I know conversion is possible because I have gone through it personally. No, this isn’t one of those Saul getting knocked off the horse moments. I didn’t have a burning bush talk to me or have a near death experience. I don’t want to make light of those events because I am sure some people experience those things and they seem very real for them. Who am I to say different?

What I do know is that most of us don’t experience those things. So, conversion has to come from within. We need some kind of realization (or a ha moment) and then the courage and fortitude to actually make a lasting change.  Most people associate conversion with organized religion. Certainly, there are opportunities there, but it doesn’t have to be that way and while religion can be a catalyst for change, the change itself is graded and evaluated independent of that. After all, what good is going to church, praying, and studying if it doesn’t actually lead to tangible change in our lives?

What I have talked about before is a change of mindset from grievance to gratitude. I have been in a grievance state. When I was younger I completed my masters in counseling and wanted to be a school counselor. I did it for three years at the elementary level, but it wasn’t a good fit for me. I lost that job and had difficulty getting back into education. I spent an inordinate amount of time angry.

Why were other people getting opportunities that I wasn’t. I felt that I was a victim of reverse discrimination. I am a white male in a field dominated by women. When I was an elementary counselor I was the only male counselor in the entire school district. I had sunk into a mindset of grievance. That anger was also sifting out into my personal life as well as my attitudes towards other groups that seemingly got advantages. I was on the train to conservatism.

Part of the conversion happened because I got an opportunity to do what I am doing now. Part of it came because I had time to process all of the things that had happened and realized I had a huge role in my own fate. Part of it came in the wisdom of realizing that I had had opportunities given to me all while I seemingly was prevented from doing things.

Going from grievance to gratitude is hard. It takes a long time because wisdom absolutely never happens in the moment. It comes after reflection and some perspective none of us have as things are happening. This is why I can’t give up on people trapped in a grievance mindset.

The honest to God truth is that all of us have the capacity and justification for choosing either. We can point to crap that happens in our lives and shout, “it’s just not fair.” In many cases it isn’t. In many cases there are people less talented and proficient than us that somehow stumble their way into positions above us. As such, there are many of us that have earned that grievance and can wear it without any tinge of irony.

At the very same time, we all have something to be grateful for. If nothing else, we get the opportunity to wake up every day and make a new start. I probably get the opportunity to impact many more students than I would as a counselor. Whatever life force we choose to believe in, that force is wiser and smarter than we are. It knows where we fit best in this universe. Whether that is God, Yahweh, Allah, Krishna, fate, Buddha, or anything else we can name, we can choose to believe we are in the very best place. Obviously, truth is a four letter word, but perspective is not. Moving folks from grievance to gratitude sounds like moving mountains, but I am here to tell you it’s not only possible, but a necessity.

When your goal is to deprogram conservatives we must remember that it is a process like any other cult. It’s at this point that we have to remember that language is precise. So, let me start with a statement that will seem provocative, but makes all the difference in the world. Conservatism by its very nature is selfish. This doesn’t mean individual conservatives are selfish. Many are very generous individuals, but their generosity is usually focused on those they find worthy of that generosity. As an ideology it is built on selfishness and individualism.

So, when we look at memes that focus on how great things were in the past, the temptation is to focus on how things weren’t all that great for everyone. Unfortunately, this is a strategy that won’t work. They don’t care. So, telling them that life wasn’t good for women, ethnic minorities, or the poor really doesn’t phase them. Keep in mind this is about an ideology and not individuals. Progressivism is about the we and conservatism is about the me.

Step One: The politics of scale

A number of the issues many worry about simply don’t matter. Why are we spending so much time writing laws and spending column inches and television segments on this stuff? This simple answer is that it distracts us from the stuff that really matters. If I can make you worry about transgender girls playing girls sports then you won’t notice that my economic policies are driving you to your knees.

If one percent of people are transgender then 20 people in a 2000 student are transgender. If ten of those are boys becoming girls then how many of them are both able to transition before 18 and interested in playing sports. This is simple. Does this issue impact you? Do you have a girl in school playing girls sports? So, you take this approach and expand it outwards. How many of these hot button issues are both real and impact you personally? My guess is very few.

Step Two: Enlightened Self-interest

Remember that conservatism is inherently selfish. So, instead of focusing on someone’s notion of fairness we have to appeal to their sense of self-interest. If things were so good back in the 1950s then it is fair to examine why that was. Few of them know that the top end income tax bracket paid 91 percent. Of course, they weren’t paying 91 percent on all of it, but there were far fewer billionaires.

The vast majority of these folks aren’t earning 100,000 a year. The trickle down economic policies are killing them. It’s why their wages haven’t advanced. It is why costs continue to go up. Things like deregulation are directly responsible for these things. Conservative politicians decreased government investment in higher education and lifted the caps on tuition. We all know that this is more unfair for the poorer Americans and those from traditionally disenfranchised groups. They could honestly care less about other people.

Step Three: The we helps the me

Once you have figured out a way to get people to ignore bullshit issues and have helped them see how conservative economic policies have hurt them then you are ready to finish the job. Individually, we may care or not about others, but most progressives understand the notion that when more people do well then we all do well.

If everyone has access to quality health care then health care costs drop and productivity goes up. When people have good jobs their buying power goes up and they can afford to shop at our stores. Study after study demonstrates that when the disparity between rich and poor is tighter then the crime rate drops. Happier and satisfied people typically don’t resort to violence. Obviously, there will always be exceptions but when we recognize systemic racism, sexism, xenophobia as a threat to our collective well-being then we will have completed the transformation.

There is no lack of subject material for posts these days. If anything, there is TMI. But today this one almost caused coffee spew, as I was perusing my morning inbox. Now, I am no expert in cocaine lines, but I watch a lot of TV so I know what they look like. We all know Hunter Biden knows what they look like. Obviously, Special Counsel David Weiss and staff do not. They came across this photo while combing through the infamous laptop, probably after clutching their pearls over the dick picks. Look! Evidence! Cocaine!!! You be the judge.

Turns out, it was a photo taken by a recovering addict who is a carpenter by trade. He sent it to his psychiatrist, who had told him he’d have to choose between his art and the drug, with the words Made My Choice. The psychiatrist, who was also treating Biden, passed it on as inspiration. Add this to the Smirnov debacle, and you have plenty of embarrassment to go around Magaland. Not that anything can embarrass these people.

In this video Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper are talking about life, death, and grief. This weekend, my coworker and friend passed away. He wasn’t my best friend. We didn’t hang out away from work. I almost always detest when people blow these things up for dramatic effect. He was a good, young kid that was just starting his career. He wanted to be good at what he did and do he leaned on all of us in the office for advice.

This story exists on two levels. There is the overwhelmingly sad human angle. This was a 30 year old kid that had just gotten married. He and his wife hadn’t even been married a year. They both are in their first years as teachers. Quite literally, his life was snatched right out of the starting gate.

You can watch the video over and over again and get choked up every time when you notice Cooper struggling to get through the quote. How could the worst things that happen to us be gifts? How demented do you have to be to express thanks for your own suffering?

On a human level it is is very simple. We are fallible and the moment we admit that, the better off we are. These moments also put our own loss in perspective. How could I possibly compare my struggles with his or his wife’s? Even with my own stuff, I can’t possibly know what to say in this moment. I am speechless. On a larger scale, we can share on our humanity and cherish the time we do have.

When I look at our world, what I see more than anything is a sharp rise in narcissism. In this context, it can best be defined as the excessive concern with self. We are the center of the universe. Everyone exists to meet my needs. Their thoughts, feelings, and concerns are of no consequence to me unless it can be used to meet my desires and my needs.

What has this narcissism wrought? I’d point to the very real situation this couple went through. The people working within the school district were caring and feeling people, but the district itself can’t be. They both ran out of days quickly and whatever benefits that coworkers could pass on also ran out. That includes sick leave banks, disability, and bereavement leave.

I bring this up because it is the norm in our industry and dozens of others as well. You work to serve the company. When you can no longer work you are of no use to the company. So, you are at the mercy of whatever individual managers might feel in the moment. Even then, our capacity for charity is limited.

We work longer and harder than most countries. When you just compare us to the industrialized world we also make less per hour for that time. Our standard of living is lower partially because of the choices we have made. The individual’s ability to make millions or billions trumps the standard of living of ordinary people. Most other countries offer more extended leave to care for a family members, prepare for a baby, or deal with your own illness.

Congress couldn’t pass a bowel movement right now much less landmark employee rights legislation. Maybe that will change some day. What we can do is hug our friends and loved ones a little tighter. We can laugh a little more and a little louder. We can also remember that whatever stuff we are dealing with is not nearly as bad as what others have to deal with.

Pssssst. Do you wanna get in on the real deal? Well…Bzzzzt! You are SOL. You’re too late, Jake. The 8th Wonder of the World has sold out only 2 hours after TFG offered his signature gold painted high tops to the public at the Sneaker Con convention in Philly this weekend. Only a mere 24 hours after getting his a$$ handed to him  being unfairly treated by AG Letitia James and Judge Engoron to the tune of some $356 million that he now owes the people of New York state they say he has to give them, TFG is on the grift stump again hawking sneakers to “young people”.

Because that’s what interests young people: over-priced sneakers.

And nothing says success like owning a pair of these exclusive gold-painted sneakers. They’re offering only 1000 of these monstrosities collectors’ items at $399 American.

But they’re all gone now, you losers.

All 1000 were snapped up by gullible shrewd young voters, voters that TFG is going to need this November if he is going to regain his throne elected office once and for all time.

But don’t despair, dear suckers readers. You can still snap up some fine TFG swag at this website (not affiliated with anything political, or TFG or good taste). There are regular sneakers in beautiful red state red or white (our favorite color) with gold lettering.

Wanna smell bad smell like TFG? Then you need a case of Victory Cologne that you can also snap up for only a cool $99/bottle at the same website.

Pay us now, and we’ll ship it all to you in 4 or 5 months.

No…really.

Sanctity — the state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly.

Abortion data can be tricky due to the sometimes secretive nature of the procedure, but the CDC reported over 622,000 abortions between 2012 and 2021. That’s a ten year period. Move the decimal over one space and you get 62,000 per year. I’m not going to mince words. That’s a lot. A cursory search of births from the same year indicates that over three million children are born every year.

Obviously, there are an undisclosed number of miscarriages every year. So, it is impossible to know, but various reports would suggest that pregnancies in general are dropping. There are any number of push and pull factors that would impact that including economic factors, but we could also suggest that sex education and access to contraceptives might also have an impact on that as well.

My fuzzy math skills would indicate that after we allow for miscarriages that abortions would account for about one percent of pregnancies at least through 2021. In other words, they are relatively rare. A hefty percentage of those are due to the health of the mother or child. The idea that women are running out and getting elective abortions on the regular is just plain silly.

Demographic data shows us that gun deaths are not only higher in the United States than anywhere else in the world, but they are on the rise.  The data on gun deaths is pretty close to rates of abortion. We could parse out the numbers and argue that there are more suicides than murders. However, in a discussion about life that is irrelevant. It is perfectly analogous. A woman that wants to get an abortion can find a way to do it legally or illegally if she has the means. A person that wants to commit suicide will find a way whether they have access to a gun or not if they have the means.

If we are acting on a belief that life is sacred (as the definition of sanctity would indicate above) then wouldn’t it make sense to advocate for policies that would promote that? That would be all policies. Obviously, each of these issues are complicated. In cases where the health of the child or mother are at stake we don’t want red tape to block the wishes of a woman and her doctor.

Similarly, there is a certain amount of gun ownership that we can tolerate and most wouldn’t tolerate a world where gun ownership would be completely forbidden. So, we come to the idea that a wise compromise needs to be reached on both counts. Facts are limited on the latest mass shooting in Kansas City. We know there have been some arrests and we have some basic numbers, but we are unsure of the motives.

We know what causes this. We have seen this multiple times. We’ve tried nothing and we are all out of ideas. We have tons of thoughts and prayers. I don’t want to minimize that, but what in the heck are we praying for if we aren’t praying for wisdom and the fortitude to do what needs to be done to help? The Lord works in mysterious ways, but most of the time he works through us. If we aren’t willing to do anything then the prayer is a waste of breath.

The arguments against gun control and assault weapons bans are tortured at best. I don’t give a hoot what AR stands for in an AR-15. Okay, it doesn’t stand for assault rifle. Great. To argue that I don’t get to argue for gun control because I don’t know how that stupid apparatus works is just a creative dodge. It is designed to kill people. It is designed to kill a lot of people in short order. It has no positive utility and doesn’t belong anywhere near polite society.

If you oppose common sense gun legislation and blabber on about the sanctity of life you are a hypocrite.  Get your jollies anyway you want, but if your jollies present a danger to me or my family then you bet your ass I am going to argue for its regulation. If you care about life then you should care about all reasonable efforts to promote safety. Otherwise you are just full of excrement and need to sit down and shut up.