Time to Rip Off the Bandage: Prosecuting a Former President for Crimes is Painful but Necessary to Halt Our Authoritarian Slide

Time to Rip Off the Bandage

Prosecuting a Former President for Crimes is Painful but Necessary to Halt Our Authoritarian Slide

There is nothing quite like the stirring sight of a mature bald eagle flying directly overhead to focus the mind. That is just what Kodi and I saw on our walk along the Connecticut River recently. We watched, enraptured, as the eagle soared almost endlessly without ever needing to flap it’s wings. It simply rode the air currents. 

Historically it seems, it was almost harder for Congress to agree on the American Bald Eagle as our national symbol than it was to later adopt the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. That may be because Congress was not in charge of adopting the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. They did, however, have a veto on the official seal of the United States. Thus giving new meaning to the oft-repeated quip that “congress is the opposite of progress”. Over the course of a few years, they rejected three different versions of the seal, beginning with an effort by Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams who took the first shot, followed by two other committees. The Bald Eagle was a bit of an afterthought, not appearing until the third committee’s submission at the suggestion of Pennsylvania lawyer William Barton. 

By the way, Ben Franklin did NOT suggest the turkey as America’s national symbol. Apparently, over the years that has become a commonly cited bit of “fake news”. He did however consider the turkey to be a bird of higher moral character than the bald eagle, according to a letter written to his daughter, Sarah, mostly because the bald eagle was often a thief of fish caught by other birds of higher standing in Franklin’s eyes. 

It’s hard to argue that the beautiful sight of a bald eagle soaring overhead is a less stirring sight than a group of turkeys taking flight long enough to go from the ground to a nearby tree limb, while gobbling excitedly. But it’s not hard to argue that Congress, both parties, are more akin to the gobbling turkeys than eagles.

These thoughts jarred me back to more current events in our country. 

Thinking back over the last few years since the 2016 elections brought Donald Trump into the White House, feels like a constant exercise in drinking from a firehose of cruelty, with a growing totalitarian shadow falling over the American idea.  

Back in 2017 I wrote this in my column:

“For most Americans, watching the President, and the government that he has crafted, is like watching a car crash in slow motion. We know that it’s coming. We just don’t know when the point of impact will be. More important, we don’t know whether it will be a firey pileup or one car plowing into the Tree of Liberty and decency; a tree that has been painfully and lovingly nurtured; nourished with the blood, sweat and tears of patriots, as it grew and expanded for more than 200 years.”

Now we know. . . Donald Trump with the active and passive collusion and collaboration of the majority of elected Republican officials has turned what might have been a single car crash into a firey national pileup.    

I believe that I am correct when I say that the vast majority of Americans would agree with me that putting a former President on trial - irrespective of the outcome - is a terrible idea. Until recently I would have probably argued against such an idea, figuring that once defeated in an election we would be able to move beyond the tragedy of the last few years, but no more.

It’s not simply the crimes of which our former president has been recently accused. It is the authoritarian storm troops who have lined up behind him, virtually assuring that this madness will continue unless we draw a line in the sand. 

It’s not just shocking that the Governors of Texas and Florida would effectively kidnap refugees who have walked thousands of miles to legally apply for sanctuary in our country. Neither is it simply puzzling that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, self-styled Constitutional conservatives, would sanction such behavior. It is not just weird to have this top tier list of Republican Presidential hopefuls referring to the theft of hundreds of classified documents as a “storage question”. It is downright authoritarian and, dare I say it - Unamerican. 

Unamerican . . . under any other circumstances, I would be horrified to speak that word. As a first amendment purist, I recognize that democracy is a messy and noisy business. The more we can remain open to one another’s ideas, the better and stronger our democracy will be. However, when others reject the guideposts that define the very meaning of democracy, we are at a crisis point.  60% of Americans live in a state where at least one “election denier” is on the ballot. This is the ultimate rejection of those guideposts. 

We can muddle along for another two decades or more and hope that our Republic survives the trauma of the Trump presidency and its consequences, or we can rip off the bandage and let the fresh air at the national wound and hope that the line of acolytes behind Donald Trump will be dissuaded.  As difficult as it will be to prosecute Donald Trump, whether or not he is convicted, he, and his minions must be made an example for generations to come that the rule of law means something here in America. 

Notes and links:

Frontline: Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig, legal advisor to VP Pence

Lies, Politics and Democracy: Frontline Interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9YrPe2Vr84

Frontline: America’s Great Divide: Steve Schmidt Interview

America's Great Divide: Steve Schmidt Interview | FRONTLINE

Chapel on a Road to the Sun Monochrome Poster

Secrets of the Patriot

Abandoned Cornfield

Painted Sky Over Jericho Lake

The Whisper of Winter Wood (Redux) Haiku

Mixed media image hand-painted monochrome with Haiku. This image is part of a developing series on climate change.

This image can be purchased in the following forms: 

A signed limited edition original with a certificate of authenticity. Edition of 25 prints on fine art rag paper with archival inks $495, Click here.

Open Edition print 12"x14 $20.00 Click here

Open Edition print 12"x14 $20.00 

Open Edition print 20"x23" $48.34 Click here

23" x 26" Poster  $34.34 click here

The Shadows We Cast Haiku

Pointilism in the Cloud

Autumn's Final Gold

Supreme Resistance: A Judicial Religious Taliban Seizes Control of the Highest Court in the Land

 The View From Rattlesnake Ridge

Ruminations from an Unabashed Optimist, an Environmental Patriot and a Radical Centrist

Reflection of a Chapel in Autumn Water

Supreme Resistance

A Judicial Religious Taliban Seizes Control of the Highest Court in the Land

The Sham of “Originalism” Has Been Unmasked - What Now?

"When injustice becomes law, rebellion becomes duty." Benjamin Franklin 1759

Let’s start with the basics. 

In the past 50 years there has been an ongoing debate between two schools of thought on Supreme Court Constitutional  jurisprudence. The debate has been centered around the “Originalists” and the “Living Constitutionalists” (There are various names used to depict the converse of Originalists but for the sake of this piece, let's call them Living Constitionalists.) 

Put simply, the Originalists assert that the interpretation of the Constitution should center around the original intent of the founders as written in the Constitution. The Living Constitutionalists believe that the Constitution should be treated as an organic and living document that reflects the founders intent, but takes into account the nuances of a changing and dynamic world. 

Neither of these positions constitute a monolithic set of “truths”, but the Originalists have consistently made the case that their methodology was the right approach. In effect they have made the case that  originalism is monolithic.

The finger in the dike over those 50 years has been the doctrine of “stare decisis” 

Stare decisis is a Latin phrase meaning “to stand by things (previously) decided.” It refers to the legal doctrine of judicial precedent – that previous legal rulings should subsequently govern future rulings on the same or similar legal issues. 

When the US Supreme Court overturned 50 years of precedent with its Dobbs Decision overturning Roe V. Wade it also - according to several of the Justices - opened the door to revisiting other more recent decisions on same sex marriage, LGBT+ rights and more. 

Now some people will point to decisions made that overturned precedent on slavery, especially, as justifications for overturning precedent. But in all of those cases the decision expanded rights for American citizens rather than walking them back as Dobbs did. 

Roe was based on privacy interests but according to originalists there is no constitutional guaranty regarding privacy. However, a later decision “Casey” clarified this issue bringing privacy under the aegis of Liberty, “deeply and objectively written into the Constitution” and therefore more thoroughly documented as a constitutional foundation and less subject to nitpicking by Originalists. 

With the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh and Barrett, the Originalists couldn’t move fast enough to turn their backs on Originalism and Stare Decisis once they had sufficient votes, unveiling the real fundamentalist authoritarian agenda behind the figleaf of Originalism and their actions have emboldened authoritarian leaning politicians. Recently, Florida Governor Ron Desantis spoke at a rally for JD Vance and implored his listeners to put on their “armor of God” to do battle with the enemy. 

The Dobbs decision runs contrary to the very basic promise that runs through our entire constitution, best described by Justice Brandeis when he said “The makers of the Constitution conferred the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by all civilized people — the right to be left alone.”

This right, to be left alone, is at the heart of the fight for womens’ reproductive rights. It explains why a substantial majority of Americans believe women should control their own reproductive choices, even if they are personally opposed to abortion..

Trashing the fundamental right to privacy reinforced by the Roe decision is the final nail in the coffin for the personal privacy of American citizens, male or female, black, brown, white, and native. All of this led by a cabal of fundamentalist lawyers at the Federalist Society, spending hundreds of millions of dark money dollars to remake the Supreme Court with the specific intent of  “transforming the foundational understanding of rights in America”.

If that phrase does not send chills up and down your spine then you have not grasped the length to which the “American Taliban” intend to go in this quest of theirs and the imperative it imposes on the rest of us to halt this decline. 

As bad as the attack on privacy is, Americans should also be aware that the First Amendment, the most basic freedom granted by our constitution, is also on the chopping block with this fundamentalist cabal. 

In a nation where religious freedom is considered a hallmark, a handfull of fundamentalist christians are now intent on deciding what freedoms are to be accorded to which Americans. They have decided that their chosen religious dictates give them the right to tell every other American, irrespective of religious beliefs, or non-beliefs, how to live their lives. 

If they are allowed to do this freedom of and from religion will become a thing of the past and Americans will no longer be bound together by a grand idea, still unfolding, but, rather, by the celestial dictator of a small minority and we will be no better than Iran or North Korea.

Why am I - a male with all of the privileges already attached to that - speaking out about this?. My Alice, who was my north star, would never forgive me if I stayed silent. Alice and I endured the heartache of 5 miscarriages. Each one a long personal journey into darkness and grief. The thought of us having to also endure an authoritarian-driven government investigation into the question of whether it was actually a miscarriage is unthinkable. Alice is no longer with us to speak for herself, I feel compelled to speak for her and for my sisters and for every woman in America; every father and mother who dreams of a bright future for their daughter, including those who oppose abortion. 

Freedom is only found in the right to search our hearts and minds to determine what decision is best for ourselves and our families and to exercise our own bodily autonomy. The fight for Choice is the only position that respects the rights of all religions including atheists and agnostics, by allowing that choice to be made by those most directly affected, individuals.    

Notes and links:

Frank Schaeffer once produced propaganda films that helped launch the Christian right. Now he feels regret for what he calls an 'anti-family' movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25JyC5Whhvc

Schaeffer interview with Terry Gross

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/97998654

Wayne King is an author, podcaster, artist, activist and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, he was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor and the CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions Inc., a public company in the environmental cleanup space. His art (WayneDKing.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published four books of his images, most recently, "New Hampshire - a Love Story”. His novel "Sacred Trust" a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline as well as the photographic books are available at most local bookstores or on Amazon. He lives in Bath, NH at the confluence of the Connecticut and Ammonoosuc Rivers and proudly flies the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags. His website is: http://bit.ly/WayneDKing 

Sacred Light

Sunrise Singularity

Sunrise Sweeps In

Into Orange

Exempt from Public Haunt

Ode to Wynn Bullock

School-o-Fish

Supercalifragalistic Dreams

Sheep in the Shadows

Spirit Pony in a Shrouded Wood

Dismembering the Alamo: Victor Orban’s Fascist Plagarism

The View From Rattlesnake Ridge

Ruminations from an Unabashed Optimist, an Environmental Patriot and a Radical Centrist

Lone Steer in a Painted Landscape

Dismembering the Alamo

Victor Orban’s Fascist Plagarism

Orban Desecrates the memory of a real freedom fighter in his Texas Speech to CPAC as he highlights the Republican lurch to the authoritarian right.

Having just made what I hope is our final move in four years, Kodi and I find ourselves looking out from our porch at the confluence of two great rivers - appropriately bearing the names given to them by the earliest Americans to ply their waters: the Connecticut and the Ammonoosuc. 

In the few short weeks we have lived here, we have watched Bald Eagles follow the river’s meandering curves from on high and Osprey and Perigrine Falcons scan the sky and soar high above the trees in search of fish. 

Though we are officially residents of Bath, NH, our modest “Sears and Roebuck” bungalow, built in the early 1900s, transported to NH on a railroad car and then borne to the land by teams of horses, is closest to the town of Haverhill and more specifically the Township village of Woodsville. Just over the recently built Raymond Burton bridge, honoring one of New Hampshire’s greatest political leaders of the last century, our home sits on a knoll facing the west. 

In just a few weeks I’ve come to love this spot. Neighbors greet us on our walks with “welcome to the neighborhood” and other similar remarks. Never have I felt so welcome in a new place.

Connecticut is an Algonquin language word meaning the “land on the long tidal river”. The river forms the western boundary between New Hampshire and Vermont. 

Ammonoosuc is Abenaki for "small, narrow fishing place” though by the time it joins the Connecticut in Woodsville the river is wide and rather lugubrious. 

Under normal circumstances, all this natural wonder and neighborliness would be enough to keep my attention from straying to almost anything else, certainly not the uber-crazy world of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. But these are not normal circumstances.

As if the recent news about what the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago has turned up and the firehose of news around the January 6th committee were not evidence enough that the right’s road to authoritarianism has removed its speed limits, both the presence of Orban at CPAC as well as the ideologic makeup of the general audience reveals how far the right has gone off the rails of democracy. 

Only two short years ago CPAC actually took steps to prevent overt white supremacists and other extremists from participating in the conference. This year, no such efforts were made. The extremists were welcomed with open arms, and they came in droves. 

When Ronald Reagan was president, he was a bit too moderate for the general audience. Back then CPAC represented the fringes of the Republican party, today it iS the Republican party.    

Orban’s biggest applause line came toward the end of his speech when he said “The globalists can go to hell, I’m going to Texas.” almost word for word plagiarism of a famous quote from American hero and congressman Davy Crockett when he resigned from Congress and headed for Texas to his final fate at the Alamo. But the context of these stolen words was a complete and utter reversal of the intent of Crockett’s statement and a betrayal of the spirit of liberty inherent in the words of the storied Congressman. 

When Davy Crockett resigned from the US Congress he had just been through a soul-crushing battle against President Andrew Jackson and Jackson’s “Indian Removal Act”. Jackson and Crockett were both Democrats and both had been elected on the same ticket but soon found themselves in a fight, the outcome of which would live in infamy. 

Crockett opposed the act that would ultimately end in the Trail of Tears - believing that we could find a way for anglos and native people to live with one another and because he believed that we had a moral obligation to honor our treaty agreements. 

You may recall that even the US Supreme Court, under John Marshall’s leadership, sided with the Cherokee people on the Indian Removal Act but President Jackson defied their ruling and proceeded to move forward with the removal of Indian people from their rightful homes and lands. Crockett, knowing that Jackson was already taking steps to deny him an additional term in Congress decided that he would deny Jackson the opportunity and he announced his resignation, saying: “You can all go to hell, I’m going to Texas.”

Shame on the attendees of CPAC for dishonoring the memory of Davy Crockett and allowing Orban to appropriate his words - the words of a real freedom fighter - spoken, instead, by a self-absorbed fascist who has led his own once-democratic country down the path of authoritarianism and tyranny and has the unmitigated gall to presume that his example would inspire Americans to follow. 

Donald Trump himself served as the other bookend for that day’s parade of crazies at CPAC, a fitting ending to a gathering of even those who once seemed reasonable. Senator Chuck Grassley has recently taken to suggesting that IRS agents armed with AR-15’s were coming for average folks. Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul suggested that the FBI might plant evidence during the search of Mar-a-Lago. Dr. Oz has taken to talking about the second amendment as a protection from the government, mirroring the Black Panthers of the 60s and 70s, who at least had historical context for their actions.  

Like the view from my porch, the mainstream of the Republican party has flowed into the gathering, rushing tributary of authoritarianism making the confluence indistinguishable. 

Ironically, it is only a small rushing tributary, representing no more than 20% of the party - and a still smaller portion of the populace. These people have always been there, hidden, self-marginalized by their own behavior and views but Victor Orban and Donald Trump have given voice to their conspiracies and inane views. Only the voices and views of the mainstream can overcome them but will they? Attrition - the flood of people abandoning the party - and fear have become powerful forces in this historic moment. Is this the death rattle of the Republican Party - The Grand Old Party - or can patriots like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Michael Steele prevail in the long run?   

Wayne King is an author, podcaster, artist, activist and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, he was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor and the CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions Inc., a public company in the environmental cleanup space. His art (WayneDKing.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published four books of his images, most recently, "New Hampshire - a Love Story”. His novel "Sacred Trust" a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline as well as the photographic books are available at most local bookstores or on Amazon. He lives in Bath, NH at the confluence of the Connecticut and Ammonoosuc Rivers and proudly flies the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags. His website is: http://bit.ly/WayneDKing 

Panted Skies over Lake Umbagog

Dancing Onesies

Squam Waterlilies

Wind on the Rail Trail

A Glow of Lilies

Reflection of a Chapel in Autumn Water

Chapel of the Woods, Camp Mowglis

Chapel in the Blue Lupine

My Own Private Lupine Festival

 

My Own Private Lupine Festival

The pandemic may have canceled the Sugar Hill festival, but no one told the flowers.

I love spring in the White Mountains.

Witnessing the landscape come to life is spiritually transformative. Given the state of the world between Russia’s heartless invasion of Ukraine to mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas we could all use some spiritual transformation.

This past weekend, while Kodi and I were on an early morning walk I had the urge to head for Sugar Hill, New Hampshire. 

Before the pandemic, Sugar Hill and Franconia joined, annually, with their surrounding towns to hold a month-long festival celebrating the blooming of the lupine. While the range of lupine on the continent is quite broad, for some reason the area around these small towns in New Hampshire’s Northcountry is legendary for the fields of lupine that dominate the scenery in June. In some cases they are naturally occurring, in others, they are cultivated or simply encouraged by the aesthetics who choose to call these towns home.

One of those aesthetics back in the last century was Robert Frost whose storied walks were surely through June fields of lupine. Frost lived for several years in Franconia, the geographic center of these small towns. His home, and mailbox are preserved in a small museum appropriately hidden off the more traveled way.  I can’t walk these woods, roadsides, and fields without my thoughts turning to Frost and how these vistas must have fired his imagination, though he only seems to mention the lupine by name in a few of his poems. Throughout a life lived during equally difficult times, Frost, like the lupines through which he walked, helped to lead us toward a more peaceful place in our hearts. 

So we still turn to his poetry to find solace and hope - though more recent crises portend even greater challenges than those faced in Frost’s day.

Highland Storm 4 - Glow in the Lupine

Lost in all of the seemingly more immediate crises is the existential Climate Emergency, even though if we were smart enough to tie it to the various challenges we could take active steps to address the emergency. A few months ago Bill McKibben suggested that President Biden should use the Defense Production Act to help Americans and Europeans convert their heating systems to carbon-neutral heat pump technology combined with solar to dramatically reduce the cost of heat and the use of fossil fuels that complicate our ability to increase the pressure on Russia after its incursion into Ukraine. It was a brilliant suggestion that would have dramatically reduced the burning of carbon but his suggestion was swallowed up by Jamie Dimon’s self-dealing call to drill more oil so that JPMorgan Chase could buy a few more fat years for the oil industry and exacerbate the Climate Emergency. McKibben’s suggestion is still out there but it’s just too easy for Biden to go with the folks who own congress. 

Meanwhile, the Climate Crisis accelerates. The far right ignores and denies the crisis and the naive left implores us to save the planet. 

But the lupines growing in June along the roads of Sugar Hill, Franconia, Bethlehem, Littleton, Bath, Benton, Easton, and Lisbon send us a different message. Deny all you want, your presence is not required. The planet is NOT in peril. Come war, pandemic, global warming, the planet will be just fine. 

We are the ones in trouble, along with several hundred thousand other species that we may take down with us.

Mother earth, Esheheman, or grandmother to my Cheyenne brothers and sisters, will go on whether we inhabit the planet or not. She will purify herself, she will still send the lupine every spring - a sign that beauty abides despite the evil, famine and pestilence that comes with the presence of humans. 

As Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson wrote in their timeless classic Where Have All the Flowers Gone?:  “When will we ever learn?”

In the darkest moments, there is a light toward which we can still walk: A place of hope, a place of peace, a place of beauty, a place of wisdom, if only we open our hearts and minds to it. 

Chapel in the Blue Lupine

Notes & Links

The Lupine Festival will surely return in years to come but the good folks at the festival have placed a self-guiding tour map on their Web page here: https://www.lupinefestival.com/

Frost Museum: The Museum remains closed - probably until the fall of 2022 but here is their website:  https://frostplace.org/index.php/museum/

A Celebration of the Lupine: https://www.waynedking.com/collections/143534

Wayne King is an author, podcaster, artist, activist and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, he was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor and the CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions Inc., a public company in the environmental cleanup space. His art (WayneDKing.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published four books of his images, most recently, "New Hampshire - a Love Story”. His novel "Sacred Trust" a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline as well as the photographic books are available at most local bookstores or on Amazon. He lives in Thornton, between Rattlesnake Ridge and the Waterville Range. He proudly flies the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags. His website is: http://bit.ly/WayneDKing

The Corner of the Lupine Field

Storm Over Lupine

An Island of Lupine in a Sea of Gold

A Firestorm is Brewing: The Supreme Court Prepares to Pull the Pin on Democracy

The View from Rattlesnake Ridge Wayne D. King

A Firestorm is Brewing

The Supreme Court Prepares to Pull the Pin on Democracy

Flying into a Gathering Storm

If it wasn’t bad enough that Russia has attacked the peaceful, democratic country of Ukraine and now threatens the world with the deployment of chemical and nuclear weapons, here in the good ol’ USA the Supreme Court is threatening a pseudo-nuclear attack of its own on our democracy.

The Right, having unleashed one attack on our democracy on January 6 of 2021 is now watching in an almost giddy state for their Supreme Court to foment the same response from the other side. There is nothing they would love more than all-out holy war.

If you think that watching them lose their minds over mask mandates in the middle of the pandemic was bad, think of what they would be doing if this were directed toward them.  Let's face it: if this were being done to men in this country, they’d be blowing shit up.  

Fortunately, women and the men who support them in their bodily autonomy are far more rational. But do not mistake this for complacency. It would not take a lot for things to turn very ugly.

Now I am not advocating violence. I am saying that the Supreme Court is about to invite it. Furthermore, the broader they cast the net, the more they invite it.  What happens when they broaden their target to birth control - as some are already proposing. What happens when marriage equality is undone and LGBTQ rights are undone because that is surely on the agenda of the religious right.  

Don’t tell me that there is precedent for this and then go back to Brown vs. Kansas (Board of Ed) or Plessy. When the Supreme Court ruled on these things and overturned precedent, each time it was to grant greater freedom and equality to citizens, consistent with the vision of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Overturning Roe will have exactly the opposite effect. It would be a statist powerplay against half the population, but we would all pay for it in the long run because when we allow such basic control over our bodies to be dictated by the state it will not be long before they cast the net wider and wider. 

Leave aside the fact that as many as 80% of Americans believe women should control their own reproductive choices, and the theft of at least one member of the Supreme Court has placed us in the path of this oncoming train.

Leave aside that the majority on the Supreme Court has sprung from two elections where the conservative, anti-choice, candidate lost the popular vote, only to become president because of an arcane electoral college system.

Leave aside the fact that most of these judges who are poised to overturn Roe outright lied - under oath -when they testified before the Senate in their confirmation hearings.

Trashing the fundamental right to privacy reinforced by the Roe decision is the final nail in the coffin for the personal privacy of American citizens, male or female, black, brown, white, and native. All of this led by a cabal of lawyers at the Federalist Society, spending hundreds of millions of dark money dollars to remake the Supreme Court with the specific intent of  “transforming the foundational understanding of rights in America”.

Yet, as bad as the attack on privacy is, Americans should also be aware that the First Amendment, the most basic freedom granted by our constitution, is also be on the chopping block. In a nation where religious freedom is considered a hallmark, a handfull of fundamentalist christians are now intent on deciding what freedoms are to be accorded to which Americans. They have decided that their chosen religious dictates give them the right to tell every other American, irrespective of religious beliefs, or non-beliefs, how to live their lives. If they are allowed to do this freedom of and from religion will become a thing of the past and Americans will no longer be bound together by a grand idea, still unfolding, but by the celestial dictator concocted by a small minority and we will be no better than Iran or North Korea.

Why am I - a male with all of the privileges already attached to that - speaking out about this?. My Alice, who was my north star, would never forgive me if I stayed silent. Alice and I endured the heartache of 5 miscarriages. Each one a long personal journey into darkness and grief. The thought of us having to also endure an authoritarian-driven government investigation into the question of whether it was actually a miscarriage is unthinkable. Alice is no longer with us to speak for herself, I feel compelled to speak for her and for my sisters, and for every woman in America, including those who oppose abortion. Freedom is only found in the right to search our hearts and minds to determine what decision is best for ourselves and our families and to exercise our own bodily autonomy. The fight for Choice is the only position that respects the rights of all religions including atheists and agnostics, by allowing that choice to be made by those most directly affected, individuals.    

Notes and links:

Frank Schaeffer once produced propaganda films that helped launch the Christian right. Now he feels regret for what he calls an 'anti-family' movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25JyC5Whhvc

Schaeffer interview with Terry Gross

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/97998654

Wayne King is an author, podcaster, artist, activist and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, he was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor and the CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions Inc., a public company in the environmental cleanup space. His art (WayneDKing.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published four books of his images, most recently, "New Hampshire - a Love Story”. His novel "Sacred Trust" a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline as well as the photographic books are available at most local bookstores or on Amazon. He lives in Thornton, between Rattlesnake Ridge and the Waterville Range. He proudly flies both the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags. His website is: http://bit.ly/WayneDKing

Highland Storm 4 - Glow in the Lupine

Winter Clouds Over Cannon 

Clouds Over Crawford

Reflection of a Chapel in Autumn Water

Chapel of the Woods, Camp Mowglis

Chapel in the Blue Lupine

Carry On

Bending Light

Golden Calves