Our Healthcare Is Rotten

Once again I have chosen to comment on Rachel Edwards' Blue Stocking Suffragette blog. This time I choose her blog post "Give me your Tired, Your Poor...but not Your Sick"  where she talks about the Healthcare system in our country. I really enjoy the great points she makes on the very important topics in our government. She has great collection of data of the variation among the medical areas to help back up all her opinions. I definitely agree that price regulation among the U.S. is very high in relation to other countries and I wish there could be an answer for that because our country needs more regularity to be able to help our diverse communities. I like many Americans am an uninsured student. My parents are both immigrants to this country and they have been living on their limited amount of healthcare that they can afford. They have raised me on their low income non insured jobs all my life and we have had a couple scares where we have to really debate whether we should go to the doctor or not. The other good point she makes is that healthcare is largely privatized and that it makes it very difficult to afford in many families. I currently have no health insurance, so I live by getting check-ups when I can afford them or by looking for cheaper alternatives.  I agree our government needs to take a good look at how their healthcare system is denying a healthy way of living for many people and make adjustments viable to all. In all this blog hits home for me because it is a real struggle for many Americans everyday and our country shouldn’t deny us the freedom to live. 

History in the making for same-sex marriage

Does our country decide who is a Republican/Democrat/Lawyer/ or who can be in an Interracial relationship or someone’s religion?  No, but they can tell us who we can and can’t marry. Out of all of our 5o states only 10 of them allow same-sex marriage, with three of them just recently added with the last election. When I think of marriage I think of two people loving each other and being happily committed to each other. Our society thinks of marriage as a huge lavish party between a woman and a man.

I don’t see why our country has to “approve” who we marry when we are living in a nation of freedom and it doesn’t seem appropriate for anyone to have a say in any aspect of someone’s life.  “The case could allow the justices to decide whether the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection means that the right to marriage cannot be limited to heterosexuals.” This is a passage from the article “Gay marriage debate shifts to US Supreme Court” by the Associated Press on KVUE. People are allowed to own guns, but they aren’t allowed to get married to whomever they want in this country.  The government gives us the right to own a gun with laws that are so minute and easy to get around, but same-sex marriage is so strictly enforced.

It was a great move to have the citizens of this country vote on same-sex marriage because it gives a good fair chance to let the country decide for itself what they want in “their” country. It is not the government’s country, so it shouldn’t dictate such a personal part of a person’s life. The government needs to regulate our security, economy, health care, and education.  The fact that the government also denies benefits of partner’s of same-sex marriages is also very disturbing.  To think that just because you aren’t under regulation you can’t benefit from healthcare that would be granted to you if you would have followed another law.

Besides that what is the big deal that someone chooses to be with some one of the same gender? What gives our government the right to be so prejudice against people that just have a small difference from them? Our country is basically a big bully toward the gay community when we live in a country that is so evolved and diverse, but yet so conservative at the same time.  To have more states allow same-sex marriage since 2004 is an improvement and the meeting of the Supreme Court to happen in regards to the constitutional rights of Americans and same-sex marriage might change history forever.

“God is a Bullet, Have Mercy on us Everyone” Right On!!!

I really enjoyed the editorial published by Rachel M Edwards,  “God is a Bullet, Have Mercy on us Everyone.” She believes owning a gun “is not a “right”, it is a responsibility,” and I couldn’t agree any less.  I think she did a good job by pointing out her own connection to the subject of guns, but still making a great judgment call of many people being ignorant of the actual responsibility to own a gun. It is good that she compared it to video games because there are so many scenarios where people are trying to imitate what they play on video games. Kids are also playing these very intense games that are no big deal or fun to them on screen, so that is the way they think it is in reality. She had good structure in her writing with the first couple of paragraphs explaining what a firearm is to her on a personal level and then she goes on to make her stance on the subject and its relevance to our nation. Then she has facts and details to back up her opinions and at the end summarizes her opinion once again and why guns should be monitored more. I would say maybe a little more  facts on some other issues of gun laws and a little less opinion. It is a writing of your opinion on a topic, but the more you are able to back up your idea the more your opinion is valued. Overall great layout and reasoned opinions!

Guns are like everyday candy in some neighborhoods

Over the weekend I was watching a show about the horrible violence that is taking place not so far from home. Mexico. I kept hearing that there was a shooting nearby, officer shot, you have to be careful, and seeing lifeless bodies on the streets. Police officers also took a reporter to a room where they hold confiscated weapons, which were mostly all American made weapons.

Many will disagree, but weapons are a great threat to our nation and there should be strict laws for someone to be able to obtain a weapon permit even more to own one. As Americans we like to have our freedoms and that is exactly what the Second Amendment gives us; the right to keep and bear arms.  According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation weapons are used in 67.7% of murders, and that is besides the weapons used in robberies, rape assaults, non fatal crimes, etc. Weapons seem to be an easy reach with several major shootings occurring this year alone. Many people are losing their lives or being injured by having careless/mentally impaired individuals able to get their hands on some of the most powerful machinery. Several states don’t even require people to obtain a permit to own a weapon, so how is that safe for our country? Teens, children, gang members, criminally prone people, murderer prone people can all own a gun basically without anything to stop them. I am not naïve because people should be precautious from dangerous people, but if guns weren’t freely available maybe there would be no need to carry a gun to defend ourselves. If government would implement strict laws for weapons our country might be safer. Weapons are needed, but are they really needed for anyone to obtain?

The National Rifle Association says that crime has been decreasing over the years in the U.S., but Mexico is having massacres on a daily basis. Most of their guns travel down through our borders. At guns shows in nearby border towns you can go in and walk out with an array of weapons and have no one question you and then the Mexican cartels will pay thousands of dollars just for one. Americans think that Mexico doesn’t concern us because we don’t live there, but it does. Many of our border towns are affected by these powerful criminals and some of our American people that travel there. Last year a woman and her husband were jet-skiing on a lake that is on the border of Texas and Mexico when her husband was shot by Mexican “pirates,” and that is only one of other violent run-ins with these criminals in that area.

Our weapons laws are way too lenient and our country is willing to take that risk.

Bullying Programs = "Gay recruitment"

On October 16, 2012 Nick Searver posted a blog In the AMERICAblog titled, “Religious right tries to kill anti-bullying day in schools” .  He blogs about a program that is being targeted by the American Family Association for, “gay recruitment.”  I definitely think his intended audience is the LGBT, anti-bullying groups, and parents.  

 The argument that Searver tries to make is that the American Family Association claims are basically a double standard, because they know bullying concerns people of religion, but why can’t it also help others that deal with the same scrutiny they get from our society. The Southern Poverty Law Center has created a program called On Mix It Up, a program to help against bullying, which encourages kids at school to interact with someone they normally wouldn’t interact with. Now the AFF is trying to discourage parents from sending their kids to school that day because they think the program is “a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools.”  I definitely do agree that the AFF is being obnoxious when the anti-bullying policies also help against the cruelty that some religious groups face.  With his audience Searver can provide this information to them and have other programs stand out against the American Family Association for being indirectly prejudice to the Southern Poverty Law Center and its purpose of civil rights.

I think Searver makes it clear where he stands in this issue and is able to back up his stance with the fact that here the AFF is trying to put a stop to an anti-bullying program that supports them as well, while they themselves bullying the homosexual community.  

Say no to keeping our communities safe?

On September 28, 2012, Politico published the article “The mounting cost of violence” written by Democratic Representative Mike Honda from California. In this article Honda is discussing the high price of violence related expenses that are made in the U.S.  I think his intended audience is the general public and voters, because he is trying to show that our society/government should be spending money in other securities for the future.

 One of his arguments is that the expenditure of $2.16 trillion related to violence is way too much. I definitely agree that amount seems incredibly high and crazy, but how many things is that money really being spent on? Hundreds of things all over the world.  Honda is making it seem that all our government is doing is providing guns and war tanks with that money. “Is this really how we want to measure America’s success, how we want to develop as a society, and how we want to leave the world for our children and our children’s children?” He seems unrealistic and wants the world to focus on other things like economic and food security and don’t get me wrong those are things of high importance as well,  , but we are living in the real world where crime, violence, and terrorism are a fact of everyday.

Another argument he made was that “military spending is a poor source creation of a job.” The people in the military are risking their lives to do a job that many of us would never even consider, so that we can live freely in our country. For him to say that is very naïve because there is a lot of skill, determination, and training/education that is needed for the variety of jobs in the military.

 When you break it down to direct and indirect costs of violence there are all kind of things that are taken into account, for example hiring all of our authority personnel, programs for training, medical expenses for those injured, lifelong recovery for those injured, firearms, and the list goes on and on. I mean if there weren’t people to protect us and help the wounded we would live in a world of chaos. One expense that I would agree is a waste is the prison system. Our tax dollars are basically supporting criminals that our officers/attorneys/judges work so hard to put away and yet we still have to support them being in prison. That whole system just doesn’t seem fair.   

I did find logic when he compared the money spent on education/health care vs. military and their job output. Even though education/health care make more job output most of those jobs will in some sense contribute to the “violence” spending. The goverment should make improvements in spending for education and health care and maybe even changes to the spending on violence, but to say there are better things to spend the money on doesn't quite make sense.  It's like he is saying let's get rid of laws and protecting our communities and everyone defend themselves. Nonsense.

While the presidential election nears what are people going to base their vote on? On September 17, 2017, the San Antonio Express News published an article titled “GOP focuses on monthly jobs report, but do voters?” In this article The Republican Party (GOP – Grand Old Party) is anxiously waiting to see how the next couple of monthly job reports look, so they can use that in the election. The job reports are used to study how our economy is affecting our job rates and how those numbers might affect the next president to be elected. Now while politicians look at these reports normal Americans look at something else; they look at their communities. Pollsters are saying that Americans are paying attention to what is affecting their personal lives like gas prices, job shortages, and companies closing. Some individuals questioned in this article think that there hasn’t been much economic improvement since the election of Barack Obama, so they think this election might need a change.

  I found it very interesting in this article that that the government reported the income levels of the typical American family haven’t been this low since 1995. I, like most Americans in this article agree that for us it doesn’t take an official report to tell us that things are still very rough, so I think this article gives a good insight to what the average population is thinking, but also letting us know that there are some other factors that some people might want to consider while choosing a new president.