{"id":2728,"date":"2020-02-02T10:12:40","date_gmt":"2020-02-02T15:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=2728"},"modified":"2020-02-02T10:12:45","modified_gmt":"2020-02-02T15:12:45","slug":"divide-and-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2020\/02\/02\/divide-and-fail\/","title":{"rendered":"Divide and Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press\u2026<\/em> First Amendment, US Constitution<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wedge Issues<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We are living in an era of political divisions.  While there have always been disagreements and differences among voters; today we have refined the art of \u201cwedge politics\u201d.  Candidates, parties and interest groups profit and grow by finding ways to divide people.  Those divisions motivate their supporters to vote, and more importantly, donate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we find that the rural impoverished in our nation somehow choose to support the political party that officially represents the wealthy.  It\u2019s not about the money, or the growth in the stock market; those folks never see any of that.  No, it\u2019s about the \u201cmoral\u201d issues:  the artificial divisions created to encourage citizens to see each other as \u201cthem and us\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Divide and Conquer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Those groups use the explosive issues of our time:  guns, faith, gender, race.  It isn\u2019t random chance that Fox News, <\/em>both local and national, with mind numbing frequency, show story after story of \u201cregular people\u201d being attacked.  Who ever heard of the term \u201chome invasion\u201d twenty years ago.  But today, we are told \u201cbe armed\u201d to protect ourselves, be prepared for the \u201cstranger\u201d (probably of a different race) coming through the broken window or smashed front door.  Be scared, of strangers who look or act differently and be armed for defense, we are told.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are told that progress for \u201cothers\u201d must be at the expense of \u201cus\u201d.  Our population has almost doubled in sixty years, but we are told that our world is a \u201czero sum\u201d game.  What we\u2019ve got someone else wants to take, and we should use every legal and social trick to keep it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It makes it so easy to give into the fear within us, the dread of something different.  So many forces in our society are saying \u201cit\u2019s OK\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Identity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I spent forty years of my life as a high school track coach.  For forty seasons, I had the privilege of working with young athletes, helping them improve, teaching them the techniques to maximize their efforts, and supporting them through success and failure.  Today in my former profession, there is great unrest over the concept of \u201cgender\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was a young man, homosexuality was barely discussed.  It was literally placed in the closet.  It took immense courage for a gay person to live in the open, in some places in the United States it was still illegal.  \u201cStraight\u201d folks couldn\u2019t imagine why a person would be gay.  For me it took the willingness of gay friends to talk and explain that just because I was \u201cstraight\u201d didn\u2019t mean that I was \u201cright\u201d.  Normal for them was gay; that was their life, even if it wasn\u2019t mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now we know that identity isn\u2019t just gay or straight.  We know that there are folks who are born physically one gender, but are mentally the other.  \u201cNormal\u201d for them is the gender in their brain, to live any other way is to masquerade a lie.  How we can demand of those \u201ctrans\u201d folks to live that lie, so that \u201cwe other people\u201d can feel \u201ccomfortable\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trans Athlete<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In track and field today there is controversy of what to do with \u201ctrans\u201d athletes.  To some it\u2019s all about competition and \u201cadvantages\u201d.  How can an athlete born physically a male dare identify and compete as a female?  \u201cIt\u2019s not fair\u201d they say, and in three states, Tennessee, Georgia and Washington, laws have been proposed that would require athletes to compete as their birth gender, or not participate at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They never bring up the other side, the athlete who identifies as a male.  They don\u2019t have the inherent \u201cadvantage\u201d, I guess, so they can compete without the same threat.  But the laws don\u2019t make that exception.  There are ways to \u201cbalance\u201d the differences, the advantages, so that competition can be \u201cfair\u201d.  If athletics is education, not just competition, shouldn\u2019t it be about encouraging all instead of banning some?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essentially those proposals tell transgendered kids that they are not welcome in athletics.  All of the benefits of being on a \u201cteam\u201d, the very real lessons in learning and life, are denied, even by public schools that are governed by the First Amendment prohibition against establishing \u201creligion\u201d or abridging free expression. Denied because adults are \u201cthreatened\u201d by the concept of the transgendered.   Since their mind can\u2019t conceive it, they don\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is a larger lesson in our current society.\u00a0\u00a0Americans are being told that \u201cour\u201d culture is threatened by these changes.\u00a0\u00a0They are encouraged to take steps to protect \u201cour right\u201d to maintain our own beliefs and prejudices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WE, THEY and US<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

WE are allowed to believe what WE want, and to see others as WE wish.  But what WE don\u2019t have the right to do, is tell them how THEY should believe, and how THEY should act.  WE have the right to our own religion, but not the right to enforce that religion on THEM.  In fact \u201cWE and THEY\u201d is the problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should be US.  WE should have our own beliefs, but recognize that differing beliefs aren\u2019t wrong, just different.  WE need to accept US, a diverse population, differing in religion and gender and race, as all part of a WHOLE.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why?  Because we are seeing what division does to our country.  Because we know what we can do as a diverse people who are whole.  And because we face crisis upon crisis, that will take ALL of US to solve them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press\u2026 First Amendment, US Constitution Wedge Issues We are living in an era of political divisions.  While there have always been disagreements and differences among voters; today we have refined the … Continue reading “Divide and Fail”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDivide and Fail : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Our nation is being divided. 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