#IWill #IHave #IWillContinueTo

A long time ago, in a galaxy about 1200 miles south of where I live now, I had a friend- a brother, really- let's call him "Joe"- who was an extremely dear friend.  We were close - REALLY close - we lived next door, we went to church together (played on the same worship team- he was a guitarist) and, well- you get the idea.  I knew this guy- I mean I REALLY knew this guy.  And his wife, "Mona" and my wife were good friends.

About 10 months after the birth of 4th child, Joe's wife let us know that they were having problems.  No details given.  I talked with Joe, and it was one of those "it's just something we all go through" kind of things, and he was pretty sure that they'd get thru it.

Except they didn't.

Within 4 months, they were separated.  2 months after that, Mona filed for divorce.  Again- no reasons given, which was getting weirder and weirder because they knew everything about us (we had recently suffered the loss of our youngest son, Stephen) and we knew darned near everything there was to know about them.  Or so we thought.  Joe was asked to leave the house, and he did (I helped him move to an apartment near by) and my wife and I tried to support them as best we could.

No sooner was Joe out of the house that Mona finally told us what was going on.  Sexual impropriety.  Oh, great.  I approach Joe - "There's two sides to every story, Marc, and I'm just not ready to go into it right now" was all he said.  Mona would not give details.  We were left to jump to conclusions- which was easy to do since Joe had a new girlfriend less than 2 weeks after he moved out, and his girlfriend had a couple of small children.  While it was "bad", we had no idea how bad it really was.

One night, there was yelling from their house.  This was very uncharacteristic, and for awhile, Deb and I didn't do anything, until we heard some crashes in their house.  I went over, and found Joe smashing things in their front room and Mona literally cowering in the corner.  Without qualification or thinking, I literally grabbed Joe and threw him out the front door and slammed it in his face and barred the door with my foot.  The whole time he was yelling at me, telling me that "if you've ever been my friend, you're gonna let me back in and let me settle this".  I responded by locking the front door and calling the cops who showed up immediately and took my friend away, back to his house.  Mona swore out a temporary restraining order on Joe right then and there.

After things calmed down, I asked Mona what the hell was going on.  She broke down and while sobbing, she said, "go look at Sarah's throat".  (Sarah was their 3 year old daughter)  I looked in her throat and saw several large, inflamed blisters in her throat with white heads on them- they looked like big pimples.

"She's a little old to be having thrush" I said.

"It's not thrush.  It's warts" Mona said.

And before I could ask, she said, "Penile warts.  Joe has them, too."

The blood in my veins turned to ice.  I literally felt like I was going to faint, and I did gag visibly.

This is what had been going on FOR YEARS with them.  I lived next door, and I never knew.  There was no way to know, but what I did know was that I was gonna get involved.  And I did, as did my wife.  There was no way in hell we weren't gonna get involved.  I'll save you the rest of the story here, because this isn't about how magnaminous I am/I'm not or how I got on a high horse- suffice it to say however that my relationship with Joe changed *just a bit*.  (VAST UNDERSTATEMENT)

The reason I'm writing this is because with all the #MeToo posts out there, I haven't seen a ton of warning- the warning that there are a lot of people who have stood ground here and whether or not they were trying to appear mighty or not, they weren't gonna put up with this.  In my heart of hearts, I truly believe that in order to stop this absolute bullshit of physical/sexual abuse, warnings should be given from people that let them know that you are not a safe haven for this kind of thing.  While I am a Christian man and I take my faith very seriously, all that "meekness" goes right out the window where things like this are involved.  People who do these things are sick animals who are deserving of nothing but the swift employment of the law, and let the chips fall where they may.  It's not enough to say "#IWill" if when presented with behavior like this we fail to act RAPIDLY. 

At least part of the reason why this behavior continues to exist is because our society seems to be caught up in the reasons why the perpetrator of the act would do such a thing.  I'm not saying that we shouldn't be interested in that, but I am saying that I'm not qualified to do anything with that information, and the vast majority of people are right there where I am.  That is something that is probably best left to mental health professionals and the police.  What I am qualified to do as a human being is to actively steer right into the skid and stop the inevitable accident from happening, by whatever means are necessary- and, yeah- I'll put relationships I hold dear right up to the fire and let them burn.  That isn't happening on my watch, and what's required of all of us as human beings is to take a 0% tolerance view on this sort of thing.  I'll go further and acknowledge that I realize that my actions will not stop the root cause and may force it back into the darkness- but if that means that my 3 year old next door neighbor has no penile warts in her throat from her father, I'm gonna sleep well.

So, for all the guys and gals out there that are posting #IWill right now, I am imploring you to really mean it.  Don't just jump on a bandwagon if you don't have the intention of putting your own skin in this game.  I would ask that you post nothing rather than make what might be an empty promise. 

My $.02 on the gun control issue

This afternoon, while browsing Facebook, I happened across a friend's post regarding gun control.  He had posted a video that was shot during a town hall meeting with then President Barack Obama.

Here's that video:

My friend then asked how anyone could disagree with the statements made by Mr. Obama.  That's a really good question, because I honestly think that Mr. Obama made a really good point in his answer.  It's difficult to figure out how any thinking, rational person might disagree with such a brilliantly stated answer.  (and, btw, I really do like Mr. Obama's answer here)

So, why would anyone disagree?  Well, I felt I had to post what I felt was the answer to that question, and here's what I wrote:

Card carrying NRA member here, and I'll take a crack at explaining why anyone would disagree with this, and it's not going to be the explanation you think it is. It is, however, a little long winded.

The reason why auto fatalities were decreased by way of a health issue was that both the right and left were united in the approach. And, because they were, the people were also united in their resolve to do the same thing. The press covered this unilaterally and without bias on either side of the issue because there was no "either side" to take. People realized that this was a complex issue, and since it was a complex issue, they would accept that this was an effort that would take time due to having to weigh all the scientific data that would be required. Car manufacturers initially got in the way of it due to costs on their side, but after seeing the people accept the fact that this just needed to be done, they acquiesced.

Nowadays, we have none of that. We have a 4th estate that regularly takes sides and decries the efforts of the other side, and people who are barely able to participate in the necessary legal proceedings are too busy watching "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" to care about putting in the slightest effort to think these kinds of things thru- especially if the answer is complex and doesn't resolve in 35 seconds or less. They are further shown the inactivity of a government to actually do anything for fear of being unelected. If you tried to solve the auto fatality rate now, it would never get done because of the fear of the special interest group's influence and the fact that one side or the other sees no reason to do anything, unless they can do it all by themselves and take total credit for it.

As an NRA member and a responsible gun owner, I have no issue with background checks. I have no issue with a waiting period. I have no issue with lower capacity magazines or a moratorium on suppressors, silencers or bump-stocks. If that's the law of the land, I'll abide by it, and I can tell you that 99.5% of the NRA membership says the exact same thing as I do, but there are those in society who don't want to hear that- they only want to villify the other side and in actuality, they don't care to actually do anything but beat their breasts and cry "woe is us", because to do anything else is to actually be required to critically think through a problem. And they can't be bothered to do that.

The fact of the matter is that we, as responsible gun owners, we want this problem solved, too- but what we keep hearing is a solution that only curtails the legal issues when followed by people who respect the law and follow it, and by very definition, criminals do not follow the law. We have to look at that problem as part of the solution, because the legal and responsible gun owners (like me) do all the things that are required - and we also pay attention to the things we're not supposed to do (I own nothing automatic, I own no suppressors or bump stocks and I have registered all my weapons with the state even though I am not required in this state to do it) - but the outlaw side of this has yet to be talked about saliently. Until that topic gets talked about with equal time and equal passion, I'm going to continue to keep my guns in my house and on my person (I am licensed to carry) because of the idiot/asshole who thinks he's above the law.

So my suggestion on how to stop this crap from happening starts with all of us telling our representatives to stop bashing the other side on this issue (the guy asking President Obama the question is clearly listening to only one side here) and tell them to stop automatically assuming the worst on the other side of the aisle. They need to get their acts together and get together to start a real, dispassionate dialog on how to solve the problem. We, as a society, need to make our voices heard about the fact that neither side has the answer by themselves and that this kind of behavior from them and the press that covers it in this fashion - from either side - is unacceptable and we want real change and they had ALL better do something about this.

See- the deal here is that we as a society don't want to fix the problem.  We like the chaos.  Individually, we do want to fix the problem, but we as individuals want someone else to do the work.  We, individually, want to just cry about it and have the people that we put in power do the work, or we want someone like the press to cry on our behalf, but the bottom line is that as individuals, we really don't care.

Do I honestly believe that? 

You bet I do. And, I'm looking right at you when I say it.  And, hypocritically, I also think that I fall right into that demographic a bit, too.  And, I don't like to think about that of myself.

Now, I really want to be wrong about this.  I'd like to think that since we all bleed the same color blood that we'd all be united on this, but I just don't see it.  Instead, I see people who want to blame others (like the NRA) for the bloodshed, or I see others who say that any kind of restrictions placed on them as a "civil rights violation" - but either way, they just wanna bitch about it but not actually want to put any skin in the game.

What do we do about this?  How can we change it?  I think the very first part of making that change is to stop accepting that "chest beating" mentality as an acceptable form of discourse.  Folks- if we're gonna fix this, we need to stop yelling and start listening.  We need to think critically (something I'm constantly harping about) about this situation and take some forward steps.  If we don't, this kind of thing is going to continue to happen and that's the really unacceptable thing.

So, I'm wondering how many readers of this little article can put down their Democrat/Republican Dance Card and pick up their Human Being Dance Card and try to make a real difference?  Anyone?  Does anyone care?  Is anyone listening?