EnergizedLib
EnergizedLib's JournalWest Virginia legislator goes there
From a tweet I’m seeing on a video on Republican Chris Pritt of West Virginia, he’s proposing abolishing child support because he argued making fathers paying child support will encourage more abortions.
You want to reduce abortions? How about easily accessible and affordable contraceptives? How about sex education in public high schools.
They rallied about draining the swamp in 2016. I propose we drain the cesspool of insanity, but it’s a bottomless pit, isn’t it?
I feel like I was lied to
Being born in the early '90s, Clinton being the first president I remember and being a preteen/teen for much of the W. years, I was taught things about America. I had some sort of impression on it, I guess believing in its greatness and how wonderful it was. The patriotism was fed to me during the Pledge of Allegiance, National Anthem, etc.
I believed there were bad people, but mostly were inherently good. I knew America had done wrong in its past, but believed we were reformed. As I was a preteen, I was happy Saddam Hussein was ousted and was supportive of eradicating Al-Qaeda and eliminating Osama Bin Laden.
I asked myself how Bush could happen twice once I started to grasp that he wasn't much of an intellectual, but I still supported the troops even though I didn't support him. I disliked Republicans even back then while still believing this was the greatest country in the world.
As I lived my life and just focused on non-political stuff during the Clinton/W. years, I'd always liked Presidents, politics and all, but didn't get more politically interested and tuned into things until Obama took office, can still remember watching The Situation Room on CNN and Hardball and Countdown on MSNBC at 17 years old.
So, this was when Sarah Palin started to become more of a force after McCain lost, then the rise of the Tea Party and all of their rhetoric and even though I was raised Dem and never liked Republicans, I never remembered them being as crazy as they were in 2009 and 2010, craziness they continued into 2011 and 2012.
I was in my first semester in college when Republicans won the 2010 midterm elections, and I took a class on U.S. Foreign Policy. I know relations with Iran have been heated through the years and I thought they hated us. It was in that class I learned that we, the USA, we played a part in ousting Mossadegh and installing the Shah. We were the ones who led coups and interventions to overthrow Democratically elected leaders and those who supported democracy and we installed dictators in favor of our own interests.
What? Nobody told me or taught me this when I was growing up. Why not? These were antheses to the values I had instilled in me about America when I was growing up and what leaders had preached when I saw them on TV. Furthermore, I questioned why America was supporting Israel when I learned about Israel’s atrocities against Palestine during that time, too.
It felt like I'd been lied to and was a did a disservice about America. During my younger years, I may had grown to oppose the Iraq War and never liked Bush, but I was always befuddled why other countries hated us. It all began to make sense. America and Iran may not be best friends, and Iran may hate us. Of course, if they tried to do something to us, we should defend ourselves, but if another country overthrew our leaders and installed them with dictators, would we not hate them?
I learned during the Obama years about the pendulum swinging, and I predicted in 2016 that no matter who won the general election, that winner would be a one-termer. But I never thought trump could actually happen.
The 2016 election was an eye-opener, and not in a good way. The Tea Party ran many extremists in 2010 and 2012, with quite a few of them losing even in traditionally red states. So, I'd underestimated trump because I'd overestimated my fellow Americans. It made me wonder who we really are as a country and what we really value, how we could want something so ugly that we show our own ugliness. It taught me that no longer were there people I disagreed with on policy. Supporting this made them a bad person, something that has only validated my beliefs especially since 2020.
All the while, I believed that was it about Roe, Obergefell, Lawrence, etc. that once they were decided that that was that and nothing would ever change. I was wrong.
Now, I see state legislators and school board members trying to dictate education and keep children from learning about certain things - the ugly parts of American history, but they're not doing kids any favors. You have to teach both the good and the bad about America. Celebrate the good, but also teach them the bad so that they can be more informed and that they can help prevent anything like that from happening again.
I believed the Love America or Leave thing when I was younger, and now I find that to be a farce. I hold that a person who criticizes their country loves it more than one who professes overt patriotism because the former loves their country enough that they want to see it do better. We shouldn't be teaching kids to hate America, but rather to be open minded and do them a service to teach the bad, not just the good - to do them a service.
But somewhere along the way, many have truly stopped looking out for kids. There are the forced birthers, and COVID and mass shootings have been more eye openers. Younger me would've been horrified and befuddled to know that could've been me, that I could've been shot dead and millions upon millions wouldn't have cared. The trump years taught me, and COVID especially affirmed, that the economy is more important to many than to lives, and while I've never downplayed the importance of the economy, how can one have a job if they don't have a life?
I was at the opening ceremonies of a state Little League event that the town I'm in is hosting this week. Little Leaguers during the ceremony cited the Little League Pledge that begins with I Trust in God, I love my country and will respect its laws.
What in the world? Just what in the world? How is that not indoctrination our side is always accused of? I trust in God? Which God? I love my country? What does that have to do with baseball?
I feel like kids are being led down the wrong path, creating a vicious cycle and helping to ensure why we never learn from our mistakes and why things like January 6, mass shootings and more will continue to happen.
Love America, but don't be blindly obedient to it. And never, ever trust a Republican and by all means keep them away from power to prevent them from controlling narratives.
I just want to live my life
Going into the year and during the spring, I wasn't following politics a whole lot. I was seeing tweets and planned to Vote Blue in the midterms, like I always do.
Then the leaked draft happened, and I was distraught and chilled by whole thing that I actually had a sleepless night and couldn't focus on anything except for the news when it broke.
Nevertheless, I continued to try trekking on with my job and everything for about the next month-and-a-half.
Then Bruen happened and that was another sleepless night. When I saw the decision tweeted out on Dobbs, I felt a gut punch to the stomach and just haven't felt the same since.
I am a straight, white male. Dobbs doesn't affect me - no wife, daughter or sister. Overturning Obergefell, Griswold, Loving or Lawrence wouldn't directly affect me either.
And yet, I'll do anything to keep those from being overturned and for Roe to be restored.
I really don't get it, and my view and interpretations on the federal vs. state debate is definitely different from people on the other side. In my opinion, why is it a bad thing that the federal government has legislation affirming and protecting individual rights and civil rights, but it's okay for state governments to infringe on those rights? If the smallest minority is the individual, then we need to make sure all individuals have the same rights.
After all, we are the United States of America, with emphasis on United, and if rights vary by state, how United of a country truly are we? I thought we were supposed to be free and have the same basic rights no matter where we went in this country.
The thing I wish others would get that abortion is not a black-and-white issue. It's a lot more than somebody just not being responsible during intercourse. There's the 10-year-old from Ohio, the woman in Wisconsin who bled for 10 days or a woman in Texas who lost liters of blood and was on a breathing machine because she started to miscarry, but the doctors couldn't give an abortion because of the fetus' heartbeat.
Stuff like this angers me, it crushes me. I'm currently in a red state, though originally from a blue one, and I fear what the state legislature is going to do on the topic. It makes me want to not visit other restrictive states, but then again, the state I'm currently in may soon be one with greater restrictions.
I've seen people on Twitter tell others that this is good that it's now up to the states and people can vote on it.
I don't want to have a vote on it. Do you know why? It's none of my business. It's none of my business if two consenting adults marry each other, perform certain sexual acts in the privacy of their own homes, use contraceptives, etc. The only time I want a "vote" on any of those things is if any of them involve me directly.
Is it me, or it completely twisted that people's basic rights, human and individual rights, should be for a vote? The notion that strangers can decide if a woman pregnant by rape can have their medical procedure, or a pastor deciding if gays can marry, or if a Klan member can decide if a white person can marry a black person. Something just doesn't sit with me that a perfectly married heterosexual couple can enjoy the rights and reap the fruits of a marriage while deciding not to afford that to other people.
But yet, Ted Cruz said yesterday Obergefell was wrongly decided, Mike Braun said Loving v. Virginia was wrongly decided.
As a result, I've joined my local Democratic chapter, and am volunteering for somebody to try to get them elected, and am willing to do the same for others in the area.
I'm in my early thirties. I hope I can see a day in my life again where people can have all of these rights - restored, not overturned and I can just focus on myself and my own personal life.
Yet, that's hard for me to do as long as others keep feeling the brunt of Draconian policies.
Profile Information
Member since: Sun Jul 17, 2022, 03:13 PMNumber of posts: 1,894