We're taught in school that we are all equal and endowed with certain "inalienable rights", yet 26% of the population sold out those rights in return for a salesman's hollow promise of "making America great again", without much specificity on exactly what that would mean, or much concerns about the costs.

Voters are American citizens, yet you sold them out to Russia, accompanied by demonstrable lies of voter fraud, and threats of future voting suppression.

Tax payers are shareholders in American society, yet you sold out their rights and their tax contributions to a man who doesn't even pay his taxes, and who will likely use the revenue for income distribution through corporate handouts, further tax cuts for the already wealthy, and the pursuit of a 1000 mile long vanity project to the tune of $25B.

Women are American citizens too, yet you sold out their rights to misogyny and continued inequality.

Blacks and latinos are American citizens too, yet you sold out their rights to racism, bigotry and dishonest propaganda, painting them uniformly as criminals.

Muslims are American citizens too, yet you sold out their rights to xenophobia, generalizing them all as terrorists.

Journalists are American citizens too, and we all have a right to read or hear what they write, yet you sold out their rights to authoritarianism and propaganda.

Scientists are American citizens too, and we all need them to inform us of dangers in our environment, our food, and our behaviors, yet you sold out their rights to censorship and corruption.

Mortgage holders are American citizens too, yet you sold out their rights to a Goldman Sachs band of predatory plunderers.

The sick and the poor are American citizens too, yet you sold out their health, and possibly their lives to greed and the callous threat of taking their insurance and already flimsy safety nets away.

Students are American citizens too, yet you sold out their rights to a misplaced profit motive that does not ensure an adequate education, but places them in debt for life.

Unlawful immigrants may not be citizens, but they are human beings who deserve better than to be sold out to the cruel threat of discrimination and deportation.

Nature is part of America too, yet you sold it out to a band of fossil fuel robber barons, who only seek to profit from it, without a thought given to sustainability, or the lives of the creatures living in it.

The truth is a celebrated American ideal, yet you sold it out to a narcissistic, vindictive liar and snake oil salesman, who cares more about his own fragile ego and the proportion of the adulation he believes he deserves, than about the havoc he is wreaking on society, and the reckless risks he is taking with our democracy.

I'm sure you once claimed to care about the Constitution and the principles it stands for. Donald Trump clearly does not; it is doubtful that he even knows what it says.

So why were you so willing to sell out, and compromise on those venerated ideals on behalf of this con man who, like most scammers, manipulated you with the fear of the imaginary consequences of not buying his product, and who (also like most scammers) failed to assume any responsibility for quality deficiencies of that product once the deal was closed?

In consideration of Trump's "Muslim ban", let me start by asking a question:

Is immigration a Muslim problem, or an integration problem? If you receive a large number of, let's say, Cubans, and they are not well integrated, do you then have a Cuban problem...? And if you later receive a lot of Norwegian immigrants, and fail to integrate them, do you then suddenly have a Norwegian problem? Or are these scenarios both in fact symptoms of an integration issue?

If the root of the problem, as many seem to suggest, lies in the inherent nature of a particular culture, please explain the cause of that problem. Kindly articulate this culture-based behavioral hypothesis. Are Muslims evil? Thieving? Unintelligent? Hateful? Come on, let’s have all the cards on the table.

Is it really necessary to slap broad, generalizing stereotypes on entire ethnic identities? Why? How? How is this pragmatic and solution-oriented? Should we apply different integration solutions based on ethnicity? What does such a regulatory system look like? What constitutes a viable solution? Should we have codes stamped into the passports of all immigrants, so it will be easier to distinguish them, and put the ”right” people on the train to the labor camp?

What does a pragmatic solution look like to the integration problem, and how is this purpose in any way served by sorting individuals into generalized groups? Does a supposed understanding of Muslims have to define them as a homogeneous mass, and how does that "understanding" (read: generalization) result in pragmatic solutions (whatever they may be)? An American would interpret this as a support for Trump's "Muslim ban". Because that is also a generalizing and "pragmatic" (read: simplistic) solution.

If we do not integrate immigrants, does their ethnicity really matter? Are non-integrated Cubans a lesser issue than non-integrated Iraqis?

Chicago, where I live, has tons of Polish and Russian immigrants, who are often just as unintegrated as, for example, Mexicans: they speak Polish / Russian, go to their own churches, have their own grocery stores, their own signage, and even their own newspapers. In crime statistics, their representation is similar to Mexicans, and yet nobody calls them rapists or drug smugglers. To pretend that this is not in some way affected by racism is exceedingly naive.

Or why not be even more specific: I can say with 100 percent confidence that I'm absolutely preferentially treated, being Scandinavian and white. Not a shred of doubt about it. And I've even quite demonstrably taken an American's job! Still, no ethnically based outrage is directed at me. I do not think this would have been accepted in the same way, had I been Muslim. If we, as is quite popular these days, compare a similar immigration scenario in, for example, Saudi Arabia, that only proves my point. I'm afforded a privilege because of my ethnicity here in the United States, and another person with a different ethnicity might be given an advantage for the same reason in Saudi Arabia. Neither is based on actual understanding, it is based on exactly the kind of "pragmatic" generalization that immigrant critics advocate. I must surely be okay because I'm Swedish, so Americans have an "understanding" and tolerance of me. While Saudis would have an "understanding" for, let's say, a guy from Qatar, because he fits into an accepted ethnic stereotype. No real understanding required – it is implied.

How does the integration problem benefit from the fact that both myself and the fictional Qatari are viewed from an ethnically generalized perspective? Immigration critics need to describe how ethnic generalization would lead to increased understanding, and just what kind of integration solution that supposed ”understanding” leads to.

I am not saying that it is "wrong" to talk about cultural differences; I am questioning how such talk leads to any kind of pragmatic solution. Painting all Muslims with the same broad brush is not pragmatic, it is generalizing, and all "solutions" that come from it are simplistic and therefore of questionable value.

Next, let's consider religion as a hypothetical operative factor in the supposed immigration problem. I am personally a non-believer and have always thought it would be fabulous (for me as well as for humanity as a whole) if religion didn't exist. But how is this pragmatic, and how does it point the way to a solution? Should we ban all religion? That sounds dogmatic, not pragmatic. There have actually existed a few regimes through history that tried to ban religion. Not terribly pleasant places.

To summarize: My view is that the solution to the immigration and integration problem is to stop generalizing. Generalization leads to simplistic solutions that in themselves result in alienation and segregation. Generalization is, in fact, just a facet of segregation. Blue eyed people in one corner, brown eyed people in another.

If we are to integrate immigrants, then we need to look to the needs of the individual. We cannot apply one "Muslim" solution to all Muslims, because then we create ethnic segregation, by definition. A Muslim immigrant needs a job and a home; he/she does not need a Muslim job, or a Muslim home.

We know full well who applied a ”Jewish solution” to a perceived ”Jewish problem”. The so-called "understanding" of Jewish culture and ethnicity was based on simplistic prejudices and generalizations, exploited for propaganda purposes, to cast blame and sow fear and contempt. If the Jews had been considered individuals first, with individual characteristics and needs – a neighbor, a colleague, an acquaintance – they might not have been treated as cattle, and massacred in an industrial manner. The fact that they were first stereotyped and dehumanized is the very thing that enabled the Holocaust.

It is so very much easier to dismiss people, blame them for all your woes and not care about what happens to them, if you are not seeing the individual.

So let’s stop doing the former, and start doing the latter.

The past few weeks of sharpened focus on famous men's history of sexual assault seems to have caught a lot of men off guard. But there is really nothing sudden about this issue – it has been festering in our culture for centuries.

What's sudden is how the past has caught up with us. All the cultural history of dismissive, willful male ignorance suddenly came into focus. We've had decades to deal with this though, so it's about time we men were called out on our inaction and shameful lack of self-reflection. There had to be a reckoning at some point; there's only so much dirt that can fit under the proverbial rug.

Just like white people have a collective responsibility in regards to institutional racism, all men have a collective responsibility for the structure of the patriarchy, because it wasn't created by one single man, it was created by men, culturally and collectively, over the course of centuries. It's great that some men, many men, are individually doing their part to dissolve this toxic moral cloud that has been hanging over us, but we can all do more as men, together. It has nothing to do with being "clumped into a single, abusive unit", as someone claimed – it has everything to do with acting out of solidarity, in unison, to improve fairness and equality for everyone, regardless of gender.

When we as individuals take ourselves out of this collective equation (“Not All Men”), we hinder progress. We need to acknowledge the collective female context of the “Me too” statement, and realize that it must be echoed by an equally collective principled stand from men, as a group. If women share this experience together, it seems obvious that men own the stigma of causing it, and should work together to change it.

Bear in mind that there is a collective dimension to a lot of things for which we as individuals might instinctively seek to absolve ourselves of guilt. Germans as a people carry a joint responsibility for the Holocaust, for example, and they have shouldered it collectively. Not being personally guilty of a specific offense is not the same as not being able to do anything about it. There are multiple layers to this problem, and men can be part of the problem, even if they're not rapists. Not all gun owners are mass murderers, but gun owners can be a part of a broader approach to gun violence, and demand political solutions that encourage more responsible gun ownership. Such a solution should not be forced on them, they should own it. It’s their ethical responsibility, as a group.

Certainly, sexism and sexual abuse is a cultural issue to some degree, but cultural issues cannot be solved on an individual basis. Women can obviously be part of a cultural problem as well – there are plenty of women who engage in victim shaming, and victim blaming. But just because there is such a thing as "rape culture" (and there is), it does not mean that it defines everything, and everyone. It exists. We can fight it. Or we can deny it, in which case we allow it to fester wherever it happens to exist, and thus we become complicit in it.

Now, some would like us to accept that we are naturally complicit; that men are biologically conditioned to behave a certain way, that women respond to this through natural urges, and that we should simply resign ourselves to this fatalistic ”fact”. But blaming hormones is just a simplistic way of asking for an alibi. We are alone on this planet in being self-aware and able to understand the consequences of our actions. We alone are capable of consciously and deliberately making different choices. We just need to agree, collectively, as a species, on what those choices should be, in ethical terms, and what the enforced consequences should be for those who do not abide by those rules.

As for the conditioning aspect, it is perfectly true that society today rewards alpha males for typically alpha male behavior. We don't need to take it on faith that alpha males are more successful, we just need to observe. It's a sad fact of reality that they are constantly rewarded, and often promoted way beyond their competence level. Just look at the White House: our current president has defined himself as an alpha male in almost every facet, yet his governing ability is truly and obviously lacking. We can take this even further: there is a broader political justification mechanism in place that basically encodes toxic male competitiveness into society through the concept of "the free market", which basically excuses and enables alpha males to do whatever they want, as long as they can deliver profits. The ends are generally seen as justifying the means. In my experience, corporate America is a playground designed for competitive alpha males, and it is damn hard to change that – it sometimes seems that all you can do is opt out.

But we can’t opt out. We have to and we CAN solve this collective issue. It starts with self-awareness (as does almost any solution to any problem), and it is resolved by collective efforts and collective means. We need, as a species, to decide which behaviors we want to reward, and which behaviors we want to discourage.

It's not unheard of – we do it all the time. Besides being animals, primates, mammals, we are also self-aware, social creatures (in the civilizational sense), who are able to collaborate, to conceptualize ethics and morals, and to make and enforce choices – based both on those abstract constructs, and based on pragmatic considerations of what's good for us as a species, as a culture.

I don't know why anyone would be suggesting that we are mere slaves to our evolutionary instincts, when there is ample evidence all around us that human beings can actively and consciously promote behaviors that reduce suffering, not just ensure our survival. We choose to inoculate ourselves to minimize the risk of spreading disease. We choose to purchase products based on ethical and fairness concerns, to fight poverty and exploitation. We choose to consume certain types of food, to minimize the suffering of other living creatures. We choose to ban chemicals that erode our protection against radiation. We choose to form collaborative political alliances across borders, in order to minimize the risk of war.

We can certainly cast doubt on the effectiveness of these choices, but we cannot deny that we are able to make them, and that we are justifying those decisions not through biological determinism, but through the notion of ethics.

Let's start there.