Marriage and Relationships

Lessons on marriage

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

It seems reasonable to say that most people who talk about marriage do so under a choice-supportive bias, saying all kinds of things in support of marriage and getting married simply because it sounds good, regardless of whether it is actually true. So it’s no surprise that someone would pen an entire article on the matter and perpetuate still longer the cutesy ideas.

About the only thing that Seth Adam Smith gets right about marriage is that it’s not about you. Marriage isn’t really "about" anything. Marriage just is. Why do people feel the need to continually manufacture all kinds of crap to say about marriage? Has no one outgrown all the lovey-dovey fairy tales of marriage that we hear when we’re little and that only get perpetuated when we’re adults?

Seriously, let’s take a step back and just look at things with a clear mind.

In determining whether to propose to his then-girlfriend, Seth had a conversation with his father about whether he’d be making the right decision. How he remembers exactly what his father told him is beyond me, given the paragraph he reproduced, but allegedly his father started with this:

Seth, you’re being totally selfish. So I’m going to make this really simple: marriage isn’t for you. You don’t marry to make yourself happy, you marry to make someone else happy.

While true that you don’t marry to make yourself happy, you don’t marry to make someone else happy either. Isn’t it amazing the kinds of things people say about marriage simply because it sounds good? And the idea that marriage has anything to do with happiness is one that’s been getting tossed around a lot.

Let’s look at reality. Life is full of ups and downs, meetings and partings, being able to fulfill long-held wishes and nearly losing everything. Marriage is just a part of life. You can experience all of this whether you are married or not. And within the years before getting officially married, my wife and I went through all of this. It tested our relationship like nothing.

My wife and I met while in college. She was the roommate of an ex-girlfriend, and we met formally while I was in a relationship with another woman. We would get together after another breakup and be together for a short time before I graduated from college. That turned our relationship long distance until she moved in with me in early 2006, a few months after I proposed to her, as she chose to leave school so she could re-evaluate what she really wanted to do.

The summer of that year, I would take her back to meet my family on the east coast. It was the first time in nearly eight years I’d seen any of my extended family. It would be the only time my wife would meet my grandfather, as he died several weeks later.

The next year my wife and I would take another vacation back to the east coast, but one purely for us. The spring following that vacation, I lost my job, putting us on a financial rollercoaster on an increasingly downward trend until I got my current job approaching five years ago. We’re still digging out of that hole, and we’d probably be out of it by now if we opted for financially castrating ourselves and cutting of any and all luxuries until we were out of debt, but then we would also have been miserable during that time, too.

Thanksgiving in 2010 saw the loss of my wife’s cousin at the age of 23. She was to be one of my wife’s bridesmaids had we kept with our original thoughts of having a more traditional wedding, an idea we would scrap in favor of eloping a little over a week before Christmas in 2011. In July 2010 my wife’s grandfather would pass away in his late 70s a week after I met him for the only time, while he was in the hospital.

Our life together has been a rollercoaster. And people wonder why I take a cynical point of view whenever someone says marriage and happiness in the same sentence. It sounds good to say that marriage is about making someone happy, and that you marry to make someone else happy, as Seth’s father allegedly did.

But it isn’t true.

You don’t marry to make someone else happy. If anything you marry because you already are happy, just like you don’t marry to commit but marry because you already are committed. Once you get married, it’s very difficult to untie that legal bind, which is something you need to consider before you get married. So if you’re married or getting married, or considering proposing to your significant other, ask yourself this: could you go through all of what my wife and I have experienced, and more, go through the trials and tribulations that would come with it, and still want your spouse or significant other to still be standing there with you at the end of it?

Most won’t know the answer to this question until they actually experience what is necessary to answer it.

I know a couple who has been through arguably worse than what my wife and I, and they went through much of it before they got married as well. And my parents have been through significantly worse as well. And in the case of both couples, they’ve so far lived to tell the tales.

Now could you? And more importantly, could your relationship survive such tribulations? This is what you need to consider, and if you haven’t yet, then you need to start putting some serious thought into it.

* * * * *

Seth’s father continued:

More than that, your marriage isn’t for yourself,you’re marrying for a family. Not just for the in-laws and all of that nonsense, but for your future children. Who do you want to help you raise them? Who do you want to influence them? Marriage isn’t for you. It’s not about you. Marriage is about the person you married.

It’s almost as if Seth’s father is justifying to his son why he got married decades after the fact, a kind of choice-supportive bias like I mentioned earlier. That is something I’ve seen numerous, numerous times in articles discussing marriage. It seems to be the grand delusion.

Marriage is about family. Marriage is about children. Marriage is sanctioned and licensed by the State because society wants people to procreate… These all sound great, don’t they? Why do people keep perpetuating such nonsense?

You can get a family without being married. My wife’s family got to know me quite well for the several years before we got officially married. I mourned with them when we were burying the aforementioned 23 year-old woman who died much, much too young. I celebrated with them the following summer when that young woman’s sister married, and again this past summer when that same sister received her PhD.

Sounds a lot like family, right? And my parents considered my wife their daughter-in-law a long while before it was official.

Again, marriage just is. You don’t marry for a family. You don’t marry to make someone else happy. You don’t marry so someone else can make you happy. Because you don’t need marriage for any of that. And to hedge off another common, fallacious argument I’ve seen made countless times, I’ll repeat a notion I said earlier: you don’t marry for commitment either, but because you already are committed.

Marriage is more individual than anything else. Why paint it with a wide brush? Why speak of something that is unique to every couple as if every occurrence of it is the same?

About the only thing that is universal across every marriage is the continuance of mutual gain.

Marriage should be a win-win situation. Individuals do things in the hope of gaining something or, at the very least, to avoid losing something. The same is true with marriage. So what do you hope to gain with marriage? And I mean more than just a spouse and a sex partner. I also mean more than the lovey-dovey notions of "I want someone to grow old with" and "I want him/her to be the father/mother of my children". What are you hoping to gain by marrying or being married to your significant other that you cannot get anywhere else, or at least not anywhere else that is convenient and/or desirable?

Your marriage should always be for mutual gain. And not just in the beginning, but throughout. And keeping it about mutual gain requires becoming good at compromise and negotiation. It also requires one other thing that always seems strangely absent in articles discussing marriage, and is also absent in Seth’s article.

What is that one thing? I really hope this doesn’t come as a surprise.

Communication.

* * * * *

It was in that very moment that I knew that Kim was the right person to marry. I realized that I wanted to make her happy; to see her smile every day, to make her laugh every day. I wanted to be a part of her family, and my family wanted her to be a part of ours. And thinking back on all the times I had seen her play with my nieces, I knew that she was the one with whom I wanted to build our own family.

It’s great that you want to make her happy and see her smile every day and make her laugh every day. You don’t need to get married to do that. These sound like great reasons to get married, but they should not be all on which you focus. And if you and I were having a conversation where you were saying these things, I’d be saying right back, "Well that’s all well and good, but why do you want to get married?"

And I have a feeling, given the nature of the article, that I’d be saying that a lot.

Again, marriage is for mutual gain. Virtually every relationship should be for mutual gain to some degree. What are you hoping to gain by marrying your significant other that you cannot gain in any other way or with any other person? It is in the examination of limiting questions such as that where you will talk yourself either into or out of marriage. It is in the examination of such limiting questions that force you to confront the negatives as well as the positives and determine whether you can put up with the negatives.

Because there are negatives. Guaranteed. As much as we try to bullshit ourselves into thinking there aren’t, they’re there. And if you try to tell me there are no negatives to being married, I’ve got to wonder what kind of fantasy occupies our perceptions.

* * * * *

My father’s advice was both shocking and revelatory. It went against the grain of today’s “Walmart philosophy”, which is if it doesn’t make you happy, you can take it back and get a new one.

Not quite, Seth.

Again, a lot of people have very lofty ideas of marriage and how it should be, as opposed to what it actually is. The ideas of "happily ever after", "two kids and a picket fence", and the like still permeate our society, and they’re still fed to little kids from a young age. It’s how the government was able to buy the American people and society on the idea of home ownership and trash our economy at the same time.

Today people still want all of the lofty dreams that come along with the idea of being married. They just don’t want to work for it.

And with life, marriage included, you’re working more to maintain what you’ve gained and accomplished as opposed to conquering new territory. In marriage you’re working to keep it working for mutual gain, knowing at times you will fall short. And when marriage starts getting difficult is when you’ll find out just how much effort you’re willing to expend to maintain what you have. But then you don’t need to be married to experience difficulties as they can arise in any relationship, even a committed, exclusive relationship that just isn’t legally called a marriage.

It goes back to the idea of marriage and happiness. Marriage is not perpetual happiness, but it seems many expect it to be. You will piss off your spouse at times, and your spouse will piss you off at times. It’s how you react that matters. There will also be some rather trying difficulties as well. What will you do when when those difficulties arise? And yes, I do mean when, not if.

* * * * *

No, a true marriage (and true love) is never about you. It’s about the person you love—their wants, their needs, their hopes, and their dreams.

This is only partly true.

In a marriage you need to align your dreams, hopes, wants and needs into a similar path. All of your dreams, hopes, wants and needs still come into play. They have to, otherwise things are going to seem purely one-sided. Again, the marriage should be for mutual gain, and setting aside your wants, needs, hopes and dreams will not accomplish this.

Compromise and negotiation are necessary as well. Both of you must be willing to compromise on things. But more importantly you must also recognize when compromise is not an option. A question to ask is whether your needs are true needs or a combination of true needs and wants you misinterpret as needs? True needs aren’t up for negotiation, while wants and desires are.

Beyond that, you need to keep an eye on whether you’re bending over backwards as opposed to just compromising.

But again, this requires communication.

* * * * *

For many months, my heart had been hardening with a mixture of fear and resentment. Then, after the pressure had built up to where neither of us could stand it, emotions erupted. I was callous. I was selfish.

Fear and resentment? Fear I can understand, given that you’ve been married for only a year and a half according to the article. Society puts a lot of pressure on people to get married, and once they are married, they put more pressure still on them to meet some standard of being a "good husband". Isn’t it odd how we always seem to be chasing compliance with unspoken societal "standards" but always seem to fall short while also always being judged by others on how well we are complying with those "standards"?

And something tells me you’ve questioned whether you’re living up to that standard. Congratulations, that means you’re human. And expectedly this can lead to feelings of fear – if you let it. People will judge you and your marriage in an attempt to make themselves look better in comparison. Just ignore those attempts and live your life.

But, resentment? In a discussion with NBC’s Today, you apparently elaborated on this:

As Smith explained to TODAY.com, he began to struggle as Kim became ever more dedicated to her graduate studies in theater, which led the couple to relocate to Florida. Feeling isolated, Smith said he began to push Kim away.

Looking back, Smith knows his behavior was defensive, but he couldn’t help it when the tension culminated in an argument. Smith had been expecting this "ticking time bomb," anticipating a blowout with Kim mustering just as much anger and frustration as he felt.

Question: how often do you actually communicate with your wife? I mean long, back and forth conversations where you talk about a lot of different things including your own feelings. And how many such conversations have you had since you got married? And before you got married?

Remember how I said that marriage is for mutual gain? About the only way you can keep it that way, along with being able to properly negotiate and compromise, is by regularly communicating.

And by regularly I mean however often is practical.

Given the summarization above, it sounds like there was a communication breakdown. A major communication breakdown.

My wife and I have never had an argument. Even when I was unemployed, losing hope with each passing week about whether I’d be able to find something, and arguably escaping more and more into side work, hobbies and games, we never had an argument. We’ve never had a fight. And that is due to how well my wife and I know each other, and that is due to how often we communicate: whenever practical.

* * * * *

I realized that I had forgotten my dad’s advice. While Kim’s side of the marriage had been to love me, my side of the marriage had become all about me.

If the summarization above is accurate, you didn’t become selfish. Your "side" of the marriage didn’t become all about you – setting aside the fact that even using the word "sides" in describing marriage gives the impression that you see marriage as adversarial, at least subconsciously.

You did, however, react to your feelings of isolation only by making yourself more isolated. Instead of reaching out to your wife to see if you can resolve or at least reconcile what was going on, you chose to do the opposite. Is it no surprise then that your feelings of isolation evolved into fear and resentment, and that the cauldron continued to boil until the brew steaming within erupted into a fight? I’d call it predictable. And you cannot solve a problem until you first acknowledge it, preferably under peaceful circumstances.

You need to be communicating with your wife. Not just talking, as any couple can just talk. You need to communicate. That is the key to determining whether your marriage is viable and remaining so.

And given what you’d been saying in your article and to NBC Today, you cannot have been doing a very good job of communicating. You’re coming up on your second anniversary, so make that a resolution for your third year of marriage, or a resolution for 2014 – to become a better communicator with your wife. But your wife also needs to be a good communicator with you. So make it a mutual resolution.

A solid foundation of trust is what is necessary to keep really any relationship going, marriage or not, and trust requires communication and honesty. Sounds like you’ve been a little deficient on both. But, don’t despair, as most couples are.

In becoming a better and more honest communicator, and with that a better and more honest husband, some things will likely come out that will be offensive and/or angering to one or both of you. The truth at times hurts. But sometimes the pain is necessary to excise the negatives from your relationship.

Life

Black Friday

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

It always amuses me when people complain about black Friday. I’ll admit that I’ve done it, but then I’ve also worked it, along with Christmas Eve and the days in between.

I worked at the K-Mart (store #3447) in Clive, Iowa, from November 1998 to August 1999. On Black Friday 1998 I had to clock in at 5:30am. And when I arrived, there was already a long, long line of people waiting to get in. My brother worked at the nearby Target on the corner of 35th and University in West Des Moines, Iowa, and had a similar report time that morning.

My lucky parents got to sleep in that day.

Interestingly that day we had a computer glitch as well. The “door buster discounts” were supposed to end at 11am, but a computer glitch meant those prices didn’t expire, so the customers kept getting the discounts for, I think, about two hours beyond where they were supposed to. We didn’t inform the customers of the glitch, obviously, so those who got the discount were surprised and pleased while those who did not get the discounts after the glitch was finally repaired didn’t seem to notice it, from my perspective at least.

At the same time, working Black Friday and Christmas Eve (reporting at 6:00am), working mostly late evenings in between (the store was open till midnight for the two weeks preceding Christmas) gave me one hell of a sense of humility. I empathize greatly with those who are being scheduled to work those days. My work in retail allows me to empathize with cashiers in general and gives me an enormous amount of patience with the cashiers at retail outlets.

Because I’ve been there.

So setting that aside for now, I wonder why people, most of whom I’m sure don’t work retail (and probably haven’t at the large big-box stores or a shopping mall), complain about Black Friday while showing up on Black Friday. If you want to end the Black Friday madness, stay home. But the problem is you need to convince everyone else to do the same. The retailers know customers will show up. And they try to give sweeter deals than their competitors to ensure they’ll show up.

At the same time, to ensure their employees show up, the larger outlets likely also provide overtime pay for working those days or something similar – this could be on a location-by-location basis and varies from company to company. They are not required to do so under Federal labor laws. I don’t recall if I received an overtime rate for my time – we’re talking 15 years ago – but I have heard of retailers doing so.

Trust me when I say that the employees don’t really want to be there. Would you want to be stuck behind a cash register on Black Friday while thousands of screaming, annoyed, impatient customers push through your line, berating the cashiers for every little thing, eyeing the register display like a hawk, ready to pounce on any little perceived discrepancy, knowing the discrepancy will cause at least a 2 minute delay in everyone behind that person getting checked out, especially with the discount cutoff time approaching? Of course not.

But if they’re getting an overtime rate, or an even sweeter deal than that, they’ll put up with it while wishing time could go by faster so their next break time will approach sooner. But that’s presuming they even get their full break as most retailers require employees to assist customers on the floor, because saying “I’m on break” or “I’m off my shift” is not an excuse to not help a customer. And helping that customer could lead to being required to help another, and soon half of what should’ve been a half-hour break could be gone, because the up-front supervisor expects that when they send you on a half-hour break, you’re back on your register in a half-hour, regardless of what happens between the moment you leave and the moment you get back.

There’ve been days where my 15-minute breaks were cut down to just 5 minutes due to this, and my half-hour lunch breaks were less than 15 minutes. And on busy days like Black Friday, they’ll be watching your time away like a hawk as well. The only excuse I could make for not getting back to my register when I was supposed to is helping a customer on my way back up to the register.

But then when you’re a cashier during a busy time like Black Friday, time actually does fly by pretty quickly. Your eyes gloss over in the middle of it, but your breaks and the end of the shift come quicker than you realize, even if you’re not able to get out the door when you want because customers will intercept you on the way to clock out, and might even intercept you on the way out the door after you’ve clocked out if they can recognize that you’re an associate. Because, again, saying “I’m on break” or “I’m off my shift” isn’t an excuse to not help a customer.

So to everyone complaining about Black Friday, I propose two options.

1. Shut up about it. All of the complaining isn’t going anywhere. About all you can do to affect the problem is just not show up on Black Friday, but with millions of other customers actually showing up, the retailers have no incentive to change course. Instead knowing what does get the customers showing up, they actually have more incentive to keep going on present course.

2. Work it. That’s right, I said work it. If you are so concerned about the employees who have to work Black Friday instead of spending time with their families, take their place. Apply to work at these retailers for the holiday season so you can take their place behind a register and on the floor during the holiday shopping season.

After all, the holidays are supposed to be about giving and charity, so sacrifice your time and energy so someone else can have theirs.

Unless you’re actually going enter into some kind of major marketing campaign to convince millions of Black Friday shoppers to stay home Thanksgiving night and Black Friday morning, all you’re doing is wasting energy and producing more carbon dioxide by complaining. So expend energy in a productive direction. Either shut up about it, convince millions of holiday shoppers to stay home over Thanksgiving weekend, or apply to work at those retail outlets so others can have their holiday weekend.

And if you’re not willing to do the latter, if you balk at the idea, then, please, just shut up and get back into the checkout line.

Feminism/Law/Sex

Drunk sex

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Capability to understand. That is "capacity" in a nutshell when it comes to the law regarding contracts, and it applies to sex as well.

With a contract the concern is whether you are capable of understanding the terms of the contract and what you are doing when you agree to the contract.1FindLaw.com. "Will Your Contract Be Enforced Under the Law?" If not the contract is void or voidable. Not understanding the terms of the contract, for instance because you didn’t read it, is not contractual incapacity.

Now what if you enter into a contract while intoxicated?2FindLaw.com. "Will Your Contract Be Enforced Under the Law?"

Courts are usually not very sympathetic to people who claim they were intoxicated when they signed a contract.  Generally a court will only allow the contract to be avoided if the other party to the contract knew about the intoxication and took advantage of the intoxicated person, or if the person was somehow involuntarily intoxicated (e.g. someone spiked the punch).

Every contract has two parties. In this example, we’ll use the typical Alice and Bob names, but we’ll make Bob the guy who had a little much at the bar before signing a sales agreement. If Alice can easily discern or have adequate reason to believe Bob is intoxicated, yet allows Bob to sign the sales agreement anyway, the contract may be voidable. If Bob takes Alice to Court over the contract, he may be able to get the contract nullified.

Alice would actually have some level of responsibility to ensure that Bob is capable of understanding the contract, and being intoxicated can impair that ability, especially given how complex contracts can be. If she doesn’t exercise that responsibility, she may find herself without the contract she wanted. Plus she could take on the reputation of taking advantage of potential clients. Neither would be good for her business.

Now if Bob is unable to hold the pen or a coherent conversation, there’s no doubt that contractual capacity is severely compromised.

But let’s talk sex, sexual consent, and, by extension, rape.

There is a growing segment within feminist culture in the US that can be summarized as "if she has one drink, she cannot consent to sex", or "If they aren’t sober, they can’t consent" (image at right). So one drink makes a person legally incapacitated, legally incapable of consenting to sex. Forget the "one drop rule", apparently now we have the "one drink rule". Or is this also the "one drop rule", as in one drop of a drink and suddenly she loses her capability to consent to sex?

To believe this extreme, one must believe that one drink can strip a person’s capacity under the law. No Court in the United States has ever accepted such a claim, to the best of my knowledge.One beer or one shot of liquor cannot do that and does not do that. I don’t even think there’s a mixed drink capable of getting a person drunk in one go.

If you were to have a beer with a sales representative before signing a purchasing agreement, then try to challenge it under diminished capacity after seeing some details in the agreement that you didn’t like, no Court will side with you.

If you were to have one drink and have sex, then try to claim it was rape because that one drink made you incapable of consenting, no prosecutor would take you seriously. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and even in cases of rape, the burden is still on the accuser. And for the accuser to argue legal incapacitation after only one drink requires that to be a very extraordinary drink, meaning there had better be a blood analysis to go along with the claim.

Now in the earlier example, I said that if Alice allows Bob to sign a contract while Bob is intoxicated, the contract could be voidable if Bob takes Alice to Court over the matter. But that is also because of how complex contracts can be, and the contract itself will come into play in any Court proceeding. A complicated contract signed while one party is clearly intoxicated could be grounds for having the contract voided.

Sex is not that complicated.

Are there people for whom one ordinary drink could be enough for legal incapacitation, even with sex? Sure, but typically those individuals are already legally incapable of consenting to sex on a matter of their age.

In a 90 lb woman, 1/2 oz of actual alcohol (equivalent to 1 standard serving of alcohol) can provide a .05 BAC, enough for mild impairment. To say that is enough to eliminate legal capacity with regard to sexual consent is one hell of a leap. But even two drinks, impaired enough to be legally barred from driving, may still not be enough to constitute legal incapacitation when it comes to sex. Again it comes down to whether she can understand what is going on around her.

Yet women like Rebecca Watson have said3Rebecca Watson, 2012-12-17, "If you have sex w/ someone who is drunk, they are unable to consent & that is rape." (Image capture), to paraphrase, that if she’s drunk and you have sex with her, it’s rape, even if she initiates.

The context of Watson’s incarnation of the idea comes from the show The Big Bang Theory, specifically the episode where Penny shows up at Leonard’s apartment obviously drunk4Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DATlxa7PwWE, berates him for a brief period before taking his hand and walking him to his bedroom, announcing in the process that they’re going to have sex. The question arising from this is whether that is rape, specifically if Leonard is the rapist, and comes down to whether Penny had the capability to consent to sex, despite showing quite clearly that she knew what she was doing, even if she may have regretted it in the morning.

The problem with declaring all drunk sex as "rape" is the varying levels of intoxication under the "drunk" banner, from the legal BAC levels recognized for driving (.08% is the typical rule in the US) to the levels needed for alcohol poisoning. One needs to be a little more specific on at what point alcohol does eliminate one’s capacity to consent to sex. Sobriety is a sliding scale and dependent on the level of alcohol consumption and the individual. But there are some clear indicators.

For example, if a person’s motor and/or speech functions have become impaired by their alcohol intake (having difficulty standing or walking upright, slurred speech), along with presenting an obvious inability to control one’s urination and/or defaecation, then any consent to sex or attempt to initiate sex should not be considered to have genuine consent behind it – setting aside for the moment why one would even want to have sex with such a person.

In Watson’s cited example with Penny and Leonard, Penny was not impaired to such a degree. She was drunk, but not to such a degree she could not speak coherently and presented only a slight degradation in her motor skills, though she was beyond the point of being able to legally drive.

So if she is intoxicated but otherwise functional, is she still capable of consenting to sex? That is something that would need to be evaluated on a case by case, person by person basis, but in general, I would say yes, she is still capable of giving genuine consent. Now if the alcohol caused the woman to go from emphatically not wanting to have sex with a guy to fawning all over him, then the authenticity of her consent should certainly be called into question.

However, in no instance is it presumed that one drink eliminates a woman’s capacity to consent to sex. And a woman who is intoxicated can still give genuine consent to sex, but whether a particular intoxicated woman in a specific instance is actually giving genuine consent is something that is to be evaluated on a case by case, person by person basis, and any blanket statements should be dismissed outright.

References[+]

Pledge of Allegiance

Getting them young

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Let’s ask an honest question: does a typical 4 year-old understand what a pledge means? Does a 4 year-old understand allegiance, indivisibility, liberty and justice? I’m pretty sure no 4 year-old understands the concept of a republic, let alone the other concepts just mentioned.

So why are preschools teaching 4 year-olds the pledge of allegiance?

When a 4 year-old recites the pledge of allegiance, are they merely reciting words or do they actually understand the words they are saying? I highly, highly doubt it’s the latter. And if you were to ask a 4 year-old why they are reciting the pledge, they’d likely respond with whatever their teacher told them to say.

Good God, the indoctrination runs deep in this country. Do we no longer have any freedom of thought? Seriously, is no one allowed to think on their own?

And yet parents feel pride in the recited indoctrination of their children. Seeing a video tonight of one such 4 year-old reciting the pledge, I could only feel lividity and disgust.

What have we become?

Life/Politics/Taxes

3 tax breaks to think about

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

A lot of people focus a lot of time and effort on giving as little money as possible to the Federal government. I can understand why, but much of this time and effort appears to be expended on things with very little gain for the average individual. Now that we’re in November, chances are you’re in an open-enrollment period for your company benefits. MarketWatch recently delved into three options that may be available that may reduce your tax burden, but without discussing the drawbacks.

It seems one thing that people often forget to discuss is that everything in life is a tradeoff on something else. Buying something means taking on more debt or having less money. The same with taxes. Taxes are always going to be a financial catch-22, because reducing your tax burden almost always requires you taking on a major expense or reducing your take-home pay – i.e. the only realistic and legal means of reducing your tax burden involves you giving up money.

With that, let’s get into MarketWatch’s three options.

Health care flexible spending account (FSA)

Under the law you can set aside up to $2,500 of your pre-tax salary or wage into a designated tax-free account to be used for certain health care expenses, such as deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses. This reduction means you also reduce your tax burden to the Federal government.

Here’s the catch: what you don’t spend you lose. So to avoid really losing out on this deal, you’d better be pretty good at approximating what you’ll be spending, unless your employer allows for a rollover of whatever is left or a grace period that extends into the new year, both which should still be accounted.

Where the FSA really shines is for the routine out-of-pocket expenses that you can reasonably expect. As an example, my wife goes to the eye doctor every year and wears contacts. The out of pocket expenses and cost of her contacts could be covered through an FSA. Instead I opted to bring her under a better vision plan that’ll reduce our out-of-pocket expenses without a significant reduction in my paycheck – i.e. she’s on the vision plan I get through work.

In short, her next vision appointment will have a reduced out-of-pocket expense attached to it without having to take a reduced income to offset it.

So the health care FSA is better than merely having an account into which you periodically put money to save up for known upcoming expenses because of the tax exempt status. Now only if they’d have something similar for veterinary expenses.

Dependent care flexible spending account

The only drawback of this option is just the "use it or lose it rule". But otherwise, this one seems to be virtually all gain if you have kids and pay for child care. You reduce your tax burden without increasing your out-of-pocket expenses, right?

Well, technically, you don’t increase your out-of-pocket expenses, but you may not be decreasing them either. Most dependent care FSAs requires you to seek reimbursement for what you spend. This basically means that you’re still using after-tax dollars to pay for care, then seeking reimbursement for what you’ve already spent out of your pre-tax dollars. The alternative to the dependent care FSA is the dependent care tax credit.

Many health care FSAs provide a card similar to a debit card that allows you to spend your health care FSA money when you need to without having to seek reimbursement later. So far such an option for dependent care FSAs is not wide spread, and may not even be an accepted form of payment. For example if you hire your neighbor to watch your under 13 child while you and your spouse go out for the night, you may not be able to pay him or her with your FSA debit card and will likely, instead, have to pay with cash or a check and seek reimbursement.

That’s provided you have enough in your FSA at the time you file for reimbursement to be reimbursed. Most dependent care FSAs are not "front loaded", meaning, like a bank account, you can only receive as much as is currently sitting in your FSA and no more. Many health care FSAs are "front loaded", meaning you can spend as much as you need when you need it, so long as you don’t go over your annual allotment.

Transportation expenses

Apparently there are flexible spending accounts for transportation expenses. Interesting. But it only covers expenses related to public transportation, van pooling, and public parking. Damn.

So if I worked in downtown Kansas City and had to park at a parking garage, then I could set aside pre-tax dollars to cover those expenses. Wait, no. I’d have to pay cash or with a credit card at the garage exit, then seek reimbursement later. So if you drive yourself to work, you’re out of luck on this option unless you routinely park in a parking garage where you are charged for parking, but even then, unless you’re given a debit card for this, you still pay out of pocket and then seek reimbursement later.

Now you could switch to taking public transportation, but chances are that’s going to be something extremely inconvenient to you. I’ll use myself as an example. Currently it takes me about a half hour to get to work and to get home, about an hour out of my day. Mapping the same route through Google Maps to take the bus will take two hours each way, an additional three hours out of my day lost while I sit on the bus. No thanks.

If you’re already taking public transportation to get to and from work, then take advantage of this, but read your benefits package first to find out what is involved. Because what could be involved is a $130 maximum reduction each month in your gross pay, meaning a reduction in what you take home, while still paying the same price for public transportation (or more if fares have gone up), and having to live on less money until you seek reimbursement and are reimbursed for your transportation expenses. And if you’re already strapped for cash, it may be too costly to take advantage of this option depending on how long it takes to be reimbursed, with the reimbursements basically covering the next cycle of transportation costs.

The secret to reducing your tax burden: less money

The common denominator to these programs should be obvious: they reduce your income. Paying less in income taxes almost always requires you to reduce your take-home pay. Whether it is through 401(k) deductions, deductions for flexible spending accounts, or the like, they all require you to reduce your take-home pay. And that’s all pre-tax stuff. Even the after-tax allowable deductions require expenditures to go along with them.

So reducing your tax burden requires expending cash in certain directions or taking on payroll deductions that reduce your take-home pay. How many people actually actively realize this?

Reimbursement accounts – i.e. the FSA options that do not provide for a debit card – also still require you to spend out of pocket up front. This means that you are taking a reduced income without a congruent reduction in expenses, meaning your discretionary income is less until you get reimbursed, and how long that takes will depend on the benefits provider, and it’s additional time out of your day along with additional record keeping for the benefits provider. Now if you’re transitioning to a dependent care FSA where previously you took advantage of the dependent care tax credit, you should already have been doing some meticulous record keeping anyway, as you’d be needing it in case of an audit.

So in the end, rather than looking at these "tax breaks" and thinking you’re reducing your tax burden, you might be taking on even more. A reduced income, overhead and bureaucracy to take advantage of the option, no congruent reduction in out-of-pocket expenses. What are the gains and what are the trade-offs?

Do the math to determine how affordable it will be and what the best option will be. And this starts with knowing what the benefits plan provides and how to take advantage of it.

Concealed carry

Exercising a right

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

What does it take to legally carry a concealed weapon, even in Missouri, one of the most gun-friendly States in the US? Here’s what it takes:

Glock 19 Gen4:

  • $650 purchase price (purchased brand new)
  • $35 FFL transfer fee (it was purchased online from an out-of-state retailer)
  • ATF 4473 form
  • NICS background check

Ammunition: $45 + shipping for 50 rounds (124gr Speer Gold Dot)

Holsters: Several hundred dollars trying out different types till I find one that works well

Missouri CCW endorsement (good for 3 years):

  • $125 for all-day lecture plus marksmanship test
  • $30 for box of 100 rounds of ammunition for marksmanship test
  • $100 application fee
  • Fingerprinted by county sheriff
  • Up to 45 day statutory waiting period for more extensive background check
  • $6 fee with Missouri Department of Revenue for new identification

glock.jpg

Legal ability to protect myself, my loved ones and others most anywhere I typically go: Priceless

It costs several thousand dollars, from the purchase of the firearm to the issuing of the permit. There’s all the range time for marksmanship practice and the ammo needed for that. If I decide to change which firearm I carry (which I’ve already done since acquiring my permit as the Glock 19 was not the first weapon I carried), then it’s additional expense, another ATF 4473 form and another NICS background check.

I’ve had several background checks. My fingerprints and information are permanently on file with Missouri and Federal law enforcement agencies.

If you think someone who goes through all of this to obtain a concealed weapons permit is a danger to society, you are deluded beyond all help.

And yet to many, this still is not enough.

Feminism/Law/Life/Politics/Sex

Apparently I rape my wife

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Two words that modern feminists try to control like kings over land are easily "consent" and, along with that, "rape". And to many feminists, it seems, anything less than the following conversation between Alice and Bob makes any sex between them rape and Bob the rapist:

Bob: Do you want to have sex with me?

Alice: Yes!

Sound absurd? If you look at feminist discussions of rape and consent, the tendency exists to boil consent down to an absolute situation. And where consent is not explicitly declared, consent does not exist, and the sex is rape. Sara Alcid said this in an article called "Navigating consent: Debunking the ‘grey area’ myth":

Silence, "ouch," or "maybe…" are interpreted by some as expressions of consent because a defined and clear "no" wasn’t uttered.

A lack of "no" is not a "yes." Assumed or inferred consent is not consent.

An "Okay, I guess" is not a yes. It’s important to not use or base your actions off of vague language when communicating about sex and intimacy.

Let’s put something into perspective here. In how many consensual encounters would you guess a woman has actually explicitly said "Yes"? In how many of the sexual encounters I’ve had with my wife would you guess my wife has actually explicitly said "Yes"? And women, how many times have you had sex without first being asked if you want to have sex or if you’re willing to have sex? How many times have you had consensual sex without actually saying "Yes" to it?

Yet according to many feminists, and the fairly absolutist definition of consent they appear to take, this would mean most sexual encounters are sexual assaults, and most women who have had sex at least once in their lives is a rape victim.

Ladies, how many of you were a little hesitant before your first time? How many of you were hesitant in trying something new? According to the idea of "enthusiastic consent", as explained by "Elfity" of Persephone Magazine, you may not have consented, and may have been raped (emphasis added):

I was giving a presentation to a rather small audience, which I was grateful for as it allowed for discussion. Most of the experiece (sic) was quite positive, and I got a lot of great feedback. And then we hit the enthusiastic consent barrier. Now, in a room full of feminists and feminist-allies, I was not expecting to get any argument on this. I was, to be honest, a little shocked, because I had not planned for debate on this topic. "But it kills the mood!" and "I think that’s unnecessary" comments filled the room. The thing is, I never said it was easy; I said it was necessary and important if we are going to move forward. I know I may get some disagreement on that, but I think it is very true. 93% of victims (and I say victims because I don’t know who survived and who didn’t) are assaulted by someone they know. This means that there is a clear consent issue in this culture, and enthusiastic consent is one way to help fix some of that problem. And yes, I realize that stopping the sexytimes to ask if something is OK isn’t exactly hot to most people. I get that. Make it hot. Make it sexy. you don’t have to stop, walk twenty paces, and ask for permission. Whisper it gently into your partner’s ear, seductively say, "Hey, I think XXX would be sexy. Want to try it?" If your partner is even hesitant, back off.

Sure consent can be an issue, but the fact she brought up the 93% statistic in her discussion is rather interesting, and I feel the only reason to do so is to assert a point that anything less than "enthusiastic consent" is not consent:

The idea of enthusiastic consent is quite simple. In a nutshell, it advocates for enthusiastic agreement to sexual activity, rather than passive agreement… The concept also requires that consent be given to each piece of sexual activity, meaning that a yes to one thing (such as vaginal penetration) does not mean consent to another (like anal penetration)… It’s just common courtesy, really.

Of course it’s common courtesy, so why not just call it "common courtesy" instead of "enthusiastic consent"? Just say, "Hey guys, before you stick your dick in her ass, have the decency to ask her if she’d like to go in that direction." But then, does this require "enthusiastic consent"? No. A woman who is curious may be willing but hesitant, meaning her consent may be genuine and present, but not "enthusiastic".

Can you think of something you’ve tried for which you were initially hesitant but tried it anyway, such as a new kind of "exotic" cuisine? Hesitation in the face of something unknown or unfamiliar is not only common, but natural.

But hesitation is not duress, and persuasion is not coercion. Attempting to persuade her into trying something new, even if in the middle of sex, is not coercing her into doing it, nor does it introduce a state of duress into the situation. Hesitation does not mean "yes", but it also does not mean "no". A person who is hesitant to try something new is not saying "No" to it and the option to persuade them still exists until they say "No" or give some other kind of clearly negative indication.

Now I’ve advocated in other venues for introducing new sexual ideas outside the realm of sexual activity and inebriation. In other words, if you want to give, say, anal sex a try, in the middle of sex is not where the idea should be introduced, and when the idea is discussed, you should not do it while consuming alcohol or drugs. It is possible to do or agree to something while under the influence of drugs or hormones that you otherwise would not do or agree to while sober.

Speaking of sobriety, in August 2013, Dr Phil McGraw asked via Twitter (since deleted): "If a girl is drunk, is it OK to have sex with her?" It’s a pretty simple question, one that actually should be discussed, yet the backlash against even asking the question shows much of what is wrong today. On Huffington Post, Angelina Chapin observed, "People immediately labelled (sic) Phil a rape apologist. It was like watching a minnow dropped into a piranha tank." Later in her article, she said:

Aside from the innocuous snark that characterizes Twitter — "Aren’t you married?" — the criticisms were an ugly distortion of the original message.

…

Unless you truly believe Dr. Phil, a man who has built his career on espousing family values, decided to crowdsource how far he could go with extramarital kicks, I think we can agree the tweet was strictly business. And unless you’re plain delusional, you know the issue of alcohol and consent needs more discussion.

In response to the backlash, Karen Straughan, known colloquially as "Girl Writes What", said this for Honey Badger Radio, a men’s rights advocacy podcast (from the description of the video):

Especially since in [feminists’] minds, Dr Phil is guilty of the gravest of sins. He is a man, and he dared to talk about something that might possibly have something to do with rape. What he didn’t realize is that Feminists own that word and that issue, and for a non-feminist, let alone a non-female, to speak about, or even have an opinion about, rape is blasphemy.

In a Change.org petition in response to the tweet, the petition’s author, Carmen Rios of Washington, DC, said this: "Lesson 101 in my courses was that sexual contact without verbal, sober, conscious consent is rape." Another assertion that a woman must explicitly say "Yes" for consent to exist, adding to it the unfounded assertion that deteriorated sobriety also eliminates a woman’s legal ability to consent to sex, even if she is the initiator – but, somehow, the same is not applied to men.

If she is not asked or does not verbally and explicitly indicate consent, it’s rape, even if consent can be reasonably determined to have been implied. Again, in how many consensual sexual encounters is consent not verbal?

In 2004 a short film was released called "Consent" (YouTube). In the film the guy and gal negotiate terms of the sex they are about to have, with lawyers assisting in the negotiating to draw up formal terms of the sexual encounter. When I first saw it, I thought it was comically absurd to the highest degree, but when you look at the claims about consent made by feminists and how they seem to keep narrowing the definition, I cannot help but wonder if that is the course being maneuvered.

But let’s take it even further (as if I haven’t gone far enough).

Ladies, how many of you would say "he can’t keep his hands off me"? Well if your husband, boyfriend or fiancé is like that, then he’s actually sexually assaulting you, especially if in not being able to keep his hands off you his hands travel across your chest, your backside, or your crotch, since sexual contact with anything less than "verbal, sober, conscious consent" is sexual assault, apparently.

Which would mean I sexually assault my wife.

Except my wife also likes that I "can’t keep my hands off her". Sure it can be a little inconvenient at times, like when I’m getting playful with her while she’s on the phone with her mother, but then that’s part of the fun, and it’s all in fun and typically does not lead to sex, nor is sex my goal in doing that… most of the time. To borrow my wife’s words, I’m just being a brat at that point.

And I think if I actually verbally asked my wife "can I put my hands on your ass?" or "can I grope your tits?", she’d just give me a blank stare and wonder what I’d been drinking or smoking. And why I wasn’t sharing. The same if I were to explicitly ask for sex as opposed to just taking my brattiness in that direction.

It’s clear that feminists are trying to control the definition of consent, and with it the definition of rape. I feel this has little to do with actually preventing rape and more to do with controlling men, kind of how gun control is more about control than guns. And when you control what defines rape, and by extension what defines a rapist, you get women who talk to and about men as if we are all rapists in waiting.

And then as the definition of consent is still narrowed further, eventually you reach the point where feminists are saying, or heavily implying that most, if not virtually all men who have had sex are rapists and most, if not virtually every woman who has had sex is a rape victim.

And, so, here we are, or at least that seems to be where we are going.

Espresso

Contacting De’Longhi

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 2 Comments

Delonghi_logo.jpgRecently I needed to contact De’Longhi about an issue I had been experiencing with my EC-155 espresso maker, so first a little background in case you’ve had a similar issue.

Here’s how I make a latte:

  1. Let the machine warm up at least the requisite 15 minutes the manual suggests. When the machine is warmed up, grind and dose out the coffee in the portafilter.
  2. Turn the machine up to steam and let it come up to temperature. Get the milk in the mean time.
  3. Steam the milk.
  4. Pull excess steam and water through the steam wand to bring it back under temperature and let it come up to temperature for the espresso.
  5. Brew the espresso.

And after all of that is said and done, I clean the machine. Basically this routine is what I’ve seen recommended by Seattle Coffee Gear, from whom I purchased the machine in April 2012. If you’ve read any of my other articles on my espresso maker, you may already be aware that I’ve also made a couple upgrades to my machine (here and here).

So what’s the issue I’ve been having?

To make a long story short, water has been coming out of the steam wand when it should not be. For example, while the machine is warming up, water will fast drip out of the steam wand, and steam will come out of it as well while it’s sitting idle and warming up completely. When I’m brewing coffee, water will also come out of the steam wand – this will obviously have an impact on the quality of the shots I’m pulling.

Seattle Coffee Gear distributes “tune-up kits” for various espresso machines. On their YouTube page, they uploaded a video describing the “tune-up kit” they have for the Saeco Via Venezia, which comes with a brew gasket, diffuser screen, and a valve and valve spring that goes inside the brew head. On the video for the Via Venezia, I said this:

Given the problems described that warrant replacing the valve and spring, I need to do that to my EC155. It’s over a year old, so I think replacing all the small parts in the brew group would be beneficial.

In the video, SCG technician Brendan mentioned the problem I’m experiencing as a possible issue related to the valve spring, in particular, going bad: “If you’re brewing and you’re seeing it dripping from your steam wand, you want to replace this.” Unfortunately SCG doesn’t distribute the tune-up kit for De’Longhi machines. In response to my comment, Kat Oak, part of SCG’s Marketing and Communications team, said this:

Let us know if you can find them! We repair DeLonghis, but they don’t sell us parts for the small machines like yours 🙁 If you find a source, please post it here for other owners (if you don’t mind) – Kat

I ordered the parts from eReplacementParts.com, and I ordered the same parts that would comprise a tune-up kit if Seattle Coffee Gear was making one: valve and valve spring, gasket and diffuser. I also discovered through De’Longhi’s customer service page that parts can also be ordered through a company called Encompass Supply Chain Solutions.

But given that I’ve upgraded the steam wand on the machine, I’ve also had a bit of experience with tearing one apart, so while waiting for the parts, I decided to do just that. I tore down the machine, including taking down the boiler. And seeing in person what the various diagrams have shown, I was skeptical that the parts in question were going to take care of my issue, even though the boilers for the Saeco Aroma and the De’Longhi EC-155 have similar designs. So also while waiting for the parts, I sent this e-mail to De’Longhi’s support e-mail address:

Good day,

I have a De’Longhi EC-155 which I’ve owned since April 2012. Over the last couple months, I’ve been noticing something odd.

While the machine is warming up, water comes out of the steam wand at about the same degree as a dripping faucet. Bear in mind this occurs with the steam/water valve closed. When I’m brewing espresso, water comes out of the steam wand at what appears to be about the same volume and velocity as it comes through the diffuser. I observed something similar during a recent descaling. While the machine is warming up for steam, water and steam will come out of the steam wand, again with the valve closed.

Given the machine is over a year old, I’m wondering if there are parts that need to be replaced. Please advise on what I could do to troubleshoot this issue and correct it.

I sent this message on July 7, 2013. The reply came on July 23, 2013. Basically all they said is to contact a service center. Well the only service center I would consider calling – Seattle Coffee Gear – has already told me through a video likely what they would tell me via e-mail or over the phone. And they’ve also already said they don’t have parts.

Here’s De’Longhi’s response in full:

Dear Valued DeLonghi Customer,

Thank you for contacting DeLonghi Customer Service.  My name is Anthony, 409852, and I’ll be more than glad to help you today.

I am sorry to hear about your issues with the steam wand. Unfortunately, the issue would be internal and we would have limited information about what could be replaced to resolve the issue. These unit are normally replaced and not serviced. If you are wanting to get service, here is where to go to check for a nearest location, http://delonghiusa.com/support/service_centers. You would call one of the Service Centers for more information on the process for sending in for repair.

Thank you again for contacting DeLonghi Customer Service,

Anthony, 409852

Good thing I’d already ordered the parts, as I have no interest in sending it in for repair.

So did the parts do the trick? Nope. As expected, replacing the small parts did not curtail or alleviate my problem. Instead I think the problem is more in line with the parts of the boiler that are not easily removed and/or replaced: the tap on the top of the boiler through which the steam and hot water travel.

And I wasn’t willing to go out and buy the tools needed to thoroughly dissect the boiler down to every last bolt, nut and gasket, so I just gave up on it. Perhaps some other time.

Instead I’ve recently replaced the machine with a Breville BES840XL, also known as “the Infuser”. Otherwise the De’Longhi was a good machine while it lasted, and upgrading the basket and steam wand prepared me pretty well for the new machine.

Politics

Response from Senator McCaskill

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons.  I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

On August 21, 2013, the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its own citizens, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of innocent men, women, and children.  This type of act violates both the international prohibition on the use of such weapons and a government’s basic duty to protect its people.  I strongly condemn this abominable action, and I believe the Syrian leaders responsible must be held accountable.

A peaceful end to the volatile conflict in Syria must remain a diplomatic priority for the international community and the United States, and we must work with our allies to prevent the Syrian regime from using chemical weapons in the future.  I support ongoing diplomatic efforts to hold the Syrian government accountable for their use of chemical weapons and require them to turn over their remaining stockpiles of chemical weapons to international forces to be destroyed.

I believe the President has made an important case for why Syria’s use of chemical weapons has serious implications for America’s national security and that a credible threat of military force can strengthen the chances of a diplomatic solution.  Absent a peaceful resolution, we must carefully consider any further engagement in Syria.  I continue to weigh the possible consequences of military action.  I will continue to engage with my colleagues, evaluate classified information, and monitor the evolving situation, and I will continue to view the difficult questions related to Syria with the experiences our nation has had in Iraq and Afghanistan close in mind.

Concealed carry

Defending Starbucks

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

In the wake of the recent firearms policy announcement by Starbucks, numerous gun rights advocates are reasonably upset. But I think they’re overreaching, reading too much into the policy and interpreting from it things it does not say.

Now first, Starbucks has a right as a private organization to set whatever policies it wants regarding firearms. They can turn every Starbucks into a gun free zone if they so desire. And that is what many are presuming Starbucks has done, but they haven’t.

Initially Starbucks said they will not have any firearms policies more restrictive than whatever laws are applicable. In response to this, they ended up attracting the attention of the open carry crowd in States where open carry is legal – I don’t frequent Starbucks so I can’t speak to any open carry activity here in Missouri. And with this attention, Starbucks was wrongfully brought into a policy battle it would rather have avoided. So Starbucks tried to do what they can to get out of that fight.

And the only way to get out of it was to disallow the people who had brought them into it. The policy change reads more as a "leave us alone, we want no part of your political squabble" than anything else. And the policy is easily targeted at open carry. Howard Schultz said this, according to the New York Times:

I want to make it very clear that Starbucks is not a policy maker and as a company we are not pro- or anti-gun. However, there have been a number of episodes over the course of the last few months that have put us in a position to take a big step back and assess the issue of open carry.

Now the policy is a little vague in its "no guns welcome" kind of language, making it sound like they don’t want CCWs either. But then when has a CCW (carrier of a concealed weapon) ever really been a problem? So long as you don’t see the firearm, there’s no need for anyone to be concerned. CCWs tend to not want to attract attention to themselves, and the idea of carrying concealed is to make it such that no one can tell if you have a firearm.

The one thing that open carry advocates need to understand is that the mere sight of that firearm will freak out a lot of people, and some may even call the police. You may also be legitimately detained, possibly arrested for causing a scene. Remember that "disturbing the peace" tends to be an arrest offense, along with "disorderly conduct", and open carry, even if completely legal under your State’s laws, may fall under either category depending on the circumstance.

Being callous and arrogant while carrying a firearm is no way to protect your rights, and the open carry guys who end up on YouTube after baiting police and scaring the public tend to be the callous and arrogant assholes the rest of the gun community and gun rights advocacy need to disavow.

Logistically open carry makes no sense whatsoever, and the only reason a person should open carry is if they cannot legally carry concealed. But if you can carry concealed, you should carry concealed, and open carry should not be considered an option.

So if you are a CCW, I’d say to continue going to Starbucks and continue to carry your firearm there. The policy already says they won’t confront people carrying firearms, but, again, when has a CCW ever really been a problem? Sure a case or two crops up now and again, but otherwise it’s not really a problem because the firearm is to be carried concealed and inconspicuous. So if you walk into Starbucks properly carrying concealed, you shouldn’t have any problem, and neither should Starbucks.

The troublemakers have virtually always been the open carry guys. And, rightfully so, they are the ones Starbucks doesn’t want coming around again. As for me, I’m not going to be frequenting Starbucks anytime soon simply because if I’m going to get a latte, I’ll prefer the local coffee company, The Roasterie.

And unfortunately for Starbucks this isn’t going away anytime soon. Both sides seem to want every company to take a pro or anti-gun stance, and that just isn’t right in my opinion…