Tioga Herald

THREE-PENNY OP-ED: Being Firm and Fair

Right now, I am being screwed by the American healthcare system established by the Republicans a number of years ago (under Bush or Shrub) with Medicare. Republicans have this fixation about privatizing the crap out of things. That is what they did to Medicare. The net result is a system which is NOT firm and fair, but is based on supply side economics favoring big insurance and big pharma. research and development went out the window and put in place in ALL aspects of American business was hording of money in the fat cat pockets at the top, dumping pension plans and the money given to those fat cats in the form of increased salaries and bonuses, and America falling behind when it comes to R&D so as to move American business forward. America no longer knows how to “build a better mousetrap,” but to concentrate wealth in the top 1%. This Medicare sabotage and fraud becomes an excuse for Republicans to claim we need to “get rid of Medicare.” No. We don’t FIX it for the good of SUPPLY AND DEMAND capitalist economics. We DESTROY, right? Trumpicans should be called the DESTRUCTION PARTY of the Fat Cats.

Trump ended the ability for common folks like me to get a tax deduction due to being the nice guy and contributing to groups which need the money. Social groups like the ACLU and police benevolent groups, just to name a few. Wounded Warriors Project, too. Trump and his followers, the DESTRUCTION PARTY, wish to destroy such organizations, too, but proclaim otherwise, especially when it comes to the police groups which collect the money.

Trumpican DESTRUCTION PARTY people then proclaim law and order. This is law and order according to the whims and wishes of white superiority people with money who, if they get black people to go along, like Clarence Thomas, they are like those who say, “yes, mass’r, I will do as you say.” Same thing with gay man, Lindsay Graham, as he says, “yes, mass’r, I will do as you say.” When Mike Pence said, “no, mass’r, I won’t do as you say,” the thugs take after him and anyone else who says such. This is not being “firm and fair,” but autocratic dictators like Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Stalin, Castro, Mao Tse-Tung, Putin, and others who do not like democratic government.

Unlike some of the cops and law enforcement people I have heard speak out against George Floyd and NOT the wrongs of a police officer, I get sickened by this. The NYPD police union is a joke in their response to much of this, as I see them in interviews on the news. Yes, I do understand the dilemma today with police being in fear of the fact that there might be a gun pointed at them. I have to ask, which came first, “the chicken or the egg?” The matter becomes a vicious circle when there are too many cases like that of the police officer in Minneapolis over all of America. The matter is a vicious circle due to the DESTRUCTION PARTY of Trumpicans and their alliance with the NRA. The matter is a vicious circle when it comes to white police officers not knowing how to be humans which can be firm and fair.

Even for teachers, there was a day when it was natural to use corporal punishment. My grandfather, a teacher born at the end of the 19th Century, used corporal punishment because that was the norm of his day. The idea in education is that one cannot learn when taught unless the student is humbled. Physically abusive corporal punishment was the means to humble the student. It has been found that physical abuse is NOT the only way to humble. It has been a tough lesson for many teachers to learn. The grandson of this teacher born in the 19th Century has had to learn it, even when confronted with the old style of teaching which begins with, “those students are against you, so you need to be tough and grab them by the throat and push them against a wall to let them know who is boss.” Paranoia City, for sure. That grandson refused to use that method and wished to get out of that environment very quickly, especially when it was discovered there was a Matt Gaetz type of jackass on the faculty who had sex with under-age GIRLS (not boys). The bastard got away with it in today’s society, while there were so many on that faculty who wished to still invoke the old 19th Century methods of physically abusive corporal punishment. The 19th Century grandson wanted to scream and get out of there, which he eventually did, much to the chagrin of a spouse who thought she was an expert in everything.

I knew two retired law enforcement people who made sense and were rational, but I have to wonder if they were the exception rather than the norm or rather than the rule. One of these people I knew was a retired New York State Trooper who lived in Elmira, attended church with Ernie Davis, the first African-American Heisman Trophy winner in football (Syracuse University), and witnessed the help given to Ernie Davis by many in church, school, and community, including, as he told it to me, Rev. Leonard Peale at a Methodist church there. Peale, the brother to Mary Trump’s description of “charlatan,” Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. Mary Trump may have not spoken highly of Donald Trump, but she was mistaken about Dr. Peale, as she described the Trump family attending Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. By chance, the grandfather of the 19th Century, described earlier in this passage, was a friend of the Peales, as was a black pastor I have known.

This retired state trooper described for me how Ernie Davis was taught there in Elmira and went on to be one of the greatest football players, at a time when no Southern university would allow black men on their teams. Had Herschel Walker been around at that time, he would have gotten no where. The movie about Ernie Davis demonstrated how this young boy, growing up in a more intensive Jim Crow area in Pennsylvania, just south of the New York – Pennsylvania border, learned to run so as to get away from white bullies. This state trooper confirmed some of what was portrayed in that movie. He was a state trooper with an idea about being “firm and fair” and NOT to look at someone who is black as being someone automatically against him. But, alas, he was retired. What type of people take his place today?

Then, there was the retired NYPD police officer whom I got to know. He had decided his calling was to be a Christian pastor and he pursued this in retirement. He, too, spoke about issues in law enforcement and the importance of being “firm and fair” and for EVERYONE or ALL THE PEOPLE. He served a church with an integrated population, too.

A protege of Dr. Peale who served in a “crystal” church in California, had many televised services which discussed topics of racism. At one service, I recall a person who came to this California pastor with a doll which was a “black” Jesus. This example is probably a bizarre thing for white racist Baptists and others in the TRUMPICAN DESTRUCTION PARTY to even consider. However, the discussion that day centered on one of the early ones to be baptized who was of black skin and had been castrated so that the idiot with his harem could protect his “property,” women, “against having sex with other men.” The story is in a book of the Bible, the library of scriptural books. There are those who believe it is possible that Jesus Christ DID have a darker colored skin than what many white people could imagine. However, I subscribe to the fact that we seek wisdom, not certainty. There is no certainty about the color of Christ’s skin.

The whole attitude I describe, from 19th Century norms, is something of the past as we can look to better days and come to grips with what it means to be part of the overall human species. But those in the TRUMPICAN DESTRUCTION PARTY want us to take a step backwards and will use anyone they can get their fangs into, in order to accomplish their goal, but then spit them out when they have accomplished their goals. I object to this hypocritical autocratic dictatorial way imposed upon us with fear and intimidation, by white supremacists. I am going to speak out against it, no matter what. You can shoot holes in what I say, but this is not a matter for ME to win, but a matter of the human species to win and survive the future. Damnation against those who speak about Armageddon and a “rapture” because they are part of the idiocracy which creates hell on earth in order to justify their vicious attitudes towards others in the human race. They also wish gay people would die in suicide, too, so we can go higher than a “chimney top… where bluebirds fly.” That song is about living on a heaven on earth, not a hell on earth, but there are too many of the idiocratic autocratic dictatorial group who have too much say over us with their love of money and their power. May they be damned so we who wish to live in coexistence with others in the human race can invoke the ideas about being firm and fair.

Firm and fair. Coexist with respect for one another, not condemn and pit one against another. Living in integrity and giving dignity to each person to live life in coexistence with others.

Speaking to those who claim to be Christians. Condemn. If you are a Christian, perhaps you need to consider words from the Bible you thump so rigidly, at John 3:17: “For God sent His Son into the world, not to CONDEMN the world, but to save the world.” OK. The idiocracy believes we can only save the world if we do as a few wealthy white people DICTATE to us, not according to the guidelines given to us by God, particularly in the Gospels. “Love your neighbor as yourself” means you do not go cherry-picking words that validate your hateful opinions of others. It means RESPECT one another. We may not forget, as God does, but we sure are directed NOT to uphold “en eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” by Jesus Christ in his sermon on the Mount, but to forgive. Repeat. We may not be able to FORGET, as God does, but we can forgive. We can forgive with respect.

Repeat. Firm and fair. Firm and fair. Guidelines, not RULES from the scriptures. Guidelines and the basis for being firm and fair. When I use the “f” word to describe Trump in my writing, the true Christians are not condemnatory of me, but are firm and fair, as they work to TEACH me, as the greatest teacher who ever lived did while walking on this earth. That great teacher never had to use corporal punishment to do so. Humans have been able to take a step forward and away from physically abusive measures by being firm and fair. We don’t want to return to such measures, especially when considering the treatment by white supremacists against those with a different skin color. All lives matter.