In America, you can take a knee and not be put away. Sure, some people can be against you for it, but if they weren't, then you wouldn't have to take a knee.
The question you should be asking is not should they or shouldn't they. But "Why do some Americans feel the need to make a statement like this?" And then, "What do we need to do to fix it?"
The men and women of the Armed Forces defend our freedom to take knees if we want and are proud of their job and I don't know a single person who doesn't support them. Standing up for the flag does not equal supporting our troops. I was a troop once, and I support both the troops (past, present and future), and the need to improve our treatment of minorities and immigrants in this country and the right (and responsibility) for citizens to speak their mind as they see fit with whatever platform they have.
A president who singles out individuals for his harassment, on the other hand is anathema to his office and good leadership in general. I've always stood during the National Anthem, Pledge, etc., because the flag does not represent Trump, and he is definitely not representing America or our values.
To me, the flag, the Anthem and the Pledge are symbols of our aspiration to live up to our values. We want to be a more perfect union, we want to liberty and justice for all. We want our country to be a beacon of hope to the world and a leader by example: strong, firm, compassionate, inclusive, resolute, innovative. Not shrill, strident, peevish, defensive, flip-floppy, fear-driven, hyper-reactive.
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
What We All REALLY CAN Agree On. Let's Start There.
1. It would be nice if more and more people had decent health insurance every year. Maybe we could figure out how to make that happen.
2. It would be great if we could put more of our money toward educating our young than incarcerating our adults. Let's find a way to systematically shift every dollar spent on prisons and jails to educating and meeting the mental health needs of children.
3. Discrimination sucks. It brings people down for no reason. It never brings people up. Let's continue to fight for fair treatment for humans, and humane treatment to animals. Death to mosquitoes!
4. Trust in government is important, so fighting corruption and increasing transparency is vital.
5. People having faith in the electoral system is an important factor to trust in government. Everything we can do to make it more transparent and secure is worth it. Things to take a really good look at: The Electoral College, Gerrymandering, Term Limits, and Citizens United.
6. Our workforce must meet today's needs. People need to be thinking about the future when they start their careers, with a viable plan B always there in case something happens to the industry, job, etc. This is more important every day as we see automation and AI taking on more and more. Examples: Online banking and learning (changes the role and focus of teachers from purveyors of information to facilitators of learning techniques and critical thinking)
7. Education can be greatly improved: What we teach, how we teach, when and where we teach. All are due for some serious overhauls.
2. It would be great if we could put more of our money toward educating our young than incarcerating our adults. Let's find a way to systematically shift every dollar spent on prisons and jails to educating and meeting the mental health needs of children.
3. Discrimination sucks. It brings people down for no reason. It never brings people up. Let's continue to fight for fair treatment for humans, and humane treatment to animals. Death to mosquitoes!
4. Trust in government is important, so fighting corruption and increasing transparency is vital.
5. People having faith in the electoral system is an important factor to trust in government. Everything we can do to make it more transparent and secure is worth it. Things to take a really good look at: The Electoral College, Gerrymandering, Term Limits, and Citizens United.
6. Our workforce must meet today's needs. People need to be thinking about the future when they start their careers, with a viable plan B always there in case something happens to the industry, job, etc. This is more important every day as we see automation and AI taking on more and more. Examples: Online banking and learning (changes the role and focus of teachers from purveyors of information to facilitators of learning techniques and critical thinking)
7. Education can be greatly improved: What we teach, how we teach, when and where we teach. All are due for some serious overhauls.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Non-Partisan DACA Reality
DACA was enacted with the full knowledge by the President at the time of its borderline legality. He chose to proceed, I assume, because it was better than the alternative of not acting to support those who fell under the provisions: children brought here as minors. With Congress locked into its ridiculous "oppose everything the president does, have no real plan of your own", the sort of immigration reform that we all know needs to happen through actual legislation was an obvious non-starter.
So, along comes a new president who campaigned on undoing everything Obama did, and who proceeds to live up to his promise, sets some dumb time-frame within which Congress is now supposed to come up with a solution... Yes, its tragic.
But what can we all agree on? How about this: we enact an immigration policy that allows enough hungry, wanna-be Americans in so we can continue to employ people do keep our country going, we provide an environment of welcome to those people so they want to integrate as productive citizens/residents who wish to contribute to and benefit from what our country has to offer, who don't feel outcast and ripen for radicalization, but rather have a real hope of climbing whatever they see as the ladder of success to achieve some idea of their American dream.
I don't think anyone wants to eliminate the boarders, so find a way to police that humanely, but make the pathway to becoming an American citizen/legal resident straight-forward and viable so it makes sense. That's a tough thing to do, but with thoughtful, minimally racist (inasmuch as that's possible) people working hard, listening to the arguments all around the dial, and coming up with a solution that accomplishes our immigration goals, it's not impossible. It will never be perfect -- that's not the universe we live in -- but it can be good, and we can work to improve it as we watch the results of our initial efforts closely.
Our brainless political hatred (liberal versus conservative) in this country is making this a horrendous non-starter, so we've got to be busting that shit up. It's going to take a willingness to admit where we've been wrong and where the opposition has been right, although the right is going to have to move a little further than the left to the left than the left will to the right. You know it, but the left has started to adopt the unquestioned hatred for everything the opposition does regardless of merits (though admittedly, there's not much happening on the right these days that doesn't deserve heavy derision, but where it exists, the left needs to give credit where it's due, even if there are some disagreements about the details).
So, along comes a new president who campaigned on undoing everything Obama did, and who proceeds to live up to his promise, sets some dumb time-frame within which Congress is now supposed to come up with a solution... Yes, its tragic.
But what can we all agree on? How about this: we enact an immigration policy that allows enough hungry, wanna-be Americans in so we can continue to employ people do keep our country going, we provide an environment of welcome to those people so they want to integrate as productive citizens/residents who wish to contribute to and benefit from what our country has to offer, who don't feel outcast and ripen for radicalization, but rather have a real hope of climbing whatever they see as the ladder of success to achieve some idea of their American dream.
I don't think anyone wants to eliminate the boarders, so find a way to police that humanely, but make the pathway to becoming an American citizen/legal resident straight-forward and viable so it makes sense. That's a tough thing to do, but with thoughtful, minimally racist (inasmuch as that's possible) people working hard, listening to the arguments all around the dial, and coming up with a solution that accomplishes our immigration goals, it's not impossible. It will never be perfect -- that's not the universe we live in -- but it can be good, and we can work to improve it as we watch the results of our initial efforts closely.
Our brainless political hatred (liberal versus conservative) in this country is making this a horrendous non-starter, so we've got to be busting that shit up. It's going to take a willingness to admit where we've been wrong and where the opposition has been right, although the right is going to have to move a little further than the left to the left than the left will to the right. You know it, but the left has started to adopt the unquestioned hatred for everything the opposition does regardless of merits (though admittedly, there's not much happening on the right these days that doesn't deserve heavy derision, but where it exists, the left needs to give credit where it's due, even if there are some disagreements about the details).
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