Just the way Miley planned it…

By now, everyone has seen or heard about Miley Cyrus’ performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.  Those who haven’t don’t care and don’t want to know.  Regardless, many people were shocked to see the performance either live or in replay.  Whatever innocence the one-time star of Disney’s Hannah Montana had was not just erased by her twerking and violating people in teddy bear and Beetlejuice costumes, it was nuked.  Miley will never be able to escape the images that have now been emblazoned in many people’s minds.

But it appears that it was exactly what the woman born Destiny Hope Cyrus wanted.

Make no mistake, anyone who had followed the career of Miley knew she was heading down this path the moment Hannah Montana made its debut.  The daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus was more than willing to go down this path, and her parents did everything possible to enable the chain of events that led to this moment.  In late 2007, I knew Miley’s career would transition to porn fodder and said so to my wife when we visited Disney World.  Miley had just turned 15 at the time, and was still trying to convince her fans she was the innocent country girl persona that she displayed on TV.  But the Childhood Fame Monster that had claimed Miley’s predecessors, Brittney, Christina, Lindsey, and other Mouseketeers was closing in on her at the time.  Within 2 years, Miley was posing topless with her dad in photo spreads, even though she was not legal in age.

And once she turned 18 and broke free of the Disney restrictions, Miley openly show her unrestricted side.  The change was almost instantaneous.  Miley began to show her body in ways that left little to the imagination.  Still her fans clung to the hope that she was just going through a phase.  Her engagement to Australian actor, Liam Hemsworth was seen as a step toward normalcy and it seemed that she might settle down, pursue a decent music career, and maybe go into acting.

But once the New Years’ Ball dropped on 2013, Miley kicked into overdrive in the outrageous things she was doing.  The cutting of the hair and the bleaching of it shocked a lot of people.  My wife openly wondered if Miley was a lesbian.  Then the sticking of the tongue out at events.  It was also clear that Miley and Liam were not as tight-knit as an engaged couple.  Though it appeared the main male protagonist of “The Hunger Games” broke off the engagement or at least postponed the wedding day, Miley showed off her engagement ring as if to say, “I’m still engaged, b****es!”  Liam and Miley have been rarely seen in public, and when they have, it has not been as a truly lovey dovey couple.  Then came the VMA awards, and the rest is history.

If you think Miley has gone off the deep end, think again.  Miley wants everyone to talk about her.  She saw what Charlie Sheen did when he went off the deep end, and saw similar spikes when Amanda Bynes went crazy.  Miley also took a page out of the Madonna playbook.  The Material Cougar has been at this for so long and done so many outrageous things, but has always appeared to remain in control.  Miley figured if Madonna could do it, she could too.

And she got what she wanted:  attention.  But Miley made a huge miscalculation in her attempts to shock people into looking at her.  African-Americans looked at her performance and saw racism.  Feminists screamed that Miley’s twerking was an insult to women’s rights.  A wide range of political opposites united to either mock Miley or outright condemn her.  People turned their outrage which had just been on Ben Affleck for becoming the new Batman onto her.  The only people that seemed to come to her defense were musicians and her mom, who gave her a Standing O after the raunchy number.  After all, VMAs has done some pretty outrageous things in the past, why stop now?  Heck, Lady Gaga went Lady Gaga during that same event and hardly anyone was giving Gaga heat. 

After the VMAs, Miley just Can’t Stop.  Everything she is doing makes headlines.  Now comes word that she joined Justin Bieber twerking in a new video.  Oh goody.  Justin and Miley, the perfect pairing of a new generation.  Also, she teamed up with Kanye West on a project.  Heck, why not bring in the Kardashians while you’re at it.

A wise teacher about 2000 years ago, once said:  “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet loses his soul?”  Miley and others like her have traded their souls for fame, wealth, and an honor that is fleeting.  Short term, she is “winning”.  Long term?  Don’t we all know how this will end?  Only Miley can Stop Miley now—and the longer she waits to change course, the harder it will be to come back to even a reasonable amount of respectability among the masses.

The 2014 Winter Olympics: Citius, Altius, Fortius, … Homophobius?!?

As some of you are aware, Next February, the Nations of the World will gather in Sochi, Russia, to commence the Games of the 22nd Winter Olympiad.  The fact that Sochi is hosting the Winter Olympics was a potential International incident waiting to happen, being that the Chechnya, and other Caucus flashpoints are in the neighborhood.  Then, add in the situation with Edward Snowden, chilling U.S.-Russian relations at a time that the Russians could use US security support.

But all that pales in comparison to a controversy that could light a real powder keg of Olympic protests, making Berlin in 1936 and Mexico City in 1968 look like a Sunday picnic…

In June, Russia enacted a series of anti-gay laws.  Basically, the laws state, that while you can be gay in Russia, any attempt to be show your gayness in public or support gay rights in public is illegal.  The laws have enabled anti-gay groups (such as Neo-Nazi-like group) to publicly attack anyone who supports gay rights.  And some of the attacks have been brutal.  Just today, I saw a CNN article on a Russian journalist who was fired after he came out of the closest.

The response to this legislation has varied and is largely disorganized.  Some gay rights advocates have called for a boycott of Russian vodka.  Others have asked for the U.S. to boycott a second Russian Olympics.  Still others, like George Takei, are asking for the IOC to move the Winter Olympics to Vancouver.

So how is Russia handling the arrival of the world’s greatest athletes, some of who will be openly gay?  The Russian Government has said gay athletes are welcome, but you get differing views on how the laws may be enforced during the games.  Some Russian leaders have asked all athletes to respect Russian laws, while others have said there will be no issues in Sochi with respect to the laws.  The IOC has clouded the situation further stating that all athletes need to respect the laws of the host country.  At the same time, the IOC has asked Russia to clarify their position on the upcoming Winter Olympics and gay athletes.

So will any pro-gay signs of demonstration be allowed from the athletes?  The World Track & Field Championships, currently taking place in Moscow, may offer a clue.  Will any track & field athlete be brave enough to openly show gay pride during this week in Moscow?  Oh, and memo to Johnny Weir:  I know you want to go to Sochi just to shove it down Putin’s throat, but your best days were 8 years ago in Turin.  You’re going to have to earn it in January—and you haven’t skated competitively in almost a year.  You’re going to have a tough road just to get there, much less win.

There are no easy options.  I do think the Russian law should be overturned, but it is not worth boycotting the Olympics or Russian vodka over.  You have to win the hearts of the Russian people and get them to change and evolve.  It will be a long and hard road to do that, and you have to overcome hurdles as big as the Caucuses.  But it will be worth it in the end. 

But my real anger is at those who were so willing to display the pink equals sign in the red background on their Facebook profile—in fact some of them still do.  Where are you at?  Why aren’t you willing to take a position on this matter?  Is it because it is Russia?  It is easy to criticize anti-gay laws in Uganda repetitively, and criticize the Pope’s views on Gay marriage, but you don’t want to take on Putin for his anti-gay views?

It’s embarrassing that I have to be the catalyst here.  But, if I have to be the one to get the debate going… so be it.  Consider the fight engaged.

Why we can’t have a National Dialogue on Race…

Recently, a news story came about stating that Tawana Brawley had finally begun to pay her portion of a lawsuit over two decades ago, when she accused a group of white men of committing a heinous sexual assault and scrawling racial slurs across her body.  A grand jury ultimately concluded that Brawley had falsified the accusations, and one of the accused, who happened to be an assistant DA, filed suit against Brawley, Brawley’s lawyers, and the civil rights leader who had stirred up the New York community against the accused rapists—Al Sharpton, who was making his national debut into the public consciousness.  Now Brawley is 41, a nurse, and still refuses to recant her initial story, even though her story was debunked in court.  Al Sharpton long settled his monetary debts in the lawsuit.

On November 12, another woman, Crystal Magnum is scheduled to to go on trial for murder of an ex-boyfriend.  Magnum is the stripper at the center of the Duke Lacrosse Rape case and her accusations were also ultimately proven to be false.  Again, Al Sharpton stirred up the community and pushed for punishment of the Duke Lacrosse players, even though they did not commit a crime.  Al Sharpton to this day has still not apologized for his role in the case.

2 cases of alleged racism ultimately proven false.  So why are we having to deal with Al Sharpton again and again on issues of race?  Now, we are dealing with him again in the aftermath of the George Zimmerman case—not just because he is pushing for civil rights charges to be filed against George Zimmerman, but because he used his position at NBC to doctor an audio tape before the trial began to make George Zimmerman sound racist and turn public opinion further against him.  (Please don’t kid yourselves—Al Sharpton’s fingerprints were all over that doctoring, even if he wasn’t directly involved.)

And that, in a microcosm, is why we can’t have a National Dialogue to address the real problems that the African American community has.  Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and other African-American “Leaders” are too busy trying to scream racism at every turn, but they go silent when thousands of young African-American are robbed of their future by violence, and when thousands more are raised in single mom households.  Or worse, they criticize anyone who tries to offer serious solutions to the problems in the African-American community—whether white or black, conservative or non-conservative.  Why?  Al and Jesse and others are too busy profiting off of their communities’ suffering.

There’s just something wrong with these “leaders” attacking people like CNN’s Don Lemon for trying to speak out in trying to change a culture that is deteriorating.  Lemon just wants the next generation to be better than the last one.  What is wrong with that?  It’s because these “leaders” don’t want to see the ugliness of what they have left in their wake.  Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream lies in ruins for all African-Americans.  Sure, some have risen to incredible heights, but Dr. King’s vision was for ALL African-Americans to rise above his upbringing.  He knew Jesse Jackson was not prepared to be a good leader, but Dr. King never got the chance to try and help Jesse see the error of his ways.  Initially, Jesse had his heart in the right place, but once he entered the political realm, he abandoned helping out the African-American community as a while in favor of helping himself.  Obviously, Jesse’s son learned from his dad, and look at where it has taken Jesse Jr.

It is high time for the President to commence with a National Dialogue on Race.  It is time for the President to tell Jesse, Al, and other African-American leaders to either get serious on race issues or stand aside and let others try to solve the issues that affect the African-American community.  Otherwise, there may not be an African-American community to save in the near future.

A good place to start would be the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  It is time for Jesse, Al, and other Civil Rights Leaders to recommit to Dr. King’s dream.  It’s time to stop the “Self-Destruction”, because that’s where Dr. King’s Dream is heading on its present course with it’s current leaders in charge.

Postmortem thoughts on the Zimmerman trial…

Well, since we have had a chance to digest the results of the Zimmerman trial, I wanted to share my thoughts.  Some of my more liberal and conservative friends might want to pay attention.  You could learn something, especially from someone who just served as a juror a month ago…

Some of you may have looked at my comments in my last blog about serving on a jury and think that there was overwhelming evidence that the defendant caused the accident.  In truth, because the trial was a CIVIL case, there only had to have been enough evidence that it was more likely that the defendant caused the accident than the plaintiff did.  In that instance, the threshold was clearly met in my eyes and in the eyes of my fellow jurors.  We made that decision within 20 minutes of deliberations and spent the remaining 3+ hours trying to calculate damages.  Personal note:  And the final 4 judgments weren’t easy.  On the final damage award payout (future monetary damages for the female plaintiff), I was the holdout.  My fellow jurors wanted to award her more money than I was willing to.  I realized that certainly, the female plaintiff needed more money than her husband because she was in worse health post-accident.  But I was not willing to go all the way my fellow jurors were going.  After a back-and-forth of 15 minutes, we finally agreed that the damages should be 3/4 ths of what the prosecutor was asking.

By contrast, the George Zimmerman trial was a CRIMINAL case.  The burden of proof for the prosecution to win the case was even higher than a civil trial.  The prosecution had to prove BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT that Zimmerman was guilty of 2nd degree murder.  Which leads to my first point…

(1) THE PROSECUTION’S CASE WAS BASED MORE ON THEORY THAN FACTS… AND WAS FLAWED FROM THE GET GO:  It was a fuster cluck of a case that the prosecution put together.  In most cases, the prosecution lays out what they believed happened, has a set of facts they put forward, and have witnesses to affirm the facts and theory.  In this case, however, a theory was all they had to go on.  The defense appeared to have more facts than the prosecution, and that is never a good thing if a conviction is what you are trying for.  The witnesses never really backed up the theory of what happened because they were not there at the scene.  Some of the witnesses were not credible.  Some of the witnesses were more helpful to the defense than the prosecution.  One witness was so disastrous that the prosecution took an unusual step of asking the judge to strike at least some of the testimony.  But something the prosecution failed to do in their case really should have chaffed everyone…

(2) THE PROSECUTION FAILED TO PROVIDE ALL THE EVIDENCE TO THE DEFENSE IN A TIMELY FASHION BEFORE THE TRIAL:  This issue was perhaps the most damaging blow to the prosecution.  The prosecution failed to give the defense all the evidence they had.  The defense only knew of this when someone from the DA’s office alerted them to this fact (that person, BTW, was fired as the jury began their deliberations on an allegedly unrelated issue).  In the aftermath, the Prosecuting attorneys could still face sanctions for their actions.

Personal note:  In the trial I was a juror in, the defense had a witness who failed to provide the prosecution with all the evidence they had.  The judge laid into the witness when we were not in the room—we found out after the trial what happened.  So, it goes both ways.

By the end of the trial, the prosecution realized that they had failed to prove 2nd-degree murder.  They also had bungled the evidence so badly, they were facing charges themselves.  Barring jury nullification, they knew they were going to lose the case.  That is why an unusual step was taken...

(3) IT’S NOT A GOOD SIGN WHEN THE PROSECUTION REQUESTED ADDITIONAL LESSER CHARGES SHOULD BE FILED AFTER BOTH SIDES PRESENTED THEIR CASES:  When a Manslaughter charge was added after both sides rested their cases, I was surprised.  Normally, after both sides present their cases, charges can be dropped against a defendant.  In the civil case I served as a juror in, the case against one of the defendants was dismissed.  So, while it is legally possible for addition charges to be filed, the fact that a manslaughter charge was added should have told everyone the case for 2nd-degree murder was lost, and the prosecution was hoping for ANY sort of conviction.

The Defense’s case wasn’t exactly a thing of beauty, either.  But all the defense had to do was prove reasonable doubt that 2nd-degree murder did not take place—and it was a job that was proven easier when a certain person failed to take the witness stand…

(4) THE FACT THAT GEORGE ZIMMERMAN DIDN’T TAKE THE STAND WAS A KEY POINT THAT INDICATED THE DEFENSE HAD DONE ENOUGH TO WIN THE CASE:  Normally in a murder case, the defendant will only take the stand if the case is in such a desperate state that the defendant has nothing to lose.  Despite my friend, John Brown, saying Zimmerman was a coward for not taking the stand, George took the smart advice his council provided and declined to take the stand.  At that point, the defense knew they had established reasonable doubt.  Having Zimmerman take the stand to publicly state his side of the story might have helped his, but it also would have given the prosecution a last-ditch chance to discredit Zimmerman completely and potentially prove their side of the case.  So, while cowardly, it was the correct move.

(5) THE JUDGE’S INSTRUCTIONS COMPLICATED THE DELIBERATIONS… AND MAY HAVE LED TO THE NOT GUILTY VERDICT:  The Judges’ instructions were very complicated to say the least.  The jury had to considered so much, and the confusion eventually led to the jury asking for clarification about the manslaughter charge.  That should have been the clue that 2nd-degree murder was no longer being considered by the jury.  In the end, the combination of factors was too much to hope for a conviction.  Plus, the laws (as bad as they may be) pretty much assured that the jury return a not guilty verdict.

Let me be clear:  a NOT GUILTY verdict DOES NOT ALWAYS mean the jury thinks that the defendant is INNOCENT.  It just means that the state failed to prove it’s case.  In this case, Zimmerman was not innocent.  Anybody with a reasonable thought process knows Zimmerman made mistakes as well that night.  But reasonable people should also know there was not enough to convict.  See the OJ case as an example.  BTW, OJ lost the wrongful death suit filed against him by the Goldman and Brown family 2 years after his murder trial, which leads me to another point…

(6) A WRONGFUL DEATH LAWSUIT AGAINST ZIMMERMAN IS STILL COMING:  Treyvon’s parents will almost certainly file a wrongful death suit against George Zimmerman and the HOA Zimmerman worked with.  With this suit being a civil case, the threshold for the plaintiff’s to prove their case is lower.  Will the Martin family win the case?  I think there’s a good chance.  I could also see an out-of-court settlement if all parties agree to it.

You will notice race has yet to be mentioned until now.  A Hispanic man shoots an 17-year old African-American male, and several leaders in the Civil Rights movement used the case as a lightning rod for screaming racism.  But…

(7) FILING CIVIL RIGHTS CHARGES AGAINST GEORGE ZIMMERMAN WILL BE A HIGH THRESHOLD:  AG Eric Holder knows that, unless he has videotape evidence of the incident, he is going to have a nearly impossible task of proving George Zimmerman committed a hate crime.  If anything, one could make an argument that Treyvon was violating George’s civil rights in allegedly beating him up before the fatal moment.  If Holder files Civil Rights charges, the impression by most reasonable-minded US voters will be he did so only under pressure from Sharpton, Jackson, Jealous, Bond, and other black leaders.  Which is why I ultimately believe Holder is letting the Civil Rights team at the Justice Department take a look, just to prove he is pursuing the idea.  But, the Justice Department cannot file charges without risking a political backlash from political opponents who are screaming that the Justice Department is doing nothing about Fast & Furious, Benghazi, the IRS, and Gov’t leaks to the media.

In the end, we are going to have to deal with the after-effects of this trial for a long time.  Only when we move past this case can we begin a healing process desperately needed in this country…

Serving on a jury…

I know many jurors have written books about some of their experiences in the most famous trials in recent memory.  Sadly, my recent experience with jury duty is only good enough to be worthy of a blog.

I was called for jury duty for the fourth time in 10 years earlier this month.  Three times, I have been called to serve as a petit juror in Anne Arundel District Court.  A fourth time I was called for Jury Duty at the U.S. Federal District Court in Baltimore—on my birthday.  It amazes me how Court continues to find me to serve when there are millions of people who have never even been called in their lives.

And this time, I was asked to serve as a juror in a trial.  Oh, joy!

As it turned out, it wasn’t too bad.  It was a four-day civil trial with a 6-person jury and 2 alternates focused on monetary damages from an auto accident that occurred on New Years’ Eve 2011.  And somehow yours truly passed the mustard to serve as a juror.

Did I mention that my father worked in Auto claims adjustment for most of his work life, and I frequently heard about work when he came home from dinner?  Maybe the prosecution or defense would have found grounds to excuse me had they known that.  But they never asked that question during the selection process.  Luckily for them, it didn’t matter.  But I did make it a point to mention that fact to the judge after the trial.

The bottom line is that it was a classic situation.  An all-white jury judging a case in which the Plaintiffs and Prosecution were old and white, and the defendant and his attorney were younger and African-American.  And yes, the Defense Attorney did make an issue of that to the judge to no avail.

In the end, the case was a comedy of errors by both sides.  The Prosecutor almost put us to sleep, while one of the Defense Witnesses almost got thrown in jail by the Judge.  The highlight was when the Prosecution brought in an Incomplete Google Map of the Accident Scene, and the Defense wisely tried to use the map to confuse the Plaintiff.  But 4 of the 6 jurors (including myself) saw the error in the map (FYI:  we polled the jurors during deliberations, so that’s how I know 4 of the 6 jurors thought the map was incomplete), and the Judge called both attorneys to the bench and chewed them out over it.

We ended up deliberating for 4 hours.  There was no question in our minds that the defendant had caused the accident (it was a rear-ending BTW), and the biggest issue was the awarding of damages.  We decided NOT to give the prosecution the full amount they asked for (partly because the prosecution’s case was flawed), but the medical bills were paid for and some compensation for future medical bills was given.

I hope this is the last time I am called to serve as a juror for a LONG time.  And I hope I am never called to serve on a grand jury.  I can only imagine what the jury in the George Zimmerman trial is going through right now.  At least I got to go home at night.

The Duke Lacrosse Case aftermath… a new postscript

A few of you may remember the Duke Lacrosse Rape case from 2006.  Here’s a quick recap in case you don’t recall.  On April 5, 2006, at an off-campus house outside of Duke University, a party was held for the Duke Lacrosse Team.  A stripper was brought to the party, and at some point, the stripper accused three players of raping her.  In addition, when she left, several players were accused of yelling racial epithets at the stripper, who just happened to be a student enrolled at a nearby historically black university, North Carolina Central University.  The accusation triggered a major investigation by then Durham County District Attorney, Mike Nifong, who decided to charge 3 players with rape.

The resulting firestorm caused Duke University’s President to effectively fire the Lacrosse Head Coach, Mike Pressler and cancel the remainder of the 2006 season—no trivial matter for a team who had finished National Runner-Up the year before and was a favorite in 2006 to win the NCAA National Title.  The Lacrosse Team was shunned by students and faculty alike.  A group of Professors calling themselves the “Group of 88” published a controversial ad claiming the stripper’s side of the story to be fact, and at least one of the Professors failed 2 Lacrosse players for being on the team.  Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton showed up in Durham to support the stripper and ask for justice against the accused rapists.

But, from the get-go, inconsistencies showed up in the stripper’s story which indicated that she had not been truthful.  Physical evidence did not exist on the alleged victim.  Plus the alleged victim continued to change her story.  Quietly in December 2006, some of the charges were dropped against the Lacrosse players.  Then in early 2007, the North Carolina Attorney General, Roy Cooper took over the case, and on April 11, he made the stunning admission that not only were all charges dropped against the 3 accused Duke Lacrosse players, they were completely innocent.  The accuser, one Crystal Magnum, had made up the story.

The aftermath of this bombshell was seismic.  The NCAA reinstated the eligibility of all Duke Lacrosse players from the 2006 season.  The Lacrosse Team, led by the 3 accused and cleared players, sued the University, Mike Nifong, and the city of Durham for damages related to the scandal.  Nifong was disbarred and went to jail for his role in the scandal.  The Group of 88 has never backed away from their claims, writing a Clarifying letter in January, 2007, but has since gone silent.

And now the postscripts…

The Duke Lacrosse players who were freshman on that 2006 team, finally achieved glory for Duke as Seniors, leading the 2010 team to Duke’s First Lacrosse National title.  The freshman on that 2010 Championship Team just recently led the 2013 Duke Lacrosse team to a second Championship.

And Crystal Magnum?  She has been arrested twice since the rape allegations, once in 2010 on attempted murder and child abuse charges among other things, and a second time in 2011 for Murdering an ex-boyfriend.  Four months ago, she finally posted bond from her second run-in with the law, and she is expected to stand trial for the 2011 murder beginning on July 8th.

The Duke Lacrosse case was a full-blown scandal in many eyes when it came to light, inflaming racial passions, but has petered out as a story once the truth became known.  To this day, MSNBC has not covered the story of what happened on April 11, 2007 and since regarding the Duke Lacrosse Case.  It’s clear that MSNBC would like to sweep their involvement in trying to convict the Lacrosse players under the rug.  ESPN did some coverage, but only in passing.  Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton suddenly went silent about the Duke Lacrosse Case and ran away from Durham as fast as they could.  The last time Jesse spoke about the case, he was humiliated by Anderson Cooper.

So… what have we learned from this case?  Nothing.

As Crystal Magnum is going to trial, another high-profile racial case has taken it’s place.  The Treyvon Martin trial has inflamed racial passions again.  I’m not saying the truth is similar to what happened in Durham, but the same passions are seen now in Florida.  Ironically the George Zimmerman trial will occur around the same time the Crystal Magnum case will be tried.  I wonder if anyone else sees the irony of those two trials.

From now on, I refuse to let racial passions cloud my judgment.  We were fooled once.  If we are fooled again, we have only ourselves to blame.

Who is your watcher?

One of my favorite quotes comes from the ancient Roman poet, Juvenal, around the turn of the second century.  One of his Satires had the famous line, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”.  Translated from Latin, the question means “Who will guard the guards themselves?”  This line is appropriate in today’s world where corruption at the highest levels of governments have been rampant since the dawn of time.  Today, the United States’ government has two major scandals plaguing it (The IRS investigating certain groups of citizens and the DOJ snooping on news reporters), and who knows how many more scandals loom under the surface.  It appears no one is able to act as the leaders of this nation’s conscious to prevent politicians (both Republican and Democratic) from making major miscalculations.  The people in charge over the last 40 years have thought they can do no wrong.  They are mistaken.

Now, you might think you can avoid the trap of corruption and that you would never put yourself into a situation where your can be corrupted because of your views.  But ask yourself a question:  “Who is your watcher?”  I’m not necessarily talking about your spouse or a parent; I’m talking about someone whom you trust and who is not afraid to be a political critic about everything that goes on.  They may be right on certain things, wrong on a few things, and occasionally off-base on others.  But you can always count on them to keep you honest.

My watcher goes back many years, and though I don’t often agree with his views, I respect the fact that he is not afraid to speak his mind.  He is an intellectual equal who took a different path than I did.  He sees the world in an idealistic perspective, and that is a good thing.  This South Gwinnett alum will criticize liberal and conservative alike when they are violating the rights of the people.  To challenge him in a debate is difficult under the best of circumstances, and impossible if you have no knowledge of the debate subject.  He is the reason I have developed a counterexample strategy in debates.  If I don’t see reasonable counterexamples in a potential debate, then I don’t challenge someone to their views. 

I may not always agree with my watcher, but I always hear his views.  And as someone who believes in freedom, I believe all views should be heard, even if it is not the popular view.  (Some of my Valparaiso friends would be well-advised to take that piece of advice to heart.)  It is what makes this country great.  It does mean, however, that when you believe your views are absolute, you better be ready for a challenge if I sense your views are off-base.  I have learned from the best. 

Because of what I do, I realize I walk a fine line, and I need people on both the left and right to keep me from going off the reservation.  My watcher and other South Gwinnett friends have kept me honest through the years, and I am grateful for them, even when I don’t always agree with them.

So… Who watches you?