AUTHORITARIAN VS AUTHORITATIVE

 In the early days of my fatherhood, I was once criticized by an in-law family member for my parenting style. She accused me of being an authoritarian, to which I politely corrected her by saying, no, I was authoritative. Her response was, so what's the difference? It occurred to me then than there were probably many who didn't know the difference and confused the two as the same. What is the difference?

An authoritarian person is one who favors, or enforces, strict obedience to authority (usually themselves), at the expense of personal freedoms of the subjugated. Dictators are usually authoritarians without fail. An authoritative person, on the other hand, by definition is able to be trusted as being accurate, true, and reliable. He is commanding and self-confident, likely to be respected and obeyed. That's a huge difference between the two, and one that I felt I needed to be sure my in-laws understood. My children respected me, and they obeyed me, yet they also had their personal freedoms.

My reason for sharing this personal insight is to highlight the difference between the two, for our President has recently been called an authoritarian as well as a dictator, and yet a far more accurate assessment of his personality is that he is authoritative, for he is commanding and self-confident, respected by his party, as well as many Independents and even some Democrats, and he is restoring many of the freedoms that were infringed upon by the last administration. There are things I believe you could be critical of our president, however, the biased attacks that are and have been levied against him bear no element or truth or accuracy. A suggestion would be, stop attacking every little thing and look for those areas that have common ground, then work together to make those changes come to pass. Both sides can claim victories in bi-partisan deals. 

Food for Thought...

TITLE IX...

 Who could forget that iconic picture of Donald Trump sitting at the desk, ready to sign his Executive Order to restore Title IX safeguards for our female athletes, with all the young girls crowded closely around? It was one of the most real, heart-warming scenes of his second presidency so far. But the impact of the EO is worth examining. Our society, during the Biden administration, welcomed the transgendered population with open arms, including transgender athletes, allowing men to participate in women's sports, to use women's locker rooms, to transfer from men's prisons to women's, all if they just say they identify as a woman. Several questions have not really been answered in the public forum, but we'll seek to address them here. How big is the transgender community, and how many transgender athletes does Title IX affect? What are some problems caused by transgender men and transgender athletes?

First, the adult transgender community is approximately 0.5%, or about 1.3 million people. Among adolescents the number is somewhat higher, at 1.6%, or about 4 million, due mainly to the WOKE and Diversity agendas incorporated into our school curriculums, rather than English, Math, or History that used to be taught. Athletes, of course, are a considerably smaller subset of this. We don't have statistics on adolescent transgender athletes, but we do know, according to Charlie Baker, President of the NCAA, that the number of transgender athletes is fewer than 10 out of over 500,000 NCAA student athletes. So, the Biden Administration decided to cater to a handful of student athletes at the expense of several hundred thousand female athletes. 

It needs to be noted here that there is little to no dispute that there are significant physical differences between males and females. Men are biologically stronger, larger, and have significant advantage over their female counterparts. For example, Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer competing in the NCAA first as a male, was ranked 66th. After declaring his identity as female and switching to women's sports, Lia shattered women's record after record, proving the physical differences are very real. Males that can "transgender" to female while remaining completely 100% biologically male is just wrong.

Second, allowing anyone who identified as female, (because the issues don't seem to be females identifying as males), access to all the female facilities, despite the fact that they are 100% biological males allows those who may be sexual deviants a platform to prey on young women. Now before you get all upset at that comment, there are a number of recorded cases of just such occurrences. In one, a 6'1" male identifying as a female tried out for the swim team, and after practice was reported to be watching the naked girls shower and dress while he masturbated. More recently, in September 2024, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a girl's swim club went into the locker room after class, to find a naked man standing in the middle of the floor watching all the young girls change, many with their mothers' present! The police were called, but the perpetrator wasn't apprehended until December, then in court in February 2025. Clearly, if you find women stimulating it should question your commitment to your transgender identity, versus your desire to sate your sexual perversions. 

As for male prisoners, they have discovered that "identifying" as female can result in a transfer to a women's prison. Since this "transgender boom" over these past few years female pregnancies are up 35% among female prisoners. According to one prison official pregnancies are up from two instances a month to over twenty per month, mainly due to the influx of transgender inmates. Costs to care for pregnant inmates, or to cover abortion if desired by inmates, far exceeds the costs for regular inmates. 

So, here's my dilemma: Why are so many progressive lawmakers so willing to sacrifice the rights of the vast majority to sate the desires of the so very, very few? What is the purpose of living in a Constitutional Federal Republic with a democratic system of government, where the will of the majority supposedly rules, yet a good number of our elected officials continue to try to force the will of the few on the rights of the majority? Clearly those elected are not following the will of the majority of their constituents, rather choosing the "squeaky wheel" over the welfare of the many. It is time that the silent majority, the everyday people- our friends, and neighbors, stand up for what is right. We may differ in our opinions politically, religiously, or other ways, but we all live in the same neighborhood, attend the same churches, shop the same grocery stores, go to the same dentists or doctors- and we tend to get along well with each other despite our differences. If our government wasn't so divisive much of the animosity would disappear from our nation. Our nation is so polarized, so divided, and it starts with all the divisiveness of our elected officials, and their inability to work together...

Food for thought... 

THE DEMON NAMED DOGE...

 Donald Trump and Elon Musk have been moving at a tornado pace searching for fraud and financial abuses in our federal government, going department by department and slashing contracts, employees, and freezing payments that appear to be fraudulent or abusive. To date they list about $55 billion in cuts and savings. They face massive resistance from the Democratic side of the aisle, or at least the far left of their party.  As of February 14th, 2025, less than a month into his presidency Trump has been served with 74 lawsuits from the left (79 as of the 20th), trying to slow or stop the impetus of his actions. 

The left has filed at least 58 of the suits in Federal District Courts in Washington DC, Boston, Seattle, and suburban Maryland, all courts with majorities of liberal, left leaning judges appointed by Democratic presidents. They feed into Appellate Courts with similar ideological bents. The lawsuits focus on new immigration policies, the cutting of federal agencies or employees, civil rights protections, diversity programs, birthright citizenship, and the Department of Government Efficiency. Yet of all those lawsuits filed in what has been labelled "lawfare" only 17 resulted in judges issuing temporary "stays" until the issues can be litigated fully. As of this writing several of those have already been overturned. 

DOGE maintains a website showing what fraud and abuses they've found, and it is constant fodder, or fuel, for attacks from the left. They claim DOGE claims are exaggerated, and indeed they may be, but at the same time their attacks are fully exaggerated also. Let's take a look at just one claim by DOGE and the resulting responses from the left, then we will try to apply the facts, as best we know them, to the situation...   

DOGE listed on their website that they found about 18 million Americans who were born in 1920 or before, intimating that there was a large number of fraudulent payouts happening and they needed to stop them. Democrats immediately responded with statements claiming the Trump administration and DOGE were trying to cut social security benefits to seniors- a very scary sentiment to a large number of our population. So, what is the truth? 

According to a high-level Social Security Administrator that high number of people do exist on the SSA roles, however, it is a bookkeeping issue- they haven't been able to purge them because the "Deceased" box was never checked so the system won't remove them. According to SSA 98% of all those people do not receive any benefits from SSA, so DOGE is misrepresenting the problem. However, no benefits cuts to existing recipients have been suggested, making the Dems' claims false scare tactics. But, knowing now what we know, what is the fraud or abuse happening at SSA in this instance alone? Let's do the math...

Two percent of eighteen million is 360,000 recipients that SSA says are actively receiving benefits. According to the latest census figures in 2021 there were 89,739 people alive who were 100 years old or older. Let's call it 90,000 to keep numbers simple. If there are 90,000 receiving benefits legally then that means there are 270,000 fraudulent payments going out each month. If we conservatively assess a claim at $1500 monthly, times 270,000 we get $4.05 million dollars a month in fraudulent payments in this category alone, or $4.86 billion dollars a year in waste. Yet the question we need to ask, and find answers to, is, "Who is receiving and cashing these checks"? The other fact to remember is, this is just one category of many, spanning numerous departments. 

One more example I'll share is as follows: Staci Abrams, once Georgia hopeful for the office of Governor, started an NGO and in 2023 they had revenues of $100. In 2024 her NGO received a grant from the Biden Administration for TWO BILLION DOLLARS! That's BILLION, with a B!!! Clearly some sort of explanation is needed, an accounting of these funds, for it looks like political cronyism at its best, outright fraud at its worst. There are far too many similar examples that we need explanations for or retributions for those who receive such payouts...The American people deserve to know how our tax monies are being spent.

Food for thought...

WELL, I'M BACK...

 It has been some time since I've really intentionally blogged and, quite honestly, I've missed it. If you read any of my past blogs, or viewed the webpage, you may have noted that I authored a couple of books since retiring. I also took to writing magazine articles for a couple trade magazines and, some 20+ articles later I'm done with that. So it's time to revisit my initial love, blogging, where I can express my ideas as they flow, the purest form I've found of writing from the heart.

Today I'm going to address a very difficult and polarizing topic, but one to which I've given a lot of thought. First, let me address where my perspective comes from: I'm a Christian, I'm a registered Independent, a fiscal conservative, and a social moderate. Here's what really bothers me- Trump Derangement Syndrome. There may be nothing more illuminating to the polarized divide in our country than Donald Trump. Now I'm not a "Trump-er", nor am I a "Never Trum-er", rather choosing to weigh the pros and cons of each party candidates and vote my mind accordingly. With that being said, our country has been in a downward spiral ever since the pandemic hit, and both parties contributed to it to some degree. However, after careful consideration I came to the conclusion that our country could not survive 4 more years of the tract we were on and, with a majority of Americans, I voted for the promised change of Donald Trump and the Republicans.

On July 13th, 2024, in Butler PA Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt on his life. He turned his head just as a sniper fired and the bullet meant for his brain just grazed his ear. However, the impact of the situation, the near-death experience he experienced brought Donald Trump to a "Meeting Jesus" moment in Donald's life. While he claimed to have accepted Christ some years before during a meeting with Billy Graham, and often verified by Graham's son Franklin, he didn't really exhibit a change in his words or actions to convince many Christians of his authenticity. Yet after the Butler incident there was a noticeable change in both word and attitude. Trump openly expressed his faith in God and his belief that it was only thru God's grace that he was spared. He felt God spared him to serve and turn our country's direction around. 

Here's my problem with all this: Trump claims to be a Christian. He now is living out a softer, gentler demeanor, he has openly proclaimed no desire to treat those who have attacked him for years, dragging him into court after court, impeachment after impeachment, negative news story after news story, etc., etc., etc., and still there are Christians who are still unwilling to accept the fact that he may be saved thru his faith. They hold up example after example of his faults and failings from years and decades past and declare the man unfit. I always thought that we were to love and accept our brothers and sisters in Christ despite their past sins, if they've turned from them and are following God now. I think of Jesus, as he hung on the cross between two thieves, and as one recognized him and asked forgiveness Jesus told him he would be with him that very day in paradise. I don't read anywhere that Jesus said sorry, your past is too sketchy, I can't believe you now. No, he forgives and welcomes. Are we, as Christians, not called to do the same? How is it we are better able to judge a man's heart than our Heavenly Father? I seem to recall Jesus preaching, "Judge not, lest you be judged" (Matt. 7:1 KJV) in his greatest teaching ever- the Sermon on the Mount. Are we any better Christians if we cannot, or choose intentionally to do not forgive and accept our brother in Christ? I ask the question: What would Jesus do?" 

From a political perspective Trump has run on a platform of change, and after an overwhelming electoral victory as well as receiving over half the votes Trump has a basis, a mandate from voters, to carry out his campaign promises on restoring our country to its former greatness. Next blog I'll address the political climate; the changes from the right and the reactions from the left Until then, I hope this has given you some food for thought...