An Open Letter to my 40-something white, male friend on Facebook:

I have not commented in months on your political posts, because I have realized that you are not planning on changing your mind in this election, and you are set on your talking points.

I occasionally post things on my Facebook page for my friends, mostly like-minded politically, many living overseas; to see things they might have missed. Perhaps you would also like to show restraint and not comment on my postings. You will not change my mind either, nor the minds of any of my commenters.

But since you persist, here is my response.

You ascribe to a party that doesn’t believe that contraception should be readily available and covered by health insurance. Period. Yet, if by chance, your daughter becomes pregnant because of lack of access to birth control, the Republican Party believes she must endure an ultrasound of her lady parts to shame her for what she did. Worse yet, if, God forbid she was raped, not only does she have to live with the emotional, and possibly physical, scars of rape, but also with the pregnancy from her rapist. (Unless, of course, you believe that rape “shuts down” the possibility of pregnancy.) It’s also too bad if she has a life threatening hemorrhage while pregnant, that unborn life is worth more to the Republicans than your daughter’s (until it’s born, of course). You believe in the party of “small government”, unless it’s about a woman’s private parts. Then you are for a government as large as a trans-vaginal ultrasound. Extreme.

Explain that to your daughter.

The Republican Party is for the creation of an amendment to the Constitution, that a fetus is a person (just like a corporation). A fetus would have all the rights of a grown person. If your daughter runs a marathon while in the early stages of pregnancy, and again, God forbid, loses the baby, she would be criminally negligent. Even the state of Mississippi rejected this in the last election, but it continues to be a plank of the Republican Party platform. Extreme.

Explain that to your daughter.

I know you’ll claim that you teach your daughter “right from wrong” and that she would never get in the situation of having an unwanted pregnancy. With all due respect, please tell that to the thousands of teenage girls every year that get pregnant, who go to church every Sunday, and who come from respected, involved families. Ignorance and denial aren’t policies.

Explain that to your daughter.

If your daughter happens to be gay, the Republican party believes she should not have the same rights you and I have to marry, have children, or even have the right to visit their partners while dying in a hospital. They have been on the wrong side of EVERY.SINGLE.CIVIL.RIGHTS.ISSUE. Extreme.

Explain that to your daughter.

As a defense, I know you’ll say this election is not about social issues; it’s about the economy. As you are not a woman, it probably isn’t about social issues for you. But, OK, I’ll take the bait.

You believe in a party that believes it’s fair that your daughter and my daughter do not get equal pay for the same job that our sons do. Extreme.

Explain that to your daughter.

You believe in a Republican party that wants to cut federal student loans. Maybe you’ve been saving for years for your daughter’s education. You are lucky to have had the money to do that, and I hope you didn’t lose it all in the stock market crash of 2008 brought on by the fiscal policies of the last administration. If you haven’t been as lucky, and need some assistance, one party feels students should be at the mercy of private lenders with high interest rates. (Or “borrow money from their parents”. – Mitt Romney) Student debt is a huge drain on the economy.

Explain that to your daughter.

You believe in tax cuts for the top income earners and that cutting government spending creates jobs and spurs growth. We are still waiting for that to have happened from the enormous Bush tax cuts. Economists have just admitted this has been a drastic failure in Europe. Austerity doesn’t work in a recession. Why, in the last 50 years, have jobs from Democratic presidents dwarfed those by Republican presidents, 42 million to 24 million? A balance of government spending and fair taxes, not from tax cuts to the 1%. Extreme.

Explain that to your daughter.

Living as a part of a community is not just about “me”, it’s about “us”. Being an American used to be about “us”. We should be about caring for the least of “us”. Charities alone can’t do it, no matter what you argue. We are too large and too diverse for that. We have made promises to our seniors, and those populations depend on those promises. (Please don’t use the 716 billion in Medicare cuts here please, we all know it’s been fact checked to be false). I have and am paying for the current seniors to receive Medicare and Social Security. We owe them that. They paid for the last generation to receive those same benefits. I, too, would like the assurance of knowing that when I’m 65, those benefits will also be there for me. No, I would not like them to be at the mercy of the stock market, and I would not like to have to “shop around” at 75 years old for the insurance company that might take me on, if I happen to have no preexisting conditions. I shudder to think of an 85 year old woman having to sort through the process of finding health coverage.

Explain that to your daughter, your wife, your mom.

You are a white, middle-aged man. You live and have always lived in the middle class. You do not know what it is to be a woman, or any kind of minority. Yet, you and your party want to control and define every part of our lives for those of us who are. This is not Mad Men. This is 2012. You claim women’s issues don’t matter to you.

Explain that to your daughter.

Unemployment is now at a 4 year low. Foreclosures are at a 5-year low. Consumer confidence is at a 5 year high. We are finally out of the black hole. Things are starting to come around. I will not ever vote to go back to the policies that put us there.

I am proud to explain that to my daughter.