YOU. HAVE. TO. VOTE (Democrat)

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All right friends, let me be blunt:
 
If you take issue with what’s been happening in this country over the past two years – from putting children in cages to breaking treaties to ignoring global warming to lifting pollution regulations to open demagoguery and hate speech to huge tax cuts for the wealthy to degrading our most sacred institutions to trying to kick tens of millions of people off healthcare to putting a hyperpartisan probable sexual assaulter on the supreme court (and the oval office) to mocking women who were sexually assaulted to lauding some KKK members and neo-Nazis as “good people” and on and on and on and ON – you have to vote.
 
YOU. HAVE. TO. VOTE. DEMOCRAT!
 
If you do not vote, you have lost the right to complain about the moral and practical atrocity that we are dealing with, because – quite simply – you are partially to blame. And if you throw a vote to some 3rd party candidate whom you know has exactly zero chance of winning, you are partially to blame, too. You don’t like voting for the “lesser of two evils”? That’s what morality IS. Rarely in life are moral choices a contrast between good and evil (although frankly this is about as close as it comes), and moral people choose what will make the most practical difference for the best possible outcome.
 
The best possible output in this election is incredibly clear: to put gigantic obstacles in the path of liars and bigots and thieves, and to send a loud and clear message to the Liar/Bigot/Thief in Chief that we are better than this. Better than HIM.
 
Be better. Show up to vote, bring as many friends as you can with you, and vote Democrat. Share this post, if you think it will influence even one person. Stop the bleeding. Plug the leak to prevent the ship from sinking. Then, in two years, we will finally be positioned to change course.
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Rest In Peace, John McCain. And Thank You.

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If the past is any indication, some of my fellow liberals will take issue with the nice things I’m about to say about Senator John McCain, but today we lost a hero in an age where heroes are so very hard to find…especially, let’s be frank, on the Right.

But John McCain was a hero. For starters, he risked his life time and again to defend our country, and was tortured beyond most of our comprehension for doing so. I honor him for that.

In an age of nearly unanimous hate and vitriol, McCain called for civility and respect in our discourse. I honor him for that as well.

And for most of his career, McCain acted – and voted – like a true moderate. Moderation has become a toxic word on both sides of the aisle, but not to me. Life, and government, is often about compromise – and although McCain recently voted with Trump on a lot more issues than I’d care for, he never did so out of cowardice or to fall into his party line. He voted what was, to him, his conscience – and even if I disagree with the specifics, I respect the integrity.

Which leads me to the main issue I will remember and praise John McCain for: he – along with Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski – defeated the repeal of the the Affordable Care Act, which has literally saved the lives of so many people I know and love. Why? Because his fellow Republicans had provided no alternative, and because it had been pushed through without any Democratic consultation (let alone support). Therefore, according to McCain, supporting the repeal would be utter negligence and hypocrisy, and since it would lead to tens of millions of people losing health insurance, he voted no. If he had voted yes, a lot of people who are alive right now would not be.

I think that I, even more than most Republicans, long to see a day when the Republican Party is restored to some semblance of honor, conscience, and integrity. To me, John McCain represented those admirable traits. Was he perfect? Far from it. But I will take an imperfect official doing his best over someone who is perfectly corrupt and self-interested any day.

Thank you for your service, Senator McCain, and for your example. Rest in peace.

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Dear Fellow Liberals: Knock it Off. You’re Embarrassing Us.

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I am seeing such disgusting and vitriolic rhetoric from dozens of people whom I consider to be my political allies that I am compelled to say something.

In the fight against the Trump administration and everything it stands for, there are factors which, if lost, will render us liberals just as guilty and unworthy as the other side. Those factors are Truth and Decency.

If you write some ridiculous claim or post some ludicrous “article” without thinking it through and properly fact-checking, congratulations: now you know what it’s like to be a Breitbarter. (Seriously: I’ve spent a LOT of time on that website, and what some of you are saying and doing is no different in terms of ignorance and falsehood.)

And if you banish an entire group of people to a decree of sub-humanity without recognizing that there is nuance and individuality in every single person, then maybe you should think more carefully about your daily use of Nazi comparisons (which are merited sometimes, but not always), and reflect on how you yourself are turning into everything you hate.

Even if acting this way were to help us win elections (it won’t), we will have done so at the cost of our moral integrity and the actual values we claim to be fighting for. And then what are we?

And on a more practical note: these kind of despicable tactics WON’T help us win. This may surprise you, but people’s minds are not generally changed by shutting them up or kicking them out of restaurants. It will only convince them – perhaps rightfully so – that your ideas exist only to victimize and shame. Change is made by engaging with people as human beings, recognizing our commonality, and then making a logical argument to support what you stand for rather than releasing a tirade of vitriol to banish what you’re against, and becoming it in the process.

So everyone, please: calm down. You’re making us look bad, and you’re hurting the cause. Be kind, be responsible, and then get to work.

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Thank You, Stephen Hawking – Mind of the Century, and Hero to the Disabled

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Today we lost not just one of the greats: we lost one of the greatEST, in all human history.
 
I’ve spoken to many people who dislike praising Stephen Hawking because of certain political positions he held, some of which I disagreed with myself. But I ask you to put that aside for a moment, and recognize that a person is not defined by particular idiosyncrasies, but rather by the sum of their parts. And Stephen Hawking was a man whose physical parts were broken by ALS in ways that even I and most chronically ill people can barely comprehend. What he did within the confines of those limitations is beyond extraordinary – and today, I hope you will celebrate the life of a uniquely powerful and determined mind trapped in the physical destruction of a vicious and unrelenting disease.
 
Hawking’s contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum mechanics are essentially unparalleled. His book “A Brief History of Time” is a wonderful window into these contributions as expressed by one of the deepest of thinkers and most powerful of educators. As Hawking’s muscle control continued to decay, he wrote entire books using just the muscle of his cheek to get the right letter, sometimes only faring as well as one or two words per minute. To anyone who has used an Apple TV remote, you know how wildly infuriating it is to even type out an entire YouTube title by scrolling through individual letters – now imagine writing an entire original book about astrophysics. Using your cheek. It honestly puts me to shame, as I struggle to challenge my old ways of writing music to find new ways to create. But Hawking showed that it is possible, through the heroic task of staring disability and obscurity in the face and typing out a loud and stunningly clear: “No.”
 
Stephen Hawking showed people like me, and the entire world, that even the most profoundly disabled can change the world in unimaginable ways – even if it’s done one cheek muscle twitch at a time. I am more grateful than I can express for his many lessons, in science and in life, and will always strive to follow his example.
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The War on the War on Christmas

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Let me tell you what my policy is, as a Jew, on whether you wish me “Happy Holidays,” “Merry Christmas,” or even “Happy Hanukkah.”

I truly don’t care.

If you wish me Happy ANYTHING, the only way I will react is to be grateful that you sent me good wishes at all instead of telling me to go fuck myself. Much appreciated.

There is no war on Christmas. Unless I’m a total anomaly, my strong impression is that most people just don’t give a shit. Wish people a happy whatever-THEY-celebrate if you can, or else just do what you want. If you wish people a happy opposite-of-what-they-celebrate just to make a point, you’re a dick. But beyond that, it literally couldn’t possibly matter less.

Can we please go back to worrying about nuclear war and global warming now?

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