New Telescope/Stupid newbie trick

My spouse gave me a Meade NGC 60 telescope for Christmas!  Since I was a girl, I've wanted a telescope and never bothered to buy one for myself.  This new blog is for me to post my observations and generally just ramble about doing amateur astronomy. 

This morning, four days after I actually got the telescope, I noticed that I had been misreading things.  What I thought was a 94mm eyepiece turns out to be a 9mm eyepiece!  Yay me for being blind!  I don't know why I kept seeing a 4 where there wasn't one but I did. 

So for the past two nights, I've been trying to get acclimated to my telescope by trying to sight in on things in the neighborhood (it's all I've got, I live in Portland, it's been cloudy every night since Tuesday) and was doing this from my balcony (which I know is sub-optimal) with way too much magnification!  At least now I know. 

I managed to figure that out and spent some time starting at a crow across the street.  Since it's cloudy again today, I'll have to do some more observing around the neighborhood. I might even take it up to Mount Tabor and look down on the city. 

Technorati Tags: astronomy,observations,telescope

You're wrong!

On a discussion group I participate in, I had to explain to a friend why people told hym why hie is wrong about logic:

You're wrong because you hold to a world-view that says that people can be wrong. While more 'open-minded' folks hold to a more inclusive world-view where all views are right and no one is wrong, therefore you're wrong. The reason you are wrong is because your world-view is not inclusive, and therefore your world-view is wrong. If you believed that your world-view is right but that other world-views, even world-views that, if true, completely exclude yours, are also correct then you wouldn't be wrong. So, as you can see, the only people who can be wrong are those who believe that others can be wrong. Those who do not believe that others can be wrong, can't be wrong themselves.

Being Liberal

Being Liberal

What does it mean to be a liberal or, more broadly, to be of the American Left in the opening movements of the 21 ^st century? Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton, writes, “If we shrug our shoulders at the avoidable suffering of the weak and poor, of those who are getting exploited and ripped off, or who simply do not have enough to sustain themselves at a decent level, we are not of the left. If we say that this is just the way the world is, and there is nothing we can do about it, we are not part of the left. The left wants to do something about this situation”. ¹ This is a good enough sketch to be workable for initial purposes. Few, if any, of those who call themselves Progressive or Liberal would quibble the above. This argument, however, is not about the goals, broadly defined, of a Left-leaning American politics. Rather, it is about how to go about 'doing something' about those things that we are concerned about and what gets in our way.

I am going to start outright by saying that the worst enemy of the American Left, the invisible chain holding us to one spot, is not the American Right in any of its faces (Christian, Economic or Neo-Conservative) but rather the Left itself! Over the last two decades or so, the Left has embraced a dangerous and self-defeating relativism in the name of idealism. This relativism has caused otherwise thoughtful and concerned people, who truly do hunger for social justice, are genuinely aware of the force of bigotry in people's lives and strive consistently to resist and rise above, to abandon the very cognitive and social tools necessary for change. It is not uncommon to hear people who call themselves Liberal or Progressive railing against logic, rationality or science in an attempt to appeal to some particular belief or another without realizing that this very argument can and is used by those on the Right to be obstructionist of actions such as taking steps to ameliorate global warming. It is equally common to hear liberals railing against white privilege or patriarchy or racism and then, when the subject changes to some injustice taking place in another nation for those same mouths to become shut, their voices withdrawn because of a desire to not be imperialist. Yet, in doing so, it weakens the moral force of the argument against sexism or racism in the West, because it denies the universality of the wrong of racism. If all that there is is culture and culture is inviolate (instead of individual rights having this honor) then who is to say that in some cultures racism isn't a problem?

Do people really believe things like this? As startling as it might seem, the answer appears to be a resounding 'yes', although I suspect that at some level this is only an appearance. It is possible (perhaps likely)that people have not fully thought through their positions to their logical conclusions. It is possible that people simply imbibed a particular kind of ideological Kool-Aid during their college years and, because they were never really in an environment where that would challenged, have never had to actually defend their position in an arena where there would be robust and vigorous debate. If everyone around you believes that, for instance, logical problem-solving is a Western creation, 'privileged' in the West by middle- and upper-class white men and those who emulate them, then you are very unlikely to be faced with someone willing to put up a spirited defense and, at first blush, this argument will seem sound if for no other reason than that it's manifest unsoundess has not been pointed out.

1Singer, Peter. A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution and Cooperation. Yale University Press 2000

Sucks to be a Liberal Part 1

It sucks to be a liberal! As a unrepentant liberal, I get to say that because, despite some of the excesses I still believe in much of the liberal program. However, we liberals take some strange stances, many of which we don't realize come back to roost. Recently in a discussion group I participate in, someone made the statement that facts are subjective. Not only is this manifestly wrong and self-negating. Yet, this statement went without challenge by most people on the message board. This is the kind of excess that gets liberals in trouble.

Facts cannot be subjective if, by facts, we mean it in the ordinary sense as a proposition about the world with a high correspondence to the observable world. It is a fact that Earth occupies the third orbital position from the Sun at an average distance of 8 light minutes (93 million miles or 149, 000, 00 0 km). There is no room for subjective interpretation there. It is a fact that normal water is comprised of two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom. You can come up with your own list of facts about the world. Now, there one can argue that some facts are more open to the interpretation of their meanings or significance than others, but you cannot invoke a set of personal facts for your own convenience. If you do, the rest of us are no more obliged to accept your facts without evidence than we are obligated to jump off a cliff just because you say so.

What's more, liberals need facts. The kinds of things that liberals express care and concern about are, largely, evidentiary claims about the world. Either it is true that more black men are in prison than in college or it is not. If it is true, then either the justice system is prejudicial toward black men or it is not. Either women, on average, are not paid as well as men for the same work or we are. Again, this is a claim that, if true, will have evidence for its veracity left around like bear spoor in the wilderness. If what liberals want, truly desire, is for society to change and move in a direction toward greater inclusion and justice then we must admit that we are not there now, that others in society may need some convincing that change is necessary and that the path forward will be considerably smoother if we have facts on our side, with evidence and it is possible to reach some kind of consensus on what constitutes evidence. The logic of this is entirely non-remarkable and straight-forward. If I tell you that I have a ten-million dollars for you and it is yours if only you give me the deed to your house you are going to want some evidence that the money does exist before you start signing your house over to me.

My suspicion is that a lot of liberals say things like 'facts are subjective' or 'all cultures are equal and deserve respect no matter what' as reflexes without actually thinking through the consequences of those ideas. There is a noble and laudable impulse on the left to be non-judgmental, to accept people as they are and to side with the underdog. All of these I support and believe in as well. That said, this impulse does not absolve me of a responsibility to think. More about this another time.

Blogging the commute

There's a woman sleeping on the train. I just sent the picture from my cell phone but can't get a wireless connection on the MAX so the text has to follow when I get to work.

The weekend is over and now it's on to work. My heart isn't in it. The rains and winds are fierce today. Oregon's oldest Sitka Spruce died last night in a high wind storm out at the coast. When I heard about it, as I was listening to the news, I had a moment of pause. This is something OLD, a few hundred years at least, and now it is gone. Yet another singular, clever arrangement of DNA snuffed from this world as all living things must eventually be.

In the meantime, Toastmaster's was really interesting. We had a whole pack of students from PCC and PSU there. This is far from normal. Normally we might have one or two as guests. Then two people from work also showed up at the behest of another co-worker of mine.

Lastly, I (obviously) have managed to get my laptop back to normal. I'm running Kubuntu 7.10 on it using KDE 3.5.8. My desktop machine has KDE4RC1 on it but it's not quite ready. The Plasma applets look insanely great but you can't position them on the screen which diminishes their usefulness.

Hey, Young Americans, Here's a Text for You

Hey, Young Americans, Here's a Text for You

Naomi Wolf continues to urge young Americans to take democracy seriously. She should be praised for her efforts and they should be brought to the fore of liberal discussion in America. One thing she points out that goes along with my earlier post:

But this distressing situation isn't just George W. Bush's fault. Young Americans have also inherited some strains of thought from the left that have undermined their awareness of and respect for democracy. When New Left activists of the 1960s started the antiwar and free speech student movements, they didn't get their intellectual framework from Montesquieu or Thomas Paine: They looked to Marx, Lenin and Mao. It became fashionable to employ Marxist ways of thinking about social change: not "reform" but "dialectic"; not "citizen engagement" but "ideological correctness"; not working for change but "fighting the man."

During the Vietnam War, the left further weakened itself by abandoning the notion of patriotism. Young antiwar leaders burned the flag instead of invoking the ideals of the republic it represents. By turning their backs on the idea of patriotism -- and even on the brave men who were fighting the unpopular war -- the left abandoned the field to the right to "brand" patriotism as it own, often in a way that means uncritical support for anything the executive branch decides to do.

In the Reagan era, when the Iran-contra scandal showed a disregard for the rule of law, college students were preoccupied with the fashionable theories of post-structuralism and deconstructionism, critical language and psychoanalytic theories developed by French philosophers Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida that were often applied to the political world, with disastrous consequences. These theories were often presented to students as an argument that the state -- even in the United States -- is only a network of power structures. This also helped confine to the attic of unfashionable ideas the notion that the state could be a platform for freedom; so much for the fusty old Rights of Man.

In the 1990s and the early years of this century, theories that globalization is the ultimate evil found their ascendancy on college campuses. Young people, informed by movements against sweatshops and the World Trade Organization, have come to see democracy as a mere cosmetic gloss on the rapacious monolith of global capitalism.

We on the Left should take a very hard look at our rhetoric. Things that do not work should be shed. The American Left is dead! Long live the American Left!

Cultural relativism is killing liberalism

            I am, by no means, the first Liberal/Progressive to make the observation that the American Left has lost its way.  What I have noticed is that in the name of multiculturalism and being accepting of 'the Other' it has become next to impossible to criticize anything happening in another culture for fear of being painted with the label 'imperialist'.  On a lesbian message board I participate in, the case of a Saudi woman, who was sentenced to six months jail and some 200 lashes with a whip for being in the company of a man not related to her by blood or marriage came up.  A number of women, in fact the vast majority of them, reflexively stated that we had no right to say anything about the harsh treatment this woman is being faced.  The reason?  Because this was Saudi society, not American society, and therefore any suggestion that the idea that a woman should not be able, under threat of punishment, to associate freely was entirely beyond critique!  Re-read that sentence because it is a shocking statement.  Women who are feminists, who putatively support the feminist idea that women are human beings and should be treated equally, were entirely unwilling to condemn a law that is predicated upon the very idea that there is something inherently wrong with women that they must be forbidden to associate with men they are not related to by either blood or marriage.  What kind of feminism is that?  It is modern, 'Liberal', feminism which is so entirely reflexively anti-American and anti-Western that those who hold to it cannot even bring themselves to condemn female genital mutilation. 

 

            Whatever the West does is ipso facto wrong because the West did it.  Whatever other cultures is ipso facto beyond criticism because they did not happen in a Western culture.  So I was treated to the spectacle of someone comparing, in all honesty one must assume, FGM with the piercing of a little baby girl's ears.  Now, as far as I am aware, the ear lobes are not places where this piece of hypo-allergenic will cause permanent hearing loss. 

 

            While liberal commitment to anti-imperialism is certainly noble and a stance I absolutely support, it can be taken too far and when we, as liberals or progressives reflexively refuse to condemn the doings of other cultures because they aren't American culture we do a disservice to ourselves as progressives.  This reaction is just part of a larger pattern in American progressive thought.  This larger pattern is the lack of a coherent philosophy of what it means to be a liberal.  This is not to say that progressives do not have things that we will condemn.  We pay lip-service to anti-racism, to egalitarian economics, to being against religious fundamentalism but it is largely lip-service and not much beyond it.  If you press a little and dig a bit then you will find an unwillingness to say that anything much is actually wrong. 

 

            On this same discussion group there have been numerous discussions about world-view and the general zeitgeist is that all world-views are equally valid and that the Western way of viewing things is just one amongst many.  This may be something that makes us feel we are entirely safe from being judgmental but it is more a cop-out and a refusal to either call someone wrong or to be called wrong ourselves.  It is particularly ironic given that the world-view of, say, Fred Phelps must also be given the 'all world views are equal and none are truly wrong' consideration if you take that position.  Now, no one in this group is willing to admit that Phelps and his ilk may be correct.  However, there is simply no recognition that the logic of strong relativism must apply even to those ideologies most harmful to gays and lesbians. 

 

            The logic behind this is extremely straight-forward.  If by all world-views one truly means all, in the ordinary sense of that word, then one must admit that the Christian fundamentalist who states that their brand of Christianity is the only truth must be correct.  Now, of course, it should be painfully self-evident that this cannot be the case.  Given the overall arc of Christian fundamentalism, it either is true (e.g. there is a God, this God has a very specific plan for humanity and a zero-tolerance policy for any deviation from that plan) or it is not.  There are no possible worlds where there is a God who requires you to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior is correct and where other religions are also true.  It is logically incoherent to say that both are true in the same world.  If the relativist is correct then they are incorrect because this means that the world-view that states 'all ideas are not equal in their truth claims' is also correct which negates the first proposition.  Why this isn't obvious to all thinking is beyond my comprehension. 

 

            I long for an American Left that is capable of actually standing for something in a strong manner.  The American Right has left us a large gaping space which we could claim and hold.  That space is being evidence-based.  By this I mean it in the sense that social workers do in evidence-based practice.  Instead of taking the position that X is true because X is good liberalism, we should first ask ourselves does X make sense given what we can observe about the world?  Global warming offers an excellent example.  Either there is evidence for global warming (and at this point almost everyone who knows bugger-all about climatology agrees that global warming is happening) or there is not.  Now, while it is true that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it still stands that if there is no evidence it does not make economic sense to advocate policies based upon the idea that there is because it 'saves the environment'.  However, if there is evidence for it then it not only makes sense to implement policies to alleviate or stave off the effects it is irrational to do otherwise.  The American Right has, for the most part, abandoned evidence as a sine qua non for advocacy and that space in the American polity is open.  Another good example of abandonment of evidence that I associate with the Left (although, strictly speaking, it is not) is the 'autism is caused by the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine' meme.  This pernicious meme has lots of cache on the Left although the evidence is not there.  Not only is the evidence not there, there is evidence to the contrary.  Namely that mercury, the alleged causative agent, is no longer used in the MMR vaccine.  It hasn't been used for six or seven years and yet the incidence of autism continues to climb even though, relatively speaking, most school-age children are still being given the vaccine.  If the MMR vaccine were the cause, what one would expect is that there would be a tail-off of autism cases in children who reached the age that MMR is administered after mercury was no longer used as a preservative agent in the vaccine.  Yet that isn't observable.  Does that make any difference at all?  No.  Why?  Because people have it in their heads that the vaccine causes autism and therefore that is what it is caused by. 

 

            The Left really cannot afford to be so sanguine about ignoring evidence in favor of ideology.  The Right has a number of tools in their boxes which do not rely on evidence to make headway.  The most powerful of these is the religious impulse.  Nothing turns people out to your side more than the idea that some Invisible Friend wills it.  We have a space to actually be the reality-based community. I think we should seize it.

 

           

The Jacques Barzun Centennial

The Jacques Barzun Centennial

This year marks the centennial of one of my favorite literary minds, Dr. Jacques Barzun. I first became acquainted with this polymath when I read his book "From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life". His mind is expansive, fast and his book was the perfect book for fin de siecle America. He is, in every way, a scholar and an intellectual role-model of mine.

Police seek Nebraska teacher, 25, and 13-year-old boy - CNN.com

Police seek Nebraska teacher, 25, and 13-year-old boy - CNN.com

What in the hell is going on with all of these young, twenty-something teachers having affairs with their teenage students? Is there some maturity issue in young women that is not being addressed in teacher's ed. programs at the nation's universities?

Man wins case against funeral protesters -- baltimoresun.com

Man wins case against funeral protesters -- baltimoresun.com

Westboro Baptist Church, the people who brought the world the website http://www.godhatesfags.com had an $11 million dollar judgment leveled against it after they protested the funeral of a Marine. This should prove the death-knell of this church and not a moment too soon! They have protested the funerals of gay men and lesbians for over a decade now and gotten away with it. Hopefully they will be gone because of this. Fred Phelps deserve to live in penury under a bridge someplace.

'Leslie Orgel, 80; chemist was father of the RNA world theory of the origin of life' by LATimes.com - RichardDawkins.net

'Leslie Orgel, 80; chemist was father of the RNA world theory of the origin of life' by LATimes.com - RichardDawkins.net

Good-bye Leslie. You were an inspiration.

I always liked Orgel's Second Rule: "Evolution is cleverer than you are."

NY Times Book Review Smears Katha Pollitt

There's a penalty to be paid for being an intelligent and outspoken feminist. One such penalty is that the NYT Book Review will say decidedly unflattering things about you.

read more | digg story

Open Letter from LGBT and black activists regarding Barack Obama's Campaign

Nice sentiments. But I am still skeptical.

To Whom It May Concern:

As representatives of Barack Obama supporters from the African American religious community and the gay community, we are issuing a statement together for the first time. Our letter addresses the recent issue of Pastor Donnie McClurkin singing at Senator Obama's "Embrace the Change" concert series. In the midst of division, we hope and believe that this is a moment to bring together communities that have been divided for far too long.

A few things are clear.



First, Pastor McClurkin believes and has stated things about sexual orientation that are deeply hurtful and offensive to many Americans, most especially to gay Americans. This cannot and should not be denied.


At the same time, a great many African Americans share Pastor McClurkin's beliefs. This also cannot be ignored.


Finally, we believe that the only way for these two sides to find common ground is to do so together.


Not at arms length. Not in a war of words with press and pundits. Only together.


It is clear that Barack Obama is the only candidate who has made bringing these two often disparate groups together a goal. In gatherings of LGBT Americans and African Americans of faith, Obama has stated that all individuals should be afforded full civil rights regardless of their sexual orientation, and that homophobia must be eradicated in every corner of our nation. If we are to end homophobia and secure full civil rights for gay Americans, then we need an advocate within the Black community like Barack Obama.


At the same time, while Obama has said that he "strongly disagrees" with Pastor McClurkin's comments, he will not exclude from his campaign the many Americans including many in the African American community who believe the same as Pastor McClurkin.


We believe that Barack Obama is constructing a tent big enough for LGBT Americans who know that their sexual orientation is an innate and treasured part of their being, and for African American ministers and citizens who believe that their religion prevents them from fully embracing their gay brothers and sisters. And if we are to confront our shared challenges we have to join together, build on common ground, and engage in a civil dialogue even when we disagree.


We also ask Senator Obama's critics to consider the alternatives. Would we prefer a candidate who ignores the realities in the African American community and cuts off millions of Blacks who believe things offensive to many Americans? Or a panderer who tells African Americans what they want to hear, at the expense of our gay brothers and sisters? Or would we rather stand with Barack Obama, who speaks truth in love to both sides, pulling no punches but foreclosing no opportunities to engage?


We stand with Senator Obama. We stand with him because of the solutions he is proposing for our nation. We stand with him because of his character and his judgment. But the most important reason we stand with him is because today, as he has done all along, Barack Obama is causing us to stand together.


That's the kind of President we need, and we are proud to support him.

Sincerely,



Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, Jr.
Olivet Institutional Baptist Church
Chair, Obama National African American Religious Leaders Working Group
Cleveland, Ohio



Stampp Corbin
Chair, Obama National LGBT Leadership Council
Former Member of Human Rights Campaign Board of Directors
Columbus, Ohio



Tobias Barrington Wolff
Chair, Obama LGBT Policy Committee
Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Philadelphia, PA



The Reverend Stephen John Thurston
President
National Baptist Convention of America
Chicago, IL



The Reverend Alvin Love
President
Baptist General State Convention of Illinois, Inc.



Bishop E. Earl McCloud, Jr.
Office of Ecumenical & Urban Affairs
African Methodist Episcopal Church
Atlanta, GA
Steven Latasa-Nicks
President, The Phelon Group, Inc.
Former Human Rights Campaign Board of Governors
New York, NY



Maxim Thorne
Former COO, Human Rights Campaign
Paterson, NJ



Phil Burgess
Former Human Rights Campaign Board of Directors
Chicago, IL



Rev. Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner
Skinner Leadership Institute
Tracy's Landing, MD



Rev. Michael Pfleger
St. Sabina, Chicago

Rev. Edward Taylor
San Jose, CA



The Reverend Robert H. Thompson
Exeter, NH



Sharon Malheiro
LGBT Activist
Des Moines, IA



Hon. Jon Cooper
Majority Leader, Suffolk County (NY) Legislature
Rev. Paul Hobson Sadler, Sr., Pastor
Mt. Zion Congregational UCC

----------------
Now playing: Men at Work - Who Can It Be Now?
via FoxyTunes

A partial list of federal benefits denied same-sex married couples and

Partial list of benefits denied same-sex couples.

read more | digg story

Origin of Life Paper retracted because of Creationist assault

A seminal paper, written fifty years ago, has been retracted by its author because it has routinely been misquoted by Creationists seeking to justify their anti-science position.

read more | digg story

Second person dies in fires; more than 500,000 flee homes - CNN.com

Second person dies in fires; more than 500,000 flee homes - CNN.com

Southern California continues to burn. One cannot help but notice, however, the difference in how the federal government is responding in this disaster compared to Katrina.. Would it perhaps have something to do with the population being white, rich and Republican? No, that would be silly to even suggest that, huh?

Star Wars: A New Hope in ASCII Art format

Someone on the Kubuntu Users list I read posted this piece which is a brilliant time waster!

Originally I thought it was just the introduction to Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. But I was wrong! It appears to be the movie, done as ASCII art!

Bike Gallery Team member dies in bike accident

Dear fellow OBRA racers,

Yesterday afternoon, 
Bike
Gallery team rider and co-worker Brett
Jarolimek was killed in a collision with a truck while riding his
bike
on N Interstate and Greeley.

The news of his death comes as a terrible blow to all of us at the
Bike Gallery and probably to all of you who knew Brett or saw him
recently in action at the cross races. Just this last Sunday, Brett
rode one of his best races ever, finishing on the podium in the
Singlespeed cyclocross race at Rainier HS.

For most of us, words are falling short to express the deep sadness
caused by the sudden loss of a great friend and a wonderful human
being. Our deepest sympathy and heartfelt prayers go out to his
family, his girlfriend, his close friends, and to everyone who knew
Brett as a great guy and an awesome bike racer.

We miss you Brett...

your Bike Gallery team mates and co-workers

Comments from the peanut gallery

CNN.com - CNN Political Ticker Obama takes heat for link to McClurkin «:
"I would not vote for Obama if he were the only one running. Gay is a choice! You are not born gay, just like you are not born fat. I am sorry to say that sooner or later we are going to stop saying I'm proud to be an American. This country is going to Hell! The presidential election this year almost sounds like a joke. We have a Islam, and a Female running for president. If we as a country voted for Obama who is a Islam to be the president of the United States that would show how stupid we really are as a country. Hillary has already been our president once thru her husband and we know how that turned out. I love my wife and I respect women, but to put a woman incharge of the country would be the wrong thing to do.

Posted By Mike, Evansville In : October 23, 2007 10:50 am"

Let's deconstruct this:

"We have a Islam, and a Female running for president."

Firstly, it's Muslim and Barack Obama is not a Muslim. It does help if one is trying to get one's point across to actually, I don't know, know what one is talking about! A female running for POTUS? The horrors!!!! I wonder if Mr. Conservative Mike, who loves his wife and respects women ("I'm not prejudiced but...") realizes that Margaret Thatcher ran the UK and was a darling of the American Right. No, probably not.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Obama Got it Right and Wrong on Gay Bashing - Politics on The Huffington Post

Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Obama Got it Right and Wrong on Gay Bashing - Politics on The Huffington Post

It appears that Barack Obama is going to try to have it both ways; cozy up to gay bashing Donnie McClurkin while responding to Earl Ofari Hutchinson's column yesterday saying that he (Obama) should repudiate McClurkin that:

"I have clearly stated my belief that gays and lesbians are our brothers and sisters and should be provided the respect, dignity, and rights of all other citizens. I have consistently spoken directly to African-American religious leaders about the need to overcome the homophobia that persists in some parts of our community so that we can confront issues like HIV/AIDS and broaden the reach of equal rights in this country.

I strongly believe that African Americans and the LGBT community must stand together in the fight for equal rights. And so I strongly disagree with Reverend McClurkin's views and will continue to fight for these rights as President of the United States to ensure that America is a country that spreads tolerance instead of division."