Per the Bill of Rights, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. So my question is, if you can’t establish a religion then how can you vote based on religious principals. It is felt even more today than ever before, and frankly it is a human rights issue. How can we the people stand by and watch our personal rights be trampled on? How can we the people idly stand by while our government is bought and paid for by whichever industry has the most money to give this year. I am not a Christian, but I understand that our government has gone so far off the tracks and that there may be no way to get it back. This is supposed to be the nation of free thinking ideas, of privacy and personal freedom. Where what I do with my body is my business and no Congress, Senate or President can do anything about it. Except it isn’t that way anymore. You see all of my governing bodies think that I shouldn’t have the right to marry another woman. They also think that I shouldn’t have the right to abort a baby within the first trimester. They think that if I am dying in a hospital bed, because the child I am carrying is killing me, that I don’t have the right to be saved. What is Christian about that? What is Christian about forcing a child to live in poverty and veritable depression unwanted and unloved? Those Christians are always spouting thinks like “Respect thy neighbor” and “You reap what you sew”. So where is the respect that I should be afforded to live my own life, to choose who I spend my life with, and whether or not I choose to bring another human being into the world. These were human rights long before any government decided to mandate how I live, and they will be my rights until I curl up my toes and die. But fear warning to all of you pushing for the further infringement on my rights, you are not doing the Christianly thing. There will be a time when you are in the minority, and it will still be me fighting for your right to believe what you want, even though it seems like you will make me fight forever to keep mine. We have been down this road before and it leads to nothing but destruction if Thomas Jefferson saw it then why can’t we see it now?
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
- Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec 6, 1813
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Exporting Democracy
As we all know the United States spends a lot of money in an attempt to export democracy to several countries around the world. I am only noting that because it seems as though democracy may have failed here. On a purely fundamental level it works, we are all represented by a vote, and who we vote for should represent the beliefs that we have in the greater whole that is the United States. But what happens when the person you vote for does what they want rather than what you want. Protesting doesn’t seem to work, 70,000 people showed up to protest in Wisconsin this weekend, and it doesn’t matter. Governor Scott Walker made the Sunday morning news circuit, and he said it hasn’t changed anything. The weird thing is there no one person that you can blame for this mess, but this is what it has come to. You can blame the Fox News’ of the world for allowing their “commentators” to discuss and promote their opinions as facts. You can blame the Supreme Court that said it was okay for company’s to spend as much as they want on candidates during the election cycle. Lastly you can blame the lazy person, who only believes what they are told, and not what they know or what they researched themselves. We should be able to trust our politicians, but we can’t. To get to where they have gotten they have to bend the rules, and they have to take money from people who you are then obligated to represent, more so than the people that voted for you and believed in you. If Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin really wanted to clear the air of stop “kicking the can” as he said, he should have done an audit. It is impossible to know what and where to cut until you know what is working and what is just throwing money down the drain. Are unions and collective bargaining a strain on the state and the country? Yes. Is it fair that only the lucky that happen to be members are more protected than everyone else? No. Is it right to strip them of there collective bargaining rights? No. They have to be allowed to evolve and change as they see fit, or be forced to make a deal, which by the way they are willing to do. We have exported democracy so well that Egypt can oust a dictator, we spent years supporting, with no help from us. Libya has caught the bug and is trying to oust Gadhafi, and they have him on the run. But one puny Governor in the “Home of the brave and the Land of the Free” thinks 70,000 of his constituents’ opinions don’t matter. This is sadly disappointing, and a measure that our political leaders are destroying the idea of America and making a mockery of the Constitution. Elected leaders are not Kings or Queens, they are supposed to look out for individual citizens not company’s. Most importantly when your public opposes something you should not be allowed to do it. Otherwise what is the point of democracy?
Monday, February 14, 2011
Our New Budget
Dear Mr. President, Congressmen, and Senators,
While I realize that it is virtually impossible for any of you to imagine the consequences of your actions doing more harm than good, I am going to attempt to break it down for you. When you extended tax cuts for the wealthy adding an additional $858 billion dollars to our deficit, so that everyone at your country club would be so excited to pat you on the back when you walk through the door, you did a disservice to 95% of the country that can only dream of making more than $250k a year. Now to make all of this work you intend to squeeze a little more, from the top I would think, but no I wake up to find out that rather than “Trickle Down” economics you have decided to do “Trickle Up”. Because while arguing with Bank of America about refinancing my house at a lower rate, trying to find a good charter school for my child (because the public school system has gone to crap), and desperately searching for a job online and hoping that you will continue to approve more unemployment benefits. I must also simultaneously live with the fact that you are going after Planned Parenthood. Which I can simply say is one of the dumbest things that Republicans have done to date, oh but then I remember that you want to re-define “Rape”. You only want to pay for “Forcible Rape” abortions. So let me point this out, RAPE by definition is a forcible thing. So while you argue about the Health Insurance that I can’t pay for but need, you also want to make sure that the one resource I do have to prevent another alarming hit to my pocket book is taken away. Do you want me barefoot pregnant and on welfare? I think that’s where I will end up, maybe not as a mother but as a grandmother. Then I hear that there is actually an argument about taxing Wall Street, because there million dollar bonuses shouldn’t have to take the same hit my 401k got a few years ago when they all just messed up. When you and your predecessors had the brilliant idea that people who make money out of money don’t need any regulations, they aren’t greedy after all just really smart. Even though they did manage to loose $114 billion dollars of the TARP money we lent them, why should they have to pay it back, did I mention I was still on hold with Bank of America. I mean GOD forbid that they have to pay for anything like there regulators, Senator Scott Brown who just thought it was a ludicrous idea. In some ways he might be right, I mean the oil industry was wining and dining with the MMS and that worked out well in regards to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. But you know my problems are small in comparison right?
Then I read that some of you (Republicans) have a problem with extending veterans benefits, even though you have a fit if someone forgets to thank the Veterans and people serving in the armed forces. As well you tout your own horn as a supporter of taking care of the people that guarded our borders. But hey they are old now and the fact that 135,000 of them sleep on the street because they can’t seem to work the system or they are too sick to figure it out, they don’t matter to you. You also seem to be upset because Mr. Prez would like to stop spending $140 million dollars on promoting democracy abroad. I find this one as disgusting as anything because based on the way things are going right now, you haven’t proven that democracy works here. So we spent $140 million on promoting democracy and then we wonder why we have an immigration problem, tea party I would think you would have a major problem with this. But hey this is America land of the free, so we can just throw more money at the immigration problem, because that works so well, but hey maybe if we spend $263 million on the department of Homeland Security and $55 million on border patrol then people will stop trying to cross the dessert or swim across the river, again, and again, did I say again. Comprehensive immigration reform is way harder! All that border walking is okay, but lets go ahead and cut the Drug Enforcement Agency down a peg, they don’t need the money to try and stop the bad guys from putting more drugs on our streets. While simultaneously spending $118 billion dollars to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have to keep there streets safe and make sure they get democracy, because it works so well right? Now I know you are still enjoying your buddies at the Country Club, how’s that Mint Julep holding up? You hang onto it and sip slowly because if Mr. Prez actually finds a way to make those 12 tax breaks enjoyed by the oil industry go away I have a feeling that your friends might be a little mad. Just take a sip and remind them to tell OPEC to make sure that the price per barrel goes up right after this happens, I mean they shouldn’t have to pay for that stuff they are providing man kind with a service.
So I guess the moral of the story is that you keep sipping that Julep and staring out at the 18th green, that was cut by Jose who ran across the border last year, all cozy and comfortable with your rich buddies. But remember this, the little people who you seem so obliged to step all over and outright LIE to, we out number you. There isn’t a wall in the world that we can’t scale and one day I think we might get it together and come after you, and thanks to your defense of hand guns we’ll be armed. So stop and take a moment to consider how you vote and what you argue for, because one day we may just come for you. As well I know that you all read the Constitution, and while I am glad that you all brused up, it shouldn’t have cost me almost $1.5 million dollars to do it, you need to do that on your own time and not mine.
(PS I am still on hold with Bank of America)
While I realize that it is virtually impossible for any of you to imagine the consequences of your actions doing more harm than good, I am going to attempt to break it down for you. When you extended tax cuts for the wealthy adding an additional $858 billion dollars to our deficit, so that everyone at your country club would be so excited to pat you on the back when you walk through the door, you did a disservice to 95% of the country that can only dream of making more than $250k a year. Now to make all of this work you intend to squeeze a little more, from the top I would think, but no I wake up to find out that rather than “Trickle Down” economics you have decided to do “Trickle Up”. Because while arguing with Bank of America about refinancing my house at a lower rate, trying to find a good charter school for my child (because the public school system has gone to crap), and desperately searching for a job online and hoping that you will continue to approve more unemployment benefits. I must also simultaneously live with the fact that you are going after Planned Parenthood. Which I can simply say is one of the dumbest things that Republicans have done to date, oh but then I remember that you want to re-define “Rape”. You only want to pay for “Forcible Rape” abortions. So let me point this out, RAPE by definition is a forcible thing. So while you argue about the Health Insurance that I can’t pay for but need, you also want to make sure that the one resource I do have to prevent another alarming hit to my pocket book is taken away. Do you want me barefoot pregnant and on welfare? I think that’s where I will end up, maybe not as a mother but as a grandmother. Then I hear that there is actually an argument about taxing Wall Street, because there million dollar bonuses shouldn’t have to take the same hit my 401k got a few years ago when they all just messed up. When you and your predecessors had the brilliant idea that people who make money out of money don’t need any regulations, they aren’t greedy after all just really smart. Even though they did manage to loose $114 billion dollars of the TARP money we lent them, why should they have to pay it back, did I mention I was still on hold with Bank of America. I mean GOD forbid that they have to pay for anything like there regulators, Senator Scott Brown who just thought it was a ludicrous idea. In some ways he might be right, I mean the oil industry was wining and dining with the MMS and that worked out well in regards to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. But you know my problems are small in comparison right?
Then I read that some of you (Republicans) have a problem with extending veterans benefits, even though you have a fit if someone forgets to thank the Veterans and people serving in the armed forces. As well you tout your own horn as a supporter of taking care of the people that guarded our borders. But hey they are old now and the fact that 135,000 of them sleep on the street because they can’t seem to work the system or they are too sick to figure it out, they don’t matter to you. You also seem to be upset because Mr. Prez would like to stop spending $140 million dollars on promoting democracy abroad. I find this one as disgusting as anything because based on the way things are going right now, you haven’t proven that democracy works here. So we spent $140 million on promoting democracy and then we wonder why we have an immigration problem, tea party I would think you would have a major problem with this. But hey this is America land of the free, so we can just throw more money at the immigration problem, because that works so well, but hey maybe if we spend $263 million on the department of Homeland Security and $55 million on border patrol then people will stop trying to cross the dessert or swim across the river, again, and again, did I say again. Comprehensive immigration reform is way harder! All that border walking is okay, but lets go ahead and cut the Drug Enforcement Agency down a peg, they don’t need the money to try and stop the bad guys from putting more drugs on our streets. While simultaneously spending $118 billion dollars to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have to keep there streets safe and make sure they get democracy, because it works so well right? Now I know you are still enjoying your buddies at the Country Club, how’s that Mint Julep holding up? You hang onto it and sip slowly because if Mr. Prez actually finds a way to make those 12 tax breaks enjoyed by the oil industry go away I have a feeling that your friends might be a little mad. Just take a sip and remind them to tell OPEC to make sure that the price per barrel goes up right after this happens, I mean they shouldn’t have to pay for that stuff they are providing man kind with a service.
So I guess the moral of the story is that you keep sipping that Julep and staring out at the 18th green, that was cut by Jose who ran across the border last year, all cozy and comfortable with your rich buddies. But remember this, the little people who you seem so obliged to step all over and outright LIE to, we out number you. There isn’t a wall in the world that we can’t scale and one day I think we might get it together and come after you, and thanks to your defense of hand guns we’ll be armed. So stop and take a moment to consider how you vote and what you argue for, because one day we may just come for you. As well I know that you all read the Constitution, and while I am glad that you all brused up, it shouldn’t have cost me almost $1.5 million dollars to do it, you need to do that on your own time and not mine.
(PS I am still on hold with Bank of America)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)