Well, do you know what socialism is? I mean really: I’m interested in hearing what you fear or like about it. Public Schools are good, right? Public Works- road maintenance, parks, electric. And public service like police and fire, courts, tax assessors- all of it to support We The People. And the places that privatized public services screwed us. The Prison system is the perfect example.
But we *are* a socialist country. The root word, social, refers to Society. We are tribal people. We do not do well on our own- isolated. And the US hasn’t fought an honest war since 1945. I have so many younger friends who enlisted and served tour after tour in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some died there, others died after they returned. What does the Middle East War (2003 -present) have to do with our way of life? What were my friends fighting for?
I seriously welcome the opportunity to learn from you; to share our ideas.
Let’s start with “socialist.” For 17 of my 32 years working I taught public school. I served the public. I’ve been in the trenches of service to my country. Instead of a rifle I carried a baton, lesson plans, and an iPod. But service just the same.
Are services that benefit the whole society a bad thing or a good thing and how are we defining “social”?

I am disappointed by the tone and verbiage of your piece. Because you’re raging and so clearly angry I was terribly distracted by your cursing, your generalizations, and your name calling. Your last sentence is to call 44% of the nation “assholes.”
Like Don Quixote, I’m trying to encourage people to self-civilize, though I’m not in armor, on a donkey and I’ve no short, judgmental side kick poking fun at me.
I’ve discovered that when I’m face to face with “them” and we disagree that as soon as I begin to yell they stop listening; the eyes glaze over and I’m certain that their brains aren’t connecting to my words, all that’s registering is that an old white guy is red-faced and screaming. I learned that the best way to be heard is to whisper. And do so Kindly.
I wish you well.
Dave

The Supreme Court, which has been stacked with Trump nominees, has declared that it is unconstitutional to include a question about citizenship status on next year’s federal census.
Donald Trump and William Barre have said that they’re going through with the question anyway perhaps through an executive order. Regardless how, this is the first time in our history that a sitting president, or an Attorney General has defied a ruling from the Supreme Court. We all know that this will make it possible for Congressional redistricting- gerrymandering- and this riggs all e******ns in favor of the wealthy. But what is just as important is that this will give the government a list of everyone they deem as “undesirable” and make it easy to harass, deport, indenture, encamp, and even exterminate.
It’s true that there is no way in our current government that the last three could be done. But our laws, values, and constitution change rapidly. Two years ago it was unthinkable that the government would take children from their families at the border. In 2002 it was unthinkable that our government would use violent torture and justify it by holding the prisoners off shore. In 2001 it was unthinkable that prisoners could be held without charge or representation. In 2000 it was unthinkable that the government would illegally tap our phones and collect and store our texts and e-mails.
But those things are all true today.
We cannot say that in two years our government won’t be selecting people with questionable status and then offering them a choice: either pay the fines accrued and be exiled, or be taken to a work camp to pay off their debt through servitude. As for interest rates? It’s the government so there’s no glass ceiling there.
Every single step that is taken to undo freedoms is very dangerous. Many people don’t care because it affects “Them” not “Us”. (Drop needle on Pink Floyd here) But once it’s established for “Them” it’s a precedent and it’s remarkably easy to go after “Us”.
History tells us that they will.

Lee Duigon, I’m curious as to why this is an issue for you in the first place; why is it “wicked” and more so why do you believe that learning about it is harmful for children? I must concede that it took a good deal of imagination, reading, and listening to understand it myself. G****r identification has nothing to do with sexuality as I spoke to a t***s man who is now married to another man. Were it simply about sexuality he’d have remained a woman.

But I quote:
“Nice thing for a child to think about in bed, isn’t it—you wake up one morning and you’re not you anymore.”
Your sarcasm aside, why would this make a child believe he’s not himself? This is a near Kafkaesque claim, but even so, would not guidance from an adult to a child resolve any confusion? And what then about those children who wake in the morning and feel confusion about how they fit into the world for any number of other reasons? Teaching children about the world is a responsibility and t*********ring is here to stay. A five year old has a very open mind.

There is so much anger and sarcasm in your post and this causes me to question why; is there some personal alienation that you feel? In t***h would we even know people’s birth g****rs if not for their desire to be treated with e******y?

Bravo! I admire your generous and responsible point.

The history of the creation of The Bible is fascinating. At least from an historical view.

The first Christians were Jews who deified Jesus of Nazareth and had to worship in private. The Romans would beat, maim, k**l, and otherwise disrupt services. Those Christians created a symbol- two lines that curve to create a fish and this symbol guided them to what became a moving worship space. The symbol is common today. But this new religion centered on Christ spread.

In 325AD in the Roman Empire, Emperor Constantine declared that the official religion on the Empire was Christianity. A t***sitional period followed and then Constantine held The First Council at Nicea, where he brought in hundreds of Bishops and clergymen to create the New Testament. Understand that many of them could not read or write. The story is fascinating and details are on line of the Council at Nicea.
To combat oppression The Holy Rome Empire, newly named, needed to increase numbers. More people. Population. Growth. So at Nicea many rules were in place to encourage human reproduction. “Thou shalt not spill thy seed on the ground.”
So if every orgasm had to result in pregnancy most of these new rules were designed to stop any sexual act other than man to woman. Thus masturbation was a sin, sodomy, homosexuality, oral sex. And it worked. Certainly later the Holy Roman Empire staged the Crusades then the Spanish Inquisition, and Christianity took over Europe. In Britain Christianity was negotiated into their Pagan rituals. As of 2015, Christianity was by far the world's largest religion, with an estimated 2.4 billion adherents, nearly a third (31 percent) of all 7.3 billion people on Earth.
I hope I’ve sparked you and offended no one. I studied all this in both Boston and Rome during graduate school. The libraries and collections at the Vatican are amazing and there are many collections only the Pope sees.
Good day.

I’m old enough to remember the start of “Gay P***e” and thus it makes more sense to me. Perhaps I can help with a quick bit of history.
Gay P***e began as an insistence that we pay attention. Just as homosexuality was closeted, so too was the legal and personal assault on them. This is demonstrated well in Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” and the historic events surrounding Senator McCarthy and Roy Cohn’s UnAmerican Committee.
By having Gay P***e Parades, by making characters in TV, film, and stage be gay, it brings the issue into the open for discussion but also demands that a discussion take place.
By denying them the right to be and love whomever they want, those who condemn- oppose for religious reasons- are doing something that Jesus fought hard and gave his life to support: freedom of religion. Jesus didn’t tell the Romans that they must be Jewish, he simply demanded that he and his disciples be permitted to. The Romans disagreed. (The Book of John is very moving.)
I often ponder why anyone would care how others live their lives. It doesn’t change how *they* live. Vocally opposing them is just cruel. And none of their business. Just imagine if people told you who and how you can have sex. Lol. My wife would go ballistic.
But there’s one of the “whys” for Gay P***e.