So here on my thoughts about Colin Kaepernick. I think he has every right to sit. Personally I don’t think it’s the right place to make a statement. It’s about as productive as changing your Twitter avatar. Nobody is really talking about why he is sitting during the National Anthem, just that he is. At the same time, I defend his right to sit. That’s what America is all about, our freedoms and our right to criticize the government.

People who disagree with Kaepernick scare me. Forced patriotism is not patriotism. This is not North Korea. I’d argue that Kaepernick is the bigger patriot. I still think his sitting during the National Anthem is silly, and wish he would do something more productive, but it is what it is. Not much of a story, but it’s all people are talking about.

One thing that drives my crazy more than anything is discrimination of any kind. I’m lucky I don’t have to deal with any since I was born male, middle-class, and white. I totally understand the privilege I’ve been given. I totally despise anyone who discriminates for any reason.

I’m not a Christian, but I was raised one, and was taught to treat someone the way you wanted to be treated, and not to judge. God will do the judging. Don’t they teach these values in church anymore? It seems like it’s mostly the conservative Christians trying to pass laws to legalize discrimination. I shouldn’t generalize because I know 99% of Christians are great people that don’t discriminate, but the asshole are really assholes.

What the fuck is North Carolina doing? Give me one case of a transgendered person attacking another person in a bathroom? There isn’t any. This isn’t a problem. The problem actually goes the other way. Transgendered people need protection from idiot assholes. Now in North Carolina you are going to have confusion when what looks like wrong gendered people going in to bathrooms because, you know, people don’t drop their pants before they go in. In fact people only drop them in the stalls, so who gives a fuck. The problem is in the heads of creepy Republicans. They are the ones that dream about sneaking into the women’s bathrooms. For some god awful reason they think peeing and pooping is sexy.

Then you have Georgia trying to pass another one of those discrimination bills disguised as “religious freedom”. Thankfully it was vetoed because many companies threatened to leave, and when it comes to politics, it’s really only about the money.

Why can’t we all get along and lean from our differences and don’t discriminate based on them?

I have mixed feelings over the whole Black Lives Matter movement. On one hand I totally understand where they’re coming from. Far too many people are being killed by cops, and an unproportionate number are minorities.

I also understand the cops side. They have a very difficult job, and nowadays it seems like everybody has a gun. There are countless tragedies where cops don’t make hope to see their kids. I understand how they don’t want to be the next cop shot.

It’s easy to watch the videos and say how wrong the cop was, but you weren’t in that cops shoes. You don’t know what was going through his head. It’s obvious that our police force needs better training. In fact I believe our money would be put to better use training our police force rather than wasting it on anti-terrorism nonsense.

This week in Minnesota the BLM movement forced the Mall of America to shut down and hampered public transportation and the airport. While I totally agree with their frustration, I questions whether their actions are warranted. Are they really making a difference inconveniencing people that have nothing to do with police brutally? Sure they are keeping us aware, but they might just be making more enemies.

And to those “all people matter” people, fuck you. You don’t get it. The BLM isn’t anti-cop, or anti-anyone. They are all about equal rights and treatment for all.

I totally support the BLM, but question their effectiveness.

Welcome to America, where our guns are more important than your kids. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love my country, but like anything it needs upkeep. The two things I am most jealous of other countries is their healthcare and lack of gun violence. At least on the healthcare front we are pretending to improve. Guns? We couldn’t care less if your school gets shot up. That’s just the “price of freedom” in this country. Overall violent crimes have been dropping since the 70s and our country has never been safer, but we can do better. 

It’s a shame that the gun manufactures and NRA aren’t behind regulations to make their products and hobbies safer. It seems like they are so afraid of us totally banning guns that they don’t even want to look at reasonable gun laws. Very few people want guns banned. We just want laws to limit the number of mass shootings. No matter what we do, we will be number one it shooting deaths for many years to come. Gun laws are only part of the solution, but they are probably the easy part. Our gun culture and mental health treatments are another ball of wax. 

Car accident are one of the leading causes of death and car companies are doing everything they can to make driving safer. We should make gun ownership similar to car ownership. You should have to go through proper training and background checks to get licensed to own a gun. Just like a drivers license, you should have to go through the background checks every four years. A 48 hour or more waiting period to buy any gun is a no brainer. Most importantly though is proper storage of the guns. Gun safes and biometric trigger locks should almost be mandatory. 

Those are just a few of my thoughts. I’m sure there’s more that could be done. We have lots of data from all the past shootings to base the new laws on. If I was a gun owner, none of these laws would bother me. Like car crashes, no law is going to prevent all mass shootings, but if just one school is saved from a tragedy, then it’s totally worth it. We need to start somewhere. 

Sadly nothing is going to happen. The gun lobby is strong. Gun sales go up after mass shootings. Mass shooting are a good thing for the gun manufactures. So they are going to make sure our congress critters do nothing to threaten their bottom line. Money is also more important than your kids. 

So yesterday a tornado stuck the small South Dakota town of Delmont. If there was a god, would he destroy an old church while kids were in Sunday School?

Among the buildings damaged was Zion Lutheran Church, which lost its roof, stained glass windows and pipe organ. Children who were in Sunday school took shelter in the basement when the tornado hit.

This lazy Sunday morning started like many with me reading the news on my iPad in bed. I ran accros this article about a woman that got baned from Planet Fitness for complaining about a transgendered women in the locker room. Yes it’s Fox News. I read all sorts of news outlets to get wider opinions, plus it’s fun laughing at the ignorant comments on Fox News.

This article was no different. There was no end the the amount of ignorance in the comments.

I’m by no means an expert on transgender people, so I see where people are coming from, but I know one thing, people are born that way. They aren’t dressing up like a girl to sneak into the girls bathroom. Fuck you if that’s what you think. There is so much more to transgender than that.

I have a blog friend that has a transgenderd child, and I applaud her for letting her child dress the way she wants to dress. I don’t know if I could be that cool of parent. It pains me to she her struggling to get her child equal rights, but I’m so glad she is strong enough to do it. It’s going to get harder for her once her child is middle school aged. I remember being that age and picking on a kid in the locker room because he was a late bloomer and had a small penis with no pubes yet. Kids can be so mean.

I agree with Planet Fitness that transgender people should be allowed it the locker room that they feel comfortable in. Being a transgender woman with a penis in a women’s locker room is NOT the same as a guy dressing up like a woman to sneak into the women’s locker room. A lot of transgender women look more like a woman that a man anyway and would be totally out of place in the mens locker room. Proper locker room etiquette is to keep to yourself and not checking out other people’s crotches. That would be inappropriate locker room etiquette. Inappropriate locker room etiquette is a reason to ban someone, and that is exactly what happened to this Michigan woman. Right on you Planet Fitness.

I’m so sick of hearing about George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin. I didn’t follow the case closely, so I don’t know all the details, but Zimmerman sure looked guilty to me. It’s no question that he shot an unarmed kid half his size. Then again I wasn’t there on the jury, I didn’t hear all the facts, I don’t understand the Florida “Stand your ground” laws, so it is what it is. People always seem to get off when the media makes a big deal of a case.

What I don’t understand is why everything has to be turned into a political issue? My Facebook feed—which is mostly my family who are all Christian conservatives—are all on Zimmerman’s side. My Twitter feed is the exact opposite. Why is that? Is it people’s choice of news outlets that influences them? Is it a racial thing and conservatives are really that racist? I don’t know?

It’s just an interesting phenomenon that I haven’t noticed before. I’m going to have to pay more attention during the next media hyped case. I didn’t know anybody that was on OJ’s or Casey Anthony’s side. I never choose a side because I hate media hyped cases. I usually just don’t care enough. I trust our justice system and hope they have competent jurors. It’s not perfect, but it is what it is.

I don’t even know what to say about the horrific events that happened this week. I’m thankful that the great men and women of the Boston police department were able to put an end to it so quickly. I was a little disturbed by how blood-thirsty so many people were. So many people on Twitter and Facebook wanted the cops to go in with guns blazing. I understand they want revenge, but I don’t think it’s ever right to kill someone. If he was an immediate threat—yeah—you would have to take him out then, but otherwise killing him should be the last resort. It was nice to see that the Boston police department did the right thing. Maybe we can get some questions answered now.

To the people who think this guy doesn’t deserves a trial. Fuck you! This is the United States of America, and EVERY US citizen has rights, even this scumbag. Our justice system may not be the best, but for the most part it works well, and this scumbag will get what he deserves.

To the people who think he did this because he was Muslim, or an immigrant, or…well I guess you can’t blame skin color on this one. Fuck you too! These senseless acts have been performed by almost all groups. Muslim, Christian, white, black, Asian, they’re all guilty. The only population group that probably has clean hands is women. So please don’t judge others by cowardly acts performed by a few.

There…I feel much better getting that of my chest.

So I’ve been reading a lot of articles about the recent shooting in Newtown and I’m having a bit of a change of heart on the gun control issue. It was my initial knee-jerk reaction to want to ban all automatic/semi-automatic military grade weapons. It was understandable considering was just happened, and it was probably my liberal bias coming through. Everybody has a bias, and I encourage you to try and understand your bias and look through it.

The NRA’s comments were pretty ridiculous, but they partially changed my mind. They tried to put the blame on video games and movies. It’s pretty obvious to me that video games and movies aren’t the problem. Other countries have the same movies and video games and don’t have the same gun problems. What changed my mind though was how they put the blame on another source that they probably don’t understand. That was exactly what I did. I’m not a gun owner, so I really don’t understand them, so obviously that’s who I blamed. While others who hate the media blamed too much media coverage.

It’s a complicated situation, and nobody really knows the cause or the solution. The reality is that, although they seem common, shootings like this are pretty rare. Every one of them probably has a different cause, and because the shooter usually kills himself, it’s hard to learn what the true motive is.

Punishing 99.99% of the responsible gun owners isn’t the proper solution. Sure, a total gun ban would solve the problem, but is that really a country you want to live in? Gun have many positive uses, and the great majority of people use them responsibly. While I don’t understand why a person wants to own a military grade weapon, it’s not up to me to decide. It’s similar to abortion. I am totally against abortions, and think they are wrong, yet I am pro-choice because I don’t think it’s right for me to decide what’s right for others.

I wish there was an easy answer, but there isn’t.