Moral

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound

the other." ― Mark Twain

Why do people on the left become angry with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press?

Why do people on the right and left become angry with the re-location of predator priests in the Catholic Church?

Why does the average citizen not believe in the words of the average lawyer, politician, CEO, or salesman?

Why are you not supposed to talk about politics and religion at dinner because it disturbs your Uncle?

Sociopathy.

Sociopathy has a complicated psychological description.

Sociopathy is a personality disorder.

A mental problem that separates these individuals from the herd.

It's not a good thing.

It's a terrible thing.

Sociopaths are the source of everything that goes wrong and goes bad in every aspect of society and daily life.

However, our politicians, our religious and corporate leaders the world over, sociopathy is the pre-requirement for employment of these positions.

If you aren't a sociopath, you need to be one because it really helps.

A sociopath will do good or evil; it doesn't matter to them which they do as long as they get what they want.

What they 'can' want is not limited to power, wealth, and sex.

Politics, by definition, is amoral.

Religion, by definition, is moral.

However, they inhabit the same coin, heads and tails.

Both politics and religion are where the currency of sociopaths is spent the most.

They both will do good or evil to get and maintain power, wealth, and sex.

This has been known in intellectual circles for a very, very long time.

Both conservative and liberal circles.

Its history and dispersion have not been kept from the public eye by any conspiracy.

It is known and recognized by the public, but we all tend to ignore it.

To accept it.

To say that's the way it is.

Much like when you listen to the lyrics of a song, people hear what they want to hear.

Many Republican candidates play Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," thinking it promotes a love of patriotism.

Born in the U.S.A. is the exact opposite, telling the tale of how the country used young men, exploited their patriotism to serve the power and wealth of the establishment, and got them killed for nothing.

The average Joe and Jane, historically, didn't see the amoral behavior of the world's institutions.

If they did, they accepted, "That's the way it is."

That is, until early in the 21st Century when social media exposed the rot.

The rot that has been nurtured by political and religious intellectuals placed there to defend a system of sociopaths.

So when people watch Meet the Press, and they see no objection raised by the host in the face of blatant corruption, of lying to the American people, they now ask why?

Why?

Every day, more and more people's eyes are opening and asking why.

Why does a political party defend blatant corruption and abuse of office?

Why does a religious order protect child molesters?

Why does a news organization give equal time to fascist propagandists?

Sociopathy.

Sociopathy has dominated our world since time began.

Individuals, groups, and nations nurture their sociopaths.

These sociopaths believe that the world is theirs.

That anything goes, they can lie, cheat, steal, and kill as long as they get what they want when they want.

They must have their orgasm.

They are the cancer on the soul of humanity.

But now, now, for the first time in our history on the planet, the curtain has been raised on the puppet masters.

The sociopathic parasites flourish on humanity's blood of human kindness.

Today, the layers of marketing, of P.R., of media manipulation drift out of their grasp.

However, as their power to control their narrative slips from their fingers, they will and have become more desperate.

Like armed cockroaches when the lights are turned on they will shoot out the lights of truth.

The defenders of politicians and religions sell fear to the fearful.

These defenders heap blame on the "other" as the reason why you have been left economically behind. 

The last thing these defenders of sociopathy want in this world is peace.

Peace would mean cooperation.

Peach would mean the loss of their power, of their wealth, of their sex trafficking.

Sociopaths and their defending institutions are why we don't have nice things.

Remember…

Politics and religion both do not care by what means they maintain power over you and me.

The ends justify the means.

Power makes right.

However, this time, something is different.

This time, we all can hear voices around the world calling for real change in our social media.

Remember, this sociopathic exploitation is not just local but worldwide.

Politics and religion go hand in hand and are the language of sociopathic control.

It is the sociopath's means of grooming the victim.

Just try to bring this observation up, and you will be painted as a nut job.

You'll be painted as a conspiracy believer.

But too many people are seeing that the emperor has no clothes.

As Mark Twain said, half of the public will be astounded that you do the right thing for the right reason.

We all can call out our politicians and religious leaders and demand they put up or move on.

We can call out injustice.

We can call out their insincerity.

We can call out their corruption.

We can call out their abuse of our collective goodwill.

We can put a stop to this tyranny of the mind and body.

We can make the dream of a brother of man a reality.

A true brotherhood of man.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Opportunity

"A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property, widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few." – Dr. Martin Luther King

It's incredible how so many can look across their street and tell themselves that they are better off than the person living next door.

Isolation.

Isolation of mind.

Isolation of action.

Isolation of opportunity.

Opportunity comes in two equal but distinct ways.

First, is there an opportunity?

Is there a possibility of employment in my community?

Will I be hired?

Is there a chance for a better-paying job that will give you a better life?

A happier life?

This is best illustrated by what used to be the box standard economic reality across America, and that is the one-industry town.

Back in the day, one such town was Loudonville, Ohio, where the Flxible Bus Company was the dominant industry.

All across the Midwest, many of the towns had just one industry.

The expectation was created generation after generation that the lowest bar of employment was the local factory job.

But when those jobs were taken out of America by the owners and boards of those companies, places like Loudonville were left holding an empty economic bag.

The story has been repeated in every corner of our Nation.

From the shoe factories in New England to the cotton mills of the South to the steel and rubber industries of the Great Lakes to the plane manufacturing industry of the West.

There are just too many "used-to-be" places of opportunity that are now gone forever.

Now our manufacturing corridors are empty.

Too many of our communities no longer have a wealth of opportunity.

It all was stolen like a thief in the night by an all too human evil.

Greed.

The second type of opportunity is one of personal discovery.

It depends upon the individual to ask themselves a simple but one of the most challenging questions one has to ask oneself eventually.

What do I want to do with my life?

When you live in the city, I currently reside in Los Angeles, there is an abundance of choices.

Living here, you can choose to be just about anything you want to be.

You can be an executive, work as a manager at a fast-food service and make six figures, be a nurse or a lawyer, paint houses, or paint landscapes on an artist's canvas.

The opportunity to do what you see, what you imagine, has virtually no limits.

However, back in Ohio, down around the southern border with Kentucky, I'm very familiar with the town of McArthur.

A lot of great people live down around there, but the local jobs are few.

You need enough money to put gas in your car and drive up towards Columbus or over towards Athens and Parkersburg to have a few more opportunities.

Growing up in a place devoid of choice naturally limits your choices.

It's not that you don't realize that there are doctors, nurses, lawyers, and astronauts out in the world making a living.

It's just not in the crayon box of choices when the biggest employers in your town are the Dollar Store and Taco Bell.

Opportunity is a two-way street.

There has to be the opportunity to take hold of it, but it also has to be in the psychology that says I have a choice; I can do it.

All anyone asks is for the opportunity to succeed.

But we Americans have and continue to have a consistent urge to limit each other's opportunities.

We continue to limit access to opportunities for racial and identity minority communities.

That limit is called prejudice.

This prejudice extends to everyone who is not white.

Women also bear the prejudice of the limitation of opportunity, regardless of race.

As Dr. King says, there are too many men out there willing to take from the many to give to the few.

Today is Thanksgiving 2019.

The sentiment and the visceral acid thrown about today by the conservative party in this Nation makes it more like 1919.

These few men who have profited from the selling of the American dream are taking the opportunity to capitalize on the economic nightmare that they created.

The real loss and abandonment that so many of their victims feel, where opportunity no longer exists, these economic vultures have taken hold of their hearts and minds.

It is an evil we stand against this Thanksgiving, where men pit men against each other, falsely blaming the other as stealing their rightful hope.

Their economic future.

When light casts its brilliance, darkness rushes to the corners.

Yet from within that darkest of nights, a single candle can push back the despair and restore hope.

The challenge of this Thanksgiving has been faced by many before us.

Generation after generation is called to keep up the good fight.

As the night draws near and the grinding teeth of despair cry out, it is up to each of us to hold our light up high and push back against the darkness.

We can seize the opportunity to build a better world.

Light your candle, be thankful for what you have, and help share the wealth of this life with all.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Timid

"The true source of our suffering has been our timidity.

We have been afraid to think… 

Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write." – John Adams

Why do we fear being wrong?

Why would a person, a community, or a political party support apparent corruption and crimes conducted by its representatives and not investigate and prosecute the guilty?

What allows apparently good people to turn their backs in outrage and huddle against the bright light of truth?

Prejudice.

Prejudice is a kind of temerity of the timid.

Lazy minds.

Prejudice is making judgments without truth or factual evidence.

Do you see the link I'm talking about?

The timid are afraid to talk to that black man taking a knee.

The timid don't want to hear the reason for the immigrant fleeing murder.

The timid prefer to hide behind the excuse that nothing matters, that everything is corrupt.

Each of these examples represents a form of prejudice that prevents society from learning the truth.

Even if that truth reveals the corruption behind what we personally believe to be true.

John Adams, our second President, admonishes, asks, and reflects that what has kept this nation and the world from becoming a better place is our collective fear of confronting the truth.

I would add that it's part of the human condition, characterized by a general laziness of mind and body.

You know you should do the laundry; there is a huge pile, and you have no clean underwear.

You don't want to look at the pile.

You know you have to go buy soap.

You would rather tolerate the stink of your clothes than do the work.

It takes effort to gather your resources and apply the energy.

You just tell yourself everyone else is walking around in stinky clothes, too.

Your prejudice and your timid psychology allowed you to make up an excuse for not doing the right thing.

A collective timid psychology, a prejudice against doing right, has taken hold of the Republican Party and its supporters.

What I am calling a political-economic-social-nihilism.

PESN

PESN, in short, means that these people believe a myth that everything is corrupt.

If everything is corrupt, then my personal corruption, my prejudice, and my timid response will not be noticed.

If everything stinks, my stink won't be noticed.

My failure to take responsibility for doing right doesn't matter in the broader context of right versus wrong because everyone is ultimately out for themselves.

Welcome to the Jungle, baby!

This is a myth created by timid minds cobbled together on bar stools.

A world full of prejudice where corruption is the norm, and do-gooders are losers.

A discourse...

Boy Scouts.

The Deep State.

Never Trumpers.

Adams is right.

This timid myth of the world has held back the Great Society.

It destroyed Reconstruction.

It denied the Equal Rights Amendment.

It shut the door on Gay rights.

It has allowed racism to flourish.

It has grown white nationalism.

It has promoted economic disparity between the rich and poor.

It has strengthened a dark discourse of social dystopia and fascism in social media, networks, and print.

It has allowed the monsters who feed off the fear of the timid to take control of half of our Republic.

Is it too late to do anything about it?

Let us dare to read.

Read everything, especially those writings that challenge us to do more.

Think long, hard, and deep, ask the questions, and get to the answer at the bottom of the well of deceit and corruption.

Speak truth to power, demand freedom from the tyrant of the mind that says your freedom, your happiness, your equality, your hope, is not essential.

And write…

Write to that person who stands in the doorway, stopping the freedom march.

Write to that friend who has lost their hope.

Write and be that hope.

Most of all, do not be afraid of the night as you travel on your course.

You are a star in a gathering host.

Together, bravely, with courage and great spirit, we will do right.

It's always the right time to do right.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

What Country

A majority of the citizens of this country were born here.

We have grown up in a culture of freedom.

A freedom that allows us to pursue our own happiness.

But that freedom does not come without a responsibility.

That responsibility comes with asking us what country we want to live in?

To be able to keep and enjoy this Republic requires a majority of us to agree on a set of ideas.

Of principals.

Of morals.

Due to our current state of affairs, it would seem that we do not agree on the same ideas, principles, and morality.

The Republican Party now supports the idea of power by any means.

The Republican Party now believes no one can be held responsible for a crime; they are above justice if the individuals accused believe they are not guilty.

No need for a fair trial by peers.

The Republican Party stands behind the leader of its party, who has been demonstrated to be a liar, a cheat, and a sexual predator.

The Republican Party freely admits that the President has no ideas, has no principles, has no morality, and they are OK with that because he believes in cutting taxes for the wealthy.

What has happened?

What has happened to our country?

What country is this?

John Adams said, " The preservation of Liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation, it is impossible they should be enslaved."

Without their tacit agreement, a body of the American people has become enslaved to the idea of social and economic nihilism.

Nothing can be done; everyone and everything is corrupt.

So, what does it matter as long as I'm left alone?

As Adams warned, there is a large population in this country without civic-social-economic virtue.

They are the lost souls washed up upon the beach of economic vulture capitalism, which has been picking at the bones of the American psyche since 1776.

The industrial, political, social, and wealthy tax dodgers of this country are consistent.

They consistently feed off their prey, the American people, to the point of killing off the host.

They have sucked the civic morality of this nation almost dry once again.

We, as free people, cannot survive and prosper where a whole class of people and special interests are separate and unequal to us.

The wealthy, the wealth producers, the corporations cannot be allowed the status of untouchable.

We, the people, are unworthy of asking them to do their fair share and be a hope for the people, not their bloodletting Barber surgeon.

These economic parasites have created this social-political nihilism and use their victims to maintain power.

They have infected this country and have brought our Republic to a breaking point.

This President is not the symptom; he's the tip of the iceberg that poked his head out of the green greed swamp ass.

This President is supported by social, economic, and political powers that have been caught with their hand up the skirt of Liberty.

What country do you want to live in?

That's what's at stake with this impeachment of this President and the upcoming election.

Enemies of freedom come primarily from within the borders of any country.

They know the weakness of its citizens.

The enemy from within knows how to twist the truth to get what it wants.

It's why all civil servants in this country swear an oath not to an individual but to an idea.

The Constitution.

That idea that if a majority of us hold it to be true, we, the people, will not be enslaved by tyranny.

A tyranny both foreign and domestic.

What country do you want to live in?

The time is now to do right.

Reach out across the space that separates us and be the hope.

Don't tell your neighbors to hope by themselves.

That's how we got into this mess in the first place, when politicians promised prosperity and had no intention of delivering it.

Be the hope.

Cancel out the evil of nihilism.

Be the hope.

Make a difference simply by being kind, allowing compassion to be the guide to a shared purpose of knowledge and virtue.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Judgment Day

We hold these truths to be beyond question.

Everyone has the right to life, Liberty, and happiness.

Everyone includes the young, the old, the teen, the middle-aged, the straight, the gay, you, me, and the stranger, too.

This nation was founded on those truths.

Those truths of our Republic are absolute then and now.

What isn't true is the haphazard barstool knowledge that too many Americans bring to how their government works.

Too many rely upon urban legend.

Too many rely upon personal myth.

Too many rely on the know-it-all at the end of the bar for answers.

Too many gather together to tell each other stories with no basis in truth.

It's a sad truth about humans that the real reason they gather together, like minds, is to support each other's prejudices.

That prejudice doesn't exclusively mean racial.

No.

It also includes those who like to sew quilts.

Those who like to fix up old cars.

Those who believe their God is superior to 'those' people's God.

People stick together because they enjoy each other's company.

That's a no-brainer.

They like what each other says.

When was the last time you joined a group or were in a conversation that pointed out how wrong you were?

How wrong you were every time you joined in a conversation.

Many Americans believe that the government is wrong and corrupt.

Why?

The answer is easy because it's the same sentiment that countless generations have expressed over and over again.

That sentiment is because the government isn't doing anything for me.

If the government isn't helping me, then damn them let the whole thing burn down.

John F. Kennedy famously intoned at his inauguration, Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

It seems many Americans have either forgotten those great words of civic responsibility or chosen to do the easy thing and join the nihilist crowd.

The Nihilist Crowd is a non-exclusive group of people with no party affiliation who want others to take on their responsibility and hand them their due.

All the while complaining that doing anything to help make your community, your home, and your life any better is a waste of time.

Everything is corrupt.

Our Republic is in desperate need of its citizens to pick up their civic responsibility and join in the fight.

There needs to be active participation and an intense realization of how government works and who it actually works for.

We have to end these urban legends, these tropes used by scalawags the world over telling us your government doesn't work for you.

However, the big secret is that when the government isn't working, that's precisely what these nihilists want.

It's not working for them.

Frankly, it's a very sociopathic way of thinking that everything is corrupt, so why bother doing the right thing when something wrong will work just as well?

Somehow, two concepts got lumped together.

Change equals corruption.

For this, nihilist anti-community, anti-republic, anti-ethical thinking has adopted the idea that any change is corrupt.

Freeing the slaves was a corruption.

Giving women and blacks the right to vote was a corruption.

Allowing black children to go to school with white children was a corruption.

Black and white people marrying was a corruption.

Welfare is corruption.

School lunches are a corruption.

Taking prayer out of school is corruption.

Allowing gays to marry is corruption.

Having a black President is corruption.

To the nihilist conservative mind, all of these changes are corruptions of how they believe the nation was founded and for whom.

Have you ever seen that picture of Jesus at the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the creation of the Constitution, too?

Change equals corruption.

And anyone wanting change is corrupt, too.

It's no wonder that so many Republicans believe the government is corrupt.

We're not talking about corruption like stealing money out of taxes…

No!

The corruption that the conservative nihilist believes is taking place is the corruption of traditional values of white purity to be perfectly clear and honest.

Consequently, why so many support this current President, even in the face of boldface criminal and personal crimes and corruption, is because of his verbal stance supporting conservative nihilism, as I'm calling it.

Recently...

Judgment day…

This past Tuesday, the American people demonstrated once again that they heard the call of Liberty and have come running.

The third nationwide election and Republicans got their walking papers handed to them once again.

They may rail against change and call it corrupt all they want.

But change comes like the rising of the sun without our permission.

It's a beautiful thing when you're in harmony with the tide.

The nature of the universe is based on one truth.

Everything changes.

You can't stop the sun rising.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Rule of Law

On the playground in fourth grade is where it all starts.

A rule is laid down concerning kickball, defining the boundary of a foul ball.

Most of the kids understand.

A few take that rule and write it in stone.

It's the beginning of a lifetime of two outwardly similar individuals living under two different expectations.

The heart of the law and the letter of the law.

The letter of the law says you can't cross the street when the light is against you.

The heart of the law says I'm rushing to the bathroom before I have an accident.

The letter of the law person believes you should fill your pants; those are the rules.

The letter is hard.

The heart is soft.

Two different types of people living side by side in the same office, the same job, the same family.

It's almost 5 o'clock. I'll go home now.

I have to wait till after 5 before I clock out.

Rules have to be obeyed, or society will break apart.

Rules are ethical up to a point, but circumstance has to be taken into account.

The heart of the law, individuals will always jump to the end of the book and read the last page.

The letter of the law, individuals will dutifully read each and every page till they get to the end.

No skipping.

The heart of the law person will play their music loud after 10 pm because they are in the mood.

The letter of the law person will call the police and report a noise violation.

The heart doesn't temper its designs with practicality; it jumps.

It is emotional; it rushes to the end, knowing its conclusion is correct because it feels it.

It feels it.

The letter takes each step in a decision with precision, with effort, step by step, the procedure followed by procedure, never making a judgment until all the facts are known.

Neither is helpful.

Neither has a grasp on reality.

Neither helps move humanity towards a better day.

Each, in its own unique way, keeps on holding humanity back from advancing.

Advancing towards a better day, towards a real brotherhood of man.

Each can learn a lot from the other.

The letter needs to be tempered and internalized, as circumstance plays a significant role in all of our decisions.

The heart needs to develop the patience to let all the facts come out before proclaiming what is right and what is wrong.

Our nation has been wrestling with the letter and the heart of the law for a good long while now.

Who is the law for?

Who is the law against?

Who does the law work for?

The President believes he is above the law of the United States, which he represents.

There are people in the House and Senate and in the media who agree with him.

They believe that the Constitution is in error.

They believe that the President sets what is real and what isn't real.

My question is, what happened to law and order?

What happened that so many of our representatives believe they are exempt from the laws that they write?

The laws that the administration is to enforce.

The laws that the judiciary is to adjudicate.

How can they defend injustice?

How can they exempt themselves from justice?

How can they support criminality?

How can political tyranny within a party be justified?

What happened to all those individuals who believed in the letter and the heart of the law?

They may have been stick-in-the-muds, but they could be counted on to do the right thing when everything was said and done.

What is it that binds them to this President, who shall go unnamed?

They are so tightly wound about this President that they would abandon their rigid principles of law.

Case in point...

Secretary and Ambassador John Bolton.

Has a point of view.

A person who has expressed a belief in the rule of law.

A person who worked with and around a group of people who do not believe in the American Experiment.

He traveled and networked with people in this administration who looked to subvert the Constitution to maintain their power and accumulate personal wealth.

Is he okay with this?

Has he also been corrupted?

I say this all in bewilderment because what was up is now down, and what was down is up.

Republicans and Democrats have traditionally disagreed with each other over how to cut or raise taxes.

Not how much of the Constitution they were going to agree with or burn.

A real palpable sickness has entered into the minds and hearts of our conservative brothers and sisters.

It may be caused by a weariness of our rocket-speed societal changes.

A weariness caused by the stress of too much too fast.

With no way of digesting and integrating change into their lives.

Conservatives, liberals.

Tortoise and rabbits.

Slow, fast.

Different but two outward-facing ideals of the same coin.

Conservatives and liberals don't see eye to eye because they are back to back.

They need each other more than they know.

Conservatives in our nation have a fever.

We liberals need to show our compassion and be the hope that they need.

We have to lift the hate they're holding onto.

We have to reach out and demonstrate that we can walk the walk and talk the talk.

We have to let them know we have their backs.

We have to support them and help them see past their fear.

We just can't sit around and hope things will be better.

We can't have just the letter or just the heart of the law.

Reconcile and find the truth together.

That's how democracy heals.

That's how freedom rings.

That's how justice sings.

That's how hope works.

Be the hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Costs of Freedom

The rain comes down.

The refrigerator is empty.

Nothing in the cupboard but crackers.

Standing at the window, the grey sky barely moves.

Silence in this box on a hill.

Yet in my head, the thunder of disquiet rolls and rolls and rolls.

I could go out?

But I'd get wet.

The umbrella is broken from the last time I used it.

The last time I tried to resist, I resisted the elements.

I recheck the sky for any change in the weather, but no, it's still the same outside.

Maybe things will change in a little while.

I'll read to pass the time.

Celebrity news, no…

Sports, the World Series, is a no-brainer.

Children are being killed.

Parents in terror.

Legislators seeking the truth and its potential implications.

Legislators are playing games with the Constitution.

Tyrants and their disciples thumb their noses at justice.

Fall and spring, I may never see it come back in my lifetime…

Is it still raining outside?

Yes, it's still coming down; it looks like there is no slowing down.

I'm hungry.

Maybe there's something I missed in the cupboard?

Maybe way in the back?

Nothing.

I drink a glass of water.

I check back at the window.

The rain falls…

Damn it, I'm going to have to do something.

I go to the bathroom.

I brush my teeth.

Thunder shakes the room.

It's gotten worse outside.

I turn back to the sink and look in the mirror.

I look at my reflection and ask What are you going to do now?

What are you going to do?

The thing I want, the thing I need, is not outside.

It's in me.

It's within my power to change the weather.

To better my life and my community.

What's kept me inside?

Fear.

Fear of the unknown.

Fear of failure.

Fear of being uncomfortable with the truth.

Fear of the revelation that all that I thought was true is not.

Fear of beginning again.

I put on my coat and hat and rushed to the door.

I pull it open without hesitation.

The rain falls, and falls, and falls…

I put my hand out and feel the rain soak my hand.

Looking up into the sky, the rain washes over my face, over my eyes, and into my heart.

A sound...

I look over at my neighbors, and they, too, have stepped out to resist the climate.

We take each other's hands and are soon joined by more than we can count.

Drop hate.

Lift hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

To Fight For My Neighbor

Who is my brother?

Who is my sister?

The tie that binds us all together is an awareness of combined interest.

That interest centers upon the knowledge that if you are free, so am I.

And to tell you the truth, we who fight for freedom are not the only ones who recognize the fact of this freedom.

The power brokers, the aristocrats, the kings, the princes, the tyrants, the President, and the crime bosses all know this truth.

That's why tyrants spend so much time and effort fighting against freedom.

You see a free people; a free person is not afraid.

Fear is the enemy of free people.

Fear is used to find the cracks in the resilient nature of free people.

Fear loves to sow the seeds of doubt and anxiety in society.

Fear will break apart the strongest alliance.

Fear will destroy a community, a society, and the individual.

We can never allow fear to govern who we are, to become fools to cower and capitulate to bullies.

To fight for my neighbor.

The concept of standing up for what is right, to stand with, and for those who can and cannot stand for themselves is not inherent in our human nature.

The self, the ego, governs our actions. 

It dictates to us to preserve ourselves at all costs.

Compassion is learned.

Caring for others is passed down through traditions as well as personal human interactions.

I was hungry, and you fed me.

I was lost, and you found me.

I was under attack, and you defended me.

I was sick, and you cared for me.

The act of stepping out of one's own ego into the realm of compassion for others is the core of what it means to be superhuman.

When you take the time out of your day to go vote, you are exercising your superhuman powers, your empathy, by demonstrating your compassion for your community.

The knowledge that freedom is the essential wellspring for all society is why we fight for our neighbor.

I give my vote so you, too, can live a better life.

I pay my taxes so we all can drink clean water.

I drive defensively because your life is meaningful, too.

Agreed upon norms of society.

I will fight those who oppose your freedom to live a good life, too.

Anger at the world is fertile ground into which fear plants seeds of hate.

There is no doubt that anger, hate, and fear have a profit goal.

The merchants of arms sales, drug sales, human trafficking, religion, gambling, charities, and the energy industry all profit greatly through the use and destruction of human lives.

Many of them have significant PR and marketing stories that keep the prying eyes of the average citizen from asking too many questions about how they make their profit.

It is why holy hell rains down upon anyone who dares question the merchants of fear by defying them and calling out their toadies and industries.

They don't want the apple cart, their access to unlimited profit, and their feeding at the hog trough of human destruction to end.

So when someone stands and says I will fight for my neighbor, it is why ridicule is heaped upon them.

To fight for my neighbor.

Today, Rep. Elijah Cummings from Baltimore, the son of a sharecropper, passed from the earth.

Elijah stood in the doorway and told fear to back off.

He got up every day, joyful to join the fight for freedom and justice.

Like so many before him, he, too, has passed the torch to each of us.

The fight is eternal, but also real is the promise of everlasting love.

Pick up that light and fight for your neighbor.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Justice Now

Justice now.

A child can't wait ten years to be fed.

A People who march in the streets, asking for freedom, can't wait for someday to arrive.

You can't ask justice to wait for a tyrant who brutalizes their nation and the world to give themselves up.

Time doesn't wait for any of us.

Time doesn't wait for those who are afraid.

Those who have been given the reins of power by us need to check themselves.

They need to check themselves now.

Justice now.

That family was killed by bombs falling. How long will history wait for justice?

That woman was assaulted by a powerful man; how long is she supposed to wait to ask for her attacker to be prosecuted?

How long has it been for some men and women to know they are responsible for despair?

Telling justice to wait is justice denied.

The very act of saying "wait" is a conscious act of tyranny.

That thing, that dark beast we fight with, is the tyranny of men over other men.

Today, I said politics is an amoral belief system.

Politics, at its roots, is sociopathic.

It doesn't care if it does right or wrong; it only believes in what results are effective to win.

To keep power.

But now, here and now, this very moment in time, the nation, the world, is awakening.

The world, through social media, has broken bubbles of isolation.

Those institutions, those isolations that were safe behind their barriers of public relations, of the story they told about themselves, are being revealed as lies.

Lies.

What is being exposed is the amoral positions, the amoral platforms of all of our institutions.

The fact that our institutions are willing to sacrifice you and me so that they can maintain the status quo is the rule by which they live.

In government, there is no Jimmy Stewart, as in the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, who will stand on their own for justice.

And then the masses, seeing their failing, have a redemptive moment, a come-to-Jesus minute, and rally around Jimmy, proclaiming liberty throughout the land.

That's a sweet story, but it's not reality.

What we see in Washington is the reality.

A bully on one side, daring anyone to step across the line in the sand.

On the other side, a group passes notes to each other condemning the bully, which the bully chews up and spits back.

What is at the heart of this all?

It is simply nihilism.

Nothing matters.

Social media has also revealed that too many of us are not willing to put actions behind where our ideals stand.

We are too willing to let that guy be beaten by a cop.

We are too willing to let that woman be shouted down.

We are too willing to let people be bombed because they're over there.

We are too willing to let the rich steal from the poor.

We are too willing to believe the evil in our ears, telling us that we can't stop it, so why do anything?

Justice now.

This country is built upon the ideal of freedom.

But do people deserve freedom if they are not willing to stand for it?

You simply have to say no!

We, as a people, have to stop being a helicopter parent and grow a spine, be decisive, and tell the children in the White House, "No!"

This problem in Washington with this President is not going to be solved by giving him and his henchmen a time-out.

They are not going to be stopped by taking away their access to their phone.

Grounding them.

Telling them that they need to treat other people better.

The wolf is not stopped by moral principles on a nice letterhead.

Now.

Now is always the right time to do right.

Now, hear the cry; now, feel the despair; now, be the wave that lifts hope.

Justice now.

Justice now.

Justice now.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Defiance

Give me liberty or give me death.

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

There comes a time when silence is betrayal.

You're not supposed to be so blinded by patriotism that you can't face reality; wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.

Defiance.

A word.

Used by men and women who stood against the tide of injustice throughout the history of our world.

The defiant.

Heroes of truth.

When no one around them would stand to stop the tide of tyranny, they stood in opposition.

They sent a shot across the bow of corruption that continues to resonate today.

Defiance.

Defiance in the act of standing against the dark heart of humanity is what we all can recognize as having a true spirit of compassion.

Yet today, on the lawn of the White House, a President stood in defiance of our Constitution.

He stood defiant to our traditions.

He spits in the face of our ministers of the fourth estate.

He dares those sworn to uphold the law to investigate him.

He mocked the legislative branch for its duty to the country and the American people.

His retort?

So what…

Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.*

When the President stands before us and points his finger at all those who are corrupt around him, it's blatantly clear that he's blaming everyone else for why his hand is in the cookie jar.

Damn, the defiant.

This President is not playing political games.

He is not a chess master.

He does not have prescience beyond his own self-interest.

He's highly capable of acting reasonably.

He can pretend, to a minimal extent, that he knows about statecraft.

But bottom line, as a sociopath, it's all an act.

It's an act, folks.

He has learned from many criminal mentors throughout his life how to dodge and deflect when the good guys are on your trail.

There is enough public information about who this President has rubbed elbows with, starting with his father Fred, the original slum lord, to Jeffrey Epstein, to Kim, to MSB, to Putin, to Xi, that he does not care for the truth.

Learning from one tyrant to the next in his life, he has learned how to skate on the edge of legality and get away with crimes.

You are known by the company you keep.

It should now be abundantly clear that this person in the Presidency is not like any of the other occupants of that office since his hero, Andrew Jackson.

Even our American society had grown since Jackson's days when the President owned slaves and committed genocide against native peoples.

We don't accept that as a high mark in our society, do we?

Some of us recognize that this current occupant of the White House has an obvious problem with the truth.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi recognized that this President would impeach himself.

How could she know that?

Speaker Pelosi must know sociopaths like I know sociopaths that they will keep on doing wrong for their own benefit, come hell or high water.

They can't stop on their own.

Someone or something has to draw a line in the sand.

Someone has to be…

Defiant.

We, meaning both sides of the color divide in this nation, red and blue, Republican and Democrat, have to stand.

We have to stand now as a people in defense of our Constitution.

This isn't political.

This is a defense of our freedom from an individual and his henchmen who want to subvert our rights for their profit.

Their orgasm is more important to them than our collective welfare.

The President and his henchmen will stand their ground in defiance.

They will dare us to have the courage of our convictions to come for them.

Like petulant adolescents, they will scream and cry unfair, everyone is corrupt, and you're corrupt for even trying to stop us.

You're ignorant, unjust, traitors...

Republicans and Democrats must unite as the adults in the room.

It's time to give this President and his posse a timeout.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

*wikipedia.com

Backbone

Many lifeforms on our planet do not have a rigid spine.

Jellyfish are a type.

So are insects that are hard on the outside but soft in the middle.

Broadly, lifeforms without spines are called invertebrates.

Strangely, we as a people have decided that we prefer our elected leaders to be spineless insects.

Collectively, politicians do not have spines.

No backbone.

They look like you and me but for one crucial difference.

They have to be given cover to react.

You won't find a politician rushing into harm's way.

Like cockroaches, they won't scurry about if the lights are on.

That is, unless the herd, everyone else, is also rushing in to save the day.

The politician can always be counted on last.

Politicians are not leaders.

Politicians' morals are bendable.

Politicians can be said to be afraid of their own constituents, who put them into office.

They are malleable.

They blow with the wind.

To stand upon a principle of morality, of justice, they have to have a shield behind which they can take cover.

It's just about damn impossible to find a politician who will stand up by themselves for principle, even if it's in our Constitution.

Two or more standing together, yes.

As long as standing together serves an immediate purpose.

Our ideal of a congressman and senator is a fiction that makes a good story.

The bold individual representing the constituent doing our work for us so we don't have to be there in the boring halls of the legislature.

But the reality is indeed something entirely different.

This past week, something or someone handed out backbones to our legislative branch of the federal government.

Like lifeless puppets, one moment, suddenly, the Blue Fairy came through the window and made them real boys and girls.

Was it the President and his double-dog dare, "You can't bring me to justice; I can do anything I want," that gifted them with a backbone?

Were there high crimes we don't know about yet?

Was it a tiny spark of duty they pledged to uphold to protect us, the people, and our document, the Constitution of the United States of America?

You never see 100 percent of anything these days.

But this week, 421 congressmen and women, 100 senators, male and female, agreed that the whistleblower should be heard.

That was a disturbance in the Force.

Something shifted.

Something fell off the shelf.

Something lit a watchfire on the mountain peak of Rohan.

Politicians are not used to having a backbone.

Don't expect them to be comfortable with it for long.

Like toddlers learning how to walk, they will stand, stumble, and fall…

But they will get up again.

It's something unpredictable.

Those of us on the front lines calling for help to defend our Republic have looked behind us and have lamented that there is no cavalry coming to save us.

No Hail Mary.

No plot twist.

We were doomed to a no-win outcome for justice.

Yet when the world seems darkest, and please trust me as one who can speak about life after a fall, life always finds a way.

Even jellyfish can rise together under a common cause.

Life versus darkness.

Justice versus injustice.

Truth versus deception.

Corruption, tyrants, and criminals all have a blind spot.

You see, darkness cannot see into the light.

Darkness assumes the motivations of the light are the same as theirs.

We who live in the light know that is not true.

We do not seek profit, power, or wealth when we do right.

We do right because it is right.

We don't need thanks when we extend our compassion and our love to help others.

That is where the darkness of man's soul always makes its fatal error.

Tyrants can be counted on like clockwork to be evil.

Good men and women can't be counted on to stand for goodness every time.

Just like this President, it can be counted upon to impeach itself.

Do right.

Drop hate.

Lift hope.

Show your backbone.

The world will be better for it.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Impossible

Steve Martin said once that it was impossible to put a Cadillac up your nose.

There are impossibilities.

You can't build a stairway to the moon.

There is no way to stop time.

I will never be an Olympic athlete.

Impossibilities are limits.

Limits define the extent of expectations.

Humanity has and continues to impose limits on itself.

What it believes to be impossible.

We can't provide housing for free.

We can't educate those people.

We can't feed you unless you work for it.

We can't provide for your safety because that would limit our access to guns.

The Constitution can't be changed.

You are not equal to me.

Those people are lazy.

I'm a winner, you're a loser.

A good portion of humanity believes that the world is set in stone.

Or it should be.

Belief in the power of the impossible means shelter from reality for too many of us.

If equal rights are impossible, why even try?

If the 2nd Amendment can't be changed, just shut up and bury the dead.

If a President won't sign a bill, why would we want to talk about that?

Belief in the impossible allows the shallow-minded evil of low expectations and high personal interest to hide behind a straw man.

It is the foundation of nihilism.

Nihilism rejects the value of your life and mine.

It is the Bible from which the sociopath preaches.

Incidentally, that's a bit of irony because the nihilist rejects all religious and moral principles.

From its conception, the idea of nihilism was created as an intellectual canard.

It is a dull instrument used to smash the ties that bind humanity together.

Like a plow forced into the solid ground of society, it turns over the soil of compassion and destroys trust.

Nihilism is the acid that is thrown onto hope.

Nihilism is the friend of the tyrant.

That tyrant is only limited by their access to power.

Not all of us know a dictator personally, but we do have a relative or friend who believes it's impossible to make change.

Isn't there always someone who says that's impossible, why would you bother, don't waste your time, you can't do that?

Why do these people in our lives want to set a limit on the possible?

Who are they?

What is it they want?

They want you and me to live in fear.

They are your brother and sister, your friend, your parent, your relative, your pastor, priest, Rabi, police, congressman, senator, and President.

Fear is used by tyrants to manage expectations.

Fear is used to keep the possible from happening.

There are a lot of people selling fear these days, aren't there?

There are a lot of people throwing a rope around expectations and trying to pull it back in.

Trying to keep things from changing.

They can feel the world tipping up onto its side and all the pieces on the chessboard of life falling out of place.

They like order their order.

They don't want to share a lunch counter with a person with brown skin.

They don't want to buy a cake from a Gay baker.

They don't want strangers coming to their country.

They don't want you to have a home and a hot meal.

Their god told them that the world was only for them and not for all of us.

We're upsetting the apple cart.

We need to sit down because we're rocking the boat of their expectations.

Some of these people are so angry that they will kill us because we believe in the possible.

Their belief in fear is that deep.

Their oneness with hate knows no limit.

Can the ocean keep from rushing to the shore? 

It's just impossible.

Can you stop justice from exposing the evil plots of mankind?

It's just impossible.

Can you stop the Brotherhood of Man from filling our hearts with hope? It's just impossible.

That sentiment you hear in our country echoes down that street where a guy is being beaten.

That sound you hear is when voices shout for the re-establishment of our democracy.

That sound you hear is the feet marching for our human right to exist free from fear.

We are the ones to take up the challenge to make the impossible possible.

Don't say no, say yes, I can.

Do right.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Party Planner

Do you let your crazy uncle plan Thanksgiving dinner?

Every family has one.

A crazy relative sits at the end of the table, declaring how the world should be if they were in charge.

Everyone in the family knows who they are, the crazy one.

They don't discuss it.

They simply tell each other that they are "that way."

The crazy, loud, opinioned relative sitting at the end of the table.

Are they allowed to bring the main course by the host?

The dessert?

Do they get to plan any games?

Do they get to decide who sits where?

Do they make any real decisions that will affect the outcome of the meal and gathering?

The wise answer should be no, they do not.

Allowing them any hand in the decision-making would make them the official party pooper.

The party pooper.

Every family has one.

Sometimes three...

Fact in point, 1 in 25 people in the U.S. are officially party poopers.

Psychology defines them as sociopaths.

See The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, PH.D.

They're not serial killers, as depicted in the movies if that's what you're thinking.

No.

The sociopath has many faces.

They are both male and female.

And that face is always turned towards admiring themselves.

They know the difference between right and wrong, but they will do either to achieve what they want.

They see no difference between good and evil.

What is paramount in their lives is what I call the thing that gives them their orgasm.

It doesn't mean sex, but it can undoubtedly be sex.

It can also be power and wealth.

Power over the conversation at the dinner table or at the negotiation table, at lunch, in the car, in the board room, and in the bedroom.

Wealth is stolen out of the community and society or out of your wallet.

Sex is taken from individuals with low self-esteem who believe the physical contact means the other person cares about them, that it is love.

The sociopath cares only for themselves and their orgasm.

That's all they care about.

All they dream about.

They scheme and lie to achieve their goals.

It is why you don't allow the sociopath to have a part in your dinner plans.

They will let you down every time.

Because if it doesn't get them off, they'll lie their way out of it.

But in their own way, you can always count on them to act the same way every time at every event.

They will be the party pooper.

They will spoil your event.

They will spoil your nation.

They will spoil your life.

They will destroy your party.

If you know 100 people, it's a good bet that 4 of them are sociopaths to one degree or another.

Regular sociopaths up to and including megalomaniacs.

We have one in our family who destroyed our lives for a time until we recovered.

That's why I know the intimate realities behind the mask that the sociopath hides behind.

Our nation has a sociopath right now as President.

It's taking a while for some of our other elected leaders, as well as the media, to come to the conclusion that the leader of the free world has a personality disorder.

Just like in my own circle of family and friends, it took a long while before some realized there was a problem.

While others still refuse to acknowledge the problem, it remains a concern today.

Just as in our national discourse, the good people keep holding on to the hope that the evil person will change.

Good people are ingrained with the idea of redemption.

However, redemption works as a practice only if the person who needs redemption wants it.

Sociopaths see redemption as a weakness.

They don't care whether they do good or evil; they'll tell you what you want to hear so you'll get off their backs.

They are incapable, the sociopaths, of having a moral dilemma because they have no morals.

They are extraordinary human beings because they have no empathy whatsoever.

None.

Are you getting the picture of why you don't want them planning your next Thanksgiving dinner?

That crazy relative can have a place at the table, but there are some things you cannot, as a person of goodwill, allow them to do.

You can't have them give the blessing.

They can't give a toast.

You can't have them set the table.

You can't let them have control of the conversation.

You can't let them plan for the future.

You can't let them be President of a Nation.

You have to plan around them yourself.

That's some free advice to the Congress and the Senate.

Take it for what it is worth.

You don't have to know what I know about sociopaths being party poopers.

You're getting a mouthful of first-hand experience right now.

Try not to choke.

The misery will keep on coming until the day you say stop.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Barstool Knowledge

Washington never told a lie.

Twinkies can never spoil.

You must wait 24 hours before reporting a person missing.

Buddha was fat.

Adam and Eve ate an apple.

Jesus was born on December 25.

Obama is from Kenya.

Barstool knowledge.

The things that people tell each other while consuming their drugs of choice.

Barstool knowledge is defined by another term, one-upmanship.

That lame practice in a conversation where one person shares an experience and a round-robin follows, with everyone else saying how their experience tops the previous one.

Barstool knowledge starts out reasonably innocent.

A white lie that metamorphs as it's told from one barstool to the next until a worm becomes a fire-breathing dragon.

It's been a fact of human society since one monkey sat on a branch next to another.

When one monkey said that the sky-God told them that they had to give them half their food or the sky-God would become angry.

I don't see the sky-God.

That's correct, but he can see you.

Oh, yes, I must obey; here's half my food said the first monkey.

Happy in the belief that once appeased, the sky-God would no longer send them misfortune.

It's interesting how easily any of us can succumb to barstool knowledge.

Barstool knowledge is generally easy to hear from your uncle, aunt, father, mother, brother, sister, or friend, who at every family gathering causes that uncomfortable moment.

When the uncle tells that racist joke, everyone chuckles but is really embarrassed.

The party guest exclaims their story is a joke, but everyone knows it is true.

Barstool knowledge.

Psychology informs us it's because it feeds our expectations.

Our prejudice.

Our individual experience.

Our fear.

But our individual experience does not necessarily mean it conforms to reality.

We meet one jerk, and because there is this inherent need in humans to categorize, we label everyone similar to that one person as a jerk.

We had an unfavorable encounter with an individual, and we will likely view similar people as jerks as well.

Barstool knowledge.

None of it is valid.

It gives comfort to ignorance.

It pads the truth and keeps reality out of our minds.

It sponges away our responsibility to others as well as to ourselves.

Barstool knowledge is an adolescent mind preferring a lie to the truth.

A preference for fantasy, the way we wish the world should be, the world should be under our control, there to please us, not as it really is.

Speaking of barstool knowledge...

This past week, the President took it up a notch and demonstrated his lifelong affiliation and confirmation of his Doctoral degree in barstool knowledge.

If you are not familiar, the President used direct quotes from fascist leaders of WWII Germany to say he was the chosen one and that Jews are not loyal to our democracy.

He also said he was the second coming of Christ.

He was, in fact, Jesus, the economy is the greatest ever, we have great background checks, climate change is a hoax, Putin played Obama, the President wants world peace, U.S. citizens aren't paying his tariffs, did I say he said he was Jesus to the Jews and that was all in three days?

The President indeed demonstrated his barstool knowledge of theology, specifically regarding Judaism, as well as his professed love of Christianity.

He's a sociopath!

I said, sociopath.

I have had and continue to have direct experience with a sociopath.

Now you do, too, if you are residing in this Republic under this President.

They live in a world created in their own minds, shaped by their perception of the world and how it exists for them alone.

Their reality is in their mind and has nothing to do with the group's experience with reality.

At its core, sociopathy is a self-defense mechanism that allows the individual to survive in an adverse world.

However, sociopaths are not conducive to a stable government, a stable economy, and stable relationships, both personal and impersonal.

You can never pin a sociopath down to the truth; they are experts at moving their own goalposts.

It is also conclusive that sociopaths attract other sociopaths.

That's why all those people with barstool knowledge are so drawn and attracted to their messiah.

Sociopaths, at their core, cannot and will not ever share.

Like Homer Simpson at the buffet table, they will take the whole tray of fried shrimp with them back to their table and consume it alone.

The world is their shrimp buffet, for one.

The only thing that will ever stop a sociopath and their followers is a consequence.

Something or someone has to draw a line in the sand and say stop.

They will not do it on their own.

They will not recognize that the house is on fire and call for help.

They will not, for any reason in heaven or hell, stop on their own accord from wreaking havoc.

Only the good people, the good people who, with conviction and moral purpose, have the ability to stand before this President and tell him to stop.

The confidence and insistence upon the belief in barstool knowledge is so deep…

How deep?

Have you ever tried to persuade someone to abandon their religion?

It's that deep.

I'm reminded of the beloved song "We Shall Overcome."

The only way that the Brotherhood of Man can be made to come true is if the good people stop allowing the bad ones a seat at the table of peace.

These sociopaths only want to turn the table over and take everything for themselves.

Peace is not an option.

We've got to stop allowing relatives or friends to tell racial jokes.

We've got to call out the fan at the sports game for yelling a gender slur.

We must walk together, arm in arm with those who want a better world, and step over and around those who don't.

They're rocks on the path of brotherhood.

Step lively past them.

We have to understand that we can't save everybody, only those who want to be saved.

Here's some real knowledge to drop.

Love expects more of everyone every day.

Tell the uncle to pass the potatoes, act civil, or leave the table.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Liberty

They who can give up essential Liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither Liberty nor safety.

Better to die fighting for freedom than be a prisoner all the days of your life.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it, not for themselves.

If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

Liberty and justice for all.

The thread that binds our civil society together is being pulled thin once again.

Benjamin Franklin, Bob Marley, Lincoln, and Orwell speak from their experience of those who would deny Liberty to others.

The other being you and I.

The foundation of the idea that all men are free is found in the expression of Liberty.

For all its failings, our democracy has agreed upon a belief in the inalienable rights of its citizens and in the people of the world to their right to Liberty and justice.

Patriots, known and unknown, in the halls of Congress, in the halls of tenements, have fought the good fight against the ignorance of the selfish.

We were the first nation on Earth to put our principles of freedom to the test.

The Great American Experiment.

Could we, the people, form a government for the people and not to the benefit of one person, one party, one corporation, one religion, and one ethnicity?

Could we overcome our inherent selfishness as a species and, together, promote the general welfare of all peoples?

Could we overcome?

No country in the world had declared for itself a challenge like this before.

No king, no prince, no czar, no queen, no business leader, and no religious leader declared that the average man had the right to independence.

Independence of thought, of congregation, of vote, of movement, of association, of speech, of press, of religion, of petition, or grievance to your government.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

Liberty and justice for all.

We demand our freedom.

The freedom-loving people of the world admired us.

In the hearts of some nations, a bond of friendship and kinship was recognized.

France gave this nation a gift, an emblem of what the American people stood for in the world.

Freedom.

Americans fought with themselves for freedom.

They fought in the world for freedom.

They welcomed all those who came to their shore seeking freedom.

What better emblem than Liberty to stand with her torch held up high so that all could see the open door to that land high upon the hill of human ideals.

Even when the foundations were laid for the statue, the grinding teeth of the selfish demanded that the door be shut.

There's no more room.

No more room?

The ignorant are consistent in their narrow beliefs and perspectives.

Freedom has arms as wide as the universe.

Liberty encompasses all of time.

Justice is forever.

Love will always demand more.

As people who believe in love, we can do more than one thing at a time.

Freedom is not just for you; freedom asks you to extend that same freedom to everyone.

Liberty is not just for America; it is for every nation on the globe.

Justice is not just for one race; it is for all genders, creeds, and colors.

To think, to express that this ideal should go away strikes at the core of who we are as a people.

It is the exact opposite of those who believe in humanity.

It is the voice of hate.

It is the cruelty of selfishness.

It is the criminal mind that believes that might make right.

It is the voice of the self-ignorant.

The hateful seem to have a short memory.

They act as if they have come upon some brand-new idea that none of us has ever heard before.

They boldly stand before us and proclaim hate and selfishness as a cure for all the problems in the world.

As if none of us haven't heard it all before and have rejected it.

Each and every generation has rejected hate because of where it leads.

Hate leads any society that fosters it to a death sentence.

The forces of good, taken as being weak, will rise up and wash away the ugliness of hate.

This President and his sponsors and supporters little realize the sand upon which they stand.

Ask history, where are all the tyrants now?

Where are their statues?

Where are their people?

How are they remembered?

Now, ask where the leaders who promoted the general welfare are?

Who pushed for freedom?

Who demanded Liberty and justice for all?

Where are their people?

We're still here.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Lost on Purpose

An old pair of shoes was left behind.

A broken umbrella was put under a bench.

Chewed gum stuck on a pole. 

We've all left things behind on purpose because they no longer served us.

We left things behind because we wanted to.

It wasn't by accident that we left our clothes on the floor. 

We did it on purpose because we were too tired or just plain lazy to do the right thing and put them in the laundry. 

We all have left things behind, but what about people?

That sibling who couldn't keep their nose out of our business. 

The co-worker is always talking about how great their family is. 

The clerk at the grocery store asks how we are feeling. 

People can be left behind, too. 

We leave them on purpose.

They have become an annoyance to be avoided. 

The spouse whom we once loved, we now can no longer stand.

We go to court and have the legal system divorce us from our emotions. 

We use institutions of varying sizes to mitigate our responsibilities. 

Our religions keep us separate from those who don't believe like us. 

Our commercial organizations segregate us, allowing us to do business only with those like us. 

Political charities, we give our support to fight to keep alliances from forming. 

The communities in which we live are there to keep in those like us and keep out those not like us. 

And our police force for our communities is there to serve and protect, to discriminate who can enter and who cannot.

Lost on purpose. 

There are those among us who have lost their humanity on purpose. 

They desire the riches of the world at the expense of their own soul. 

They protect their right to kill who they want when they want, without regard to who they make afraid. 

A belief that strength at any cost is right. 

They have freely given away their humanity to gain freedom from responsibility to their fellow man. 

They hate you and me.

We represent the other. 

The taker.

They only see a limited world. 

A limit to wealth, to prosperity, to food, to shelter, to compassion. 

Their compassion extends only to the length of their own fingertips. 

Have you ever tried to make someone give up their religion? 

The person who has left their humanity behind intentionally is unlikely to be persuaded to reclaim it.

Their religion is the hatred of mankind.

They have made a life choice. 

No argument is going to make them turn their eyes and look at you or me with love. 

They only see us as so much dirt beneath their feet to step on and over. 

Again, when was the last time you went back to the trash pile where you left those old shoes 25 years ago and retrieved them? 

People who have left their humanity behind are not searching for it. 

They're happy hating.

They are happy hating you and me.

Our President is happy helping them hate. 

Hate has brought him power. 

Hate has delivered him respect. 

Hate fills his bank accounts with wealth. 

Why would he stop hating, certainly not for you and me?

He and his re-election campaign are banking on hate. 

The Republican Party continues to put up bank on hate.

A long time ago, in a decade not too far away... 

The Republican party employed the Southern Strategy during Nixon's election. It was an invitation to a free lunch given to all those segregationists and racists still burrowed into the 'Olde Democratic Party.'

You see, the old racists had their largest membership in the Democratic Party before the Civil Rights movement of the 60s.

They had been there since the Civil War.

Johnson made the racists uncomfortable in the party when he signed the bill ending segregation.

Segregation was the ideal of being separate but equal.

Whites and nonwhites would not share, but they would have 'equal access.'

That never happened, that equal access thing.

Blacks and all nonwhites were discriminated against.

The racists accepted the invitation in a common cause with the business conservatives of the GOP, whom they mutually enjoyed their discrimination against brown people and women.

Then and now, racists have a belief that there are more haters in our Republic than soft-hearted, soft-headed people. 

Conservatives have had this bone they've been chewing since the end of the Civil War, believing that America has been waiting for its great hate awakening. 

A belief that we all hate; we just don't realize it, and we need to embrace it.

Just like when the Emperor told Luke to embrace the dark side.

The belief that America is racist conservative, not liberal. 

Conservative America can't believe that brown people, women, and gays are equal to a white man. 

It is remarkable how self-fulfilling this worldview is of conservatives and hate. 

The darkness they have created for themselves and their adoption of this worldview, which involves hating the stranger, blinds them to the message of love. 

Because of this blind hate, they can't see the writing on the wall.

The sack they wear on their heads forces them to rebreathe the same old tired air. 

They can't hear the voices in the street. 

They only recognize their own closed-minded communities of hate and mistake violence for the inevitability of what they see as a just cause. 

Through their strength, they are right.

They can't hear someone like me say that racist sentiment is pure evil. 

That sentiment is the sword on which so many warriors for love have fought against. 

It is the monster that tears apart nations, communities, families, and individuals. 

So certain is the darkness of the outcome of this battle with love. 

The darkness of the soul has a very short memory.

Since its only interest is self, it doesn't recognize outcomes. 

It doesn't realize the motivation created by one child crying. 

It doesn't realize the feet it puts on the street with each mass shooting. 

It doesn't see what the death of one brown person can do to the outcome in the voting booth. 

It doesn't hear the chant… 

Do something. 

We are not afraid. 

We shall overcome… 

Today. 

Peace 

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Gone

Standing on the corner waiting for the ice cream man.

Seeing the Wizard of Oz only once a year on TV.

LPs, 45s, CDs, cassette tapes, VHS, Super 8.

S&H Green Stamps.

Manual typewriters.

White-only counters.

Single-sex public restrooms.

50-cent coffee.

Stockings.

Compassion.

Charity.

Civic courage.

Responsibility.

Leadership.

Consequences.

Justice.

Reason.

Common ground.

United States.

Gone…

Vanished...

Like a thief in the night, America awoke to find its house empty.

A shell in which individuals cannot see each other because of the hate that wraps their heads like a blindfold.

Those things that were once so familiar that we could touch, see, and hold onto vanished like a mirage.

America has awakened from its dream of ideals.

A dream that reassured its people that everything would be okay.

Everyone was going to have justice.

No one was above the law of the land.

No one was above the law...

Like a dream, as the hours and days pass, that dream becomes increasingly harder to recall.

Email, texts, news, social media, entertainment, sports, school, job, and lifestyle —none of these aspects of our daily experiences speak to a healthy Community.

None of it brings two people together over a common piece of ground.

Gone are the ties that once bound each of us to each other.

Where did they go?

Who took it?

Who is responsible?

We are.

You and me together.

We did it.

We destroyed the American dream.

Dreams do not vanish on their own.

To make a dream come true, you have to work to make it real.

Otherwise, a dream, including the American Dream, is a story with no more relevance to reality than any other dream.

Understand how, when someone tries to tell you their dream, we don't really listen to what they are saying?

Dreams require individuals and society to strive every day to reach for the dream of a better tomorrow.

Dreams require you and me to march against giants.

Dreams require us, no matter how beaten down or how tired, to stand once again and say the ignorance of mankind will not rule our lives.

Like a dream, those American ideals that are gone are only out of sight, not out of mind.

The mind can bend time and space.

The mind can span the distance between you and me; we can see each other and know we want the same things.

We strive for good work that will provide us with a fulfilling life.

We want to be free of living in fear.

We want hope.

We need a new American dream.

The old dream was at its heart only for the few.

This new dream should align with the truth revealed by this President, his administration, and his believers.

This President demonstrates the truth that ignorance never goes away.

The truth is one political movement, conservatives, courted that ignorant vote and have no intention of letting that vote go.

We, the people, the majority, must recognize that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Ain't going to happen.

We ain't going to convince ignorant racist Americans they should just give up everything they know to be true and join us.

That's absurd!

We need to take that dime in our hand that we were going to give to the ice cream man and find ourselves another corner to stand on.

Those brothers and sisters are not going to follow us to a better community for everyone.

They won't get on the Freedom Train.

This means we shouldn't be waiting for them to decide if they want to join us; we need to move forward.

We have to realize that we are not going to get the racists to behave and sit cordially at our table of humanity.

They want the food fight and want to turn over the table of the Brotherhood of Man.

Our Block Party has to move location because our angry old neighbors are upset that our party attracts the wrong kind of people.

We have to be content with what we have.

We need to get along to that better world.

That doesn't mean we won't hold an open seat at our Block Party in case hell freezes over, but it also means we need to be realistic that some people hate us.

They don't like the people at our party.

We all need to do the right thing right now.

When you're saving a life, you don't worry about your appearance.

You do the right thing.

You can't dream of a better world; you've got to make it better with your own hands.

'Ideals' will only get you so far unless you are willing to stand for them.

They are meaningless if you don't put actions to your rhetoric.

It's clear that this President and this administration are willing to fight for their ideal world.

Will the good people of these United States fight for theirs?

Who will win out?

Injustice or justice?

It will depend upon you and me.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Challenge The Impossible

Can a single drop of rain wear down a mountain?

Will a grain of sand stop a flood?

Does a single battle win a war?

Do you only have to brush your teeth once in your lifetime?

How about painting your house just once during its life?

Will you own only one pair of shoes?

One pair of pants?

One pair of socks?

One love?

Impossible…

How long does it take for some people to be free?

How long will it be until some people stop believing they have a right to kill?

When will the day arrive when tyrants in the world, in your neighborhood, and in your home be stopped from destroying lives?

What hour will it be when a person can walk in their community free of fear?

How much time does it take to heal the broken?

To bring hope to the hopeless?

To love the loveless?

To break the illusion?

To care?

Impossible?

If you are reading this, you are in a war that has been going on since humans first gathered together.

Welcome to the battle.

As long as we are still human, this war will continue indefinitely into the future.

It is a war between those who hate and those who love.

It is a conflict that will have no end.

It is what humans, such as Gandhi, Malcolm, Sakharov, Mandela, Malala, Orwell, Keller, and King, called the struggle.

The struggle.

The impossible struggle will not be over in a day.

Or a week.

Or a year.

Or a lifetime.

Or solved by one candidate.

One leader.

One follower.

The impossible struggle.

It is the act itself, the struggle against impossible odds, where victory is achieved by love.

Evil cannot win unless good does nothing.

Brotherhood is a relationship.

And just like any relationship, effective communication is essential.

You need to give flowers.

You need to share meals.

You need to participate in the good times and be there in the times of grief.

Dropping a coin in a charity bucket doesn't pay for your seat on the Freedom Train.

The struggle is a daily grind for those who follow the light of love.

You get up each day and struggle.

You go through your day and struggle.

You go to bed and rest your head upon the struggle, only to get up the next day to do it again.

The haters will not stop hating.

Neither will love stop loving.

Our strength is not in some decisive battle that will win the war against man's self-hate.

No, our strength is like that in a single drop of rain.

That single drop joins with other drops to form fellowships, communities, and organizations.

Those drops turn into a river.

A river that cuts its way through the mountain of fear and hate.

It broadens and picks up those in lifeboats.

It rescues those who are adrift in the waters.

It rushes past the obstacles to man's own folly and ignorance and soon joins up with the sea.

The dark, brooding mountains of hate and regret left behind.

That drop of rain and countless others have formed a sea of sparkling light and love.

A place where you and I can rest on the shore of a brotherhood of man.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

After the Tears

The unexpected shock.

The eyes strain to see life.

The heart leaps into the throat.

After the tears…

An old photo of a happy day.

The hand of a baby daughter in yours.

Eyes that look up and see you for what you are.

After the tears…

Death will kill all you love.

Death makes you run away with all that you love.

Death haunts your every step towards freedom's precious light.

After the tears…

With the flood all around.

With your baby holding tight to daddy's strength.

With all you have, it wasn't enough.

After the tears…

No one heard.

No one saw.

No one cared.

After the tears…

After the tears come the rolling thunder of justice.

A people should not tolerate the conditions of physical and a type of mental enslavement.

In our nation, minds and hearts are captured by an ideology that allows mothers, fathers, and their children to die in dark waters at a nation's doorstep; it is not a nation dedicated to life.

It is not a community.

It is a society that has lost its purpose.

A sickness that has been allowed to fester way beyond its expiration date.

This nation we live in has always understood what the right thing to do is.

Even other nations have been able to read our credo and have understood that Liberty, with her torch held high, is there to welcome the weak, the fearful, those without hope, the tired, the sick, the forgotten.

The credo to love the stranger.

This nation we live in has forgotten its credo.

This nation has forsaken its honor.

This nation has abandoned human decency and compassion in favor of a short-lived political power.

Our nation's mind is set against itself.

Through the roar of political lions, through the ripping apart of safety in neighborhoods, through callous disregard, lives are lost because it serves the ideal of divine retribution.

They deserve what they get because they are not like me. 

Because they are not like me…

Not like me…

That's right.

That is not like us.

That is not the American ideal.

After the tears…

You don't have to be an empath to know that a baby girl clinging to her daddy's back who drowns with him as he sought freedom is wrong.

It's evil.

It's an evil perpetrated by men and women in power in our nation.

We allowed them to have power at our discretion.

Not some mythical monster.

Not some alien from another planet.

Men and women, humans who cannot see the tears of the individual, only the inside of their closed hearts.

It stops.

It stops now.

It stops today.

We know what the correct answer is.

We've all learned it once upon a time in America.

The idea of Love came into the world and immediately set heart against heart.

Those who follow love cannot also support blind human hate.

True Love will separate a man from a woman.

True Love will divide the parent from the child.

True Love will demand that a nation do the right thing every time.

Every time!

Love asks more of us each and every day till the day we pass from the Earth.

A nation that practices love doesn't allow babies crying for a crust of bread to die.

Stones of hate are not passed out to feed the hungry in a nation that proclaims it believes in the Golden Rule.

Each and every death of anyone in our nation's custody and those seeking refuge is further evidence of the cancer on America's soul.

I'll keep saying it, I'll keep asking it, I'll keep demanding it, I'll keep standing.

I'll never be silent…

After the tears will come the rolling thunder of justice.

Either you get yourself straight, or the world will get busy on your ass.

After the tears…

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

A Tree

It is understandable why you can't hear the song of a tree.

What is not understandable is why you can't hear the pain you create.

We can all lose our connections.

Connections to the world around us, our community, to our family and friends, to ourselves.

Regret.

Regret for our actions reminds us that we have harmed someone we care about.

We don't want to be the "bad" person.

The person who acts and doesn't care who they harm.

Especially our friends and family.

Where do we draw the line between those we include in our group and those we exclude?

On a playground, children make fun of how a classmate is dressed.

Maybe they came to school that day in their pajamas.

Adolescents believe that becoming an adult is about doing adult things.

If they believe that a person over there hasn't consumed alcohol, hasn't smoked, hasn't had sex, they become the judge, jury, and executioner, condemning that person as an outcast.

A loser.

Most adults don't move far from their own adolescent brains.

A parallel example is How well do you draw?

Most of us stopped drawing sometime as we entered high school.

If you picked up a pencil and were asked to draw a cow, you would render at the very same level as when you last attempted to draw.

However, drawing, like any other skill, has to be exercised to keep in shape.

If you practiced your art for a few weeks, you would improve.

We humans can adapt.

We are not relegated to staying in a self-imposed past.

We can grow.

Growth can only begin once you love yourself.

The foundation.

First, we all need to forgive ourselves.

We need to break the chain of our own making that constrains our true selves.

A universal chain to break is racism.

Most aspects of racism are learned.

The roots are passed down genetically like cancer; its darkness stops the growth of the individual.

Racism stops the growth of the community.

But this is nothing new.

Racists are not ignorant of which side of the line they stand on.

They like where they are at.

They know they don't like you.

Every aspect of their lives informs them, from their community to the God they worship, that they are doing the right thing.

So, how are you going to convince them otherwise?

Do you think telling them they need to grow will change their minds?

Do you think asking them to quiet their minds and listen to the song of trees will allow them to feel regret?

…

…

Ain't going to happen, folks.

Ain't going to happen that way, for sure.

It's like standing out before a mountain and trying to call it down with your voice.

Humans don't work that way.

You're not going to convince a racially motivated person to vote for you because you say change is right for them.

Give the other side a chance.

Ain't going to happen.

The people who support the President are not concerned with who they harm.

We are not part of their group, part of their America.

We aren't even human beings in their eyes.

They don't want to come together.

They don't want to move to the city.

They don't want to be told they are wrong.

They would rather burn down the forest than allow for the possibility that they could be wrong.

They can't hear us.

They really honestly can't hear us…

What do we do?

What can we do?

We grow…

We grow ourselves.

We grow and become bigger and stronger than hate.

We grow our community one day, one person at a time.

We grow our organizations, we reach for our brothers and sisters, and we encourage those who are reluctant to get involved.

We grow by standing together, holding to the truth, and the fair application of justice for all.

We grow a smile

A smile that's more powerful and does more good than any rhetoric could do.

We demonstrate through the actions of our lives and our community that we are happy.

We are a happy bunch.

We grow…

Happy to have a family of every race, color, and gender, young and old.

The seed that casts itself upon the hard ground will never grow.

Hardened hearts…

Hardened ears…

Will never know the joy of that first green burst of a new life.

Time wears away the mountain…

But nothing in this universe will break a racists belief.

Regret will whisper into the hardened ears as they witness the happiness they refused to join.

From the hard, lonely places of the world, new ears will grow.

They will ask…

What is that sound?

We will answer…

Love.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby