The Common Misconceptions on SNAP

The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program - or SNAP - has come under fire recently.  The conservatives argue that it is a program being abused by the masses, and that Obama prefers a country dependent on the program.  Other conservatives argue against paying taxes to put food on other people's table when they have a hard enough time putting food on their own.  I have listened to ranters complaining that they see people using SNAP to purchase food that they - the working class - cannot afford themselves (i.e. steaks, choice cuts of chicken and pork, etc.).  But there is an inherent problem within their argument.

The Heritage Foundation - a conservative think tank - complain that people are taking advantage of loopholes.  People who have recently become unemployed and receive unemployment money, are applying for SNAP without the need.  The Heritage Foundation argues that the system does not take into account savings, saying that people who have worked hard to save are taking advantage of a government run system.  I would argue that those same people have paid their taxes to the system, and should be able to receive their benefits since they were once working a job that allowed them the expendable income to save in the first place.  The people arguing this point are the same people suggesting that the working poor simply save their money and be frugal to survive the economic turmoil.  These are the same people arguing that Social Security be ended.  If someone who has been employed with a good job and has saved a small amount for retirement, how can they expect to get ahead if at the first sign of disturbance they dip into retirement savings?  The SNAP program is there to aid the populace during times of struggle - and many of the struggling people need the extra assistance since the cost of food is on the rise.  This study also says nothing about the retired - living on Social Security - the single mothers only able to work part-time so they can care for their children, nor the working poor who do not attain positions of full-time employment (or those who DO work full-time, but receive minimum wage).

Another common misconception is that most of the people benefiting from SNAP should just go out and get a job.  Sean Hannity argues that it would be better for America if the people on SNAP simply went out and got jobs so they could leave the assistance program.  However, John Stoehr presented numbers that would suggest most of the people receiving food stamps were either ineligible to work, or were already working.  This is yet another misconception from the conservative wing of the political sphere.

I did some research there because I knew people who were working who still received SNAP funds.  I looked at Feeding America's website, which told me that 83% of the people receiving SNAP funds had incomes.  The average income for those households - which had children, elderly, or disabled as well as the working income earners - was $744 per month.  In addition, I found that unemployed people were only allowed three months of benefits before the program ousted them - unless they found a job.  This means that most of the people receiving SNAP do have jobs.  Hannity was clearly mistaken with his question.  Even the Heritage Foundation's research stated as much.  

I decided I would take a look at some facts about food stamps, myself, since both sides seem to be arguing about it.  While Hannity and the right seem to be arguing philosophy over facts - and twisting facts to their philosophical stance, the left sounded like it was doing the same.  I figured it would be best to find something at which I could look so I could end the inner debate going through my own head.

Here is a link to the government website to help determine eligibility and the amount received for each household.  I note that the monthly income is calculated based on the amount within the household.  I figured that if one person received more then $2,000 per month, they were ineligible.  I also figured that if a family of four received $2,500 or more, they were ineligible.  On the site listed, it also states that they DO count bank accounts, but they do not count Social Security Income (whether retirement or disability), nor do they count TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) funds.  So the problem with Heritage Foundation's assessment of the program is this: a person with $20,000 in savings, stretched out for the year, does not equal $2,000 per month.  The same person, who is receiving TANF will not count those funds.  In addition, most have to re-apply after 3 months of assistance from SNAP.  What the Heritage Foundation does not take into consideration is that the person COULD get a job during that 3 month period, and then earn out of the SNAP funds - meaning their monthly income plus savings would exceed the amount for a single person.  However, if they do not earn enough income plus savings to equal the cap for a family of four, they would receive SNAP, though get less due to their income.

Another thing I decided to research was how much of our GDP SNAP consumed - to combat the people who remark that SNAP assistance is contributing to our fiscal budget issues.  What I found was the amount we - as a country - spend on SNAP is currently less than 1% of our GDP.  Less than 1%.  So, in fact, most of our taxes are not going to feed the people who can't afford to put food on their own tables.  In fact, we spend more on healthcare for government employees than we do for SNAP.  However, the amount we spend has been shown to be on the rise, nonetheless.  This is due to the slow growth in our economy, and the lack of willingness for major corporations or 'job creators' to actually create more jobs that pay a wage to get the people on SNAP transitioned out of the program.

Here is another link from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) that gives a more basic look at SNAP, and the guidelines for eligibility as well as what SNAP aims to accomplish.  One can see, with simple research, that someone got something wrong when looking at the numbers from the conservative right.  I wonder why they decide to make SNAP the enemy when they claim our nation is Christian: Wouldn't a Christian nation wish to feed the poor with a modicum of their paycheck?

I recall a time in the last presidential election where Romney said something about not worrying about the 47% of the country whose taxes were not kept by the government.  He said that Republicans shouldn't look at the message of tax cuts for those people, because they don't matter when it comes to cutting taxes - they don't pay.  That 47% gets all of their taxes back at the end of the year.  What's funny is that most of the people I've spoken to who argue that they don't want to pay to put food on lazy people's tables are members of the 47% who get all their money back.  In essence, they already don't.  For those that actually do - it means they make more than $40,000 a year, and the government keeps their income taxes.  These people who make $40,000 or more per year end up paying roughly 30% of their income to taxes - which still, at the lowest level, allows for $2,300 per month of net income.  Depending on where you live, it's either right at poverty, or well over poverty.  For the people arguing against SNAP - most being rural America - that's well over the poverty line.

While the numbers prove one thing, the philosophy continues to be espoused despite the facts.  Why?  In my opinion, this is partly due to the Southern Strategy - a discreet form of politically capitalizing on racial polarization - becoming more abstract.  The GOP (Republicans) use it now to attack social programs (TANF, social security, SNAP, Medicaid and Medicare, WIC, education) that benefit the poor - who are primarily minorities - in an effort to gain campaign funds and wealthy supporters.  So, now, instead of being the party of the white people, they are the party of rich white people - a shrinking minority.  They talk on states' rights, cutting taxes, and cutting spending for social programs so the poor (primarily minorities) will pay more and the rich will keep more of their earnings.

However, there is one flaw in all of their stratagems.  Without the poor buying their product, the rich will not gain money.  In a world where the wealthy are becoming more wealthy than in any other era of history, I find it difficult to believe that jobs that can help people get off SNAP are becoming less and less available.  Wouldn't it behoove the people who create products to employ and pay people in order to create a consumer base to buy said product?  Wouldn't it help the economy if poor people could continue to buy food, so farmers can continue to feed them, and businesses can continue to buy from the farmers to make their products, and farmers could continue to buy stuff from the product makers to help farming become easier?

The one flaw this political strategy has is that the right refuses to see the economic situation as a cycle.  It's  not a ladder, where one person walks up the rung and attains mass wealth on his own.  It's an economic cycle, a ladder where the people below the wealthy man holds him up so he can reach the top fruit and hand it down to the people below - that was the essence of trickle down economics.  In our current condition, that idea sees the one man on top picking the top fruit and eating it while telling everyone else to find food from the middle and bottom branches of the tree.  The man at the top does not realize that if he does not send the food down, the human ladder to the top crumbles.  We created a system to keep the cycle in place, to force
the man on top to send some food down, or help those below him get to the top branches so they could pick the fruit themselves.  However, the conservatives again gained control, and removed the person put in place to kick the top man down if he didn't follow the rules.  Now, we look at the system in place, where the man at the top has so much fruit he can feed himself for three lifetimes, and he complains that the fruit he has to give to the people at the bottom rung is straining his ability to feed himself.

To make this more concrete: The wealthy are not providing enough jobs that pay enough to keep people off government assistance.  The Republicans insist that giving the top earners tax credits will trickle down and create more private sector jobs - but what have we seen?  A rise in retail, restaurant and consumer service jobs that pay less than poverty, or are not full-time positions.  It's time to stop pointing the finger at poor people who are only doing what they need to do to get by - or the tiny percentage of people who abuse the system - and start pointing the finger at the people who are benefiting the most from our current condition.  I'm not saying punish the wealthy - I'm saying it's time to end the loopholes they use to get out of paying taxes, it's time to stop giving them outright cuts, and it's time to stop blaming the poor for the country's economic hardships.

Gender Equality: The Social Change and What it Means

Working is something many men enjoy - it gives them an identity; it tells them what they do.  In the American social culture, it often times allows the males to obtain a sort of pride in the idea that they bring in a sum of money that can pay for things they would like to have, or pay for bills on what they already have.  Men have been ruling the workplace for quite some time, as the social role of women has been to keep watch over the children, and maintain the home.

However, as the modern workplace begins to integrate women, and the men begin to compete with women over similar jobs based on education, the stats show that women are on the rise... meaning men are on the decline.  I think this is a good thing overall, in that women can truly find an equal place in the socio-economic world of the West.  It means that the feminist movement has raised awareness across the board.

The studies done on gender inequality work to show the various reasons why men and women are treated different in the social settings of life and work.  They note that many times, especially in the past, women have been regarded in relation to their husbands and their husbands' economic status.  Yet, as the modern age continues its progression, more and more women are finding roles in the workplace, and enjoying their jobs as much as they would being at home with their children.

In addition to the workplace, at home, women are quickly becoming single mothers and being the sole breadwinner of the family due to divorce/partner separation, having children outside of wedlock, or the decrease in traditionally male dominated workforces (i.e. manufacturing, construction, manual labor).  The numbers still are not at an equivalent rate, as many women who do have careers find themselves in the lower wage positions, but women in the management positions are increasing.

What does this mean for us as a society?  What does this mean for the family unit that has been traditionally viewed as the male dominated patriarchy?  What will feminine equality bring?

For one thing, the breadwinner complex has begun, as men have lost their jobs, or are working from home on their own projects and dreams, and women have come to be relied upon for the sole income of the family.  While some men take small part-time jobs to bridge the gap between one job and the next, the women remain constant in their career-fields.  Regardless of why, the fact of the matter remains that a social revolution is quietly occurring and changes are going to need to be made to successfully go from the old traditional view of the social scene to the new world of equal pay, equal rights, and equal treatment.

Politically: I would argue for a new amendment restricting the respect of gender from laws, however there are key differences between men and women that might prohibit such.  Integrating prisons would not lead to welcome change, and may, in fact, cause more problems than solutions, for one example.  However, until we get equal pay and equal treatment under the law for both men and women, the true equality for which people have been fighting the last century and more will not be won.  In this case, it is my opinion that the political scene must be the last step instead of the first step towards the gender equality.  An Equal Pay Act would be a good first step - but after that, the movement must rely on social change instead of the political.

The biggest hurdle in the fight for equality is the social stigma and social perceptions of each gender.  While women have been getting more jobs in educated fields of work, they continue to take on the traditional roles in the household and have more share of the workload.  In order to combat this, men and women must be raised with equal values placed on both parts of the household tasks - both within and outside the home.  

Men: For men, this means accepting the tasks at home that are traditionally seen as 'the woman's work.'  It means not being afraid of the laundry; sweeping and mopping the floors; vacuuming the carpets and dusting the furniture; cleaning up after the kids and taking them to and from school and extra-curricular activities.  It means being the house-husband in a society that still has yet to accept the image.  It means doing the dishes and cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner without complaint.  It means studying the work the traditional wife has been doing for the last few thousand years of civilization, while not feeling emasculated by other males who cannot accept the social change, or by the woman who holds her paycheck over your head.  It is a hard road, but women have been doing it for thousands of years, and things are starting to change.  As men in the new society, you must be willing to see the house-work as a job equally as important as the one that pays.

Women:  The important factor for women is patience and understanding for the men at home, while also dealing with the stress of being the breadwinner.  Men have had the load of monetary stress on their shoulders for some time.  Many times, women make fun of, or emasculate men who do not have jobs.  This has to change.  For every woman in the workplace, there is a man without a job because the number of jobs does not change to accommodate the addition of women into the working social strata.  Women will have to help the men just as much as men will have to help the women deal with the social change within their household.  This can be hard because of the way we typically view stronger, more assertive women in the workplace.  It flies in the face of tradition.  However, in order to be successful in marriage and career, the goal of the woman who is flying in the face of tradition must be the financial rock of the family as well as the helper for the man at home.  Do not do the house-work he is supposed to do - tell him how to do it, and let him go to work on it.  Maybe you've had experience doing the work - aid him with patient instruction.  Enforce your role by not performing his.  

In essence, the social change means that traditional roles of men and women will have to be mutable within the new modern household.  This also means that parents raising both boys and girls will have to start treating each equally, as well as training men to do something other than finding a job and earning money to support the home.  Men will have to start being raised with the importance of maintaining a clean home, the knowledge of how to care for children, the knowledge of how to cook, and the acceptance of doing those tasks as equal to earning money for the family.  Women, likewise, will have to be raised to understand the importance of earning money for their own family, and the willingness to undergo that stress for the good of their family.  While many women have already learned that through experience, the very same women also have been raised with the traditional view of women, and often times look for the first male breadwinner they can find to take away their stress and allow them to dip back into the traditional female role.

Equality is a two way street.

Where is the art in this opinion or image?  Simple: The image of the man wearing the apron and doing dishes with a baby in the crook of his arm and a casserole in the oven.  The image of the strong woman going into her job and making her family money so they can go one more day without worrying - power suit and blue-tooth donned for business.

Maybe equality is a myth.  Maybe, deep down, every woman wants to be taken care of, and every man wants to be the one caring for the family - I refuse to believe this.  I think the roles are simply the super-enforced gender roles our society creates.  But until the roles can attain mutability in the social atmosphere, we will never know.  Until the house-husband is seen in a similar light as the house-wife, and the woman breadwinner is seen in the same light as the top earning man, we will continue to have social inequality.

Religious Freedom - The Right's Misinterpretation of the First Amendment; Fourteenth Amendment

Many politicians have arisen stating that the Founding Fathers created - in the United States - a Christian nation.  They say because the Founding Fathers were Christian, they founded the nation based on their beliefs.  Most of them quote the Declaration of Independence - a non-constitutional document.  They say, since the Founding Fathers stated that inalienable rights were granted by the 'Creator', that they clearly meant the Christian God, since all of them were Christian in religious belief.

I have a lot to argue here, but it takes very little effort to counter their claims.  For one thing, our nation has the First Amendment - which was ratified in the Bill of Rights.  The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.  It's the first sentence.  This amendment was ratified by every state.  This law, however, did not restrict states from adopting their own state religion.  Now, at the time, just being Christian wasn't the same thing as religion.  There's some history behind this.

Back in England, and during the colonial periods, religious freedom was not something the Founding Fathers had.  In fact, in much of Christendom, mainly because of the Protestant Reformation, religious freedom was not something practiced.  In England, one could be discriminated against for not practicing Anglican beliefs.  The Puritans, who helped found New England, were ostracized from businesses, legal practice, and lawmaking because they were not Anglican.  They were hated by the populace, and laws respecting Anglicans did not respect them.  To escape it, they created their own state in Massachusetts.  However, they did not allow people who practiced outside of the Puritan faith to attend schools, create business or own land.  They did the exact same thing England did to them to those looking to settle in New England.  

Why do I bring this up?  Because both practices were Christian.  However, their definition of religion is what we would now consider denomination.  In order to avoid this kind of treatment from the federal government - in order to protect the people's right to choose what they believe and practice, the Continental Congress and Constitutional Conventions created this idea of religious freedom so oppression would not happen.  I'm pretty sure that fact is common knowledge.  It would not matter what religion the Founding Fathers were, because Congress could not create laws respecting religion.  

Again, it did not restrict the states from doing so.  Many states chose their religion, and established their states as specific Christian denominations.  However, after the American Civil War, the 14th Amendment was adopted and something within - known as the Equal Protection Clause - stopped the states from adopting religions as a state religion.  The reasoning behind this was that citizens of the state that adopted a specific religion - if they were or were not of that religion - would not be treated equal under the law based on their religious affiliation.

Now, we have people like this woman, and states making sure Muslim law does not infiltrate the government - despite the fact that no laws can respect religion one way or the other.  It astounds me how certain people can call this country a Christian nation when it has never adopted the Christian religion at the federal level.  It has never been allowed to, and for good reason.  Some states refuse to allow Muslim schools to apply for the voucher programs, and make their laws outside the constitution to adopt state religions once more.  It makes me sick to my stomach that these people are so ignorant of their country's past, and the laws that protect even their hard-lined fundamental Christianity.

The reason our country excels, and has done so in the past, is because we allow everyone to have a voice regardless of race, religion, or politics.  These people who choose to voice their opinion about their religion have the freedom to do so.  When they decide to put their religion into law, they are no better than the Muslims in the Middle East who have laws forcing women to cover their bodies from head to toe.  It's the major problem with the Pro-Life argument (yes my personal philosophy is against abortion, but I believe that every woman should have their own choice on the matter); It's the major issue with Gay Rights and DOMA (Religion is the only argument against same-sex marriage and homosexual discrimination - see Leviticus - Old Testament).  

This country was founded by Christians, yes - but it was left open so Christianity would not suppress and oppress the people who held different beliefs.  Even if the country was founded by Christians, the laws they created made it a state of tolerance and individual freedom.  No law can respect one religion over the other, and no law can be created to reward or punish someone for believing in a religion.  By not allowing Muslim schools to apply for school vouchers, they restrict the Muslim practitioners of their community from receiving funds - which directly violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.  The Declaration of Independence makes no statement saying the founders wanted to make a Christian nation - and the Declaration of Independence has no legal impact on the country's lawmaking or law enforcing bodies.  

The art?  Simple - the bible thumping politician who says what he/she needs to say to get elected; People invoking religion for their own benefit, yet refusing to see the message the religious founder deliberated to the people.  Happy ignorance.  It reminds me of a religious parent who forces their beliefs on their children whether the children like it or not.  Some of those children only hold out until they can escape, and some get brainwashed and thump their Bibles right alongside the parent.  There's only one problem here - as a parent, you're free to do such things; As a government or lawmaking body in the United States - you're unconstitutional.  

Climate Change - The Global Warming Truth

It has come to my attention that several conservative media outlets refuse to believe that global warming - or climate change, as it is now being called - is happening.  I have several friends who watch and listen to Fox News who continues to contend that climate change is not happening.  The Fox News team has also done some work to destroy the EPA so they stop regulating the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted by coal power plants and chemical companies.

Despite this flood of media trying to prove the information is false, we, as a society, continue to see ice caps melting, global temperatures on a rise, droughts across the globe, and ocean levels rising by the year.  So, if global warming is a hoax, why is all this happening?  Well, some conservatives tell me it is God's work.  I write this off because in our history God was also responsible for storms, the sun rising, and whether or not a disease would spread through a city or not.  God also backed two different nations who were at war with each other during the 100 Years War, and God backed both the Catholic Inquisition and the Protestant Reformation.  So, with that reasoning set aside - why do conservatives continue to argue that climate change is not happening?

The major factor I have found in my research is misleading information.  Who funds these reports that purportedly debunk climate change?  Well, none other than the people responsible for putting carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other greenhouse gas emissions into the air we breathe.  Here is a wiki-page that shows the various forms of arguments against the idea of climate change that are being supported by people who are directly affected by EPA and Climate Change science- including Exxon Mobil, and the American Enterprise Institute.  Basically, people who make money of fossil fuels - which put CO2 into the atmosphere - and those who make machines that currently run on fossil fuels are creating organizations and or scientific studies to 'debunk' the climate change phenomenon.

However, with a scientific consensus - meaning a majority of climatologists in agreement - stating that climate change is happening and that humans do have an impact on such things, the arguments against are beginning to sound like the arguments against the idea that cigarettes cause lung cancer.  We now know, due to several decades of scientific data and smokers developing lung cancer, that cigarettes do in fact contribute to lung cancer.  The evidence is clear.  Similarly, now that enough scientific data has been discovered and proven by even the harshest of skeptics, we find that the loudest arguments are being made by private sector researchers who are given money to 'debunk' climatologists.  They are paid several thousand dollars to find holes in the scientific data collected, and then make a statement regarding those holes.  Science is a collection of conclusions reached through observations of events.  Science does not have a pre-determined conclusion when observing.  However, when scientists are paid to have a pre-determined conclusion before they read someone else's observations, it stops becoming science and starts becoming something else.

What is the scientific consensus on Climate Change?  Here's a link to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research's report on Climate Change.  It directly states that humanity has an impact based on the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.  Fossil fuels are burned in cars, coal power plants, and a variety of other things, and add CO2 to the atmosphere - proven and well known.  How?  Cars burn gas - they emit CO-, or carbon monoxide.  This carbon monoxide fuses with the O3, or ozone, and takes the hanging oxygen molecule to create O2 and CO2 - thus reducing the ozone and increasing the carbon dioxide levels.  Deforestation reduces the planets ability to absorb the excess CO2.

But that single source is not enough - here's NASA's research, and here's the World Health Organization's (WHO) study as well.  I believe the evidence is clear that climate change is happening.  However, because this means that certain parties in the United States will have to pay more money to make sure their drilling and burning does not pollute too much, they decide to confuse the argument with false facts and misleading information.  Instead, they make it a social argument, and turn it into a political debate.  They cry that the way we did things in the past was fine and that we shouldn't be forced to do things we don't want to do.  If that argument ever held up, then cars would made without seat-belts, workers would be working seven days a week and twelve hours a day, and our country would resemble China - who is having problems with their rivers being contaminated with radiation and human waste, and their rain being more acidic across their country.  Other issues have arisen there, as well, due to the lack of climate awareness and pollution reduction.

The scientific facts do not always change the minds of people who refuse to believe that climate change is happening.  You can argue the facts until you are out of breath, and they will continue to assert that 'nature has cycles' or that 'our temperatures and sea levels are completely normal for an Earth going through the ice age melt'.  They sound ridiculous, but people will adamantly stick to their guns because the people misleading them have turned the climate change idea into a social argument.  It becomes the ideology of - typically - the conservative wing of the socio-political environment.  So, to argue that climate change exists means - to them - that you are from the other side of the aisle.  Instead of arguing facts, they argue ideas.  Instead of accepting truth, they revert to what they've 'always' known, and we see cognitive dissonance.  This means that people who have listened to one side of the argument for too long cannot, or do not accept the facts from the other side of the argument, and continue their lives as they always have.

In essence, Climate Change is being refuted by people who think what they've been doing has been fine and has not been hurting the country.  These people are being manipulated into continuing such a train of thought by wealthy individuals or mega-corporations that do not want to change how they do things - most of the times because it will cut a few million off their billions of profits.

The image I keep getting in my head about people arguing against climate change is the man who closes his eyes to lead the people into the forest.  The people all ask him to open his eyes, but he tells them he knew the forest as a child and can lead them blind-folded.  They follow him anyway, because they trust him, and he leads them into a newly inhabited den of wild animals that rip them all to shreds.

I encourage debate about issues, but only if scientific data has not made the argument moot.  This argument is like the arguments we heard for and against cigarettes, or for and against racial integration.  Eventually, facts and experiences will win out over misleading, or misunderstood information.  I just hope we don't have to lose cities to show people the truth.

Tip: When arguing against someone who refuses to believe climate change is happening - use the effects of climate change and ask them them if it is happening.  If they agree that the effects of climate change are happening, then they have agreed that climate change is real.  The argument then becomes whether or not humans have a big or small impact on such a thing.  Good luck!  Change some minds.

The Tea Party Bullies

In recent years, the American public has seen the outrage of people calling themselves the Tea Party Republicans.  These people are an ultra-conservative wing of the Republican party, and have been bullying their way through Congress since 2010.  Why?

They would have you believe they are all about fair taxes and the reduction of needless government spending.  They would have you believe they are fighting for the working class citizens and the rights of the people.  They would have you believe they are shouting the voice of rural America and trying to reform government to make it easier for people to rise up the ranks of the economic ladder.  They would have you believe they are trying to make a stronger America.  In reality, they are doing just the opposite.

Here is a good look at what they claim to be and who they actually are.  The document shows that most of the Tea Party constituents are upper-middle class white males.  Their arguments for fair taxes have actually made the tax code less fair for working class members, and blocking the stimulus packages presented by Obama have actually caused less job growth, and strengthened the upper class of our society.  Their arguments have been heard - tax breaks for job creators.  However, when these tax cuts get involved, they often benefit only the highest earners in our society, and the private sector jobs have not been increasing as much as the corporate profits.  For instance, MacDonald's has seen an increase of four billion dollars profit since Tea Party Republicans took hold, and their average work-force has not budged from the federal minimum wage standards, which have stagnated since 2009.  Another place to look are the banks and wall street, which have made record profits since Tea Party Republicans decided to give them tax credits.

But the most infuriating thing about the Tea Party is their insistence on 'more freedom.'  They have done nothing but try to restrict the freedom of individuals since they came into office.  A liberal website, called Politicus USA marks each and every one of their legislating goals, which include removing the freedom of choice from a woman, returning to a segregated society based on race, allowing murder of abortion clinic doctors, removing the funding of WIC, Medicaid, Welfare, fighting LGBT rights across the country, and allowing Jim Crow laws to return, among other things.

I don't know how this helps the American people have more freedom.  It seems to me that this group of people is fighting to return us to the 1920's, or even the 1850's.  There are even some that want to arm militias to protect against invasion - what kind of invasion they're speaking of, I have no idea.

To me, this group of people are bunch of right-wing nuts who started out with good intentions and got de-railed from the message they originally voiced.  When I first heard about the Tea Party - which was using the fair taxes, equal rights for everyone rhetoric - I thought it was a good idea.  But when I took a better look at what they meant by fair taxes, and listened the rhetoric they continued to spout about bringing more freedoms to the people, I realized they were just a bunch of scared conservatives who were worried about what having a black president would do to them.  That's just my opinion - there are many others, including some from the conservative right, that share my opinion.  Even Rush Limbaugh has said the Tea Party is killing the Republican party.

Here's some more of what the Tea Party has done around the country.  As you can see, they have done more to restrict the freedoms of individuals - save gun rights - and have worked hard to remove the voice of the American populace.  However, because many of their supporters are multi-millionaires and can afford to flood the media sources with misinformation, our population thinks the Tea Party is fighting for the common man.  In fact, they have done nothing of the sort.  They have made it harder for government to create jobs, have used the government to put down the rights of the working class or the poor, and have removed rungs of the social ladder to make it harder for people to fight the tyranny of the wealthy minority.

Yet, when confronted with these facts, the Tea Party resumes their idealistic rhetoric of returning America to what its founding fathers designed.  But what did the founding fathers design?  In my studies, they created a government that could change with the times - adapt to the role it needed to play to protect the rights of the people.  So, what rights have we lost since Obama took office?  Since Tea Party members took hold, they've done nothing but try to regulate the rights of individuals while promoting the rights of corporations.  How has this made our country more free?  How has this made our country's tax system more fair?  How will auditing the IRS prove anything?  How will destroying the Affordable Care Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, or pushing aside the Immigration Reform Bill proposed by Obama do anything to help our country be more free?  I would love to hear some answers on that one, because no Tea Party member has been able to answer them without stuttering through their own rhetoric of what they stand for.

Let's just call the Tea Party what it is, and be done with it.  They're a bunch of bullies. They bull their way into congressional office by speaking a mean game of restoring freedom.  When they gain the seat, the first thing they do is restrict them.  They lie to us, as many politicians do, and tell us they are working to make things better for the common man.  In fact, they make it harder.  They remove our social safety nets by de-funding healthcare (Medicaid and Medicare) for the extremely poor, de-funding social security benefits for elderly and disabled, de-funding infrastructure works to help create middle-class jobs, de-funding welfare (SNAP assistance) and telling us to 'get a job' (which often times pays less than welfare), and they remove the rights of people to voice their opposition through a vote.  How is this strengthening America?

Yet, because their supporters have money, the Tea Party pushes its message on us with their propaganda of returning America to its idealistic past.  I do not want a country bound in slavery.  I don't want a country where women cannot vote or choose abortion if they will not be able to fund, support, or properly care for their child.  While I am personally pro-life, I do believe that everyone should have a choice in the matter, and restricting a woman's rights while simultaneously de-funding the social services that would provide care for the unwanted/improperly cared for children seems a bit draconian and borderline imbecilic.  After a decade of federal 'abstinence only' education, followed by years of welfare/medicaid-medicare/social security destruction - what have Tea Partiers done if they've not hurt the country?  They've forced a moral code on the population of America through legislation.  They've forced their fundamentalist Christian viewpoints on people who may not necessarily be Christian.

In essence, since taking office, they've worked to restrict freedoms, make taxes less fair, and worked to promote the wealthy.  This is exactly to the opposite of what they were founded to do, and I would be ashamed if I ever called myself a supporter of the Tea Party.  Their original message had weight.  Their work goes against their espoused values.  I would call the Tea Party a gang of bullying hypocrites.  But you are free to choose your own opinion, and you are free to believe your own facts - because that's America.  Not this 'my way or the highway' rhetoric the Tea Party has been spouting for the past three years.        

Nobody Cares? Why Glenn Beck is Off the Mark

I was given this link by a friend the other day, and asked to write a response about it.  This deals with people's reaction to the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman trial that was sweeping through the media just before the Royal British baby came on the scene.  So, here it goes - the response.  

How nice it is to see Glenn Beck up to his usual antics.  He plays the emotional card and cries almost once a week to further express himself and the strength of his ideals.  I think it's just part of the show, actually.  What show?  Well, this show is what the media is and does for a living.  They are a distraction.  They make us care about these things that have no weight on our lives and work to further divide us as a population.  So, I'm going to take a look at what Glenn Beck was talking about case by case.  He says that the problem with society is that no one cares anymore unless it furthers their political agenda.

First off - this is an over-exaggeration and completely off base.  People do care - politicians care when it suits them.  A better line to say would have been "politicians only care when it suits their political agenda."  I could have agreed with him on that.  But he didn't say it, nor did he imply it.  He said that you, me, and the people we know don't care.  This kind of absolute statement is insulting to me, and makes me want to never listen to the guy again.  I hate reading his words, I hate hearing his preacher-esque diatribes, and I'm sick and tired of his rants.  The guy has a great start on most of his lectures, and makes some good points... for the first fifteen minutes.  Then he goes crazy and starts pointing fingers and telling us all what our problems are.  It's a pattern he uses to make good people think that everyone else around them is bad - he uses the image of himself as 'the prophet' to put us all in our places.  It's insulting to me as a person, and quite insulting to our society. But let's take these cases he speaks on.

The Trayvon Martin incident - this case was in Florida, and was sensationalized to the point that every television news source covered the trial from start to finish.  Why?  Well, when George Zimmerman was not originally brought up on charges, a community of people, who knew Trayvon Martin and his family, raised hell.  A community brought it to the attention of the President, different social activist groups, and news sources, and begged for help to get George Zimmerman brought up on charges for killing Trayvon Martin in what seemed like a premeditated murder - or manslaughter in the least.  A community of people CARED enough to bring the man to court.  Whether or not George Zimmerman was found guilty, the people CARED and pressed the courts and police officials to file charges.

Forget the fact that people in the news decided to make it about race.  George Zimmerman was half-white, half-hispanic.  Trayvon Martin was black.  Who cares?  The fact of the matter was that someone trailed a 17-year old boy for several minutes in the dark and, when the boy decided to stand his own ground and fight the mysterious follower, the boy got shot and killed.  Police automatically decided to release Zimmerman without charging him.  Then, after PUBLIC OUTCRY, most likely because people cared, Zimmerman was arrested.  He told a different story the second time, from what I know, and the case was one of those that acquitted the defendant because there was a fishy story - we did not get to hear Trayvon Martin's side of the story.  So, we got to hear about a scary black boy who wore a mysterious hoody walking in the dark who beat the crap out of Zimmerman.  Then, Zimmerman shot him - in supposed self defense.  The prosecution, it can be said, dropped the ball.

It's no wonder why so many black people were offended, and chose to chalk this one up to racism, or chose to speak about racism.  I understand where they're coming from.  When I was a teen - an obviously white male - I had long hair, a beard and wore baggy clothes.  Police often stopped me while I was walking down the street, frisking me and asking me if I had any drugs on me.  I never did have any drugs, but I let them frisk me because what else am I to do?  I had police stop my car and ask to search my vehicle several times because they saw my long hair and supposed I was a 'dirty pot-smoking hippie.'  I was told by several jobs that they wouldn't hire someone with long hair.  The difference between having long hair and being black is that it was my choice to have long hair.  When I cut it my senior year of high school, the stop and frisks suddenly stopped.  The police pulling me over actually had legitimate reasons.  Black people don't have the same choice - they are born to their skin, and cannot change it.  They live with that kind of treatment their entire lives. Is it any wonder why they decided to speak up?

Now, let's take the gang-raping incident Beck mentions.  He says that a thirteen year-old girl was raped by a bunch of guys - a mix of white, black and hispanic (he calls the hispanics illegal immigrants.  Not knowing whether they actually were or not, I will only say their race).  He wanted to know why the president didn't have an emotional statement for the white girl who was raped.  Here's the link with what I assume are the facts.

A white 13 year-old girl, who was in foster care, ran away from the facility.  She got into the car - of her own free will - and then went to a hotel where she was raped by up to ten different men.  The Hispanic men who dropped her off afterword gave her a cell phone, and because of that, they were found and charged with the crime.  There are two problems here in this case: 1.) The runaway girl, despite being allegedly raped, ran away from her foster care facility.  Her story is tragic in any case.  She is not a reliable source because why a would a 13 year-old girl willingly step into the car with people she didn't know? If she had been abducted, I might believe it.  2.) Why would people who didn't care about her, and raped her, give her a cell-phone so she could call someone to help her?  That seems like a couple of guys who might not have felt comfortable about what they did, and wanted to get rid of her before she got them caught. She called her foster brother who REFUSED to pick her up - why?

The story, on the whole, is a tragic one.  I think it's unfortunate that she was raped.  I think rape in this country is a serious issue and needs to be addressed as well.  But here's the difference between the Martin/Zimmerman case and this girl's gang-rape: Zimmerman was not charged until the public sought charges - the two Hispanic men were arrested and charged as soon as they had the caller ID information from the foster brother.  Yes, the raping of this girl is something we should be concerned about - especially since some of it was filmed.  Yes, this hits home to anyone with a child around that age.  But just because this doesn't make the national headlines, outside of Beck's own publication, does not mean that no one cares about it.  The police cared to follow up on the girl's allegations.  The doctors gave police evidence supporting the girl's claims, and now the Home in which she had once lived is under investigation - most likely to answer the question of why the girl felt the need to runaway.

More importantly, however, why aren't we talking about the fact that she was in a foster home and ran away?  Where were the foster parents?  Where was DCFS?  Glenn Beck doesn't ask the question about why DCFS couldn't be there, or why the girl was put into foster care, or why the girl's home seemed so bad that she decided to run away.  Instead, he points fingers at everyone else and tells us that we don't care about this girl's story, or that she was gang-raped by a bunch of guys in an apartment.  No - we care - and her rapists are in jail and awaiting court dates.  Police are still trying to discover the remaining men, and are questioning the two they DO have about it.

Zimmerman was released without charges after murdering a 17-year old boy.  Two hispanic men were imprisoned and brought up on charges once it was found they had been involved in the girl's gang-rape.  Two different stories altogether.  One where the public had to cry out to get charges filed, the other where charges were filed immediately.  Now, here's one, dealing with Marissa Alexander that got swept under the rug because of the Zimmerman trial.  Take a look at that - why didn't Glenn Beck speak about that one?

I'd conjecture that it's because Glenn Beck is getting paid by people to argue that blacks are now being racist against white people.  I'd also argue that Beck is also of the mind that black people want use racism to get their way, as conservative news sources suggest, like FoxNews and others.  I think Glenn Beck is just a part of the conservative media circus leading conservative America to feel isolated.  They instill fear using tactics that would have us think we are a separate people - they would have us look at the people who are different from us with fear.

But this isn't the only time Glenn Beck has been used.  He's been used to put a target on the heads of Obama - for violating people's rights and wanting to take our guns away (though there is no proof to the latter) despite the fact that presidents in the past have done the same.  He's been used to say the root of all evil is George Soros, despite being funded by the Koch Brothers, Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch - all of which do the same thing Soros does in a different way.  He's been used to say the Tea Party is the next real American development politically, despite the fact that they are attempting to destroy publicly funded schools (been around since the late 1600's), publicly funded transportation (been around since the invention of the street car), unions (helped to establish American worker's rights and voices against corporate infractions), the EPA (helped to stop pollution of the American environment and created during Nixon's term - Nixon was a Republican.), and have expressed the desire to hold the American economy - and jobs - hostage if they don't get their way.  Beck is just part of the conservative media circus - a sideshow, really.  I rarely listen to the guy, but when I do I cringe.

Where is the art in this?  The ignorant man on the soap box railing against things that aren't happening.  The sophomoric intellect who does not listen to the whole story before he jumps to conclusions.  Maybe there wasn't a political angle involved in the girl's gang rape - maybe it was just Glenn Beck trying to get us to fear immigrants.  Other conservatives have done that in past, and they all became just that - the past.  The more we live in the past, the less we understand the present, the less we see the future.  Glenn Beck is stuck in the past - he wants to rail on about things that are happening now while crying for a return to the past, when people cared.

Beck is just another man with a sign telling us all "The End is Near."  The problem is he doesn't have a clue why the end is coming, and points the finger at everyone he can see to try to get them to change their ways.  He is the man with the plank in his eye telling everyone they have splinters in theirs.  At least, that's how I see him.  You're free to form your own opinion.    

'Them' - the Conspirators - Who They Are and Why They Do It

Whenever someone comes up to me and tries to explain that some complicated conspiracy is going on to control my life, the theorists always use the word "They".  You know people who speak like this.  If you know me, I speak like this when I decide to go on a rant about how fucked up our American Culture has become, and how totally screwed we are as a people now that Wall Street has gained control.  The fact is, however, most people know and just don't care.  They have more important things to worry about than who is telling them to buy what - they need to take little Jake to his soccer game, and Sally to her dance class.

I, however, do care, and that's why I'm writing this little tidbit.  Even though I often find I don't have time to care, it's something I think about in the back of my head.  I always ask the conspiracy theorist who 'they' is to them.  The answers vary, but almost always land on one of, what I like to call, the Big Five: Banks, ATF, Prisons, Pharmaceuticals, Oil.  Of all the major companies - these five are the ones I refer to as 'they'.  

Sometimes I get the conspiracy theorists who think a group of wealthy men sit in a room and plot out the world and how it's going to be.  I think this is funny.  I don't think men wealthy enough to have the kind of money necessary to make those decisions would ever be in a room together - they'd be so full of themselves that they would butt heads and make no decisions at all.  What I really think is happening is that corporations from each wing of the Big Five are lobbying for laws that, in benefiting one, benefits them all.  

I'll take Banks first.  By Banks, I don't mean the First National Bank of Nowheresville, IN.  I mean Bank of America, Citibank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, yadayada.  These guys paid off the credit rating bureaus to give bad investments sound ratings so they could gain insurance money off the failed account.  They knowingly advised clients to purchase bad items, and then, when the insurance company (AIG) went bankrupt and couldn't afford all the insurance policies being claimed by the failed investments, they asked for taxpayers to bail them out.  It makes me sick to think about it, and now they're "Too Big To Fail." Yet, our politicians continue to argue that regulating the market is not something we should do.  Why would they try to harm our system further by deregulating unless they were being paid off by the banks?  

But that's just it, isn't it?  We have been bombarded by Wall Street money through politicians, news anchors, and pundits who tell us regulating a 'free market' economy would be bad for business.  Whose business? When we had regulations, small businesses were able to thrive because they had a fighting chance at gaining an upper hand. The less regulations there are, the more the playing field is tilted against the little guy.  So, what ends up happening?  The playing field tilts too high against the little guy, all the shit from the big guy at the top pours down to the bottom, and the little guy cleans it up. See September 2008, see also 1987, and 1929.  During the formative stages of each economic catastrophe, there had been a previous push by politicians for deregulation.  Calvin Coolidge's Lassez Faire economics - government's hands off - comes to mind.  

I could continue on this line of thought, but I have four other 'They's' to get through...groan.  

The next is the Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco guys - the ones who pay off the Federal ATF to look the other way, or pay politicians to remove the agency's teeth.  Gun Makers are the most powerful of the three, as they represent a serious amount of money.  The government arms the military with guns bought from private contractors.  It behooves the government to have good relations with gun dealers.  It may even behoove the government to look the other way when the gun dealers sell their weapons to other countries.  Weapon makers may even try to start a civil war in a small country for the sole purpose of selling guns to both sides.  They may just decide it's time for the United States to move in and work against the side that won't buy guns from them.  They lobby a Senator, they release a few pictures of the war they've been profiting from across the news channels, and our media flood to the 'cause.'  Next thing we know, the United States goes in and blows a few trillion dollars on the kind of devastation we throw down.  Who pays for it?  Taxpayers.  We give those weapon makers money through taxes. 

Well, I guess it really is all just the Bank's money, really, and we're borrowing it.  

I digress, onward to the third.  This will soon be over...

Prisons.  Many states have been taken by the for profit prisons.  Many politicians have, as well.  These prisons are given money per inmate.  Because they make money per inmate, they stand to gain if it's easier for people to go to prison.  They lobby for harsher sentencing, against marijuana legalization, and for the three strikes rules.  They have a major hold in Texas, but in each state, there are privately run and owned prisons.  They begin with a small charge - they quote to the state that they can do what the state needs for less money than the state would spend.  The state says okay, but then, years later, the costs begins to rise.  Slowly and surely, the costs become the same, then more expensive.  We pay these private corporations through our taxpayer dollars, and we believe that 'crime should be punished' because of the flood of police shows, crime reports, and drug abuse crimes we see on TV.  We get scared of the the junkie, we say - "Go ahead, lock him up." We don't say "Man, that guy needs some help.  Get him to a hospital."

Why's that?  Is it because we're cold as a culture?  Is it because we fear the junkie's pasty skin and haggard appearance?  Maybe it's because we're taught that using drugs is 'bad' as well as illegal.  Maybe that's why kids express their independence through overindulgence of illegal substances.  The kids either snap out of it, or become junkies of some sort, and whole cycle begins again, because using illegal drugs is 'bad'.  If we legalized everything, then regulated it, we could control the substances in a much better environment than we have.  But we don't do that. That doesn't produce prisoners.   

Speaking of drugs, I move to the fourth of the Five - Big Pharma.  These guys like to lobby for less testing for certain products, or more testing for products of their competitors.  They each have their own wing of the medicinal product lines - from enhancement products to necessary cures.  However, with each deregulation, each corporation benefits in their own way.  It makes sense to create common cause between lobbying groups on certain issues.  What they are really doing, is getting us used to taking pills, or some form of medication, in my opinion.  They flood the media with new viral scares, new reasons to buy new drugs, and new necessities to our daily routine. 

Utilizing this very technique, Big Oil has inserted itself into our everyday lives as well.  We rely on them for energy: gas for our transportation, power for our buildings, plastics and byproducts we both eat and surround what we eat.  They have been the major conspirators against alternative fuel sources.  We had an electric car, solar capabilities, and designs that could've shocked the market into the future.  Big Oil shot them down.  They went on a campaign against it, using politicians who called it a waste of money, scientists who would argue against the feasibility of using it as a primary source, and car companies who refused to build anything but combustible engines.  They won, and had a whole generation of people believing the technology was just too costly to use.  Thirty years later, we have hybrids.  To say "they have an excessive amount of control over the politicians we elect through campaign donations" would be an understatement. They have total control.  Whoever is in Big Oil's pocket usually wins the campaign.  

There are a lot of elements contributing to our degradation as a culture.  It all boils down to integrity and greed, and how much one has of either.  This covers both the artistic image of the man who says no to temptation - the man of solid temperance who chooses the righteous path - and the image of the man who must have everything to prove his own might and power. While these are my arguments, and they lack sources, I do not believe there is any way to truly break their grip on our government.  The only true way to do so would be change our culture.  Many of their messages have become ingrained within our social conscious and morale.  The only way to fight this is to defy the stereotype.  Be the example. It only takes one person to do a 'great thing' successfully for an entire group of people to believe that they, too, can do great things.