Burningbird

My Dad, who was a Republican, would have liked Tim Walz. He would have liked Walz’s plain speaking. He would have admired his bluntness, especially when Walz says that a woman’s right to choose is none of our damn business. He would have liked it because that’s exactly what my Dad used to say.

When Dad and I talked about things like abortion, his philosophy was, “It’s none of my business what happens between a woman and a doctor. This is no one’s business but the woman and her doctor.”

He felt the same thing about same-sex marriage: it was none of his business. I know he would feel the same thing about trans treatment: it was none of his business.

He took that same belief to what he expected from his elected representatives: interfering in a woman’s right to healthcare isn’t the government’s business. Whether a woman has an abortion or not isn’t the business of the state legislature. Or Congress. They have work to do that is their business, and abortion, same-sex marriage,  pronoun use, trans healthcare, what books people read … none of these are their damn business.

My Dad was born in 1910. He didn’t always understand why a woman would want an abortion, but her having one, was none of his business. He didn’t fully understand the LGBTQ+ community, but he never expressed disapproval of any member of the community because it wasn’t his business to approve or disapprove. He felt he didn’t have the right to make judgements on how other people lived as long as how they lived didn’t hurt anyone else.

It was none of his damn business. And he fought in World War II as part of the 82nd Airborne to ensure that others didn’t interfere where they had no right to be.

Now, please take some time to watch Lawrence O’Donnell rip apart today’s media in one of his most eloquent and important video appearances, ever. Because he’s telling the media what is their business, and that they are failing.

PS I’ll tell you something else about my Dad: he never would have voted for Donald Trump.