Sarcasm = Anger?

As I was scrolling through Facebook a few days ago, a thought hit me: the people in my newsfeed employ sarcasm on a regular basis. Usually I find it funny, but lately I’ve been offended. Sometime I even agree with what’s said, but I don’t think it’s the right “place” to say it.

We’re sarcastic about politics, religion, how people treat us, how people treat our perfect little angels, how much we love our jobs – the list is endless. But sarcasm is just another way to express anger, and therefore I propound a theory: we express anger through sarcasm – a lot. Being a rather sarcastic person myself, I feel authorized to propose this theory. I know when I use sarcasm, although I prefer to think of it as “biting wit,” I am definitely angry or frustrated. But where does all this anger come from? For me, personally – well, that’s none of your beeswax, if you please! But it comes from somewhere. And  I am not the only one going about my day feeding caustic statements into the minds of others.

You know what else? It’s not attractive at all when it’s made in poor taste, at an inappropriate time, and to the wrong audience. Unfortunately, when sarcasm is used it’s usually done so with all three of those parameters in place. I mean, are we really “friends” with all our friends on Facebook, for example? No! They’re mostly acquaintances. Most of them may know me my whole life, but knowing what someone was like in grade school and who they grew up two be are often to totally different things.

I shouldn’t bash Facebook so much; if I’m seeing it all over my newsfeed I am positive the people using it are doing so at work as well. Not everyone at work is your friend; many of them will find it immature and obnoxious, not to mention unprofessional.

One of my idols growing up was Julia Sugarbaker. She was amazing. Smart, successful, beautiful, and just one of those women who champions the underdog, even when it’s her shallow and slightly stupid sister. The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, anyone? Dadgum. Now that is an appropriate use of sarcasm! If you listened to that video, you would hear no curse words; you would hear no threats to poor Marjorie, no epithets on her intelligence or opinions. But Julia put her in her place, and rightly so.

Yes, Julia was the best at employing wit and sarcasm to get her point across. Those of you raised on Designing Women would know that she did it often, and it was more than entertaining; it made you stop and think. About race; about culture; about family; about loyalty; about them damn Yankees. Ah. I miss you so, dear Mrs.  Sugarbaker. But if you were a racist white person, a human being unfortunate enough to be raised above the Mason Dixon, or just a plain old uppity you-know-what…you would find her sarcasm offensive and I wouldn’t blame you. Designing Women wasn’t written for Yankees! They knew who their audience was.

Why don’t we just stop being so sarcastic to begin with? Why don’t we try to listen more and talk less, to be kinder even when we don’t feel like it, to stop automatically assuming we are so much smarter than everyone else, and to think before we speak?

Gun Control: Do Your Homework!

Everyone is up in arms (pun intended) over gun control, almost completely polarized, because it’s such intensely emotional issue. Gun control might not seem puzzling to most people, but it is topics like this that people tend to obstreperously voice their opinions about, and inevitably this makes the problem worse. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves how harmful it is to disrespect other people’s values. By not listening  and considering the other side’s values and beliefs with calmness and care, politicians increasingly contribute to the out-of-control rage we have going on in this country about gun violence and its solutions. They aren’t the only ones who need to calm down and think – we do too.

When we don’t think things through carefully enough, we can cause dangerous consequences. Case in point: The Journal News, which recently published the names and addresses of gun owners in two counties in New York. In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, the paper thought the residents in these counties would like to know what type of guns their neighbors were keeping in their homes. Before reading the article, I hazarded a guess that it was intended to show people that even neighbors they thought they knew well might be harboring weapons designed for military use. Then I read the piece, and discovered it’s not just about what types of guns a person owns, but how many. What may have sparked the idea for the article wasn’t just Sandy Hook, however; it was the shooting of a woman on the street by a mentally-ill man who had “amassed a cache of weapons — including two unregistered handguns and a large amount of ammunition — without any neighbors knowing.”

If you were living in a quiet little suburban town in upstate New York, for example, and had your bucolic, provincial peace shattered by such a terrible event, you too might want to know what else the neighbors might be hiding other than affairs, drinking problems, strange cult followings, or boredom. You might think that not only is it possible your kids aren’t safe it at school, but you can’t even walk down the street without worrying about getting shot in the head. I mean, this isn’t 8 Mile, for crying out loud.  I can see why the reporter or the staff of The Journal News came up with the idea, and in fact they printed a similar piece back in 2006, but I do not believe it was as detailed as their latest publication.

However, had the newspaper staff considered the idea further, they might have come up with the following objections to printing it:

1. Some of those gun owners were retired police officials who had put criminals away. Said officers have the worry that some of these criminals would retaliate once they were released, and now those officials, who served the very public now publishing gun ownership information about them, were in even more peril of being hurt or killed by these criminals.
2. Women with restraining orders against spouses, former spouses or boyfriends for domestic violence were now not only easier to locate, but said men targeting them and/or their children now knew they were armed and how, leaving them wide-open for attack using more dangerous weapons.
3. Gun owners with expensive weapons, or those often sold as “hot” on the street, were now easy picking for burglars.

I confess I didn’t come up with these ideas; I heard them in an NPR interview this past Sunday. A reporter, who does not work for The Journal News, brought up the second amendment, which is a nice segue into the main reason for this blog post, which is the question: have you done your homework?

If you have, you will know exactly what the second amendment states about gun ownership, and I quote: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Here is what the second amendment does not say – that we the people have the right to bear military weaponry. It does not say we have the right to bear those huge ammo belts seen in Hollywood movies. Is this amendment open to interpretation? Perhaps. Some could say that in order to form a “well-regulated militia” civilian citizens would need military weapons and a large capacity of ammunition. But at the time the Constitution was written, the need for a militia was in existence to overthrow the British government; to expel it from this country. For those of you who believe it’s time to do that, surely you understand that having a machine gun isn’t going to help?

Many believe the Constitution absolutely is open to interpretation, which begs the question: is any kind of weapon what the framers had in mind? I personally doubt that because these weapons were not in existence at the time, nor were mass shootings like Columbine or Virginia Tech or Sandy Hook a part of their lives. This is not to say that the framers did not live in politically and racially-charged times. Indians massacred pioneers and vice-versa, for example. Some people might call that senseless violence, but it was very different in nature from some deranged person shooting into a crowd of people just because of sheer lunacy.

The next homework question is this: do you even know what Obama said in his initiatives? Good! Because I am going to list them for you below. Uh-huh – all 23. And by the way, at no point in this whole affair did he state he was proposing a plan that would keep Americans from buying the normal weapons they currently are allowed to purchase. So if that’s what you’re hearing, politely remind those around you to get their facts checked.  Just because it’s a cutesy photo on Facebook doesn’t make it true!

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
11. Nominate an ATF director.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

These initiatives were found on pbs.org and included the following: “The president also proposed universal background checks, a ban on military type assault rifles, a ten round limit for ammunition magazines and eliminating armor piercing bullets. It’s up to Congress to act on these measures.”

So you can keep your Glock-9, your rifle, your shotgun – but you would be banned from purchasing an Ak-47. This seems like extreme…common sense to me! After all, why would a civilian American citizen need an assault rifle and unlimited ammunition rounds? No one I have asked has been able to give me an answer except to say that they don’t like their “rights” being taken away. Some people are appalled by Obama’s restrictions but have no desire to buy a gun.

I think the reason many Americans – barring those who plan on taking down the federal government in a suicidal stand-off, holed up in some mountain cabin – have heated feelings towards what the President did because they believe that he erred in his method. To them, I ask the following question: why would he have done this if he had enough support from Congress to pass his plan? If the only reason you’re against what he did is because of how he did it, then ask yourself yet another question: does the end justify the means? If it helps keep mentally-ill people from showering a crowd of children with bullets, ending their beautiful lives, can you honestly say it isn’t worth it? Of course not. If it prevents people who don’t need machine guns from buying them and hosing down someone for no reason, why is it not worth it?

There is one other reason some Americans are against Obama’s initiatives, which is that they don’t want “big brother” having even more control over their information. The NRA, I believe, is also of this opinion. Again, though, if it saves lives, it seems advantageous. However, being one of those Americans who resents government control over so much of our lives, I can understand their position. The truth is, in my opinion, that this is yet another classic example of choosing the lesser of two evils.

In fact, an ABC News poll shows that most Americans support the President on this one. Which begs my last question: how should the American public, the President, and Congress handle this? I propose by using the democratic principals this country was founded on. How? By Congress voting what their constituents want, in a transparent way. The winners win and the losers lose. However, in the meantime, how it is handled, at least by the President and Congress, is not tricky at all: simply listen to each other with respect. Don’t shout at each other. Don’t threaten or make demands. Just publicly get your points across. Pick someone from each party to address Congress, as well as the President, and give all three the same amount of time in which to speak. Do not let Congress members or the President fire off heated, intense epithets in front of cameras or in print. Grow up. Because this is an issue that needs to be settled, and Americans deserve to be safer than we are. And then let the American public decide.

In fact, I may be on to something. How nice it would be if American officials could behave like this about all the issues that come up. What would this country look like if most (because I am not deliriously naive) Americans behaved this way as well?What do you think?

Where Were You When?

The assassination of JFK. The Berlin Wall. 9/11. The first time a Bieber record went on sale. There are things throughout history we remember,  and some of you have never even heard the Biebs croon a pop hit. In fact, an entire generation of Americans cannot tell you where they were when O.J. Simpson was acquitted.

I remember where I was. I was in the library of my small, all-white private school. The entire high school was crowded into the back room where there was a tiny tv. They may have wired it for cable just for this event. Just kidding. Anyway, we were riveted. We had very strong opinions, even as teenagers, about the verdict. We all knew he was guilty, and most, if not all, of us, had  heard our parents express  their outrage or opinions on how the trial went and how it would end.

Today I closed the page on Without a Doubt, written by Marcia Clark, someone else an entire generation will not remember. She was the lead prosecutor of the case. And she got squashed. I mean, absolutely pounded by what folks dubbed “The Dream Team,” headed by none  other than Johnnie Cochran. Rings a bell, doesn’t it? There’s a Cochran law firm. And I bet when you read the words “Rodney King” you start to get an idea of what we’re talking about.

After all, Rodney King was beaten by Los Angeles Police Department cops. Their acquittal is said to have started the LA Race Riots of the 90s, a truly brutal time in that city’s history. There must be a billion rap songs about it out there. He was, also, famous for his hair. What happened to Rodney King, despite what he may or may not have done illegally, was so wrong it’s sickening. And when O.J. stepped up to bat, an almost all-black jury gave him the go-ahead. Get-out-of-jail-free card. He walked.

He walked despite overwhelming physical evidence that he was guilty of the murder of Nicole Brown  Simpson and Ron Goldman. The brutal murders of these two people. And he had a recorded history of domestic violence with Nicole, whom he had two children with. There are those who believe that the O.J. verdict was direct retaliation for Rodney King. I happen to think it’s a very distinct possibility.

Here is some information Clark wrote about in her book that was published in 1997:

“The People lost this case not because we introduced too much evidence or too little evidence. We lost because American justice is distorted by race. We lost because American justice is corrupted by celebrity. Any lawyer willing to exploit those weaknesses can convince a jury predisposed to acquittal of just about anything…[A] handful of clever, expensive attorneys were allowed to manipulate the system by invoking the wholly irrelevant, yet provocative issue of racism…You took a jury itching to avenge Rodney King and incited it to nullify the law.”

Get on it Marcia.

Just so you know, O.J. did not fare so well in the civil trial. He was found guilty.

I have dealt with racism my whole life. In fact, we all have. You don’t have to be Southern, from Compton, or a resident of 8 Mile to know what I’m talking about. The fear of things we don’t understand is the human condition, and racism is born out of that fear. It is not mutually exclusive to whites. It is something I dislike but understand from the white perspective and sympathize with from t he black perspective. I’m not one of those white people who says I can totally put myself in the place of a black person, but anyone with half a brain can imagine what it would feel like to be brutalized or treated unfairly due to race. Oh, wait a minute…I actually can. I once was told I wouldn’t get a job in my field because I wasn’t in the right racial category the company was hiring from. Yep. I never want to work in my field again. I just don’t have the heart.

I have wondered how I would ever write about race. It’s an issue that polarizes just about everyone – at least how they respond publicly to it. Not everyone has looked at it from all the angles.I think I have. I have never been a slave. As you can see from my avatar, I’m white. So that explains it. I’ve never been black in the 60s. But slavery ended a long time ago, and blacks have the same rights we have. So I say let bygones be bygones.

I’m not simplifying the issue of race; I’m giving the only option that lets us move past race issues and into relationship with each other. I have no idea if that will ever happen on a large scale but we all know it happens every day, one-on-one. I don’t look at a black person as a “black person” – I look at them as if they’re a person, and I expect the same thing in return. I hate the term “race card” but the truth is that sometimes race does determine how a person is treated. You don’t have to use the N-word to be a racist. Harboring hateful ideas in your mind determines your character, even if you’re the only one who knows about it. Jumping on a bandwagon of unwarranted animosity is the same thing, but because it’s what a lot of other people are doing, it’s considered ok.

The perfect example works for both blacks and whites: the dislike of the President of the United States simply because he is black, or the support he has received simply because he is black. There are a lot of white people who voted for him because they felt it would somehow balance the scales, in my opinion. That’s just plain stupid, as is disrespecting the leader of our land due to color and not even trying to see his good points. I’m not a fan, by the way, of his presidency. However, I do see sides of his personal character that I  like (as well as those I don’t.) This is only possible if you strip your consciousness of unnecessary hindrances to understanding and appreciation.

I am not naive enough to think that one day,  we will all live in peace and harmony – at least, not until the Lord  comes back and we all get to heaven. Until then, we have to do the best with what we have. So who am  I appealing to? The white family who raises its children to respect those of all colors? No. The black family who does the same? Obviously not. I am appealing to those of any and all colors who raise their children and live their lives hating  the color of another person’s skin. To you I say: get over yourself. God loves variety or He wouldn’t have painted us so beautifully in the first place. And I know y’all don’t think you’ve got something over on Him, right?

It takes a strong mind, as well as an exceptional character (in my opinion) to give credence to different viewpoints, and at least to think about them. Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” I do not have a strong mind nor an exceptional character. I am extremely opinionated, impatient, and strong-willed to the point of absurdity. But even I have trained myself to think through things that really bother me and consider all the different facets or perspectives. And when I can’t see any but my own, I always get the thoughts of someone else on board, which has taught me a lot. You wouldn’t even believe it.

A good example of this, I think, is the opinion a lot of whites have that Latinos are ruining the healthcare system.  Let’s say you believe this to be true. I can give you that, because there are a lot of people out there who would agree with you. Can you at least understand where the desire to flee to America comes from? Imagine living in a country that can’t provide you clean drinking water and you have children. Wouldn’t you be tempted to become a fugitive to give them a better life? Imagine living in a country where drug cartels run everything. The absolute danger you would live in, day in and day out. If you would  not even contemplate moving your children to safety, you have issues other than racial bias and you should probably explore that.

And let us not forget all the white people who got off easily: Lyndsay Lohan. Casey Anthony. Robert Blake. I once wrote a blog post about cosmic fame and how it totally distorts our perspective on reality. Celebrity status definitely played a role in the O.J. Simpson verdict, as well as these previously mentioned cases above. Casey Anthony wasn’t a star; she was a figure made famous over the Internet and on tv. It’s ridiculous the role fame plays in courtroom antics.

So the next time a racial thought runs through your mind, try seeing it from another point of view. When you see a white person living in a nice house, with nice things, instead of saying, or thinking to yourself, how entitled  he or she must feel, try to think about the possibility that he or she worked really hard to get those things. That person may even give some of it back to people like you! When you see a black person charged with a crime, try to remember that a lot of people grow up poor and don’t have the emotional and physical blessings of others,and that can lead to a lot of problems you, in your upper-class suburban bubble, will never understand. When you see an illegal alien sitting outside a gas station trying to find work for the day, put yourself in his place. What if you lived in a foreign country so you and your family could have a better life, and you couldn’t speak the language, understand others, and get a decent job?

Live as a Citizen of Heaven

Two verses I read recently made me really happy. You know how just reading  something lifts you up, right away? Makes you feel like you could do anything? They are both from the book of Philippians.

“I pray that your love will overflow more and more…Keep on growing in knowledge and understanding…Live pure and blameless lives…be filled with the fruit of your salvation.” – Philippians 1: 5-11 (various.)

The other is from the same chapter, but verse 27: “You must live as citizens of heaven.”

Lately there is so much animosity going around between political parties. I knew I would not vote for the President, but I had my doubts about Romney as well. The future of our country is definitely uncertain, but then, how is that any different than what people said four years ago? Ten years ago? Two decades, or two hundred years, ago? It’s not! The future is uncertain – otherwise,  it wouldn’t be the future! We can make all the plans we want to. We can figure out how to fix the economy and in two years an act of God could destroy this country.

What good would our plans be then? I don’t pen this to say that we shouldn’t make plans to make our lives as a nation or an individual better. We should. That is the responsible part of life; that is Biblical. But the truth is that sometimes life hands us things that can’t be fixed in a timely manner. Meaning – on our timetable. Sometimes time is all it takes and it takes a lot of time!

So what should we do while we wait? Fret about who leads our country? Fret about our role in it? Seriously, what is your role? Is it to change the world? No! All our lives, we as Westerners have been taught that we as individuals can make a difference. Really? How? That is what I’d like to know, because I have wasted thousands of hours of my own life, if not millions, planning ways that I could make the lives of everyone around me better if I could just find the right words, or behave the right way, or be smarter or nicer or tougher or gentler. Ugh!

It’s a nice thought, isn’t it?  That one little light can shape the outcome of billions of people. But it is such an utter lie, I think. The only world we can change is our own – our own individual world. There is a period of time when we are in control of our children before they are old enough to say no. To do what we don’t want them to do. And that is all. For the better part of our lives, the only control we have is over ourselves. There is nothing I can do to fix the peace problem in the Middle East. There is nothing I can do to fix the United States government or to shape the outcome of an election.

That’s the whole point, isn’t it? When Jesus came, so many Christians were pumped because they thought He was going to step up and take the place of oppressive government and make it work for everyone. But He had no desire to do that whatsoever. Why do you think that is? Because it wasn’t important? Because He didn’t care? No. It was important and He did care, but it wasn’t the point of His coming at all.

If everyone stepped out of politics, what would we have? A huge federal government existing solely for itself? Probably so. And how much more screwed up would it be than it is now?

I’m not telling people to avoid voting or debating, but I am advising people to live for eternity, not for the here and now. For example: abortion has always been a hot-button issue since Roe v. Wade. That’s not to say abortions weren’t being performed before that decision – they were. They probably took a lot less lives after the decision. The point is this: you or I cannot change the fact that until “Thy kingdom come,” people are going to want and have abortions. Debate it. Talk about how you feel. Let your opinion or experience help someone else to make a decision. But you cannot make that decision for another living soul. So all the hostility in the world will not change someone’s opinion; it will  just cause more animosity.

The world is chock-full of lost people! That is so sad to me. And there is a “tolerance gospel,” as I like to call it, that has gone a bit astray in trying to win hearts and minds for Christ. We are called to confront sin. We are called for other things as well, but we cannot forget this or wish it away because it’s hard and uncomfortable. But we cannot preach love to everyone if we hate them at the same  time. We cannot call everyone who disagrees with us ignorant or stupid or just plain wrong.

What can we do? We can do what the verses in Philippians say: Keep on growing in knowledge and understanding…Live pure and blameless lives…be filled with the fruit of your salvation. These directions aren’t about us and others – they are about ourselves. The world is full of hurting, lost, and mistaken people – for sure. And we are not supposed to silently watch – passively watch – people in those conditions go by in front of us. But there is a balance here that is totally out of whack.

We, as Christians, are called to be disciples of men. That is a hard pill for me to swallow. I do not at all feel comfortable discussing a stranger’s beliefs in God with him or her. But we can all be examples. We cannot change the world. We can only change ours. So whatever you are called to do, do it!! Do it with grace, mercy, honor, integrity, and excellence.

A Mistake, or Running His Mouth?

You may have noticed that I am a Democrat, although not of the  Obama kind. So, unfortunately, this time I have to vote Republican. I know. Yuck. Gross. Eeewwww…Anyway, I was pleased as punch that at least Romney has a good-looking running mate. Haha. Literally.

Paul Ryan is under fire today for lying about his finishing time in a marathon, and it got me to thinking. Why would he do it, or did he do it? Lie, that is?

Let’s say he did. Let’s say he remembers his time from 1990 and fibbed. What does that mean? That he would make a bad Vice-President? Maybe. Maybe he lies about other things. Maybe that “great speech” at the convention was  just an arrogant liar running his mouth, and if so, he would remind me of an ex-husband of someone’s out there…ouch. That would really suck for this country.

But what if he didn’t lie? What if running a marathon was just a one-time thing, as it seems likely from both The Washington Post and Runner’s World? What if he really is health-conscious (good for him!) but doesn’t like the idea of doing a marathon but did it anyway, just for kicks, or to say to himself that he could do it? So, if it wasn’t such a huge deal to him, maybe he really did forget.

I hope it’s the latter, but only time will tell. Even if he is  a liar, does it really make a difference? If we want change, don’t  we have to vote for Romney even if his running mate runs his mouth too freely?

“Agent Orange” is Sick

I’ve never been a supporter of war for just any reason. I believe war is inevitable when you are fighting against evil. There are countries or dictators or terrorists who hurt others who have no way of defending themselves, and just like a bully pushing down the kid next to you, it’s your obligation to step in and stop it. Sometimes this country really gets it right.

Vietnam,  however – no so much. I just read about Agent Orange an I’m sickened that it has taken us this long to do something. The war could have been called a civil war, except North Vietnam regarded South Vietnam as less than part of its own country. The proliferation of communism is something this country despises, but we hurt many (including innocent women and children) and lost much. It was a mistake.

People involved in lawsuits against  the United States involving Agent Orange have called it “better late than never,” but continue to sue. I hate to say it, but I would too.

What Connection?

Photo courtesy of apapromotions.com.

I just read a CNN article about U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and his supposed misconduct with Fast and Furious, and how the U.S. House held a vote recently about whether that was actually the case. What surprised me was the A.M.E.’s publicity about the vote.

The A.M.E. Church is a black denomination of mixed Episcopals and Methodists, which I find rather strange, but that’s just my opinion. What is bothering me about this article is not just Michelle Obama’s blatant use of the A.M.E. conference to get her message about Eric Holder out to the blacks in the nation, but also the A.M.E.’s idea that just because they disapprove of criticism of Eric Holder, they have the right to expect coverage of their dislike of the House vote.

But the A.M.E. didn’t stop there! They actually tried to establish a very invisible connection between the House vote on Fast and Furious and voter fraud!! HUH? Are American black voters so stupid that they believe whatever church or social leaders tell them? No, they are not! So why does this ploy always seem to work?

 

What Would You Do?

If I have heard, “These illegals have ruined our hospital system with free healthcare,” one time, I’ve heard it a thousand times. For the record, I am not one to be caught saying that, although I do understand where it comes from.

Also for the record, I have to say that it’s not like illegal immigrants use it like a doctor’s office. Most of the time it’s for emergency care, just like us good ‘ole taxpayers use it.

Photo courtesy of thehispanic.blogspot.com. Is this how you feel about illegal immigrants? You’re not alone.

But it isn’t just about healthcare. It’s about paying taxes, free education, free lunches, and taking our jobs.

 

 

 

 

Photo courtesy of twincities.com. A basic run-down of immigration statistics in America.

However, there’s a big caveat here, because the jobs they are taking are the ones that only they would work anyway. The rest of us wouldn’t work for less than the minimum wage even if our very lives depended on it, which is a problem for us, not them.

So, in case you haven’t figured this out by now, I have a lot of sympathy for illegal aliens of any race, although if we’re being honest, the most complaints we have are about those of Latino origin.

Usually I tell people that if I were a mother or father living in Mexico and I had the chance to cross a river to give my kids a better life, I’d swim it quicker than a wink. But they don’t seem to get it. I mean, they can understand it on some level, but they’re more concerned with their financial health than the safety of others. I know it’s not a race thing, because the people I know have friends and family members of differing races.

But it is easy to live our middle-class or upper-middle-class lives with decent jobs, affordable healthcare (meaning we can go to the doctor if we need it), and good food, along with great housing, and condemn others for wanting that chance. For wanting their children to get that chance. To me that is so wrong I don’t even know where to begin. By the way, it might help to remember that we were born into possibly the most privileged country in the WORLD. So many people out there struggling to survive were not.

And spare me, please, the song and dance about churches fulfilling the obligations of the poor and discarded, rather than the government. That is a TERRIFIC idea in theory. In fact, that is what Jesus would had have us do. I believe that with all my heart. But in reality many churchgoers don’t even tithe what they should, much less want to spend their money on giving to the poor!

So what is the solution? I don’t like mentioning a problem without proposing a solution. I don’t think the answer is to send troops or American dollars to Mexico and straighten them out. For crying out loud, we have got to learn to deal with the problems we have here, first, unless there is some extreme loss of life on hand, like genocide. That’s not what’s happening in Mexico, although you might think differently if you lived there with the drug cartels running everything.

Much as I am loathe to admit it, I think President Obama and his recent  immigration rules are spot-on, because let’s face it – we certainly don’t need to use the resources we have hauling all the immigrants across the border. A lot of them were children when they were brought here. They shouldn’t be punished for an illegal decision by their parents. This plan of Obama’s might actually work. The good news is, it keeps serious criminals out. I think it’s a win-win for everyone.

I know we should be concerned about our health care system. I know we should be concerned about jobs in America being overtaken by people who didn’t enter the country legally, although we’d never work those jobs ourselves. Frankly, I’m more concerned about terrorists flying in from all over the world than I am about migrant workers and the like crossing the Rio Grande.

Too Much Information: They Don’t Need to Take a Test – They Already Have the Answers!

Photo courtesy of cartoonstock.com.

Last night I was watching a semi-boring (but somewhat educational) show on the National Geographic channel. I watch them before bed in the hopes they put me to sleep, but also because I think that even if I’m kinda out of it, I’ll absorb information via osmosis.

Anyway, this particular program dealt with how dangerous nuclear war could be if attempted by terrorists and/or countries without the proper amount of nuclear materials and the know-how of creating a viable weapon. And I wondered, as I often do, why the press divulges so much information to potential threats.

For example, let’s say there are certain buildings in Washington, D.C. that aren’t properly built and could easily be destroyed by a bomb, and this fact is reported. Do the American people have a right to know? Well, yes, especially the people working in those buildings.

But do terrorists or enemies of the United States need to know that? Doesn’t that seem stupid to anyone but me? Why give an enemy a blueprint on how to attack this country?Is it possible that people assume that because foreign enemies of the state don’t speak English, that they can’t get their hands on information and translate it? Just curious.

Often, when police have a suspect in mind and don’t want to publicize how much evidence they have, they request that the information not be released and it isn’t. Or, they don’t even open their mouths about it in the first place.

This isn’t about hiding entitled news from the public. It’s about protecting the public.

As an aside, I also wondered if enough radiation escapes during nuclear testing to hurt people nearby. According to the World Nuclear Association (whatever that is?) sunlight causes radiation, as do certain rocks and from air and even space, meaning that radiation occurs naturally and we’ve all been exposed to it.

However, research from the American Cancer Society has found, through follow-up testing of Americans who participated in nuclear testing in the 1950s, that higher levels of leukemia were apparent.

Could Manufacturing Save the U.S. Economy?

This morning I read yet another article on the decline of manufacturing jobs, this time in Spain. I’ll admit that the idea of Spain having a problem with jobs of any sort boggles my mind a bit, mostly because I think of Spain more as a vacation destination than a world leader in the industrial sector.

There is a vast majority of U. S. citizens who believe that if we moved our industrial jobs back to this country, it would be a huge boost in the economy. Not overnight, mind you. I am so sick of reports of monthly woes, as if history is played out one month at a time. It isn’t. It’s over the course of years, hundreds of years, thousands of years. Yet we live in a consumerist society where instant gratification is the goal we seek. I know – you’ve heard all this before.

photo courtesy of zazzle.com

President Obama promised change, and yet his first order of business was to try to save the economy from complete destruction and a second depression in this country that, in my opinion, we could never have survived as a whole. Today’s society is not adept at sacrifice, at survival. Whining, complaining – yes. A country boy can survive, as my dear singer Hank Jr. once sang, but the United States is not the substantially rural country it was back then. There aren’t enough country boys or girls out there to keep it going.

I also think that Obama did a good thing in bailing out the banks. I’m not saying the banks deserved it; they did not. The American people, however, were just as guilty as the banks and other corporations who abused wealth and power; the American people signed their lives away on homes, cars, boats, vacations, credit cards – you name it. Therefore, since the average American could not survive a depression that already crippled this country, Obama did what he had to do to prevent that.

The question is, now what? How do we not only save the economy for the next ten years or so, but how do we build America into what it used to be, as far as industry is concerned?

We do exactly what no politician or businessman in his or her right mind would do – we take back the jobs we send to China and India, Taiwan and the Philippines – we hurt ourselves to save the country from collapse.

We complain about the power China has, both financially and militarily – and yet we gave it to them! Corporations knew the Chinese would work for next to nothing, so they sent jobs there and saved a boatload on their spreadsheets. And if China workers would do it, what about those Indians and small countries? Bring on the big bucks!

So, I decided to do a little research because I’m fully aware I’m not an expert. There’s the government’s take, which, well, you can take with a grain of salt as far as I’m concerned! Something interesting I found is that according to the U.S. Census Bureau it looks like our entire manufacturing exports are based on food and livestock! At least, almost entirely, because there were no other areas mentioned. Wowza.

The Wall Street Journal published a story three days ago about an “uptick” in U.S. manufacturing, but wasn’t pleased with this: “The celebrated revival of U.S. manufacturing employment has been accompanied by a less-lauded fact: Wages for many manufacturing workers aren’t keeping up with inflation.”

Um, duh! How many of you out there in whatever job you have feel that your salaries are keeping up with inflation? Hmmm….none of you? Here’s another tidbit from the article that would have made me chuckle if it wasn’t so ridiculous: “”The U.S. has held manufacturing wages in check while there has been strong wage growth in China and moderate wage growth in Mexico,” says economist Gordon Hanson of the University of California, San Diego, referring to two of the U.S.’s biggest lower-wage competitors.”

China and Mexico could increase their wages and it still wouldn’t compete with what workers were making in the United States just ten years ago. They had better benefits than many of us with a college education, and often higher pay as well. I know kids who worked in a mill near where I went to college because it paid better than any other job in town. They were a lot more well-off than I was, even when I was working two jobs and going to school full-time. So, I’m very sorry, Mr. Hanson, but your reasoning sounds really stupid to me.

Here’s a tip: why don’t we build up manufacturing jobs here in the U.S. and then, over time, as the economy improves, increase wages for workers?