ON HAVING A FACT-BASED OPINION

I have a friend who will not read my writings. She says she does not read, "that liberal crap." At the core of what she has told me is what I think is wrong about the world in general. Very few are willing to listen to and understand another point of view. It is as if to hear another point of view is to agree with it. Nothing is farther from the truth.

H.L. Mencken once said, "The plain truth is that I am not a fair man, and I don't want to hear both sides." If most people were as erudite and well-read as the Sage of Baltimore, I might allow it unnecessary to listen to both sides of an argument for I would know it has already been heard many times before.

To my thinking not reading about or learning about another point of view is like playing a violin with no bow string. It would be the same as trying to understand World War II from only Adolf Hitler's perspective. Would you understand arithmetic if you learned only how to add and not to subtract? Or, can you truly understand English literature without knowing Shakespeare?

To me not understanding how other people think, or why they think it, would be like living in a world with no balance.  We see all the time how people act when they refuse to hear someone else's side of the story. They

kill.  They persecute.  They cause war.

I grew up in a working class family in Baltimore.  I left home when I was 17 years old. I have since earned a Bachelor's and a Master's degree. In my 20+ years of formal schooling I primarily studied History, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, and Public Affairs. I have read thousands of books and unimaginable numbers of newspapers and periodicals. Fortune and curiosity has taken me to 48 of the United States of America, as well through dozens of countries on 5 continents of our globe. I have met, talked, and argued with folks of different religions, cultures, colors, languages, and social position.

This reading and travelling and talking and listening has made me what I am. It has most especially provided me the foundation that helps me think through issues. And, it has provided me with perspective for where I fit in the world.

I have read and tried to listen to all sides of an argument in order to form my own opinions. These conclusions about the world I live in became the meat on my bones. Though imperfect, I have at my center a sense of what is right and wrong, along with the importance of understanding I am one of many. I do not exist without others.  I accomplished nothing without the support of others. I will get nowhere without the support of others.  I am nothing without the world around me. Anyone who thinks they are independent or knows what is right, in my experience, is dead wrong.

Elie Wiesel once said,
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.  We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Now, after many years listening, I am talking. Age and experience have given me something to say. I have an opinion on many things. I am using this blog, Martin's Musings, to offer these opinions up to the world. It is my perspective and my perspective only. Yes, I may get preachy at times. Yes, my opinions may seem strong at times. But, I am still open to argument. I am still open to another point of view. I am still learning something new every day.

What I have learned in life is that most people need a prod to think. Most people need someone to push their button in order to challenge a point of view. I hope to be that prod at times.

An argument, by the way, is not name calling or lying about the facts, like I hear so many times on Fox News.  It is not the loudest argument or the one written in ALL CAPS with multiple exclamation points at its ending!!!  A good argument has facts and a point of view.

Let me know what you think.  If I knew everything, I would already be lying in the ground with dirt on my face.

ON AFRICA'S LEGALIZATION OF PERSECUTION AND MURDER OF HOMOSEXUALS

According to a recent New York Times article, homosexuality is illegal in 38 of 54 African nations. In northern sections of Nigeria, where Sharia Law is applied, the penalty is death by stoning. Homosexuality is a death penalty offense in Mauritania, Sudan, and Somalia as well.

Over the last weekend the Associated Press reported that 14 gay men were taken from their beds and assaulted by a crowd of people in the capital of Abuja. The crowd, screaming they were going to "cleanse" their neighborhood of gay people, beat these men with iron bars and wooden clubs.  Four of the men were then marched to a local police station where the police beat them again. All were threatened with 14 years in prison under Nigeria's anti-homosexual laws.

Uganda's President, Yoweri Museveni, says he will sign The Anti-Homosexuality Bill, codifying the sentences for homosexual acts, according to The Washington Post.   A first offense will get you 14 years in prison and the possibility of life in prison for further acts. According to CNN, the life imprisonment punishment comes to those caught performing "aggravated acts of homosexuality." Please...anyone...define an aggravated act of homosexuality for me?

These kinds of events in Africa make the raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York City in 1969 look like a garden party. Yes, if you are born with a sexual preference for your own sex, and live in one of these African nations, you might as well kill yourself now before the government murders you in the name of justice.

Whether Muslim, Christian, or Russian Orthodox, the far-right religious zealots of the world seem to think killing or jailing homosexuals will somehow rid their societies of gay people. They are convinced gay people will miraculously emerge as heterosexuals if only they are punished enough. 

I believe the United States should draft a resolution to present to the United Nations to place economic sanctions, like those currently on Iran, on countries with these anti-human laws. As a world leader, the United States should unilaterally stop trading with these nations, including Russia.

You cannot have it both ways.  You are either for or against human rights.  Picking and choosing which ethnic group, religious group, or which sexual group to support is wrong.  The world sanctioned South Africa in the past over apartheid laws, eventually forcing change that brought Nelson Mandela out of incarceration. Surely these anti-gay laws are no less evil than were laws supporting apartheid or slavery.

The world LGBT community, and citizens of the world who care about their fellow human beings, must lead this effort.  There is a force of evil in the world, led by religious zealots and ignorance, that must be stopped.

A nation that kills its own people by law is a nation that should cease to exist.

ON RELIGION AND WAR

In northeast Nigeria yesterday Muslims gunned down dozens of Christians and slit their throats, according to a piece in the Tampa Bay Times. My guess is these Islamists are students of the teachings of Muslim convert, Idi Amin.

The Associated Press reported last Friday that thousands of Muslims in the Central African Republic were hounded as, "...crowds of angry Christians shouted 'we're going to kill you all.'" Sounds like these Christians gave up following the teachings of Jesus Christ, instead opting to follow the actions of another Christian...Adolf Hitler.

The first female President of this former French colony has said she will declare war on Christians slaughtering Muslims, according to The New York Daily News.  I guess she follows the tenets of another nation's President, Bashar al-Assad.

The Washington Post earlier last week published a story about a Christian man, Polin Pumandele, who was accosted by a Muslim mob in Bangui in the Central African Republic.  The mob pushed him into a ditch, then stabbed him and cut his throat.  He was 23 and was walking to collect wood for his family. I can only assume this mob followed the great Muslim prophet named Saddam Hussein.

Ah, religion! What wonderful things you have given the world. Sunni Muslims hate Shia Muslims, so they kill one another. Hindus and Muslims continue to fight to the death in India and Pakistan. Catholics killed Protestants in Northern Ireland. The Catholic Church led the Inquisition to rid the world of Jews and Muslims and other "non-believers."  History is rife with these conflicts and they continue throughout the world today.  There seems to have been no period of world history when fighting did not rage in some part of the globe over God, murders occurring because, "my God is better than your God."

Maiming and killing others in the name of God is not a religious struggle.  Tell the truth! You fight and kill your fellow human beings because you are an ignorant person full of hate for anyone who does not look like or think the same as you. In other words you are just a common cold-blooded murderer.

In the U.S. where perhaps now we have become a bit more civil during these battles, a different religious war has reared its ugly head.  Prentice-Hall's World History textbook, used in a Florida County's Advanced Placement classes, favors Islam over Christianity and Judaism, according to Fox News. Florida Representative Ritch Workman (R-Melbourne) is outraged.  The textbook, according to Workman and some Brevard County School Board members, has a chapter dedicated to the history of Islam. Evidently, they think Judaism and Christianity should each have its own chapter as well.

This 34-chapter text breaks down the history of our world from Pre-history to the Present in seven units, all based on time periods. Unit 2, which covers Regional Civilizations, 730 BC through 1650 AD, has one Chapter each entitled in order: The Rise of Europe; The High and Late Middle Ages; The Byzantine Empire, Russia, and Eastern Europe; Muslim Civilizations; Kingdom and Trading States of Africa; and The Spread of Civilization in East and Southeast Asia.

I will bet $100 to the proverbial doughnut that not one of the elected officials screaming holy murder has read this text in order to understand chapter and unit context.  The chapter in question is not about Islam, it is about the civilizations that evolved around Islam. It is no different than any discussion of the rise of Europe must include the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Empire, the rise of Protestantism, and the Reformation.

Why is it people who understand so little of the world and its history, and so little about religion, are the ones who cause the most problems for the rest of us? This is religious nonsense based on illiteracy.

If you are so insecure in your religious belief as to worry about Advanced Placement students losing their religion through a textbook, perhaps you and your children have religious beliefs that are insufficiently grounded.

Whether you kill in the name of God, or just criticize others in the name of God, your acts are, quite literally, godless.

ON KILLING BLACK KIDS IN FLORIDA

Evidently if you kill a black kid in Florida, and you are white, you are neither guilty of 1st degree or 2nd degree murder or manslaughter. However, if you shoot at black kids in a car, and do not kill them, you are guilty of attempted murder and shooting a car.

This trial outcome is OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!!!

Do not come to Florida if your skin is darker than white.  

Do not come to Florida if you think your life is worth something.  

Don't wear a hoodie and don't listen to loud music.  

Hell, Floridians will shoot you for texting in a movie theatre.

Boycott Florida!!

ON BIGOTS, ASSUMPTIONS, AND THE NEW N-WORD

I cannot count the number of times in my life I have heard comments from family members, acquaintances, neighbors, or strangers that are racist or bigoted. Comments are made with no basis in fact. They are used because of deeply held beliefs passed on from family and friends. I understand these comments were made in front of me because there was an assumption made about me.

Because I was "White" it was assumed I believed "this."  Or, because I was assumed to be a "Christian" I believed "that."  Or, because someone thought me "Jewish," I understand this "other." Of course, it was assumed we both "knew" who "they" were. NOT!!

About 25 years ago I called a licensed electrician to my home on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  My 250-year-old house had a major wiring issue, previously performed by someone either with no electrical training, who was in a drunken stupor during the work, or both. When the electrician arrived and looked at the bad wiring, he made only one comment, "That's nigger work." My mouth about hit the floor. I had never heard the expression before. I remember telling him I understood the work was badly done, but to not use that term around my family.  I have no idea where he learned this expression, but I would guess at the knee of his father. What made his comment more startling was that, knowing the county where my house was located, the work was more than likely done by a white man.

My ex-wife, who is Jewish, once told me after coming home from her work at a garden center that one of her colleagues told her to watch out for a certain customer because he will try to, "Jew you down."  She decided the expression made no sense to her so he must have said the word "chew" vs. "Jew." She thought this must be an old American expression. I told my Australian wife she heard correctly and that the term came from the old bigoted reference about how good Jews were with money or how cheap they were when it came to spending their money.  Since my wife was white and did not wear a Magen David, her co-worker assumed he was talking to a Christian woman who, of course, would know what he meant. Once she understood the comment, she was rightly offended.  She then asked me how she should approach this man to tell him so.

After I left the Marine Corps I used my G.I. Bill benefits to attend university. Since at the time the benefit was only about $100 per month to cover tuition, I attended a state-owned institution that I could afford. Because Morgan State College had a reputation as having the best History department (my chosen major subject) of the local public colleges, I attended school there in Baltimore.  For those who do not know, Morgan State (now University) is a predominantly black college and I was one of only a handful of white students attending in the early 1970's. I was an older student who drove to school and, needing a little extra money, offered rides to students who lived on the west side of my hometown to help me pay for gas.

Jay, an 18-year-old freshman from Baltimore, took me up on my offer. On the way home one day he was asking a lot of questions of me, about why I chose Morgan and what I thought about black people in general. It was obvious he had never spent any time openly talking with a white man before about race. Jokingly, I said to him, "You all look alike, so what is the difference where I go?"  From his spot in the front passenger seat his head snapped left and he yelled instantly, "You say that too?"

I told him we all say these kinds of stupid things, and that we both probably joke that Asians all look alike. Our conversation continued as we agreed these kinds of sayings were not true.  I think it was the first time he ever had a different context from which to discuss things his family said about white people. We laughed our butts off on the rest of the way home, and we had numerous similar discussions during the remainder of our semester.

I have traveled the world...Europe, Asia, North America, South America...and I have found these kinds of bigoted expressions everywhere.  Koreans will say things about the Japanese.  Australians will make comments on the habits of their Aborigines. Paisa Colombians will make fun of Colombians from Bogota. Most people seem to have words they think belong to a certain person or type of person...pompous,stupid, ugly, lazy, drunken, criminal, cheap. I have found these stereotypes especially prominent among people who are uneducated or who have not had exposure to people of other cultures, races, or religions. In my travels I have had people tell me they were surprised at my demeanor because they thought Americans were all rude or pompous.

Finally, I have exposed some of my personal experiences so I can discuss the use of the word "thug."  It has gotten a lot of attention lately. Twitter accounts lit up after the Seattle Seahawks' Richard Sherman's post playoff game interview. Thousands called the Stanford University graduate a thug.

This Hindu and Urdu derived word (from the word, Thag, Merriam-Webster) meant thief when it was first used in 1810. It has, like many words, morphed to mean something else.  For many white people, who really want to use their old standby "nigger," but cannot do so anymore, "thug" has become their replacement word.  It has become the word they feel they can use without being thought a racist.  Sorry, Bubba (yes, I get the stereotype), you cannot steal a word that means "brutal ruffian" or "assassin" and apply it to a group of people of color and not get called out about it.

Leonard Pitts, columnist for the Miami Herald, said it much better than I can, "...the great Catch-22 of African-American life. They decide you're a 'thug' from the moment you're born, so they lock you up in disproportionate numbers.  Then they point to the fact you are locked up in disproportionate numbers to prove that you're a thug."

Like Michael Dunn, who set up a website called justicefordunn.com to rant about "thug culture" and raise money before his trial for murdering Jordan Davis, racists and bigots everywhere are always looking for words to put another people or culture down.  Why they cannot just keep their mouth shut and let everyone around them make up their own mind about people and culture is beyond me. Do not assume you are with a kindred spirit when you think of saying something racist or bigoted.

I think it was Abraham Lincoln who once said, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."

ON STAND YOUR GROUND, CONCEALED CARRY & RACISM

Micheal Dunn shot and killed Jordan Davis. Why? Dunn says teenagers listening to loud music put him, "In fear of his life," according to the Orlando Sentinel.  So, faced by four black teenagers and their loud music, he pulled a 9-mm pistol from his glove compartment and shot into the Dodge Durango from which the music was booming. He did not shoot once or twice, he shot ten times. He kept firing even as the teens tried to speed backwards out of the line of fire.

Jordan Davis was in the back seat. Three of the ten bullets hit him.  One of those rounds killed him. Jordan Davis will never see his 18th birthday. His parents will not see him graduated from his magnet high school.

How did Mr. Dunn get into this predicament?  He decided to pull his black VW Jetta right up next to an SUV playing music he later told his fiance he hated. The music was already blaring when the 47-year-old white man decided to park, according to The Florida Times-Union's Jacksonville.com.  Mr. Dunn did not try to find another space to park his car so his eardrums were not hurt by the loud music, as he claimed they were when he took the stand in his own defense.

After his fiance went into the store to buy wine, Dunn told the kids to turn down the volume. Every witness involved in this incident claim this is when "words" were exchanged.  Dunn's fiance, who heard the shots from inside the store, came out to see what happened. Dunn told her to get in the car and they drove off. The boys in the SUV had already backed out of the parking spot to get away from Dunn's bullets.  They stopped in an adjacent strip mall lot, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Dunn did not tell his fiance he saw a gun.  He never went to see, or even called, the police.  On his website, justicefordunn.com, he claims "thug culture" caused the shooting.

As I write, the murder trial for Dunn is being held in Jacksonville, Florida.  The verdict is now in the jury's hands. When asked why he did not stay or call the police, he claimed he could not give a reason.  He testified he had to get back to the bed and breakfast quickly so his dog Charlie could, "go potty," according to a CNN report. The police said none of the four youngsters in the SUV had a weapon and no weapon was found in the car.  

Here is what I think caused this crime. Mr. Dunn, who had been drinking at a reception for his son's wedding, saw four young men who looked different and played loud music he did not like. He pulled up right next to them to get in their face. When he told them to turn down the volume, and they did nothing, he snapped. His hatred for "thug culture", the word "thug" being the new racist term used to replace the "N-word," illuminates Dunn's reason for shooting.

Because he had a gun, and with his thinking impaired, he believed he could discharge his weapon and suffer no consequences.  After all, he was in Florida.  He could claim he was standing his ground. A jury of his peers (I would bet that in his mind this means a group of only white people) would listen to his story and understand exactly why he carried a gun, why he pulled it out, and why he fired.  He was in the south and "everyone" in the south knows black kids do not mouth off to white men and get away with it.  It is against a code that has existed for hundreds of years.

And, because buying and concealing guns is so easy in Florida, I believe this type of violence will continue to rise. In the background check for purchasing a weapon from a licensed firearms dealer, and on the questionnaire required by the State of Florida to procure a Concealed Weapon or Firearm License, the only questions asked relate to age, physical ability to handle a weapon, military service, citizenship, and whether you have been in trouble with the law. The latter includes questions about felony and other convictions, restraining orders, and non-voluntary mental health incarcerations.

I think this line of questioning would be sufficient if you were applying for a driver's license or a teacher's certificate. I think they are shallow and weak when applied to the purchase of a gun or a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Along with the license questions listed above, I believe additional areas need exploration, followed by a psychiatric interview and home visit. Among these are:

1. Do you harbor ill feelings against any person of another race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or ethnic origin?
2. Do you fantasize about coming to someone's rescue and using your weapon to disarm the perpetrator?
3. Do you fantasize about coming upon a person preparing to perform, or actually performing, an illegal act and using your firearm to stop them?
4. Do you have anger management issues?  Are you a control freak?
5. Have you ever struck another human being with your hand?  If so, why?
6. Have you ever struck another human being with an object?  If so, why?
7. Does someone inside your head talk to you now and again?  If so, what does he/she talk about?
8. Do you have a gun lock or locker in which you swear, under penalty of a minimum $20,000 fine and ten years in prison, any and all of your firearms will be kept under lock when not on your person?
9. Do you accept full responsibility for the safety of your weapons, including keeping your weapons out of the hands of anyone under age 18, mentally impaired, and/or under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, including yourself, subject to the penalties outlined in question # 8?

I am sure there are more questions that need to be asked of people wanting to carry a gun.  The questions asked now may keep felons from purchasing guns from licensed dealers, but they do not keep a man or woman with anger issues unarmed.  They are the ones I worry about every time I hear a loud argument anywhere in the United States.

Martin's Musings: ON THE COST OF NO IMMIGRATION REFORM

Martin's Musings: ON THE COST OF NO IMMIGRATION REFORM: Again, Republicans in our Congress have put party politics above the American people and the U.S. economy. Last week the Tea Party member...