On January 7^th, in Minneapolis a woman named Renee Good was shot in the face by an ICE agent. The discussion about whether or not that shooting was an act of self-defense by the agent, or a cold-blooded murder has been the main debate of the two main political trenches in America ever since. There were numerous citizens (and agents) recording the event as it happened. The shooter himself had his phone recording in one hand and his gun in the other when he took her life.  The idea that there can even be two sides to an argument about this incident in the first place is baffling to me, and yet here we all are. People on the right prefer the passenger side camera angle of the shooting, because it can appear that the agent was in danger of being hit by Mrs. Good’s car. People on the left focus on the driver’s side perspective, which shows her turning away from the agents and explicitly not trying to drive through them. She was trying to escape. She was in danger, and now she is dead. One agent tried to reach into her SUV, and another pulled his gun out before she even moved the vehicle. And now she is dead.

The video taken by the agent who pulled the trigger in the first place is the most damning of all the angles shown, because you see him switch his phone from his right hand to his left before walking to the front of the vehicle and shooting the driver maybe ten seconds later. He circles her car like a shark. Her last words were to the agent who killed her. She said, “It’s ok, I’m not mad at you.” This was twenty seconds before she was shot in the face. The shooter called her a, “F&*$%ing B#%$” seconds after he shot. Certain news outlets edited out that part, because it didn’t help their narrative of him being an American hero just doing his job.

The agents did not rush to the scene to offer medical assistance. They actually kept a bystander who was trained in medicine from approaching the vehicle and offering help. They blocked the ambulance. Everything about this is wrong.

Certain right wing news outlets and influencers claimed that she hit at least one agent who was sent to the hospital. That is a lie. The shooter fled the scene. None of the ICE agents were hospitalized. Those are the facts, but in this world of politically charged algorithms, selective coverage, and opinions pretending to be news, facts are seen as old fashioned. The concept of an objective truth is being phased out because it threatens the foundations of ideologies. (This will only get worse as AI improves and crosses the uncanny valley to create videos and voices that become indistinguishable from recorded evidence. We are very close to that threshold now.)

People assume I’m MAGA because of my skin, gender, and my faith. Nothing could be further from the truth. When I was younger, I was very politically charged and very loud in sharing my opinions and observations in that realm. I am a straight white redneck Christian liberal man who has witnessed the Christian right devolve into the beast it is today for my entire adult life. I saw the writing on the wall starting in the year 2000 and I poured a lot of time and energy into learning what I could from the Bible and history. I wrote warnings and reminders to conservative family and friends, or strangers online during the wild west of the internet. As a young man, I poured countless hours into pointing out certain scriptures about loving your enemy and overcoming evil with good. I sounded the alarm and stood on my soapbox and preached to people who had stiff necks and hard hearts and itching ears that don’t endure sound doctrine. People who see me as a nuisance and take pride in how much they do not care.

Now, I still hold my beliefs (pro-Christ, pro-worker, anti-fascist), but in the past few years I have worked to tone down in sharing what those beliefs are. I wrote my first two books to be as close to politically neutral as I could make them. I wanted both liberals and conservatives to see President Adam Chambers as a man for the people, who was concerned with rooting out corruption in Washington and making hard decisions that stood to benefit the people in his country, whether they voted for him, or against him. My third book took a hard left turn. I revised that book last year because it crossed the line between storytelling and soapboxing.

Now I’ve taken the soapbox out of the story, and I guess this is as good a place as any for me to set it up. Even if I’m talking into a void, there are things I need to get off my chest.

I didn’t want to make this blog political, but circumstances are forcing my hand. There is way too much wrong with Donald Trump’s America, and while I may only have a handful of subscribers and three weird campy nerd fantasy novels under my belt as a platform, I will not stay silent moving forward. I will share what I see. Who knows how frequently I will post this year? My main goal as stated in my last post is to challenge the comfort zone and shift gears. I’ve written three versions of this post before sharing it. I have another two posts I’ve been working on which will come out soon. My challenge as a left wing Christian is to honor the command to love my enemies. The Bible says that love should be genuine, hate what is evil and cling to what is good. I hate MAGA. I hate Donald Trump and how he has hijacked the right wing and is using the office of president as a means to enrich himself, get revenge on his enemies, and set the entire world on fire. I’m tempted to scream and cuss and attack at full speed, but what I want is to communicate. We’ll see if I can pull it off.