In 1982 Tylenol was poisoned in one location, once. But from then on we have changed packaging so the product won't get poisoned. Now many of our products are too difficult to open, even for the rightful owner. Surely, there's a way to make items easier  for the customer while still keeping us safe. Have we overreacted?

In 2001 the shoe Bomber was caught trying to blow the plane up. He failed and will get free room and board in prison. But since then airline security has been more effective. Not only can't you carry a firearm in your overhead storage bin, you can't bring a lighter or certain kinds of liquids. Now everyone goes through a metal detector, followed by requiring that we have to take our shoes off. I was asked to take all my paper money out of my pockets. When they returned my money I acted angry saying that I had thousands of dollars but they were not returned to me. Have $20 dollar bills been used to blow something up?

There have many reports of sexual misconduct. They came after Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were found committing disgraceful sexual behavior. I don't know anyone who approves of rape. These revelations led to the me/too movement encouraging women to go public of their experiences of sexual verbal or physical abuse, especially if the accused is a prominent entertainer or businessman with deep pockets. 

Many of the reported assaults were unbelievably bad. But there were more complaints of verbal abuse. We understand that too. A boss repeatedly asks his employee to go out him knowing she doesn't want to. A boss brags about the size of his private part. But what does this lead to? Did a man touch  a woman's rear while both were drunk? Did he try to kiss a date but she didn't want or like it. Are they to be considered sexual misconduct?

My daughter recently attended a class mandated for all employees. They were told that if a man says a woman looks nice in that outfit, or says he likes her new hairdo it is now considered sexual harassment. Is this behavior verboten?

Now our important issue is racism. What America did to the indigenous people here is unforgivable. Buying African slaves and bringing them here to work hard, with no freedom, heartless. After 1865, while slavery had been abolished Jim Crow discriminated against these freed slaves as well as anyone of African descent. I experienced it in 1964 while traveling through the Southwhere there were water fountains and rest rooms that were only for whites and separately ones only for "colored." I am dark and feared being in trouble for using the facilities reserved for whites but the alernative was using a filthy restroom for blacks. I was there when Lester Maddox refused to serve people of color. He was later elected governor.

Have we become too sensitive about even traces of racism. We are not allowed to use the word beginning with the letter that follows "m." If we find that someone, other than a rep singer or a member of the cited group, has, we ostracise the person, sometimes ruining their career even if it had happened only once decades ago. Their ancestors left Africa 300 years ago. We do it to be nice. Was it? We created affirmative action which included bussing students to locations that were foreign to them.  Colleges and businesses were told to give black applicants preferential treatment when applying to college or for s job. Affirmative action was ruled unconstitutional. They were then saying they are giving preferential treatment because of their diversity which lately has a sine qua non for a great workforce and college atmosphere. One wonders how they survived without diversity. Today, diversity trumps excellence and past merit. 

We now have an estimated  11+ million illegal immigrants living here. Recently a caravan of thousands tried to storm the wall. Failing to do so, they must remain in camps in Mexico. The Mexicans are revolting against those who want to get into America illegally. They are against illegal immigration. Now they know how we feel. 

The President wants to build a wall along the border in California, Arizona and New Mexico. The liberals are protesting. Does that mean that they want an open border? If the word gets out, we'll have tens of millions of people to make room for and provide them with all their needs - housing, food subsidies. healthcare coverage, free education, et al.  To be against mass migration from Latin America is said to be a racist and xenophobic. It's not their fault for sneaking in. Are we under-reacting about it it?

After the death of a famous singer, whose medical data was shared by several of the hospital staff, we overreacted. We were now so overacting that it is hard for person to get his own test results while in in the hospital. The hospital administrator was contacted to explain this absurd policy. She explained that if I got the results, I might drop some on the floor of my room and someone could  come in and steal them and use them for some dastardly deed. I told the administrator that if she ever changes careers, she should be a defense attorney.I was told to fill out a form authorizing them to give me permission to give my data to me. Then I was told that I couldn't get the results until I left the hospital.

There has been cases of hacked computers. We don't want to be hacked. Now it seems that whenever we call a business we must provide our logon,  password and secret code, or we can't get helped. I called a healthcare billing agency about yet another error in their billing to me. I said that I wanted the manager call me. She did. We were talking about the billing problems and then she wanted me to prove who I was and  asked for me to verify myself with birthdate, address etc. I asked her why she was doing that then. I asked her do many people call to challenge someone else's charges?

I called my credit union to request a free planner, which I never got last year. The woman knew me and knew that the only reason for the call was the planner. I was asked to give her my account number and to remember how much was my latest transfer. I asked her do many people call for someone else and request a planner for the actual customer? Are we going too far?

It seems with all these issues the problem is not only reacting but also the lack of judgement They can't realize how ridiculous it is.

Misleading Studies

 Many studies by well-educated people seem to get the results they  want. Here are: some examples:

We always heard the experts use the term again and again "income inequality." What is the goal? Is it income equality? That didn't work in Russia nor the countries under Russia's rule.'' The more appropriate  term should be the "income gap."

But the income gap is very overstated. The study measures the income before taxes. It should be measuring the after tax income including bonuses for the well-to -do. The researchers also used the low income people without including the government subsidies which are valued at $30,000 for a family of four. It is $50,000 in Hawaii. The uncounted subsidies in food stamps, Medicaid, breakfast and lunch meals at their children's public schools, the earned income credit, housing subsidies, refundable $2,000 credits per child, and so on. This means that 3% are actually below the poverty level, not 12.5%. But for anyone to be living in the bottom 20% is still unacceptable. The rich are too rich and the poor are too poor.

In healthcare we are compared to the other developed nations. The analysis failed to recognize some causes for this. America has a problem with violence and massive substance abuse. So if a person is rushed to the hospital while dying, this counts as a lost patient. Our people are more obese which causes organic problems like heart disease, kidney failure, and diabetes. This adds to our medical costs but are not found in most first world countries. We are more heterogeneous, with some not seeing a doctor until it's too  late. So our costs have to be much higher. We also do highly expensive operations to save even a fetuse's life while in utero. We count our birth rates counting those who are born dead. Then other countries count only children's death when they are at least one year old.

The U.S. also does needed surgeries very quickly in a few days or weeks. To get a hip replacement might take a week or so. In many of these countries, especially single payer systems, that operation would start in as much as a year. The U.S is still number one in all the serious conditions like heart failure, cancer treatment, brain surgery to name a few. So these studies are comparing apples to oranges. It can only be because the study was biased. 

Then there are the claims that America's public schools are nowhere near that of other first world. Again it is apples and oranges. These other countries are homogeneous, share the same language, values and practices. We have a very heterogeneous country. A share of our public school students can't speak English. Others are from their cultures or a family that put less emphasis on education.  This is not say the public schools are perfect and don't need improvement. I beg to differ. I think that even their curricula are in need of change by teaching students to think as well as memorize as it is now.

The conclusion - don't believe something because you heard it from  experts. We have to begin to think for ourselves.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Sticking to What You know Best.

For some time, we heard the opinions of famous people not known for their expertise in the cited issue.

I noticed first with physicists. Albert Einstein, was one of the world's greatest mathematician and scientist. Almost all of his predictions came true. But then he tried his hand at social science. He came out with the now well known statement - "insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results." Nonsense. It's called perseverance. I live in a building with an elevator. I press the button to get the lift but nothing happens. I press it again with no result. I do the very same thing again and I get the elevator.  The same with trying to fix a lens that got knocked out of its position. I tried the same thing for five times with no effect. I tried the same thing a sixth time and was successful. The examples abound, but still some people quote him because he was a great scientist.

When asked whether he believed in reincarnation, he was said to answer that G-d could not be so cruel. Cruel?

Another award winning physicist said that there is no free will except for what others do to us. He gave driving as an example. If someone honks at us we use our non existent free will, not realizing that if we have no free will, everything is predetermined and a part of a larger puzzle, including everything that happens to us.

A brilliant physicist named Stephen Hawkins said that in the beginning there was nothing and nothing precedes nothing. So if I lost everything I ever owned and had nothing, it means I always had nothing. Physicists have come around to the realization that nothing exists before consciousness which is not nothing even though it is not a thing.

Now we have people famous because of their acting skill or sense of humor give their opinion.

One of the greatest actresses who has ever been, is a wonderful person by all accounts. When accepting yet another award for acting, instead of acknowledging all the people who helped her, she made an absurd speech about nominee Trump. It was embarrassing. Whoever wrote that speech should find another line of work.

One of America's greatest actors, came out making insulting remarks about the President, though he did not know what he was talking about. He's a great actor but not a great thinker.

We hear from some "comedians" regarding politics. One held a beheaded Trump. Another spent much of her "comedy" routine at the press dinner, insulting the woman sitting next to her, Sarah Sanders ( no relation to Bernie Sanders).

A few years ago we saw a football player who was in his second season of bench warming, his career was over. He decided to get attention and maybe a chance to play, by kneeling for the National Anthem. Other black players joined the chorus for solidarity with one of their own. They were blaming America for its treatment of fellow blacks. Over the previous few years, several black men were killed by police. What these players did not object to was that the majority of U.S murder victims are black as are 93% of their assailants. They did not decry Chicago inner city dwellers who can kill more fellow blacks in a weekend than are mistakenly killed by cops each year. Remember these are football players who got college for free, and make more than a million dollars a year for playing half of the season's 17 games doing their favorite things. Almost 1,000 NFL players make at least $1million a year.

Now one of our greatest basketball player said that white NFL team owners treat players like slaves. This from a man who makes $80 million a year and is free to go anywhere. He also reminded us that the Nazis built the Berlin Wall, except they didn't. The Soviets built it to keep communist East Germany from capitalist West Germany.

My advice is stick to what you know. If I don't know anything about art, I should not publicly denounce a work of art, unless I mention that it is my opinion alone. I think that each of us is great at something and ignorant about many other pursuits.    

Ugly Americans

This was the title of a best-selling book in the 80s. I always thought it was about how nouveau rich Americans behave as tourists, especially Europe. It was actually a book about the U.S. failure at diplomacy.

Now we have a new kind of ugly American. This has nothing to do with a person's physical beauty or lack of it. This has to do with our behavior.

Most Americans are honest, hard working, self reliant, fair, respectful, law abiding, compassionate, and generous. It is these qualities that made our country great.

The Democratic party stood for these values. But not now.
Lately some Americans have behaved in an ugly manner.

Democrats have moved from center left as were Obama and Clinton, to being extremely liberal, socialist, abandoning our values and disregarding concepts like innocent until proved guilty and due process.

They rallied against names. Certain words can never be spoken. If they are, the speaker is to be ostracized. They started with names of groups. Americans of distant African heritage must be called African Americans. This name would change their lives for the better. Do we call Americans whose parents came here from Europe 60 years ago, European Americans? If they are Jewish should they be called Jewish European Americans?  Isn't this being divisive, with people being identified by their ancestry instead of as Americans, thus creating salad bowl instead a melting pot? 

American Indians who have been severely mistreated by our government, were to be called Native Americans. Every person born in a America is a native American. 

Then there was the baseball team which has been called the Redskins for 81 years had to change their name they were told. They didn't and in a survey, 90% of American Indians don't care about it. 

Then the far left decided to limit any free speech that they don't agree with. At the U.C. Berkeley, a Republican campus group invited two conservatives to speak on two separate occasions. One was a best selling author, the other was a far out Britisher who was gay and married to a black man. They both challeged some liberal maxims and suggested some of their own. No one was forced to hear them talk. But the far left would not allow it. They rioted and damaged campus buildings. The chancellor had police stay away. Berkeley academic standing declined, it is no longer the number one public university. It has gone from the free speech movement of the 60s to not allowing contrary opinions - not allowing free speech, if they disagree with it.   

Some wanted to not have Bill Maher, the liberal's liberal, do a comedy routine at their college. He had said something disparaging about Islam. He came anyway but many comedians are not going to campuses because the extreme political correctness makes many funny routines possibly offensive to someone. No one should ever be offended!

When a deranged racist murdered people at a church service in South Carolina, we saw pictures of him with the confederate flag. The left suddenly wanted all such flags taken down. Then it was 100 year old statues of leaders of the Confederacy. They not only petitioned government officials to take them all down, they started taking them down themselves. It proved that they were against history, racism and law and order.

Then it was on college campuses. Someone wore a costume of an American Indian for Halloween. This was strongly objected to by the extreme left wingers on campus because it might offend Indians.

On another campus, Princeton, some wanted the name of a past president of the university and the nation removed from campus buildings. He was a liberal president but it was thought that the did not have a positive opinion of blacks.  The school administration refused to comply.

Next it was all famous Americans who owned slaves and/or did not consider blacks equal. Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt and Wilson were all found guilty. The extremists then wanted all names of these great men removed from all states, towns, schools and/or  street names or anything else that bore their name. Even our capital would have had to change its name. Some went so far as to want their images on Mount Rushmore erased.

Some students at a prestigious university wanted the name "dorm master" changed because it might remind students of African heritage that some of their distant ancestors were slaves. The school complied. But they didn't go far enough. They shouldn't have master's degrees, masterpieces or call someone a master at what he does or that a student has mastered the language or algebra.

When Trump was elected many already didn't like him. His electoral opponent labeled him a misogynist, racist, xenophobic, dishonest, and anti immigrant, saying that half of his supporters were deplorable. The mainstream media echoed this sentiment making attacking him fair game. A failing comedian held what looked like a beheaded Trump. Another celebrity encouraged us to do things to his son. A Democratic Congresswoman who represents a poor district though she lives in an affluent one, called on fellow liberals to harass anyone in the administration. One said that Trump's son should be put in prison with pedophiles. The response was "no, we don't want him going to Hollywood."  

At the White house dinner for the press, a so-called comedian used the platform to attack Sarah Sanders, who was sitting right next to her. From now on White House dinners will have no "comedians."

Sarah and her family were harassed and chased out of a restaurant and across the street. No Democrat criticized the protest. The town and their customers did and stayed away from the place. The restaurant had to close for a time, perhaps hoping that people would forget. There was similar behavior to a cabinet secretary and the Vice President. Those protesters were arrested.

The latest is this claim that a juror got drunk at a party 36 years ago when he was 17. It is not likely to have ever happened, and it is clearly unimportant. What a teen did does not determine what he is 36 years later. Everyone knew this. The left tried to then claim that even though the judge was innocent, he behaved badly at his hearing. But that wasn't enough. Some ugly Americans, not caring that the event never happened, still say that he is a rapist and should not be on the Supreme Court. Translation, "we don't want a conservative Catholic on the high court."

We have ugly Americans among us. 

How to Solve Three Main Problems Americans Face

The nation's leaders are grappling with at least three seemingly difficult issues: Immigration, health care and taxes. 

I would suggest the following.

On immigration illegal and legal.

I believe that we must stop all illegal immigration. 

We should not allow it but instead make it less necessary. People are dying to leave their beloved countries to come to America. They want to leave because of crime, poverty and/or corruption. Many are advised to claim asylum by their lawyers. Most want to come to America, the land of milk and honey whose streets are paved with gold. We also have a much lower crime rate. Mexico and Central American nations have some of the highest.

Who can blame them. Wouldn't we do the same?

My plan is to close the southern border and have those wanting to claim asylum go to the nearest American consulate in their country. Their issue can be checked there. Those approved for asylum will be transported for free to the U.S.

In order to reduce the massive crime rate, we should send our special forces down there. They can fight the many gang members responsible for the crimes. It would be a large version of the "Magnificent Seven."

We should also send Americans with business experience to help change the economic system so that the poor get paid more and get better education and training. 

Then there would little cause to come two thousand miles and pay thousands of dollars to gang members.

On legal immigration I agree that only spouses and their children would be able to come and the spouse who sponsored them must be responsible for accommodating their needs. I think that we should end the lottery in favor of the merit based policy.

On fixing the Affordable Care Act. 

We have to face the fact that the ACA is seriously flawed. Insurers have withdrawn from the market leaving one out of three applicants with only one company to choose from. Knowing that they had a captive audience, they have raised their rates to make a profit after insuring the disabled. It was forcing everyone to get coverage to offset the costs incurred by the disabled. 

The argument has been that everyone has to sign up to the full plan even though they don't need it to take care of the others. Also it was argued that if someone doesn't have coverage, we have to pay for it if he goes to the emergency. The average monthly ACA payment is a little more than $1,000 and there are some deductibles. So a healthy person must pay as much for an  emergency care with an average cost at a bit more than $1,000 ( before the usual discount.)  So a healthy person would have to go to the E.R about 15 times a year to get the average monthly amount to have $1,000 paid through insurance.

Which costs us more - a healthy young person who does everything to stay healthy and rarely needs medical attention, or the unhealthy person who abuses drugs and goes to the E.R. frequently while on Medicaid or Medicare? We all pay for that.

But don't we need the healthy to offset the cost incurred by the unhealthy?

Here's my idea is to continue to making enrollment voluntary as it was recently changed to. Let private insurers deny coverage to anyone with health problems. Those denied coverage would immediately be eligible to the "public option" which would be a federal program with a share of cost depending on income.

The insures would rush back in the market competing for the healthy applicants. They would lower rates and perhaps get ride of the deductible. They should also be able  to offer a policy that just covers the base medical needs. The reduced plan would only cover  medically necessary hospital costs; office and clinic visits; medicine and other medical supplies; and lab tests.This plan could be much less expensive making it more attractive for their voluntary applicants.     

We would end our annual $8 billion dollar subsidy to insurers. This amount could somewhat offset the additional cost of the "public option."

On fixing the Federal income tax code.

This administration made the tax code simpler and more affordable.  I think that it should have gone further. I think that there should no itemized deductions that mainly help the rich. Instead there should be a standard deduction of $20,000 for singles and $40,000 for families. All income sources would be equally taxable. So $40,000 from dividends, interest, social security benefits or earned income (minus the FICA deduction) would be considered equally taxable. There could be four brackets from 10% to 25% up to $500,000. Those making $500,000 to just under $1 million would pay a straight 30%. So someone earning $600,000 would pay $180,000. A family making over $1 million would pay a straight 35%. So a family making $2 million would pay $700,000 in federal tax alone. This would free the IRS to focus on the self employed and businesses.                                                                                                        

All and Everything

"All and Everything - Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson" was the title of a metaphysical book by the famous Russian/Armenian philosopher,  George Gurdjieff. It was a tale about humans for his grandson who lived in a distant planet as did Beelzebub. He had studied humans and came to various conclusions. The book is long and complicated.

According to Occam's Razor, the simplest philosophic explanation is the right one, if it covers the issue.

Here is a metaphysical explanation that takes just a few minutes to read and should explain everything metaphysical.

 First some background

Some previous metaphysical columns in this blog include: "Why Do Bad Things Happen?" "Punctuation Marks in the Grammar of Life,"  "Religion Meets Science, Metaphysics and Physics," and "Third Millennium Metaphysics - G-d Even Atheists Can Believe In."

Most Western religious systems believe that G-d is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-present. 

Several Eastern religions believe that this life is a dream, an illusion. Who is the dreamer?

Greek, Roman, Hindu, Jewish and even Christian mystics tell us of infinite beings, gods, who come to earth as finite and mortal humans.  Some have children who are part human, part god. They can die but are eternally gods.

Jesus was the most recent example. He was called G-d, part the trinity of G-d's nature, and he was human. He suffered as a human and was crucified. He was still infinite and immortal.

Jewish mystics cite the first line of the Old Testament when G-d spoke and said let there be life. It meant that life exists only because G-d keeps making it happen. He produces the universe with his consciousness. When He spoke there was no one to hear Him except himself and He had no calendar to count the days. 

Some physicists today believe that everything is consciousness. The quantum mechanic physicists believe the universe is run by a giant infinite computer system, infinite consciousness.

Bishop Berkley, an Irish philosopher in the late 17th and early 18th century, believed that nothing can exist without awareness. He was challenged. "What if you start a fire in the fireplace and leave for an hour? Without your awareness how did it continue to burn during  your absence?" The Bishop answered that G-d was aware of it. 

The famous Zen koan is "if a tree falls in the forest and no one  hears does it make a sound?" might mean that nothing can be said to exist before or without consciousness.

Mindful of all these precedents, here is the  theory.

What some call G-d is infinite consciousness which makes the universe. Nothing can be said to exist before consciousness. Everyone is part infinite consciousness and part individual consciousness. So we are part of the infinite puzzle and we are separate from it. We are the objects of the infinite consciousness and we are subjects of our own. We are products of a dream and creators of our own when we sleep. We are the subjects and everything else is our object.We are and have consciousness. (Dreams are products of our creation, they are consciousness but they do not have consciousness.)

The soul is infinite while the body is finite. When we pray, we are addressing our infinite consciousness for help. That's how G-d hears our prayer, because we do.

Because we are infinite the motivating emotion is love, the unifying force. Love is the mother of all intrinsic motivation - doing things as ends in themselves. Since we are separate, mortal, the motivating emotion is fear; we fear death and of feeling inadequate - the source of all negative emotions like anger, envy, jealousy, greed, self pity and frustration, to name few. Fear is the mother of extrinsic motivation, we do what we do because we have to survive, a means to an end. 

Mindful of this duality, we are best advised to do everything as a means to an end and an end in itself. We have to eat to survive and we can love the food we're eating. We have a job because we need money to survive and we can love what we are doing.

Many Eastern religions believe as do Jewish mystics that the soul keeps coming back in different human forms. 

According to Edgar Casey, "the sleeping prophet," most of us were incarnated as male and female alternately. So if a man dies, he will come back as a woman. The person's destiny is determined by past lives, which Eastern religions call Karma. So the soul carries with it past actions and past talents. This explains child prodigies who read at three, play the piano at four or become great athletes. This is not their first life doing, or knowing that.

While most of us reincarnate in alternating genders, some of us come back as just one for several incarnations. This, I think, explains transgenders. If a soul comes back as male again and again and then is reborn as female, the soul may want to change back to its familiar gender. The soul identifies with past incarnations.  

We also have and don't have free will. On an infinite level, everything is predetermined because it is a part of the puzzle. On a finite level, we live as though we had free will. We try our best and plan for the future.

But why do bad things happen?  I believe there is one cause for all suffering be it wars, poverty, ending relationships, crimes, injuries, illness, making mistakes, shame,, guilt, embarrassment or dying to name a few- Entropy. 

Entropy is the natural disorganization/ disintegration of a product of consciousness. War is the disorganization of diplomacy, poverty the disorganization of economic systems. Entropy can be personified as the Devil, but is at the very core of existence. Without entropy, nothing would go wrong. No one would be ill, there would be no poverty or fear.  There would be no need for lawyers, police, firefighters, doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, dentists, soldiers, car mechanics or hospitals. Without life's changes we would have no memory and little motivation. Without fear there would be no courage. Without poverty there would be no need for compassion or kindness.

The prophets and the Messiah promised a golden age. It would have no entropy. Heaven is also without entropy because it has no time or space; but we can't live here without it. 

This, then, is a simple explanation of all and everything.

   

  

If They Say They were Mistreated, You Must Believe Them

The new mantra is if they make a claim of sexual impropriety, you must believe them even if it turns out to be false; even if it ruins the innocent accused. Even the accused are guilty before proven innocent; we don't need due process. The mantra refers to women but other groups could also apply. 

Women have been subjugated throughout history. Their claims of sexual harassment have gone ignored. Even rape got little attention, so if a woman claims she was sexually assaulted, she was.

Many years ago a woman in New York, Tawana Brawley, claimed that she was raped by four white men which included a police officer and a prosecutor. Their careers were tarnished. Then we found that she was lying.

More recently a party entertainer claimed she was gang raped by several Duke Lacross players. The accused were kicked off the team and forced out of the school. After years of investigations, the woman was found to be lying. The students who were presumed guilty sued the university for how all the damage of this tale affected their lives.

A student at Brown University claimed that she was raped while she was drunk. The entire student body turned against the accused. He was ostracized and forced to leave school. That claim also turned out to be false. The accused sued Brown for millions.

A coed at the University of Virginia claimed that she was gang raped by a group of fraternity boys while her boyfriend watched. The Rolling Stone wrote about this allegation as though it were true. The fraternity was a kicked off campus and a few college administers had to step down. It turned out to be untrue. The accused students sued the magazine for its sloppy reporting.

But though these claims were false as were those made recently against a Supreme Court appointment based on her allegations. She couldn't remember when it happened, where it happened, how she got there and how she got home. None of her "witnesses" said it ever happened. She took a lie detecter test and the results were inconclusive. We then learned that she knew how to cheat the detecter. The result was that the Senate approval was delayed with Democrats hoping that thanks to this false allegation, they can run out the clock. Now, though no one claimed rape and though her allegations proved to politically motivated, young progressives starting calling him a rapist.  Now senators who voted for this fine juror were subjected to verbal attacks. One senator who was about to get an honorary degree from a state university, was to be denied the degree because she voted for a sex offender.

Those who say "believe her" remind us of all the women who never got justice, so even patently false claims should be believed.

But what about members of groups that were mistreated for hundreds or even thousands of years? Should we believe them when they claim to be discriminated against?

What about Americans of African descent? Haven't they suffered from racism? Many had ancestors who were African slaves who were sold to Western slave traders. They were slaves in America until 1865. Then they were subjected to Jim Crow laws that segregated them in schools, restaurants, on buses, water fountains and bathrooms. Surely, if they claim discrimination, we should believe them even before investigating the claims?

What about American Jews? Their ancestors were slaves in Egypt,  were overrun by the Romans and had their temple destroyed twice. They were marginalized in Europe with many of those countries expelling Jews or persecuting them at one time or another. When they complained about their mistreatment they were ignored.

Starting in the 1920s, Ivy League schools like Harvard set low quotas for Jewish applicants, perhaps believing that their superior intellects gave them an unfair advantage when competing for admissions. (Now they are limiting Asian admissions perhaps feeling that their  superior motivation would give them an unfair advantage.) Shouldn't we believe them, if they claim discrimination? Who know it better?

Lately, a gay young man has claimed that a junior Senator from New Jersey, also known as Spartacus, had dreams of running for President in 2020. Haven't LGBTQ members faced enough discrimination. Should we believe him even though he is making a claim about a Democrat?

But what choice do we have? 

We can hear all complaints of wrongdoing based on gender or ancestry, withholding judgment until a full investigation is concluded. We can remember that in America people are presumed innocent until proven guilty in due process. As Reagan said of the Russians, trust but verify.