This is likely an unpopular opinion. It’s just a feeling I can’t seem to shake on days like these. Look on Facebook and other social media and you can see all kinds of messages today. All of them seem innocent enough. We are honoring those that have lost their lives serving our country. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the message. I guess I have an issue with some of the messengers.

These are some of the same people that bring you Christian messages. I’ve never trusted those for as long as I can remember. There are numerous reasons why, but I can stick with the biblical. There are a few passages that warn against a very public display of faith. Usually, those are self-serving and the person behind them rarely lives up to the message.

In the case of the patriotism, they almost always come from conservative end of the spectrum. Not surprisingly, that’s usually where the religious ones come from as well. In both cases, we should watch for the strings that are almost certainly attached.

It comes with an implication of what it means to be a patriotic American. Interesting enough, it is those same strings to seem to be attached to the Christian message. Agree with the message and you agree with what’s behind the message. Don’t agree with what’s behind the message and you don’t agree with the message. See what we’ve done here? It’s the infamous circular argument.

It’s the same circular argument that brought the Texas legislature and governor to oppose the teaching of the existence of racism. It’s the same one that has many questioning the validity of the election. It’s the same one that has them wanting to restrict voting access. It’s a tangled web that requires a love of country that doesn’t see faults except for the ones that aren’t there.

It is the kind of love that exists nowhere else. We don’t love our family that way. We don’t love our sports teams that way. We don’t love our spouses that way. If we are doing it right we don’t even love ourselves that way. How could we possibly love our country that way? It is a love that loves without complexity. It is a love that loves without understanding. It is a love that fails to separate those that defend its freedoms with those make the decisions surrounding it. It really isn’t love at all. Strings are always dangerous when it comes to love. Watch out for strings.

Mike Flynn, former national security advisor and convicted felon who was pardoned by Trump, called for a military coup like happened in Myanmar to remove Biden by force and instate Trump as dictator.  That’s right folks, just in time for memorial day, a retired career US Army officer and highest ranking security advisor called for shredding the Constitution and taking over the US government, Banana Republic style.  Where did he say this?  At a Qanon convention in Dallas. Yesterday.  Watch for yourself.

Here is the video of former national security advisor Michael Flynn saying that he thinks a coup like the coup in Myanmar should happen in the US. pic.twitter.com/7mGYjfXg18

— Mamie (@MC_Hyperbole) May 30, 2021

So, instead of sitting in a federal prison cell, insurrectionist Mike Flynn is calling for overthrow of the US government.  With the radicalization of one party, we continue to inch towards actual war.

Opposition leaders in Israel finally got together in a power sharing agreement that ousts Netanyahu after a decade of corruption, destruction, and death.  Back your bags, Bibi; next stop, the courtroom.  Maybe this is the year both Trump and Bibi get theirs.  Fingers crossed.

Trumpists and other mouthbreathers get a huge charge our of “owning the libs”, complaining that not being a flaming asshole is somehow the new pejoratives “woke” or “virtue signaling”, which, joining “cancel culture” are all of the new talking points being used in rapid fire by everyone from Fled Cruz to some knuckle draggers still flying Trump flags on his jacked up 2 MPG pick-’em-up truck.  The point is not advocating for a certain political policy; the point is all about being a dick to strangers with cruelty as the objective.  The latest, though, sinks below most of the Trumpian insults and whining.  This one is comparing mask requirements and vaccinations as being equivalent to the holocaust where Nazis imprisoned, tortured, enslaved, and killed millions of Jews in Europe.  Over 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust along with other undesirables including Gypsies and other eastern Europeans.  The Jews in Nazi controlled Europe were required to wear a star of David patch to identify what level of undesirable they were.  The most well known was the yellow star of David.

 

The geniuses at Nashville hat shop HatWrks thought it would be a really good idea to “own the libs” by selling a replica patch that didn’t say “Jude” but “Not Vaccinated”.  The store’s Instagram account had been known for posting conspiracy theories and nonsense about the pandemic, so, living in their echo chamber, it’s not surprising that they thought there little patch would sell like hotcakes.  It didn’t go well.  They were blasted online and in protests in front of their store.  Then, Stetson came calling, cancelling their wholesale arrangement with the store saying that they didn’t support hate.  BTW, Stetson is the largest hat maker in the world, selling over 3 million hats a year.  That’s going to leave a mark.

 

So, I guess HatWrks “owned the libs” by shooting themselves in the foot.  I’m sure they were shocked to find that normal people don’t like bigots and hateful people, especially when it spills out into the street in front of their place business.  But hey, I’m sure Trump loves it.

Understanding hate and where it comes from is paramount. In each case there is of perceived progress,  a backlash occurred in polite society. In the 1970s that was a backlash against the sexual and political freedom people were seeking. Women were seeking more rights and the children were experimenting with mind altering drugs. The hatred of this from many was understandable.

 

Society and civilizations are complex things. Many are still fighting that fight while others have moved on to other lifestyle choices. Certainly, racial discrimination has always been in the background of these cultural wars. However, the local and state governments seem to have found a new bogeyman to fight over. This bogeyman is the specter of transgender kids.

 

Hatred comes from fear. Yoda taught us that one. So, when we watch Dan Patrick and his merry band of idiots peacock their way around Austin it is instructive to ask what they are afraid of. They clearly hate. No one dehumanizes anyone to that degree without feeling hatred. Why do they hate so much? What has the transgender community done to deserve this?

 

The answer is fairly simple. It is the same as the drug argument and the whole sexual revolution as well. For people who have a deep belief in God, the idea of questioning God’s creation is the most serious of sins. God doesn’t make mistakes, so how could someone feel as if their sexual identity is a mistake? The question comes down to how we can reconcile what God in fact created. Did God create a man or a woman or did God create a person? Furthermore, if God creates everyone and everyone is created in God’s image then what does that say about God?

 

These are deep questions that inspire introspection, prayer, and deep thought and reflection. It also presents a conundrum they can’t solve. If someone is a child of God then what does it say about us and our religion when we dehumanize them? Of course, this is something they can’t answer whether it be women, people of color, immigrants, and members of the LGTBQ+ community that they dehumanize.

 

What we can say is that these draconian methods are meant to do one thing. They are meant to discourage people from seeking their true identities. Somewhere in their small minds there are kids wanting to go in the opposite bathroom or boys that want to throw on a dress and dominate women’s sports. We need to protect them. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen. We need to make sure this unholy practice doesn’t spread. Then comes the question of who exactly we are protecting and who we are hurting.

 

When you look back on any culture shift you can see people fighting that same fight throughout time. It has been there in the drug war. It was there during the women’s liberation movement. It was there during the civil rights era. If was there during Prohibition. It was there when the abolitionists were trying to free the slaves. Every fight for cultural change and progress has had people on the other side pushing against this change.

 

The logic always breaks down. The logic is that if we let former boys play girls sports then the floodgates will burst forth with boys playing girls sports as new girls. It isn’t even so much that this flies in the face of common sense. Common sense rarely enters into these discussions. It is the fact that it flies in the face of history.

 

Each one of these social movements had members of the movement, but the radical nature didn’t spread like wildfire. Sure, there were long-term and pervasive changes to society, but it’s not like LSD was being dropped in every bedroom in America. We didn’t see a sudden rash of gender roles switching and we certainly haven’t seen the kind of radical change to racist attitudes we thought we would see. We saw gradual changes and each movement had a logical end.

 

We aren’t going to see millions of boys become girls and millions of girls become boys. The UIL and other sports leagues aren’t going to suddenly mix the genders in some kind new age new fangled league of equality. It won’t happen because these things never happen. So, what we get is to solve a problem that never existed and never will exist. We get to dehumanize a few in order to make the majority feel better about themselves. We get to crush the very souls that our benevolent God created. This is the hate that many of us voted for. May God have mercy on our souls.