Election Campaign Donations – Really?

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(A video version of this post can be found at: https://www.instagram.com/p/DcY46DDuxQ8/ 

Have you ever considered how it seems that every election is steered by the amount of money a campaign grosses in order to make a candidate competitive in a race?

To be truthful, I have made contributions to some candidates and political causes – $546 since 2015 to be exact – not a lot, but some. I suppose those tiny donations were, in some way, my attempt to allay the fear that the opposing candidate would somehow make things worse for us if he or she won and that my support might help prevent that from happening. And this is just what I…as an individual…have contributed. There are hundreds of thousands, well…probably millions of other people like me making similar donations.

Then there is the big money – Super PACs, corporations, non-profits, labor unions who all invest vast sums virtually trying to buy whatever political clout they can to support their own objectives and thanks to the 2010 Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission ruling by the Supreme Court, they’ve been allowed to invest unlimited amounts of money in political advertising. Is it any wonder the rich get richer? They have the resources to extend their influence to buy whatever they like by funneling money, often surreptitiously into the Super PACs.

But should this really be the way elections are decided? Should it be about how much  money is raised and spent on a campaign? Is it fair to allow the wealthy to have that much leverage in seeking what they want? Oh HELL no. But all this isn’t new. Complaints against Citizens United go back quite a ways.

Think about the aggregated amount of money sitting around waiting to be spent on ads that denigrate an opponent. Instead of a candidate or their supporting Super PAC telling us what they propose, what they stand for, what they want to accomplish if elected, most ads seem to ignore that in favor of telling us how awful someone else is – often by telling half-truths, or in some cases, outright lies. We are bombarded with endless commercials often ending with the words “I approve this message”. We get endless texts and emails. We have to drive through intersections littered with posters that never seem to be removed.

Every four to six years there are campaigns: 435 U.S. house of representatives, 100 senators, a president and vice president – that’s just the Federal level; 50 state governors, roughly 7,383 state legislators – and every one of these candidates try to raise millions of dollars to fight their opponents.

And recently, June 30, 2026 in fact, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6 to 3 ruling eliminated the Federal limits on how much money a political party can spend for presidential and congressional campaigns. Justice Bret Kavanaugh, delivering the court’s opinion stated that the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act’s limits violate the First Amendment. He said, and I quote, “In short, Congress’s original justification for the limits on political-party coordinated expenditures is entirely inadequate under the First Amendment.” Mind you before that ruling, the FECA’s limits allowed for up to $4m on a senate campaign, $130,000 for a House candidate, and over $32M for a Presidential Candidate. The First Amendment also played a big part in the Citizens United ruling. I guess the First Amendment doesn’t come cheap.

Here’s a simple idea – how much better would it be if every candidate for every office posted their voting record, if applicable, along with their platform of what they hope to achieve on their own website. For God’s sake, who doesn’t have a website these days? Use the damn things. If the press did their job and made everyone aware of who was running for what position, then everyone would have the opportunity to read for themselves what each candidate is about and make a decision on whom to vote for. I read a posting yesterday that, in Texas, Greg Abbott’s “war chest” stands at $67.4 million. That’s one candidate for a re-election as governor.

So, let’s use round numbers. Let’s say in that in every four to six year period there are 10,000 campaigns and each campaign spends $2,000, even $3,000 for a well-constructed, comprehensive candidate website – that’s $20 or $30 million in total, less than half of one candidates war chest. There are billions of dollars out there trying to sway elections. Don’t you think there are better ways to spend that money? You know The Constitution, that document which governs how things should run in this country. As a reminder, it opens with “We The People”. It does not open with “We the Super PACS”.

Just one more example of American insanity.

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The Bible – A Moral Standard for Today?

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(A video version of this post can be found at: https://www.instagram.com/p/DcQ9HdvOLrS/?hl=en)

The Bible, a term derived from the Greek ta biblia meaning “the books”, is often claimed as the world’s all-time bestseller. It’s become noun for any reference material that supports Christian ideals. The Old Testament portion is generally a collection of four genres: law or the Pentateuch, history, wisdom, and the prophets – both major and minor. Did Moses write the Pentateuch? Doubtful. The Documentary Hypothesis suggests the Pentateuch is actually a blending of four different sources of material written over a five hundred year period starting about a thousand years before Christ. Many of the other books are attributed to the Minor Prophets who claimed either inspiration from God or hearing his words directly. Today, if an author claimed to have written something as dictated directly from God, he’d be branded a lunatic, so I’m curious how the Bible gets a free pass. The bible we reference today has chapters and verses (that which foments the ease of quotability of passages), but they are only editorial additions that date back to the 13th and 16th centuries. To fully understand the evolution of the Bible we have today from the early collections of the Tanakh (to the Septuagint to the Torah, one would need to combine the talents of a scholar, a detective, and a puzzlist.

But the issue which concerns me is the staunch reliance on using it as the standard by which we measure our moral code. Certainly, the world has no lack of poor moralistic behavior, but to be guided by a series of texts that were drafted by unknown authors from thousands of years ago doesn’t strongly support much credibility especially if we acknowledge how heavily male-centric the documents are. More to the point, the moral fabric of our society is more complicated and diverse thant it was in past millennia, and it fluctuates. For example: there has always been homosexuality, at various points in history it was more acceptable than at other times, but it’s been around. Several hundred years ago it was acceptable for an older man to marry a girl just past puberty as she was now physically able to provide heirs. Today, that same man would be recognized as a pedophile. People surely had issues with gender identification, but probably just had to live with it. Psychology dates to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, but it didn’t become a science until the 19th century. Our greater understanding of human complexity because of it alone should antiquate the Bible as a governing source of moral standards.

Still, the most egregious use of the Bible is the cherry-picking of quotes as a basis for taking the upper hand in an argument. You know what I mean – all those people who open a sentence by saying: the Bible says…or according to the Bible…I love the scene from season 2, episode 3 of The West Wing in which President Bartlet demonstrates how ridiculous it is to cherry-pick by displaying the inconsistencies of the Old Testament that systematically condemns our modern way of life. Check it out on Netflix.

Then we have the New Testament, the Gospels attributed (doubtfully) to the words of the apostles and the letters (epistles) from Paul, James, Peter, and John. These are given nearly divine significance because of their personal association with Jesus, well, except Paul, he never met him. If anything from the bible should be used as the foundation for moralistic behavior, it might be the teachings credited to Jesus, or more appropriately Yeshua; at least he taught acceptance and love toward ALL. In fact, if you even ignore the belief that Jesus was incarnate from God and just listen to what he had to say, the teachings offer an amazing amount of guidance. All the Christian mutterings in the news today seem to fly in the face of everything Jesus stood for just as Republican policies regarding immigration, DEI, ICE operations, and being anti-WOKE do. Most Christians wouldn’t relate to what Jesus stood for if they were slapped in the head with a copy of the Beatitudes.

As for the bible itself, as far as I’m concerned you can toss it in the garbage along with the Torah and the Koran.

Simply replace it all with the Golden Rule – that covers a lot of ground all by itself because it transcends all religions, civilizations, and societies.

From Yeshua – Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you… John 14:27

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Atheism – A Religious Irony

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(A video version of this post can be found at: https://www.instagram.com/p/DcEktecpZsp/)

Growing up, social etiquette dictated a rule – never speak of religion or politics in social settings. Up to about ten years ago, I was a good boy, but after turning 60, I discovered I didn’t really much care if people liked what I decided to write or post about.

Yes, as a storyteller, my hope is that the books I write offer a few hours of escape and enjoyment just as I was the thankful recipient of the stories from my favorite authors.

But one thing that was drilled into my head while studying for my Master of Fine Arts Degree was that writers observe and then package what we observe into our writing. We become the spokesmen for the human condition. It’s why books like 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Of Mice and Men, and The Brothers Karamazov are such amazing classics.

Given the times in which we live, I, like many of my fellow writers, feel compelled to weigh in on the taboo topics of religion and politics. I posted a politically themed reel the other day, and as I suspected would happen, robust commentary from the questionably intelligent thoughts of some MAGA patriots began to flow.

See what I mean?

But religion is another focus of mine. Why? Because it was a central part of the first half of my life.

When I was eight years old, my parents informed me that my father was taking steps to answer his “calling” to enter the priesthood. Sure enough, he disappeared from my life for several years as he worked by day and went to Mercer School of Theology at night with the goal of being ordained in the Episcopal Church (that’s catholic-lite to the R.C.s amongst you or catholic with less guilt). Three years later, I rose from my bed with the flu to witness our bishops administer the laying on of hands at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, NY (yes, Episcopalians do retain the ‘authority’ of Apostolic Succession). From that day forward I became a PK. Shortly thereafter, we moved into a rectory and began a life that was heavily infused with religion – it was our daily existence.

And I did my part. I trained the acolytes, became a Sunday school teacher, joined the vestry when I was eighteen, and passed the requirements to become licensed as a Lay Reader and a Chalice Administrator. On rare occasions, when my father was sick, I even led the congregation in Morning Prayer. This continued well into my adult years.

One day, while showering, I had an epiphany (not to be confused with the Christian celebration) and answered a nagging question: why did I have so much trouble holding my faith? Answer: I never had it in the first place. It was stunning in its simplicity. Something clicked into place at that moment. I realized that most of the teachings of the church didn’t make sense, never did, but I was now free to explore alternatives, and not to stubbornly try for the forced acknowledgment of a faith I didn’t have. I embraced agnosticism for about a month. The exploration ultimately led to atheism.

Now, here’s the irony. Forty years of religious life, going to church weekly, if not semi-weekly, reciting and memorizing countless prayers and creeds, none of that ever came close to the profound realization I gained from becoming an atheist. Atheism is what provided me with an enhanced sense of morality.

Imagine, just for a moment that there is no God, that there is no life after death, that your time on earth is truly the only shot you have at living – just picture this for a second. Now imagine how much more the value of a life increases. How much more heinous is a murder, or a war, or neglect of our fellow man given that this is all we will ever have? It increases the magnitude of those transgressions beyond understanding. You would no longer be able to suffer life with the thought that – it’s alright, your reward will come after you die. You can no longer take solace in the concept that evildoers will suffer an indescribable fate when the Day of Judgment comes. It knocks the system of justice off its well-oiled tracks and trashes thousands of years of assumption. When you free yourself from the constraints that teach against the idea that it’s possible to have evolved into sentient creatures without benefit of divine influence, it liberates your thought process to imagine so many other insightful and meaningful truths.

Atheism taught me this. Atheism, not religion, taught me to honor the life of every deserving human being. It taught me restraint. It created in me a painful sensitivity to injustice – something which hurts more every day as I look at the news both here and abroad – from people being murdered by ICE to the arbitrary hanging of protesters in Iran, from the renditions of harmless immigrants to living in a society which creates more and more opportunity for the wealthy to obtain an obscene amount of riches.

Take a good hard look at our world – it’s insane and it’s getting worse. A fair share has to do with religion, that little thing which has been the root cause of more death, destruction, and misery over these many millennia. Religion, nationalism, and inequality are the dynamic forces driving humanity to the brink. Add to that a thriving cancel culture, unparalleled greed, and the narcissistic personalities of those in leadership positions and it’s a wonder if it is even possible to steer a course that might avoid an ultimate dystopia.

Just think about it…

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