Tag Archives: lying

One Week In

I have read in several places lately that to be silent when harm is unfolding is to be complicit in the harm.   That’s hard.  I am not someone who likes to ruffle feathers.  I am not someone who wants anyone to think badly about me.  There is a part of me that thinks its time though.   Recent events in the United States have me deeply uncomfortable because I believe that something very nefarious and therefore very harmful is now underway.   I have been following Trump and his actions closely for almost ten years.  As a result I could speak long about what I have been processing.  I will not.  There is actually so much from the last week that I am wrestling with. 

Trump was elected, by his own admission, because the regular people of the U.S. need life to be more affordable.  He promised to address this on day one, with lower eggs prices and lower gas prices.    One week in he has not done anything to effect these changes, in lengthy speeches he has given he has not spoken of any plan, actually, I understand he has not mentioned these things at all.   Maybe that will yet come.  However, what he did do on day one is revoke price protections on prescription drugs.  Low income people who until then had a $35 limit on insulin costs now must suddenly absorb costs for this same drug that are several hundred dollars a month.  There was a time in our married life when money was extremely tight, a constant source of stress.  Despite our best efforts and conservative lifestyle we had no flex.  The moments that seem cemented in my memory include standing at the teller at the bank, cashing in a $1000 RRSP so that we could take the kids on a week long camping trip, there was no other way to fund it and it was June, a slower time, when maybe we could squeak out some time away with Russ.  It was an embarassing moment at the bank wicket.  Admittedly we were lucky that a prior time in our life had allowed some RRSSPs to be a cushion for us. In those same days I didn’t have internet banking and our balance was not always readily available or something I was organized to always know.  There were so many times I stood at the grocery store cashier with fear that the transaction would be denied.   That is what I call up in my mind when I think about people all over the U.S. who will somehow have to come up with extra money now.  How will they do that?  What was gained by taking off these caps?  Something tells me it appeased donors from the pharmaceutical industry.   It certainly will do nothing to make life more affordable for the everyday person.  I find myself wondering how this development is feeling to Moms with kids, the group I most relate to.

Russ showed me a post this week that cited all the incredible accomplishments of Trump in the first week.  It was mind boggling that some would frame these things as progress and our Canadian neighbors would see fit to share it.  One of the things was that he had “moved to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.”   When you move to take control of another country it is about war.   For what reason would any country lay down and give up and hand over their sovereignty to Donald Trump, his administration and the U.S.?  I know nothing about military strategy but my guts tell me that a concerted effort by the US to take over Greenland means a new war.  Who wants to be in the middle of a war?  How can this be deemed progress?  Later on in that same post it was celebrated that Trump had “secured one trillion dollars of Saudi Arabian support for the United States.”    My first reaction was, “as if they will provide support without strings attached.”  But I thought I should see what the details actually were.  When I looked up what had been asked and promised it is that 800 billion dollars will be invested over four years.  That doesn’t sound quite as iffy, investment sounds better than what seemed like a donation.  But seriously, if it takes wangling  by Trump to get that “support”, what is Saudi Arabia getting out of it?  What strings are attached?  What are the American people handing over without knowing it?  In my mind neither of these things are items to brag about, not if you value peace and have trust in the power of the USA to forge their way without indebtedness to a foreign nation. 

I got into a bit of a testy conversation about Trump this week, it had me asking, “what would Trump have to do to cause you to withdraw your support for him?”   The thinking behind my question was that “surely you have a line that you draw somewhere, not everything is acceptable.”  Perhaps I am intolerant but my line was crossed back in the early days when he showed himself to be someone who lies.  “They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs” is a recent example but it is not hard to find a multitude of stories of people who were cheated by him and fact checkers from his first presidential term note more than 30,000 of his lies are in the public record.  I think about it like this, in our homes when people lie to one another it destablilizes trust.  When trust is reduced we hesitate to take risks with one another, like we don’t share with one another what makes us vulnerable.  When we don’t take relational risks we can’t strengthen bonds and nourish the roots of our relationships.  With fragile bonds and shallow roots our relationships can’t do for us what we need them to do, we suffer and our society with it.  So I have resisted Trump.   I can’t stand the thought that lying has been normalized.   There is more that I am very troubled by but that’s enough for now.

It seems time to make as clear a statement as I can, about what I am thinking and why.  I want it to be my own words, not a sassy meme.  I want to make it entirely clear that if you are worried about how life is going to be over the next four years I am too.  I also want to say that it is my intention to walk lockstep with Jesus, more now than ever.   In the midst of the confusion of conflicting values and priorities, with mixed messages and double standards everywhere, I will be holding myself to his example.  He looked at people with eyes of compassion and mercy, he readily saw and spoke to the abuse of power, he affirmed the humanity and the worth of all he met.  And there is more.  So much more.  His way is my hope. 

My Theory about Roe v Wade

I have an enduring interest in American culture and right now that automatically seems to mean politics.    Is there American culture separate from politics?   Right now it doesn’t seem like it.  I am a people pleaser so I tend to keep what I think about the developments in the U.S.A. to myself, in an effort to keep everyone feeling good about Kathy Kyle.  But I think I am done. 

Its not that I am done with a particular party or a set of policies.  Not exactly.  I respect that there are different ways to do things.  However when people are lying I am deeply offended and I think there is a lot of lying going on.  Fundamentally, I think the decision to overturn Roe v Wade is not about protecting the life of the unborn.  Its not about ensuring the unborn have a chance to live. The decision has the effect of taking power away from women, securing a block of votes for the Republican party and distracting from other matters, also urgent, that don’t cast a good light on the former president and his party.     I think the decision is all about pandering, politics and power plays.  Top of my mind right now are two things….

First, those who worked to get Roe v Wade overturned, are from the same group who voted against measures to ease the baby formula shortage in the United States.  How can you say you are pro life, that is pro baby, but actively work against what would clearly reduce stress for baby and parent?  Seriously?  What would it have cost these lawmakers to vote in support of this effort?  That is the tip of the iceberg.  There are other policies that could be enacted and budget priorities made that would ensure a quality of life for every baby born, starting with decent parental leave.  Why do these pro life loving United States grant parental leave that can best be counted in weeks, while most developed nations provide months and months of leave, more than a year in some cases.  The policies and budget priorities that are truly pro life are demonized by the group who call themselves pro life and there is no importance attached to them when wooing voters.  Those who seek quality education for all, health care for all, and social services to support the troubled are called socialist snowflakes.   Don’t even get me started on the discrepancy that a human life should never be ended prematurely but if I was an American parent I would have to wonder, daily, if my kid and I would return safely from school, church, a concert or the grocery store, because it is everyone’s right to possess the technology to end life, to end multiple lives in split seconds.   How is that pro life?  Being excited about today’s decision doesn’t mean you are pro life, it means you are pro birth, I will grant you that, but wouldn’t being truly pro life mean a lot more than seeing a child able to emerge from the womb and take a breath?

I think policy makers are lying when they say this is about protecting the lives of unborn babies because every aspect of the effort to protect the babies costs women, not men, yet men and women are equally involved in getting the ball rolling. I want to make a spicy joke right here, but I am so perturbed I can’t. So….. Temporary sterilization of men is totally possible.  Why is policy not even considered that has men temporary sterilized until they can commit to their readiness to parent and to provide for the children they father.  You probably think I am crazy to suggest that.  Why would that be crazy?  Men can create a child more than once a day.  Women about once a year.  In an effort to prevent the conception of unwanted children, what about putting the onus on men?  If you resist this, why?   Do you feel that’s overreach?  That the government shouldn’t be able to mandate what men do with their sexual organs?    Okay, well then, how about this?  If abortion becomes impossible, then it should be law that men must provide for the fruit of their loins.  Those who don’t will get their property seized or go to prison for abandoning their offspring.   Women have known the gift and wonder of motherhood since time began, but have also had to shoulder the risk, sacrifice and work of it.  Wherever men share in the risk, sacrifice and work they share more fully in the gift and the wonder.    There are proposed policies in some of the states that criminalize women for seeking abortion and release men from the equation altogether.   This is very much about gender and power and not about justice, infant health and human wholeness.  

These interventions you might think me crazy for suggesting will never happen.  I know that, at least I think I know that.  The unlikeliness of these kinds of things is what makes me say, this is not about protecting the lives of babies.  Something else is going on.  Its in someone’s interest to keep women pre-occupied with their fertility and its implications.  Its in someone’s best interest to keep women and children very vulnerable to the harshness of life (rape, incest, maternal health concerns, poverty and lack of opportunity are at the top of my mind.)  I am a Mom.  In fact 20 years ago at this moment I was 3 hours from delivering my first child.  Having children has been among the most wondrous things I ever did.  The sheer miracle of this means I will never be cavalier about abortion.   However, today, I am clearer than ever, that this supreme court decision is not about babies.  Its about politics, pandering and power brokering.  I want policy that is practical, legislation that reflects love, judicial power that is just and fair, policy that protects all, houses of government that are honest.   This is what I see and what I long for.  It’s a matter of life and death. 

I want to thank Russell for listening to multiple read throughs of this and offering thoughts to round out my own. I have relied on him for perspective and courage. This is not easy for me to publish.