70 years old (in 2025) and don't seem a day over 90.
Photo by Arlon Staywell
Please note: This is my "new" autobiography. It is not that anything in the old autobiography has changed. It is all still the same and I kept it here word for word if you would like to see it. If you keep reading this new one there will be a link to the old one on down. For now please read this new one since it takes into account how the world has changed. I am still religious, conservative, and tend to vote Republican, but Donald Trump is changing what those words mean to many people. I would never vote for Donald Trump or any so called "Republican" who is anything like Donald Trump. I will explain my differences at great length here.
My original inclination to vote "Republican" was because I am more comfortable in an orderly society. My preference for an orderly society has not changed. The "Republican" party lost its way and no longer, especially since Trump, has much ability to ensure order. For example I agree that we should not "coddle" people who remain in our country in violation of proper immigration procedures. However I believe that while Trump probably does scare away the illegals, he is also scaring away the people who would otherwise be happy to cooperate with proper immigration procedures. That is to say that although he is reducing illegal immigration, he is also reducing perfectly legal immigration. That is not how to do it. The people from Central and South America are generally not a problem. They are popular, their style of cooking is very popular, for example there are many "Mexican" restaurants and most grocery stores here stock many items prepared in that style.
This is not to say that I believe the Democrats want a disorderly society. I still believe many of them also prefer an orderly society. Rather I believe the traditional role of politicians in their party has been to place limits on the other party to ensure they do not overstep their powers. It can be important to maintain a certain balance of power so that the people administering order do not abuse their position of power. Democrats are, or should be, much more like "defense attorneys" who protect the people from such governmental abuse. If Trump is ruining perfectly legal immigration that could be an example of a time for the "Democratic Party" to act.
One way to describe a conservative is one "disposed or inclined to follow tradition." How far back should that go though? It does appear there was a time when the world was very violent and cruel. Later it became civilized. Certain "principles" were established. Being a conservative then can mean inclined to follow established principles, not return to a time without principles.
The group usually contrasted with conservatives is liberals. What then is a liberal other than not a conservative? One way to describe a liberal is one who "thinks the principles that have been established need revision." That would be most in contrast to a conservative who "thinks the need for revision of underlying principles virtually ceases at some stage of civilization,"
A more extreme liberal might believe that change for the mere sake of change is inherently good.
Still other liberals might describe themselves as having "interpretations" that are more open to adjustment. That has more to do with literature than politics, but is seen in politics in that the interpretation of the Constitution can be more flexible, open, or more "liberal." The conservative in that case would be the one who thinks the Constitution had one meaning when it, or any part of it, was written and the Supreme Court should uphold that meaning until some legitimate process beyond the Supreme Courts amends that part of the Constitution. Amending the Constitution is a difficult process that requires much more than a simple majority that might happen along one day.
Whether "most" people think religion is the problem in the world today might depend on how the question is phrased. It is certainly true though that some very large number of people think religion is the problem in the world today. That is because so many people today "like" science and consider themselves capable of science. They either believe science has all the answers or at least they believe science has all the answers that should matter to anyone.
They are of course very mistaken about that. Science cannot even begin to address most problems in society or politics. In fact science cannot help anyone decide whether to be a communist or a capitalist.
One thing that confuses the people who put all their hope in science is their belief that statistical analysis has the same force in argument as science that uses more truly scientific methods. The force in argument of statistical analysis methods can vary much depending on what question it is intended to answer. It might have almost "scientific" force of argument in a few rare cases, but it is never science ceteris paribus.
Even more confusing is that most problems in politics are a matter of personal preferences only. Some people prefer the simplicity of life under communism and some people prefer the abundance of choices under capitalism. It is a matter of personal preferences, not any science at all. A capitalist might argue that "free market" principles can point to the best choices for planting for example. Meanwhile a communist might describe how "science" indicates one or another choice for planting is "best." Either of them might exercise some science along the way, but at the end of the day personal preferences rule.
No matter how talented the statistical analysis, it can be meaningless too. Statistical analysis can only "indicate" what a preference might be, it cannot be very certain. More importantly it also cannot be very certain how best to obtain any preference,
One thing religion can do is something it must do. It must communicate higher than a rudimentary, literal level. Please notice that in order for communication to be literal it is absolutely necessary that the source and the audience have the same sort of experience. A source can easily communicate literally about the color green if the audience has experienced the color green. If an audience has never experienced the color green, for example if it has been blind since before birth, then it is no longer possible for communication to be literal about that. Even the best description is going to fall short of the accuracy possible with literal communication with an audience who has the same experience.
Because religion typically deals with experiences quite beyond the ordinary, it necessarily cannot be literal.
A problem some people would blame on religion is that the different religions have a different story and that sometimes brings some members of different religions into conflict. There is a joke: First guy: Do you believe in God? Second guy: Which one? Some people think that is funny because they have never considered that communication that cannot be literal might have reasonable differences in presentation. Seeing however that the story is about something almost no one has ever seen, it should be no surprise that the stories are different.
What is startling about the "different" religions is how similar they can be. At one time it was reported that "religious" people had less education, earned less money, and had less stable marriages than atheists. The mistake in that survey was lumping Christians together with all the other religious people. When separated out all the religions except Christianity did better. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and others except Christians had more education, earned more income, and had more stable marriages than either atheists or Christians. That should be no surprise since such large numbers of Christians are indistinguishable from atheists. There are not many anomalies in the data, but one is that some surveys show that Catholics (considered Christians) have the most stable marriages. That could be the result of the history of Henry VIII and the churches.
I hope you can understand that although I am a religious, capitalist, conservative who typically votes for an orderly society (as often promised by the Republican Party), I cannot recommend anyone vote for Donald Trump, or given that he cannot run again for president with the current Constitution I cannot recommend that anyone vote for his crony successors. It is important to me that you understand that I cannot align myself with Republicans as defined by Trump. Trump's possible bungling of the border "crisis" is the least of his mistakes. He is more obviously wrong about everything else. If Trump cannot be any help to Ukraine, that is only because Putin does not care what Trump thinks about anything, much less Ukraine.
I cannot say I am a Democrat either. They appear to believe they know anything about "science," but they obviously are mistaken about several points of science. Their most glaring mistake is their belief that homosexuality is not a mental illness. (There are probably not as many Democrats who actually believe that as the fishbowl media would like you to think.) The American Psychiatric Association considered homosexuality a mental illness. Then in 1973 that association "voted" by 58% vote to remove homosexuality from their list of mental illnesses. Confusion ensued.
Like most intelligent people I still consider homosexuality a failure to adjust to reality and therefore a mental illness, I suppose it could be different if doctors could give people born to one gender parts of another gender that actually work, but they still cannot. Yet I do not agree that men should never compete with women in sports. Sharing locker rooms is something else entirely. I do not believe Billie Jean King shared a locked room with Bobby Riggs. Also the problems of privacy and safety of public restrooms has already been solved for some time. The latch on the stall door is very simple to use on purpose and easy to see whether it is latched or not. Lest that be considered unsafe there is an opening of about a foot along the bottom of the stall wall through which a medical emergency might be noticed and through which most people could fit to enter and unlatch the stall.
In its infancy there was great hope for what the Internet could become. Many in the field of journalism thought the Internet would help them become better journalists. They thought the art of journalism would advance with or without them. That has not happened.
Instead people who read at a very rudimentary level dominate the internet. There appears some sort of "religion versus science" conflict although neither side is very religious nor scientific. That goes back to 1925 and the Scopes trial where it was imagined that "Creationism versus Evolution" was a real debate. It is not. The only people on the side of "Creationism" take the Bible far too literally and incorrectly. The Bible itself does not require it be taken so literally. The only people on the side of "Evolution" assume Darwin's theory already has explained, or one day soon would explain, the origin of life itself, not just one species from another. Darwin never claimed that exactly, certainly not in his theory. Neither side in that "debate" reads very well.
All these years later, even most of last month, I encountered many people on the internet who have never learned from those mistakes. I believe it would be fair to characterize those as people whose main occupation is fighting, not thinking. On one hand are those who fight for what they believe is some political "right" policy. However, because they do not understand how anything actually works, they cannot be effective. They only do things that are going to have to be undone. On the other hand are people who fight for what they believe is science. They too have no idea what they are doing. Now the Center for Disease Control has a serious public relations problem because people who should not have did fight for what they believed was science. Their failure to admit exactly which mistakes were made might continue to be a public relations problem for the CDC.
If you have read this far (about 2,000 words) thank you and congratulations, you are probably far more intelligent and alert than quite many people out there. It is important to me to clear up these obviously confusing things. Now about my previous autobiography before the confusion caused by Trump, here is that link Arlon Staywell
It is not enough to understand that Donald Trump is a problem. Anyone who argues for him is part of the problem. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is part of the problem. Radio Talk Show Host, Dana Loesch is part of the problem. So called "Christian" broadcasting is part of the problem. Most significantly the voters are part of the problem. Wait right there, shouldn't the voters be correct by definition? In most circumstances voters can make reasonable choices. However it can happen that voters make bad choices that cause problems for the country. Voters need to understand that they themselves need to go back to school to learn something other than how to fight in the media.