Constitutional value

I am cruising along on a popular social media site and I am seeing a large influx of anti-freedom images.  More specifically, there are images of people standing on the flag, chanting in support of ignorance with regard to NC’s new trans-phobic law, and a certain group of lawmakers refusing to do their jobs.  One may question how these things related. They are all matters of Constitutional significance.

As for the images of a person (whether they are white, black, yellow, or red) standing on the flag, I do not support their decision to do that but I respect their right to do so.  The first amendment to the Constitution protects individual expression of their beliefs.  It does not say that it only protects those who are just and upstanding citizens, demonstrating their undying patriotism.  I am not agreeing that these people should be standing on the flag, but that I agree that it is their right to do so.  You can call me un-American if you like.  That is the beauty of living in the US.  You can have your opinion, no matter how skewed I feel it is, and it is ok.   

As for the NC trans-phobic law, I feel that it violates the 14^th amendment by singling out a distinct set of individuals and setting them aside, opening them up for not only embarrassment for bringing to light that they pee just like you, but also for making them feel like they are violating their instinct.  I would like to see businesses making unisex restrooms in public places.  We as Americans have a difficult time letting go of our puritan roots.  This is the 21^st century folks.  What are we going to do when ET visits...show them how we discriminate and segregate our population based on how they pee?  Sounds ridiculous does it not.  Yes, bathrooms have long been the fodder of sexual predators.  In my own experience, I have seen my share of public restroom sex.  Changing the gender of the participants will not likely do anything to increase or decrease this activity.  Honestly, these people just want to pee in a comfortable environment.

As for the lawmakers, where do I begin?  I guess I begin with regard to the latest obstructionism…Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution provides that the president "shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... judges of the Supreme Court."  The president has done his part.  The Senate needs to do their job and hear the nomination and either confirm or deny the nomination.  By refusing to hear the nomination, they are blatantly shredding the Constitution by conveniently discarding 250 years of precedent and obstructing the president as it has the entire last 7 years.  The job of the senate is to make laws.  The job of the Supreme Court is to interpret those laws.  Nearly every challenge brought against the policies of the president resulted in a constitutionally sound verdict.  You people lost.  Let it go already. 

The US Constitution is the single greatest document ever created in the history of the world.  It is the basis of the establishment of freedom for the United States and all of its parts.  The many amendments account for the changing views of the populace, and even having been re-amended to remove certain amendments.  The flexibility of the document is its greatest strength. 

All of these items are just my opinion based on the information I have available to me today.  By no means am I being disrespectful to any group or organization. 

Love is love

Today there is an unprecedented amount of gay themed music out there.  Seems like every other day I am discovering yet another musician that I love…but there is one problem.  The overwhelming theme is that of covert trysts and secret longing.  Yes, this is a great time to be alive and gay…but is this really the message we want to sell, that to be gay means secretly longing for your best friend or meeting after dark so nobody sees? 

It is true that gay men sometimes fall in love with someone that will never return that affection.  It is also true that straight men will fall for a woman the same way.  Where I have a problem is that in the majority of cases, the woman, even if uninterested, will express thanks and be made to feel special.  The gay guy is more likely to end up beaten black and blue or yelled at and demeaned, at least, for expressing the same thing. 

I live for the day when my relationship does not carry the label, different or perverted.  I live for the time when I can walk hand in hand with the man I love and have no fear of being beaten.  One might think that we live in that world…that sexuality is what it is.  We do not yet exist in that world.  Sex and sexuality are still subjects that are taboo.  Humanity is making progress in that direction, but still has miles to go. 

I never understood the same but less theory of existing.  There are many instances of this in history, all met with equal failure.  That for a reason of biology I am less.  Be it skin color, disability, sexuality, gender, hair color, eye color…that someone is less of a person is ludicrous.  That my love for a man cannot create life, it is invalid…is just as ludicrous. 

Love is love. 

All love needs respect.

All people deserve the opportunity to love and to have that love returned. 

A Subjective Quantitative Study of a Qualitative Concept

Most of my life I have had a hard time explaining concepts.  Usually I try to find something that the person might understand an add imagery to make it closer to what I am trying to explain.  Often times it is a complete failure.  Either the person stubbornly refuses to understand what is being explained, or there is no frame of reference with which to build the compendium of images.  In both cases, the level of frustration for the speaker (explainer) is palpable.  I am an odd person.  I am definitely not in the majority of people that understand the simple (majorly complex) realm of emotion.  Or rather, how emotion is related to everything we do. 

It has taken me years and lots of therapy to get to the point of understanding what I do, and I have miles to go.  Emotion (display of and propriety of) has always been difficult for me.  I have never been able to express the proper emotive response without either prompting or learning.  To be more precise, I know to be sad at a funeral (it is convention) despite my own lack of sadness.  It is only natural to die, so why should I mourn the death of a 94-year-old woman?  Because it is polite to do so…that is why.  Intellectually, I am aware of this concept, though again, I do not understand why I should mourn.  

I have had emotions.  I have even had real live legitimate on the spot emotions.  I did not understand why I had that particular reaction to that particular situation.  It has always eluded me.  I have always been a quantitative person.  I have always the need to see a representation in order to understand (but more so with regard to emotions/emotional response).  I like to take things apart that do not work (and even a few that did) to see why something (did not) work (-ed).  I figure, at this point, that there is a mathematical formula somewhere explaining it all, so until discovery or disclosure, I have my own theory to share. 

I am going to attempt to explain quantitatively, the qualitative concept of relationship.  I know that the study of human interaction with environment is anthropology and I know the study of the human psyche is psychology.  I will use mathematical concepts to validate and clarify my position.  First, I want to define the term that I will use and its context.  Standard deviation refers to the mathematics of averaging and is the basis of this discussion.  The bell curve predicts that a standard sample will fall into a range to either one side or the other, based on their average.  In other words, from the middle being the average, a certain percentage will fall into the average range, +/- a certain percent.  The next ranges are mostly to one side, but not all the way to one side or the other.  The last positions are for the polar opposites.  The visual depiction of this concept is usually that of a bell, thin on both ends, and building to a curved peak.  Another way to think of it is that a thing will happen (+++), could happen (++-), might happen (+/-), probably will not happen (+--) or will not happen (---). 

This theory can apply to every aspect of life and this is how.  Throughout our lives, generally speaking, we learn to behave in or believe a particular way.  As an example, general convention is that all fire trucks are red and the sky is blue, though both of those also have a deviation.  Fire trucks are typically one of two colors, red and yellow, and the sky can vary in color from white all the way to deep purple.  If you think of the standard, red for fire trucks, and blue for the sky, you can think of anything that is not typical as the deviation.  A yellow fire truck is not typical, but not unheard of either.  We learn that fire trucks are red and that the sky is blue.  Growing up we learn standards of behavior the same way.  We learn that it is not proper to laugh at a funeral.  We learn from not only our parents, but also our peers, the media, role models, and others.  We cope with daily bombardment of information that corrals us into behaving a certain way or reacting a certain way to stimuli. Most of the time the information we learn is accurate (we cry at funerals), but sometimes, the information is subjectively applied (we laugh at the bullied).  I want to call this conditioning because it makes sense though it is more complex than that.  As humans, we tend to apply past information to current situations.  As kids, we laughed at passing gas, but as adults, we tend to ignore it, similar to the Japanese concept of being observed, but not seen, as it is impolite to bring attention to something that may or may not be in their control.  We compare past situations to current events and decide if we reacted right the last time, if we want to react the same way to this situation, or even if this event is the same as any event in our experience.  Sometimes, we have to decide to react without having any frame of reference at all. 

I am not sure whether the issue is with the convention, or the idea that I cannot react in any way that I feel is appropriate.  Perhaps I am exhibiting a bit of the defiance that I never had the courage to express as a teen.  In any case, I am learning that just because a thousand calls a potato a spud, does not invalidate their belief, as a spud is also a potato.  Potato would be the average, and spud, tater, and any other euphemism for it is the deviation.  Most people learn this from an early age, but I did not. 

As a gay person in the 1970’s and 1980’s it was taboo to be anything not heterosexual.  As a result, I had to pretend to be someone I was not in order to fit the subjective norm and now find it difficult to differentiate between polite acquiescence and genuine correct behavior.  The result is the same, but the method of delivery is an issue.  Today, if I do not feel sadness, I find it difficult to express sadness though I can understand why a person would be sad (by convention or example).  Many people get offended that I am not crying with them instead of wondering where the coffee is.  This is where the issue is.  I know what the convention is, but I do not like pretending.  I know I should try to feel X emotion, but without a frame of reference, I feel it would not be a genuine inflection.  I am slowly realizing that my reactions are not unheard of, just outside the standard deviation, and that is okay. 

I have been battling this way most of my adult life.  The feelings of not being genuine contrasted by social convention has made me introverted and socially awkward.  I feel like unless I divulge every bit of my fault, it will not be good enough for me and as a result, have a difficult time making and keeping friends.  Who wants a lunatic for a friend?  Having a romantic relationship has become a virtual never because I am not willing to compromise my integrity for another person’s emotion.  I will not pretend to be anything for a person to like me, either they do or they do not based on the real unadulterated unfiltered me. 

As a society, we have become so adept at pandering to the masses that we forget what is real and true.  I refuse to cater to the will of the masses.  I am my own person with my own experiences, wants and desires.  I am me…and that is okay.

Paying it Forward

As many of you know, I play a game, ok an MMO, named EQ2.  This week I tried an experiment to see what would happen.  The results were surprising.

In the game there is game currency (gold, plat, etc...) that is used to purchase items made by other players or drops from in game play from the broker (if you are a WoWer that would be auctionhouse).  Recently, I accumulated a fair bit of platinum (100 gold=1 platinum) and thought it would be nice to pass a bit of my good fortune to a few new players.  I rmember when I started playing.  A platinum was the holy grail of game play.  It took a long time, quests, and deaths to accumulate gold enough to make a platinum, so back then a platinum was a big deal.  Today platinum is not so hard to come by if you have established characters on the same server (I have 15 on 3 different accounts).  So, I sent a message to the general chat asking for a couple of new players (never played EQ2 before) to send me an in-game tell (/whisper).  I got several tells from established players asking what it was I wanted.  I told them that I wanted to share a bit of holiday cheer with some new players in the form of platinum gift.  They really thought it was cool that I was willing to give away something it took me 10 years to be able to accumulate easily.  On we went, delivering gifts to 3 different players, each of them seemed very excited and grateful for the gift.  It made me feel good.  That however, is not the interesting part of the experiment.  A bit later, I logged into a different character.  That character was doing some decorating and wanted to know where to harvest a particular rare item, so I asked in chat.  I instantly got a tell from one of the established characters that sent a tell to the other character asking what it was I needed.  I told him (everyone is a him until otherwise stated) I needed the rare wood that made house actors for a diorama I was doing for New Years.  About 5 minutes later, he sent me a tell again saying Merry Christmas.  I was stunned.  This person that had no idea I was the one giving away money, actually sent me 4 of the ultra-rare wood I needed.  The implications hit me immediately.  The spirit of giving is not dead, it just needs a refresher once in a while.  The act of me giving out platinum encouraged others to do the same thing.  I was amazed and very happy that I started a round (even if it was just a couple people) of giving and paying it forward.  It really went to show me that although the world is a tough place to live sometimes, especially now, that people are still basically kind and giving.

Merry Frostfell (Norrath, EQ2)
Merry Christmas
Happy Hannakah
Happy Kwaanza
Joyful Solstice
Happy, Merry, Joyful whatever holiday it is that you celebrate.

Labels...Really??

I see all kinds of people labeling each other.  Gay, straight, bi, androgynous, lesbian, and other.  Is it really that big of a deal that we put each other into little compartments, nice and neat, no muss no fuss?  I think not.  There is a trend growing in the USA.  The trend is announcing to the world that one is gender and sexuality fluid.  I knew from an early age that I liked boys.  I did not know that there was a different name for people like me until I got to high school.  It was not that I was sheltered, far from it.  It just was not really something people talked about.  I remember the first time I labeled myself...I was bi...not because I thought there was anything wrong with being who I was, but because others found it more acceptable since I still "liked" girls.  The truth is, I never really was into girls.  Not really...I mean I had some interesting sexual trysts that involved females, but there was always a strong desire for other guys.  I did (straight) marry twice, though with both I was completely honest about my desires.  With the first one, she thought it was cool...she used to bring guys home to share with me.  The second never really understood what I needed, though I can say that I loved them both.  

For me sex and love are two different concepts.  Sex is about a physical need being satisfied, whereas love is about the heart.  I know that many do not see the difference and have a hard time understanding.  Let me try to explain...sex is the primal need to spread your seed (obviously for men)...the sexual desire transcends everything...name, financial status, marital status, gender, sexuality, etc...when there is a physical attraction (regardless) sex is possible.  It is a physiological process that has kept humanity alive and growing for millennia.  Love on the other hand, is about nurturing and sharing...I have known love in my life...I fell in love with a guy who did not love me as I loved him...I knew from the beginning...yet I still loved...It is irrational and makes no sense whatsoever, but we do it, nonetheless.  It has no relation to sex...

Wait...I know that as a species, humans like to think that love leads to sex...they are wrong.  It is wonderful and nice when you love a person that you are having sex with, but love is not necessary.  I know it seems strange and slutty  that one could have sex without knowing anything about the other, but it happens every day in every species.  Humans are not the only ones to have sex for fun.  It has been documented that certain cetaceans and nearly all monkey kind have sex for pleasure.  I would even go so far as to say that many have multiple partners, of both genders.  

I guess the whole point of this blog is to say that we as intelligent beings, armed with the knowledge that we do, that there really is no point in assigning labels to sexuality or gender as they are both as undefinable as love.  I say, let love be love and sex be sex...if one can be lucky enough to love the one they have sex with then it is a win...but not having love with sex or sex with love should not be considered a loss either.  All shades of love and sexuality should be accepted without question.  We are being what and who we were created to be...all of us.

Freedom of Religion...the American Way

I have been trying to resist the whole Kim Davis thing, but I really think it has gone far enough.  There is a time to stand firm and then there is the time to back down.  The Supreme Court, District Court, the Governor, and constituents have all said issue the licenses.  If your conscience will not allow it, then step down.  

The problem is not Kim Davis or her skewed sense of morality, but rather the sensationalism that the conservative right has come to adore.   Conservatives want everyone to live by a certain moral code that is wrapped around God and his influence on the world.  There have been many attempts of late to try to wrap law into religion, and all need to fail.  I hear people yelling about Shia Law yet here they are trying to violate my rights to humanity by claiming religious liberty.  Shia Law is not the same as religious indoctrination, but the principal is very much the same.  

If we were to follow the bible as law, the passages that prohibit homosexuality also declare women as chattel, that husbands have a duty to beat their wives (more than one), and that a daughter is worth 3 goats and a cow.  We have long since abandoned the passages permitting bigamy, women as chattel, beatings and dowry, yet they still want to press the gay one.  Times change and with it the moral compass.  Many things today violate christian belief, divorce being chief among them.  Yet divorce is legal and practiced by many "religious" people.  

The sun has not gone nova, the seas have not swallowed up the land, and your marriage is just as valuable (or not) as it was before.  The whole point of this blog is to express how ridiculous it is that we as a people in the 21st century are still fighting for equality.  Religion has no place in government.  The first Amendment to the Constitution is about keeping religion to religion and law to law.  In this case, Kim Davis is violating the first Amendment.  Her religion is hers to practice, but when she walks in the door and becomes an elected body, religion cannot influence that job.  

Bottom line...Do Your Damned Job, or Resign.  

Thought of the day...

I was sitting here thinking about stuff, because that is what I do.  What if humanity (as we call ourselves) is nothing but a grand experiment and we are nothing but biological androids.  I know very far fetched idea, but consider this...our brains are nothing more than electrical storage units that somehow store a digital record of every day of our lives...our heart inexplicably beats--electrical muscle spasms that push blood-- consistently (for most of us anyway)...our muscles are controlled by electrical and chemical signals sent down a network of nerves...we are fueled by consuming organic materials which are transferred into electrical energy...see where this is going??  Furthermore, consider the virus and bacteria...neither have brains...but consider that they could be arbitrary pieces of biological code...programmed to do nothing but steal a cell and replicate.  

It seems like science fiction, but in reality, what are we??  Nothing more than and organic machine that consumes organic materials to chemically convert into electrical energy that allows for locomotion and storage of data.  Incidentally, this data is what makes each individual machine different and unique.  Consider human reproduction.  Each machine starts as 2 distinct and unique cells that magically come together and begin the arduous task of becoming a brand new biological machine.  As a human, we get 23 chromosomes (programs?) from each parent that somehow know exactly what to do and when to do it...the stronger programs win out over the weaker ones (eye color, skin color, hair color, etc...).   Somehow, they grow all the different organs, cells, and tissues that become the biologic body.

How are we any different than the computers and other machines we use every day?  They use electricity, like us...they store data (tons of it daily), like us...they can replicate (code) and are largely responsible for building other machines.  

Are we creating unique machines, or are we merely duplicating with non-organic material, ourselves??