Several weeks back, I made the declaration that the more labels a person adopts, the harder it becomes to be a person and know who you are. Multiple labels saddle a person with mental struggles that become physically exhausting. Each label comes with social responsibilities, cultures, and expectations that cannot be shirked as long as a person has adopted that label.
For example, I am a dual-service disabled veteran. Thus, I carry the cultures, expectations, and responsibilities of sailors and soldiers. Consider what the expectations of a soldier are, and that image is part of the identity and societal responsibilities for being a veteran soldier. Being disabled carries societal expectations, both mental and physical burdens. Consider the Marines, and every Marine is a Marine for life! You graduate basic training and earn the title Marine, and you will ALWAYS be a Marine! Again, that title and label hold societal expectations voluntarily onboarded, and never will a Marine lose the attitude and social expectations of Marines.
The same is true of every single label a person voluntarily chooses for themselves. The label will attract specific people into your social circles, but only as long as you willingly live the life expectations of that label. Each label selected will form identities and mental challenges to meet the social expectations, a heavy burden indeed!
In a recent Tik Tok video, a person proudly declares more than 50-labels, preferred adjectives and pronouns, and identities. The video lasted more than 3 minutes, and I felt sorry for the exertion this person will face every minute they have these identities onboarded. Another person watching this video declared that the subject claiming their labels was mentally ill; I agree with that sentiment. Why; because the subject will never know who they are because of the noise of the labels, which includes the social pressures, the responsibilities, and the expectations. I do not know the name of the person in the video, I would not share that video due to the privacy respect I have for others.
Who are you?
Even though current society in 2021 declares confusion between who and what a person chooses to be, not what are you. For example, I do not like, nor do I onboard, the identity of disabled. I am NOT disabled, handicapped, injured, and working on healing, but NOT disabled. Consider the power of words for a moment.
The transitive verb “dis” means to show disrespect, insult, or criticize. As a prefix, “dis” is defined as the opposite of something, depriving someone of something, excluding someone, or expelling someone. Thus, a disabled person is either being disrespected, insulted, or criticized, deprived, excluded, expelled, or is the opposite of able. Frankly, when we are made aware of the etymology of words, we are then more aware of why people choose to adopt or not adopt certain words and labels. Do we understand this problem of labels just from an etymological perspective?
Regardless of plasticization, words hold power over the mind. Words become identities, thoughts become things, and research supports that labels hurt mental processes and can permanently scar. Yet, who and what a person chooses as their identities are not considered a problem in current society or a mental illness. People’s choices reflect their identities to attract those in socially accepted circles.
Thus, who are you? Who do you choose to be? Are those identities sufficient? While not as important as who a person is, the last question ranks a close second. How many identities can you physically onboard and live successfully? As a fan of simplicity and a follower of the KISS rules, as detailed by Murphy, the god of perversity, I keep it supremely simple to protect my energy levels and allow my identity to shine through. Having only a few identities enables me to select social commitments, restrict the mental noise and exertions, and hold myself accountable to a few identities to grow as a person.
Returning to the Tik Tok video subject and their 50+ labels, identities, and preferred pronouns, we must ask, what is sufficient? A follow-on video by this person reflected the physical exertions from conforming to identities and social pressures. Worse, this person had onboarded several more labels and identities. They reflected the mental illness and physical drain caused by trying to live up to all the label responsibilities. An extreme example; unfortunately, no; the pressures to onboard labels and identities have grown exponentially, mental problems are too significant to quantify, and they are growing.
Not just in America, the confusion about who a person is, the identities, and their inherent loads, have become a global phenomenon. What are the mental health professionals doing; causing harm by not discussing the physical and mental exertions of onboarding too many identities. It is up to the individual and parents of minor children to understand and help learn and teach simplicity in labels allows growth as a person, not more identities, but less. Fewer identities provide freedom for growth, identity exploration and empower mental health, leading to improved physical health.
Identities
As a pre-teen, I struggled with the concept of my identity. Religion was a curse, my family was worse, and I did not know who I was, thus strangling what I could do or become. I got jealous of how my sister could get away with breaking the rules and thought I should be a girl. I struggled with wanting to be a girl for several years as I learned who I was and what I wanted to be. If this problem occurred right now, professionals would counsel me to adapt and change my body through drugs and surgery, compounding my identity problems. Yet, what helped, was getting to know me!
I had several people help me form an identity I could be comfortable living with as I explored my options, fought to understand my role and purpose, and embraced my potential. It took time, lots of time. It required patience with myself, a moral code I could live in, and a desire to learn—all of which I had to develop from scratch. My identity is forged in the fires of adversity, for the consequences of my choices during this time played a role in how I went to school, what I chose to learn, and where I found employment and socially accepted company. Some of those consequences hang around even all these many years later. Some consequences I have been able to live long enough to survive.
Worse, as I have learned more about myself, my identity has changed, bringing with it consequences of change. Music, movies, humor, education, and more are part of an identity that forms a life. Choices bring consequences; how we value those consequences (e.g., good/bad, profitable/unprofitable, etc.) will determine our eventual destiny towards understanding who we are, so we can become what we desire to see in the mirror. More lessons I had to learn, then and only then, could the value of religion be discovered, the value of family understood, and honor and pride and commitment to self appreciated as an identity to live. Crucial to this growth and development, I know when to cut social ties, drop music and movies into the trash, and I am imperfect in changing, but I have some lessons I would see others learn to avoid pitfalls.
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- Commit to learning using the question, “Who am I?” as a core principle to discovery.
- Allow yourself time to think, ponder, and consider before committing to an identity. I always wanted to be a soldier, but I loved the ocean. I did not understand the value of these paradoxical options, and by rushing headlong, I had to learn an identity after living that identity. Arduous path; know first, then adopt an identity. Let me try and simplify that with my favorite axiom, learned as an Emergency Medical Technician, “Never take your body where your mind has not traveled first!”
- Comfort is key. If you are not comfortable, your conscience tells you something is wrong. An identity should require physical strain and mental confusion. Yes, you can delude yourself for a time/ Ultimately, your conscience, spirit, intellect, whatever you call your inner voice, will break through and tell you your identity is not mentally acceptable. If your identity choice is not comfortable, it will affect your physical health negatively.
- Never stop learning; learning leads to change, and change is good!
- When in doubt, turn to lesson two, give yourself more time before committing to an identity.
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I love hard rock, big hair bands, and southern rock. Steel guitars, banging drums, and headbanging to an excellent beat are an identity with power. But headbanging gives me incredible headaches. Too much rock and roll, and I cannot think clearly, and the ability to control my thinking is paramount to me. Do I adopt the headbanging identity or not; sometimes, I am all in for a solid rock fest. Mostly, I listen to the inner voices and moderate my music. See, lesson two continues to hold power and lesson four keeps me thinking how much longer will I affect my identity with an uncomfortable identity with physical pain.
Choose carefully, evaluate often, and allow yourself the freedom to grow by not onboarding labels without due consideration. Please, consider your gender and biological sex as integral to your ultimate destiny and comfort. Before you are comfortable in your skin, you have to be comfortable in your mind! If you want to explore identities, explore, but explore smartly and be cognizant of the social responsibilities, expectations, and cultures inherent with an identity. Observe those with those identities closely for the consequences of thier identity.
I cannot betray a confidence, but I have witnessed how traumatic experiences can be the impetus for forcing an identity change. A close associate went to a party, had a mickey slipped into their drink, and woke to a new reality. The consequences of other people’s identities can negatively impact your identity, especially if you do not know who you are!
I have never been comfortable with the hard rock, headbanging social aspects of rock and roll identities. The illicit drug use, the promiscuous sexual encounters, and the extremes in living frankly scare the hell out of me! But, I love the music, and I love much of the wardrobes in this identity, even though I will NOT wear makeup and cannot play a musical instrument.
Life is a journey; travel safely using the axiom, “Never take your body, or anyone else, anywhere your mind has not already traveled.” Think, ponder, consider, and then act confidently.
© Copyright 2021 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.
The following are several stories where the entire conversation is not being held, information is not being disseminated, and the public is left in the dark. In the name of having that whole conversation, let us ask tougher questions and demand better answers! More to the point, I hope these conversations lead to less government control, bureaucratic edict, and bureaucracy fiat.
Make no mistake, this type of parental and patient abuse is alive and well in America. The face of socialized medicine is a nameless bureaucrat making decisions, running to a judge, and forcing upon parents that which the parents believe is not in the best interest of their child. If you want to read the heartbreaking story of socialized medicine in America, look no further than the 
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22 June 2021, The 
I repeat myself only for emphasis, “I do not care about your bedroom selections.” Provided you and your partner are legal and consenting adults, there is no reason for me to be interested. Your business is YOUR business, with all the consequences of YOUR choices. I have heard the horror stories of pedophiles grooming young boys to become members of the LGBTQ+ community; I have seen the reports on diseases, physical harm, suicides, rapes, and other problems in this community. But, by not having both sides of the conversation, how can a person be expected to make a logical choice about their identity if half the conversation is depicted as roses and rainbows, and the other half is never discussed at all?
Some online sources claim that these targeting groups for pedophiles are defunct, except I do not believe this, as the fluidity of terminology and the plasticization of words are more common among the LGBTQ+ crowd than among politicians. To date, I have not found a single organized group where women groom young girls into lesbian relationships. I mention these two items because conversion therapy goes both ways, luring into homosexual relationships and luring into heterosexual relationships. I have witnessed women practicing witchcraft introduce lesbian lifestyles to their adherents, and I have witnessed several Wiccan groups preach the same lesbian lifestyles to their supporters. However, I make no judgments or broad aspersions beyond my experience as I do not have enough information on the grooming of women into lesbian lifestyles.
You, as an adult, consenting, can do what you please. I merely ask that you stop interfering in the transfer of information so young people can have all the facts. Before they jump into a relationship that can physically, mentally, and emotionally scar them for life, be that relationship hetero or homosexual. End the censorship!
Last week, while scrubbing my SPAM folder on Gmail, I discovered that Google had arbitrarily been sending several emails containing news of a more conservative slant straight to SPAM. Why would Google arbitrarily act in a manner to thwart the delivery of email? A topic for discussion later in this article.
I am not excusing individual accountability for specific acts, but every silent politician in America has condoned the divisive behavior. The corporate media have fed the violence and division, and the press has even been videoed participating in the violence. My wife stated something, “The problems have become too great for any single individual to make a difference.” I vociferously disagreed then and state unequivocally now that good is still in the majority of America and Americans and that 
Join me! Join with your neighbors and family members! Let us for a community of responsible and intelligent citizens, who are informed, and active in halting the government abuses at every turn! As a united front, we can win! Believe that, and we are halfway to restoring America to the ”Shining city on a hill!”
Recently, an email purportedly written or approved by Warren Buffett came through my email inbox. The email has me thinking about the perks and problems in elections, allowing politicians of all levels of government to act like “Lords and Masters” over other citizens. Agree or disagree, your call; however, I do passionately believe that America needs better politicians, and the following are my thoughts on obtaining better politicians.
Agency and freedom, liberty, and capability are interconnected principles needed for a Republic to select its politicians. Term limits unfairly reduce all these interconnected principles, and while I believe in the “Rule of Law,” the framers had good reason not to include term limits. Please note, I am not advocating for a permanent ruling class, nor am I arguing for career politicians; I urge people to think beyond the current disastrous crop of politicians and how they got there. Living in a Republic means change requires time, a lot of time, and sometimes the best politicians need more time but do not have that time due to term limits, so they rush, and in rushing, what could have been a good thing, becomes a disaster!
Thus, bringing us back to the need for better candidates for elections, and a need for better vetting, lower election costs, and keeping an informed electorate firmly in control over the politician elected to lead. Does anyone remember when President Clinton faced impeachment in the Senate for lying; he was genuinely scared of being defeated and kicked out of office. Yet, the governor of California, when facing an impeachment, laughed. That is where politics have fallen since, and because of President Clinton and his vile blaggard of a spouse! Why was President Clinton successful in winning the impeachment process. For two reasons, his wife is an expert in backroom dealing, bribery, and sycophancy, and the Republican Party fell apart without a clear successor that would have been superior to President Clinton.
I have yet to see a “debate” during an election; by the way, neither have you! I have seen manufactured plastic candidates, witnessed corporate media play gotcha, and I observed weak-kneed spineless people talk, but never a debate! A debate includes ideas, not emotion, logic, and reason, not hyperbole and media controllers. A debate does not include commercials! Nor does a debate include 26 or more people on a stage answering questions and interrupting each other for “points.” After a debate, I do not need a talking head “explaining” anything, which is why debates in public used to mean something in politics. A debate should never include more than three people at any one time on a debate platform, and the media are not “asking questions or arbiters of rules, nor are there stopwatches and timed speeches. A debate begins with ideas, ends with logic, and there is no place for the media to interrupt. Pick a topic, detail your ideas, and allow the public to decide.
In conclusion, I have some questions for consideration. I hope to take these questions and form future articles, but before those arrive, I want to spur conversation, and I hope to get mental juices flowing while considering these five fundamental points.
Let me reiterate, America is a Republic (if we can keep it)! A Liberty FIRST Culture knows and understands political accountability and responsibility is crucial to maintaining a free republic. Better candidates are needed to improve those who win political office. I do not know about you, but I am through with coddling the current politicians across America. They need to act for the best of all America or leave office and be held accountable! There is no third option!
Unfortunately, or fortunately, even those committing the fraud and deception are failing the integrity test; because integrity requires at its most fundamental base, trust and truth between parties. The elected officials do not trust the people and do not want to give up power ill-gottenly gained to America’s citizens. Those paying for the fraud and deception all have different personal agendas and only came together on one item, theft of the election process for personal gain. 
Consider for a moment your job, your profession; if you failed in your most critical role, would you expect to have a job for very long? Consider a car mechanic who fails to repair a car; that mechanic will not be a mechanic for long. A nurse who routinely gives out incorrect medication dosages or gives medication to the wrong patients will not be a nurse for long. What about a contractor who builds buildings without proper foundations or the police officer who bullies and betrays their badge. Yet, the elected officials who conducted the farce called the 2020 Elections are not being fired for dereliction of duty. The elected officials will not be held accountable for the taxpayer monies wasted, the candidate’s time and money wasted, nor will they be removed from office. Yet they deserve all these consequences and more.
How have they usurped this power and keep this power; by refusing common-sense voter ID laws and flooding the ballots with mail-in ballots and technological solutions that cannot be traced to a single voter. Common sense voter ID laws include showing a government-issued picture ID before being handed a ballot to vote. Consider the following, to enter a government building; you need both a picture ID and a purpose for being there. To board an airplane, you need a government picture ID. To legally buy alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana, you need a government-issued picture ID. In fact, in many states, driving without a license on your person is a quick trip to jail and is a multiplier of charges when caught. Yet, showing an ID or printing the tracking number/serial number of the ID on a ballot is considered too demanding and has been fought viciously to perpetuate voting inconsistencies and allow fraud in elections.
America will not long survive as the “Shining city upon a hill” if the problems with election laws, the lack of common-sense voter ID laws, and the dead continue to vote in America’s election processes! We, the citizens of America, must act! Not the Supreme Court Justices or any other judge, not legislators, and indeed not the winners of the 2020 Elections. “We The People” are responsible and need to step up to retrieve the power stolen by our neighbors.
DNC-Consulting 