Opportunities, Responsibilities and Lemons

Today’s prompt is “What do you think about tomorrow’s election?”

Clearly, the easy answer is, I’ll be glad it’s over. Except that the only real thing that will change is the political ads on television and radio will be gone. The political postings on Twitter and Facebook won’t.

I had a Twitter debate last night about healthcare.  I won’t name names, but the other person started with “Where in the Constitution does it say we all shouldn’t have rights to health care?”

Boom *explodedhead*

I have discussed our rights before.  We have Constitutional Rights and God Given Rights. Neither of those include the right to health care, or the right to not be offended.  It is a need, not a right.

They went on to say “Dividing country into haves & have nots, rich can afford things”

Well duh, they have money. They earned it, or inherited it, but I promise you, someone along the line make money by working. But just because they have money doesn’t mean they have to give it to us, or support us. We are not their responsibility.

We are all created equal, in that we are born human.  (Please understand I know there are those who are born disadvantaged, born sick, born with health problems.  But for the sake of this blog post, can we just concede that I get it, and I am not singling anyone out, I am trying to make a point. In general.  Thank you)

We are all created equal.  We come into this world helpless.  We don’t grow up in the same circumstances, but we are afforded the same opportunities.  We are all provided with an education from Kindergarten through 12th grade.  What you do with that education is up to you.  You get out of it what you put into it.  Everyone has the opportunity to go to college. Not everyone gets into Harvard, or Yale, but there are junior colleges, state colleges, private colleges.  If you want to go, get scholarships, work and save money. Everyone has the opportunity.

Everyone has the opportunity to get a job, and to better themselves.  Even if you start out flipping burgers, work your way up.  Want a better job, do what you have to do, learn, go to school.  The opportunities are there, are you willing to do what it necessary to take advantage of them?

Got a little side tracked there.

So then she went on to say that Government should not only provide ‘affordable health care’ but also ‘affordable college educations’

Again *headexplodes*

The Government is not your parent.  It’s job is not to provide for the citizens to make their life easier.  This is not the type of government our founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the Constitution.  The opportunities are readily available, go take advantage but don’t sit there and expect the government pay your bills, and make things easy.

My kids are not handed anything.  They have worked for their iPods, their laptops, their allowance.  There are learning responsibility, they are learning that life does not hand you anything; not even lemons.

Dear North Carolina, You Did it Wrong

Tuesday was election day in North Carolina.  On the ballot was the issue of gay rights.  Once again, it failed to pass as we have seen happen multiple times across the country.  I have to wonder, why are gay rights even an issue? And how is it possible that there are so many people in this country who still have their heads up their asses?

If you listen to the haters out there, they will quote the bible, (although they are hard pressed to find the exact verse, and usually it’s pulled out of context) about how man shall not lie with man.  *side note, have you ever noticed it’s only MALE gay rights they have a problem with? If two girls want to get it on, they want permission to watch.  The gay rights issue isn’t about sex.  Shocking, I know.  It’s about denying or allowing (allowing, what a pompous fucking word to use… we allow you to love your partner.) gays to love who they love.  Openly. With the same rights and benefits afforded heterosexual couples. A friend of mine who happens to be a gay man once said to me, there can be no real progress on this issue until we get it out of the bedroom.  This isn’t a sex issue, it’s a love, commitment, partner issue.

We have Constitutional Rights, and God Given Rights. I have read the Declaration of Independence. We are given the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, those three things are considered inalienable rights of men.  So who the hell are these closed-minded numbnuts who think they have been given the right to trample all over gays’ right to pursue happiness?  And why do they think they have the authority to determine what happiness looks like.

In the interest of pursuing attention millions of dollars happiness, Kim Kardashian was allowed, by law, to marry and divorce Kris Humphries all in less time than it took for Jackie Chan to travel around the world. Years ago, Britney Spears was allowed, by law, to marry and divorce Jason Alexander faster than it took the ink to dry on the marriage license. Because clearly those marriages still upheld the sanctity of the institution of marriage and didn’t make a mockery of it in any way. Clearly. How many people around the country get married for green cards?  How many get married for health insurance?  How many get married for tax breaks?  How many people get married every fucking year for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with love?

And yet, there are thousands upon thousands of people across the country who can’t get married for love.

Gay rights, though, isn’t just about getting married. When the state doesn’t recognize the relationship, the commitment gay couples have, then there are a whole slew of other issues to contend with.  They can’t be covered on each other’s insurance, they can’t make any critical life saving decision in hospitals, it’s difficult if not impossible to adopt children.  Which frankly is a whole lot of bullshit.  Because once a heterosexual couple have been together for seven years, it’s considered a common law marriage and they have all the legal rights a  couple with a state issued marriage license has.  Excuse me, What?!?!

So basically what you are saying is, living together without being married  is not only OK but is treated the same as a marriage, but marrying someone of the same-sex is not. Double standard much?

We may be fighting the battle in every state in the country over and over again, but the war will have to be waged in the United States Supreme Court.  Until they say it is unconstitutional for states to prevent gays from getting married, until they say it is unconstitutional for states to withhold anyone’s right to pursue happiness, until the Supreme Court says Hey Assholes get off your pompous high horses because it says that all men are created equal and should be afforded the same and equal rights, there will be people who know the true meaning of love and commitment who can not get married, and people who don’t, that can.

I am Sorry Jackie DeShannon, What the World Needs Now is Tolerance.

With all due respect to Jackie DeShannon, what the world needs now is not so much love, sweet love, but actually tolerance.  And a whole effing lot of it.

I subscribe to a boatload of blogs and websites.  I spend my mornings while the girls are getting ready, reading other people’s words.  Bad idea.  It almost always gets my panties in a wad.  I can not begin to list the sites or count the number of times I have read things like “This bugs the living shit out of me so STOP DOING IT! Asshat.”  or “Here’s How We Play Nice in Social Media according to ME”  Or even “If you continue to to this and that on your blog, I will UNSUBSCRIBE” which, oooohhh I’m scared, so what, see ya.

Lately, what with this being an election year, there has been a whole lot of talk and debates, and discussions and arguments, and tweets about Rights.  While I don’t always agree with every word Dana Loesch says, (so please keep your political rantings and judgments to yourselves) she is a hometown girl, and I will on occasion listen to her.  (I support our local celebs, plus, she’s on right before The DGS) The other day, she said something that really made me think.  Rights can only be obtained one of two ways.  We have God Given Rights and we have Constitutional Rights.

Period.

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness  are rights.

But Guaranteed happiness is not.

Go forth and multiply is a god given right.

Birth control of any kind, I don’t give a shit who pays for it, is not a right.

Freedom of speech is a constitutional right given to everyone.

The right to not be offended is not a right given to anyone.

So I pulled out my trusty, if slightly out of date, Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and looked up the word Right.  I know the outside said dictionary, but the ‘definition’ of this single word looked more like an encyclopedia.  So I got out our Scholastic’s Children’s Dictionary (because I have only had one cup of coffee so far this morning) and looked up Right.

And it basically looked like a children’s encyclopedia.  But if you look at #10 it says, “Something that the law says that you can have or do. As in the right to vote.

And in the blogoverse, in social media, on the internet, we all have freedom of speech, and none of us have the right to run around and force people to shut up, and go away or play by our set of rules because we’re offended.  We all have the right to ignore those who disagree with us, we all have the right to partake in discussions about topics, situations, or Facebook statuses we disagree on.

Here’s a cold hard fact of life people.  There will never come a time, or a place when/where everyone can agree on something.  It just won’t happen.  I have also learned, that no matter how passionately we argue our side of any argument, no matter how strongly we believe we are right and everyone else is wrong, the other side is arguing just as passionately and believing just as strongly, and we stand no more chance of changing their minds, than they do of changing ours.

I don’t care if someone doesn’t play by the same rules you have set for yourself.  I don’t care if someone posts something you think is inappropriate and uncalled for.  I don’t care if someone breaks one your cardinal rules of social media.  You can not change them, or force them to conform to your ideology.  They have the same rights as you.  They have the right to freedom of speech.  They have the right to voice their opinion, to disagree with you, to argue or discuss the differences, or just ignore you.  Like you have the right to ignore them.

But instead of hating them, trying to change them, or eradicate them, try tolerance. Just allow them to be different.  Allow them to coexist, allow them the same freedoms you demand for yourself.