So, Life happened and I stopped writing for awhile, but I'm back. Did you miss me? Probably not, but that's ok-  Here we go!

Feminism? No thanks, I'll stand by my men

So, there's this nasty trend that is going on that just has my panties in a bunch, so to speak.  It seems that everywhere I turn there is another famous lady coming out as a die hard feminist. Now I have no issue women wanting to be treated fairly, but the feminist movement is much more than that and I'm tired of being told that I'm either obviously not a woman at all or obviously a self-hater because I refuse to tow the feminist line.

Feminism is advertised to the masses as being all about equality: Equal pay, equal rights, etc. That I have no problem with, but when you look closer at their history and the women who often lead these groups there are some truly disturbing things to be found. Many of them take the philosophy to extreme of hating men. They want to rule over men, make them weak, hurt them and in some extreme cases basically outlaw them all together. 

I have a husband that I love dearly he's always treated me as an equal partner in our relationship. Over the years we have taken turns being the parent at home and being the working parent, we've made decisions about the budget together, raised 4 awesome kids together and generally just never had the need to be the one in charge of the other. 

Three of our kids are boys and I look at the world that they are preparing to venture out into as adults (the oldest is 18) and I am terrified for them. What is this MADDNESS? Thanks to the Feminist movements, did you know that in many parts of the world a guy can be locked up because a girl he never saw before said that he raped her? Someone told me that and I didn't really believe them, so I did some research. In California for example, it is actually legal for a guy to be accused of rape and put on the sex offenders list with no proof except the girl's say so. I read a case file recently- aside from names being redacted this stuff is usually public record, folks, so don't take my word for it, look it up- where the only evidence that was presented against this guy was that the girl pointed him out to police from across the room. There was no DNA, no witnesses, no rape kit from the emergency room- nothing.  And when the guy's attorney asked about additional evidence, it was insisted that to press the girl for more evidence would be like raping her all over again, so since this guy had no alibi, he was automatically declared guilty.  In another case, a girl and guy are dating. They have sex a couple of times and the guy secretly tapes it, intending to use them to help keep himself from cheating while he is out of town for a few weeks. He comes back and finds that the while he was gone, the girl had second thoughts about their relationship and decided to turn him in for raping her. Well fortunately for him the date that she gives police happens to be one of the sessions that he taped, so to exonerate himself he produces the tape of the encounter which shows that not only was she not raped, but she was initiating everything. Case closed, right? Wrong. Now he is being sued for taping her with out permission with intent to sell as porn despite the fact that until this came up he hadn't shown the tape to another soul and had not kept a copy for himself after turning it over as evidence in his defense. Plus there is now a movement to get taking videos of sex acts labeled as rape so that they can get him on that count too. 

In addition, to that nonsense, there are movements now to get all sorts of innocent stuff labeled as rape. There are some Feminists who claim that a man can rape a girl by simply disagreeing with her publicly. It sounds ridiculous, and everytime I hear one of these ideas my first thought is "That's got to be fake!" but with very few exceptions my research always supports it. You know how everyone's all mad about how women are kept subservient and/or generally demeaned in Islamic countries? Many feminist groups are working to turn our country into a place where that is pretty much how they treat men. If I don't want that for my daughter, why the hell would I want that for my son?  There is a fantastic article from... I think it was Rolling Stone Magazine... done by a lesbian feminist who wanted to expose the "privilege" enjoyed by men in our society. So, to prove her point, she decided to disguise herself as a man and live as a man for 1 year.... By the end of the year, she was so traumatized by her experiences that she had to be institutionalized for a mental breakdown. When she was finally moved to out-patient treatment, she wrote a very different article than the one she had originally intended because what she found was that "white male privilege" is at best a myth, which (if it was ever true at all) is the opposite of truth these days. 

My point in all this is simple. Feminists say that they want equality, but what they are accomplishing is anything but. I'm all about Fairness and equal treatment, but I can't support feminism anymore than I can support male chauvinism. Both of those -isms are about domination and power over the opposite gender and I would rather stand by my man's side than over or under him. 

The US Immigration Controversy

There's been a lot of press about this lately and it's got me going again. First off I do agree that many of the new laws that many states are trying to enact go over the top, but on the other hand I have to say that I can't really support the groups opposing the laws either because many of them seem to have lost track of the fact that many of the people that they are attempting to protect are here illegally. I may not agree with the current laws that govern the immigration of people from other countries to the US, but that doesn't mean that it's okay to ignore them and come in illegally. I also sympathize with the thousands of adult illegals who were brought here illegally by their parents before they could object and who don't remember living anywhere else, but it is not the law that has done them wrong- it is the parents who brought them into this legal predicament in the first place.

I think that in light of the numbers that we are talking about, there does need to be a reevaluation of the way that these cases are handled, but I bristle against the implication that everyone who has grown up here is automatically entitled to all the benefits of citizenship, even if their very presence is illegal.  US citizens have jumped through the hoops and paid their dues. They and their families should be entitled to the benefits of being a citizen (eg. public education for their kids, decent living conditions and infasctructure, resident pricing for college), and they should not have to take a back seat to people who decided that coming into the country legally was too much trouble and so they were going to sneak in and demand all those benefits anyway.

I would like to see a program put in place that would allow many of the currently illegal residents of our country to acquire citizenship in a timely manner and that would allow for a more reasonable process for people still wanting to come in, but I think that should be accompanied with stiffer regulations to punish those who still refuse to legitimize their residence here. I agree however that the current stance of stiffer regulations with no alternative is wrong, if only because it does effect so many who were drug into this situation before they were old enough to object.

Creationism in Biology class?!? Really?

Ok, so here's the deal... I was talking to this friend of mine who has 3 kids the same age as 2 of mine (a set of girl/boy twins the same age as my oldest daughter and a daughter the same age as my oldest son) All 5 of them are in high school this year, but at separate schools, and we were catching up and comparing notes having a completely normal conversation when all of the sudden she launches into this little rant about how she is going to go to the school and insist that her kids be allowed to leave the classroom when their biology classes cover evolution because the school refuses to teach creationism as a competing theory.

I had to almost physically restrain myself from responding to her.  I really like this lady and there is a lot that I really admire about her, but when it comes to this subject I just can not agree with her, but in the interest of preserving our friendship, I held my tongue and did the whole smile and nod routine. After all, whether I agree or not I am a firm believer in the idea that if she wants to believe in that type of religious claptrap... well that is her business, but when she suggested that Creationism SHOULD be taught in our schools I almost lost it.  I wanted to scream at her! CREATIONISM IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC THEORY! AT BEST, FROM A SCIENTIFIC STANDPOINT,  IT QUALIFIES AS AN UNTESTED HYPOTHESIS (AND I'M NOT SURE BUT IT MAY NOT EVEN QUALIFY FOR THAT AS HYPOTHESES USUALLY HAVE TO BE BASED ON OBSERVATION AND CREATIONISM REALLY HAS NOTHING EXCEPT THE HEARSAY FOUND IN THE BIBLE!

In fact, I have to wonder how many people who claim to believe that Creationism is true are even aware that prior to the creation of the King James version of the Bible, there were actually multiple versions of the creation story in Christian lore. Most of those versions can still be found from other sources, though a few have been lost to ages due to the Church at the time of King James hunting down and destroying as many copies as they could get their hands on. Furthermore, the biblical book of Genesis, like most other early biblical texts, was not written down at all until the time of Moses, which means that it's most likely not even close to the original version to begin with since we all know how well facts are preserved when spread by word of mouth alone- anyone ever play "telephone" as a kid? Each generation that told that story prior to it being written down would have changed the story a little bit- maybe not intentionally, but it would have happened- and we are talking about a lot of generations here. Not to mention that each time it got translated into another language it would change a little bit more and it went through at least 2 translations before it landed in the King James Bible (Hebrew to Latin and Latin to English).

So near as I can tell, the closest thing that the Creationists have to real proof of their claims is another hypothesis- the idea of intelligent design, which basically says that the fact that all things in the universe follow set rules like gravity implies that there must be a God.... that at least has some observable basis, but it's pretty weak, because while there are indeed a large number of rules that the universe follows, there is also a lot of chance and a lot of random crap that argues against the idea. Honestly I think that I would be more apt to believe in God if those rules of nature didn't exist because then there would be no other explanation for why anything worked.

If any of you have gotten this far (and I would be surprised if you did, all of you folks out there that believe in the idea of creationism), I would urge you to consider this thought: You can not permanently protect your children from learning about theories like evolution (and if they intend to progress in scientific studies in college, they won't have the option of opting out and still getting credit there) but do you really want the scientists that view your "theory" as little more than popular tripe to be the ones teaching your kids about the creationist ideas? It is my opinion that if you believe in creationism as strongly as you seem to think that you do, the better idea would be to ask for an elective class that would have a teacher that believes in it teaching these ideas, but don't be surprised if not even the religious based colleges consider the elective an acceptable alternative to sciences like modern biology.

Please Think Of The Children- Learning By Doing

This is a subject that has been a thorn in my paw for a long time. Every where you look there are examples of institutions, especially schools, trying to accommodate individuals that are screaming "PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" Unfortunately, this is usually manifesting in more and more examples of ways that kids are being prevented from being kids. Schools today have ridiculous rules preventing kids from doing totally normal things like running on the play ground or jumping off of swings, or, my personal favorite, the increasingly popular "Hands off" policies that even punish kids for helping other kids up when they fall down.

I totally understand the schools' positions. They have limited operational funds already. They can't afford to have those funds cut because they are defending themselves against law suits from angry parents whose kids are injured on school grounds. So I want to say outright that I do not want to criticize the schools who are only trying to protect themselves as well as they can.

My anger is directed at the people that make these policies necessary. It is not the school's responsibility to wrap your kids in bubble wrap and protect them from every possible bump and scrape. Kids do dumb things and sometimes it gets them hurt, but it is an essential part of the learning process to have the freedom to try some of those things.

Learning to make good decisions requires that you have the freedom to make bad ones. Maybe it's just me, but it makes far more sense to me to let them do that when they are kids and the choices that they make have more controllable consequences. Let them run on the playground- if they run into something and get hurt, maybe they will learn to watch where they are going.

And another thing, let them fight back when someone hurts them- there isn't always going to be a teacher/parent/adult to protect them- sooner or later they have to learn how to fight for themselves. I have just about had it up to here with the stupid rules that punish kids who are being bullied and decide to fight back just as much as the kids doing the bullying. I know a kid who was constantly being bullied before his mom decided to home-school him and the final straw in her decision was when her son was jumped by a group of 4 older kids as he was coming out of the gym. The older kids jumping him was bad enough, but what really pissed her off was that because during the ensuing struggle her son threw one of the other boys off his back and into a wall, her son was suspended for just as long as the other kids. Since when was self-defense not ok?  I'm sorry for all you parents of bullies out there who don't want your kid to get hurt, but if your 13 yr old hits my 11 yr old, I would applaud my kid for turning around and returning the favor.   In my opinion, any person that thinks that it would be better for that same 11yr old to curl up and take the beating needs to be brought up on child abuse charges.

Obesity and the Healthcare Industry

I recently saw a report from the World Health Organization regarding obesity in Europe and the US which claimed that by 2030 about 1/2 of the populations of those regions will be "obese".  They urged the governments of those countries to take action to help curb this trend.

I understand the concerns regarding the correlation between obesity and other health problems such as diabetes, however I think that the WHO is barking up the wrong tree asking the governments to try to regulate this. Most of these governments are having trouble  balancing their budgets- what makes anyone think that they can balance our diets?

Aside from that, what in the world can the government do about it with out simply making people angry? I suppose that they could try to regulate the fast food chains more, but that's just going to piss off the fast food industry and their customers and encourage people to buy more junk food at the grocery stores. I suppose they could then extend the regulations to include many of the junk food items we currently have available to us in the stores, but you start mess with many of those items and you're gonna have some really angry people demanding the heads of the officials that are reducing their access to their Twinkies, potato chips and sodas.

WHO says that their numbers prove that we can't depend on people self-regulating this anymore, but I don't see any way that the government can regulate it for their citizens without instigating a lot of civil unrest and anger. If they really want to make a difference, maybe they need to invest some effort in teaching people how to regulate themselves. OR try regulating the prices of more healthy foods so that people can afford to buy more veggies and fruits, because I know that more often than not I end up choosing less healthy, more fattening foods because buying the equivalent in healthy foods is priced 50% or more higher for the same amount.

End the War on Drugs

Ok, so this is kind of a broad subject, but let me see if I can keep my point self-evident. Drugs is one of those tricky subjects that people always seem to have an opinion on, but I am sick and tired of hearing people, who obviously don't know half as much about history as they claim, insisting that our forefathers (e.g. George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson) would support the war on drugs that the US is currently waging. The reality is that since most of them WERE drug users of one type of another (mostly marijuana and tobacco, though there is plenty of evidence for occasional use of more hard-core drugs such as cocaine and opium, both of which were commonly used in medical practices at the time), they would be most likely to, at most, support laws on regulating manufacture so that it would be safer.

In my opinion, it is past time to abandon the war on drugs. It is costing a fortune that our country should be using for other things such as improving our infrastructure and reducing the national debt. By continuing the war we are not only wasting money, but we also encourage the drug cartels to continue the way that they have by making the whole thing more profitable, since they are able to charge more for it because it's illegal. This ability to charge more not only increases the income of the drug traffickers, but also encourages others to get involved in order to get a share of the profits.

There is a lot of talk right now in the Americas as a whole about fighting the drug cartels. Mexico, and many south and central American countries are trying to band together to fight the drug lords and their hordes and yet almost all of them freely admit that due to the resources that the drug cartels have at their disposal and the continued income they receive from sales (mostly from the US of course) the governments are fighting a losing battle. Continuing to fight the War on Drugs is only fueling the fire.

My proposal is simple: decriminalize and regulate. If the US was to decriminalize and regulate drugs such as cocaine, opium, meth, and weed, it would be first become much safer to manufacture and consume. Then you would start to see more domestic production, which would reduce dependence on foreign product, increase availability for sale here and bring down prices something fierce. This would in turn cause foreign drug cartels to lose money and power allowing the governments to again regain the upper hand in their countries.

Now this of course is where all the "oh, my gods! Please think of the children!" idiots start up. The same attitude driving these people also ran the movement that outlawed alcohol in prohibition, and we all know how well that worked. When will you learn that outlawing stuff like this only causes more problems, not less. You aren't saving the children- you are encouraging them by making drugs more attractive due to natural human rebellious tendencies and endangering them even more by making acquiring and using drugs more dangerous than it has to be. Take your own advice- THINK OF THE CHILDREN THAT YOU ARE KILLING!  

The "Rights" of Big Business

So I was watching a news podcast on the web yesterday and it got me thinking:: Why have we allowed businesses in the USA to think that they have the same rights as individuals?

Let me back track a step. The report I was watching was regarding the 4 tobacco companies that are suing the government over the warning labels that have been imposed on their products.

First off, I am one of those individuals that believes that cigarettes and other tobacco products, which have been proven to cause/exacerbate a variety of illnesses including, but not limited to lung cancer, really should be counting their lucky stars that they have not been outlawed altogether for all of the extra chemicals and toxic crap that they routinely add to a nearly harmless plant in order to make it more addictive... and more deadly. I really have a hard time understanding why the government and other society leaders still try to insist that Marijuana, another plant that is popularly rolled into tubes of paper and smoked (and with a lot less dangerous side-effects) is somehow infinitely more evil than this industry giant that has more than out lived any usefulness it once had.

Secondly, I have an issue with warning label regulation. Any company that is not being led by idiots will impose such things on themselves in order to protect the company from lawsuits from users who choose to use their product and then regret doing so- if the government has to step in and insist on it then the company was doomed to failure and bankruptcy to begin with. Of course, the government's involvement is meant to protect it's citizens from falling victim to dangerous products, but honestly, I don't know why they bother- most people don't bother to read those warnings anyway and most of the ones who do either wouldn't use the product to begin with, or are looking for material for their stand-up comedy act.

That being said, what truly upset me about this lawsuit was the insistence in the wording that the companies themselves had a right to free speech that was being impinged upon. Anyone one who has read the Constitution of the US and it's bill of rights should be able to tell you that they refer to INDIVIDUALS not businesses, churches or other organizations. Basically what this means is that if the owners of these companies hold a press conference and claim that their product is actually good for you, their is really nothing that anyone can do about it, but if the government determines that the products they produce are harmful (which, of course, they have... repeatedly) then the government is required by it's mandate from it's citizens to impose a warning label on the product itself warning users of the dangers of use and the company can't do anything about it. That is what the law says.

However, there is precedent for their claim- as annoying as it may be to me- thanks to the ruling some years back that campaign contributions, both from an individual AND from a company, was protected free speech. I still don't understand why anyone would hide behind a company name while making a campaign contribution anyway, but personally, finding out that any candidate for an elected position accepted contributions from a large company generally translates in my mind to they don't need my vote.

Top 3 reasons that I am Proud to be American

In honor of today's celebration of our country's freedom, I thought I might take a few minutes to write about some of the things that I love about the USA.

Top of my list is freedom of speech. I love the fact that I can pretty much say or write anything I want without the government being able to stop me and that other people can too. Sure that means that there are going to be people saying some pretty dumb-ass things and pissing people off, but sometimes being able to get people upset is the only way to get them motivated to help change anything. As Jim Henson once said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye." 

Without the ability to speak out against whatever we want, the government which is supposed to be working for us could easily turn the tables and enslave us. Luckily our country's founders were well aware of this danger which is why they insisted on making this part of our nations Bill of Rights. In fact this inspires me to add to each of these some commentary about how some people are trying to take these rights away. Starting with FCC's censorship of TV and radio which I think is completely unconstitutional. I'm not saying do away with the FCC- they do have a job to do that makes sense and is completely necessary for civilized use of the airwaves, but I have a real problem with how that job has been warped into an excuse to stifle free speech. Really parents, if you are concerned about your kids watching something that you deem inappropriate for them, there are means to regulate that yourself- don't insist on the government doing it for you.

Number 2 on my list is the right to own a gun. There are a lot of people in our country today that seem to think that this is a right that has out lived it's usefulness, but I couldn't disagree more. In fact I would love to see most gun control laws struck from the law books as unconstitutional because of this fundamental right. In place of such laws, I would much rather see our country make firearm safety a required course in our education system. It is a fact that lots of people die at the wrong end of a gun every year in this country, but if you look a little deeper, it is also a fact that an awful lot of the people holding the guns when they kill simply don't know how to use the damn thing because no one bothered to teach them. It is also a fact that since the implementation of gun laws preventing open carry and regulating firearm acquisition, firearm deaths have actually increased, not decreased-  another fine example of our country shooting itself in the foot (pun definitely intend).

Next on my list is the right to join or abstain from joining the military. Military service is among the most noble things that a citizen of this country can do, but the fact that every one of our soldiers, officers, etc. are there voluntarily is one of our country's greatest strengths. There are lots of people who talk about numbers like the size of China's standing army like somehow bigger automatically equals better, but I would bet on our military against any other nation in the world- firstly because of the extensive and complete training that they receive, but also because when it comes down to it, I don't see how any soldier could possibly trust their life to a fellow soldier who is only their because their government says they HAVE to be. The sheer number of people in those armies that will not give their all because they really don't want to be there should be frightening to their countries, but the fact seems to be that their leaders don't care as long as their numbers are as awesome as possible.

There are some in our country that would argue that you simply can't appreciate freedom if you don't serve, and that seem to think that forcing all young adults to serve would help everyone. Well they are welcome to their opinion, but I am glad that less hypocritical people are in charge. However, I have been disappointed that many of these same people that would wisely refuse to force citizens into service would also choose to stop willing participants from serving based on such a trivial thing as sexual orientation. Who cares what gender they are attracted to? Isn't their right to choose to have a relationship with either gender one of the things that we are trying to protect? I believe that it is commendable that anyone who has the option chooses to protect the rights of not only themselves but also of others and I am boggled by the notion that anyone would say, "Hell, no, you can't defend me! You don't like the same type of relationship I do!" That makes about as much sense as someone not being allowed to work in a sandwich shop because they own a dog.

Wait- What?! I think Feminism has gone too far!

Ok, so I'm talking to my husband last night and he tells me about this article that he read on Reddit about some guy who was married and he and his wife divorced on good terms, but Twenty-Seven Years later she went to a divorce lawyer and refiled their divorce without notifying him and was awarded not only a huge alimony, but also Child Support for 2 kids that she had years later with a second husband. WTF?!?

My initial reaction was complete disbelief, but my husband insisted it was true, so this morning, I went to Reddit myself and tried to find the article myself. I wasn't able to find it, but in the course of my search, I found plenty of examples of other related abuses of the family court laws.

I am not against women's rights, obviously, but I had not been aware of just how far the feminist movement had pushed things like this. Maybe that means I've been sheltered and oblivious, but I think it's about time that some of the rest of us start speaking up. I appreciate the fact that without the feminist movement we women would be second class citizens with very few if any rights, but hey, there's limits!  How did we ever allow it to get so far that men are being forced to pay child support for kids that DNA proves are not theirs? Or that women can seize most of their ex's income when it increases because of his hard work years after she divorces him?

I understand that there are some real creep guys out there that have taken some truly underhanded liberties against women, but how does that justify punishing the ones who aren't doing anything wrong? There are a lot of Men's rights groups that are completely outraged by this kind of thing and I can't say that I blame them, but many of them are talking about starting initiatives to revoke women's rights and repealing laws. Seems to me that there is a full fledged war of the sexes brewing and no matter which way the battle goes things are going to get ugly unless some of us can stop the extremes of both sides from making things worse.

I think we need to start a new movement that looks for equal rights for everyone. I think some serious work needs to be done overhauling all these legal systems that are causing so much anger on both sides and I think it needs to happen soon, or everyone is going to suffer.