A SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM

The 10th Amendment to the US Constitution states The federal government  possesses only those powers delegated to it by the states or the people through the Constitution. (1791) .

It would seem that today, 225 years later, the states have bestowed upon the federal government the title of "Toilet Sheriff," and granted Washington bureaucrats the right to determine who can use a state's men's and women's washrooms, locker rooms and showers.

I have a concern that if the states cannot determine who uses their bathrooms without interference or blackmail by the federal government, what does the state have power to do on its own. What then does the 10th Amendment even mean?

The power-hungry federal government does not appear to have a limit. They are shameless with their power grabs. What they have used as justification for sticking their noses in the states' heads this time, is Title 9.

Title 9 of the Education Amendments of 1972 states, No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. Basically, educational programs and activities that receive federal funds must operate in a nondiscriminatory manner.   

Fair enough, but my guess is that 44 years ago, the concept of sex was based upon the sex a person is, not the sex he/she (proper grammatically and contextually) would like to be.

How then did we get here?

I have said before I believe our society is made up of a heart (Liberals) and a head (Conservatives). Both are required to keep the body politic alive. I just worry that the heart sees no limit --no limit to the problems there are to solve, no limit to the underprivileged, no limit to those who do not experience equality. The head agrees there are problems, underprivileged and inequality, but the head believes there must be limits.

Whenever we decide to do something, we decide not to do something else. When we decide to go out for a run, we also decide at the same time not to sit on the couch and watch TV. When we decide to potentially make life easier for the 96,000 transgendered among us, we also decide to potentially make life harder for the other 317,900,000. Given those numbers, the head will fight the heart, and the head will be called heartless.

So what? Isn't this just a big deal over nothing? Just another governmental, '"Wag the Dog"? I'm sure it is that, but it is also more. What we are seeing here is a good example of the old bug-a-boo, the "slippery slope."

When a government or a movement wants to drive its people from A to Z, the trip is more effective to go from A to B to C and before they realize those lulled to sleep are sitting firmly on Z.

Consider the initial ban on smoking. It started on airplanes with a smoking section in the back. Today you are looked at as Beelzebub if you smoke anywhere. If the powers to be had banned smoking almost everywhere right out of the gate, there would have been riots.

My disapproval of same-sex marriage has never been that two people who want to be together for the rest of their lives should not be, but I believe the word marriage has already been taken and defined. Anyone who thinks that marriage will not take a ride on the slippery slope and remain only two people only need to look at smoking.

In a 1975 article in the Washington Post uber-Liberal Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg, when addressing concerns that Tile 9 would "require unisex restrooms in public places" wrote, Emphatically not so. She continued, Separate places to disrobe, sleep, perform personal bodily functions are permitted, in some situations required, by regard for individual privacy.

Today the federal government is saying basically that any person can use any washroom, locker or shower they desire. We’ve hit the bottom of the slope. I wonder how the Supreme Ginsberg would respond to this now?

It's time to get the head in the game, and some state governors and school board officials are leading the charge. They, to fit the narrative, are being called haters and bigots. They will have federal funds cut off but have their principles intact.

The heart says the head's primary objection to open bathrooms is worry over transgenders attacking innocent people in washrooms and points out that has never happened. So, there should be no concern with letting any a person of any self-declared sex enter any washroom. OK! let's go with that. Does anyone feel changes in the law allowing people to self-declare and go into any washroom will make the public safer? Or, is there a better chance that it has stirred up the perverts among us and will make the public more vulnerable?

I don't know how this change in bathroom laws ever got started. Who is leading the charge? It seems like maybe the heart is running out of causes. To be fair, I have never heard any transgender person's side of this issue. To me it just seems that we have had a man's and a woman’s separate facilities for probably more than 100 years, what did the transgender folks do for the first 99 1/2 years? My guess they went to the restrooms commensurate with what they were wearing that day and used the stall. They showered with those born with the same equipment. That, on its face, doesn't seem so bad. It sounds even logical.

The heart and head have to be working together for maximum success, but for what I can see, the heart is an Ethiopian just finishing a marathon and the head is resting comfortably on a pillow in a fully reclined Lazy Boy. The heart appears to be scavenging the world hoping to find some class of people, who in their opinion, is not being treated "fairly" (as if life itself is fair), then nit-pick the Constitution or some obscure law to use as justification.

Say heart, while you're on a roll how about finding something in the Constitution that says we should insure vets' jobs upon return to civilian life that pays at least $15 per hour (they will have actually earned it) and free education. I recognize vets are not as sure a vote as the LGBT community, but they will have deserved it.

GUNS AND GENERATIONS

There were two guns in the house, one in one drawer, one in another.

Dad was a policeman. One gun was his service revolver, the other one was for off-duty wear. I'm sure somewhere along the line I was told to stay away from them, and for the most part I did. I do remember once picking up his 38 service revolver and thinking how heavy it was and putting it back immediately. After all I was told by my dad to stay away from it.

I have heard stories about kids who grew up in rural areas coming to school in their pickup trucks with their rifles secured in the seemingly required rifle rack and even comparing their rifles with their teachers' rifles.

Today, if a gun is not kept in a safe, the parent could face charges. Any kid bringing a rifle within 3 miles of a school would require the deployment of the closest SWAT team.

Same pistol, same rifle, different times.

The times have changed and yet a certain segment of society (the heart), rather than looking at the changes in society, seem to believe the problem is with the gun, which is the same hunk of metal it has always been, just today the gun lives in a different world.

The element of American society which, I believe, produced the activator of gun violence is the continuing decline in our respect for authority.

I respected my parents. I trusted them to lead me in the right direction, to have my well being in their every action. I, of course, never articulated that, but looking back, it was who they were. Even as young people we knew, at some level, when we were doing right or wrong, good or bad. We knew if our actions were acceptable or not acceptable. We trusted our parents to verify those beliefs by demonstrating their love to reinforce, or by "punishment" to express displeasure and redirect future behaviors.

Did anything in that last paragraph tweak a nerve? If so, let me guess--the word "punishment." We have reached a point in our society where anything that would make our children "uncomfortable" must be strongly mitigated or completely eliminated lest children begin to think of themselves as fallible. The more "heart centered" (Liberal) among us may say, "When a parent removes love from a child for doing something "wrong" that means the parent,s love is conditional to be applied only when the child does what the parent wants." That’s stated as if it's a bad thing. We "head centered" (Conservatives) believe the parent doesn't actually stop loving a child for attempting to stuff a cantaloupe down the toilet but does remove an expression of their love regardless of the potential of hurting the child's delicate feelings. When a horse you are riding is headed off a cliff, you correct by pulling on the reins. I'm sure the horse would just rather keep galloping in the direction it's heading and feels the pulling of the reins a "punishment," but unless the rider and his trusting steed are interested in doing a Thelma and Louise, there is a time for punishment.

In a Ted Cruz campaign stop in Indiana, a 10-11-year-old boy shouted from the crowd, "You suck!"

Cruz responded, Hopefully someone has told you children should speak with respect. ... In my household when a child behaves like that they get a spanking. Social media lit up. How dare he suggest punishment, and a physical one at that. (Pulling the child's reins?) In my wildest dreams I couldn't imagine doing something like that boy did. If his "parents," and I use the term lightly, have a gun in their house, I strongly suggest they get an industrial-strength safe.

I didn’t play with my father's gun. I didn't play with it because I knew what was right and wrong and the ramifications of that knowledge. The gun had nothing to do with it.

Guns are guns; society transformed (After all "fundamental transformation" is the objective isn't it?) and "loosened" up. The heart side of our society sees that as progress. The head side of our society, not so much.

Over the years younger people's respect for authority has been severely undermined. This set back in societal evolution has come initially, and unfortunately, from children's ultimate authority figure, his/her parents The heart's desire for equality is mistakenly imposed on the children. The child is not the equal of the parent. The child is not the buddy of the parent. The child has enough friends, but only one set of parents. In schools we have children who are going free-range MMA on teachers with just minimal, if any consequences. The authority of police has been sabotaged by no less than the President of the US, and we have religion scorned and laughed at in the media and suppressed in actual practice.

We're growing a generation of children who do not respect the authority of parents, teachers, law enforcement and/or clergy. Where are our young people getting their role models? Will today’s marching orders, "If it feels good, do it," or "They are going to do it anyway," serve them well in the real world?

The head knows we are not all equal, but the heart is so mistakenly obsessed with equality that any activity that smacks of competition is stifled. Try to find a good old game of Musical Chairs. We have kids' rooms with shelves full of participation trophies. What happens to those ships that "never leave the harbor," when they get into high seas? What happens when our younger generations meet real physical adversity?

What happens when they can't win an argument of words? Why would they be able to engage in friendly discourse when they are rarely exposed to dissenting views, and if a dissenting view might be lingering in the air like the smell of rotting flesh, they can hopefully make it to their "safe place" until evil dissent is gone. If they can't effectively debate the issue, they could try getting physical to get their point across. My guess, with so little practice in the art of pugilism, (because that usually results in winners and losers) that won't end well. Knowing they have never lost in their lives, how is it possible other people don't see the world as they do? Time to move on to throwing rocks and bottles believing that will prove the validity of their beliefs. If they still can't get their way there is always a gun. A gun is a good final choice. They believe when they get caught, or if they off themselves from this meaningless world, the media will publicize them and their plight and will portray them as poor underprivileged kids that America (founded on racism and genocide) has failed. They will be famous, thereby justifying their over-inflated self-esteem.

We have to understand a gun is only a problem if it's in the hands of someone with a problem. What social structure are we establishing for a person to make an intelligent decision concerning their place in the world, understanding their personal pros and cons inventory and experiencing a realistic belief of what they have to offer and what they have to give? Where do they go for the truth? Are we, under the guise of helping, setting up our young people so the only way they can find validation and a sense of self-worth is in shooting up a school, church or movie house?

Let's stop wasting time trying to "control" guns. A Glock, in itself, is as dangerous as a Glockenspiel. Let's work on the environment the gun exists in. I'm confident if we refuse to ride the horse in the direction it's going and do our personal best to regenerate respect for parents, teachers, law enforcement, and clergy, the guns will control themselves.