Women’s March on Washington

Splitting the opposition: the upset

Editor’s note: Back in January I promised a multi-part series of posts based on a book I started on the Indivisible movement that, simply put, just wasn’t coming together as I would have liked. So I decided to serialize that beginning of a book draft – with a little more editing as I see fit – and add more writing to make this into a multi-part series of posts.

This first post begins with the introduction I had wrote, which covered “the biggest upset in U.S. history.”

For (Hillary) Clinton, the loss is especially brutal. She had meticulously planned her victory party at the Javits Center in Manhattan, symbolically under an enormous glass ceiling that she hoped to break through. Instead, it was the dreams and aspirations of her supporters that were shattered.
“Trump pulls off biggest upset in U.S. history“, Shane Goldmacher and Ben Schreckinger, Politico, November 9, 2016

If you had done a “man on the street” interview in the days before the 2016 Presidential election and asked about its potential outcome, most respondents would likely have followed the conventional wisdom that the election was going to be, at long last, the second consecutive rectification of a long-standing wrong in American history: after electing (and re-electing) the first African-American president in Barack Obama, the fairer sex would get its first opportunity at the Oval Office by the election of a woman with a familiarity to the premises in Hillary Clinton, the long-suffering wife of our 42nd President, Bill Clinton.

That’s not to say, however, that the Clinton campaign didn’t endure some bumps in the road in the process: specifically, her coronation as the favored Democratic candidate was all but interrupted by the insurgent bid of Vermont’s Senator Bernie Sanders, who temporarily dropped his independent moniker in order to seek the Democratic nomination. Old-style machine politics coupled with rules that made the party anything but democratic, such as the significant roles played by the superdelegates and the thumb placed on the scale by Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, made sure that a large slice of the left-wing electorate was going to have hard feelings regarding Clinton’s nomination. However, looking at the election from an early-November perspective, all that funny business with Sanders was going to become a mere footnote in the poorhouse-to-penthouse political success story that Hillary was putting the finishing touches on.

Yet believing the conventional wisdom may have been the mistake that unraveled Clinton’s campaign – a going-through of motions that ignored several Rust Belt states assumed to be in the Democratic column. Perhaps the Clinton camp felt safe in believing she would win because Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin had a heavy union influence and, with the exception of Ohio, had voted Democratic blue in every Presidential election since 1988 – a trend first made possible by Hillary’s husband. Moreover, placed against a divisive candidate who had alienated a large cross-section of the Republican Party – a group called the #NeverTrump Republicans – it was thought that GOP turnout could be depressed in swing states like Florida, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Virginia, further securing the Clinton victory. One week out, polling showed that Clinton was indeed winning in her “firewall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and within the margin of error in Florida. Ohio was not in as good of shape, but historians could assure Hillary’s backers that, while no Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio, there have been a handful of GOP stalwarts who won the state but lost the overall race – the last being Richard Nixon in 1960.

The factor no one ever considered in handicapping the 2016 race, though, was the amount of pent-up frustration churning in the residents of America’s heartland. Going into Election Day, Hillary’s campaign probably knew she was in a bit of trouble in Florida and Ohio, but all that would do was temper her Electoral College victory to something below 300 votes. In assuming that Hillary would win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, they believed she would have squeaked out a 278-260 Electoral College win even while losing Florida and Ohio. But for want of 77,747 votes combined in the three “firewall” states Hillary lost – far fewer than Green Party candidate Jill Stein received in the trio – Donald Trump won the Electoral College and the Presidential election despite drawing nearly 3 million fewer votes nationwide. No amount of cajoling or laying on of guilt by certain members of the public could convince members of the Electoral College to switch their Trump votes to Hillary, although a half-dozen changed their votes to others. On January 6, 2017 Congress counted the votes and it became official: January 20, 2017 would mark the beginning of the Trump administration.

It was an administration I didn’t vote for, but these events gave birth to a fascinating political movement and eventually inspired this series I’m writing as a way to document its unique history and effects and to present a proposal on how right-thinking Americans can split up this supposedly unbreakable entity.

You may ask, then: what piqued my interest in the Indivisible movement?

In 2019, a decade after it came into being as a protest against the billions of dollars being proposed as economic stimulus by then-President Obama, I released a book called The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party, a historical and analytical book that featured several of its early leaders. As I learned in researching that book, it turned out the ragtag irregular rear-guard regiments of the loosely-organized TEA Party were the ones who didn’t get polled (or couldn’t bring themselves to admit backing Donald Trump, or flat-out lied to the pollsters) but came out in droves in those aforementioned heartland states to cast their ballot against Hillary. They were a voter bloc left for dead in American politics, in large part because these initial supporters now viewed the national organizations claiming that TEA Party mantle as just another set of inside-the-Beltway interest groups. Combine that with the percentage of voters who “felt the Bern” and were disgruntled enough with the Democratic Party and their gaming of the system to push them into supporting someone like Jill Stein over Hillary, and you get the result we received: Donald Trump pulling the “biggest upset in U.S. history.”

However, once the shock of Hillary’s loss wore off, those who believed she was the better candidate decided not to get mad – they vowed to get even. In writing the Indivisible Guide – more formally known as Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda, but I’ll just call it the Indivisible Guide or simply Guide – the authors made it clear their movement was borrowing heavily from the tactics and techniques of the TEA Party but doing so in order to oppose Donald Trump and advocate for the progressive agenda they believed would have been both an extension of Barack Obama’s policies and the starting point for a Hillary Clinton presidency. Quoting from its introduction:

Donald Trump is the biggest popular-vote loser in history to ever call himself President. In spite of the fact that he has no mandate, he will attempt to use his congressional majority to reshape America in his own racist, authoritarian, and corrupt image. If progressives are going to stop this, we must stand indivisibly opposed to Trump and the Members of Congress (MoCs) who would do his bidding. Together, we have the power to resist – and we have the power to win.
We know this because we’ve seen it before. The authors of this guide are former congressional staffers who witnessed the rise of the Tea Party. We saw these activists take on a popular president with a mandate for change and a supermajority in Congress. We saw them organize locally and convince their own MoCs to reject President Obama’s agenda. Their ideas were wrong, cruel, and tinged with racism – and they won.
We believe that protecting our values, our neighbors, and ourselves will require mounting a similar resistance to the Trump agenda – but a resistance built on the values of inclusion, tolerance, and fairness. Trump is not popular. He does not have a mandate. He does not have large congressional majorities. If a small minority in the Tea Party could stop President Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump.
Opening statement to Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda.

Having the direct comparison available between Indivisible and the TEA Party may have led readers to believe this will be a short summary, but it’s made much more complex by the nature of the opposition. Unlike the TEA Party, which I found to be percolating beneath the political surface for over a year before it was galvanized by random early morning remarks by a TV pundit by the name of Rick Santelli in February, 2009, Indivisible was put together almost overnight – yet it gathered the momentum it needed in a few short weeks thanks to the backing of large organizations which make Indivisible much more of an Astroturf group than it may appear to be from the outside.

In the understatement of the decade, it’s fair to say that the prospect of a Trump presidency didn’t sit well with a lot of people, and their anger was intense. At the same time Indivisible was being planned out, social media organizers were putting together the Women’s March on Washington. Held the day after Trump was sworn in, their event outdrew the inauguration, according to news reports. Quoted in The Atlantic, an “expert on nonviolent protest” by the name of Erica Chenowith gushed that the Women’s March “has some of the hallmarks of the beginning of a successful movement. The ability to mobilize large numbers of people is often associated with the creation of an effective campaign.” Yet, charges of anti-Semitism against its leadership and its embrace of political values far outside the mainstream have led the March on a downward spiral, with the 2020 event drawing a mere fraction of the 2017 crowd. It’s even taken a back seat to the annual March for Life put on by abortion opponents, which continues to draw hundreds of thousands to the nation’s capital year after year and was buoyed this year with President Trump’s personal appearance – the first time a sitting President has addressed the gathering. (Let’s pray it’s the pro-life support that becomes the “effective campaign.”) Whether it was because the Women’s March had folded most of its support into other aspects of progressive politics, such as Indivisible, or if the anti-Semitism repelled prospective marchers, the Women’s March as an organized group doesn’t appear to have the staying power that Indivisible has maintained.

Given that Indivisible has presented itself as inspired by the TEA Party, having the experience of writing and researching on that particular political caprice provided me with a number of questions about Indivisible and its place in the progressive movement which needed to be looked at to provide a complete accounting. And, to borrow from the Rules for Radicals penned by progressive icon Saul Alinsky, it’s an effort to make Indivisible conform to the rules they themselves set by making such a comparison. By far, that aspect of this series will be the most fun to write because, frankly, the Indivisible narrative has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese.

Naturally, the comparison can’t be an exact one. Setting aside the difference in policy prescriptions the respective winners ran on in 2008 and 2016, the situation that gave birth to Indivisible was far different than the circumstance that led to the formation of the TEA Party. Unlike his predecessor, President Trump did not come in facing a nation amidst the direst economic circumstances since the Great Depression, one simultaneously troubled by ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. Instead, what Donald Trump inherited was a sense of unfinished business felt by the populace: as 2017 dawned, America was in a dawdling, “jobless” economic recovery while its foreign policy wrestled with the rise of the al-Qaeda successor Islamic State – Barack Obama’s idea of the “JV team.” Donald Trump’s blueprint for fundamental change, then, was the idea of reversing what he saw as the excesses of big government, such as eliminating Obamacare, providing tax relief, and securing the border with Mexico. Those three agenda items formed Trump’s appeal to the TEA Party’s political diaspora.

But Trump didn’t go as far as the initial TEA Party leaders would have. While they shared much of the platform of thwarting Obama’s initiatives, Trump wasn’t as keen during his campaign about returning the federal government to what TEA Party believers deemed a more proper, Constitutional role by limiting its size and scope. For example, early on Trump took entitlement reform off the table, believing a more robust economy would work the problem out for us.

Conversely, Indivisible was about one thing and one thing only: stopping Donald Trump. Yet the most important consideration when talking about Indivisible’s origins is knowing its organizers are products of a political culture. Instead of outsiders tilting at the windmills of the political field like most of the original TEA Party leaders were, Indivisible’s two key founders, the husband-and-wife team of Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, were already well-placed inside the castle because they were both Congressional staffers at some point during their careers and continually worked inside the Beltway swamp. Knowing all the inside baseball allowed them to dictate an anti-Trump agenda, pull the proper levers, and implement their agenda in the stealthiest manner possible, with minimum fingerprints thanks to a bureaucracy (the Swamp, or “deep state”) that also loathed Trump from the get-go.

Thus, at the time of its inception, Indivisible was only interested in what they termed “playing defense” and settling in for a waiting game until progressive reinforcements could arrive in the 2018 midterm elections. Once the changing of the House guard came, thanks to the 2018 midterms, Indivisible began advocating for a number of policy changes their supporters could originate in the House as its way of going on offense.

I’m relishing the chance to share my conclusions, but my next part will begin with a look at the couple that’s the public face of Indivisible.

Make America Great Again, one family at a time

By Cathy Keim

Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Deuteronomy 5:16 KJV

The political climate in our nation continues to be poisonous seven weeks after President Trump was inaugurated. The headlines, comedians, politicians, and protestors roil the country with venomous attacks including a postcard avalanche.

Trump supporters respond with their own postcards and hold rallies to support their man in the White House.

I do not have a problem with postcard avalanches or rallies. Going to townhall meetings, writing opinion letters to newspapers, and calling your Congressman and Senators are all valid ways to participate in our political system.

However, if you really want to make a long-term difference in our nation you should start in the home. Our nation is built upon the foundation of our families, for they serve as the basic unit that everything else depends upon. It is glaringly apparent to me that the collapse of our families is resulting in the collapse of our societal structure.

The attack on the family has been going on for years. No-fault divorce was introduced in California in 1970 and spread throughout the country. Suddenly, one spouse could abrogate their marriage vows for any reason and the other spouse had no defense. Divorce was transformed from a failure and a tragedy for all involved, most especially the children, and became considered to be a liberating, good metamorphosis for all.

Unfortunately, the lives wrecked in the shattered marriages were not so easily put back together again. Once marriages were devalued we then moved to co-habitation. After all, why bother with getting married when either partner can abrogate the contract at will?

Then came the final blow: same-sex marriage. What had been a cultural institution for raising children conceived by the union of male and female as man and wife was now redefined as the joining of any two people that loved each other, thus completing the separation of marriage from its understood purpose of bearing and raising of children.

It is increasingly hard to “honor thy father and mother” (as is written in Ephesians 6:2 KJV) when you don’t know them since they divorced and moved on without you, or perhaps they never married in the first place, or now the child may not even have a father and mother but instead has two mothers or two fathers.

The family is the place where children learn how to behave, and they often model their parents’ behavior. The parents are the best people to teach their children how to live. Etiquette training in the home is the oil that smooths the rough spots of social interactions so that we can work and play together without coming to blows.

God ordained the family as the building block of society and He entrusted the parents with the responsibility to “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6 KJV) The child will honor their parents if they’ve learned the rudiments of manners from their parents.

This concept extends beyond the family when the child understands how authority works. As he honors his parents, so he is to honor those in authority over him such as his teachers, his employer, or the policeman.

The child learns his place in society by living under the authority structure in a loving home with parents that guide him with age-appropriate boundaries.

The breakdown of the family is shockingly evident in the students at our universities that are unwilling to listen to any ideas conflicting with their own. My guess is that their parents did not teach these students that they are not the center of the universe, but that God is. (Chances are these parents were brought up in the same worldly manner.)

Men and women are afraid to trust one another, knowing that their pledge to love each other until death do us part has become, in modern practice, only until one of us gets bored. What woman wants to leave her career to raise children and risk being left impoverished if her husband decides to leave? What man wants to invest in a family if his wife can send him packing and refuse to let him see his children?

More government “help” is not what we need. No-fault divorce laws and welfare benefits removing the need for men to be fathers and providers have done enough damage. Instead, the great need is for people to choose to commit to their families no matter what the government tries to foist upon us.

The old Ozzie and Harriet model is widely derided as unworkable and undesirable. One can never promise perfection in human relationships, but we can present the model that has worked for cultures all over the world since the beginning of civilization: one man and one woman joining together – and staying together – to raise their children to grow up and become civilized adults that can repeat the cycle thus ensuring children that are able to live together in society.

This concept is quite revolutionary! It’s a concept along the lines of believing that our Constitution is an important document that is to be followed, not reinterpreted to say whatever the current batch of politicians wants it to say.

The Women’s March on the day after President Trump’s inauguration exposed the ridiculous positions that these silly women think are important, mainly the right to kill your own offspring before birth. How much more appealing is the idea of a woman who loves and nurtures her children?

And what is more masculine than a man that desires to care for the mother of his children and to love her for a lifetime?

This is not a quick fix, but it is something that everybody can support by nurturing their own families, by promoting family values, by helping their extended family members, and honoring their own parents as an example to their children of how life is to be lived.

We will not Make America Great Again without making our families strong again. So, send your postcards, attend your townhalls, and make your voice heard loud and clear about defunding Planned Parenthood and refusing “Death with Dignity” bills – as the Maryland General Assembly thankfully did this year – but work for the long-range goal of strengthening your family as your most important contribution to America.

P.S. For those families that have been broken and are hurting, know that God is the great healer. God will forgive and heal our families if we only ask for his help.

A discussion on immigration

By Cathy Keim

The topic of immigration is huge because we have so many areas to cover. Just for starters, there is legal immigration, asylum seekers and refugees, temporary visa holders for work or education, and illegal immigration. Then we could go deeper into family reunification policies, green cards, health issues, and security issues. Despite reading on the topic for years, I am not an expert, but I have formed some opinions and probably you the reader have too.

First and foremost, it is okay to discuss this issue despite the elites, the media, the politicians, and the academics trying to make it taboo. If you raise any concern, no matter how small, about immigration you are instantly labeled xenophobic, Islamophobic, and all the other usual epithets like racist, bigot, and hater.

It is the government’s job to protect its citizens. One of the ways to protect the citizens is to control who comes in and out of the country. For the open borders types, I would ask them if they lock their doors on their houses? I can remember when most of us didn’t bother to lock our doors, but that was a long time ago when I was a child. Today, most people lock the doors to their home whether they are home or away because they want to control access to their possessions and more importantly to themselves.

In most of our nation, a simple lock is sufficient, although security systems are popular if you go by the signs posted discreetly in front yards. In the Middle East, South America, and Mexico homes of the upper class are more like forts with walls, iron bars on the windows and even armed guards for protection. May we never reach the point where each of us must build a fortress to feel safe.

However, that day may come if our government continues to fail in its duty to secure our borders and control who comes into our country. So now is the time to have the discussion about immigration and to speak our minds freely without regard to the “pure of heart” liberals that try to impose their “religion” of tolerance upon us.

Christianity is hated by the liberals and yet they whip it out of the bag to beat us over the head with how we should be kind and loving to the refugees. They are hypocritically calling upon us to obey their interpretation of Christianity which just happens to mean open the gates and let everybody in.

Christians are called to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, but that is an admonition to individuals, not for government policy making. The liberals purposely blur the lines between the government’s duty to protect its citizens and the Christian obligation to be kind.

The Bible is clear that it is the duty of the Christian to take care of their own family, then to reach out to others. One way of taking care your family is to be sure that they are fed, housed, and safe. Even the liberals would call in child protective services if you left your child (or dog) in an unsafe environment, yet they want to turn the entire country into an unsafe environment by bringing in refugees that cannot be vetted due to the turmoil in their home countries.

There are an estimated 60 million refugees around the world. Exactly how many of those refugees do the open borders people want to bring to America? What are the principles that they use to select who should come? Why do they tell themselves that they are “pure of heart” for wanting to save the refugees, when they do it with money that is confiscated from taxpayers by force?

We the taxpayers are xenophobic, etc. etc. ad nauseum, if we do not cheerfully pay our taxes and watch them be used to bring in people that do not want to assimilate and live by our laws and customs. Why are the feminists that were so nasty at the Women’s March not protesting against Sharia law which says that women are not equal to men, that honor killings are fine, and the female genital mutilation is great? Why, as a Christian, should I stand aside so that these great evils can be brought into our culture on equal footing with our Judeo-Christian Western values?

All cultures are not equal. All religions are not equal. This must be acknowledged before we can have a reasonable discussion of how our nation should proceed. I absolutely want my elected representatives to have the backbone to state clearly that America is founded on Judeo-Christian principles and we want to continue to function under them. That implies that we should not import people en masse who do not believe in our country’s laws and customs and have no intention of assimilating.

Because we are a good and kind nation, we can most certainly send aid to war torn countries including doctors, nurses, teachers, and missionaries that volunteer to go. We have done exactly that throughout our history. At present, we are being hectored by the nine non-governmental agencies that bring in refugees to continue and even increase the number. If you will look at Ann Corcoran’s Refugee Resettlement Watch blog, you will see that Ann has documented over and over again that these NGO’s are almost completely funded by the American taxpayer and therefore, they cannot share the gospel of Jesus Christ with any of the refugees they help.

One of the arguments being foisted upon Christians by the left is that because we are bringing Muslims to America in great numbers, we can more easily preach the gospel to them, except that the supposed Christian organizations bringing them cannot speak the name of Christ due to the government funding. Besides, where does it say in the Bible that preaching the gospel should be convenient?

John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, spoke about Islam almost two hundred years ago. If we were more aware of history we would realize that this assault by jihadists upon Western culture is nothing new. His observations are still worth heeding.

The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.

I will acknowledge that many Muslims do not want to be constantly warring with their neighbors, but that doesn’t change the truth that this is baked into their belief system.

I will close with an illustration from an incident I read about in Tampa, Florida years ago. You may remember Sami Al Arian, who was finally deported to Turkey for helping fund terrorists. Before he became a well known name for his terrorist activities, he came to Florida to teach at the University of South Florida. He and his fellow jihadists went to a nice little neighborhood mosque and beat up the faithful and took over the mosque. The Muslims who had started the mosque were forcibly removed from leadership and the mosque became the al Qassam Mosque as it is still named. Al Qassam was a Palestinian terrorist, an apt name for a mosque that was taken by terror from its rightful owners.

This article in the St. Petersburg Times states:

In May 1987, more than a dozen people stormed a Ramadan service at the mosque that would later become a spiritual and political base for Sami Al-Arian, accused of being the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The dissidents tried to drive out the worshipers, according to a Hillsborough County sheriff’s report. A woman identified as Hala Al-Najjar swung a large purse, knocking over a pregnant woman who later miscarried.

At the time, this newspaper called it a “scuffle between two Moslem sects.” In hindsight, the “scuffle” was one in a dramatic series of struggles at mosques throughout the country between fundamentalist and moderate Muslims.

(snip)

It is unclear whether Al-Arian would call himself a Wahhabist, but in taking over the Tampa mosque, his disciples appeared to follow the Wahhabi script. They drove out moderates, handed title of the mosque to the Islamic trust, and received secret funding linked to Saudi Arabia, documents show.

My point in relating this incident from almost 30 years ago is that when push comes to shove, it is the violent sect of Islam that rules. The bully rules the schoolyard. Thus by importing Muslims en masse into our country, no matter how peaceful the first ones are, we are opening our doors to increasing strife.

In fact, Nonie Darwish, the director of Former Muslims United, says:

Muslims need to know that the world does indeed have a justifiable and legitimate concern about Islam and actions done in the name of Islam by Muslims. Muslims need to look at themselves in the mirror and see the world from the point of view of their victims. Instead, the West is sacrificing its culture, values, laws, pride and even self-respect. Muslim culture needs a wake-up call telling them that, sooner or later, non-Muslim nations will close their doors to any kind of Muslim immigration if the jihad culture continues. That will also be a strong message to Muslims already in the West who still believe in jihad.

Unfortunately, Islam does not lend itself to a reformation. To the jihadists, Islam still exists as John Quincy Adams described it:

In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE. (capitals in the original.)

The immigration debate needs to be held publicly and it looks like the Trump administration is going to do so. Each citizen needs to be informed and contact their leadership from the president down to local officials as to what they think the correct policy should be.

March of the undesirables

Since I was told – with a very condescending tone by a woman, I might add – to blog about Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington, here you go. Be careful what you wish for.

First of all, let’s look at the timing and philosophy of this. One day after a new President is sworn in, these women gather to protest policy decisions that probably won’t happen, doing so in the most outlandish of ways. I suspect dressing in anatomically correct costumes is really going to endear you to middle America. </sarc>

So why did they get together? This is a description of why they marched, their “unity principles.” Let’s see what they stand for.

ENDING VIOLENCE

Women deserve to live full and healthy lives, free of all forms of violence against our bodies. We believe in accountability and justice in cases of police brutality and ending racial profiling and targeting of communities of color. It is our moral imperative to dismantle the gender and racial inequities within the criminal justice system.

It seems to me we already have laws which cover the violence against their bodies part. Besides, I was taught a real man doesn’t hit a woman.

But then they go off the rails on the racial profiling and targeting. If that is the criminal element and we know where the crimes occur, one would seem to think that’s where law enforcement should focus its resources. And I’m still trying to see where we have gender and racial inequities, particularly since much of the sentencing in this country is predefined.

This one is a little iffy, but I guess I can give them an “e” for effort.

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

We believe in Reproductive Freedom. We do not accept any federal, state or local rollbacks, cuts or restrictions on our ability to access quality reproductive healthcare services, birth control, HIV/AIDS care and prevention, or medically accurate sexuality education. This means open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people, regardless of income, location or education.

A non-starter, particularly since women have the ultimate measure of birth control. Haven’t there been advocacy drives that beseech women not to have relations with their men until they do some act against their interests, like vote for Hillary Clinton? (Why yes, there have. And the idea of keeping it zipped up isn’t just used in America.)

But seriously: there is no other reliable measure as to when life begins but conception. And since our Declaration of Independence tells us all men (meaning mankind, not the specific gender) are endowed by their Creator (that’s not the sperm donor, by the way) with certain inalienable rights – and life is listed first among those rights – it is pre-eminent. Although it is difficult, you can pursue happiness to some extent without liberty, but you have neither that pursuit nor liberty without life. Thus, the right to life of the unborn trumps (pun intended) the liberty of the mother to terminate the pregnancy. Her liberty is lower in the hierarchy.

LGBTQIA RIGHTS

We firmly declare that LGBTQIA Rights are Human Rights and that it is our obligation to uplift, expand and protect the rights of our gay, lesbian, bi, queer, trans or gender non-conforming brothers, sisters and siblings. We must have the power to control our bodies and be free from gender norms, expectations and stereotypes.

The last time I checked, 99.999% of humans are born either female or male, based on chromosomes and anatomy. That’s the way the Creator made us. While I would prefer couples be opposite-sex, though, I know there is some small percentage who see it differently. My only request: call your relationship something other than “marriage” because that is exclusively reserved for one man and one woman. Civil unions were fine with me, as they satisfied the legal advantages given to opposite-sex couples.

WORKER’S RIGHTS

We believe in an economy powered by transparency, accountability, security and equity. All women should be paid equitably, with access to affordable childcare, sick days, healthcare, paid family leave, and healthy work environments. All workers – including domestic and farm workers, undocumented and migrant workers – must have the right to organize and fight for a living minimum wage.

Honestly, I believe the whole “equal pay for equal work” thing is a sham. If a woman is doing a better job or more tasks than a man who is supposedly doing the same thing and not being paid as much, well, it’s time for her to find a new employer who will pay her more in line with her worth and expectations. A company that continues that practice will soon lose enough good workers to change.

The rest is standard-grade liberalism that was stale in 1975. And, by the way, are you saying only men have affordable childcare, sick days, healthcare, family leave, and a healthy work environment? That’s news to me considering our workforce at my employer has numbers that are almost even and both men and women take advantage of these things.

CIVIL RIGHTS

We believe Civil Rights are our birthright, including voting rights, freedom to worship without fear of intimidation or harassment, freedom of speech, and protections for all citizens regardless of race, gender, age or disability. We believe it is time for an all-inclusive Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

I think all this is covered already. But might I suggest this amendment instead?

Congress shall make no law that codifies discrimination for or against any person based on their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. This Amendment shall also be construed to include a prohibition on Congress enacting additional criminal code or punishment solely based on these factors.

I hesitate to add age or disability in there because it would open the can of worms of Social Security, Medicare, and the Americans With Disabilities Act, among other things. (Oddly enough, that post was written 11 years to the day before the March. Guess I knew it would come in handy someday.)

DISABILITY RIGHTS

We believe that all women’s issues are issues faced by women with disabilities and Deaf women. As mothers, sisters, daughters, and contributing members of this great nation, we seek to break barriers to access, inclusion, independence, and the full enjoyment of citizenship at home and around the world. We strive to be fully included in and contribute to all aspects of American life, economy, and culture.

To determine this, the first thing to do is define “disability.” I don’t know what they consider as one.

IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

Rooted in the promise of America’s call for huddled masses yearning to breathe free, we believe in immigrant and refugee rights regardless of status or country of origin. We believe migration is a human right and that no human being is illegal.

Sorry, a nation has the right (and duty) to secure its borders. Humans are not illegal, but their actions may be.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

We believe that every person and every community in our nation has the right to clean water, clean air, and access to and enjoyment of public lands. We believe that our environment and our climate must be protected, and that our land and natural resources cannot be exploited for corporate gain or greed – especially at the risk of public safety and health.

Radical Green rides again, dressed up in pink. So I suppose any farmer who is a corporate entity may as well give it up? Oh, never mind – let’s just call a spade a spade: they don’t like Big Oil. They know as well as I do that mankind doesn’t have the first thing to do with climate change, but the charade is great for gathering a lot of small-minded people.

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Basically, this group goes a collective 0-for-8 on real issues. You know, there was this guy whose birthday we celebrated recently who made a big deal about content of character rather than the color of skin – I suspect we can extrapolate this really well to the particular parts and chromosomes they are carrying.

As someone on social media noted, thirty million women had their own march on November 8 and went to the ballot box to elect Donald Trump – for better or worse, despite his faults. I’m sure that not all of the women in the march on Saturday agreed with every one of these tenets, and it wouldn’t shock me if there was some small percentage who just went for the party. But they were there while the silent majority of women looked on and agreed these people were completely, off their rocker, nuts. I think the silent majority was right.

Best of all: I bet my wife agrees with me on most of this. I love domestic bliss and having a conservative, God-fearing wife.