Everyone is the Hero of Their Own Story

I am so over the Hamilton incident. For those of you who read this and haven't heard, VP Elect Mike Pence was booed and jeered at during and after a performance of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton while out for a night at the theater in New York City. After the show, the cast (who all are Hillary supporters, incidentally) delivered a statement to the VP elect that reads as follows, from fortune.com:

“We have a message for you, sir. We hope that you will hear us out,” he said. “Vice President-elect Pence, we welcome you, and we truly thank you for joining us here at Hamilton: An American Musical. We really do. We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us, all of us. … We truly thank you for sharing this show — this wonderful American story told by a diverse group of men, women, of different colors, creeds, and orientations.”

The actor in question, Brandon Victor Dixon, delivered the statement to raucous applause from the audience. I can only presume that, this being New York City and based on that reaction, the audience had a majority of Hillary supporters there that night. That's nothing more than an educated guess, but the evidence is there. I have a special problem with a specific part of this statement, however. Specifically, this part:

We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us, all of us.

Do you notice what he said there? The "diverse America" that was "alarmed and anxious" that Mike Pence and Donald Trump would not work to protect the civil rights of all Americans. I don't seem to recall the Left questioning the last administration about whether or not they would work to ensure the rights of "all Americans" who are a part of this "diverse America" of which Dixon was speaking. My question is this: Why is the left anxious and alarmed when a Republican is in office, but not when a Democrat is in office? 

I cannot for the life of me understand why the political left constantly paints Conservatives as the villain. Or, at least, that was the case until I remembered an adage about storytelling that I heard several years ago. Namely, everyone is the hero of their own story. We constantly hear about how the Democrats are the party of the people and how they value the working class. They see themselves as heroes. But how are heroes defined? Heroes are defined by their villains. Every good hero is defined by their villains. Iron Man has The Mandarin and others like Crimson Dynamo and Justin Hammer. Captain America has the likes of Red Skull, Baron Zemo, and Arnim Zola. The Hulk has the Leader and the Abomination, and modern liberals have modern Conservatives.

I've been actively following political news since 2008, when Barack Obama's administration took power from George W. Bush. What I remember of that time is a turbulent eight years full of far left political shenanigans, chicanery, and trickery to pass every pet project the Democrats had in development for decades. Universal Health Care, amnesty for illegal immigrants, the whole shebang. And they attacked it with gusto for two years. Until the first Big Red Wave of 2010. During that time, and for the next six years afterwards, I heard the word "racist" more than at any other time in my life, and I heard it most often regarding Conservatives, coming from the mouths of loud and proud liberals. Why was this, I continually asked myself? I agonized over this question for eight years until recently, when the simple answer hit me like a ton of bricks: Democrats see themselves as heroes of the working class, but every hero needs a villain. To liberals, those villains are conservatives. Don't believe me? Check out a few of these quotes from the last administration's biggest supporters:

Starting first with Jay Rockefeller, the now-retired Democratic Senator from West Virginia in 2014:Opposition to Obamacare is because people made up their mind they don’t like President Obama because of his color … or something of that sort.

The video of said quote can be found here.

Or how about this gem:

"This is about hating a black man. This is racism, straight up..."

-Jeneane Garofalo in 2010, regarding the then-emerging TEA Party protests against Obamacare,

And under the rule of three, here's this final gem:

“We saw in droves, you know, the Latino community moving over to the Democratic Party largely because of the tone. You have even Republicans in the Republican Party who are Latino just disgusted with the tone. These guys have to be very, very careful. The other thing that these guys know is that those, you know, crazy crackers on the right, like if they art with their very hateful language, that is going to kill them in the same way that they learned at their little retreat that let’s not talk about rape.”

- Karen Finney, 

Demonstrating a complete lack of self-awareness on MSNBC’s Now w/ Alex Wagner

January 29, 2013 | Tags: immigration, racist | Target(s): Conservatives / Republicans | Quote Source (Hat-tip) • Quote Video • Permalink

This is just a few examples, but the point is clear. Democrats are determined to paint Conservatives and Republicans as racists, and the reason is that since Democrats are the heroes in the story they wish to tell, Conservatives MUST be the villains. Anyone who might be considered a "good" Republican in the story Democrats are telling must subscribe to the Democrat way of thinking in all things, including political positions on the issues, and the only alternative to that is that they must be "bad." There can be no acknowledgement of any other alternative to explain the Conservative viewpoint, or it makes the Democrats look less heroic and thus makes them, in their minds, less appealing as a party of the working class. This they cannot abide, and so they put that narrative first, no matter the cost.

This brings us back to Mr. Dixon, who clearly did not seek to offend during his lecture, but simply make his voice heard as is his right. Whether the stage and the theater was an appropriate venue for that sort of message is best left to another post. Appropriateness aside, the reason Dixon feels "scared and anxious" about Mike Pence and Donald Trump is because for decades now, Democrats have painted Republicans as the villains in their particular story, and like anyone else, Mr. Dixon does not wish to be a target of his story's villains. No one wants to be a target of the villain in a story. That's part of what makes them the villain. Dixon no doubt feels he has legitimate fears that needed to be addressed, whether  or not that is true. I don't begrudge him wanting to ensure that they protect his rights as an American citizen, however rude I find his choice of delivery for that message.

That all Conservatives everywhere are racist is utter hogwash to anyone with an ounce of common sense. Differing policy ideas do not equate to a hatred of those who disagree with those policy ideas. Logical and reasonable people, both Democrat and Republican, Conservative and Liberal, understand this. We are all Americans, and that a party who holds differing views on how to solve the country's problems is now in power does not mean that the supporters of the losing side are suddenly in the crosshairs. I hope that Mr. Dixon comes to understand this in the next four years. I hope many people come to understand that Donald Trump, despite his faults, is not Hitler come again. He is not Pol Pot. He is not Joseph Stalin. He will serve his four years and either run for reelection or retire from the office. We will still exist as a country and the next president's administration will begin. We will go on. Life will not end within the next four years.

There are still a great deal more stories to tell in this land we call America.

President Elect Trump to Officially Announce Cabinet Appointments Friday

There has, understandably, been a lot of talk about President Elect Donald Trump's cabinet picks over the last few days. Rumors abound about who will take what position, and how soon they'll take it. thus far, only three appointments are reasonably certain at this point: Attorney General, National Security Advisor, and CIA Director. Respectfully, the three men most likely to be chosen for these positions are: Senator Jeff Sessions, Lt. General Michael T. Flynn, and Mike Pompeo.

Senator Sessions's appointment is already causing the Democrats to cry "RAAAAACIST!" due to some allegations made by then-Senator Joe Biden in the eighties under Ronald Reagan's tenure as Chief Executive. The New York Times's article on the subject is refreshingly neutral in tone, though they do make a big deal about allegations presented during Sessions's ill-fated confirmation hearings by the Judiciary Committee about supposedly calling a black man "boy" and referring to the NAACP and other civil rights groups as un-American. This humble blogger has not found any proof regarding the allegations being true or not, so innocent till proven guilty in my book. Even if he did say such things, though, it doesn't mean he isn't a good pick for the job of AG. The website ontheissues.com states that Sessions has a 0% rating by NARAL and 20% by the ACLU, indicating that he won't be a friend of theirs when and if he accepts the position. So far so good.

I already voiced my approval of Michale Flynn as National Security Advisor based on his credentials here.

Which leaves Congressman Mike Pompeo. Pompeo has been offered the post of CIA director by President Elect Trump, as mentioned above. Let's see how he measures up. According to ontheissues.com:

Click here for 4 full quotes on Homeland Security OR background on Homeland Security. Commit to strong national defense. (Nov 2010) Voted YES on extending the PATRIOT Act's roving wiretaps. (Feb 2011) Sponsored opposing the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. (Mar 2013) No transfers of Gitmo prisoners to US or abroad. (Jan 2015) There seems to be a running theme with the three men, in that their immigration stances all run pretty close together in terms of similarity. In this humble blogger's opinion, The Donald is shaping up his administration so that it'll be easier to build the wall.

Donald Trump's First Cabinet Pick?

I've been a rather avid follower and commentor at Chicks on the Right since their founding in 2008, at the beginning of the Obama years. They were a breath of fresh, humorous, Conservative air in a toxic atmosphere of Leftist propaganda and ridicule,which is why I still follow them now. If you read this and haven't given them a visit, you can do so here.

According to them, President Elect Donald Trump has offered the position of National Security Adviser to Lt. General Michael Flynn. Who is that, you may be asking, if you're as ignorant of Trump's cabinet choices as I am, so here's the scoop:

Wikipedia has him listed as former director of the DIA from 2012 to 2014, commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, and chair of the Military Intelligence Board from July 24, 2012, to August 2, 2014. Prior to that, he served as Assistant Director of National Intelligence.

I would say this gives him a host of credentials that make him at least an adequate choice for the job. Given Trump's reported history of choosing competent people to delegate decisions to, I'd say this is a good sign based on that. Word has yet to come as to whether or not Lt. General Flynn has accepted or declined, but I have a feeling we'll be hearing about that within the next few days, or possibly weeks.

The LGBTQ Community is Afraid of William Pryor. Who is William Pryor?

Someone named William Pryor is currently on the short list for President Elect Donald Trump's pick for the Supreme Court. This is, admittedly, the first time I've heard of this man, so I did a little digging trying to find out who he was. A quick Google search reveals that the LGBTQ folks are up in arms over the mere possibility of this man becoming a Supreme Court Justice, so I decided to find out why. Here's what I found:

Gay advocacy site The Gaily Grind has claimed that Judge Pryor believes gays should be jailed simply for...being gay. Looking a little further into the matter, I discovered that their idea that this man wants such a thing is because of a legal brief in which Judge Pryor wrote that there is no fundamental right to homosexual sex, and that he upheld a Texas anti-sodomy law on that basis.

Lambdalegal.com also believes this to be the reason Pryor is unfit to judge, but offers nothing tangible other than that single legal brief and the anti-sodomy law that was, I found out, struck down by the Supreme Court ruing on Lawrence v. Texas. The actual quote provided in regards to said sodomy law, however, reveals a different story:

"Petitioners' protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, a constitutional right that protects "the choice of one's partner" and "whether and how to connect sexually" must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia," Brief of the States of Alabama, South Carolina, and Utah as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondent, Lawrence v. Texas, No. 02-102

An objective observer can see from that quote alone that Judge Pryor is not saying that homosexuals should be jailed for for simply existing, as The Gaily Grind's headline and article claim. Rather, a more objective look at the quote tells us that Judge Pryor is saying simply that in order for the argument of a constitutional right to homosexual behavior to hold water, we must also apply that logic to other sexual activities such as the above listed in the quote. In order for a statement to be logically sound, it has to hold up in more than just one instance, and the idea of a constitutional right to be gay means that there also has to be a constitutional right to those, and a host of other behaviors for which there exists no inherent constitutional right.

I would have used a different list of behaviors, honestly, but the argument is still sound, and has nothing to do with jailing anyone. In fact further looking into the linked Wikipedia entry at the beginning of this post, it seems that above all, Pryor puts the written law above personal feelings, just as a judge is supposed to do. The following quote sums it up rather nicely:

Pryor received national attention in 2003 when he called for the removal of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who had disobeyed a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building. Pryor said that although he agreed with the propriety of displaying the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, he was bound to follow the court order and uphold the rule of law. Pryor personally prosecuted Moore for violations of the Canons of Judicial Ethics, and the Alabama Court of the Judiciary unanimously removed Moore from office.^[5]

Hardly the attitude of an anti-gay theocrat tyrant, wouldn't you say?

In fact, the only sites I see decrying the possible appointment of Pryor are severely biased left-wing  and pro-LGBT sites such as Advocate, Gaily Grind, Pinknews, and others. To me, this smacks of simple fear mongering and paranoia over the unknown. There is no evidence anywhere that I know of, whether verbal or written, to suggest that the claim is true. More evidence to suggest that fears over William Pryor are unjustified can be found in the supposed "story" of William Pryor posing for a gay magazine a couple of decades ago. Well, Snopes has a few things to say about that.