Congrats Liberals. We Lost Again.

Look. I don't want to write this. I wish I didn't have to, but for fuck's sake, enough is enough.

Us liberals? Us Democratic voters? We lost again, and we've let hate win. That Restaurant owner in Virginia that asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave because she works for Trump? That owner is wrong. All of you that are laughing about it, and celebrating it? You're wrong too.

Somewhere right now, my Mother would be smiling knowing that I'm writing this. That's a good thing. I don't have any idea when the last time was that I've done anything to make my Mother smile. But this is why she'd be happy I'm writing this: Every single part of my being wants to learn to be a kind man.

You see, it's acceptable to lash out about the policies of our presidential administration. There are a fuck ton of reasons why all Americans should be lashing out at them, but at the end of the day we're letting hate win if we treat them, and their avid supporters, as less than human.

No, I'm not saying that we have to befriend Nazis, or KKK members. I won't. You shouldn't either, but no matter how hateful, disgusting, and vile I think they are, I don't want to physically harm them. They're American too after all, and they get the same freedoms and rights that we get.

And really, kicking SHS out of a restaurant is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. We have all allowed our country to fall into an outrage culture. We wake up every morning, and we wait around all day looking for something to be pissed at. Should we be pissed at Immigrant children being separated from their parents? Fuck yes we should, but we should also acknowledge that Obama's administration wasn't really friendly to immigrants either. Finding concrete numbers, and comparing apples to apples is difficult to do, but it is accurate to say that when Barack Obama was President, a lot of immigrants where deported. Some reports say that he was responsible for deporting more than 'W' did. Other reports say that they changed the way they report the numbers of deportations, and it's not clear. Either way, his administration wasn't as saintly as we like to think they were.

All I'm trying to say is this: we have to stop allowing our outrage to block us from what really matters. As for me? I'm going to wake up every morning and try to find ways to be a kind man. If I know a coworker, or a neighbor needs a helping hand, I'm going to try to help them. I'm not going to stop and ask what their political beliefs are before I offer that help. You know why? Because they're  human beings, and hating human beings for their beliefs has never, not once, made a positive change in the world we live in.

I told my wife yesterday, that if Donald Trump knocked on my door tomorrow, and said that he was hungry, I would share our dinner with him. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Trump's behavior, and policies, are no reflection of who I am as a man, but the way I treat him, and other human beings, is.

So Mom, I hope you're smiling somewhere, because right now, in my 39th summer on planet Earth, I still remember something that you tried to teach me when I was a child. I'm not supposed to treat people the way they treat people, I'm supposed to treat them like I want to be treated. And that? That's a universal cardinal rule in almost every single spiritual philosophy.