The people who want the Citizenship Question on the Ballot are totally not-racist towards Brown People

This 20 minute podcast from Slate does a very good job of explaining what's going on with the Census Question, and explains the "smoking gun" evidence that was very recently found in the hard-drives of a deceased GOP Political Operative.
***
Deceased GOP Operative: "So, uh, *TrumpAdministration/RepublicanLeadership*.  Um, you know, if you do *THIS*, then it is *STATISTICALLY GUARANTEED* to help Conservatives and WhitePeople get greater representation in Congress and hurt MexicanAmericanCitizens' representation in Congress.  As a bonus it will piss off the Liberals.  Oh, and uh, when you inevitably get sued for this, make certain you *DON'T* say that I came up with it or what it will do.  Instead you say "We, the Federal Government, we need the citizenship question on the census so that we can better enforce the Voting Rights Act."[1]
***
This is not an exaggeration.  It's not hyperbole.  It's not my opinion.  It's what the record reflects.

When the Trump Administration and GOP originally decided to put the Citizenship Question on the Census, they did so to hurt Hispanic Citizen's representation in Congress.  And then the government lied about it, under oath, on the record.  But because this evidence only came out after Oral Arguments were held before SCOTUS, it is yet to be seen what influence this new evidence will have on the case.
&&&
[1] The Conservatives that support this Census Citizenship Question measure and supported the Robert's Court gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 [a], they insist that they aren't racists... And that's probably right, even if it requires applying a somewhat tortured definition of "racism".

For example, I used to live next to a Christian Separatist compound called Elohim City [b].  The flavor of Christianity that they follow is called "Christian Identity" (CI) [c].  They believe the biblical "Curse of Ham" [d][e] cast upon Noah's son is where black people originated.  Following from there they assert that the Bible teaches that black people are "mud people" and that white, christian people should not inter-marry with them.  These CI folks don't lynch black people to my knowledge.  Being kind, Southern Folk, I can imagine that they would help a solitary black motorist who broke down on the road.  But ... if that black motorist has a white woman riding shotgun with him, then that couple is an Abomination Before God and should be shunned, you know, kinda like how some conservative evangelicals see gay-people.

So, if your bar for racism is: "I am not lynching people."  Then yeah, CI people are totally not-racist against black people - they just have firmly held religious beliefs.  And the conservatives that want to rob Hispanic American Citizens of their rightful representation in Congress, since they aren't actually laying any white hands on those brown bodies, it could be that they're not racist either.

But then again if that's *really* your bar for racism, you just might need to "have a little talk with Jesus."

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/republican-files-census-citizenship-question-redistricting-gerrymandering-hofeller.html

[a] Robert's Court overturns a key provision of the VRA
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/the-voting-rights-act

[b] Elohim City
http://thislandpress.com/2012/04/15/whos-afraid-of-elohim-city/

[c] Christian Identity
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christian-Identity

[d] Curse of Ham
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham

[e] Resolution unsuccessfully denouncing the Curse of Ham at the 2017 Southern Baptist Convention
https://baptistnews.com/article/curse-ham-black-baptists-question-place-sbc/#.XPfIq4hKiUk

To Argue, or not to Argue? Is that the question?

The other day I was asked how effective I was at changing the minds of the people I call RepubliChristians.  How well I perform at convincing them that they are wrong about things and that I am right.  I'd like to explore that a bit, because I believe the question was asked in Good Faith, and propriety in argumentation is a very important thing me.

In my rural public high school I was blessed to have the privilege of participating in debate class. Two debating disciplines were available to students: Cross-Examination Debate (Policy Debate) and Lincoln-Douglas Debate (Values Debate).  The year I won my Class 2A Lincoln-Douglas Debate State Championship the question was "Resolved: the intervention of one nation in the domestic affairs of another nation is morally justified." [As an aside, this was 17 years before Russia interfered in the United State's 2016 domestic elections, but when I read the Mueller Report today, it covers ground that I've already put a significant amount of intellectual work into] Students participating in L/D debate construct two cases addressing the question utilizing concepts from Philosophy, one case supporting the resolution, one case opposed.  Then, at competitions after a coin-flip to determine who takes which side, we argue those cases one-on-one against another debater before a judge.

That experience changed my life.  It taught me how to construct an argument: What do I value? What criteria do I apply for Judgement? What evidence do I offer to support my position?  It taught me to think critically, to look at both sides of an issue and ask Good Faith questions.  It taught me to covet precision in my speech.

Making a Good Argument is a feat of skill - and so is something that can be learned.  A good argument is logically consistent, unambiguous, and supported by evidence.  But a good argument is only persuasive to participants who will engage with it in Good Faith.

It is my personal view that RepubliChristians do not operate on Good Faith - they are religio-political ideologues who presuppose the answers to big questions being asked of our society.  They are the 4 out of 5 white evangelicals who are followers of President Donald Trump, himself the counter-archetype of one who makes Good Arguments.  President Trump perpetually makes claims that are logically inconsistent, vastly ambiguous, and don't even attempt to be supported by evidence.  Critically, this means that when he says something he actually says nothing.  Because what he says is *nothing*, his followers can take him to mean *anything*.  This is a situation that cannot be refuted with Good Arguments, because the only response to nonsense is to call it such and those who will accept nonsense as reason will not be swayed by rational arguments.

And so I stand on my social media soapbox and scream into that black nothingness the truth of reality as I see it.  Not to convince the RepubliChristians to change their views, but to call out to Faceless Non-Voters of our society and alert them that RepubliChristians exist, they *do* vote ... and they are driving national policy towards racist, hateful, misogynistic ends that are very much real, because that's what they think the right thing is to do and they have Bible verses to "prove" it.

I understand that voicing the utterance "White Evangelical Christians are an existential threat to our liberal democracy" is pretty much the flip side to the GOP's "Hurr durr durr Democrat Party Communists hate America!!" argument.  I don't like having to say it.  But it is consistent with what I see, and I believe I would be derelict in my duty as a citizen to sit in silence and let the RepubliChristians run this country unchallenged.  The stakes for my neighbors is too high.

*untitled*

This post is my response to this:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-still-believe-every-child-is-precious-also-it-will-take-us-years-to-find-the-kids-we-stole-at-the-border

As a proud son of the Cherokee Indian Nation, by natural right, I claim heritage to the forced familial separation visited upon my ancestors' in our native lands and in the foreign lands that we were forced to journey to.  Native Children were forcibly separated from their Native Parents at the hands of The Religious People - White Christian Hands - fully sanctioned and empowered by the government of their time.

Forced Family Separation upon the brown bodies of the Cherokee People was an act of terrorism then, and Forced Family Separation upon the brown bodies at the Southern Border is an act of terrorism now.

I make my plea for human decency, a supplication for the foreclosure of Forced Family Separation from the toolbox of our Federal Immigration Policy enforcement tools - to the non-christian, non-voting, people of goodwill in this country.  To the so-called "Religious NONES"; You can repudiate this disgraceful stain upon our modern republic in 2020 if you capitalize on your privilege and vote.

Understanding the big picture of immigration in America is difficult - it takes an investment of time, it requires reading, it is hard work.  The Christian-nationalist and White-nationalist propagandized narratives of MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! are much more easily consumed, as fascism usually is.

If you have questions about: the "Flores Consent Decree", the Executive Orders and Policy Documents implementing "zero tolerance" and Forced Family Separation at the border, the litigation in a number of our Federal Courts concerning those EO's, the policy handbooks that govern DHS and ORR, the transcripts of depositions given by Administration Officials related to their interpretation of our immigration statues and regulations, the dire situation of our country's back-logged Immigration Courts System - I stand willing to share what I know with you.

I have no desire to persuade The Religious People who support "no tolerance" to change their view.  White evangelical christians like the President's personal pastor, Ralph Drollnger, who use scripture to justify torture and terror - let them have their beliefs.

But to the NONE's of a like mind to myself, I urge you to stand up to Ignorance, stand up to Bigotry, and be counted among those who care For The Least Of These.  Join me.
*****
"Tiny Horrors: A Chilling Reminder of How Cruel Assimilation Was—And Is" - Indian Country Today, 01Jan2013
https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/tiny-horrors-a-chilling-reminder-of-how-cruel-assimilation-was-and-is-VLKL7I26wUSj4LmZL_YDvw/

"Indian Country remembers the trauma of children taken from their parents" - Indian Country Today, 19Jun2018
https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-06-19/indian-country-remembers-trauma-children-taken-their-parents

"Unaccompanied Minors and the Flores Settlement Agreement: What to Know", Nat'l Conference of State Legislatures, 30Oct2018
http://www.ncsl.org/blog/2018/10/30/unaccompanied-minors-and-the-flores-settlement-agreement-what-to-know.aspx

"Behind The Departure Of Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen", NPR, 07Apr2019
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/07/710882966/behind-the-departure-of-homeland-security-secretary-nielsen

"The President Who Doesn't Read", The Atlantic, 05Jan2018
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/americas-first-post-text-president/549794/

"Why America’s ‘nones’ don’t identify with a religion", Pew Research Center, 08Aug2018
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/08/why-americas-nones-dont-identify-with-a-religion/

"Inside the White House Bible Study group", BBC News, 08Apr2018
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43534724

"Free Bible Studies" from Capitol Ministries, the official Bible Study Group of the Whitehouse
https://capmin.org/bible-studies/

In which I mourn my friend.

There was once a teacher from the Public Education System whom I respected greatly.

He was the one primarily responsible for piquing my lifelong interest in math and civics.  He pushed the ideal that any problem that can be modeled by mathematics can be studied, can be understood, can be acted upon within the bounds of the problem domain.  He believed that being educated in the functional structure of government empowered a person to be a good citizen, to engage positively in the democratic process.  Not a practicing Christian of any specific denomination, he was a decent person and believed in the existence of God just like everyone else where I grew up.  Not highly political, he leaned Democrat and valued the hard workers of America be they cowboys, nurses, or assembly line workers.

Long after I left school, in his own middle age, he hit a speed bump in the road of life developing an addiction to prescription painkillers.  After a brief season of chemical induced crazy, he became Born Again and adopted a Charismatic Christian lifestyle.  In rural Oklahoma this also means adopting dogmatic, ideological Republicanism.  And he changed.

Gone was the rational, thoughtful, balanced individual I had admired and respected as a child.  In his place is an angry, fearful, hateful man.  By virtue of his chosen religiosity, he has incorporated a worldview holding that Democrats are evil secular humanists who deny God and worship at the altar of Socialism.  Republicans on the other hand acknowledge Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and humbly follow the will of God, only to get persecuted and ridiculed by the liberals for their efforts.

I cannot abide this worldview, nor the changes it wrought in my friend.  It is overly simplistic and willfully ignorant, painting the veneer of a false dichotomy on the face of our complex and ever-changing society.  It took a man who had compassion for the poor, who accepted students for who they were regardless of their expressed sexual orientation, and created instead a person with open and agitated hostility towards "poor, lazy welfare takers" and the "godless, liberal gay activists".

Working in collusion, Breitbart, Fox News, the GOP, and Charismatic Christian Nationalism, killed my mentor.  Yes, I grieved the loss of my friend.  Yes, I'm still damn angry about it.  No, I can no more change the material facts of this reality than I can add a cubit to my stature.

So, what do I do?  Well, for one thing I cook.  I cook for Muslims, I cook for atheists and agnostics, I cook for Pro-Choice Gay Socialist Liberals.  I welcome them into my home, I feed them, and I love on them.  I share in their joys, fears, and ambitions.  I share my own experiences of life as sailor, nerd, Believer.  All the people he now hates borne of misguided religiosity, I will embrace.

Since I believe in a Sovereign God, I am forced to accept that the reality I live in is supposed to be this way, at least for now.  So I will quiet my soul, I will pray a prayer of guidance, and I will speak out against religious bigotry and class hatred in my writing.  And tonight, because my Lord has shown favor to me today, Sarah and I will eat well, slumbering in an air conditioned house on a comfortable mattress, recharging our physical and spiritual batteries to face the evils tomorrow will certainly bring.

Amen.

Woody doesn't do Public Protesting

I have never attended a public protest, mainly because I'm not a goddamned Liberal.

The last time I considered joining a protest was back in 2008 when the radical-left socialist and domestic terrorist, William Ayers, was scheduled to speak at my university.  As a veteran, patriot, and solidly partisan Republican, I joined in the popular outrage of the time directed towards Obama and his Libby Crew like Ayers.  This outrage was exampled to me by the conservative pundits I listened to on talk radio three hours every day.  I was fully committed to standing outside the teaching college in my American Legion gear demonstrating my opposition to the presence of this UnAmerican "Big L" Liberal at my school.

Fast forward a decade and my political ideology has shifted to Centrist.  I no longer listen to Beck, Hannity, and Rush on talk radio.  I don't read "The Federalist Papers Project" blog or watch PragerU on Youtube.  I didn't replace those things with their liberal counterparts, but rather changed the methodology of how I keep myself educated.  I very closely follow the daily business of my state government for the 2-3 months they are in session each year.  I monitor the Federal Courts System for issues that are of concern to me.  Basically, I fired The Media.  I'm not an idiot and I don't need those idiots feeding me the Conservative or Progressive or Christian Point-Of-View their Advertisers have paid them for.

Which brings me to this Sunday's PRIDE March at the Nebraska State Capitol Building.  I'll be there.  With my heterosexual christian wife.

My Evangelical brethren and my die-hard Republican friends will not understand my participation in this event.  Their lack of understanding stems from a lack of education, which results in a lack of empathy.... manifesting ultimately in fear and anger.   Those friends consume the viewpoints of sources such as Dr. Carson, Col Alan West, Sean Hannity,  The Family Research Council, Nebraska Family Alliance.  Those sources tell my friends "The Gay Lobby is eroding the Values this country was founded upon.  They are forcing their Gay Agenda down our throats.  They hate God and they hate you.  Fight them, for your children's' sake."  I consider that position incorrect, ignorant, and wrong-headed.

I will be at the event to stand in solidarity with my LBGQT brothers and sisters.  To demonstrate to them that I see them.  As human.  As citizens who deserve equal protection under the law.  As part of my family and my community here in Lincoln where I've made my home.  I will be at the event, so that if my Evangelical or Republican friends choose to counter-protest, they will see me standing there, unashamed and unaccused.

This is not a Republican vs Democrat issue.  It's not a God vs Atheist issue.  This is about human dignity and common decency, an issue of Civil Liberty, and I choose to respond in Love.  Join me.

Nebraska Pride March | Nebraska State Capitol Building | Sunday, 11. June 2017

Shall I Apologize for my Polemic Position on Pop-Christian Culture Apologetics?

"Woody, why do you hate Apologists?  I thought you were supposed to be a Christian or whatever?"

I do not hate Apologists.  I simply have never met a single one who, after hearing their case, I had any intellectual respect for at all.
***
A number of months ago a visiting preacher spoke to the church I attended.  He was with Ratio Christi, an apologist group that targets college campuses.  He lamented from the pulpit that "too many of our Youth leave the faith when they get to college." His group, he stated, offered "historical, philosophical, and scientific arguments to believe in Christ." (https://ratiochristi.org/)

On its face I have no objection to that intention.  I too believe in Christ and believe that the Bible is true.  I too assign intellectual value to history, science, and to philosophy - getting my bona fide's studying chemical engineering at University and engaging in Lincoln-Douglas Values Debate in High School.  As both Scientist and Believer, I daily witness the mastery and mystery of God's Hand in His Creation.

 But here's the rub, I also believe conceptual integrity and I'm not an idiot.

As an intellectual nerd, I have undertaken a more rigorous study of history, science, and philosophy, than the majority of my christian brethren.  In addition to fluency with the fundamentals of western science and philosophy, I have fluency with the fundamentals of the Scriptures, having been raised in a King-James-Only-Church.  So when the Christian Apologist makes bull-crap arguments, taking concepts out of context, cherry picking language - I will know it.  When Scientists do this, intentionally misapplying concepts to make a fallacious point, or obfuscating data to coax readers into incorrect conclusions, we kick them out of our community and ridicule them to scorn (see Anti-Vaxxers and Climate-Change-Deniers).  Among Truth-Seekers there is *no* room for intellectual dishonesty.  If a person must use falsehoods and deceit to "prove" the "truth", they are at best ignorant of what the truth actually is, or at worst simply a dishonest jackass.

Many Evangelicals have been deluded into accepting Popular Apologetics as an authentic tool for presenting the gospel to secularist non-believers.  It is their Biblical David to battle the Secular Goliath.  By my personal standard, I do not believe these Christians exhibit intelligence in this choice.  They are an ignorant people playing with hard concepts they do not comprehend.  So you may ask Dear Reader, "What's is the end-game here, Woody?  What purpose does the practice of Christian Apologetics, as used by American Evangelicals, serve?"  For me that answer is easy: The end-game is what the end-game is for most of American Christianity: Money and Political Influence.

If you want to know what American Christians really believe in, examine what they teach their children in Church.  Do they teach their little ones the Bible? No, they teach the Awana Program which makes learning individual bible verses (interlocked with Protestant Conservative Christian Dogma) Fun!  What about the High Schoolers?  Surely they teach those Youth the Bible?  No, they teach second-rate Apologetics a la Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ", as their Sunday School Curriculum (the movie based upon the book cleared $7M in its first two weeks at the box office.  Each 'Student Edition' of "The Case for Christ" features 5 pages of advertisements for the other "The Case For.." books available for purchase from the Publisher at $9.99 each.)  For a bit of variety, they also teach a thinly-veiled "You're not an Godly American if you vote Democrat" message, a la a private screening of Franklin Graham's "Decision America" video (why would you show a video about Godly Republican Voting to minors who can't vote? Well... Brother Graham didn't spent a cool $9M on that project just to miss an easy opportunity to "invest" in the minds of future "christian voters" too).

Money and Political Influence.  Not the Bible.  Not Jesus's compassion upon the poor, upon women, upon refugees.  Not Jesus's overturning of the money changers' tables or his chastisement of the hypocritical Religious Leaders.  Nope.  Money and Politics shapes the discussion that a large segment of the Religious in America swallow without thought.

(untitled)

Yesterday was a very unfortunate day for (some) children in this, the Great State of Nebraska. Children in the Juvenile Justice System, children in the Foster Care System, children in the Developmental Disability System, and also children who are sick as well as poor, on the Medicaid System, they will indeed and undoubtedly suffer from votes taken Wednesday on the Nebraska Unicameral Floor.

The Governor has line-item veto authority on the budget, and he exercised that this year on a number of DHHS and Nebraska Supreme Court programs. Nebraska is supposedly crafting our best shot at weathering a very real economic downturn. His stated purpose for the vetos was to not touch the "rainy day fund", presumably to put the state at a lower risk of a Special Session resulting from revenue catastrophically lagging forecasts over the interim. On a number of the overrides, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee stated he felt the reduction in the Reserve was appropriate, and that the amounts of money were so small, that the reductions to the Reserve would be virtually insignificant.

The cuts were particularly viscous to a particular class of people, those at the margins of society. Normal people are often honestly ignorant of the plight of these Others. Sometimes we simply don't see them... and other times we decide not to. Riding the bus I do see some of these, The Unfortunates: The single moms wearing a McDonald's uniform whose stroller blocks the aisle, the convicts on work release taking about their "old-ladies" and their kids back in freedom, the dirty jeans construction worker with a lunch box that looks just like mine - they are people. Also where I live informs me of these Unfortunates, literally, between the Governor's Mansion one block to the West, and drug houses in a blighted area one block to the East.  I see barefoot and shiftless kids playing in yards of houses with overgrown weeds and missing windows, completely ignorant of how the middle-class white preacher's children experience childhood. These are the people impacted by these senseless budget actions.

I cannot say for certain what is the content of my fellow Nebraska Christians' hearts, for "what man can truly know another man?" But I hear these "Christian" Senator's arguments, I see their votes which represent their constituents. If you claim the cross and you aren't ashamed of your state government putting party politics before people, I'm ashamed of you... which doesn't really matter much in the greater scheme of things.