Evangelicals

Why do the Evangelicals support Donald Trump?  

Some history. 

I was born into the Quaker church.  

Both my grandfather and grandmother were Reverends in the Quaker church.  

My mother called herself " A preacher's brat."  

My mother's mother and her father came to live with us once my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.  

After my grandmother's passing, my grandfather continued to live with us.  

Even though the Rev. Larkin Hadley had retired, he still wrote a sermon every Sunday throughout the week.  

I never heard my grandfather use racist dialogue or tone.  

Ever.  

As much as my burned-down memory can scrape a fragment together, every story I've ever heard was of a man of compassion.  

He saved me more than once as a child from a bloody beating from my father. 

However, religion does not conform to the will of the individual, or to an agreed-upon social morality, but to the power and influence that its leadership can wield over its followers.  

Religion feeds innate prejudice like a trail of breadcrumbs for those to follow.  

In the mid-80s, when membership was declining, and it looked like the church was going to die, the Quaker Church at its Yearly Meeting decided to throw down its old values and accept a new reality.

What is the Yearly Meeting?  

The Yearly Meeting is a gathering of all of the Quaker churches across the U.S. to discuss and plan the agenda of the church.   

A gathering of both professional and lay members.  

So, with the decline in church membership due to the social upheavals of the 60s, how was the Friends Church, as they renamed themselves, how could they bring in more members?    

They believed they had to become involved in politics.   

To speak up and make their position known.  

To be socially active.

To entice young people back into their ranks.

To put people back into the pews.  

Heretofore, they had a prohibition against involvement with politics.   

What is Caesar's... is Caesar's.

What is God's God was dismissed as an error in the face of their funding drying up due to empty pews.

Empty pews mean no one is putting their weekly extortion money for life eternal into the offering plate.

The Quaker Church had become old-fashioned, irrelevant to the movement of the society in which they found themselves. 

A name change occurs once again.  

The Friends Church, which historically is the Quakers, became known nationwide as the Evangelicals.

That's right... don't be confused... the Evnagelicas are the Quakers the guy on the Oatmeal Box.

Consider…  

Why did our founding fathers want a separation between religion and government?  

The separation between church and state.

Don’t Christianity, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution agree with each other?  

A government founded upon the principle that all people are created equal.   

A government of the people, by the people, for the people has a distinct ideology, present, and upfront in that statement.  

We are all equal.

The Christian Bible clearly states we are not all equal.

It's funny the things you can learn when you read things yourself.

Religion, western religion, on the other hand, makes marked separations between the saved and the sinner.   

You are either for us or against us.   

With God or against God.  

Religion makes no room for the undecided, the marginal.

It sidelines the minority in favor of a majority that supports a version of a God.

It is a rule, an idea, a dogma passed down from generation to generation which cannot buy its own rules be questioned. 

A type of window dressing, marketing, has been crafted to make the reality, "this dogma," more palatable to those not born again into religion.  

"Love the sinner, hate the sin."   

The religious can marginalize any group, the individual who does not adhere to, who does not believe like me.

The Christian religion encourages this separation.

This categorizing of who is worthy of God’s love and blessings and who is not. 

You either belong to my club, or you don't.  

If you don't belong to my club, you are an infidel and are worthy of death.   

If not at my hands, then by my God, who will make you suffer in hell for all eternity for not wanting to be a member of my club.   

Let's get real.  

Religion segregates. 

Religion discriminates.  

Religion divides the deserving from the undeserving.  

Religion blinds the faithful to see only one way to God.  

Its purpose is to use the goodwill of the faithful to support the power structure of the religion. 

To keep the King the King.

To keep a permanent 10% income tax levied on every person for as long as they live... paid each Sunday. 

This 'segregation' is taught from the pulpit and repeated in the pews every Sunday in our Evangelical houses of worship.  

Segregation goes hand in hand with racism.  

Ever wonder how good Christian people have the idea that the white race is superior and all the rest are akin to animals?  

Well, you have to look at the story of the Great Flood to get the answer.  

The story of Noah and his sons is used to illustrate who is deserving and who is not in the eyes of God by racist White America.  

After the flood was over and the animals were let loose to propagate once again, God wanted Noah to flourish also.  

To that end, Noah was missing having wine with his dinner.  

So Noah planted a vineyard.  

Noah grew his grapes and made himself some new wine.  

He drank from his new wine and passed out.   

His sons, seeing his nakedness, had homosexual sex with him while he was unconscious.   

For that sin, God gave each son a curse.   

For the son Ham, he made his skin black as night.   

Ham and his descendants were to serve the white man for the rest of their time as the white man's slaves for having sex with his unconscious father.  

This curse was to be a reminder of their sin forever.  

What God has cursed, let no man say it ain't.  

This story was told repeatedly from the pulpit there in Cleveland, Ohio in that little Quaker church I attended.  

It was repeatedly told to me by the Reverend as well as his wife, as to why it was wrong for the negro in 1968 to want more out of life than what God had granted in his mercy.  

Rules are rules, you know.   

Can't question God and say everyone is equal when God clearly made the slave a slave and the free man free.

God has his reasons it's not up to us to say God is wrong.  

That Constitution thing is just plain wrong-headed.  

Those men with the white wigs must have gotten God's word all backward.  

So this adopted myth, this cornerstone of racism in religious white America, is why Evangelicals support Donald Trump.

He uses their coded language of race and class segregation and he must be sent by their God to lead the stupid people like you and me back to God.

On April 4th, 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed.  

I'm eight years old.  

Innocent of the world, not understanding the turmoil.   

When I heard that someone had killed Martin Luther, my eight-year-old heart was grieved.   

Someone had killed the person who founded our church.   

I was too naive to understand that Martin Luther King Jr. was not Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant movement, in the 16th century, and subsequent Christian derivatives. 

At church that Sunday following the assassination, the adults around me were all happy.   

They were laughing and patting each other on the back as they put on their coats to leave the sanctuary.   

Gleeful.

They were happy somebody killed that agitator.   

That nigger. 

They were happy that someone had killed a friend of Jesus…?  

I didn't understand why good men praised evil.  

My parents didn't understand why I cried.  

Where was love?  

I wept…  

Peace  

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Empathy

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.  – James Baldwin

Many people suffer.  

They do not let you know.  

They keep their pain inside, not exposing it randomly.  

They hold onto their fear.  

They choke back their hearts.  

They deny themselves. 

What they don't recognize collectively is that they are wounded. 

Broken. 

What has caused these scars, these wounds to the American spirit?  

The abuse done by other humans.  

Not time.  

Not place.  

Not entities.  

People hurt people.  

Power, money, and sex are the three ugly children of greed.  

This greed manifests itself, meaning it creates itself through those who believe that anything goes.  

Anything goes as long as you get what you want.  

This kind of thinking, this idea of winning at any cost, is the opposite of empathy.  

It is the antimatter of empathy.  

It destroys hope.  

The people who use this way of thinking, taking what they want, when they want, come in all kinds.  

All colors. 

All races.  

All genders.  

All ages.  

They are your friends.  

They are your President.  

They are your corporate boards.  

Across the heartland of America, the trust and the patriotism of its citizens have been abused.  

We have been made to believe that our economic suffering is not the fault of those in power.  

It's an old, old, old story.  

Those who abuse never take responsibility now, do they?  

They blame the victim or someone else.  

How shocked would we be if Cosby, Weinstein, or the President stood up and said I was wrong, I committed the crime.  

I'm guilty.

You're right.

I'm a P.O.S.  

They can't do it because they have no empathy.  

They use people.  

They use their trust.  

They use their beliefs.  

They use their faith to twist and manipulate to get their orgasm.  

To get the power, the money, and the sex they deserve.  

At your and my expense.  

At the expense of our humanity.  

At the expense of our well-being.  

This is why there is such a large group of Americans who have lost faith in the system.  

Generation after generation, their empathy has been used and abused against them.  

By the corporation, the salesman, by the government, and by the faith leaders.  

This is why this President was able to manipulate the long-standing desire for a better life in our country.  

He exploits goodwill.  

He made a promise to persecute and eliminate those whom he and they blamed for their economic destitution.  

Has he, did he?  

No.  

But he says he has, and that's all they need to hear.  

In their state of suffering, he has their ear because he is talking their language.  

He is soothing their fears.  

To those who have lost the American dream and blame immigration, unions, politicians, and treaties, this President offers a kind of empathy.  

This is why we must understand this deadfall in which too many Americans find themselves falling into.  

They are trapped by their myth, their economic plight and the devil promising them a better life.  

That is why we can't just talk about making things better.  

We will not penetrate the economic wall behind which too many Americans find themselves trapped.  

We have to become the hope that so many people are looking for.  

We have to engage and meet our friends face to face.  

We have to acknowledge their pain, their suffering, and their real loss of prosperity and hope.  

We have to row the lifeboat out into the darkness and pick up our brothers and sisters in the water, pulling them to shore. 

A life does not have any less worth just because it is afraid.  

We are all in this together.  

This is an awakening from our childhood.  

This revolution of awareness.  

Let us use our empathy to stand side by side with those who have lost hope.  

We all need a friend.  

It's the human thing to do. 

Empathy.  

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Horse Sense

Common sense ain't common. – Will Rogers

Far too many of us believe that everyone around us thinks like us.  

They perceive the world in the same way and draw the same conclusions.  

Many believe they live in a community, and that community is harmonious.  

However, as the day is to the night, as the left hand is to the right hand, as the rainbow of faces and ages we see every day, we are all operating at different speeds of awareness.  

We are not born with common sense.  

An example, common sense once told us that the world had an edge, and we would fall off of it.  

Common sense told us there were no such things as germs.  

Common sense told us that only the man was responsible for the pregnancy, and the woman had no part except the oven to bake the bread in.

Common sense must be learned. 

Common sense must be learned from a teacher.  

A big part of common sense is ethics.  

Being able to discriminate between right and wrong. 

Unless you are a sociopath or a politician, you realize that doing right, making the right decisions to do good, is always the correct way to live your life.  

Doing right is common sense.  

Do no harm to yourself or others.  

Common sense.  

That's not to say there are no teachers of the anti-golden rule among us.  

Do unto others before they do unto you.  

You can do anything as long as you win.  

There is definitely a kind of anti-common good.  

The argument is that anything that maintains power is good.  

It's called politics.

Power makes right is their motto.

But politics is the opposite of common sense.  

Common sense is about the real idea that there is a common good that can be recognized by the average person.  

That the common good is just "a good" that, once deployed, will make a better life for everyone.  

It's common sense not to steal.  

It's common sense not to kill.  

It's common sense that everyone should pay taxes.  

It's common sense to obey the rule of law. 

It's common sense that everyone is equal.  

What gets in the way of the common person from understanding these visible sets of facts is a set of distortions, of lies told by the culture and the individual.  

These distortions and lies corrupt the understanding of simple truths for the benefit of a few over the many.

The benefit of a few over the man. 

The enemy of common sense has always been and will always be the powerful.  

Those in power, those in position over people, will never allow freedom willingly.  

These people in power are the leaders of business.  

The leaders of governments.  

The leaders of religion.  

The leaders in our circles of family and friends.  

Tyrants come in many shapes and forms.  

The last thing a tyrant wants is for the people to develop a unity of common sense.  

They sew words of distrust and disharmony, they fill the media with fake news that makes only them and them only the purveyor of truth and honesty.

Take a huge pinch of salt when anyone says only they have the truth.

Tyrants are good at lying; that's common sense.  

The American Revolution saw the common sense of not bowing to tyranny in 1776.  

That common sense spread to the French in 1789.  

1833 saw the end of slavery in England.  

April 9, 1865, saw the end of slavery in America after 100,000's died, and millions of black people were murdered, raped, and lived a life and death of bondage.  

A kind of common sense was found afterward, but we are still fighting to understand the truth that all men are created equal.  

Today, we are still dealing with a senseless human society.  

We still all live with a mixed bag of nuts, including me.  

Highlights, lowlights, and every kind in between.  

Some got a sense that they were born with it, while others had to dig for it.  

Common sense is a muscle.  

It has to be exercised regularly if we are to maintain a healthy society.  

A hurdle that common sense has to jump over is called harm.  

If what I believe harms someone in any way, does it truly stand for the common good?  

Doing right, doing good, never harms anything or anyone.  

Separating families at the border causes harm.  

Taking food stamps out of children's mouths causes harm.  

Not allowing people to vote causes harm. 

Holding back military aid for a political favor causes harm.  

Common sense says to do no evil. 

What does your common sense tell you?  

Peace  

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Fear

I'm not going outside today, it's raining.  

Can't cross the street; those teenagers are skateboarding.  

Turn off the TV, I'm tired of seeing black faces.  

Stop talking to me; you're making me feel uncomfortable. 

I'm not paying my taxes because it's going to those people.  

That woman has no right to dress like that.  

School isn't for me.  

I bought a gun today.  

That's the wrong side of town.  

Who does he think he is?  

I can't get a better job.  

Men don't have any rights anymore.  

Where am I going to go to the bathroom now?  

You can't be equal to me.  

My mother is dying. 

I have died inside.  

Where is hope?  

Fear.  

Like a wall, some fear is so high we can't see the top of it.  

While other fears are only ankle-high and trip us up in our day.  

Fear prevents us from realizing a better, more beautiful experience of life.  

Some fear is good for us.  

Fear, in its basic form, keeps us alive.  

Basic fear, once overcome, allows us to grow into our lives.  

Childhood fears of riding a two-wheel bike for the first time. 

Fear of the dark.  

Once we grapple with these basic fears, we can travel down the road of life and look up at the stars with wonder.  

However, too many fears, those we have no control over, create anxiety about the possible. 

I need a raise.

I need to ask for more money at work. 

But if I ask, I'm sure they will fire me. 

It's safer not to ask, maybe, just maybe they will reward me without me asking?  

This may seem like a leap, but Dr. Martin Luther King said that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. 

Life is the oppressor.  

None of us is getting out of it alive.  

The typical day-to-day drag of life can put fear into anyone. 

Let alone if we are subjugated by the tyrant, in society, at the workplace, or even in our own homes.  

If you are hungry, just say so.  

Too many Americans are afraid.  

They are afraid of the change in demographics.  

Translated, white people are afraid of becoming a racial minority.

Afraid of more brown people in the nation than white.  

Too many don't see women as equal to men.  

Too many don't see the gay community at all.  

Too many are afraid to challenge the story they were told of the American dream and their purported privileged place in it.  

Too many are afraid to confront political and economic authority and demand their right to be treated equally.  

Too many fear imagined consequences of racist myths and their loss of political-economic power.  

Too many listen to the monsters that feed this fear for profit.  

Fear.  

What can we do about fear?  

The best approach is to provide support to the fearful.  

Like a pair of training wheels, provide an ear, a shoulder, a hug, a hand to steady the fearful's course.  

A nightlight of truth.  

Hold a light up in the darkness to push back the shadows of doubt and ignorance.  

A light to show that the fear that seemed all too real was nothing more than the imagination of the ego.

Be happy. 

Fear can keep us from enjoying what life has for all of us.  

Each life is precious, and some need a little more love than others to be what they can be.  

It is up to the torchbearers of life to illuminate a path through the valley of fear.  

Because on the other side is where peace is waiting for us.  

Drop hate.  

Be hope. 

Peace  

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Ethic

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." ― Elie Wiesel

Our shared identity as Americans is in jeopardy.

A slow-rolling tide of past injustice that either has never been addressed or reluctantly salved by previous generations is ripping apart our society once more.

The devil at the wheel is racism.

That blind driver of human fear would rather this Republic be damned and burn in fire than take the hood off of its prejudice.

Since the end of the Civil War, both sides of the conflict sought to place blame for the thousands who were killed, for lives destroyed, and for the communities torn apart on each other.

The anger and the fear settled upon a scapegoat.

Black people.

Never mind that black people were forced into slavery by the great Western religions.

Never mind, don't remind us that the United States and other nations prospered from free labor.

Somebody had to be responsible for the war between the states, and black people were cast as the villains in the tragedy.

Confident that the purveyors of slavery could not be responsible because they were good Christian men only doing God's will.

Even before the great conflict of the states, the founders feared the one variable that they could not control, which they saw would doom the American experiment to failure.

Ethics.

John Adams said, " The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation, it is impossible they should be enslaved."

The people of a nation must be basically good for democracy to work.

People must be fair.

Must be tolerant.

Must have a common morality that believes in justice for all.

These core values of good people can be destroyed and tossed aside when economic tyranny victimizes a society.

In simpler words, when the man takes from the poor and gives to the rich, the people lose not only their cash but also their dignity and hope.

The people live in fear of what is to come because they have nothing left to fall back on.

Time and time again in recent American history, the trust and faith, the goodwill of the common man have been used against us.

There is only so much time given to an old pair of shoes before they are thrown out.

The shoes full of holes, of unfulfilled promises, are no longer trusted to get you through the day.

Labor unions failed the people.

Congress failed the people.

Government agencies failed the people.

Banks failed the people.

Manufacturing, industry, and corporations failed the people.

And in 2016, half the people threw out the old pair of shoes of the establishment for what they believed would restore their American Dream.

But he, too, he who shall not be named, also took advantage of fear for his own power.

And he found far too many in government who were also willing to raid what was left of the dream to their own economic advantage.

With some help from Russian organized crime...

We find ourselves in a nation at a time that John Adams foresaw as the doom of democracy.

A nation that has turned its back on intellect.

A nation that ignores the moral character of its leaders.

A nation that disregards virtue in favor of getting the other guy before they get you.

The once-high bar of ethics has now been pushed down into the mud.

The voice of the fearful demanding they get theirs and the rest of the nation, the rest of the world be damned.

That's where we are as a society.

Half the nation believes the other half has no ethics.

Half the nation believes they are the real Americans; the others are not.

One is right.

One is wrong.

I just wrote today, that when people are living through change in the consciousness of a society, they will rarely recognize it until their world is beyond their grasp.

Witness the conservatives in Congress and the nation.

The times they are changing.

The world will not stop for you or for me.

By nature, the universe changes.

We do not have to grasp it to understand and accept it because it will happen regardless of our beliefs.

It is a fact that the universe is in flux.

What is not in flux are ethical standards.

The time to do right is always now.

Our American experiment is rapidly concluding.

It is arriving at the result asked by the founders.

Can a government of the people, for the people, by the people continue?

Will the people decide it is better to use any means necessary to hold onto power?

Will the people forego the ethics that defined the American people, which are liberty, justice, freedom, and equality for all, so that they can have social and economic vengeance?

Tipping points.

That moment when you save yourself or you trip and fall.

The fall...

Are there enough people left in this nation who have a shared moral character, and a shared ethic, who will catch us?

Are there enough people who believe in intellect over urban myth, memes, and barstool knowledge who will keep us from breaking our necks?

Can this nation rally its virtue and avoid the slavers, the tyrants who are ready to shackle us all?

We are living through change.

Out of darkness waits the light.

Let compassion be our guide for those who live and fear, and for ourselves, too.

Never stop to confront evil.

It is our duty, our ethical privilege, to stand here and now.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Moral

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound

the other." ― Mark Twain

Why do people on the left become angry with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press?

Why do people on the right and left become angry with the re-location of predator priests in the Catholic Church?

Why does the average citizen not believe in the words of the average lawyer, politician, CEO, or salesman?

Why are you not supposed to talk about politics and religion at dinner because it disturbs your Uncle?

Sociopathy.

Sociopathy has a complicated psychological description.

Sociopathy is a personality disorder.

A mental problem that separates these individuals from the herd.

It's not a good thing.

It's a terrible thing.

Sociopaths are the source of everything that goes wrong and goes bad in every aspect of society and daily life.

However, our politicians, our religious and corporate leaders the world over, sociopathy is the pre-requirement for employment of these positions.

If you aren't a sociopath, you need to be one because it really helps.

A sociopath will do good or evil; it doesn't matter to them which they do as long as they get what they want.

What they 'can' want is not limited to power, wealth, and sex.

Politics, by definition, is amoral.

Religion, by definition, is moral.

However, they inhabit the same coin, heads and tails.

Both politics and religion are where the currency of sociopaths is spent the most.

They both will do good or evil to get and maintain power, wealth, and sex.

This has been known in intellectual circles for a very, very long time.

Both conservative and liberal circles.

Its history and dispersion have not been kept from the public eye by any conspiracy.

It is known and recognized by the public, but we all tend to ignore it.

To accept it.

To say that's the way it is.

Much like when you listen to the lyrics of a song, people hear what they want to hear.

Many Republican candidates play Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," thinking it promotes a love of patriotism.

Born in the U.S.A. is the exact opposite, telling the tale of how the country used young men, exploited their patriotism to serve the power and wealth of the establishment, and got them killed for nothing.

The average Joe and Jane, historically, didn't see the amoral behavior of the world's institutions.

If they did, they accepted, "That's the way it is."

That is, until early in the 21st Century when social media exposed the rot.

The rot that has been nurtured by political and religious intellectuals placed there to defend a system of sociopaths.

So when people watch Meet the Press, and they see no objection raised by the host in the face of blatant corruption, of lying to the American people, they now ask why?

Why?

Every day, more and more people's eyes are opening and asking why.

Why does a political party defend blatant corruption and abuse of office?

Why does a religious order protect child molesters?

Why does a news organization give equal time to fascist propagandists?

Sociopathy.

Sociopathy has dominated our world since time began.

Individuals, groups, and nations nurture their sociopaths.

These sociopaths believe that the world is theirs.

That anything goes, they can lie, cheat, steal, and kill as long as they get what they want when they want.

They must have their orgasm.

They are the cancer on the soul of humanity.

But now, now, for the first time in our history on the planet, the curtain has been raised on the puppet masters.

The sociopathic parasites flourish on humanity's blood of human kindness.

Today, the layers of marketing, of P.R., of media manipulation drift out of their grasp.

However, as their power to control their narrative slips from their fingers, they will and have become more desperate.

Like armed cockroaches when the lights are turned on they will shoot out the lights of truth.

The defenders of politicians and religions sell fear to the fearful.

These defenders heap blame on the "other" as the reason why you have been left economically behind. 

The last thing these defenders of sociopathy want in this world is peace.

Peace would mean cooperation.

Peach would mean the loss of their power, of their wealth, of their sex trafficking.

Sociopaths and their defending institutions are why we don't have nice things.

Remember…

Politics and religion both do not care by what means they maintain power over you and me.

The ends justify the means.

Power makes right.

However, this time, something is different.

This time, we all can hear voices around the world calling for real change in our social media.

Remember, this sociopathic exploitation is not just local but worldwide.

Politics and religion go hand in hand and are the language of sociopathic control.

It is the sociopath's means of grooming the victim.

Just try to bring this observation up, and you will be painted as a nut job.

You'll be painted as a conspiracy believer.

But too many people are seeing that the emperor has no clothes.

As Mark Twain said, half of the public will be astounded that you do the right thing for the right reason.

We all can call out our politicians and religious leaders and demand they put up or move on.

We can call out injustice.

We can call out their insincerity.

We can call out their corruption.

We can call out their abuse of our collective goodwill.

We can put a stop to this tyranny of the mind and body.

We can make the dream of a brother of man a reality.

A true brotherhood of man.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Opportunity

"A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property, widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few." – Dr. Martin Luther King

It's incredible how so many can look across their street and tell themselves that they are better off than the person living next door.

Isolation.

Isolation of mind.

Isolation of action.

Isolation of opportunity.

Opportunity comes in two equal but distinct ways.

First, is there an opportunity?

Is there a possibility of employment in my community?

Will I be hired?

Is there a chance for a better-paying job that will give you a better life?

A happier life?

This is best illustrated by what used to be the box standard economic reality across America, and that is the one-industry town.

Back in the day, one such town was Loudonville, Ohio, where the Flxible Bus Company was the dominant industry.

All across the Midwest, many of the towns had just one industry.

The expectation was created generation after generation that the lowest bar of employment was the local factory job.

But when those jobs were taken out of America by the owners and boards of those companies, places like Loudonville were left holding an empty economic bag.

The story has been repeated in every corner of our Nation.

From the shoe factories in New England to the cotton mills of the South to the steel and rubber industries of the Great Lakes to the plane manufacturing industry of the West.

There are just too many "used-to-be" places of opportunity that are now gone forever.

Now our manufacturing corridors are empty.

Too many of our communities no longer have a wealth of opportunity.

It all was stolen like a thief in the night by an all too human evil.

Greed.

The second type of opportunity is one of personal discovery.

It depends upon the individual to ask themselves a simple but one of the most challenging questions one has to ask oneself eventually.

What do I want to do with my life?

When you live in the city, I currently reside in Los Angeles, there is an abundance of choices.

Living here, you can choose to be just about anything you want to be.

You can be an executive, work as a manager at a fast-food service and make six figures, be a nurse or a lawyer, paint houses, or paint landscapes on an artist's canvas.

The opportunity to do what you see, what you imagine, has virtually no limits.

However, back in Ohio, down around the southern border with Kentucky, I'm very familiar with the town of McArthur.

A lot of great people live down around there, but the local jobs are few.

You need enough money to put gas in your car and drive up towards Columbus or over towards Athens and Parkersburg to have a few more opportunities.

Growing up in a place devoid of choice naturally limits your choices.

It's not that you don't realize that there are doctors, nurses, lawyers, and astronauts out in the world making a living.

It's just not in the crayon box of choices when the biggest employers in your town are the Dollar Store and Taco Bell.

Opportunity is a two-way street.

There has to be the opportunity to take hold of it, but it also has to be in the psychology that says I have a choice; I can do it.

All anyone asks is for the opportunity to succeed.

But we Americans have and continue to have a consistent urge to limit each other's opportunities.

We continue to limit access to opportunities for racial and identity minority communities.

That limit is called prejudice.

This prejudice extends to everyone who is not white.

Women also bear the prejudice of the limitation of opportunity, regardless of race.

As Dr. King says, there are too many men out there willing to take from the many to give to the few.

Today is Thanksgiving 2019.

The sentiment and the visceral acid thrown about today by the conservative party in this Nation makes it more like 1919.

These few men who have profited from the selling of the American dream are taking the opportunity to capitalize on the economic nightmare that they created.

The real loss and abandonment that so many of their victims feel, where opportunity no longer exists, these economic vultures have taken hold of their hearts and minds.

It is an evil we stand against this Thanksgiving, where men pit men against each other, falsely blaming the other as stealing their rightful hope.

Their economic future.

When light casts its brilliance, darkness rushes to the corners.

Yet from within that darkest of nights, a single candle can push back the despair and restore hope.

The challenge of this Thanksgiving has been faced by many before us.

Generation after generation is called to keep up the good fight.

As the night draws near and the grinding teeth of despair cry out, it is up to each of us to hold our light up high and push back against the darkness.

We can seize the opportunity to build a better world.

Light your candle, be thankful for what you have, and help share the wealth of this life with all.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Timid

"The true source of our suffering has been our timidity.

We have been afraid to think… 

Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write." – John Adams

Why do we fear being wrong?

Why would a person, a community, or a political party support apparent corruption and crimes conducted by its representatives and not investigate and prosecute the guilty?

What allows apparently good people to turn their backs in outrage and huddle against the bright light of truth?

Prejudice.

Prejudice is a kind of temerity of the timid.

Lazy minds.

Prejudice is making judgments without truth or factual evidence.

Do you see the link I'm talking about?

The timid are afraid to talk to that black man taking a knee.

The timid don't want to hear the reason for the immigrant fleeing murder.

The timid prefer to hide behind the excuse that nothing matters, that everything is corrupt.

Each of these examples represents a form of prejudice that prevents society from learning the truth.

Even if that truth reveals the corruption behind what we personally believe to be true.

John Adams, our second President, admonishes, asks, and reflects that what has kept this nation and the world from becoming a better place is our collective fear of confronting the truth.

I would add that it's part of the human condition, characterized by a general laziness of mind and body.

You know you should do the laundry; there is a huge pile, and you have no clean underwear.

You don't want to look at the pile.

You know you have to go buy soap.

You would rather tolerate the stink of your clothes than do the work.

It takes effort to gather your resources and apply the energy.

You just tell yourself everyone else is walking around in stinky clothes, too.

Your prejudice and your timid psychology allowed you to make up an excuse for not doing the right thing.

A collective timid psychology, a prejudice against doing right, has taken hold of the Republican Party and its supporters.

What I am calling a political-economic-social-nihilism.

PESN

PESN, in short, means that these people believe a myth that everything is corrupt.

If everything is corrupt, then my personal corruption, my prejudice, and my timid response will not be noticed.

If everything stinks, my stink won't be noticed.

My failure to take responsibility for doing right doesn't matter in the broader context of right versus wrong because everyone is ultimately out for themselves.

Welcome to the Jungle, baby!

This is a myth created by timid minds cobbled together on bar stools.

A world full of prejudice where corruption is the norm, and do-gooders are losers.

A discourse...

Boy Scouts.

The Deep State.

Never Trumpers.

Adams is right.

This timid myth of the world has held back the Great Society.

It destroyed Reconstruction.

It denied the Equal Rights Amendment.

It shut the door on Gay rights.

It has allowed racism to flourish.

It has grown white nationalism.

It has promoted economic disparity between the rich and poor.

It has strengthened a dark discourse of social dystopia and fascism in social media, networks, and print.

It has allowed the monsters who feed off the fear of the timid to take control of half of our Republic.

Is it too late to do anything about it?

Let us dare to read.

Read everything, especially those writings that challenge us to do more.

Think long, hard, and deep, ask the questions, and get to the answer at the bottom of the well of deceit and corruption.

Speak truth to power, demand freedom from the tyrant of the mind that says your freedom, your happiness, your equality, your hope, is not essential.

And write…

Write to that person who stands in the doorway, stopping the freedom march.

Write to that friend who has lost their hope.

Write and be that hope.

Most of all, do not be afraid of the night as you travel on your course.

You are a star in a gathering host.

Together, bravely, with courage and great spirit, we will do right.

It's always the right time to do right.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Judgment Day

We hold these truths to be beyond question.

Everyone has the right to life, Liberty, and happiness.

Everyone includes the young, the old, the teen, the middle-aged, the straight, the gay, you, me, and the stranger, too.

This nation was founded on those truths.

Those truths of our Republic are absolute then and now.

What isn't true is the haphazard barstool knowledge that too many Americans bring to how their government works.

Too many rely upon urban legend.

Too many rely upon personal myth.

Too many rely on the know-it-all at the end of the bar for answers.

Too many gather together to tell each other stories with no basis in truth.

It's a sad truth about humans that the real reason they gather together, like minds, is to support each other's prejudices.

That prejudice doesn't exclusively mean racial.

No.

It also includes those who like to sew quilts.

Those who like to fix up old cars.

Those who believe their God is superior to 'those' people's God.

People stick together because they enjoy each other's company.

That's a no-brainer.

They like what each other says.

When was the last time you joined a group or were in a conversation that pointed out how wrong you were?

How wrong you were every time you joined in a conversation.

Many Americans believe that the government is wrong and corrupt.

Why?

The answer is easy because it's the same sentiment that countless generations have expressed over and over again.

That sentiment is because the government isn't doing anything for me.

If the government isn't helping me, then damn them let the whole thing burn down.

John F. Kennedy famously intoned at his inauguration, Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

It seems many Americans have either forgotten those great words of civic responsibility or chosen to do the easy thing and join the nihilist crowd.

The Nihilist Crowd is a non-exclusive group of people with no party affiliation who want others to take on their responsibility and hand them their due.

All the while complaining that doing anything to help make your community, your home, and your life any better is a waste of time.

Everything is corrupt.

Our Republic is in desperate need of its citizens to pick up their civic responsibility and join in the fight.

There needs to be active participation and an intense realization of how government works and who it actually works for.

We have to end these urban legends, these tropes used by scalawags the world over telling us your government doesn't work for you.

However, the big secret is that when the government isn't working, that's precisely what these nihilists want.

It's not working for them.

Frankly, it's a very sociopathic way of thinking that everything is corrupt, so why bother doing the right thing when something wrong will work just as well?

Somehow, two concepts got lumped together.

Change equals corruption.

For this, nihilist anti-community, anti-republic, anti-ethical thinking has adopted the idea that any change is corrupt.

Freeing the slaves was a corruption.

Giving women and blacks the right to vote was a corruption.

Allowing black children to go to school with white children was a corruption.

Black and white people marrying was a corruption.

Welfare is corruption.

School lunches are a corruption.

Taking prayer out of school is corruption.

Allowing gays to marry is corruption.

Having a black President is corruption.

To the nihilist conservative mind, all of these changes are corruptions of how they believe the nation was founded and for whom.

Have you ever seen that picture of Jesus at the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the creation of the Constitution, too?

Change equals corruption.

And anyone wanting change is corrupt, too.

It's no wonder that so many Republicans believe the government is corrupt.

We're not talking about corruption like stealing money out of taxes…

No!

The corruption that the conservative nihilist believes is taking place is the corruption of traditional values of white purity to be perfectly clear and honest.

Consequently, why so many support this current President, even in the face of boldface criminal and personal crimes and corruption, is because of his verbal stance supporting conservative nihilism, as I'm calling it.

Recently...

Judgment day…

This past Tuesday, the American people demonstrated once again that they heard the call of Liberty and have come running.

The third nationwide election and Republicans got their walking papers handed to them once again.

They may rail against change and call it corrupt all they want.

But change comes like the rising of the sun without our permission.

It's a beautiful thing when you're in harmony with the tide.

The nature of the universe is based on one truth.

Everything changes.

You can't stop the sun rising.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Rule of Law

On the playground in fourth grade is where it all starts.

A rule is laid down concerning kickball, defining the boundary of a foul ball.

Most of the kids understand.

A few take that rule and write it in stone.

It's the beginning of a lifetime of two outwardly similar individuals living under two different expectations.

The heart of the law and the letter of the law.

The letter of the law says you can't cross the street when the light is against you.

The heart of the law says I'm rushing to the bathroom before I have an accident.

The letter of the law person believes you should fill your pants; those are the rules.

The letter is hard.

The heart is soft.

Two different types of people living side by side in the same office, the same job, the same family.

It's almost 5 o'clock. I'll go home now.

I have to wait till after 5 before I clock out.

Rules have to be obeyed, or society will break apart.

Rules are ethical up to a point, but circumstance has to be taken into account.

The heart of the law, individuals will always jump to the end of the book and read the last page.

The letter of the law, individuals will dutifully read each and every page till they get to the end.

No skipping.

The heart of the law person will play their music loud after 10 pm because they are in the mood.

The letter of the law person will call the police and report a noise violation.

The heart doesn't temper its designs with practicality; it jumps.

It is emotional; it rushes to the end, knowing its conclusion is correct because it feels it.

It feels it.

The letter takes each step in a decision with precision, with effort, step by step, the procedure followed by procedure, never making a judgment until all the facts are known.

Neither is helpful.

Neither has a grasp on reality.

Neither helps move humanity towards a better day.

Each, in its own unique way, keeps on holding humanity back from advancing.

Advancing towards a better day, towards a real brotherhood of man.

Each can learn a lot from the other.

The letter needs to be tempered and internalized, as circumstance plays a significant role in all of our decisions.

The heart needs to develop the patience to let all the facts come out before proclaiming what is right and what is wrong.

Our nation has been wrestling with the letter and the heart of the law for a good long while now.

Who is the law for?

Who is the law against?

Who does the law work for?

The President believes he is above the law of the United States, which he represents.

There are people in the House and Senate and in the media who agree with him.

They believe that the Constitution is in error.

They believe that the President sets what is real and what isn't real.

My question is, what happened to law and order?

What happened that so many of our representatives believe they are exempt from the laws that they write?

The laws that the administration is to enforce.

The laws that the judiciary is to adjudicate.

How can they defend injustice?

How can they exempt themselves from justice?

How can they support criminality?

How can political tyranny within a party be justified?

What happened to all those individuals who believed in the letter and the heart of the law?

They may have been stick-in-the-muds, but they could be counted on to do the right thing when everything was said and done.

What is it that binds them to this President, who shall go unnamed?

They are so tightly wound about this President that they would abandon their rigid principles of law.

Case in point...

Secretary and Ambassador John Bolton.

Has a point of view.

A person who has expressed a belief in the rule of law.

A person who worked with and around a group of people who do not believe in the American Experiment.

He traveled and networked with people in this administration who looked to subvert the Constitution to maintain their power and accumulate personal wealth.

Is he okay with this?

Has he also been corrupted?

I say this all in bewilderment because what was up is now down, and what was down is up.

Republicans and Democrats have traditionally disagreed with each other over how to cut or raise taxes.

Not how much of the Constitution they were going to agree with or burn.

A real palpable sickness has entered into the minds and hearts of our conservative brothers and sisters.

It may be caused by a weariness of our rocket-speed societal changes.

A weariness caused by the stress of too much too fast.

With no way of digesting and integrating change into their lives.

Conservatives, liberals.

Tortoise and rabbits.

Slow, fast.

Different but two outward-facing ideals of the same coin.

Conservatives and liberals don't see eye to eye because they are back to back.

They need each other more than they know.

Conservatives in our nation have a fever.

We liberals need to show our compassion and be the hope that they need.

We have to lift the hate they're holding onto.

We have to reach out and demonstrate that we can walk the walk and talk the talk.

We have to let them know we have their backs.

We have to support them and help them see past their fear.

We just can't sit around and hope things will be better.

We can't have just the letter or just the heart of the law.

Reconcile and find the truth together.

That's how democracy heals.

That's how freedom rings.

That's how justice sings.

That's how hope works.

Be the hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Costs of Freedom

The rain comes down.

The refrigerator is empty.

Nothing in the cupboard but crackers.

Standing at the window, the grey sky barely moves.

Silence in this box on a hill.

Yet in my head, the thunder of disquiet rolls and rolls and rolls.

I could go out?

But I'd get wet.

The umbrella is broken from the last time I used it.

The last time I tried to resist, I resisted the elements.

I recheck the sky for any change in the weather, but no, it's still the same outside.

Maybe things will change in a little while.

I'll read to pass the time.

Celebrity news, no…

Sports, the World Series, is a no-brainer.

Children are being killed.

Parents in terror.

Legislators seeking the truth and its potential implications.

Legislators are playing games with the Constitution.

Tyrants and their disciples thumb their noses at justice.

Fall and spring, I may never see it come back in my lifetime…

Is it still raining outside?

Yes, it's still coming down; it looks like there is no slowing down.

I'm hungry.

Maybe there's something I missed in the cupboard?

Maybe way in the back?

Nothing.

I drink a glass of water.

I check back at the window.

The rain falls…

Damn it, I'm going to have to do something.

I go to the bathroom.

I brush my teeth.

Thunder shakes the room.

It's gotten worse outside.

I turn back to the sink and look in the mirror.

I look at my reflection and ask What are you going to do now?

What are you going to do?

The thing I want, the thing I need, is not outside.

It's in me.

It's within my power to change the weather.

To better my life and my community.

What's kept me inside?

Fear.

Fear of the unknown.

Fear of failure.

Fear of being uncomfortable with the truth.

Fear of the revelation that all that I thought was true is not.

Fear of beginning again.

I put on my coat and hat and rushed to the door.

I pull it open without hesitation.

The rain falls, and falls, and falls…

I put my hand out and feel the rain soak my hand.

Looking up into the sky, the rain washes over my face, over my eyes, and into my heart.

A sound...

I look over at my neighbors, and they, too, have stepped out to resist the climate.

We take each other's hands and are soon joined by more than we can count.

Drop hate.

Lift hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

To Fight For My Neighbor

Who is my brother?

Who is my sister?

The tie that binds us all together is an awareness of combined interest.

That interest centers upon the knowledge that if you are free, so am I.

And to tell you the truth, we who fight for freedom are not the only ones who recognize the fact of this freedom.

The power brokers, the aristocrats, the kings, the princes, the tyrants, the President, and the crime bosses all know this truth.

That's why tyrants spend so much time and effort fighting against freedom.

You see a free people; a free person is not afraid.

Fear is the enemy of free people.

Fear is used to find the cracks in the resilient nature of free people.

Fear loves to sow the seeds of doubt and anxiety in society.

Fear will break apart the strongest alliance.

Fear will destroy a community, a society, and the individual.

We can never allow fear to govern who we are, to become fools to cower and capitulate to bullies.

To fight for my neighbor.

The concept of standing up for what is right, to stand with, and for those who can and cannot stand for themselves is not inherent in our human nature.

The self, the ego, governs our actions. 

It dictates to us to preserve ourselves at all costs.

Compassion is learned.

Caring for others is passed down through traditions as well as personal human interactions.

I was hungry, and you fed me.

I was lost, and you found me.

I was under attack, and you defended me.

I was sick, and you cared for me.

The act of stepping out of one's own ego into the realm of compassion for others is the core of what it means to be superhuman.

When you take the time out of your day to go vote, you are exercising your superhuman powers, your empathy, by demonstrating your compassion for your community.

The knowledge that freedom is the essential wellspring for all society is why we fight for our neighbor.

I give my vote so you, too, can live a better life.

I pay my taxes so we all can drink clean water.

I drive defensively because your life is meaningful, too.

Agreed upon norms of society.

I will fight those who oppose your freedom to live a good life, too.

Anger at the world is fertile ground into which fear plants seeds of hate.

There is no doubt that anger, hate, and fear have a profit goal.

The merchants of arms sales, drug sales, human trafficking, religion, gambling, charities, and the energy industry all profit greatly through the use and destruction of human lives.

Many of them have significant PR and marketing stories that keep the prying eyes of the average citizen from asking too many questions about how they make their profit.

It is why holy hell rains down upon anyone who dares question the merchants of fear by defying them and calling out their toadies and industries.

They don't want the apple cart, their access to unlimited profit, and their feeding at the hog trough of human destruction to end.

So when someone stands and says I will fight for my neighbor, it is why ridicule is heaped upon them.

To fight for my neighbor.

Today, Rep. Elijah Cummings from Baltimore, the son of a sharecropper, passed from the earth.

Elijah stood in the doorway and told fear to back off.

He got up every day, joyful to join the fight for freedom and justice.

Like so many before him, he, too, has passed the torch to each of us.

The fight is eternal, but also real is the promise of everlasting love.

Pick up that light and fight for your neighbor.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Justice Now

Justice now.

A child can't wait ten years to be fed.

A People who march in the streets, asking for freedom, can't wait for someday to arrive.

You can't ask justice to wait for a tyrant who brutalizes their nation and the world to give themselves up.

Time doesn't wait for any of us.

Time doesn't wait for those who are afraid.

Those who have been given the reins of power by us need to check themselves.

They need to check themselves now.

Justice now.

That family was killed by bombs falling. How long will history wait for justice?

That woman was assaulted by a powerful man; how long is she supposed to wait to ask for her attacker to be prosecuted?

How long has it been for some men and women to know they are responsible for despair?

Telling justice to wait is justice denied.

The very act of saying "wait" is a conscious act of tyranny.

That thing, that dark beast we fight with, is the tyranny of men over other men.

Today, I said politics is an amoral belief system.

Politics, at its roots, is sociopathic.

It doesn't care if it does right or wrong; it only believes in what results are effective to win.

To keep power.

But now, here and now, this very moment in time, the nation, the world, is awakening.

The world, through social media, has broken bubbles of isolation.

Those institutions, those isolations that were safe behind their barriers of public relations, of the story they told about themselves, are being revealed as lies.

Lies.

What is being exposed is the amoral positions, the amoral platforms of all of our institutions.

The fact that our institutions are willing to sacrifice you and me so that they can maintain the status quo is the rule by which they live.

In government, there is no Jimmy Stewart, as in the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, who will stand on their own for justice.

And then the masses, seeing their failing, have a redemptive moment, a come-to-Jesus minute, and rally around Jimmy, proclaiming liberty throughout the land.

That's a sweet story, but it's not reality.

What we see in Washington is the reality.

A bully on one side, daring anyone to step across the line in the sand.

On the other side, a group passes notes to each other condemning the bully, which the bully chews up and spits back.

What is at the heart of this all?

It is simply nihilism.

Nothing matters.

Social media has also revealed that too many of us are not willing to put actions behind where our ideals stand.

We are too willing to let that guy be beaten by a cop.

We are too willing to let that woman be shouted down.

We are too willing to let people be bombed because they're over there.

We are too willing to let the rich steal from the poor.

We are too willing to believe the evil in our ears, telling us that we can't stop it, so why do anything?

Justice now.

This country is built upon the ideal of freedom.

But do people deserve freedom if they are not willing to stand for it?

You simply have to say no!

We, as a people, have to stop being a helicopter parent and grow a spine, be decisive, and tell the children in the White House, "No!"

This problem in Washington with this President is not going to be solved by giving him and his henchmen a time-out.

They are not going to be stopped by taking away their access to their phone.

Grounding them.

Telling them that they need to treat other people better.

The wolf is not stopped by moral principles on a nice letterhead.

Now.

Now is always the right time to do right.

Now, hear the cry; now, feel the despair; now, be the wave that lifts hope.

Justice now.

Justice now.

Justice now.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Defiance

Give me liberty or give me death.

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

There comes a time when silence is betrayal.

You're not supposed to be so blinded by patriotism that you can't face reality; wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.

Defiance.

A word.

Used by men and women who stood against the tide of injustice throughout the history of our world.

The defiant.

Heroes of truth.

When no one around them would stand to stop the tide of tyranny, they stood in opposition.

They sent a shot across the bow of corruption that continues to resonate today.

Defiance.

Defiance in the act of standing against the dark heart of humanity is what we all can recognize as having a true spirit of compassion.

Yet today, on the lawn of the White House, a President stood in defiance of our Constitution.

He stood defiant to our traditions.

He spits in the face of our ministers of the fourth estate.

He dares those sworn to uphold the law to investigate him.

He mocked the legislative branch for its duty to the country and the American people.

His retort?

So what…

Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.*

When the President stands before us and points his finger at all those who are corrupt around him, it's blatantly clear that he's blaming everyone else for why his hand is in the cookie jar.

Damn, the defiant.

This President is not playing political games.

He is not a chess master.

He does not have prescience beyond his own self-interest.

He's highly capable of acting reasonably.

He can pretend, to a minimal extent, that he knows about statecraft.

But bottom line, as a sociopath, it's all an act.

It's an act, folks.

He has learned from many criminal mentors throughout his life how to dodge and deflect when the good guys are on your trail.

There is enough public information about who this President has rubbed elbows with, starting with his father Fred, the original slum lord, to Jeffrey Epstein, to Kim, to MSB, to Putin, to Xi, that he does not care for the truth.

Learning from one tyrant to the next in his life, he has learned how to skate on the edge of legality and get away with crimes.

You are known by the company you keep.

It should now be abundantly clear that this person in the Presidency is not like any of the other occupants of that office since his hero, Andrew Jackson.

Even our American society had grown since Jackson's days when the President owned slaves and committed genocide against native peoples.

We don't accept that as a high mark in our society, do we?

Some of us recognize that this current occupant of the White House has an obvious problem with the truth.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi recognized that this President would impeach himself.

How could she know that?

Speaker Pelosi must know sociopaths like I know sociopaths that they will keep on doing wrong for their own benefit, come hell or high water.

They can't stop on their own.

Someone or something has to draw a line in the sand.

Someone has to be…

Defiant.

We, meaning both sides of the color divide in this nation, red and blue, Republican and Democrat, have to stand.

We have to stand now as a people in defense of our Constitution.

This isn't political.

This is a defense of our freedom from an individual and his henchmen who want to subvert our rights for their profit.

Their orgasm is more important to them than our collective welfare.

The President and his henchmen will stand their ground in defiance.

They will dare us to have the courage of our convictions to come for them.

Like petulant adolescents, they will scream and cry unfair, everyone is corrupt, and you're corrupt for even trying to stop us.

You're ignorant, unjust, traitors...

Republicans and Democrats must unite as the adults in the room.

It's time to give this President and his posse a timeout.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

*wikipedia.com

Backbone

Many lifeforms on our planet do not have a rigid spine.

Jellyfish are a type.

So are insects that are hard on the outside but soft in the middle.

Broadly, lifeforms without spines are called invertebrates.

Strangely, we as a people have decided that we prefer our elected leaders to be spineless insects.

Collectively, politicians do not have spines.

No backbone.

They look like you and me but for one crucial difference.

They have to be given cover to react.

You won't find a politician rushing into harm's way.

Like cockroaches, they won't scurry about if the lights are on.

That is, unless the herd, everyone else, is also rushing in to save the day.

The politician can always be counted on last.

Politicians are not leaders.

Politicians' morals are bendable.

Politicians can be said to be afraid of their own constituents, who put them into office.

They are malleable.

They blow with the wind.

To stand upon a principle of morality, of justice, they have to have a shield behind which they can take cover.

It's just about damn impossible to find a politician who will stand up by themselves for principle, even if it's in our Constitution.

Two or more standing together, yes.

As long as standing together serves an immediate purpose.

Our ideal of a congressman and senator is a fiction that makes a good story.

The bold individual representing the constituent doing our work for us so we don't have to be there in the boring halls of the legislature.

But the reality is indeed something entirely different.

This past week, something or someone handed out backbones to our legislative branch of the federal government.

Like lifeless puppets, one moment, suddenly, the Blue Fairy came through the window and made them real boys and girls.

Was it the President and his double-dog dare, "You can't bring me to justice; I can do anything I want," that gifted them with a backbone?

Were there high crimes we don't know about yet?

Was it a tiny spark of duty they pledged to uphold to protect us, the people, and our document, the Constitution of the United States of America?

You never see 100 percent of anything these days.

But this week, 421 congressmen and women, 100 senators, male and female, agreed that the whistleblower should be heard.

That was a disturbance in the Force.

Something shifted.

Something fell off the shelf.

Something lit a watchfire on the mountain peak of Rohan.

Politicians are not used to having a backbone.

Don't expect them to be comfortable with it for long.

Like toddlers learning how to walk, they will stand, stumble, and fall…

But they will get up again.

It's something unpredictable.

Those of us on the front lines calling for help to defend our Republic have looked behind us and have lamented that there is no cavalry coming to save us.

No Hail Mary.

No plot twist.

We were doomed to a no-win outcome for justice.

Yet when the world seems darkest, and please trust me as one who can speak about life after a fall, life always finds a way.

Even jellyfish can rise together under a common cause.

Life versus darkness.

Justice versus injustice.

Truth versus deception.

Corruption, tyrants, and criminals all have a blind spot.

You see, darkness cannot see into the light.

Darkness assumes the motivations of the light are the same as theirs.

We who live in the light know that is not true.

We do not seek profit, power, or wealth when we do right.

We do right because it is right.

We don't need thanks when we extend our compassion and our love to help others.

That is where the darkness of man's soul always makes its fatal error.

Tyrants can be counted on like clockwork to be evil.

Good men and women can't be counted on to stand for goodness every time.

Just like this President, it can be counted upon to impeach itself.

Do right.

Drop hate.

Lift hope.

Show your backbone.

The world will be better for it.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Impossible

Steve Martin said once that it was impossible to put a Cadillac up your nose.

There are impossibilities.

You can't build a stairway to the moon.

There is no way to stop time.

I will never be an Olympic athlete.

Impossibilities are limits.

Limits define the extent of expectations.

Humanity has and continues to impose limits on itself.

What it believes to be impossible.

We can't provide housing for free.

We can't educate those people.

We can't feed you unless you work for it.

We can't provide for your safety because that would limit our access to guns.

The Constitution can't be changed.

You are not equal to me.

Those people are lazy.

I'm a winner, you're a loser.

A good portion of humanity believes that the world is set in stone.

Or it should be.

Belief in the power of the impossible means shelter from reality for too many of us.

If equal rights are impossible, why even try?

If the 2nd Amendment can't be changed, just shut up and bury the dead.

If a President won't sign a bill, why would we want to talk about that?

Belief in the impossible allows the shallow-minded evil of low expectations and high personal interest to hide behind a straw man.

It is the foundation of nihilism.

Nihilism rejects the value of your life and mine.

It is the Bible from which the sociopath preaches.

Incidentally, that's a bit of irony because the nihilist rejects all religious and moral principles.

From its conception, the idea of nihilism was created as an intellectual canard.

It is a dull instrument used to smash the ties that bind humanity together.

Like a plow forced into the solid ground of society, it turns over the soil of compassion and destroys trust.

Nihilism is the acid that is thrown onto hope.

Nihilism is the friend of the tyrant.

That tyrant is only limited by their access to power.

Not all of us know a dictator personally, but we do have a relative or friend who believes it's impossible to make change.

Isn't there always someone who says that's impossible, why would you bother, don't waste your time, you can't do that?

Why do these people in our lives want to set a limit on the possible?

Who are they?

What is it they want?

They want you and me to live in fear.

They are your brother and sister, your friend, your parent, your relative, your pastor, priest, Rabi, police, congressman, senator, and President.

Fear is used by tyrants to manage expectations.

Fear is used to keep the possible from happening.

There are a lot of people selling fear these days, aren't there?

There are a lot of people throwing a rope around expectations and trying to pull it back in.

Trying to keep things from changing.

They can feel the world tipping up onto its side and all the pieces on the chessboard of life falling out of place.

They like order their order.

They don't want to share a lunch counter with a person with brown skin.

They don't want to buy a cake from a Gay baker.

They don't want strangers coming to their country.

They don't want you to have a home and a hot meal.

Their god told them that the world was only for them and not for all of us.

We're upsetting the apple cart.

We need to sit down because we're rocking the boat of their expectations.

Some of these people are so angry that they will kill us because we believe in the possible.

Their belief in fear is that deep.

Their oneness with hate knows no limit.

Can the ocean keep from rushing to the shore? 

It's just impossible.

Can you stop justice from exposing the evil plots of mankind?

It's just impossible.

Can you stop the Brotherhood of Man from filling our hearts with hope? It's just impossible.

That sentiment you hear in our country echoes down that street where a guy is being beaten.

That sound you hear is when voices shout for the re-establishment of our democracy.

That sound you hear is the feet marching for our human right to exist free from fear.

We are the ones to take up the challenge to make the impossible possible.

Don't say no, say yes, I can.

Do right.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Fallen

Seeing evil and stopping evil.

Most of us can recognize an act of cruelty as wrong.

However, some people don't see cruelty as wrong.

These people have desires.

These desires must be fulfilled no matter the cost.

No matter the cost to their community, their friendships, or their family.

Psychology has defined them as sociopaths.

Their desires, their passions, and their pure lust must be gratified regardless of who they hurt.

One such person caught in a web of evil was I.

I was in a bad place of my own doing when evil entered my home.

I had lost touch with myself, a phrase that aptly describes the situation. Still, it doesn't accurately capture the reality.

I had lost touch with the world.

I had become isolated.

I had convinced myself that I did not deserve love.

An empathic spiral.

Day after day, the weight of other people's fears and especially their anger washed over me like an unrelenting tide.

Many days, I couldn't catch my breath.

The anger of others would make me run.

People's emotions had, since the first day I could remember, struck fear in me.

In my early years, most of which I cannot remember because I lost my memory of my family when I was 17 due to a near-death experience.

What I do remember was the hands without a face hitting me till I bled.

I was told that my father was a rageaholic.

His physical and mental abuse was continuous.

But my tale is not about my father.

It's about how I was hanging onto my life by a thread and how that thread was cut by a sociopath.

I found myself running into oblivion because of my own fear of anger.

I believed I shouldn't be alive any longer.

I never forced myself to ask why a person was angry.

I had always assumed I was the cause of other people's anger.

To avoid angering them, I would never ask for clarification of their emotions.

I internalized others' pain and gave back humor.

My wife and I never argued.

But year after year, I receded, believing in error that she was angry with me.

Empathic personalities like my own are not magical.

We may be sensitive to emotion, but we're not mind-readers able to discern the origin of a feeling.

As in my case, my total lack of self-esteem always dictated to me that I was the cause.

So, in the last summer of what was going to be my life, I determined I was going to leave this wicked world.

Previously, a person came to live with us.

It was during that time that I came to find out through a four-year conversation that a 20-something sexual predator slept under our roof.

Their preferred victim were middle-aged housewives going through a rough divorce.

The graphic details of their constant exploits are so horrendous that this person would recount all their adventures on their own.

No prodding is needed.

They would drink a six-pack and tell the tale of sexual abuse.

Their bragging at first, I thought, was the talk of a blackout alcoholic drug abuser, which they also turned out to be.

That was until they provided me with proof of their exploits, which they had kept in a notebook.

Their reason for showing me their monster?

They thought that because I did not believe in a religion, it meant I was part of their club.

The club of the immoral.

The club of sociopaths who will do whatever is needed, right or wrong, to achieve their goal.

Because the sociopath, the psychopath, knows there are no eternal consequences to our actions here while we are alive.

There is no hell.

No heaven.

The sociopath's club credo is to lie about everything, and even that is a lie.

Their club members weave a web of deception that the sociopath believes no one can see through.

The club membership bylaws state that you can use people however you want.

This person allowed me into their mind, their reasoning, their wants, their desires, their lusts.

They falsely believed I was a monster like them.

I was the opposite.

I wanted to get away from this person.

I wanted to leave this world behind and all its evil.

I knew I didn't belong here.

It was at this moment that the beast, in pursuit of their orgasm, put their sights on a friend.

I told the beast repeatedly to leave my friend alone.

He couldn't, he wouldn't his lust had to be filled.

I didn't know that at that moment my future was sealed.

I put my plans into action to end my life.

To wander off into the Pacific Redwoods never to be seen again.

But then...

That friend read something in me and asked an important question.

How are you?

I told the truth.

I was leaving.

Then...

Then, that friend's voice, a single drop of human kindness, gave me pause in my dark journey to oblivion.

I stopped on the edge of forever and listened.

I had to...

It was the voice of love...

I fell.

I fell into the dark of night.

I fell.

When I hit bottom and realized I was not dead, I heard a voice call my name.

I turned and saw no one.

The voice came from inside me.

It said I was ready now to begin the good work.

To spread hope.

To put light onto the darkness.

To talk of love.

Unexpectantly, this crucible of self-hate I had lived through had gifted me.

I now had in my hand the sword of justice.

I had learned of evil, which had given me my armor.

I had fallen so that I could stand.

I was broken so I could be rebuilt.

If you have fallen, you can stand too.

It is not through our blessings that we are useful; it is through our trials and hardships that make us into who we are meant to be.

Our scars show where we have been.

Do right.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Season of Cruelty

Baseball for the year 2019 draws to a close.

Summer thinks about hanging it up till next year.

Grandma is no longer able to get out of the house.

A political party gives up being for all Americans.

The season of cruelty continues.

Human families come to our nation's door seeking comfort but are separated and abused.

A natural disaster.

Wealth intended to give relief from despair is diverted to build a wall to stop the future at our border.

The same hate marches in the streets of the big city and also through the living room of the country house.

The sexual abuse of women and children is a protected lifestyle of the rich.

The poor are given poisoned water.

The season of cruelty continues.

Elected men and women worry more about their position than holding accountable those who spit on our Constitution.

The elected officials enable the purveyors of cruelty to rip and rend our society. 

Media spokespeople for the current President tell us there is only one truth, and that is in the mind of the leader.

We have to wait to be told what to think by our great leader.

Children in America are locked in cages.

Children in America are taken from their hospital beds and deported.

Children in America are shot to death in their classrooms.

Promises of pardons are given to the loyal tigers who stalk the streets of America, who rend the hope of the people.

The Chosen One tells us he's loved better than Jesus.

The season of cruelty continues.

The President tells us everything he says is a joke.

The season of cruelty continues.

Every season has its end.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, even the worst tyrant will someday die.

They will go away.

However, for those living under the rule of the tyrant, the season will be cruel.

Seasons are soft lessons for hard heads.

For those who forget easily.

Seasons don't yell at first.

Seasons don't come in with a bang.

Seasons come in when a society opens its doors.

What can wander through the door and into the hearts and minds of people could be good or bad.

Like the ocean tide today, a cruel wave washes across America.

It has been a rising tide of hate.

A tide filled with ignorance.

A tide awash with selfishness.

A tide that has washed away the moorings of humanity and compassion.

Those who thought their world was built upon a higher ground have fallen into despair.

They have found the water has risen all around them.

The same hate that generations fought and died fighting against still lies at the bedrock of our American experience.

Seasons teach lessons.

When winter comes, when the world becomes cold and hard, if sustenance has not been laid away, the season will be cruel.

However, a lesson should be learned.

Before the change of season comes again, you must work hard to prepare.

This season of cruelty we are living through is here to teach us a lesson.

The lesson is that hate and ignorance will always be a part of us.

A nation, a society, must learn that the fight for justice doesn't end at the end of a season.

Again, like the tide, it rises and falls with the season.

This tyrant will not be in power forever.

But there will undoubtedly be others like him.

There will undoubtedly be followers of hate ready to support cruelty once again.

We, as defenders of the faith, defenders of the Constitution, and defenders of the truth of freedom and justice for all, must do the good work.

We must faithfully do right.

Not just for ourselves but for the generations to come, who will also have to pick up where we left off.

And fight the fight against man's wilful ignorance.

When this season ends, there will most certainly be another one coming.

Lest we forget.

Lest we forget our brothers and sisters.

Those who are within and outside of our borders who believe in the same hope for which this nation was founded.

Freedom.

Join hands, join hearts, join minds together to build not a wall of hate but a bridge of love.

It is the reason for the season.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Party Planner

Do you let your crazy uncle plan Thanksgiving dinner?

Every family has one.

A crazy relative sits at the end of the table, declaring how the world should be if they were in charge.

Everyone in the family knows who they are, the crazy one.

They don't discuss it.

They simply tell each other that they are "that way."

The crazy, loud, opinioned relative sitting at the end of the table.

Are they allowed to bring the main course by the host?

The dessert?

Do they get to plan any games?

Do they get to decide who sits where?

Do they make any real decisions that will affect the outcome of the meal and gathering?

The wise answer should be no, they do not.

Allowing them any hand in the decision-making would make them the official party pooper.

The party pooper.

Every family has one.

Sometimes three...

Fact in point, 1 in 25 people in the U.S. are officially party poopers.

Psychology defines them as sociopaths.

See The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, PH.D.

They're not serial killers, as depicted in the movies if that's what you're thinking.

No.

The sociopath has many faces.

They are both male and female.

And that face is always turned towards admiring themselves.

They know the difference between right and wrong, but they will do either to achieve what they want.

They see no difference between good and evil.

What is paramount in their lives is what I call the thing that gives them their orgasm.

It doesn't mean sex, but it can undoubtedly be sex.

It can also be power and wealth.

Power over the conversation at the dinner table or at the negotiation table, at lunch, in the car, in the board room, and in the bedroom.

Wealth is stolen out of the community and society or out of your wallet.

Sex is taken from individuals with low self-esteem who believe the physical contact means the other person cares about them, that it is love.

The sociopath cares only for themselves and their orgasm.

That's all they care about.

All they dream about.

They scheme and lie to achieve their goals.

It is why you don't allow the sociopath to have a part in your dinner plans.

They will let you down every time.

Because if it doesn't get them off, they'll lie their way out of it.

But in their own way, you can always count on them to act the same way every time at every event.

They will be the party pooper.

They will spoil your event.

They will spoil your nation.

They will spoil your life.

They will destroy your party.

If you know 100 people, it's a good bet that 4 of them are sociopaths to one degree or another.

Regular sociopaths up to and including megalomaniacs.

We have one in our family who destroyed our lives for a time until we recovered.

That's why I know the intimate realities behind the mask that the sociopath hides behind.

Our nation has a sociopath right now as President.

It's taking a while for some of our other elected leaders, as well as the media, to come to the conclusion that the leader of the free world has a personality disorder.

Just like in my own circle of family and friends, it took a long while before some realized there was a problem.

While others still refuse to acknowledge the problem, it remains a concern today.

Just as in our national discourse, the good people keep holding on to the hope that the evil person will change.

Good people are ingrained with the idea of redemption.

However, redemption works as a practice only if the person who needs redemption wants it.

Sociopaths see redemption as a weakness.

They don't care whether they do good or evil; they'll tell you what you want to hear so you'll get off their backs.

They are incapable, the sociopaths, of having a moral dilemma because they have no morals.

They are extraordinary human beings because they have no empathy whatsoever.

None.

Are you getting the picture of why you don't want them planning your next Thanksgiving dinner?

That crazy relative can have a place at the table, but there are some things you cannot, as a person of goodwill, allow them to do.

You can't have them give the blessing.

They can't give a toast.

You can't have them set the table.

You can't let them have control of the conversation.

You can't let them plan for the future.

You can't let them be President of a Nation.

You have to plan around them yourself.

That's some free advice to the Congress and the Senate.

Take it for what it is worth.

You don't have to know what I know about sociopaths being party poopers.

You're getting a mouthful of first-hand experience right now.

Try not to choke.

The misery will keep on coming until the day you say stop.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Barstool Knowledge

Washington never told a lie.

Twinkies can never spoil.

You must wait 24 hours before reporting a person missing.

Buddha was fat.

Adam and Eve ate an apple.

Jesus was born on December 25.

Obama is from Kenya.

Barstool knowledge.

The things that people tell each other while consuming their drugs of choice.

Barstool knowledge is defined by another term, one-upmanship.

That lame practice in a conversation where one person shares an experience and a round-robin follows, with everyone else saying how their experience tops the previous one.

Barstool knowledge starts out reasonably innocent.

A white lie that metamorphs as it's told from one barstool to the next until a worm becomes a fire-breathing dragon.

It's been a fact of human society since one monkey sat on a branch next to another.

When one monkey said that the sky-God told them that they had to give them half their food or the sky-God would become angry.

I don't see the sky-God.

That's correct, but he can see you.

Oh, yes, I must obey; here's half my food said the first monkey.

Happy in the belief that once appeased, the sky-God would no longer send them misfortune.

It's interesting how easily any of us can succumb to barstool knowledge.

Barstool knowledge is generally easy to hear from your uncle, aunt, father, mother, brother, sister, or friend, who at every family gathering causes that uncomfortable moment.

When the uncle tells that racist joke, everyone chuckles but is really embarrassed.

The party guest exclaims their story is a joke, but everyone knows it is true.

Barstool knowledge.

Psychology informs us it's because it feeds our expectations.

Our prejudice.

Our individual experience.

Our fear.

But our individual experience does not necessarily mean it conforms to reality.

We meet one jerk, and because there is this inherent need in humans to categorize, we label everyone similar to that one person as a jerk.

We had an unfavorable encounter with an individual, and we will likely view similar people as jerks as well.

Barstool knowledge.

None of it is valid.

It gives comfort to ignorance.

It pads the truth and keeps reality out of our minds.

It sponges away our responsibility to others as well as to ourselves.

Barstool knowledge is an adolescent mind preferring a lie to the truth.

A preference for fantasy, the way we wish the world should be, the world should be under our control, there to please us, not as it really is.

Speaking of barstool knowledge...

This past week, the President took it up a notch and demonstrated his lifelong affiliation and confirmation of his Doctoral degree in barstool knowledge.

If you are not familiar, the President used direct quotes from fascist leaders of WWII Germany to say he was the chosen one and that Jews are not loyal to our democracy.

He also said he was the second coming of Christ.

He was, in fact, Jesus, the economy is the greatest ever, we have great background checks, climate change is a hoax, Putin played Obama, the President wants world peace, U.S. citizens aren't paying his tariffs, did I say he said he was Jesus to the Jews and that was all in three days?

The President indeed demonstrated his barstool knowledge of theology, specifically regarding Judaism, as well as his professed love of Christianity.

He's a sociopath!

I said, sociopath.

I have had and continue to have direct experience with a sociopath.

Now you do, too, if you are residing in this Republic under this President.

They live in a world created in their own minds, shaped by their perception of the world and how it exists for them alone.

Their reality is in their mind and has nothing to do with the group's experience with reality.

At its core, sociopathy is a self-defense mechanism that allows the individual to survive in an adverse world.

However, sociopaths are not conducive to a stable government, a stable economy, and stable relationships, both personal and impersonal.

You can never pin a sociopath down to the truth; they are experts at moving their own goalposts.

It is also conclusive that sociopaths attract other sociopaths.

That's why all those people with barstool knowledge are so drawn and attracted to their messiah.

Sociopaths, at their core, cannot and will not ever share.

Like Homer Simpson at the buffet table, they will take the whole tray of fried shrimp with them back to their table and consume it alone.

The world is their shrimp buffet, for one.

The only thing that will ever stop a sociopath and their followers is a consequence.

Something or someone has to draw a line in the sand and say stop.

They will not do it on their own.

They will not recognize that the house is on fire and call for help.

They will not, for any reason in heaven or hell, stop on their own accord from wreaking havoc.

Only the good people, the good people who, with conviction and moral purpose, have the ability to stand before this President and tell him to stop.

The confidence and insistence upon the belief in barstool knowledge is so deep…

How deep?

Have you ever tried to persuade someone to abandon their religion?

It's that deep.

I'm reminded of the beloved song "We Shall Overcome."

The only way that the Brotherhood of Man can be made to come true is if the good people stop allowing the bad ones a seat at the table of peace.

These sociopaths only want to turn the table over and take everything for themselves.

Peace is not an option.

We've got to stop allowing relatives or friends to tell racial jokes.

We've got to call out the fan at the sports game for yelling a gender slur.

We must walk together, arm in arm with those who want a better world, and step over and around those who don't.

They're rocks on the path of brotherhood.

Step lively past them.

We have to understand that we can't save everybody, only those who want to be saved.

Here's some real knowledge to drop.

Love expects more of everyone every day.

Tell the uncle to pass the potatoes, act civil, or leave the table.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby