Transgender bathrooms - Mountain or molehill?

Of Mountains and Molehills

The View from the Middle

As if we don’t have enough serious issues in our country like crushing debt and declining wages, our politicians are constantly trying to create additional “wedge issues” to divide us.  These wedge issues are designed to turn friends into enemies in order to grab a few votes and get these creeps elected to some public office.  There are two problems with this approach.  First, these scumbags who will do anything to win an election often do win, and second, in the wake of these election fights they leave our country angry and fractured.  Let me give you a couple of examples.

Back in 2012, Sandra Fluke (remember her) entered the political stage and suggested that there was a crisis of access to birth control for women across the US.  Her solution was to make birth control free for every woman in America.  Many people, especially women, took her word that things were indeed critical, but we should have stepped back and considered her claim.  Was this a real emergency or just a “straw man” used to defeat conservatives?  Let’s look at the facts.

In her argument Sandra pointed out that 99% of women who wished to use birth control were, in fact, using it.  She used this factoid to show the broad use of contraceptives among American women today.  But, at the same time she exposed the fact that there was no “crisis” of access.  If more than 99% of women are using birth control as needed, where is the crisis?

Next, Ms. Fluke suggested that birth control should be free for all women, and if anyone disagreed with that position, we were denying contraception to women living in poverty.  Again, this was not the case.  I, for example, don’t want to buy Ms. Fluke’s birth control pills, or Chelsea Clinton’s or Alexandra Pelosi’s (Nancy Pelosi’s daughter), or any other woman who can afford to pay for it.  I do support, however, free birth control for those who can’t afford it, and there are over 15,000 clinics, health centers and hospitals around the country that provide it.

So this was a great example of a molehill that was made to sound like a mountain to divide us.  There really was no crisis of access to contraceptives, and no one was arguing against providing them to those who truly couldn’t afford them.  But this didn’t stop Ms. Fluke from offering her deception.

The latest molehill being elevated to mountain status is transgender access to public bathrooms.  First of all, we all must realize that only .3% of Americans are transgender.  That’s three tens of one percent.  For perspective, if you did a survey of 100 people you would probably find zero transgender persons in that group.  If you did another survey of 100 people, you would again probably find none.  If you did a third survey of 100 people, you might find one transgender person.  So, changing our public bathrooms across the country to accommodate this small group is the absolute definition of “the tail wagging the dog.”

In addition, where are the examples of transgender people being denied access to bathrooms in America today?  Where are the riots?  Where is the coverage by our crack lamestream media correspondents?  I’ve been to many restaurants and other public places in my long life, and I have never witnessed an issue.  Have you?  Be honest? 

The question that we should be asking is, “what are transgender people doing now to get access to public bathrooms?” because it seems to be working!! 

Did you know that there are more men in the US who are taller than 6 feet, 6 inches than there are transgender people? What if this group demanded that we change the heights of all of the doorways in our restaurants and other public buildings so that they won’t whack their heads?  This would be incredibly expensive for all those small businesses that would have to comply.  Why not just tell those incredibly tall people to duck their heads, like they have been doing forever?

As a country, we should be employing the same strategy with both of the issues mentioned above, and every other wedge issue our politicians dream up.  Virtually all women who want contraception are getting it, and those who need it for free are getting it for free.  The process is working.  We are also not experiencing massive restroom battles across the country.  Transgender people are somehow accessing bathrooms and fitting rooms right now without causing women or children or themselves any distress.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I am neither a misogynist nor a transgenderphobe (if there is such a term).  I would never discriminate against either group and wish them all God’s speed as they travel though life.  I’m just a realist who tries to analyze both sides of every issue.  In these cases, action may make us feel fulfilled and proud, but it takes wisdom to recognize when our actions are either unnecessary or even harmful.

Hypocrisy of the Elite

Hypocrisy the Great Divider

The View from the Middle

There was a great book written about 10 years ago called Do As I Say Not As I Do, which pointed out the duplicity of Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and others.  It made me sick, sad and angry all at the same time.  But recent statements by politicians and celebrities have reminded me that hypocrisy is still alive and well in America and unless it is exposed it will continue to divide us.

Mark Zuckerberg recently came out and lectured those of us who favor border security by claiming that, “Instead of building walls we can help build bridges.”  That sounds so compassionate until you imagine what a borderless America would look like and cost.  But it borders on ironic when it comes from Mark Zuckerberg who purchased all the houses around his home in Palo Alto just to build a wall of control around it.  So, I guess walls are good for him, but just not for us.  Then I thought about all of the Hollywood celebrities in gated communities or who live in walled estates making the same unthoughtful, hypocritical claim.

But the duplicity doesn’t stop there.  When we discuss education in America, there are people, like me, who believe that we need competition that charter schools and vouchers deliver to solve our problems.  Bill and Hillary Clinton, however, would push the failing public school system and call me a racist for even suggesting such things.

But when the Clintons were in Washington, they sent Chelsea to the exclusive Sidwell Friends School in DC., and Congress today is five times more likely to send their kids to private schools than the rest of the country.  I don’t begrudge them those decisions, I just want to give that “choice” to every family in America, not just the rich and well connected.  Bill and Hillary would say that we have public and private schools in this country, and public schools are good for you and me.  But they need a choice.

The global warming crew isn’t any better.  Did you know that Al Gore has 15 homes, and just one of his mansions uses 20 times the energy to warm and cool than the average home in America?  Yet, Al tells us that we need to live in smaller homes and reduce our carbon footprint.

And the climate change conference in Paris may be the absolute definition of hypocrisy and possibly absurdity.  To get the President to the conference, Air Force One consumed 19,275 gallons of jet fuel and emitted 189 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Just getting the 20,000 attendees to and from the conference, in their planes, trains and automobiles dumped 300,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.  That’s as much energy as the entire City of Los Angeles will consume in a week.  Has anyone told these idiots about the availability of teleconferencing?  Now, that would have made a statement.

Finally, just last night in her victory speech in New York, Hillary Clinton talked about reducing the vitriolic political rhetoric and uniting America.  While I applaud that sentiment, isn’t Hillary guilty of the very same divisive language that she is condemning?  She has called anyone who disagrees with her solutions a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, a xenophobe and a bigot.  Is this the kind of language that will unite our country?  Do you think those terms really describe half of America that just happens to disagree with Hillary?

Do we need border security and to improve the immigration process at the same time?  Yes.  Do we need good public schools and school choice to solve our education problems?  Sure.  Do we need to be good stewards of our world without destroying economies and lives?  Of course!  Finally, do we need to listen before we condemn?  Absolutely.

As a country we need to avoid extreme positions and malicious rhetoric and gravitate to the middle where truth can be found, compromise forged and progress made. 

Nightmare in November

Nightmare in November

The View from the Middle

There are so many nightmare scenarios playing out in this year’s Presidential election process that it boggles the mind.  And the first horror has already intruded into all of our realities, and that is – we’re going to have to vote for one of these guys!  Only 37% of Americans believe Hillary Clinton is honest and trustworthy, a quality you would think would be essential when voting for an American President.  Bernie Sanders is a self-avowed socialist who has piled up a mountain of promises he can’t possibly keep.  Almost 70% of Americans have a negative view of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz’s main qualification seems to be that he isn’t Donald Trump.

 We have over 300 million people in the United States and these four are the best we can come up with to run the country?  Out of the 17 people who started out as potential candidates on the Republican side, Trump and Cruz might have been my 16^th and 17^th picks.  I’ll let you choose who finished last.  And on the Democratic side, you could only come up with two viable candidates?  Really?  I will be voting for one of these people come November, but I’m not going to enjoy it.  And this brings me to the other nightmare waiting for us in November – voter turnout.

At least I’m going to vote, but there are a number of factors that could lead us to the most apathetic electorate since Calvin Coolidge.  We have already discussed the first factor; none of these candidates are compelling.  Many Americans will see their choice for President like a choice between getting shot in the head or being blown up by a suicide vest.  This is not exactly the feeling that will drive huge participation.

Next, both parties have figured out how to disenfranchise their voters.  On the Democratic side, they have done it with their Super Delegates.  Bernie Sanders has been drawing many young voters to support him.  In fact, over 80% of Democratic voters between the ages of 18 and 29 endorse Sanders.  These young and naïve voters are about to be introduced to the slimier side of politics.

Through Wisconsin, Bernie Sanders has acquired 1,082 committed delegates, or 45% of the total so far.  This is an unimagined accomplishment by the Sanders ground troops and has excited these young voters.  However, all these youthful voters are about to learn that Hillary Clinton already has 94% of the 500 super delegates who have already committed to Bernie’s paltry 31 or 6%.  If they get the sense that “the fix was in” from the beginning, this now angry and disgusted group may not even show up in the fall! 

On the Republican side you have the real possibility of a contested or brokered convention.  Every day it seems more and more likely that no one candidate will arrive in Cleveland with the 1,237 delegates necessary to win the nomination on the first ballot.  This is not unprecedented, however.  In 1860, Abraham Lincoln came in 2^nd to William Seward on the first ballot of their convention, but Seward did not have the required 50% plus one delegate necessary to win the nomination.

Lincoln’s inner circle worked the delegate floor and finally won the nomination on the 3^rd ballot.  I’m certain that Seward was disappointed, but he later became Lincoln’s friend and his Secretary of State.  This would suggest that while there was a competitive atmosphere during these primaries, there wasn’t the vitriolic and mean-spirited rhetoric that we have seen in today’s Republican Primary.

With Seward’s support, Lincoln went on to defeat Douglas in the general election and become one of our greatest Presidents.  Do any of us imagine that kind of cooperation between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump today after the childish and even vicious accusations that these men have thrown at each other?

The Cruz and Trump camps are so polarized that it is easy to see why, no matter who wins the nomination, the other side may choose to just stay at home in November.  And, of course, if the Republican Establishment tries to parachute a white knight like Paul Ryan in to steal the nomination, both the Trump and Cruz crowds may rebel through absenteeism.  Can you imagine Ted Cruz getting up in front of the Republican Convention and delivering a rousing, heart-felt endorsement of Trump, should he win; or vice versa?  This is what it would take to unite the party and bring the vote out, but I think it is unlikely to happen.  

And we have no one else to blame but ourselves.  We have allowed our politicians in Washington to use the “divide and conquer” tactic on us so that they could get elected.  Now, we must realize that they have driven too many wedges between too many constituencies and the fabric of America is coming unraveled.  Passion has turned into disgust and loathing, which could turn into an abandonment of both parties come November.  We will reap what we have sown.