President-Elect Trump

Asked a year ago, I never thought Donald Trump was a serious candidate. In the week leading up to the 2016 Republican National Convention, I thought for sure the RNC would find a more suitable, qualified candidate. I'm not a registered Republican but, as a conservative, I prefer to vote along my values, ethics, and morals. No way, no how did I ever consider Trump would actually be a presidential nominee for one of our main political parties.

But it happened and he won the race, making him American President Number 45.

Rehashing his Tweets and verbal jibes would take more space than this blog post can handle, and it's really unnecessary. Reciting the various negative names and descriptions tossed at him would be a similarly daunting task and equally as pointless. This entire campaign has been one giant mudslinging contest and it's finally come to an end... kind of.

It's only the day after and I've already seen a torrent of celebrities and Average Joes alike using phrases such as #notmypresident and #nevermypresident. I hate to break it to them (well, not really), but yes he is (as opposed to "yes we can", ha ha ha). George Walker Bush was your President, just as Barack Hussein Obama was mine, and Donald John Trump is ours. Of all the celebrity Tweets, it was former N*Sync star and current D-List celebrity Lance Bass who gave what I consider a classy concession statement regarding Trump's impending Presidency:

"I totally understand why this country has voted the way it has. The people are not happy. I respect that. Let's all please come together and influence this new President in a positive way. The country is speaking. Let's respect that and try to work together. I will try to influence this new President as much as I can and support them as much as I can. I pray that they believe in equality. I pray that they make this country a place my future children with gay parents can feel safe and thrive. Let us all try to understand why this country is upset. Let's please come together and love one another. We might not agree with everything a candidate supports, but We The People can still make our voices heard and guide this new President in the right direction. We still live in the greatest country in the world. Don't forget that! We are great and we will continue to get better!! #StrongerTogether"

Bass is completely correct: people are tired of the status-quo in Washington and in our government. For the DNC to nominate Hillary Clinton, who has over four decades of scandal, corruption, dishonesty, ill-gained wealth, hypocrisy, and innocent blood on her hands, was foolish. I contend if they'd nominated anyone else, someone with even the slightest bit of integrity who Middle America could believe in, they would've kicked Trump's ass. Instead they nominated a career politician who embodies everything wrong with Washington, D.C.

Regarding President Obama, his terms have seen record amounts of mass killings on American soil; civil unrest rivaling the most heated periods of protest during the Vietnam War; skyrocketing health care costs (made worse by his own "Affordable Care" act); many Millennials have turned into greedy, selfish brats whose feelings are more important than their accomplishments and who want everything given to them; and a level of partisan politics in Washington which has caused the government to be less effective than it's been in decades.

No wonder so many are craving change!

I'll admit to be astonished on many levels, particularly the fact Trump got more votes from ethnic minorities than Mitt Romney did in 2012. After his repeated tirades against Hispanics, threats to stop Muslim immigration, and a plethora of other offensive, boorish statements aimed at women and minorities, I'm surprised he even made it to the RNC Convention, let alone the election. As a white, middle-class man in his mid-thirties, my life experiences differ radically from those who Trump targeted with his statements. While I cannot empathize with how they may feel, I certainly understand their trepidation toward his Presidency.  

For those who insist on being melodramatic and threatening a move to Canada: Leave. Get out and don't come back. Conservatives (and many moderates) have fought against President Obama for eight years, preferring to stand up for themselves rather than tucking tail and running. Part of what makes America great (sorry, Trump, it already is) is people standing up for their ideals, taking part in a democratic process. Running and hiding? You might as well be French.

The fact is we'll all survive and get through this. We may even be surprised at his successes, who knows? In Michigan, we elected a non-politician, a businessman, to be our Governor. Economically, we're doing better than we had in the years prior, and Detroit has begun mounting a comeback from 40-plus years of downfall. Trump is a businessman - often successful, sometimes a failure - but he sure isn't a politician. While I don't have a high level of confidence in him, I also cannot foresee his Presidency being as apocalyptic as his most vocal detractors are predicting.

I'd suggest he'll only be a one-term President but I've been wrong about his chances from the get-go. All we can do at this point is pray for the best, expect the worst, and end up somewhere in between. It's sure to be a wild ride.

My Faith: In the Beginning

I'm Catholic and proud to be so.

I wasn't raised Catholic; I wasn't raised in any Christian church though I was baptized Lutheran at four years old. I still remember it - all of the cousins were baptized at St. John's Lutheran church in Grand Haven, MI. I was little and to this day don't know exactly why that particular church was chosen. My grandmother's family was part of the Reformed church but my parents were married at St. John's, but why none of the others older than me had been baptized, I have no idea.

Grand Haven has more churches per square mile than most small communities and I tried a few in high school. The Baptist church in particular scared me because of how judgmental it was and how they believed only those who saw things exactly as they did were Heaven-bound. Another church was teaching its congregation not to fraternize with anyone who didn't attend its services because it was right, andanyone else would lead its members to Hell. Yes, I'm serious about that.

Pretty heavy stuff and certainly uncomfortable for me.  

Then at age twenty, a friend of mine began RCIA (Right of Christian Initiation for Adults) classes through the local (and only) Catholic church in Grand Haven. Because of the Dutch Protestant heritage, there was a hefty anti-Catholic sentiment in our town. Even my own mother once made a comment about brain-washing... then again, the only times she's stepped foot in any church in the last forty-plus years is for weddings and funerals.

He invited me to come to these classes and I said yes. I don't know why, other than curiosity to find out more about a church and faith that held such mystery to me. I'd never been much for organized religion of any kind (especially given the experiences above), and was bordering on agnosticism...

Anyway, I began attending informational classes and eventually attended Mass for the first time in November 2002. I sat off to the side of the congregation and didn't participate much, but something happened to me that I'd never experienced before: I felt comfortable. I felt at home. A light was lit inside me.

I attended every RCIA class and dove into my new-found faith with fervor. I read books, watched documentaries, attended Mass, befriended older members of the church to find out about their personal histories, and generally took to the Catholic faith like a fish to water.

The people of the church were friendly, the staff was helpful, and the priest - Father Bill Langlois, of whom I've written about many times - was & remains one of the most inspirational people in my life. Catholic or not, he treats everyone with respect and dignity, with open arms and welcomes them as friends. While he would have obvious disagreements with other Christian denominations (and faiths), he never condemns them or accuses their church leaders of leading them astray or toward eternal damnation. That is an example we should all aspire to.

(My best friend is an agnostic and we've had many positive discussions about church, faith, and what it takes to be a good person. I disagree with him but don't judge him)

I was confirmed into the Catholic Church on Easter, 2003. It stands as one of the few moments when my life was flooded with pure joy and I'll never forget the feeling of peace, of happiness, that filled my soul that night. Everyone I knew recognized the difference in me: I was filled with the Holy Spirit, even if that's not how they felt. And they were happy for me, including my Mom.

For many people, including a lot of Catholics themselves, reconciling the Church's bloody past (the Inquisitions, anyone?) and modern-day shame (abuse scandals) is hard. I actually joined the church at the height of that scandal and to this day, I'm certain the abusive priests and those who covered it up have a special place in Hell waiting for them. There's no defending those who hurt children.

But personally, I see it like this: the Church is imperfect and always will be because it is lead by Man. The faith - that Christ is my Savior and I will reach Heaven only through Him - is perfect. I don't agree with every decision or detail about the Church but its morals and mine are on the same wavelength. That isn't affected by any priest or Pope (though Pope Francis is certainly one of the better leaders our Church has seen in a long time).

Hard Times in the Land of Plenty... of candidates, that is.

I feels hard to be a conservative these days.

It shouldn't be - goals of encouraging more people working and fewer ending up on welfare; having a smaller, less intrusive government; religious freedom; the right for law-abiding citizens to own a gun for hunting and to protect themselves... these are all principles that make sense to me.

Examples of why these principles work can be found everywhere you look. Take this past Labor Day Weekend in Chicago, IL: where the right to legally bear arms has been stripped away, 8 were killed and 46 were wounded in gun violence. In a city so culturally rich and with so much history in shaping America as we know it, this statistic is disheartening.

Then there's the video that went viral recently of a 30-year-old woman who has found every loophole she can in our welfare system and has been receiving government money for 12 years, and who doesn't believe she should ever get a job because she gets a check regularly funded by us. Government assistance was designed to help get people back on their feet during difficult times - job loss, health & medical issues, natural disasters, etc. - and that's a good thing because we should do what we can to help others. But it was designed to be temporary, not as a way of life for the lazy and the sluggish.

And then we come to religious freedom, brought to the forefront of the 2016 Presidential election thanks to the refusal to issue gay marriage licences by a thrice-divorced philanderer who fathered children by one man while married to another. The issue isn't really gay marriage (a divisive issue unto itself), but that's what it's turned in to. The hypocrisy of this lady claiming that gays getting hitched ruins the sanctity of marriage has turned the issue into a three ring circus featuring clowns of all varieties (Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, anyone?).

This brings me to the subject line of this post. Showcasing common-sense conservative values has become almost impossible thanks to the ridiculous amount of Republicans vying for the Presidential nomination. When there are 16 or 17 folks up there, it's hard enough for we conservatives to make a choice, let alone those in the mush-ball middle who may or may not vote Republican. Two have since exited the race: I liked Texas Governor Rick Perry, but losing Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was no real loss at all to me.

The orange-tinted overgrown Oompa Loompa still leads many polls, but I question the validity of those numbers. We have a strong female candidate in Carly Fiorina, who is gaining but whose professional past is posing difficulties. Governor Jeb Bush is a viable candidate but is plagued both by his name and lack of excitement. And the list goes on and on and on...

I do like Dr. Ben Carson. He's been gaining in the polls and he has a lot of common-sense ideas. His professional reputation is impeccable and he's the embodiment of the American Dream: that despite coming from the hardest neighborhoods and having the odds stacked against them, a person can become a success if he or she is willing to work hard for what they want.

Now, is he the perfect candidate? No, and none of them are. In reality, the only people who see someone as an ideal candidate is the individual running. No candidate will likely ever stand 100% for my values unless I run for office myself. For now, though, he's the candidate for me.

Ashley Madison & Its Aftermath, Marriage, and America's Declining Commitment to Commitment

It's annoying when activist liberals who don't know what conservatism or Christianity are about point to the Duggar family (of 19 Kids & Counting infamy) and its cult-like existence as examples of what most of us Christian conservatives consider to be role models. When it came out that one of the show's stars was an admitted child molester, I watched in horror as members of his family attempted to downplay and justify his behavior, including the little sisters who he touched. When former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee went to bat for him, I immediately stopped following his various enterprises with a sense of extreme disappointment.

In the last week, that same family member is found to have had not one, but two accounts on Ashley Madison, a website whose sole purpose is to provide extramarital sexual affairs. Once again, his family has downplayed his despicable behavior and his wife even blames herself. As a logical, mostly decent person, I can't fathom how. Josh Duggar is a pervert, a pedophile, and a philanderer - it's who he is as a person and nothing she did made him that way, short of turning a blind eye to his atrocious behavior. Bogus public apologies aside, he'll have a lot to answer for when he comes before the God whose name he's abused so many times.

In a fact so overwhelming that it almost ceases to surprise, Duggar is just one of 34 million registered users  - that's more than four times the population of New York City. Is it possible that there are 34 million people living in unhappy marriages? I doubt it. Certainly the vast majority probably are, perhaps without even realizing it, but what it comes down to more than anything are a few key points:

• America's morals are at the lowest point they've been in for years. Lust and infidelity are glorified in all forms of media, becoming nearly unavoidable. The most popular TV shows and soulless pop music glorify a lifestyle of sleeping around, regardless of whether someone is married. 

• The kids who came of age in the 1980s have been called "The Me Generation," but the 21st Century has seen that claim laid to waste. Never before has there been such a proliferation of selfish behavior that demands instant gratification. More than ever, people want something and they want it now, damn it, no matter the consequence. 

• Marriage has been relegated into the category of "everyone should do it at least once." My grandparents' generation was the last to believe wholeheartedly in marriage being a lifelong commitment. Since the late 1970s, more than 50% of all marriages fail. Many with good reason: spousal abuse and infidelity have always been there, and many of the older generation stayed in loveless marriages when they shouldn't have. In this day and age, though, it's easy for someone to marry in the heat of passion and divorce the other months or even weeks later, with no worries to their reputation or sense of decency. 

The term "entitlement" gets tossed around a lot today, sometimes with good cause, sometimes not. But what else could it be that drove 34 million people to become liars, cheats, and lousy spouses? 'My wife doesn't understand me'... 'My husband works too many hours'... 'It's only sex, I still love her'... and whatever other excuses one makes to one's self to justify the sense that we should be able to be sexually satisfied no matter what the cost. It's human nature - we're entitled to happiness, right? Wrong. Not when it's at the expense of those we've made a vow to love, honor, and treasure 'til death do us part.

I've been blessed to be married for just over four years. My wife - a beautiful, intelligent, feisty, passionate, honest, hard-working, amazing woman - is there for me through thick and thin. She herself was the victim of bad things in her first marriage, and that makes me mad every time I think of it. But I also appreciate that she needs me to be there for her, too. It's not always easy; marriage takes work and commitment and you don't always get along or even like each other that much. But where there is love, there is hope for a marriage. 95% or more of our days are great together, making the blips on the radar worth it. She's my soul mate and I treasure her.

Sadly, until America wakes up from its moral slumber, and until the Sacrament of Marriage is taken more seriously, websites like Ashley Madison will always exist, sometimes even flourish. More and more people will get hurt by the selfish behavior of their husbands and wives. Society must wake up to the blessing we have in the form of lifelong commitment to the ones we love.