Category Archives: Thinking

An Odd Twist in the Gay Marriage Debate

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This March 26th the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases on the issue of gay marriage: Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor. The two cases bring different issues to the Court but both deal with the issue of gay marriage.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear these cases; lower courts in both cases ruled in favor of gay marriage and if the court had not taken the cases it would have cleared the way for gay marriage.

Opponents of gay marriage have consistently argued that marriage has been, is, and always should be between one man and one woman. A group called Protect Marriage outlines these views.

A few days ago they appeared to change tactics; I say “appeared” because I’m still scratching my head over this. You can read the article in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, and a follow up article in today’s paper.

As far as I can tell, this is what happened: Both cases put government in the role of defendant (the state of California in Hollingsworth v. Perry and the federal government in United States v. Windsor) and in both cases the governments refused to defend the laws. Several groups have taken that role, including a group of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. This group hired a former Solicitor General under President Bush, Paul D. Clement, to argue on their behalf.

He filed an argument that said this (my interpretation): Heterosexual unmarried couples live with the possibility of an unexpected pregnancy. Children do better when raised in a home with two parents, and societal pressure for the couple to get married (known colloquially as a “shotgun marriage”) benefits everyone. Homosexual marriage has no possibility of an unexpected pregnancy. Therefore, if we allow gays to marry, we turn marriage from “have to” to “want to.” This will remove the pressure on a heterosexual pregnant couple to get married, and they won’t. This will harm society as children raised by one parent don’t do as well as children raised by two parents.

I can only hope I’m reading it wrong.

President Obama's Second Term: Grateful We Made It

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Once again Nancy and I were on the road to Yosemite during the inauguration. It meant we heard most of it on the radio and missed the visuals. That’s OK: the oratory was more than enough. Even the president’s strongest opponents must admit he’s a brilliant and articulate speaker.

Some of the highlights for me:

  • The fact that he was reelected. The Republican Party and several incredibly wealthy people spent obscene amounts of money to defeat him, and yet our votes could not be bought or intimidated.
  • While the crowds were not nearly as large as they were four years ago it speaks volumes that nearly a million people showed up.
  • And now for some quotes: “[W]e, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.”
  • “The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative. They strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers. They free us to take the risks that make this country great.”
  • “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well.”
  • The elegant symmetry that we celebrated this on the day we celebrate Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The part of his speech that I found the most moving and surprising was his words on our gay brothers and sisters. He and I have both been prodded in our support of gay marriage by brave gay men and women who cared about us enough to challenge our prejudices. Now we both support for them what we have been blessed to take for granted for us.

Though not quoted directly in this speech, President Obama has often quoted Dr. King’s “fierce urgency of now.” Dr. King used it initially in his opposition to the war in Vietnam but it’s a quote for the ages. It counters the argument that while what you want may be valid, we’re not ready for it. If it’s right, it’s right now. It is that time for full gay equality.

The Republican response was as expected as it was tiresome. They claim that he did not reach out to those who did not vote for the president. This after their candidate claimed it was not his job to care about people who don’t support him. This after his predecessor George W. Bush famously said on his reelection: “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.”

My advice to the president is this: Take off the gloves. The Republicans took the gloves off the day you announced you were running for president and all your attempts to negotiate with them were fruitless because they never intended to negotiate with you. The debt ceiling, gun control, the promises we’ve made to our veterans and the elderly: they never had any intention of working for a solution. All they ever wanted was your defeat and they failed at that. In the last 20 years there have been 6 presidential elections and they received the majority of the votes in one of them.

The Trouble With Satire? We've Become Too Dumb to Recognize It

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On December 28, 2012 Daniel Akst wrote an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times entitled: Hey Kids, Don’t Forget Your Guns. He began the article by talking about the NRA’s proposal that we make our schools safe by posting an armed law enforcement officer in every school. Daniel suggested that the best way to make schools safe is to give the students guns and train them in how to shoot.

My thanks to Mrs. Farris, my 12th grade English teacher who had us read A Modest Proposal by Jonathon Swift. Swift suggested in 1729 (in response to large numbers of his fellow Irish in poverty) that their 1 year old children be sold to the rich to be eaten. We learned in reading this about satire.

Daniel was doing the same thing. Several of us caught the meaning, but I’m amazed at how many didn’t. The responses of shock and outrage caused the Times to publish a postscript on January 5th that you can read here. In the article Sue Horton wrote: “Should we have made it more obvious that Akst was writing tongue-in-cheek if clearly intelligent readers didn’t get the joke?” At the end of the article she wrote: “We do like to run the occasional piece of satire on the Op-Ed pages, and we intend to continue to publish it. But we will also continue to look for ways — through headlines, say, or visual presentation — to better tip the readers to the joke. If we fail occasionally, as we almost certainly will, we apologize.”

We apologize? WE APOLOGIZE? C’mon man. I don’t expect that everyone who reads this article will make the connection to Jonathon Swift, but it scares me to think that we’ve gotten to the point where we can’t recognize satire. Last May I wrote an article about a column that claimed President Lincoln filed the first patent in 1845 for what would become Facebook. It was picked up by several news organizations who assumed it was true.

How does this happen? I have a few theories:

  • We are bombarded by too much information. We hear so much each day about so many things that we simply can’t keep up. No longer do we have the time to step back and ask: “Does this make any sense?” The media used to filter out the crazy stuff, but now they amplify it. Our 24 hour news organizations are so hungry for new content that they no longer filter but put everything out and tell us we decide. We’re not good at it.
  • Organizations that we think should be mature or reasonable are neither. My best evidence of this is the NRA itself. Their answer to gun violence is the need for more guns. Is is so much of a stretch to think that if 1 gun in a school is reasonable, 600 isn’t?
  • Finally, we’ve never been good at identifying satire. Indeed, in 1729 Swift’s essay was met by outrage in some circles by people who thought he was serious. On October 30, 1938 Orson Wells produced a radio show called War of the Worlds. Even with disclaimers before, during, and after the show, people thought that Earth was being invaded. Within days of the attacks of 9/11/2001 we began hearing that this was caused by the US government. Really. You can read about it here.

So where do we go from here? Me, I’m praying for the people who fall for these stories, and still vote.

Blue Christmas and the Incarnation

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My colleague at San Diego Hospice, Lori Leopold, is a Methodist minister and has been a hospice chaplain for a little over 8 years. For the 2nd year in a row she has presided over a liturgy called “Blue Christmas” at La Jolla United Methodist Church. Their description of the liturgy is this:

The Blue Christmas Service is designed and offered especially for those who struggle during the holiday season. For anyone who has suffered a loss – the loss of health, the loss of a loved one or a pet, the loss of a job or a relationship – the holidays can be an especially difficult time of year. Just when our culture tells us we are supposed to be “merry and bright,” we can find ourselves feeling most lost and alone. It is an important time to draw close to God and allow God to draw close to us in a quiet, reflective service that acknowledges the reality of our wounds and the graciousness of God who comes to meet us there.

This year Nancy and I attended and I’m grateful we did. I expected this to be akin to “I know it’s a hard time of year but it’s going to be OK.” Lori’s preaching turned it into something much more. She spoke about how during times of despair, loneliness, and separation the Incarnation (birth of the Savior) is all the more poignant. Christ came for all of us, but most importantly for those in most need. The pastor of the church read from 1 Kings 19:1-16. Here is the text of Lori’s homily:

I love this passage from 1 Kings. It has intrigued me for as long as I’ve been familiar with it. It feels deep and rich, whispering of something profound and holy. And while this section is a small piece of a much larger story, I want to focus just on this small piece tonight. The prophet Elijah, fleeing for his life, becomes overcome by despair. He finds himself deep in the wilderness, sitting beneath a solitary broom tree and is so overwhelmed that he asks God to take his life. An angel encourages and enables him to continue on his journey and he winds up at Mt. Horeb where he is told to go out and stand on the mountain because the Lord is about to pass by.

The scripture says that as Elijah stood there, a great wind came up, so strong that it broke rocks into pieces, but that God was not in the wind. And the wind was followed by an earthquake, but again, God was not in the earthquake. And the earthquake was followed by a fire, but God was not in the fire. But after the fire, came the sound of sheer silence – and God was in the silence. And it was out of that silence that God spoke to Elijah about where he should go from there.

Can you imagine? There was Elijah, waiting, probably breathlessly, for the Lord to come, for the Lord to pass by. And all of these dramatic things began to happen – wind and earthquake and fire. But each time we hear that God was not in the dramatic event. That God was not contained in the wind, the earthquake or the fire. Now that’s certainly not to say that those dramatic events were coincidental, because it was the coming of God that set all of those things into motion. They wouldn’t have happened if God weren’t passing by. But they did not contain the holy – they were not the way that God chose to reveal Godself. God revealed Godself not in the flash of those happenings, but rather in the pure silence. In fact, the scripture goes on to show that God revealed Godself to Elijah in a way that was gentle, in a way that was understandable, in a way that was personal and in a way that was purposeful.

And I think that this scripture passage holds a lot of meaning for us as we contemplate the Christmas season, maybe especially if we, like Elijah, find ourselves in a time searching, struggling, despairing. It’s easy to identify the flash, the flurry, the whirlwind, the dramatic and out of the ordinary things that happen around Christmas. The decorations and lights and card writing and baking and singing and shopping and holiday parties. All of those cultural Christmas traditions are something akin to the wind and the earthquake and the fire. They are the things that happen around Christmas. And as it was with the wind and the earthquake and the fire, our Christmas flurry is, in some way, set in motion by God’s coming. Because, chances are, we wouldn’t be doing all of this if the Christ child hadn’t come in the first place. It is to God’s coming, to the incarnation, that we have attached 2000 years worth of tradition, layers of stuff that, in some way, shape or form, point back to the heart of Christmas.

So when we peel away the layers of activity, when we peel away all of the stuff that’s accumulated around Christmas, we return, really, to the heart of things. We come down to the stillness, the silence of one holy night. A night when God came, so like God, not in the furiousness of a wind storm, not in the dramatic shaking of an earthquake, not in the searing heat of a fire, but when God came into the world in a way that was gentle, in a way that was understandable, in a way that was personal and in a way that was purposeful.

When I think about it, I always imagine that the vast darkness of that night swallowed up the sight and the sound of that small family in that small place. Or maybe I should say that I imagine that the night seemed to swallow up the sight and sound of them. Because we know that ultimately it did not. It could not. We know that the birth of that child – so small, so subtle, birthed into the holy stillness of that night was a flicker of light that would burn bright and eternal, changing the world and changing us forever.

There have been times in my life when despair has darkened the doorstep of my spirit. Despair over personal circumstances, despair over the violence that wreaks havoc in our world. I can’t imagine that there is one among us that wasn’t shaken to the core, shattered in some way, by the shootings in Connecticut last week. There have been times in my life when I have found myself beneath the proverbial broom tree. Perhaps you have been there too. Times when I wanted and prayed for a sign – a big, bold catastrophic sign, to assure me of God’s presence. I never got one. But what I’ve come to believe is that God is not forceful or showy, especially with those who feel particularly tender or wounded. Rather God reveals Godself lovingly and sometimes surprisingly in those precious moments of stillness and silence. God provides an unexpected angel or some small sustenance, strength for the journey, even when we may have many miles of wilderness left to go.

It is a great irony to me that those who are grieving oftentimes find themselves feeling utterly disconnected from Christmas. I was talking with a friend the other day and she said, “I hate Christmas.” She’s dreading it, can’t wait until it’s over. And it’s true that against the backdrop of all of the more superficial merriment, our grief can make us feel alien, alone, out of step with everything and everyone around us. But in reality, when we go back to the heart of things, peel away all those layers of fluff around Christmas, it is that aspect of all of us, the part of us that is wounded, that is broken hearted that God most wants to reach with the miracle of Christmas. How much we might miss if we tuck those aspects of ourselves away as if they’re somehow inappropriate in light of the holiday season. I believe, with all my heart, that what God wants from us this Christmas is to make those parts of ourselves available – to God, maybe to one another – that, resting in silence, we might receive the blessing of the One who came to love us, to encourage us, to heal us, to set us free.

Thank you Lori: it was an evening well spent. I have ahead of me many hours of thinking and praying on this.

Republican Hand Wringing: Here's My Theory

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It’s been a few days since the election and it appears the Republican Party is still trying to figure out how it happened. There is a report from CBS News that Governor Romney and his advisers had no idea he was going to lose. According to the article it wasn’t until the polls closed and the states began to report that the Romney camp finally understood that they might lose. This article came as a surprise to me because I had spent the previous week reading Nat Silver’s Five Thirty Eight blog on the New York Times website. Nate dug down into the numbers and by election eve he predicted President Obama had a 90% chance of winning the election. Turns out Nate’s electoral map was 100% correct.

So how did it happen? I have a few theories:

  • The Chaotic Republican Primary: When any party challenges an incumbent, all sorts of people think themselves the Messiah. Combine this with the visceral hate they all have for President Obama, everyone running for the Republican nomination was convinced of his (or her) inevitable coronation. Some (Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Chris Christie) knew better than to run, others (Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum) threw their hat into the ring, had a brief skyrocketing showing in the polls, followed by a freefall. At the end of the day Mitt Romney got the nomination, but lots of Republicans couldn’t hold their nose and vote for him.
  • The search for his own beliefs: Mitt spent the primary season convincing the Tea Party that he was a true believer. He wasn’t; he just wanted to be President. After getting the nomination he spent the rest of the race convincing us that he wasn’t an opportunist. He didn’t. Much to his despair we were listening all along.
  • The disconnect between money and votes: this is probably the heart of the reason for the Republican defeat. The source of their money and the source of their votes were mutually exclusive. We saw staggering amounts raised by the campaign and Super Pacs like American Crossroads, Restore Our Future, Winning Our Future and others. These Super Pacs were funded almost exclusively by angry white men, and Mitt was successful in winning their votes. But angry white men is a shrinking demographic. Latinos are now 16% of the population and 10% of the voting population. Only 27% voted for Mitt (according to CNN).
  • The economy: they kept hammering that President Obama had four years to give us a healthy economy and didn’t. But there were two problems here: in the last few months of the election the economy was showing signs of real growth, and the Republicans had positioned themselves as obstructionists. In 2010 Mitch McConnell said this: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” Note that he said nothing about improving the economy.

So where do they go from here? On one level I’m loathe to give advice to the Republican party, but I also believe they aren’t listening to anyone, and my contribution will be ignored with everyone else’s.

The first thing they need to do is broaden their appeal. Doing outreach to the Latino population needs to be more than claiming to care about them. They (along with all of us) need to start talking about immigration reform that provides a path not only for the engineer from India, but also the agricultural worker from Mexico.

They also need to move beyond the politics of fear. They were able to raise so much money because they were able to tell their base that “those people” (Latinos, the 47%, etc.) are after what you’ve earned. Now they need to articulate a message that includes everyone.

Finally, they need to move away from the Tea Party belief that taxes are somehow a malignant cancer on the country. Nobody argues the need to be vigilant against waste and corruption, but we can be the great country we all want only when everyone pays his fair share. Telling people that we can balance the budget by cutting income doesn’t work on a family budget or a national budget.

The Morning After: More Relieved Than Anything Else

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7:00 PM Pacific Time
This is the most daunting part of this blog, but I’m going to attempt to create a table to show how successful my vote is. I have to confess that peer pressure has never made much sense to me, and I actually enjoy being in the minority, but when it comes to voting I like being in the majority. Yesterday was a good day for me.

Candidate My Vote Winner
President President Obama President Obama
US Senator Diane Feinstein Diane Feinstein
US Representative Scott Peters Scott Peters
State Senator Marty Block Marty Block
State Assembly Toni Atkins Toni Atkins
San Diego Mayor Bob Fillner Bob Fillner
San Diego City Council Sherri Lightner Sherri Lightner
Prop 30 (funding schools) Yes Yes
Prop 31 (state budget) No No
Prop 32 (ban on corporate donations from labor unions) No No
Prop 33 (car insurance reform) No No
Prop 34 (repeals the death penalty) Yes No
Prop 35 (increases penalties for human trafficking) Yes Yes
Prop 36 (amends the 3 strikes rule) Yes Yes
Prop 37 (requires labeling for genetically engineered food) Yes No
Prop 38 (school funding: this was really a smokescreen to confuse supporters of prop 30) No No
Prop 39 (requires multistate corporations who are here to pay taxes based on sales) Yes Yes
Prop 40 (keeps the current redistricting plan) Yes Yes
Prop Z (school funding bonds) Yes Yes

5:30 PM Pacific Time
As I look over my ballot, there is one race still too close to call. With redistricting after the 2010 census we became part of the 52nd Congressional district and our representative changed from Susan Davis (D) to Brian Bilbray (R). Brian was challenged for his seat by Scott Peters. As of right now, 20 1/2 hours after the polls closed, the race is too close to call. Scott has 103,878 votes to Brian’s 103,193: that’s a difference of 685 votes. This may be a while.

As long as I’ve lived in San Diego I’ve started the day reading the San Diego Union Tribune. San Diego is a Republican town and I’ve accepted that the newspaper is going to slant right. Last year Doug Manchester, a local developer, purchased the paper and turned it into his own Twitter feed. Earlier in the year he started endorsing his candidates on the front page. In an op-ed piece in August he predicted Governor Romney would win “in a landslide.” Wonder how he’s feeling about that now. Our subscription expired on September 16th and I didn’t renew, but we kept getting the paper. As I was writing this I got a call from someone from the paper asking about renewing. When I explained that I had no intention of renewing until Doug sold the paper or started having respect for print journalism, the caller told me: “OK, that’s fine. Your balance due is $42.81.” I’m assuming she meant the cost of the paper between September 16th and today. Of course, since I never consented to getting the paper, I don’t owe them anything. We’ll see what happens with this.

5:00 PM Pacific Time
Just home from work. The events of the last 24 hours continue to swim through my head, but hey I still have to make a living.

In addition to the Senate races I spoke about this morning, I am also rejoicing that Maine, Maryland and Washington passed ballot measures allowing for same sex marriage. These three states now join the District of Columbia, Vermont, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York. A similar measure failed in Minnesota, and 30 states (including my state of California) have constitutional bans on same sex marriage (I’m getting this information from the LA Times). Eleven other states have laws banning same sex marriage. We’re not done battling homophobia, but last night was a good night.

6:00 AM Pacific Time (9:00 AM on the East Coast, 1400 GMT)
I’m writing this on about 4 hours sleep so be advised. It’s Wednesday morning and there’s reason to be hopeful in America. Not only did President Obama win reelection, several other races went well.

  • In Virginia Tim Kaine (D) beat George Allen (R). Allen had been a US Senator from 2000 to 2006 but lost his reelection to Jim Webb in part because he referred to a man of Indian descent as a “macaca.” I talked about this on my blog on September 4, 2006. Allen ran again and lost again.
  • In Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren (D) unseated Scott Brown (R). Brown was elected in 2010 to finish Ted Kennedy’s term. It’s nice to have it back in Democratic hands
  • In Missouri Claire McCaskill (D) defeated Scott Akin (R). Scott was supposed to win, until he announced that women cannot become pregnant from a “legitimate” rape. Time to head back to your cave Scott
  • In Indiana Joe Donnelly (D) defeated Richard Mourdock. Last month Mourdock stated that if a women becomes pregnant from rape, she should see the child as a gift from God. To be fair, he described rape as a “horrible situation” and never claimed God intended it. But I still can’t wrap my mind around him telling a rape survivor that she’s just looking at the pregnancy in the wrong way.

More later, no doubt.

And So the Counting Begins

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This has become a tradition on my part, but I’m going to be here blogging until the election is set, or until I fall asleep in my seat. My primary concern is the Presidential election, but I’ll also be looking at other important local races, as well as returns in San Diego, where I live.

9:55 Pacific Time (1:55AM on the East Coast, 0555 GMT):
My thanks to Governor Romney for his gracious concession speech. It’s been a long night and I’m ready for bed and I’m grateful for his call to reach across the aisles and work for our future. And I’m grateful for his prayers.

9:30 Pacific Time (1:30AM on the East Coast, 0530 GMT):
Still waiting to hear from Governor Romney. I can’t go to bed until I hear his concession, but I have to work tomorrow.

9:00 Pacific Time (1:00AM on the East Coast, 0500 GMT):
We’re still waiting for the concession speech from Governor Romney. I’m not wishing for a repeat of the 2000 election.

8:25 Pacific Time (12:25 on the East Coast, 0425 GMT):
Even Faux News is projecting President Obama the winner. How cool is that?

8:15 Pacific Time (12:15 on the East Coast, 0415 GMT)
CNN is now projecting that President Obama the winner in Ohio. If it’s true, it puts the President over the 270 mark. I’m not going to stop watching (and blogging) until the concession speech, so stay tuned.

8:00PM Pacific Time (Midnight on the East Coast, 0400 GMT)
The polls just closed here in California. It’s no surprise, but it looks like President Obama carried it and our 55 electoral votes are a boost. PBS now projects that the President can claim 225 electoral votes. I’m pleased to see that in my home state of Virginia has elected Tim Kane (D) over George Allen (R).

7:00PM Pacific Time (10:00 East Coast, 0300 GMT)
The polls continue to close going west. The PBS web page is loading slowly and it’s making it harder to get fast results. The best news for me is the race for Senator in Missouri: Claire McCaskill has apparently beaten Todd Akin: he was the person who claimed that women can’t get pregnant from a “legitimate” rape. My complaint with him wasn’t just that he was wrong, it’s that he was stupid. If someone tells me something that unbelievably stupid, I’m not going to listen, and I’m certainly not going to repeat it. The fact that he was so willing to believe something that stupid because it was politically convenient tells me all I need to know about him. Congratulations Claire!

PBS is saying now that the President is leading the electoral college map 173 to 163.

6:30PM Pacific Time (9:30PM East Coast, 0230 GMT)
Governor Romney is still ahead in the projections, 153 to 123. It appears that President Obama should carry Pennsylvania with its 20 electoral votes, and Wisconsin with its 10 electoral votes. I appreciate PBS’s caution, but I’m also elated at the idea that Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan with both loose their states.

6:00PM Pacific Time (9PM East Coast, 2AM GMT)
As a Democrat, I’m getting a little concerned. At this point 4 years ago, Senator Obama was leading Senator McCain 175 electoral votes to 76. Right now Governor Romney leads President Obama 138 to 109. Here’s the optimistic part: Polls have closed in the Midwest, which is the Governor’s stronghold. It may be that he’s already gotten most of the electoral votes he’s going to get; Texas has already gone for him and at 38 electoral votes, it’s likely the largest state he’s going to get. California polls don’t close for another few hours and it will bring 55 votes for the President. As I look at the numbers there’s reason to be hopeful about Ohio. As I write this, 33% of the votes have been counted and President Obama leads 54% to 45%.

5:00PM Pacific Time (8PM East Coast, 1AM GMT)
I’m actually writing this at 5:10PM. Polls have already closed in several states and the votes are being counted. As I write this the projections on PBS are coming in. Right now President Obama leads the electoral vote race 64 to 40. The states line up like this: President Obama should win in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware, and Illinois. Governor Romney is projected to win South Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Oklahoma. Other networks have made bolder predictions, but I’d rather be right than fast, and PBS clearly agrees.

The Election is Tomorrow: Do You Know Where Your Vote Is?

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Everyone knows this, but tomorrow we go to the polls and cast our votes. I have strong political leanings but tonight is not the night to share them.

Let me just say this: If you are able to vote in this election and don’t, please don’t tell me. I won’t take it well.

A large percentage of people in our world don’t have this opportunity. It’s easy (though not pleasant or respectful) to live in a totalitarian regime: all you have to do is keep your mouth shut and hope things go well for you. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.

It’s harder to live in a democracy because our leadership works for us, not the other way around. It means we have to listen, evaluate, judge, and ultimately vote. It means we have to take the time to read through platforms, have difficult and perhaps painful discussions with people we like and love, and show up on election day.

My parents gave me innumerable gifts, and voting was one of them. When they went to vote they took me with them. I watched them go into the voting booth, and they made the connection between what they were doing, field trips to Mount Vernon and Monticello, and my role. When I turned 18 I couldn’t wait to register to vote and I’ve never taken it for granted.

In the past 236 years countless men and women have sacrificed convenience, liberty, and their lives for your right to vote. Make them proud.

Rest in Peace Senator McGovern

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Yesterday we got the sad news that Senator George McGovern died at 90 years old. His was a voice of my generation: though he lost badly, he ran for President against Richard Nixon and his wisdom persists.

He was an unabashed liberal in an era where it was often considered a dirty word. He was a gentleman who served in the House of Representatives from 1956 to 1960 and the Senate from 1962 to 1980. He ran for President in large part because he wanted an end to the war in Vietnam. He knew the dangers of war as he served in the USAAF during World War II. On December 15, 1944 while flying a mission over Austria he was struck by shrapnel and nearly killed. He was later awarded the Air Medal.

He came home and devoted himself to public service. He was an example of the best of the Greatest Generation. He opposed the war in Vietnam because, as he said, “I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”

OK, here’s my favorite:

Every program that ever helped working people — from rural electrification to Medicare — was enacted by liberals over the opposition of conservatives. When people tell me they don’t like liberals, I ask, ‘Do you like Social Security? If so, then shut up!

On that quotation: my thanks to John Sheirer. He writes a blog on Real American Liberal. I needed to make sure the quotation was real and he responded in a matter of hours.