Full Circle Observations

This weekend was full of news stories, the biggest one being the U.S. and several other countries reaching a deal with the Iranian Government over it's nuclear program.  I'm not going to talk about that.  I think the deal speaks for itself.  I've decided to take on another, far less covered story.

Crystal Mangum was convicted of Second Degree Murder.  (If you don't know her name, it's okay.  She faded into oblivion after April 11, 2007. Most of the major media outlets are not going to give her top billing.  It wouldn't really do much for their reputations.)

Let me diverge off course for just a moment.  Not too long ago, my daughter was in a discussion with her TV Media teacher.  The teacher requires the students to have a news story to discuss every day, and this day, one of the students mentioned the miscarriage of justice in the Steubenville Rape case.  In the course of the discussion, my daughter mentions how false rape accusations lead to these miscarriages of justice in cases where rape actually does happen.  Her teacher says there are is no such thing as a false rape accusation.  My daughter mentions a few that have happened in her high school (stunts that were intended to gain attention.  It seems in high school fake rape accusations and fake pregnancy is the way to go these days).  Being that she was only 10 at the time, the case I would have brought up wasn't anywhere near her radar.  We discussed it at home.

Which brings me back to Crystal Mangum and who she is.  Ms. Mangum is the stripper who accused three Duke Lacrosse Players of kidnapping and rape.  The story became a national media frenzy, and as is the case with all national media frenzies, editorial pages opined about how horrible this all was.  Allan Gurganus in the New York Times, had this to say about these boys: “The children of privilege feel vividly alive only while victimizing, even torturing.”  The media, professors at universities all across the country, and even politicians raced to judgment.  These boys of white, rich privileged lives must be guilty.  

Only they weren't. There was very little evidence to prove they had done it, and a whole lot of evidence that made it obvious they didn't.  Evidence that Prosecutor Michael Nifong, who was trying to win re-election as the District Attorney of a racially diverse Durham County, illegally hid from the Defense.  This act of severe prosecutorial misconduct led to him being fired, disbarred and charged.  More than six years after the Attorney General for North Carolina dropped all the charges because, as he said, the accused were innocent, the media, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and 87 Faculty and Board members at Duke University have yet to apologize.  It was truly stunning, the rush to judgment, and then the slow slinking away of all those judges when it turned out they had hitched their stars to something that never happened.

So Crystal Mangum won't be making front page news as a convicted murderer.  To bring her up is to remind people of medial malpractice, an act that to this day is simply brushed under the carpet and never brought up again.  I'm sure those three boys whose lives were ruined don't care, right?

Media Malpractice is alive and well.  It was before this, and it will be for years to come because we, the citizens who read their garbage, refuse to hold them responsible.  In their rush to be the first to cover a story, they almost never get it right.

Outside of the Rocky Mountain News, most media outlets got most of the massacre at Columbine High School wrong.  And their observations are still taken as gospel today.

The same can be said of the shootings in Aurora (remember the accusation that James Holmes was a tea party person?), Sandy Hook (we are still finding out how bad they got that wrong), and the list goes on and on.  It's called Media Malpractice.  They try, convict and sentence without a shred of evidence.  After the Boston Marathon, it was a full day before any news channel even got a hint of the right information.  For 24 hours they were permitted to disseminate information that they had absolutely no clue if it was correct, but, they had to have their 24/7 coverage, so they made things up.

Back to Ms. Mangum. It's probably cold consolation to three people who had their lives turned upside down by a pathological liar, who is now a convicted murderer.   It's a cold consolation to those of us who questioned from the beginning whether the Duke Lacrosse "Rape" Case deserved the attention it was getting.  It's no consolation to the true rape victims who have that much harder of a time, because this case caused people to doubt those accusations.  And in the media silence we hear ... crickets.

Demonizing the Guy Who Might Run For President....

In Three Years.

 “If I didn’t care so much about our country, I would hope he would get the Republican nomination for president, because that would mean the end of the Republican Party." (Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, Rachel Maddow Show, October 31,2013)

The next Presidential election is 3 years away.  The Primaries for that election are 2 years away.  And yet, I've seen a bunch of headlines in the last few weeks about Ted Cruz, and his ability to be nominated and to be elected President of the United States.  It's possible I'm suffering from Post Presidential Campaign Syndrome.  I'm tired of the campaigns and the politics of personal destruction that come with them.  Maybe that's why I'm trying to figure out why the Democrats are on a rampage against Ted Cruz running for President...in two years.  It seems that even though we just elected a President a year ago, we are still in campaign mode, and people like Harry Reid want you to know that if you vote for Ted Cruz (in three years), you will destroy the Republican Party.

First of all, Senator Reid, as I'm not a progressive, or a liberal, or a Democrat, the odds are I'm not really concerned with who you think I should vote for, in an election I haven't even started thinking about.  Nor am I concerned with what Rachel Maddow thinks about anything.  I watch the Kelly Files.  Sorry.

Second, I have to wonder why all these Democrats, and all these Pundits on both sides of the aisle are going after Ted Cruz on the basis of an election no one (but Pundits with nothing better to do) is thinking about.  What is it about this man that is driving so many people to say some very nasty things about Ted Cruz and his supporters?  

Look again at Harry Reid's quote.  He is essentially saying that if you care about the USA, you wouldn't possibly cast your vote for Ted Cruz.  

We heard from a lot of people, even conservative pundits, that Barack Obama was the smartest man who ever ran for President.  If his accomplishments prior to becoming President were the reason people said that, maybe we should look at Ted Cruz.

• Graduated from South Baptist High School in 1988, Valedictorian
• Graduated cum laude from Princeton University, BA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
• Won Top Speaker at the US National Debating Championships and the North American Debating Championship in 1992.
• Graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, Juris Doctor.
• Editor of the Harvard Law Review
• Executive Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy
• Founding Editor of the Latino Harvard Law Review
• Law clerk to J. Michael Luttig, US Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
• Law clerk to William Rehnquist, Chief Justice, US Supreme Court
• Associate Deputy Attorney General, United States, `1999-2003
• Solicitor General, State of Texas, 2003-2008

That's some list of accomplishments.  Alan Dershowitz called him "Off the charts brilliant", when he was at Harvard Law School

Ted Cruz is a pretty smart man.  He's a minority.  The people in Texas love him.  (Okay, I realize maybe that isn't a bonus.  After all, to many people, Texas is a foreign country.  God bless Texas.)

So why, 3 years out from a Presidential Election, are people like Harry Reid going on news shows, telling people how bad Ted Cruz is?

Maybe, just maybe, because they think he can win.

What's In A Name?

I love football.  For six long years, I gave it up in protest.  Protest of both a quarterback and a coach, who I thought received far too many accolades for missing the coveted prize in the NFL:  The Superbowl.  I was ecstatic when the Eagles fired Andy Reid, and despite the team's less than stellar start this season, I firmly believe it was a decision that should have been made a long time ago.  

I love football.  I have a passionate dislike for several teams in the NFL.  Most of this is due to a conference rivalry that dates back to when the NFC East was the hardest division to play in.  The Dallas Cowgirls (oops...boys), the NY Giants, and the Washington Redskins.  You can't be an Eagles fan and not hate those teams.  It's just not allowed.

I love football.

What I don't love is smarmy commentators who decide to use their national airtime, during a sport that remains the most popular in the U.S., to score political points, or worse, to promote some trumped up charge of racial injustice.

The Washington Redskins.  If you aren't a football fan, it's just a name to you, and maybe you find it offensive, I don't know.  79% of all Americans don't, but maybe you're in the 21% who do.   I've honestly never even though about it, because to me, the Redskins are the team from Washington D.C., who have beaten the butts of my team more than once, and have more Superbowl Wins than we do in Philadelphia. (Ok, pretty much everyone has more Superbowl rings than we do, we haven't won any.)  

To listen to Bob Costas speak so eloquently you'd think that it's plainly obvious that the name, whether now, or sometime in the past, was specifically chosen to twist fingers in the eyes of Native Americans.  It's obviously a slur, even if it wasn't meant that way.  It's just not ok to name your team the Redskins.  Of course the players, the coaches and the owner don't men anything bad by it, but it's still horrible, evil, cruel.  (You can skip the part where he freely admits that a majority, as in 90%, of all Native Americans don't have a single issue with the name.) 

So, once again, Bob preaches to his immense television audience, telling them how they ought to think or feel about a certain issue. (Remember his gun control rant during Sunday night football last year?)  

Bob, this is football.  We do not need or want you to give us lessons in your political or social views on Sunday night.  We want to talk football:  the good, the bad, and the ugly of a game that involves men throwing, catching, kicking balls and tackling other men, all in the quest to get the pigskin past the goal line.  But you Bob, you just can't resist the urge to lecture us all on right and wrong.

So, now I get to lecture you on facts.  If you want to be some great commentator, do your homework.

The team in question, originally the Boston Braves, was created in 1932.  The year after that they became the Boston Redskins.  The first Redskins team had four Native Americans players, and a Native American head coach.  I'm sure if they found the name offensive they could have protested, but they didn't.  Their logo, that infamous Indian that we Philadelphia fans live to hate (for purely competitive reasons), was created in conjunction with the Red Cloud Athletic Fund, which has it's base of operations on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.  George Allen, then coach, worked with Native Americans on that logo, and was later honored by those same Native Americans.  All without a hint of protest over the name.  

You see Mister Costas, outside of your politically correct, there must be injustice, pathetic bubble, Native Americans are seen as fierce, brave, strong and loyal, all things you want in a top notch professional football team.  They are the kind of people you can get behind and cheer for.  They are inspiring.  And by denoting themselves the Redskins, they encompass the entire Native American population, not just the braves (who were the warriors), or a specific tribe (like the Blackhawks), or some caricature (like the Indians). One look at that logo, and you are looking at a proud, strong person.  One willing to fight for his brothers.  

It seems 79% of Americans, and 90% of Native Americans clearly understand what has somehow escaped your oh-so-enlightened mind.

Speaking as a life-long die-hard, even gave up football in protest, Philadelphia Eagles fan, how dare you even suggest that a team I look forward to watching my guys play each and every season, just so I can root again them, change their name?  I don't want to play the Washington Whatevers, I want my team to play the tradition of the Washington Redskins.  The name that's become associated with a division rivalry.  That to so many Redskins fans is associated with winning a Superbowl.  Somehow, Bob, you've managed to make me defend a team I live to hate. 

And you've also managed to do one other thing that was never, ever possible until you opened your big mouth on Sunday night, again.

You've made me root for the darn Redskins every time they play (unless they are playing the Eagles.)

Responsibility

At no point since it's passage, has the Affordable Care Act ever been approved of by a majority of the American people.  When it was passed, a majority of the American people didn't want it.  And while the numbers have fluctuated somewhat, it's always been majority against.

The House of Representatives recently passed a Continuing Resolution to fund every aspect of government but the Affordable Care Act.  The Senate added an amendment restoring funding.  When sent back to the House, they compromised.  They delayed the implementation of the individual mandate for a year.  The Senate is saying they will table the bill, and the White House is saying if it passes the Senate it will be vetoed.  

Who would be responsible for shutting down the government?

By all measures of sanity and logic, it would appear that it is the Senate and the White House, not the House, that is perfectly happy to let the government shut down all over a health care bill that a majority of the American people have never wanted.  And all those horror stories?  They appear to be true.

People said the employer mandate would cost jobs.  The Administration said that was hogwash.   But as the date for that mandate to kick in drew closer, companies across America started dropping full time employees to part time employees.  Other companies froze hiring to stay below the 50 employee threshold.  So the President, in a move that was nothing but political to anyone with half a brain, delayed the employer mandate for year.  To right after the mid term elections.  

We were told if we liked our doctor and insurance we could keep them.  However, over the last few weeks, pictures cropped up all over the internet.  Pictures of letters, sent to people by their insurance companies, telling them that their plan is not compliant with the Affordable Care Act.  They will have to purchase a new plan, and that new plan, which includes a lot of extra stuff, will cost them more money.  For some it's more than twice what they were paying for a plan that did what they needed it to do, but might not cover birth control and in vitro fertilization.  

Howard Dean recently admitted that Sarah Palin was right about those death panels.  Death panels was a term coined to describe the Independent Payment Advisory Board, who would decide whether your life was really worth that life saving treatment.  Or did everyone forget the President himself mentioning that controlling health care costs might mean giving granny the red pill instead of the blue pill, that was more expensive, but that she really needed to you know...live.  

You might be interested to know how much control of our healthcare resides in the hands of one person.  The Secretary of Health and Human Services.  The bill has this to say about the powers of this one person:  700 references to the "Secretary shall", 200 reference to the "Secretary may" and 139 references to the "Secretary determines".   So, in a 2,000 page bill that no one read before they passed it (Nancy Pelosi:  We have to pass the bill so we can find out what's in it), 1,039 times it is determined that one person, not elected, and with no Constitutional check on their powers, can determine the outcome of YOUR healthcare.   

The truth is the bill was never really written, and for it to work in any manner, whether good or bad, it will need to be amended hundreds of times over.  It was 2,000 pages of open ended government control over your very life, and by life I mean, the breathing, heart beating, brainwave thing.

And it is this law, this one little law, this one train wreck of a law (according to Max Baucaus), that is going to be the reason the Democrats shut down the government.  They are so tied to a law they passed (and which they then exempted themselves from, big surprise there), that they will allow every other government service shut down.  Oh, except their pay.  In 1992, when they were still in charge of the legislative body of the government, they suckered us into passing an amendment which doesn't allow them to give themselves pay raises, but it also ensures they still get a paycheck in the event the government shuts downs.  Congress needs their pay more, than say granny needs her social security.

So who is responsible for shutting down the government?  

To Those Who Never Got Involved.

I posted Steve Taylor lyrics to facebook last night, from his song "Whatever Happened to Sin". At the time, I was thinking about the church today, and how so many churches are preaching a feel good, social justice gospel in order to make themselves more acceptable to the masses.  

Today I realized how appropriate those lyrics truly were,  not just to the church, but to our political scene today.

I remember after the election, seeing posts on facebook where people were talking about how they didn't really speak out during the election, but now there were things going on they just couldn't keep silent about.  Those posts made me angry.  Most of the things that were so upsetting after the election were going on well before the election and during the election.  Suddenly deciding to speak up now, when the damage is already done, seemed to me to be a case of "too little, too late". 

You see, I believe we have a duty to at least TRY to make a difference when it comes to the things we believe in.  Putting your head in the sand and not speaking out, for whatever reason, is a cowardly move.  This will make people angry.  I get it.  We don't want to upset our friends or family.  We want to keep the peace.  I truly do understand that.  Those things, however, do not let us off the hook.  It just doesn't. 

I can go back to that old saying from Germany during World War 2, about how someone didn't speak up, and when they came to take him, there was no one left to speak up for him.  But we've heard that one before.

It's quite simple.  If you don't speak out when it counts, when you could make a difference, when you could challenge the status quo, or all the news that fits the narrative, then really, how much right do you have to complain now?

In case you are still sitting there saying "But, people will delete me off facebook, or stop talking to me, or get angry, or..."

I have had 2 family members delete me and block me on facebook.  Not because I said something hateful to them.  Not because I was mean or horrid.  Simply because I had the nerve to post an opinion different than theirs.  I challenged their assumptions, and this made me persona non grata.   They were constantly posting things that challenged my assumptions.  They made me look deeper into what I thought.  In many cases, they didn't change my opinion, but I became much more capable of defending my own position, because I was forced to see the other side.  I welcome this.  I guess they didn't.  And while occasionally it still stings, I refuse to stop speaking out. 

I have been called a bigot, a racist, homophobic.  I have been told I am more concerned with other women's sex lives and that's why I"m pro-life.  I have been told I am annoying and useless.  And yet I still speak out.

The ability to speak out, to challenge, to verbalize our opinions is one of the foundations of society.  If it wasn't for people speaking out, there would have never been a Revolutionary War, the Abolitionists Movement, Women's Suffrage, Civil Rights.  All of those things challenged in a deep, profound, life-changing way, the status quo.  People, individual people, made a difference.  

So I will continue speaking out, and I'm challenging you to do the same.  

I'll leave you with this little tidbit, from Steve Taylor's song:

If you don't care now
How the problems get solved
You can shake your head later
That you never got involved
'Cause the call came ringing
From the throne of gold
But you never got the message 
'Cause your mind's on hold 

Liberal Logic 101

I am sorry if the name of this post offends my liberal friends.  Wait.  Nevermind.  No I'm not sorry.  The story I am about to share with you is a classic example of liberal logic at it's best.

If You Send Your Kid To Private School, You Are A Bad Person.

Yes, that really is the title of an article written and posted on Slate this morning.  The title itself is a joke, but surely the article can't be as bad as it's title makes it sound.  Right?  Wrong.

If you feel up to reading it, please do so.  If not, I'm here to point out some of the more asinine statements made by Ms. Benedikt.  

You are a bad person if you send your children to private school. Not bad like murdererbad—but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid bad. So, pretty bad.

Let's start with the opening sentence.  You aren't as bad as the Ft. Hood Shooter, or even George Zimmerman, but you are really bad.  Why?  Because the fact that you want the best for your own flesh and blood is selfish I tell you!  Your personal decision about your child's education means public education will be ruined!

 I’m just judgmental. But it seems to me that if every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve. This would not happen immediately. It could take generations. Your children and grandchildren might get mediocre educations in the meantime, but it will be worth it, for the eventual common good.

Yes Ms. Benedikt, you are being judgmental.  You just told a good portion of your fellow citizens that they are bad people, because they pay their own hard earned money to not send their kids to a failing school.  Think about that.  Let's move on.  "It could take generations...".  Ok, so we sacrifice our children now, for something that may or may not happen somewhere down the road.  Unless she's become psychic, she has no true idea if this plan will work.  I wonder if she has kids, and has ever tried to change things within a system that is run by teacher's unions and politicians.  Where teachers sit in school board meetings of school districts they don't even live in, and just demand that the district's citizens pay more in taxes so we can keep full day kindergarten, and we don't have to cut any staff.  (In a school district where a good amount of classrooms have more than one teacher.)  It's all for the common good.  You sacrifice your kid, so maybe one day your great great great great grandchild can attend a better public school system.


She goes on to say that unless your kid is in the school, you aren't truly invested in how it works.  That's true.  I have often thought that people who send their kids to private school, or even homeschool, are taking care of their own without addressing the larger issue.  Taking your kid out of public school doesn't solve the public school's problems.  It just solves your own.  However, a parent's highest calling is not to every other child in the country.  It's to their own children.  Dumping them in a failing school and then trying to change it, is not in the best interest of THEIR child.  Ultimately, the author is saying you are a bad person if you don't sacrifice your own child to benefit future generations.  (A benefit that we don't really know for a fact will happen.  This is just one person's opinion.)

There are a lot of reasons why bad people send their kids to private school. Yes, some do it for prestige or out of loyalty to a long-standing family tradition or because they want their children to eventually work at Slate. But many others go private for religious reasons, or because their kids have behavioral or learning issues, or simply because the public school in their district is not so hot. None of these are compelling reasons. Or, rather, the compelling ones (behavioral or learning issues, wanting a not-subpar school for your child) are exactly why we should all opt-in, not out

So, your child getting the best education you can provide for them is NOT a compelling reason to send them to a private school?  Or better yet, send your kid to a substandard school because you want them to have the best education possible.  Understanding of course, that your child won't get that education.  Some future child might.

I understand. You want the best for your child, but your child doesn’t need it.

Wow. Okay.  So now you have determined what my child and everyone else's child needs.  It's not the best education, they don't need that.  Nope.  They'll be just fine in a school that teaches them that getting the answer right doesn't really matter.  Where the teacher doesn't teach but just tells them to read the book and answer questions.  None of that matters because they have supportive parents.  (Who may or may not be able to teach them the correct way to solve for both x and y.)

After going on to say she got a terrible education in a school with no AP classes, and she even had a terrible college education (which she paid for, by the way), she turned out just fine.  Your child will turn out fine too.

 I’m not saying it’s a good thing that I got a lame education. I’m saying that I survived it, and so will your child, who must endure having no AP calculus so that in 25 years there will be AP calculus for all.

And there is your liberal logic.  GIve up your child's good education now so that everyone will have a good education in 25 years.  Not that it will really happen, but it might.  And just the idea that this could work is reason enough.

There is more, go ahead and take a stab at reading it.  Her colleagues that send their kids to private school are morally bankrupt.  Her worldview was changed by getting drunk with the trailer park kids before basketball games.  I'm sure these are all values you want instilled into your children.  Reading Walt Whitman?  Whatever.  Getting drunk?  RIght On!

Now comes my morally bankrupt, spent most of my life in private school, have sent my kids to both public and private school opinion.

Most of the children in America go to public schools.  Quite a few of them have parents who care and who get involved.  Not all parents have the same outlook on what's best, and their goals are not the same.

I sat in on a school board meeting last year where the discussion was on how to deal with our budget shortfall of 3 million dollars.  (About what it cost to put in our state of the art turf football field a few years ago.  The field used for a team that gets introduced with "they didn't count their victories in wins and losses". Mostly because the football team doesn't win games.)  There were teachers and parents arguing that we keep full day kindergarten and just shorten the high school day (which would  save the same amount of moeny).  As a matter of fact, the general consensus of those people was that we should cut high school and middle school, while leaving elementary school intact.  My guess is those people didn't have high school and middle school students.  I heard a few before the meeting discussing the cost of childcare if they could only keep their kids in kindergarten for half a day.  (Much much better for the school to shaft the high school so you don't have to pay for daycare, right?)

My point is, parents, depending on their children's ages, goals and what activities they participate in will fight for their OWN child.  Not the collective good.  A parent with a child in elementary school would much rather have their child's class sizes stay at 15-20, and keep all their teachers, than make class sizes 25 so the high school can keep an  AP class.  The elementary parent isn't considering high school yet.  They have time for that.  But me?  My daughter is a senior, and she doesn't have time.  This is her last year.  I wanted her to be able to get her AP classes, still have a music program and get the best education she can get.  So this idea that if parents who cared enough to put their kids in private school would just put their kids in public school. we could make the system better?  Not  likely.  You'd have a variety of parents, with a variety of opinions on what is good and what isn't.  

And this of course doesn't count in the teacher's unions.  Who want higher pay, better benefits, less working days, less working hours, a whole class period every day so they can plan (because coming in early or staying late just isn't an option).  This doesn't include the fact that firing a bad teacher is really hard because of union contracts.  

It's not as simple as Ms. Benedikt makes it sound.  Maybe  because she's never had to deal with it.  She's an idealist who has blindly ignored the reality of why our public school system is a failing, and has just decided that those parents who choose to not participate in that failing system are bad people.  All we caring parents have to do is sacrifice our own child's education, and this will solve the problems that come from parents who don't care, don't get involved, etc..

Liberal Logic 101:  Let's take away from one set of people and give to other people.  This will solve all our problems.  Except it doesn't.  It doesn't count in human attributes at all.  It doesn't account for individual ways of thinking.  It doesn't make our kids smarter.

Wanting the best for your child and sacrificing to obtain that does not make you a bad person.  And for Ms. Benedikt to say so, makes her woefully ignorant of what being a parent is all about.  Maybe if she'd spend less time drinking and more time reading Walt Whitman....

That Which Divides Us.

My daughter was looking through posts on facebook the other night when she came across a term she didn't know:  Cisgendered.  I didn't have a clue either, so we looked it up.

Cisgender and cissexual (often abbreviated to simply cis) describe related types of gender identity where an individual's self-perception of their gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth.

So we need a term to describe people who are okay with either having male sex organs or female sex organs.  

I look around our country and watch politicians and regular people alike assign everyone they know to a group.  White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Male, Female, and now we have....Cisgender.

There used to be a time when we encouraged our children not to label people based on the circumstances of their birth.  We told our kids not to judge a book by it's cover.  Now, all we do is separate our society into groups based on skin color, religion, and it appears, sexual orientation.   Now according to all those people fighting for transgender rights, I am obligated to qualify myself as cisgender?  

Take a look at all those groups above.  Instead of seeing what's different about them, try finding what's the same.  Let me help you.

We all have a mother and a father. (Whether or not they were good parents, or even parents who were around, it's a basic biological fact that you need both to exist.  Crappy parents is a post for another time.)

We all have a beating heart and a brain.

If you cut us, we all bleed.

We all have fears, hopes, goals and dreams.

We've all smiled, and we've all cried.

We all have unique personalities.

And yet, we divide ourselves, every day, based on one characteristic.  Whether it's skin color or religion, political party or sexual orientation, we separate ourselves into groups.

I am not cisgendered.  I'm a person.  Just because I am a girl, who is perfectly okay with being a girl, doesn't mean I need to be separated into some group, just so that some other group has a name for me.

I am a white female, stay at home mother, of both Christian and Libertarian values.  But beyond every single one of those individual things you will look at to label me, I AM A PERSON.  Same as you.  Same as my neighbors.  Same as people who live on the other side of the world.  

And as far as this country we live in?  We have one more thing in common.  We are all Americans.

You want to end divisiveness and hate and bigotry?  

Stop.Labeling.People.

Period.

The End.