I am America’s Unintended Consequences

                I am a twenty year old woman in Los Angeles.  I go to school during the day, and since being laid off of my part time job at the bank I joined a friend I met at a party doing private dancing and the occasional “call girl” activities that have allowed me to put enough money away that I can pay next semester’s tuition.  I don’t have a pimp, I’m not a drug user, I just have found a very lucrative way to pay for my needs while I get my degree in structural engineering.  My parents don’t know it, but my cousin does…you see she does the same thing in Pahrump, NV.  She works at a legal brothel, getting paid to do what I do, only she pays taxes, gets multiple drug and HIV tests throughout the year…and she doesn’t risk getting arrested for it.  I require condoms, and I pay for my own HIV test twice a year, however my clients aren’t screened, I don’t have security outside my room and I might get arrested one day if I am not sure my client isn’t an undercover cop.  The law is to protect society…but it only makes my activities illegal and puts my life in danger.  If it was legal, and someone started a brothel in Los Angeles, I would work there…but as it stands, I take my chances.  Do I have to be a call girl?  No, but I don’t have to go to school either…I made a decision and I have a plan for my future, if I can avoid getting caught for two more years.

                It was a friend who found me.  I was drugged and raped by three, maybe four guys.  They didn’t use condoms…I had my purse and rings stolen.  I can’t call the police, there is no justice for a person that breaks the law.  I have a few decisions to make…do I work while I wait the amount of time to take an HIV test?  Do I have an abortion if I’m pregnant.  Do I tell my parents?  All of these things, because I can’t be honest and legal about my part time job…because society thinks it is wrong, and women’s groups think that I care about being objectified.  I just want my degree, so I can get my career started.  My cousin makes $67,000 a year, works two weeks a month, and can look any of her customers and neighbors in the eye as a member of her community.  I hide in shadows and feel ashamed that I was brutalized, robbed and it’s somehow my fault.  Society’s rules have consequences…and I am them. 

                I’m an eighteen year old black kid in Memphis.  My father died when I was four, my mother is in prison for selling drugs.  I help my grandmother raise my younger brother and sister.  She is on Social Security and we get some help from food stamps and housing assistance…but shoes and bus fare, along with school books and my community college courses cost money.  My mom’s ex-boyfriend grows marijuana in his basement.  I make some deliveries for him, and sometimes get a kickback when my friends buy from him.  I don’t like it, but there aren’t a lot of opportunities in this economy.  I tell my grandmother I do “odd jobs” in the neighborhood, but I think she knows…I know she knows…because she approached me this week.  My grandmother has breast cancer, and I will be taking care of her after her chemotherapy starts.  My grandfather died of colon cancer, so we know what this is going to be like.  My grandmother asked me for a joint, because she knows the pain and nausea she is about to go through will make her so sick, she thinks I won’t be able to take care of her and my siblings.  She blames herself for making me a criminal…but she isn’t doing anything wrong…she just doesn’t want to suffer.  I don’t blame her.  I got the joint from my mom’s ex-boyfriend…and got stopped on the way home because I look like a guy that just robbed a convenience store six blocks away.  Society has rules, and they have consequences…I am the unintended consequences of our rules.

                I am white, male, and middle class.  I work in a warehouse for a company that sells packaging materials.  I drive a forklift, work 50 hours a week, and go to church every Sunday with my family.  I have two kids, my wife and I both drive American cars and we have an autistic child.  Most of my “extra” income goes to my child’s day care for special needs children.  He has Asperger’s syndrome, which makes him difficult to talk with on good days…and impossible to reason with on bad days.  My boss called me into his office today.  He has to cut my hours to 29/week and I am losing my health insurance and benefits because he has too many employees working full time and is mandated by law to comply with the Affordable Care Act.  I begged him, I even asked if I can stay full time and pay more from my paycheck to cover the cost…but he is penalized for every employee that is full time that doesn’t get the health insurance.  My wife will need to go find work…probably part time…then we will have to pay for our insurance or be taxed under the new law.  I was making it work before, but now…now I need gov’t assistance?  I used to have pride, but now I’m one of the 47%?  What do I tell my friends at church who will accuse me of being a drain on the system?  My wife and I aren’t bad people, my kids didn’t do anything to deserve this?  My boss said his alternative was to close and move to a different state with lower costs…or outsource to China or India for our supply chain.  Someone was bound to get screwed here, and it turns out I am him.  I am the unintended consequences of America.   

                Please, America, if you want to help…please stop making rules for society based on emotion, feelings and good intentions.  This country was founded on principles…but those principles didn’t need to be enforced, they were taught.  We have a military in all corners of the world, good people…with good intentions, imposing their will and values at the end of a gun…or drone.  We have police in the USA kicking down doors, tazing women and beating drivers who don’t comply with their orders.  We have politicians spewing hate and divisive campaign slogans meant to demonize one party while holding the other up as the only righteous way.  We have community leaders calling for war on a whole race/ethnicity.  And then we wonder why some of our children grow up and shoot a school full of children?  Every mother needs to know that her choices will have effects on her child.  Ever father needs to know that every moment he spends with his child will have effects on his child.  Every preacher at church needs to know that his words will have an effect on his congregation.  Our actions have consequences, and our teachers need to know that what they teach our children will have an effect on what the child grows up to be.  This is not a time to blame a video game…blame a parent who uses that video game to entertain their kid for an evening.  Do not blame a gun, blame the parent who doesn’t lock it away when they have children who are naturally curious.  Do not blame the color of clothes or a style of music, blame the glorification and permissive attitudes of our communities toward our youth who emulate those violent messages.   It is time to take our lives back, and it isn’t a law that will empower us to do this.  It is our actions and our efforts at home, at school and in our lives.  Be responsible…so that the government doesn’t HAVE to be.  Stop using excuses.  Be an American.
-REV

The implosion of the GOP and the changing nature of politics.

                It started with a bold prediction; Romney would win because he was electable, Obama was the steward of a horrible economy, and nothing could be worse than another four years of Obama.  What happened next may be looked at in the future as the implosion…the utter collapse…of the Republican Party.  Hyperbole?  Maybe, maybe not.   Obama had won the election, and kept  a sound majority in the Senate…while the GOP maintained a slight grasp on the House.  The people had spoken, we would rather not have the GOP back in office to continue where they left off…but we don’t want Obama and Democrats to have unfettered control of the government, lest it result in utter chaos and more unfunded liabilities.  Stalemate.  So, how does the GOP react to a rebuking of their message of Moderate Mitt?  An unabashed whack at their conservative base, who didn’t turn out the vote because of a lack of credibility in the conservative chops of the GOP leadership.  Yeah, it makes no sense…and even less when you look at the next GOP move.

                Within a month of losing the election, the Republican leadership is wavering on issues like debt ceiling negotiations, tax rates and immigration while instead focus on changing  their image as the evil wagers of war on women, minorities and the young by considering the adoption of policies meant to assuage those whom they were not waging war on by now favoring them with legislative “goodies”…which is how the Democrats won much of their support.  Some say this is a step in the right direction for a party that was admonished at the ballot box for not being “for women, minorities and students”.  History will show, however, that Republicans lost support because of their focus on issues like abortion, religion, marijuana prohibition and gay marriage.   The net result will be an erosion of the fiscal conservative base, while the socially liberal base will never believe the meager attempts at pandering…mainly because the Democrats will pander ever more.  The final picture of this puzzle is a Republican party that looks like the Democrats of the 70’s, while the Democrats look like the socialists of the 50’s…except without having to hide their Scarlett S on their chest.  Where, oh where will an American turn politically to find a party that doesn’t plunder his wealth to give to others that are willing to sell their votes?  What party will speak for someone who doesn’t want anything from their government other than the responsibilities laid out in the constitution?  The same place more than a million voters went in 2012 when they realized that the lesser of two evils is what the greater of two evils was 30 years ago. 

                Live Free…it is the slogan and rallying cry of the free man.   We don’t want anything special or from anyone else.  We know our government is a useful tool and has the authority to do what the constitution outlines.  Namely, protect its citizens from abuse and fraud, as well as provide for the national defense.  Where we differ from Republicans and Democrats is simply this; the department of education should be in the state capital, not the US Capital.  The printing of money should not be used because we need cash to pay for programs we can’t afford.  A war should be a hard fought struggle to defend this nation from imminent danger, not a social experiment to convert people to our way of thinking or a method of securing resources through force against sovereign people.  Pretty radical…compared to what we have become accustomed to hearing the role of government is.  We are not anarchists, we don’t want 50 different currencies in the USA, and we don’t want to be enslaved by a militant Islamic nation hell-bent on world domination.  Why is our choice always between made-up extremes we do not espouse?  Because if you are allowed to hear the arguments of libertarianism in a mainstream debate…you might realize that there is another way that isn’t just a degree of evil.  Live Free.  It really is that simple…and it starts with you, not FOX, not CNN and not the political parties run by millionaires who think they can tailor  their message to buy your support.  All we offer is freedom, if that isn’t enough…keep selling your vote.  My vote is free, but I am proud of where I put it.

 

-Rev