and women because it might hurt the feelings of 0.6 percent of the population.