COMMUNITY STANDARDS?

The term "community standards" has become somewhat muddled of late. The party who mocked political correctness, PC in their terminology (which merely means cultural or racial respect), is now crying the blues by being called "white trash" or other insulting names. These are, it should be remembered, people who are part of the cult following of the most insulting, bullying president we have ever known.

     I have been punished again by Facebook for such an insult. Commenting on a meme-post claiming trump was hired to sweep the trash out of Washington DC (he was), I responded by claiming that he had swept the mostly competent trash out of the capitol and replaced it with mostly incompetent white trash. Some aspect of that statement was a violation of Facebook community standards. I'm guessing it was not calling them incompetent. 

     Facebook has no reason to feel superior to those of us who speak out against the lies, insults, and innuendo of Donald (not my president) Trump and his followers. Mark Zuckerberg's link to the Trump campaign, the Mercer family, and other sponsors of Trump is well known. His social media site has given free-reign to Trump's base to promote and defend their "Dear Leader". And they have used and abused freedom of speech broadly. To his credit Zuckergerg has limited their ability to spread outright lies. He has semingly not stepped into their use of of insults against the left, as they on the crazy right, view us. This is not a threat to us, but a challenge. We do not need a meme of questionable parentage to convey our thoughts, we have words. And the wit to use them effectively. This is a truth that trump cultists cannot claim. Rarely do I see a written post/response from a Trump cultist where spelling or word usage is artfully displayed. The different uses of there, their, or they're is not well understood by our rightwing antagonists. Nor is, its or it's, who or whom. Yet they feel that their "higher thoughts" are relevant to public leadership discussions. Moreover they feel bullied when called white trash or cultists. People from Dumfuquistan who turn a blind eye to the obvious white-collar criminality of the Trump administration, while expressing their outrage over the imagined criminality of President Obama or Secretary Clinton. People who espouse feelings of white supremacy or racial or cultural xenophobia , these people are the targeted market of the whitetrache (maybe they won't be so offended if they can't figure out the word) that inhabits the higher echelons of Republican politics. 

     These people were at one time swept into the dark corners of conservatism. They were then an embarrassment to anyone with ambitions of public service, even as they were cautiously courted by Republicans. Donald Trump welcomed these low-lifes into the corridors of power. He and his party have changed the concept of public service, which at one time embraced a broader spectrum of "public",  into the narrow version of public that once existed in the former Confederate States. That community was never my community, or the community of the plurality of voters who voted for Hillary Clinton. Our standards are much higher. In fact, we can point to a every president since Abraham Lincoln, whether they be Repbublican or Democrat, as exemplars of that broader view of the public in public service. Additionally we can point to world leaders who served contemporaneously with those presidents as exhibiting that broader view of public service. The only exceptions who come to mind would be Jefferson Davis, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussilini or other such despots which history has passed its judgement on. Community is not appreciated by those who are oppressed by elements of that community. Sooner or later their outrage exhibits itself in resistance. They are not resisting their community, they are resisting that element of their community who they feel are hostile to the greater part of the community. That is the essence of "government by the consent of the governed." 

     If you are okay with racial stereotyping and oppression, you are not the community I wish to endorse. If you are comfortable with a president who does not listen to advice, but rather demands your acquiescence, you are not my community. If graft and corruption is tolerated by the very bureau's that were created to control it, you are not my community. If you can not see one flaw in your political leaders while holding a magnifying glass to Democratic flaws, you are not my community. You are not defending community standards, you are diminishing them.