Words of Truth

This post might get me some hate mail.

I used to work with a woman who referred to her little dog as her “son.” The funny thing was that she had a human son who had just gone off to college. I always thought it was weird that she referred to a dog as her son, but I chalked it up to eccentricity. At least until we discussed capital punishment, and she said that it was wrong to execute murderers and serial rapists.  Until the “Leo the dog” incident happened where a man, in a fit of road rage, reached into a woman’s car, grabbed the little white dog (a Bichon Frise) named Leo, and threw him across a few lanes of traffic, where he got hit by a car and died.  This woman said, “They should give him the chair!”  I don’t think she was talking about a La-Z-Boy.

Then several years later I worked with a woman who had two dogs and her firstborn baby. She commented how she was going home to her “three children.” I clarified, asking her if she had other children besides the new baby. She said, “No, I’m talking about my baby and my dogs.” I told her that her dogs are not the same as children. She disagreed. So I asked her, “If your daughter got sick and you took her to the doctor, and the doctor said she needed a $30,000 operation, would you pay it?” She said without hesitation, “Oh, absolutely.” I said, “What if it were your dog?” Then she kind of made a grimace and bobbed her head from side-to-side as if she were trying to decide. I said, “That’s it right there. With your daughter, no price is too high to save her life, but with your dogs, there’s a line.”

Lately I’ve been seeing more things like this on the internet. The usage of the term “furbabies.” People referring to their pets as their children/sons/daughters, etc. People referring to themselves as parents of these animals. When I got a dog about eight years ago, I took him to Petsmart to obedience school and one of the employees referred to me as my dog’s “daddy.” I said, “I had nothing to do with making him, and I’ll thank you not to spread that around.”

Yesterday was mother’s day, and I saw people referring to themselves as the mother of their pets. Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m friends with some of these people, and I love them dearly. But they’re wrong. Dogs are not humans. Cats are not humans. I love animals, but there’s not an animal in the world I would die for. My kids though? I wouldn’t hesitate. And you know what? I got offended. You see, I have three children (one is an adult), and I’ve had dogs and cats.

There’s a huge difference between a pet and a child. With a child, a woman gets pregnant, goes through a nine month pregnancy, hours of labor, pain, discomfort, huge medical bills, thousands of dollars of medical equipment and staff on hand in case something goes wrong. Then she goes through weeks of getting up several times during the night, a million diaper changes, constant worrying about the safety of the child, trying to find a good school, helping the child with his homework, listening to the child talk about his problems, arguing with the child, apologizing for things said in anger, teaching the child to drive a car, about the birds and the bees, navigating the teenage years with all their drama, guiding the child into a plan for his future, And even when the child moves out, worrying about that child pretty much for the rest of your life. And if that child should die before his mother or father? That’s an earth-shattering event that can break up a marriage, send people into deep depression, and generally change someone’s life forever.

Now with all that in mind, let’s talk about a dog. I got a dog back in 2006. How difficult was it for me to get him? I walked into the Humane Society and picked him out of the two puppies they had. I brought him home. I got him his shots and got him fixed (cost about $30). I spent a few weeks housebreaking him. I took him to obedience school. He was a good dog. But he was not my child. To me, comparing the joy, the toil, the heartache of rearing a child with the task of raising a pet is offensive because it belittles the work that parents of human children face.

And so when I hear my friends or family refer to their pets as “furbabies”, their children, etc, I will continue to keep my mouth shut, as best as I am able. But I’m thinking about how wrong they are.

So the 2016 NFL draft is over.  And the thought occurred to me:  I wonder if a gay player got drafted.  I’m guessing no, because the media didn’t shove it down our throats like they did two years ago with Michael Sam.

It’s possible a gay player got drafted and we just didn’t hear about it.  And you know what?  I think that’s the way it should be.  Whether someone is gay or straight has absolutely nothing to do with how well they can throw, catch, run, tackle, or block.   I don’t need to know the bedroom proclivities of the players on my team, I just want to watch them play football.

That’s all I wanted to say.

I have friends and relatives who support Donald Trump.  I have talked to Trump supporters in person, on the phone, and on the internet.  After witnessing people support him in numbers I can’t understand, I felt it necessary to state emphatically why I do not support his candidacy for President, and I will never support his candidacy for President.  I understand those of you who say that if I don’t vote for Trump in November, then I’m voting for Clinton, but I say that they are two sides of the same coin.  They are two chapters in the same book. They are two apples from the same tree.  In other words, if our choice is Trump vs Clinton, it won’t matter who wins.

And so I offer, in a last ditch hope of convincing Trump supporters who are unaware of these aspects of the candidate they are supporting that they should instead support the only conservative American who is running for President:  Ted Cruz.    Here are my nine reasons:

1. His character is lacking. Any man who has been divorced twice due to affairs, has confessed to being a serial adulterer, and who implied in his book that he wants to have sex with his own daughter is not someone who I believe is qualified to hold the highest office in the land. I know some will say that we found out later that some of our previous Presidents have had affairs, but that doesn’t mean we should pick one we already KNOW is immoral.

2. He is a narcissist. Trump loves nobody but himself. He believes he is the most important person in the world. This means he thinks of nobody but himself. You want the President to have the best interests of the country at heart, but Donald Trump’s heart only has Donald Trump’s interests in mind. We’ve had eight years of a narcissist in the White House, I don’t think our country can take another four.

3. He thinks he is never wrong. This speaks to his lack of humility. He never apologizes for anything, because he thinks he’s never wrong. For someone with such a high capacity for self-delusion with no ability to second-guess his own decisions or show a shred of introspection to have his finger on the trigger of our nuclear arsenal (let alone be Commander in Chief of our Military), is frightening.  Humility in a leader is a good thing, because when they realize they made a mistake, they can begin to fix the problem, and then they learn from that mistake and (hopefully) never make it again.

4. He is non-specific about his plans. Whenever someone tries to nail him down on his plan for the country, he spouts vague inanities like “I have the best plan. Believe me, you’re gonna love it.” But he never tells you what his plan is. This makes me nervous, because we are left to imagine what his plans MIGHT be. We can’t talk about how good or bad they are, we can only guess. This reminds me of Nancy Pelosi’s quote on Obamacare, “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.”

5. He supports Planned Parenthood. He claims to be a Christian, and yet he supports the murder of babies. This is not the man that we need in office to appoint constitutionalist, conservative judges to try and stop the slaughter of the innocent.

6. He is NOT a good businessman. From Trump Steaks to Trump University to the FOUR times he has filed for bankruptcy for his businesses, he’s a bad businessman. The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic city (where he personally lost almost 1 billion dollars of his own money, that’s $1,000,000,000.): bankrupt. The Plaza Hotel, where he made the exact same mistake he made in Atlantic City, (which shows that he doesn’t learn from his mistakes, because in his mind, he doesn’t make any): bankrupt. Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts: bankrupt to the tune of 1.8 billion dollars. They reorganized, and then filed for bankruptcy AGAIN in 2009 (7 years ago).

7. He lies constantly. I know he accuses Ted Cruz of this, but he can’t point out one thing Cruz has lied about (back to the vague inanities). The hypocrisy of a man to accuse someone else of the thing that is his defining characteristic is amazing. Trump said to Jeb Bush that Trump had never been bankrupt. He has filed for bankruptcy for his businesses FOUR TIMES because of his bad business decisions (see #6). He has lied about self-funding his campaign. He claims over and over that his campaign is self-funded. What’s the truth? He LOANED his campaign money, which he is making interest on, and they are running on donations from other (non-Trump) people.

8. He does NOT “tell it like it is.” Given his propensity for lying and saying whatever he needs to say to get what he wants, his relationship with the truth is transitory at best, and nonexistent at worst. And his lack of humility in admitting any of his faults shows that he is possibly incapable of telling it like it is in any other area.

9. He claims to be a Christian, but he has never asked God for forgiveness (because he doesn’t believe he has ever done anything wrong).  The foundational principle of Christianity is that Christ died for our sins, and we need to have those sins forgiven to have our relationship with God restored. Trump has never done this, and is therefore NOT a Christian.  If you are a Christian and you think Trump is a good choice for President, I have to ask you if you hate your country, because I believe Trump has a very high chance of destroying this country.

I believe a Christian Trump supporter is either a) ignorant of Trump’s true character and abilities, or b). like a man who has two wives: they claim to love both, but in reality they love neither. Jesus was right: you can’t serve two masters. Do you support this evil man, or do you follow Christ? In my mind there can be no middle ground.