Theologians tell us that God forgives and forgives absolutely. It has taken a lifetime to understand that what they are talking about is really redemption and not forgiveness. Forgiveness is really a human condition. It means we simply drop those negative feelings and move on. That has always been the secret. Forgiveness is more about us than it is about them. We don’t allow that anger and pain to consume us. Yet, it doesn’t mean that the relationship returns to normal or even at all.

Redemption, on the other hand, is a return of the relationship. That’s what the theologians call forgiveness from God. The slate is wiped clean and all transgressions are forgotten. Most of us aren’t capable of that. We have to protect our psyche and someone that repeatedly runs roughshod over our psyche cannot return to the previous condition. We can leave the pain behind and refuse to allow that person’s actions to occupy our thoughts. We can’t treat them the same way as before though.

This is where racism, xenophobia, sexism, and homophobia comes in. It is where the Q nonsense comes in. It is where the anti-vax nonsense comes in. This topic is the one topic that ties it all together. Yesterday, we looked at conservative social media and whether they could have a safe space to spew their hatred. There’s a reason why they want and need that safe space. When we shun that kind of thought we don’t get rid of it. We just drive it underground where it can’t readily be seen.

The question comes on whether someone can let their hate flag fly and then later live to regret it. If they do then is there a path back to redemption for them? We have seen numerous people recant their feelings on the vaccine once they’ve landed in the hospital. Should they survive, can they be forgiven and can they be redeemed? They can be forgiven relatively easily, but that doesn’t mean they are redeemed.

It comes down to recognizing windows of opportunity. Hundreds if not thousands of anti-vaxxers and Q devotees are realizing that they backed the wrong horse. They realize they were lied to. They realize they were duped. The question comes on whether we are capable of extending the olive branch to welcome them back to normal society.

The same is true of racists, homophobes, sexists, and xenophobes. There is that key moment where everything comes tumbling down. I say this because I’ve experienced it myself. Those feelings were more private because I knew they were wrong. I was able to cast them aside and be welcomed in. However, I have to admit that I had not gone out on a limb to make an ass out of myself either.

That’s how I know there are a lot of these folks out there. They feel the way they do, but they are too polite and even too ashamed to be publicly outed. Without a path to redemption they have to stay in that space. They exist in the shadows between everything we know that is good and everything we know that isn’t. It’s the main reason why we are left wondering how some of our elected officials get where they are in the first place.

There is something within ourselves that doesn’t allow us to redeem. In ourselves it is obvious that shame overwhelms us. In others, it is anger and jealousy of a former scourge getting credit for their conversion. For others, it is a lack of trust that the conversion is real. We’ve been burned before. We have to take that chance. Otherwise, it will always be us versus them.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” — First Amendment

Lately it seems that we get to complain about obvious things. I enjoy discussing things that aren’t that obvious. It stretches the brain to have to consider multiple points of the view. The recent breach of the conservative social network Epik brings this kind of debate to life.

This kind of discussion always begins with the first amendment. I included the verbiage above because it is one of the most misunderstood amendments in the constitution. Too many people seem to think it means you get to say whatever you want without consequences. That has never been the case and the folks discovered in the Epik breach are learning this the hard way.

In particular, this story came to a head when a Florida realtor was fired because of his social media presence. In essence he had set up numerous domains with controversial content. The end result is a classic case pitting someone’s misunderstood free speech rights against a business’s rights to have people they want to represent their product.

All that being said, the bolded portion of the first amendment is the key part in this case. The whole idea behind sites like Parlor and Epik was that people wanted a “safe space” to air their grievances. They knew they couldn’t regurgitate their bile in public, so they were seeking a private place where they wouldn’t get in trouble.

The operative word there is the right to PEACEABLY assemble. The trouble with these right wing sites is that they don’t seem to peaceably do anything. Sites like these are where a lot of the January 6th actors coordinated their efforts. Again, they are mistaking the nature of the freedom. Congress cannot outlaw people from meeting in groups as long as the meeting itself is not against the law or that those groups break the law during their meeting.

A classic example of this scenario might involve NAMBLA. As most people know, this is an organization of pedophiles. If they describe their love for pedophilia they technically aren’t breaking any laws at the meeting itself. If they exchange pictures or any other materials then they would be. The question is whether the government has the right to identify who is at this gathering in the first place.

These are all interesting questions given that all of these groups know full well that the majority of the population does not accept the validity of their point of view. So, individuals avoid voicing unpopular opinions because they understand the fallout. They join private groups in the hopes that they can voice their true feelings without facing direct consequences.

The difficulty here is that these are not groups just idly sitting around and talking about how much they hate black people (or any other group). Such a group would be reprehensible, but basically harmless. What creates this issue is that some people in the group (or even most in some cases) are using the assumed anonymity to plan actions that are obviously dangerous and against the law.

Moreover, while we have the right to free speech, we do not have the right to social media. We do not have the right to amplification. Anyone is free to set up social media with their own terms of service, but we can also be judged for what happens on those forums. It’s not cut and dried and it’s never easy. I can sympathize with someone hoping to keep their views private, but if a group is planning the next insurrection then that right to privacy should go out the window.

Okay, so I suspect you’ve heard that Matthew McConaughey is considering a run for Texas Governor. He hasn’t said which party but he’s starting to answer some questions about it.

He’s said that he’s “measuring” a run. I don’t know if he’s got a ruler, a tape measure, or spoons, but he obviously giving it some thought. I say that because he did an interview. When asked if he’s going to run, he responded —

To the hosts, he replied, “Well, thank you, man. I’m measuring it. Look, it’s going to be in some capacity. … I just — I’m more of a folksy and philosopher poet statesman than I am a, per se, definitive politician.”

He continued, “So I go, well, that’s a reason not to, but then I go, no, that’s exactly why you should, because politics needs redefinition, but I’m measuring, you know, what is my category? What’s my embassy?”

I don’t think per se means what he thinks it means. And as far as I know, the position of philosopher poet statesman isn’t up for election, and if it is, Willie Nelson is the frontrunner.

Good Lord, he’s Donald Trump with a better haircut.

UPDATE: Anna The Geek here again. It all went very smoothly last night and the site is back up with the same features as before. So comment and post away!

Hi everyone,

This is Anna The Geek here. I need to perform some major maintenance on Juanita Jean website starting at 10pm today. The site can be wonky tonight and tomorrow. If you comment during that time, it might be lost. I will post again when the site is back up and stable.

It’s not going well, y’all.  I listened to the talking heads last night on the television and they say the debt ceiling deal is catastrophic and a major threat to democracy. It looks like Biden’s bill is DOA because, come to find out, Democrats are not a whole lot better at compromise than Republicans are.  An absolutely new variant of Covid has been found in a nursing home in Nebraska or some damn place and we are back to killing 2,000 people a day with Covid.  Migrants are being beaten with a whip by LEOs on horseback on the border.  We’re having 16 foot waves on a lake near Chicago and that just don’t seem right.  Biden is giving away nuclear weapons and, damn, that don’t seem right either.

This morning, I was so depressed that I considered moving to Cuba and running for Secretary of Agriculture. Somebody’s gotta bring in the agave crop and I think I am just the woman to it done.

So, I went looking somewhere – anywhere – for good news.  This appears to be a lot harder than you’d suspect.  But, I finally found it and it was worth the hunt.

People with a higher consumption of dairy fat have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease than those with low intakes, according to new research studying some of the world’s biggest consumers of dairy products.

A hunk of cheese and a bottle of wine because my heart needs it today.

One other thing, how come all this news and a white girl getting killed by her boyfriend takes precedence over everything?  Did Nancy Grace win the culture wars?

Yesterday, some readers were very passionate about vaccine mandates in the wake of the news that Pfizer has had some successful tests of children between the ages of five and eleven. We obviously aren’t there yet, but hopefully we will have a vaccine for all school aged children before the end of the year. This of course begged the question: why aren’t all elementary schools and daycare centers mandating that every adult in the building take the vaccine? Forcing everyone else around them to be fully vaccinated just seems to make the most sense.

That conversation morphed into a conversation as to why we aren’t mandating every abled body adult get the vaccine. The FDA has give full approval to at least one vaccine. We have plenty of it to go around and the vaccine has been free for quite some time.

The Democratic party should be working from a position of strength, but they can’t seem to get out of their own way. Heavy majorities want vaccine mandates. They want a higher minimum wage. They want stiffer environmental protections. They want voting rights protected and expanded. We know all of this. Yet, little seems to happen because some within the party are worried about the fallout.

See, we know a loud minority will protest any of these things. We know this because we’ve seen it before. When President Obama was negotiating the Affordable Care Act, he took very popular planks like a public option off the table. There was no way the Republicans could support it. Except, they didn’t support any of it. They’ve been spending the past ten years trying to get rid of all of it. So, why are we worried about what planks Republicans find objectionable? They find everything objectionable.

Conservatives are up in arms about mandates. It’s antithetical to freedom they say. Except it’s the exact same thing we’ve been doing with other vaccines for decades. In order to attend public school you have to have certain vaccinations or documentation from a doctor of why you cannot comply. There’s none of this “I don’t know what’s in it” or “it’s a way for them to track you.” Sure, there are those that have always believed that, but they had to suffer the consequences of their decision.

The end result this time around is that one of the wealthiest countries in the world has one of the lowest vaccine rates in the developed world. Sure, developing countries lag behind, but they also have institutional barriers to consider. A country without those barriers can’t seem to get to 70 percent in full vaccinations. Sadly, giving people the freedom to choose means too many make the wrong choice.

Whether you mandate it or not, the Tucker Carlson’s and Sean Hannity’s of the world will spew their garbage comparing a government to fascism when doing something we’ve done dozens of times before. You can tiptoe around it or you can simply shove it down their throat. If people are going to complain let’s give them something to complain about. In the meantime, maybe then we can properly protect our children and anyone else that is vulnerable instead of hoping only the idiots weed themselves out of the population.