Since posting this in April 2011, it has been my most popular blog with over 11,000 views so far. It seems a good idea to reblog it since intersex births and sexual orientations are commonly misunderstood or avoided, or worse… attacked.
In my archaic way of thinking, or perhaps as my conservative culture taught me, I thought that a boy was a boy not only by how similar he acted among me and other boys, but also because of his genitalia. And a girl was a girl not only by how similar she acted among other girls, but because of her genitalia as well. It all seemed pretty obvious and quite simple, so I thought for more than 30 years.
A few years ago my mother informed me of the death of a dear family friend and halfway-house mother to my sister of addiction and innumerable relapses. She had been there for my mom and other women countless times as my sister fought her disease on the losing end. This woman had been a pillar of hope and therapy in the community for battered, abused women, and many typically in chemical addiction. I was unaware that she had been what is often termed as an “intersexed baby”; a prenatal condition I knew absolutely nothing about. Subsequently, this not-so-rare occurrence completely overhauled my views on sexual orientation, “same-sex” marriage, and gender identity.
Exact numbers of intersexed births are difficult to determine due to the lack of a humane dignifying definition of what physically should be considered normal or abnormal. The ignorance and social stigma the condition carries with it is as much a part of the difficulty as the collective understanding by medical science. Despite the ongoing studies one thing is quite clear. Sexual orientation, same-sex marriage, and gender identity IS NOT a social-religious debate, period.
Here is some perspective. It is commonly accepted in the medical community that on a global scale there are likely as many intersexed births as there are Jews. It is more common than multiple-sclerosis. More specifically, according to the Intersex Society of North America, about one in 100 births are intersexed or do not fall under “standard” male or female identity. One in 1,666 births has no clear XX or XY chromosome structure. For a more expansive report of all types of intersex conditions visit the ISNA (http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency) website. With chromosome structures outside of the traditional gender dichotomy, how can sexual or gender identity ever be separated from a genetic hard-wiring? Intersexed people could not have made the presumed adolescent or adult choice in “un-Godly perversion” if their condition formed in the womb. As such, social political shaming of these people can never be justified by any ideology. In fact, under such an archaic model one could argue that the molecular, biological, hormonal embryonic designing of intersex babies is from God’s workshop. Think about those implications.
The available prenatal and neonatal hormonal development studies are showing that aside from physical conditions, the development of testosterone and estrogen levels, or the under-developed levels, can sometimes vary widely. Pediatric and adolescent psychology has shown that intersex patient’s social behavior are indeed influenced by the relative levels of these and other gender hormones not necessarily specific to their external natal anatomy. A wonderful comprehensive article on the intricacies of intersexed births by Joy A. Bilharz can be found in her scholarly report (Click here). I highly recommend reading it two or three times. With this medical knowledge, it is not a stretch by any means to theorize, if not conclude, that there are smaller variations hormonally and neurologically in the general “natural” population that despite their socialcatch-all external anatomy, internally their gender development is different starting at conception.
For me, this is obvious: The rigid binary sexual-gender identification models many Americans have must be trashed for a more biologically, chromosome-informed model for not only political-legal reasons, but more importantly for humane reasons. However, the LGBT and intersex communities must avoid pendulum-mania. Elitism would certainly hamper hard fought gains. As Joy Bilharz notes,
The transgender movement…is attempting to breakdown the boxes into which people are pigeonholed on the basis of actual or presumed characteristics. Unfortunately, however, it has shown itself to be as exclusive and intolerant in many respects as the society whose values it rejects. This may represent the radical beginning typical of most social movements and it certainly doesn’t represent all of those who see themselves as transgendered. On the other hand, an attempt to bring all sex and gender and sexual minorities under a single umbrella of “queerness” can also be seen as having a homogenizing effect that creates discord within the category as different groups jockey for leadership positions or stake out their exclusive turf.
From a legal-political standpoint, I encourage the intersex/LGBT community to show first and foremost that they have something very unique to offer society without segregating it. A tall order in some cases, yes. But remember, men like myself, however fortunate to have grown up in a Humanist home, who are heterosexual and unaware that there are truly MORE flavor’s of ice cream than simply vanilla or chocolate. Since the condition did not directly affect my family, I was a product of our society’s concealment-approach to intersex and sexual orientation.
In defense of those like me, it is mindful to remember the “democracy” the United States of America was founded and later built upon: primarily European theological and social doctrines, which traditionally ostracized non-Catholics, or non-Protestants, or non-Christians who challenged or questioned them. Do not despair. Our nation’s brief history is laden with violent civil-rights movements that took many decades and generations to change legally. Fortunately, they did happen. One day, hopefully soon, ignorance will once again be overcome.
[Later addition] Our wonderful close family friend had told my Mom that for her entire life she felt her doctor and parents made the wrong gender choice for her at birth. She never felt as if she was female. Her social assimilation growing up was often unbearable at times eventually leading to prescription drug addiction, alcoholism, and illegal drug addiction. Thankfully, by her late thirties she turned her life around with large support by chemical dependency programs but most of all the support by other intersex support groups. As a result, she became the Director of no less than four women’s halfway-houses! Listening to my mother speak so fondly about her, I cannot help but wonder what mental and emotional state my Mom might otherwise be in, much less my sister. Thank all goodness in this Universe that someone so special and unique as her was THERE for us….us “standard” humans who too often treat people like her politically and socially as sub-human.
I recently finished what the Los Angeles Times Book Review wrote about General Colin Powell‘s book My American Journey – Colin Powell:
“Powell heroically turns racial maelström to magnificence, conquering bigotry to shine the often diminished brilliance of black life into foreign lands and into closed minds closer to home. In the magical arc of Powell’s triumphant patriotism, Frederick Douglass elbows Thomas Jefferson for a spot at Eisenhower’s side.“
Colin Powell was not simply a soldier who dedicated most of his life to serving a cause and creed. Yes, he is an American, but he is a blackAmerican who grew up lower-class in an immigrant family with simple dreams and very little means in the South Bronx of New York City. The color of his skin or his spiritual affiliation he made absolutely irrelevant, and Powell proved they didn’t matter. He went about his early life-challenges, through his Army Ranger training and service, through serving in Vietnam, Panama, and the Gulf War; then National Security Advisor to President Reagan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to President George H.W. Bush and President Clinton, and finally to the U.S. Secretary of State under George W. Bush…all in a way that easily could have handed him the Presidency of the United States. An utterly remarkable and practically incomparable resume and dossier.
If General Powell had run for President three or four times ala FDR, my loyal support would have entailed twelve or sixteen years. And I am not a Republican or Democrat, or Episcopalian in the least. The man is plain and simple a leader for humanity who with dignity fulfilled his sworn commitments in spite of a less-than infatuated service with President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The Bush Administration’s approach to the second Iraqi War and invasion sold to the American public, an even more controversial mishandling of terrorist prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, eventually forced Powell out of favor with the Presidential Administration and Capital Hill politics altogether. Had he not given his sworn oath to fulfill his duties, Powell would have resigned well before 2005.
Powell & Clinton support DADT repeal on Meet The Press September 2010
As much as I greatly admire this man, we do have one difference; one rather big difference. General Powell was one of the contributors to the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – DADT policy that did not address the full gay-lesbian problem within U.S. military personnel. Due to the immense complexity of the problem, particularly with housing homosexuals and bisexuals with conservative hyper-phobic heterosexual personnel, Powell typically danced around the debates until 1993. During the first weeks of Bill Clinton’s entrance into the White House, Clinton made the sexual-orientation the preliminary focus of his campaign promises to supporters. Given Powell’s background and military service, he understandably had a difficult time making such hullabaloo over what he considered a personal concealment issue. Yet, following his logic then all military personnel should hide any of their personal religious beliefs as well. Imagine how that would go over? Powell shrunk toward desensitization. In the latter third of his autobiography he sometimes argued that the civil-rights movements for African-Americans in the 1960’s and ’70s were not at all one-in-the-same. For me, they are definitely one-in-the-same. Colin Powell’s transition from a Cold War, Vietnam military America into a late 20th and 21st century political American was for him unprecedentedly timid on civil rights and sexual-orientation. No surprise really, Powell is the stereotypical 4-star General born to be a warrior’s leader. His soldier mold should not detract, however, from his very real social consciousness; a tuning-fork never louder than during 9/11, the war on terrorism, and America’s military invasion into Iraq for weapons of mass destruction.
I have often heard the cliché “There a two subjects never to get into during formal dinners with dinner guests: religion and politics.” or something like that. However, during the few times it was unavoidable, I was surprised how few people knew that Colin Powell was never a Republican. Most armchair political critics believe with no basis that he was Republican. He was and always had been a military man first serving the call and duties of his nation; it just so happened that his Capital Hill positions were with three Republican presidential administrations. The nine months with Clinton’s administration everyone counts as merely a changing of the Guard. No matter what political party the White House might have been, he saw the invitation as a call to duty he must accept. Powell writes:
Because I express these beliefs[strong free-enterprise without government interference in entrepreneurial vitality except to protect public safety & prevent distortions of competition by labor or industry]…some people have rushed to hang a Republican label around my neck. I am not, however, knee-jerk antigovernment. Government helped my parents by providing cheap public subway systems so they could get to work, and public schools for their children, and protection under the law to make sure their labor was not exploited.
The great domestic political challenge of our time is to reconcile the necessity for fiscal responsibility with the explosive growth in entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare, which the needy and the middle-class rely on so heavily.
Until our leaders are willing to talk straight to the American people and the people are willing to accept hard realities, no solution will be found to relieve our children and grandchildren of the crushing debt that we are currently amassing as their inheritance.
While the current call for “less government” is justified, in one role I want government to be vigorous and active, and that is in ensuring the protection of the Constitution to all Americans.
The hard-won civil rights legislation of the 1960s, which I benefited from, was fought for by presently derided liberals, courageous leaders who won these gains over the[Republican]opposition …hiding behind transparent arguments of “states’ rights” and “property rights.”
I have listened to die-hard Republicans call Powell a traitor, that he had lost most of the respect gained from Republicans with Reagan and H.W. Bush. As much flak as Powell took from the political right, he reminds us that he is not a Democrat either. “Neither of the two major parties” he writes “fits me comfortably in its present state.” Powell holds no reservations on either party’s short-comings, “I distrust rigid ideology from any direction, and I am discovering that many Americans feel just as I do. The time may be at hand for a third major party to emerge to represent this sensible center of the American political spectrum.” This is exactly why I have great respect for this man. He is in several ways an unswaying Free-Thinker according to his own conscience and duty to his nation.
I am troubled by the political passion of those on the extreme right who seem to claim divine wisdom on political as well as spiritual matters. God provides us with guidance and inspiration, not a legislative agenda. I am disturbed by the class and racial undertones beneath the surface of their rhetoric. On the other side of the spectrum, I am put off by patronizing liberals who claim to know what is best for society but devote little thought to who will eventually pay the bills. I question the priorities of those liberals who lavish so much attention on individual license and entitlements that little concern is left for the good of the community at large.
When 9/11 hit the American homeland, Powell was thrown into an explicit forefront forcing him not only to lead an immediate response on terrorism, but also draw lines in the Oval Office about how best to make that response. It would prove more than daunting.
VP Cheney & SOD Rumsfeld bypassed completely Powell & Rice but also U.S. & International laws
Based on his autobiography and interviews since the book’s completion in 1995, it is inferred that Colin gained a sour taste for Republican politics his last two years in Washington D.C. Father Bush’s most highest approval ratings came during the First Gulf War with General Norm Schwarzkopf and General Powell. The military duo’s superbly created multi-coalition forces put the United States in favor with most of the peaceful nations. George W. Bush most assuredly recognized later in 2001 an opportunity when considering Democratic support. Powell, however, could not have realized what limited roles he would be subjected to in September 2001 when George W. faced the most horrific attack since Pearl Harbor. After all, it was more the H. W. Bush family who were very grateful for Colin’s loyal support, not the son. By 2003 it was clear there was no real room in the White House for one more dominant Alpha-male. H. W. Bush sentiments went only so far with war-waging Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz. Of those three cabinet members, Rumsfeld had the only military service with just 3 years. And none of them possessed the international diplomatic dossier during global conflicts as did Colin Powell.
The general from the South Bronx had unprecedented foreign diplomatic experience due to his long illustrious military career; the First Gulf War being his highest accolade. The ease and speed at which the United States, Great Britain, and more importantly Arab-Muslim nations were able to remove Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait is due in large part (in American terms) to Powell’s polished political understanding of world conflicts and their delicate intricacies. Any political or military expert today will agree that had Powell and H.W. Bush not consulted and requested Arab-Muslim nations get significantly involved in Saddam Hussein’s removal and later treatment after, Western military machines blasting into Kuwait and engaging Hussein’s Republican Guard would have been diplomatic global suicide. With Geneva Convention articles and multiple allies both in Europe and the Middle East, had America not taken consideration of coalition ideals it would have turned the Gulf conflict into a Holy War between invading Westerners and highly motivated non-Iraqi militant Muslims. Therefore, ten years later after his father, George W. Bush’s top officials had a goldmine in Colin Powell; it would be a no-brainer that Powell’s experience and advice would be a necessity, correct?
Addendum 2/14/2015 — the YouTube video of a documentary on Powell’s political relationships with alpha-males Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and former President George W. Bush has been deleted and removed. In its place I’ve selected this short clip regarding the Iraqi intelligence fiasco.
Secretary of State Albright
What many head-hunting Washington politicians were losing in their emotional rhetoric to bring quick justice for the 9/11 murders, were Colin Powell’s long-term warnings of more American lives lost via our military. These were going to be the very men and women who will potentially pay the last sacrifice. Few lynch-mob mentalities remember how Powell had long valued the service and sacrifice our military personnel and families make in wartime. Stepping back to 1997, Powell was almost livid after a comment made by Madeleine Albright in a National Security Team meeting about President Clinton’s election campaign promises to Bosnian Serbs committing genocide.
Powell’s views had not changed one bit since H.W. Bush’s meetings on how to deal with Bosnia. Colin strongly advised only two realistic responsive options: either limited air strikes around Sarajevo risking civilian casualties or heavy bombing of Serbs in the theaters of conflict. But Powell emphasized that neither of these options guaranteed a Serbian change of behavior; only military troops on the ground could do that. Powell kept reiterating that with air strikes or bombing, Serbian militias would simply hide their tanks and artillery in or around civilian populations and buildings — much like militant terrorists do today. Powell therefore constantly pushed for a clear political aim first before committing our military men and women. History had proven to America that military action without a consensus political goal costs too many American lives. The debate exploded when Madeleine Albright asked Powell, “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” Powell responds this way in his autobiography:
I thought I would have an aneurysm. American GI’s were not toy soldiers to be moved around on some sort of global game board. I patiently explained [to Albright and team members] that we had used our armed forces more than two dozen times in the preceding three years of war, peacekeeping, disaster relief, and humanitarian assistance. But in every one of those cases we had had a clear goal and had matched our military committment to the [political] goal. As a result, we had been successful in every case. I told Ambassador Albright that the U.S. military would carry out any mission it was handed, but my advise would always be that the tough political goals had to be set first.
Former NSC member Tony Lake, and member during Vietnam, supported Colin’s position and said “You know, Madeleine, the kinds of questions Colin is asking about goals are exactly the ones the military never asked during Vietnam.” Several months after 9/11 the ignorance of side-stepping Powell’s wealth of diplomatic and military experience becomes much worse. The real murderers of 9/11 were all dead; killed in each plane crash. Therefore, how to deal with the people, organizations, or nations who assisted the dead terrorist pilots are of such paramount importance in a global arena that any violent retaliatory response could have profound consequences in American lives. The following two clips from the 2008 documentary film Torturing Democracy portrays just how nonconcurrent, devoid of Powell, and with little to no consideration for the global impact the clandestine U.S. response to the War On Terrorism and prisoners was begun by four men in a matter of weeks.
America is now approaching 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11. The longest period of war ever in our nation’s history. Has the fervor of the radical militant terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq been completely eradicated? No. Did treatment of pre-trial detainees or prisoners aid in shortening the 10 year war in Afghanistan or Iraq? Certainly not. If anything, we have given them more inspiration and shown the world that America is not so much a beacon of light for human rights according to the Geneva Convention — we have become similar to the terrorists themselves. Colin Powell tried to push home U.N. sensitivities on Capital Hill. But four Alpha-males in the Bush administration prolonged immeasurably the war on terrorism and so we continue to pay the price in American lives and in fatherless, son-less, daughter-less, spouse-less families. Not gaining first the full participation of moderate, peaceful, allied Muslim nations was a costly multi-dimensional human and economic Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz mistake. Current economic defense spending, which compounds the federal deficit today, bears witness to a war waged prematurely without multi-lateral international support to help bear the costs.
The Private Life of Colin Powell
Founder Colin Powell & Chairwoman Alma Powell
Now that Colin Powell is out of federal politics he has dedicated his time and energy to mentoring and educating America’s youth through his cross-sectored program, America’s Promise Alliance. For many years during and after his political career in Washington D.C., Powell spoke repeatedly about us addressing America’s socio-economic problems as a caring “family” member and citizen of the United States. Powell sees a serious need in teaching young Americans to benefit from past mistakes, to offer educational and career opportunities for at-risk youth, and continue the civil fight for social and economic parity in America. He states in no uncertain terms who must mentor this philosophical action: every single parent in the nation as a Big Citizen.
We can’t just sit around waiting for government to solve some of these intractable social problems that we’ve had for years. Government has a role to play. It is time for all of us to live up more fully to the concept of citizenship. And for those of us who as citizens of this nation have been blessed with treasure, and wealth, and good position, and comfortable homes, and all the blessings of this land, to be a good citizen, to be a big citizen, requires you to do more in the way of sharing with those who are in need. So that a family that has three wonderful children ought to try to see if they could find three hours a week to share that life with a kid in need who doesn’t have a mentor, who doesn’t get to play in Little League and do the other things that we take for granted. Somebody in that family who might go tutor a school on an afternoon off from a job, and we’re encouraging corporations to give them that afternoon off. And so that’s what we mean by big citizenship.
During a 1998 interview for the Academy of Achievement in Washington D.C., Colin was asked to comment about one of his most favorite quotes by the Greek historian Thucydides: “Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.” Powell responded in agreement saying…
One of the great strengths of America, and the reason we are held in such high regard throughout the world, is that people trust our power, and they trust the way in which we use our power. The more powerful you are, the more people want to trust you with that power. They would hate to not trust you with that power.
CNN State of the Union
With the advent of mass social networking, Colin Powell was asked in his January 2011 interview on State Of The Union with Candy Crowley, his thoughts on the technological Genie-out-of-the-bottle boom with Facebook, Twitter, and thousands of blog sites, in light of the recent Tucson, AZ shooting tragedy that took six lives and wounded 13 including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Gifford. Crowley asked, “Did you see a message about this country in those shootings, or did you just see a random, senseless act of violence?“ Powell agreed going on to say:
“…in the process of thinking it through and looking at it, everybody started to speak about civility. That’s a good subject for us to talk about because there has crept in our society and our public dialogue a coarseness, a nastiness, an attack of people who don’t share the same views as you do. And not just attacking the policies but attacking the individual. He’s a communist. He’s a socialist. He’s un-American. He ought to be thrown out. All sorts of nastiness. And it is not just politicians who are doing this to each other, and, frankly, politics has always been a contact sport in this country.I mean, they did this back in the 17th and 18th Century, but with all of the cable channels and talk radio and blogs, especially blogs, where people can be anonymous with their nastiness, I think has caused a level of coarseness in our society that we’ve all got to think about. And politicians should think about it. All leaders in every aspect of American society should think about it. And I think television needs to give this some thought. A lot of this is frankly coming through on television.
I think you can’t put the information revolution back in the bottle. That’s out of the question. But at the same time, we can just act more responsibly in the language we use with each other. And we need to start pushing back on some of the more extreme language that we hear on radio or we see on television or we hear from our politicians. The reason they do it is because we accept it as people. So I think the American people have got to start demanding more of our public officials and of the media that is trying to come into our homes every evening. But, unfortunately, there is a certain attraction to this kind of dialogue.
…the other thing is, with so much information available to us, you can just stay in your little stovepipe of information and only listen to others and talk to others and reflect the views of others who think just like you. And so we’re not broadening our knowledge base too often by all of the information that’s available. We’re becoming even more stuck in that segment of the knowledge base that reflects our views.
If there are two words that accurately describe General Colin Powell’s sentiment for his nation, they are limitless gratitude. Despite his skin color and challenges as such growing up, the painful segregation dealt him in the 1960s while serving his country during Vietnam, or the treatment and disregard he received during his service under President George W. Bush including far right-winged Republicans, Colin Powell exudes an American statesman consumed not by a global or national entitlement of arrogance, but instead remains socially conscious, humble and indebted. It is no wonder why he was held with such high esteem by the international community.
Many Bush-era officials nicknamed Powell “The Reluctant Warrior“, a title in my mind not entirely negative. Fortunately, those U.S. officials and all anti-Powell advocates represent less than 1% of the informed global population. In international circles — a greater and more accurate plum-line — Colin Powell is considered the “Neo-Thucydides” — a fiscal humanitarian first, a stoic warrior last. I couldn’t agree more.
L to R: Samuel, Rachel, mother Vicki and Sara Weaver
On August 21, 1992 Samuel Weaver and his father Randy Weaver along with partially adopted Kevin Harris walk out of their remote Idaho cabin on Ruby Ridge to see why the family dog was barking incessantly. Suspecting there was an animal that “Striker” had sniffed out, Sam, Kevin, and Randy take their rifles to investigate. Daughter and sister, Sara Weaver remained in the house with her mother Vicki, little sister Rachel, and infant sister Elisheba. Minutes later several rifle shots rung out. When Randy and Kevin returned to the house stunned, they informed Vicki and the girls that little Samuel was dead and they needed to go retrieve his body. Striker, the Labrador retriever had also been shot dead. Harris and Randy were unaware that one of Kevin’s three fired bullets had killed U.S. Marshall William Degan when bullets from everywhere were flying.
Weaver cabin front door
About 15 minutes had passed. Randy, Vicki, and Kevin Harris picked up Samuel’s limp body where he had fallen and stored it in a nearby shed next to their cabin so not to traumatize the girls. Hours later the Weaver’s wanted to view Samuel’s body, pray over it and decide how to bury him. Father Randy, daughter Sara, and Kevin walked out of the cabin toward the small shed which held the body; all of them carrying rifles. Suddenly another shot rang out and Randy Weaver heaped over and screamed for Vicki. All three of them turned and ran quickly back to the cabin’s front door. Hearing the gun shot and Randy’s pain, Vicki Weaver ran to the front door, clasping baby Elisheba to her chest, holding the door open for their refuge. As Harris was approaching the doorway, another rifle shot rang out. The high-powered bullet shattered the door’s window pane, passed through Vicki’s head barely missing the baby, then penetrating Harris’ left arm and chest. Vicki dropped to her knees still holding Elisheba, moaned in agony for about 20 seconds uttering “Yahweh” a few times, and collapsed. Writhing from their gaping wounds, Randy and Kevin managed to get back over to Vicki’s body but she was dead. Her face was unrecognizable. This caused Mr. Weaver and all his daughters to sob uncontrollably.
At the end of the day a 14-year old boy, a Federal Marshall, and a mother lay dead. All deaths were certainly unnecessary and beyond a shadow of a doubt quite avoidable. But my first two paragraphs do not tell the entire story from all possible angles. There is no need for my decades late report of these well-known events. The facts of the Ruby Ridge siege — aside from Kevin Harris’ testimony of the first events with Samuel and Striker — are available to the public in many forms all portraying slight variations of what took place and how. Ultimately the case made for Randy Weaver against the U.S. Federal agencies by defense attorney Gerry Spence was the correct verdict. It is also well publicized that the Federal agencies and on-sight special agents clearly did not “serve and protect” according to their duties and the U.S. Constitution. However, due to the overshadowing Federal agencies glaring wrong-doings, there is another aspect of this tragedy that has not been given much consideration.
Weaver’s weapons cache from inside the cabin
The fuse to this ticking time-bomb in August 1992 had been lit and set in motion days, months, and perhaps years earlier by Mr. and Mrs. Weaver. First, what type of gun safety had been taught to a 14-year old boy and 16-year old girl and when did it start? Was the sanctity of human life taught to this boy and if so, why did the boy fire multiple shots at a person he had no clue who they were OR if they had actually shot his dog (intentionally or by accident), and when multiple rifles are everywhere outside AND inside the Weaver cabin?
Secondly, if one argues the heat-of-the-moment or fog-of-war scenario for an immature scared 14-year old boy, then why was he toting a loaded rifle in the first place? That is the perfect reason not to arm little boys and girls EVER…even if Striker had found a furious animal! Yet, Samuel didn’t stumble upon an animal, he came armed and within 10-feet of a U.S. Marshall. Also, Randy Weaver had increasing run-ins with Federal law-enforcement and agencies, each time becoming more threatening and short-tempered with their authority. Surely being a former Army Green Beret he could have anticipated more tactical pressure from his self-perceived enemies? With that said, arming his 14-year old son and 16-year old daughter sounds eerily reminiscent of Hitler’s SS youth. Coincidentally, Randy Weaver then and to this day hints or speaks derogatory about non-caucasian ethnic groups.
Finally, Vicki Weaver and Randall Weaver had both grown more and more angry with their surrounding church members, friends, and American society and government for becoming in their eyes weak-willed complacent Christians in a hell-bound world. In the years leading up to August 1992, Randy and Vicki separated themselves and their kids (home schooled in strict biblical customs) from mainstream society. In fact, by 1978 Vicki Weaver had begun studying and embracing the Amish-Mennonite separatist self-sustaining way of life. I recently wrote a blog about the Amish and all extreme separatist groups in America and around the world: Collaborative Ineptitude. Having studied over two years in a theological seminary learning the “Protestant” Old and New Testaments backwards and forwards, what has often astonished me about hyper-separatist groups/denominations are how the theme of reconciliation as lived and taught by Jesus/Yeshua (according strictly to the canonical Gospels) is ignored or overlooked by separatist. The canonical Gospels clearly show Jesus/Yeshua spent a large majority of his ministry in and among the social outcasts, diseased, unclean, and unGodly! What Vicki and Randy Weaver also failed to recognize was that most Amish do not tote around one, two, or three guns per person, much less own them. Ironically, Yeshua had more problems with the Jewish-Zealots (ancient Jerusalem’s version of modern religious militants) than he did with moderate Jews and Gentiles.
In 1992 and today it is a common statistic that most personally owned guns end up hurting or fatally wounding those in the home, not criminals or hyper-perceived apocalyptic enemies. In later interviews on the Ruby Ridge tragedy, Sara Weaver often comments about how utterly alien the “outside world” was for her when she was sent to extended family members during her father’s trial. She adds how very ill-prepared she was to cope with the hell-bound world along with the tragic death of her mother and little brother! Now married and a mother herself, Sara does not speak fondly about a life of isolation; understandably so. Sara Weaver is now an active advocate for compassion and forgiveness.
I remind readers that what the Federal agencies and their agents did at the Weaver’s cabin was entirely wrong and unnecessary. Obviously so in light of Waco and the Koresh compound. Worse still, with similar anger as Randy Weaver, Timothy McVeigh used Ruby Ridge and Waco as his battle cry to justify killing 168 innocent people in his Oklahoma City bombing, 19 of which were just as young or younger as Samuel Weaver.
In light of Ruby Ridge and Waco, I hope Americans realize that hateful separatism, stockpiles of weapons, or violence — in the absence of relentless informed diplomacy — is always and will be unimaginably bloodier, even sacrificial of children for a cause their little minds can’t fully comprehend. When religion becomes militant the distinction between “righteous” and say Islāmic terrorists flying jet-liners into skyscrapers becomes so blurred it’s impossible for any sane person to become inspired to civil reform. I hope Randy Weaver has grasped the big picture, now that it is too late. Something is terribly wrong when we are arming boys and girls that are barely teenagers.
In an unprecedented show of great unity today, the United Nations’Human Rights Council voted 23 in favor, 19 opposed, and three abstentions passing a resolution ending all violence in the world based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This resolution is a HUGE step toward a planet with more patience, tolerance, love, and simple human integrity — something that patriarchal Middle Eastern countries and obviously those with much more violent intolerant religious Islāmic zealots — must take heed at the risk of increased isolation from the rest of the world’s nations. And the United States cannot by any means pretend hypocritically that they are fully onboard with the rest of the world. America too could just as easily risk the same isolation from truly freer nations that certain Middle Eastern countries could face or have faced. With much gratitude and excitement, here is the CNN news article…
I am very curious to know what the U.S. vote was in light of the fact that here, America as a whole does not offer the pursuit of happiness to all or protect fully its own LGBT population. Can America now be truly more brave and join the rest of the nations being highly courageous in the fight for simple human rights? This American believes wholeheartedly it can.
This short blog was inspired by Silk over at her site Silk Road Visions – And Writings In the Sand. The true finishing of this subject is at her WordPress blog — use the link provided below.
I have often wondered why after World War 2 the Allied powers removedthe Palestinians to give their land to the Israelis, who had been homeless since, well your guess or research might be as good as mine. Since about the 11th century BCE Israel has not existed as a nation as we define a nation today. Hebrew-speaking people have been among the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Sassanians, and Byzantines subject to these empires, but during those many centuries they were not a kingdom with borders in the terms of today’s United Nations — for a quick overview: Zionism and the British Mandate.
Why did the Israelis deserve their own nation with borders anymore than say….the Native American Indians? America’s Manifest Destiny wasn’t too unlike Hitler’s “Final Solution” for the Jews. Was it because of the atrocities they suffered at the hands of the Nazis? Yes, the Jews suffered treatment as subhuman and put in concentration camps for systematic extermination by Hitler’s SS. This is certainly a noble reason for the United States to fight and die in Europe — we did the same thing (well, in principle) in Iraq against Saddam Hussein in 2003 with Operation Iraqi Freedom. President Hussein was known to have exterminated many of his Muslim enemies inside Iraq. He had also fought a long war against his neighbor Iran and those fellow Muslims. However, I have always questioned WHY the United States does not do the same for other atrocities in any other nation around the world? Point and case, the killing of Tibetans and the removal and exile of the Dali Lama by the Chinese communists. Why didn’t we go to war against China for the sake of those Tibetans and their destroyed monasteries? Was it because Tibet and Buddhism had no crude oil to supply the energy-hungry and booming victorious economies? And if my religious biblical history serves me correctly, did not the land around Jerusalem belong to Canaan and its native people, and before them the Akkadians who took it from nomadic tribes in the 24th century BCE?
A volatile multi-relgious Jerusalem where everyone believes they belong there.
It seems to me that if the Western Hemisphere of nations (formerly under Greek then Roman rule historically) follow this U.N. logic, then the United States along with member nations of the U.N. must return lands taken by conquerors going back to pre-written languages BEFORE the “Bibles” of the Hebrews, Egyptians, Samaritans, and so on and so on, ad infinitum! Indeed, at some point this logic becomes ludicrous and is not a legitimate foundation anytime, anywhere. More recently and more easily rectifiable the question becomes What justification did the non-Arab nations of the U.N. have to throw-out the Palestinians in 1947-1949? I am very curious to read your thoughts and comments about this question and justification, or lack of justification.
As I mentioned at the outset, this blog was inspired by the wonderful blogger Silk at Silk Road Visions. I strongly urge you to hop over there and read this excellent perspective on how in my humble view Western Imperial arrogance will always fuel radical jihadists, or simply sustain fragile relations with any Islamic nation.
I have zero expectation that anything I ever say will end someone’s belief in their God. Not my goal or purpose. That alone belongs to the individual. ~ Zoe
'Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it' - Terry Pratchett
Exact numbers of intersexed births are difficult to determine due to the lack of a humane dignifying definition of what physically should be considered normal or abnormal. The ignorance and social stigma the condition carries with it is as much a part of the difficulty as the collective understanding by medical science. Despite the ongoing studies one thing is quite clear. Sexual orientation, same-sex marriage, and gender identity IS NOT a social-religious debate, period.
The Professor's Convatorium 