Kindness, Suffering, And Becoming A Kind Person

 Kindness should be born of kindness. Being kind, showing care, compassion, love, should produce more of the same. And I'm sure it does to some extent.

Anyone can do kind things. I can't think of anyone that hasn't done at least one kind thing in their lifetime. But to be kind, to take the concept into yourself and choose to make it a part of who you are, that's different. I seek to be kind, and if my loved ones are to be believed, I am a kind person.

Kindness should be born of kindness, but kind people are born of cruelty, suffering, pain, anguish, depression, anxiety, stress, and pretty much every other bad thing. Some of us caused those horrible things in our past, I know I did. I was a hateful person; I caused cruelty, suffering, pain, and anguish. But that did not make me kind, it rarely does.

What made me kind was a combination of experiencing those things, and watching others experience them alongside me. I can think of a few very low points in my life, and each one was marked first with pain and suffering, but then with kindness.

I remember, after making a lot of bad decisions, I was working a low-wage job just trying to get by, living on my own for the first time, and I didn't budget well, neither my money nor my time. I went to work one day with no lunch, and no money to buy one. It was an 8 hour shift, I could have been just fine, but that wasn't good enough for my coworker. He handed me what cash he had, and took over while I went to buy myself lunch, just a couple burgers from a nearby gas station. After that, I understood that being hungry wasn't a moral failing, and that being kind to the hungry was not enabling them like I'd been taught in school.

I remember during US Army Infantry OSUT, a lot of low points. Two specifically come to mind. One day, I couldn't process conflicting orders, and part of that was because one set of orders came from NCOs with actual authority, and the other set came from the small group of bullies in my platoon that decided they could just force other people to do what they wanted, and my brain couldn't parse the difference between authority and power. So it broke. I had never experienced a panic or anxiety attack up to that point, but I had read about them, and realized, to some extent, that that's what I was experiencing. And I knew that I should just focus on one task at a time, to try to reorder my mind.

The task I chose to focus on was changing my footwear. We were allowed to change out of our boots into our running shoes in the evenings, so that's what I decided to do. But I could also tell I was about to cry, and if there's one thing you don't want to do where bullies can see you, it's cry. So I planned to go into the latrine and just sit on one of the toilets in a stall, change my shoes there, so no one could see me. So I get up, and go around towards the latrine. All the stalls were filled, so I just went into the supply closet and locked the door.

What my fellow trainees saw was someone who was clearly not mentally well in the moment, one of their own, taking shoe laces to an enclosed space and locking himself in there. They panicked. They began pounding on the door, and I had no idea why. Eventually, I could tell the voice of one of them, one that had been kind to me, and let him in. I was completely broken at that moment, the pounding on the door broke my concentration on the task, and I couldn't control my emotions. I was bawling. He sat with me, peeked out to tell the other guys he had it under control and to quiet down, and stayed with me until I could process things again.

The other low point from OSUT was during my final physical fitness test. I hate running, always have. Running two miles sucked ass. And I failed the two mile run over and over up until then, and this was my last chance. If I failed this test, I was going to be removed from service. About a quarter mile from the finish, a red pickup truck had been parked, and it pulled out and drove beside me. My Senior Drill Sergeant, driving his own truck, began shouting at me that I could do this, that I worked too hard to give up, and that gave me just enough motivation to sprint the last hundred yards or so. I passed with mere seconds to spare. That may not sound like kindness to you, but it was to me.

And I can remember low points when no one was there to be kind, or maybe someone was there but they weren't kind. I remember the time a group of people I had considered friends referred to loving me as an obligation, and laughed. Either no one saw my pain, or no one who did cared. I remember both being the bullied kid no one acknowledged, and being one of the people who saw the bullied kid and chose not to acknowledge them. I remember seeking help in school because another student had threatened my life repeatedly, only to be told that I needed to just ignore him.

Eventually, when you see enough cruelty and suffering, you have to make a choice. You can choose to see it and do nothing; I think that's what most people do. I know that's what I did for a good while. You can choose to just not see it, to choose ignorance; I'm pretty sure I did that too, I might still do it. Or you can choose to see it and decide that, as long as you can change it, no one will have to face cruelty and suffering with no one there to show them kindness; if you choose that, your life will definitely get worse. You will see more and more suffering as time goes on, and eventually will be faced with situations where "as long as you can change it" becomes a lot more of a problem than you might think. But there will be times when you can change it; there will be times where your kindness can change a life. And if that only happens once, even with all the extra suffering you will see and endure, maybe that's still worth it.

I used to wonder what I wanted my life to be after I'm gone, what kind of legacy I would want to leave. I already know that I won't be remembered for long; that's not sad to me, that's just the reality of not being famous. Most people are remembered for a few generations max. I don't want a permanent reminder of my existence, no headstone, no memorial plaque in a park somewhere, nothing like that. I'll be gone, if you want a place to go to talk to me, plant a tree; it'll probably last longer than the memory of me.

But what do I really want to leave behind? I want the world to be better for having had me in it, as opposed to not having me at all. I have a lot to make up for; those years of hate spread toxicity in the world that I can never truly clean up, but maybe I can do more good than the bad I did. And in my estimation, even small acts of love, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, etc. make the world better. So I seek to be kind, in all that I do. I fail a lot, but I fail less now than I used to, and given enough time, I might actually become the kind person my loved ones tell me I am. Maybe.

God Bless if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise great day.

Don't Let Them Bring Back The Worst Parts Of History

CW: the darkest parts of American and World History repeating themselves

Multiple members of Congress as well as the current President of the United States, all Republicans of course, have called for the rebirth of the "insane" asylum system. They have called for the revocation of all rights and privileges as a citizen for anyone they deem as insane, and having them imprisoned in long term, compulsory "treatment" centers (literally exactly like the worst of the old asylums), until they're deemed a worthwhile citizen by the GOP standards.

So, let's first cover why I used quotation marks twice above. The asylums claimed to treat insanity, but many of them did nothing of the sort. The asylum system existed primarily as a method by which those in power could take those they didn't want in the public eye, which included people with actual severe psychological conditions, but also homeless people, poor people, and people that the ones in power did not want to be believed when their knowledge of something someone in power did might come out, and others. They were never safe havens for those with psychological issues, they were prisons that didn't require due process to send someone to that had the backing of the medical community. They weren't for the truly "insane," and the centers being proposed aren't there to "treat" anything. They're still just prisons that don't require due process.

Now let's cover why this should concern you: they're specifically saying that it's not just their primary target group they want to imprison, but also anyone associated with them. Do you care about someone who is trans? Congrats, you are now "insane" according to GOP lawmakers and should be locked up (one lawmaker literally said you should be straight-jacketed).

What's they're reasoning for this? The victim of a recent high profile murder was an outspoken bigot against trans people, and the person currently charged with the crime had a relationship with his trans roommate.

Note that today several homeless people were shot in Minneapolis, curiously mere days after a Fox News host openly said to kill all mentally ill homeless people. Yet there is no push to classify Fox viewers as dangerously insane. Two lawmakers were assassinated earlier this year, and yet there is no push to classify people like that murderer as dangerously insane. Look at any violence against those on the left or marginalized groups, you will find that the perpetrator, if known, is from a class of people not being classified as dangerously insane. Probably because those that commit violent crime in general are such an extreme minority that painting any demographic group they're in as dangerous is absolutely ridiculous, so much so that you might call it "insane."

This isn't a move to get mentally ill people help. It's a move to allow the GOP to revoke rights from anyone not sufficiently conservative for their liking, or possibly just not loyal enough for their liking. If this were implemented, it would not stop with trans people and their loved ones; it would eventually include all members of the LGBTQ+ community, anyone who has different spiritual beliefs from GOP leadership, members of labor unions, easily targeted ethnic minorities, and more.

How do I know? Because we've seen this trend before. We saw it on US soil when the rich and powerful put people they didn't want to exist but didn't care to kill into asylums. We saw it in Europe as they started with the socialists and trade unionists. We see it in dictatorships around the world now, designating entire people groups as undesirable and then throwing them somewhere so the general populace can feel "safe" knowing they're locked away. But fear is necessary for control, so they either have to release the people they locked up periodically so they can stoke fear again, or they have to designate another people group to be the new boogeyman. Usually, it's the latter.

I'm begging you, please, do not support this. Contact your lawmakers and tell them to push back against this, censure those lawmakers, propose laws to protect the rights of all Americans. Please, because while you might be safe from the first wave, most of the people I dearly love are not, nor am I. We are beyond the point where we can speak for ourselves and expect a good outcome, you must speak up too. Do not live out "first they came," speak out now.

God bless if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise great day.

Are Christians Commanded To "Call Out" Sin? Part 1 - My Fear

 I've been seeing a lot of people claiming that Christians are commanded to call out sin, and I'm going to go more in depth at a later date, but that is a lie. I have dug deep into the Word to find the scriptures wherein Christ or any of His Disciples commands us to condemn the sins of others. I have seen where He described how to react to when someone sins against us, I have seen where He and His disciples give advice on what actions we should avoid and what kinds of people who claim to be Christian but act otherwise should be avoided, I have seen where He commands us not to condemn others and many places where He commands us to forgive over and over, and I have seen His three commandments, but I cannot find where He or His disciples tell us to condemn others with our speech.

I'm going to be honest, I approached this with fear, abject fear, deep in me that froze me with every new verse I looked at. Why? Because, in all the time I've known Him and followed Him and His teachings, I have never felt Him call me to judge others, or pass judgement onto others based on my own understanding of what is or isn't sin, with the exceptions laid out in the Gospels as I mentioned above. I was scared that I would find the verse, the passage, the message wherein He or His disciples told us to go to the unsaved and tell them they are living in sin, to tell them that they are condemned, to condemn then with our very words. I grew up being raised by a brilliant Charismatic preacher, and I spent most of my young life in Evangelical or Charismatic churches, so I expected to find what I did not want to.

But all I could find was love, grace, and mercy. All I could find was commands to be gentle, to lift others up, and to avoid those who refuse to do so. All I could find was the same God I had known all my life telling His people, His followers to love others and leave judgement to Him. I was so scared that I was wrong, that my understanding of His love was so wrong, but I couldn't find the proof that it was; instead, I found His word reassuring me that loving others without judgement is the right thing to do.

If you read this and feel that I am condemning you, consider two possibilities: first, you may not actually believe in the Christianity of the Bible, where the teachings of Christ are primary, those of His disciples secondary, and the history is to understand what all we were saved from, and it's okay to believe something other than what I do; second, you may be this kind of Christian, and as described in the Bible and in both Charismatic and Evangelical tradition, the Spirit may be convicting you to look at your own actions, and the state of your heart, and telling you it's time to grow and heal with Christ's help. There are other possible answers, of course, but these are the two that come to my mind.

And if you read this and feel angrily vindicated: I understand, but please, in your anger do not commit acts of hatred, whether they be driven by malice or indifference or ignorance. Treat others as you would be treated, at the very least.

And to my brothers, sisters, and others in Christ, I leave you with this reminder from Christ's own words: "Whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for Me."

God bless if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise great day.

Comments On Public Services Including The Military And USPS

 Just wanna comment some things people may want to know:

The USPS is a public service mandated by the US Constitution; it is, in fact, the only such public service. Before you ask, although the military, the most expensive public service in the world by a good margin, is authorized by the Constitution, it is not mandated; it just says that Congress has the power to set it up, not that Congress has to. In fact, if Congress suddenly decided to do so, they could dismantle the entire military with a single law, and that law would technically be constitutional, but they can't do that with the postal service. 

Around 330,000 veterans, myself included, receive prescriptions, durable medical equipment, medical supplies, and legal documentation through the postal service. 

Before DeJoy became Postmaster General, I had not even experienced a significant delay in receiving my medications, durable medical equipment, medical supplies, or legal documentation through the USPS, and even after his open attempts to partially dismantle the postal service, I've only experienced some mild delays. 

When I had a prescription that the VA chose to deliver through a private parcel service, just one prescription for maybe two years, delivered once a month or so, I've had it lost multiple times, I've had it delayed indefinitely, I've even had it sent to the wrong location. The reason why the VA needed it delivered through a private service was because it was temperature and time sensitive, yet it was not transported any more quickly than the USPS transported other medication for me, it was not transported in temperature controlled trucks, and as I found out the hard way, did not even have insurance covering its loss that I could access, yet every package I've ever sent through USPS has at least had that insurance.

Public services are not profit-seeking ventures, and trying to frame them as profit-seeking ventures or heaven-forbid force them into becoming one breaks them to the point that they stop providing service to millions of Americans. This is why things that should be public services or utilities, like internet providers, rarely provide exemplary service even to their best customers, much less those who need the service the most. Your water bills are going up, your power bills are going up, in part because, although they are legally not supposed to make a profit, your utilities are framed internally and externally as profit-seeking ventures, rather than public services. 

If you are in favor of privatizing public services, the first one you should be looking into is the military. Currently, because it is a public service, each soldier begins with a pay rate of just over $20,000 per year plus benefits; if you want to privatize that, you shift over to the market rate of $9,000-$22,000 per month. Per soldier. That's one branch, and the lowest cost part of operating the military. Who's going to pay that? I don't see any rich people volunteering to raise the military wage up to 1,300%. No president or member of Congress has ever suggested we meet market rate for military personnel, much less privatize it, which they could legally do without violating constitutional law, unlike the postal service. Why? Because the extreme majority of the defense budget goes to private companies who supply the military, not to military personnel, and when there finally is funding allocated for military members and their families (like desperately needed repairs to military housing and schools for military families) it can get poached by the executive branch to buy things from private contractors instead. 

But the postal service doesn't have that kind of budget, and they're required to make their own money, unlike the military. Why do you think that a service that primarily serves the people of the United States under mandate of the U.S. Constitution would be constantly attacked and threatened to be dismantled through profit-seeking behavior while a drastically more expensive public service that primarily serves to reinforce American diplomacy (which includes maintaining a level of control over international markets like the oil market, as well as supporting private companies inside and outside of the USA) and historically has almost never directly served the people of the United States in general but rather only the top echelons of society, is considered so sacred that even reducing funding is considered treason to some? 

Normally I'd go ahead and let you figure it out yourself but I'm gonna spell it out today: it's because the military is used to enrich the already rich to the detriment of those of us who serve in it. We, our lives, our minds, our bodies are sacrificed so they can increase their profit margins, but they can't figure out how to do that with the postal service. They can't figure out how to take something the Constitution of the United States of America dictates must exist and must serve the people of the United States and turn it into a way to bleed us for their benefit. 

They leave us with shoddy equipment while they pay billions every year to defense contractors to just make more shoddy equipment; when we tell them we need some equipment updated, they wait until it kills some of us before doing anything about it (See: USMC requests for upgraded amphibious vehicles *before* a catastrophic failure that resulted in multiple Marines and one Sailor dead); when we need our living spaces and the schools where our children spend most of their childhood to be fixed up because they've been left without proper maintenance for decades, they steal the money we finally get allocated for that for a pet project that went nowhere. 

And then when we've dedicated and sacrificed everything we can for our country and are left unable to function and need medications, supplies, and equipment to survive, they want to take that away too by cutting billions in funding to our healthcare while trying to dismantle the means by which we receive those things without having to have access to resources we just don't have access to because we're not rich, nor can we ever be, because we were so damaged by our time in service we can't even work an entry level job anymore. 

If you support privatizing the USPS before privatizing the military, which could theoretically improve the lives of military members as the market rate for their services is well above what they're being paid, then you do not support the military, you do not support service members and veterans, and you definitely do not support the Constitution of the United States of America. Bar none. 

God bless if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise nice day. 

On "Nobility," Ethics, And The "Claims Adjuster"

Recently, I came across some comments talking about the shooter who killed the United Healthcare CEO, who many online referred to as "the claims adjuster." Note that at this time, a young man who's family is fairly wealthy has been arrested and charged with the crime, but has not been convicted. That being said, a lot of people have been referring to him as "an entitled white kid" who "thought his feelings and problems were more important than anyone else's." I've seen this followed with a line that I found particularly damning: "He is not noble." 

Most people that are hailed as noble throughout history were anything but; nobility is largely a trait granted by those who never met the person, often those who were born long after the person died. 

We consider Winston Churchill noble, yet he sacrificed an entire city to protect his advantage in the war. We consider Theodore Roosevelt noble, yet he orchestrated the US control over the Americas that has led to so much death and destruction since (which incidentally led to the issues we have with immigration). We consider George Washington noble, but the man was a genocidal maniac as a military leader, seeking to slaughter men, women, and children among the indigenous peoples of North America. We consider Julius Caesar noble, a mass murdering narcissist who twisted the calendar so that he and his son could have months named after them during the middle of the year. 

Every "noble" person is a myth, as nobility is a myth. History doesn't count the noble, it does not even count the heroes, it doesn't even really count the winners. It counts who's left after the smoke clears, and often those who inspire or cause change, regardless of whether their intentions were noble or not, are the ones we view as heroes in the end. 

The entitled white kid in this case sacrificed everything he had to do what he did. All of his inheritance relied on him keeping a clean criminal record, yet he performed an act and kept evidence on his person that would ensure a felony conviction. Near as we can tell, he developed the plan, constructed the weapon, did all the research, and so much more all on his own because he wanted some kind of justice for what was done to him and literally millions like him. His stated reasoning was literally that the rich had taken too much, and they needed to pay, an intention that was shared by those we consider most noble in history, including Jesus of Nazareth who also committed acts of violence in the name of that intention. 

Is he noble? No, of course not. No one is. Nobility is literally just a myth perpetrated by archaic aristocracies to justify harming the poor. Is he moral? Depends on the system of ethics you're looking though, but for a person of privilege to sacrifice everything that granted him that privilege, to embrace the ruin of his life and likely to spend life incarcerated in order to spur on working class Americans toward class consciousness, which was pretty clearly stated in his "manifesto," it seems less ignoble than, for instance, leading a violent revolution that cost approximately 23,800 lives of those the revolutionaries were claiming to fight on behalf of (just under 1% of the total population of the colonies at the time) because of a tax on tea and then turning around and reinstituting slavery which condemned 15+ million people to fates most would consider worse than death. 

The purpose wasn't to avoid dealing with insurance nor was it to express pain, but that's the story corporate and political media will continue to tell. Just like they will continue to tell you that it's perfectly justified that a 42 year old woman poorly expressing frustration in the same way thousands do with insurance agents every day to be thrown in prison as a felon. 

I wonder who's bidding one is doing when they focus not on the intent, the message, the outcome, or the possible effects of an act of political violence but rather on vilifying the perpetrator to the point of drowning out all the rest. Is it the bidding of the working class, or the ruling class? Does it help those in need, or those who have so much that they're now afraid that people are aware of how much more they have than they could possible want, need, or use in dozens of lifetimes? And is it noble to do the work of the oppressors as one of the oppressed? 

I wanted to add a sarcastic ending here, something to the effect of "but that's all just useless philosophy, right?" but I think it's more important to be frank: if you're primary method of judging the nobility, morality, etc. of someone's actions is to listen to your economic superiors who control the media, you're not thinking for yourself. And if you consider a person's entire ethical worth to be able to be distilled into how the media treats them based on an action they took, you need to work harder to understanding your fellow human. 

I was trained to kill, and I hope I never have to use that training. I understand that killing is often unnecessary and therefore wrong, but it is also sometimes the best choice out of a myriad of other horrible options. I cannot say I support the killing of a CEO, but I can say I do not support the wealth gap that has grown so severe that some people have more liquid assets than they could possibly spend in several lifetimes while others die of starvation and exposure mere miles from where the rich live. I don't have a good fix for that other than the rich voluntarily giving up vast amounts of their wealth and resources to fix the system so that everyone can thrive, or as one man once said to the rich, "Sell all you have, and give to the poor." I would prefer that, to be honest. I'd gladly give everything I have for that. 

God Bless if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise nice day. 

To answer the question: do I believe that the United States is a Christian Nation?

I say this as a veteran, a Christian, and a moderate: The United States of America is not now, nor has ever been, a "Christian nation." You could maybe call it a "Christian-majority nation" in the same way we refer to some nations as "Muslim-majority nations," but that's still a bit of a stretch given that all sects of Christianity, which includes denominations that other denominations do not consider Christian in the slightest, make up only 70%, and the single largest denomination classification according to Pew is Evangelicals, who largely have a problem considering the second largest denomination classification, Catholic, Christian at all. 

I say the following as someone who was studying to become a chaplain, and thus studied a lot of biblical theology, church history, etc. Christian theocracy never functions well. If it functions for an extended time at all, it's so quickly corrupted and turned into something blatantly against the teachings of Christ as recorded in the Gospels that the only reason it's called Christian is to grant the people abusing their power more legitimacy. If the USA ever becomes a Christian theocracy, it will fall, and it won't be pretty. If that happened during my lifetime, I would gladly do whatever I can to follow through on my oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and no matter what, theocrats are an enemy of the First Amendment and thus the Constitution. 

And for those wondering where my loyalties would lie because I'm still Christian, Christ said to "give to Caesar (meaning the government) what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's." Last I checked, ethical and theological truth are God's, and law, politics, etc. belong to Caesar. Allowing Uncle Sam or any of his little cousins (state governments) to call the shots ethically or theologically is taking from God what is God's and giving it to Caesar, a blatant violation of the order Christians were called to maintain. Both my identity as a veteran and my identity as a Christian are in sync: the United States will not become a Christian theocracy if I can do anything to stop it from doing so, and I certainly hope I am not alone in that. And if it somehow does, and I can do nothing to stop it, I will consider the United States of America to have broken faith with anyone who swore any oath to the USA under the Constitution, and I will not defend her again. 

I hope I never have to follow through on those last bits. Like many who chose to become warfighters, I don't want war. I just know what to do with it if we have it. 

God Bless if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise great day. 

Regarding Texas HB 1147

 Take 11 minutes and watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_Px833tzfs

Here's my commentary, what I commented on the video:

As soon as I heard the "approved for use by the United States Military" I immediately knew what you meant. I was trained to use those tourniquets, and as much as they are useful for a full grown adult, you're right, if they're not generation 7 or later, they're not actually going to work on a child's limb, not as well as you'd need it to. They weren't made for children. They weren't made for domestic use at all; they were made to very slightly reduce the attrition rate we faced from IEDs and small arms fire.

As someone who volunteered to join the military during time of war, to say I find drafting third graders into a war we never should have had to fight in the first place abhorrent is such a massive understatement that I lack the words necessary to correct that error. And that's what this is. Conscription, without consent. And as the old man said:

“I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!”

If conscription of adults is a cost too high, which I believe it is, conscription of kids is several degrees of magnitude worse. Screw the Texas Legislature, screw the GOP, screw the NRA. They wanna turn out schools into war zones, I say we treat them the same as any soldier who was so derelict in their duty that children needlessly died. And I will gladly volunteer to join the squad necessary to carry that treatment out.

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I shouldn't need to explain why this bothers me. I shouldn't need to explain why the concept that any government in the USA would consider or allow this before considering obvious alternatives is horrifying. I shouldn't need to point out that this is not even the first war that the GOP in Texas has drafted kids into on our own soil.

But for some reason I do.

If you care about anything outside of yourself, do something to push back against all of this madness, please. 

Thanks for reading. God Bless if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise nice day. 

To them, this is war. What will it be for us?

 "War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." - Carl von Clausewitz in "Vom Krieg" AKA "On War" as translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. 

"Force" is defined as "Power, violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon or against a person or thing. Power dynamically considered, that is, in motion or in action; constraining power, compulsion; strength directed to an end." per West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2.

A shorter version of the term is offered by the free legal dictionary provided by US Legal inc: "Force means power, violence, or pressure directed against a person or thing. Force is a compulsion by physical means or by legal requirement."

Force includes legal compulsion. I want you to understand that before I continue. Force includes using the law to require you to do something you would otherwise prefer not to, or to not do something you would otherwise prefer to do. 

For the last couple decades, a large number of legislators and talking heads have made anyone seeking justice from discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexuality, gender, or any number of other statuses into their enemy. They have said they "hate America" and are "trying to destroy America." That is not an opponent, or a colleague, that is an enemy. 

Those legislators and their party members have a lot of power right now, most of it at the state level. They are using legal force to compel their enemies to do their will. Their will includes: emplacing theocratic restrictions on personal actions, forced indoctrination of children with religious and nationalistic ideals, and forced denial of non-conforming ideologies, identities, and forms of expression.

Yesterday, we saw one of the most common occurrences in war: collateral damage. That's a nice, clean term that we use to talk about people who shouldn't have died dying. 

The thing is, to those who support those restrictions on freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and just freedom to be yourself, but insist on the corporate freedom to sell firearms to whomever they want (because that's really it. I hate to break it to you, but it's not about your right to own a gun, that's why they only put up a token resistance against ghost-gun bans, it's about selling you firearms), they're at war. They don't care about the LGBTQ+ youth that will be pushed to dying by suicide because of their draconian laws. They don't care about the women, many of them already mothers, who will die because they can't access safe abortions. They don't care about those who starve to death or die from exposure due to their lack of comprehensive social programs. They don't care about those who die because they legitimately can't face a life choosing between crippling debt and another day of unending pain because their health insurance company doesn't cover them. They don't care about those who die because law enforcement standards are so low that they're not actually capable of handling stressful situations half as well as a gas station employee. And frankly, they don't care about the children who died yesterday, not enough to change the heading they're on. 

They've treated this like a war for a long time, and it's time we begin to acknowledge that. We don't have to stoop to their level. We don't have to return force for force. There may yet be another way to save those they are willing to sacrifice. But we need to be honest with ourselves. They see this as a war, and they will accept nothing less than victory. 

How I identify a war in this case: presence of casualties, presence of collateral damage, use of tactics common to other socioeconomic wars, vilification of dissent, absolutist views on issues to the point that any budging is views as traitorous (see: Ted Cruz vs Tucker Carlson on the terrorists who stormed the capitol), and the proposal to increase the number of troops on the ground. 

You may be wondering what I mean by that last part. They want to arm teachers. They want to arm other school staff. They want to increase the number of armed individuals inside schools in general. They have expanded access to firearms to the general public over and over. They love the phrase "An armed society is a polite society." 

When your policy is to make any conflict as deadly and bloody as possible, rather than trying to preclude violence in the first place, you're on a war footing. 

I don't honestly know what to do, but I know what war is, I was trained to fight war, I have studied war much more than the average American, and this, at least to them, is war. We need a sanity check, and fast, or else we'll lose too much to be able to recover afterwards. 

May God have mercy on us, for our leaders apparently will not. 

When national leadership is worse than Benny from Fallout: New Vegas...

I've noticed a common thread among how the GOP seems to be treating all of their culture war issues. Short version: they're cowards that welcome the death of others. To use a term from the character Benny from Fallout: New Vegas, they're finks.

Allow me to explain: every major culture war issue they've been pushing for the last couple decades has had to do with things that reduce deaths due to exposure, starvation, overdose, and suicide. In all of those cases, the GOP tries to legislate the things that help reduce those deaths out of existence, but claims the likely resulting deaths are a completely unrelated phenomenon. 

Let's go through examples. 

First, and a very old one, the war on drugs. The GOP loves to legislate drug users into criminality, claiming it's for their own good and the good of society, but they generally refuse to hold major drug dealers in the USA, like pharmaceutical companies, remotely responsible for the deaths they've caused, and they ignore both the causes and effects of drug use. The GOP has raised barriers to access mental health services, most notably by increasing the barriers between veterans and the mental health services they need, all while claiming that it's about "fiscal responsibility."

In recent years, the GOP has taken to attacking programs and policies proven to reduce deaths due to overdose and other drug abuse related conditions, like clean injection sites, increased funding for psychological treatment of addiction disorder, etc. They don't want to help those people, but they'll claim that the people who die as a result of the lack of access to these programs are the only ones at fault. 

Second, let's look at LGBTQ+ rights. Every success to secure LGBTQ+ rights has resulted in a (sometimes temporary) drop in LGBTQ+ suicides. Gay marriage bans killed people, bans on gender affirming care will kill people, anti-sodomy laws killed people. The GOP doesn't care, because they want the control, they think that they have the right to become the arbiter of morality and those that don't align with their preconceived notions can die for all they care. 

Third, let's look at the most recently reborn controversy: abortion. Now, if you know me, you know I don't like abortions. Aside from a few exceptions, I generally consider them most likely immoral. That being said, I do view the issue as an ethical/moral one, not a legal one. God gets to decide what's moral, not our government. You can hate me all you want, but let's explain why. 

A ban on abortion alone will not reduce abortions significantly, we've seen that in the past, and we've seen it recently with the latest attempts to ban abortion in the USA. It leads to a temporary drop in abortions followed by an increase in early-term abortions. A complete ban would just result in a higher fatality rate for abortions as they won't be done safely. These are all scientifically and historically verifiable facts. 

A truly pro-life solution would require any ban on abortion to be tied to an increase in access to contraceptives, an increase in education spending, and increase in medical care funding for potential parents and children, an increase in social safety nets, and a social campaign to increase adoption after the age of two. None of these are part of the GOP platform, and in fact, most are specifically denied by GOP legislators. Their excuse? "That's a completely different argument."

So since they're not willing to look at these things realistically, to acknowledge that their morality-based legislation is likely to kill people, they're just "letting them" die. And who is most likely to be affected by these bans? The poor, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, etc. People that, according to GOP officials, vote for their opposition. 

This isn't a new concept, they're just trying to select their voters so the don't have to face the possibilities of voters not selecting them. They do this by making things related to Democrat policies felonies, like sleeping in a public park (homelessness), providing gender-affirming care to your offspring, being a longer-term victim of human trafficking (they can legally be treated as prostitutes, drug users, and sometimes drug dealers), and in most GOP-run states, you can't vote as a felon, even after you finish your sentence, at least not without jumping through some crazy hoops. 

They also like to select their voters through gerrymandering, selecting the requirements for voting to make it easier for those likely to vote GOP to vote (For instance, in Texas you can vote with a handgun license but not with a student ID), and increasing barriers to vote in areas that generally vote against them (reducing polling locations, hours, etc.) 

This is just another branch on that same tree; they're trying to select their voters by making it more likely that those who would vote against them don't survive until the next election. They're doing this not only to adults, but to minors, with their policies increasing the suicide rate for LGBTQ+ youth significantly. They won't take the time to actually look them in the face before they kill them, and they'll claim it was all the victim's fault, because they're cowards, but make no mistake, at the very least they consider excess deaths to be a reasonable cost for their policies to be put in place. 

Even Benny knew better than to do this. To paraphrase "Maybe the GOP-types kill people without looking them in the eye, but I ain't a fink... dig?" Even Benny, who is far from a good person, would have the honor to admit to someone who killed them. When you're worse than Benny, are you really doing the right thing? 

That's all for now. God Bless you if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise nice day. 

- Draknus

GOP vs Veterans in the 2021-2022 House of Representatives.

I've been having a lot of people who keep telling me that the GOP is the pro-veteran party. There is no pro-veteran party, we're treated as pawns by both, but right now the GOP is definitely the worse of the two, so I decided to show that using just the current House of Representatives. This is written by me, and is my view, but is based very heavily in fact. 

I would like to start by saying that I am a veteran of the United States Army and the Wisconsin Army National guard. I am a disabled veteran, with a 100% Permanent and Total Service-connected disability rating. In layman's terms, this means that due to what happened to me while in uniform, I can no longer work, or really function all that well. 

In the current House of Representatives, most representatives are on record voting on seven major bills that affect veterans. During that time, there were many bills passed in the House or voted on in the House without a roll-call vote, meaning his position on those can only be ascertained by his recollection and statements. In the future, I certainly will support a push to have all bills in both houses of Congress be voted on with roll-call votes. I know it takes more time, but I want my congressmen's votes on the record. 

Of the seven bills that primarily focused on veterans issues, the majority of the GOP voted Yea three times, and Nay four. Let's cover them, Yea's first. 

The first one is a pretty easy one to understand: Rep. Fitzgerald coted Yea on H.R. 5293, the "Department of Veterans Affairs Expiring Authorities Act." This bill proposed to extend certain authorities granted to the VA during the COVID pandemic. The vote was held on September 20th, 2021, and was effectively unanimous (423 Yea, 8 not voting)

The second one passed with a similar vote. This was H. R. 4233, the "Student Veterans Counseling Centers Eligibility Act." This bill requires the VA to furnish counseling services for veterans or current members of the armed forces using certain education benefits. It was very popular, with 420 Yea, 4 Nay, and 9 not voting. Nearly unanimous. 

The third and final Yea that I can confirm is for H.R. 147, the "Bringing Registered Apprenticeships to Veterans Education Act," or the BRAVE Act. This is a good law, requiring the Department of Labor to coordinate with the VA to provide information to service members leaving the service and veterans regarding apprenticeship programs, which is a great way to learn a trade. It was also passed with effective unanimity, 427 Yeas and 6 not voting. 

Notice the trend in these three bills: they were all nearly unanimous. The only effect his nay vote could have had would be to paint a target on any representative's back. It took no courage or conviction to vote Yea, it was effectively a matter of course. 

Now onto the Nays, which are the real problem. 

Let's start with the one that his voters are most likely to blindly agree with him on, regardless of the facts: H.R. 239, the "Equal Access to Contraception for Veterans Act." According to the official summary, "This bill prohibits the Department of Veterans Affairs from requiring payment from a veteran for any contraceptive item that is required to be covered by health insurance plans without a cost-sharing requirement." It's a pretty short bill, less than a full page when you read the bare text, and the summary is painfully accurate. 

Why would GOP voters blindly agree to that vote? Because government payment of contraception as a whole has been vilified by the GOP, by and large, as funding abortions. That's not the actual case, but since when have politicians allowed facts to interfere with their narrative? 

Next up is H.R. 1836, the "Guard and Reserve GI Bill Parity Act." This was a response to the massive amount of time states have been requiring of their National Guard members to assist in handling the pandemic. It expands the types of hours you can serve that count toward your GI Bill benefits to include training, active military service, inactive training, and general duty for which basic pay is warranted. This would effectively open up National Guard members who are mobilized by their governor but not working for the federal government to get GI Bill benefits for that service. 

Many GOP Reps' no votes here starts to show the pattern you'll find with his treatment of veterans: the only explanation I can find for why 135 GOP Representatives would vote against this bill is "fiscal responsibility," meaning money. This wouldn't just help "blue state" National Guards. Right now there are National Guard members being generally mistreated in Texas after being mobilized by their governor, who are not qualifying for GI Bill benefits for that service yet because the bill has not yet been passed into law. This would help them too. That doesn't matter to those that voted against it, the fraction of a percent in potentially increased budget does. 

These last two are particularly galling, and you'll see why as I explain. 

The most recent Nay vote from the majority of the GOP against helping veterans came in regards to H.R. 3967, the "Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxins Act of 2021," or the "Honoring our PACT Act." This one is fairly complicated, but the gist of it is effectively requiring the VA to consider veterans who participated in toxic exposure risk activity, possibly including proximity to burn pits, to be eligible for VA healthcare benefits. It's complicated because it has to amend a lot of sections of laws regarding the VA, and specifically calls for a lot of research regarding the effects of toxic exposure, which also requires funding. 

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would likely result in an increase in direct direct spending of about $72.3 billion between 2022-2026, or a grand total of about $207.5 billion over the course of 10 years. That averages out to less than one third of one percent of the 2021 budget each year. Those GOP Reps that spoke on the house floor about this bill made it clear that they considered "fiscal responsibility," again that means money, more important than this. 

Finally, there's H.R. 4673, which you've seen me mention before. The "Ensuring Veterans' Smooth Transition Act," or "EVEST Act." It's a short bill, fairly simple. All it does is require the VA to automatically enroll veterans who are *already* eligible for VA healthcare benefits into the VA Healthcare system, and provide a means by which to opt-out. To simplify: it changes VA benefits into an opt-out system rather than opt-in. 

Why is this so important? Because it takes veterans months, sometimes years, to get access to VA Benefits they are eligible for under the current opt-in system, because it's not a simple opt-in. I've rarely come across a veteran that was able to apply for benefits themselves and actually get benefits. Most veterans I know, including myself and my father, have to go through what's called a Veterans Service Organization, or VSO. VSOs basically function as lawyers and legal clerks for veterans applying for benefits. 

Let that sink in for a moment. In order to get healthcare benefits we were promised should something go wrong, as it so often does, we have to get legal help. We have to fight, sometimes in court, to get the benefits we deserve. That's part of why VA claims are so backed up, because they have to go through a convoluted system that's meant to restrict access to VA healthcare benefits to as few veterans as possible. 

According to the CBO, over the course of five years, that bill would cost the federal government about $3.1 billion. That's about $620 million per year, which would increase the federal budget by about one one-hundredth of a percent. To put that in an annoying perspective, in 2016 the Government Accountability Office published a report showing that non-military government agencies spent $652 million, about $32 million more than what the EVEST Act would cost us in a year, on using their own aircraft in fiscal year 2015. We're paying more money to allow federal employees to avoid commercial flights and/or avoid using commercial logistical transport than we would need to cut red tape for tens of thousands of future veterans. 

The majority of GOP Representatives do not effectively support veterans. Instead, he values money over proper care of veterans. I am so tired of them using my service, sacrifice, and suffering, and that of my fellow veterans, for political talking points and then when the rubber hits the road, they can't be bothered to even vote in our favor. Both parties use us, but right now, only one party has a majority of their members in Congress actively supporting bills that help us. 

I refuse to tell you how to vote, but I think actual voting records should matter, and when it comes down to it, when their choice might actually make a difference, GOP Reps can't put our money where their mouths are. 

Bills Mentioned

H.R. 5293 - Department of Veterans Affairs Expiring Authorities Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5293

H.R. 4233 - Student Veterans Counseling Centers Eligibility Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4233

H.R. 147 - Bringing Registered Apprenticeships to Veterans Education Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/147

H.R. 239 - Equal Access to Contraception for Veterans Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/239

H.R. 1836 - Guard and Reserve GI Bill Parity Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1836

H.R. 3967 - Honoring our PACT Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3967

H.R. 4673 - Ensuring Veterans' Smooth Transition Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4673