Commies!

Americans began to be indoctrinated into fearing and hating communism and using the word “Commie” as an insult with John Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy. Everyone that didn’t agree with the system and dared to speak out was investigated and accused of being a Communist, a traitor.

Thanks to that practice, many innocent people were chastised and their lives were severely disrupted in the States. Such was the case for Sir Charles Chaplin, who fled the country and moved back to Europe – it was our loss, not his. Sean Penn’s father, Leo Penn, was also accused of this, and his acting career was seriously damaged, he never was able to act again but against all odds, Mr. Penn became a successful director.

Today, even after the fall of the Soviet Union we still hear the word “Commie” popping up, is the favorite insult Republicans and Conservatives use when confronted with the truth. For the conservatives, anyone who is not a sheep then must be a Commie, period.

If you are a socialist, for the uneducated Right that means you are a communist. You want universal healthcare? Commie! You want to end poverty and hunger? Commie! You want equal rights for all… Commie!

These accusations are always perpetrated by Conservatives, which are still stuck in the 1950s and want the rest of America to go back in time with them.

My family brought me here from a Communist country when I was in my early teens, which gives me the advantage of remembering how things were in my there and the similarities with what is happening here.

In my country, being gay was against the law. If you were a man and your pants were too tight, a soldier would cut them open by the seams; if a young man had long hair he was viewed by the government as gay or feminized and that was enough to take them to jail. Homosexuality was unacceptable.

Abortions were also banned, not because the Communist leaders believed in any deity but because for a Communist country the people are the workers that will bring progress to the land – they all work for almost nothing and can’t own anything it’s all profits for the government, and it was in the government’s best interest to keep the population growing. Food was rationalized, so the more people the less food there was, but that didn’t apply to the leaders so the lack of food was inconsequential. In countries where everything is owned by the government, Unions do not exist because the government will not allow it.

There are two things provided by the Communists that can be associated with Democrats: education and healthcare. Socialist and Communist countries (similar ideology but not equal) are for free education and free healthcare for every individual. It’s the only undeniable good in a communist political system.

The universal color for any Communist country is red, even China’s flag shows that color. In countries that were under that regime, people from the Communist Party were called the Right, not the Left. Lefties were the rebels; the ones not conformed to the regime.

Conservatives use the term Commie to describe those of us that are liberal, progressive or simply Democrats. However, Republicans color is red, they are the Right wing, are against unions, against gay rights, against abortion… That makes 5 similarities between Communists and Republicans. Communists are for free education and healthcare, so are Democrats, that’s two similarities... and the Right wing dares to call us “Commies"!

Pursuit of Happiness

The Big Lie

I’ve been hearing a lot about the Iraq war this month. March 19th marked the 10th anniversary of the invasion and it's only logical that the media is reminding us of that event. Depending on which media you watch you can either hear some still defending it and justifying it or, if you watch the liberal media you would be listening of the different ways the Bush Administration tricked us into war.

I remember it well. I remember how enraged the American people were after that fateful day of September 11. I remember how so many Americans wanted revenge for that atrocity and most were so blind in their hate and resentment that were willing participants in the lies.

Right after 911, I wanted al’Qaeda to pay.

The Bush administration made sure that the Bin Laden family was safely removed from this country the very next day after the attacks, when no other airplanes were allowed in our skies the Bin Laden family were safely on a jet on their way back home. That seemed very odd to me, you would think the government would keep the family here for interrogation or as a minimum as leverage against Osama Bin Laden, but that wasn’t the case. Also, when they removed the family Osama Bin Laden had denied his involvement so, what did the government know that no one else knew? I heard Osama Bin Laden claimed that he didn’t order the attacks, and that filled me up with doubt because every terrorist group always takes pride in their horrific actions and won’t miss an opportunity to proudly own it, so it didn’t make sense to me that Bin Laden was denying it. Later, a grainy video with a man that looked fatter and darker than Bin Laden aired, he didn’t look like Bin Laden to me but why would they be saying it was him if he wasn’t? So I believed them, kind of.

While our army was in Afghanistan, they had Bin Laden cornered in a cave and they were waiting for the orders to take him out. To everyone’s surprise, the order that came from the President was to let him go. For me this was the decisive moment that once and for all opened my eyes to what was going on. The Administration by that time were presenting the case against Iraq and slowly turning the wheels to excite the American people into invading Iraq… and it worked.

Today, everyone is asking how was it possible for everyone to blindly approve this war as we did. They are solely blaming the Administration but I don’t. The Administration is to blame for pouring fuel into the fire, but let’s be honest and accept responsibility. Very few Americans were willing to be labeled “anti-American” or “unpatriotic” as they were calling those that opposed the invasion back then. How could the American people approve invading a country that had nothing to do with al’Qaeda and that up to recent times was our ally? How could they? Simple. For most Americans that have never gone anywhere outside our shores all Muslims are the same, all Asians, all blacks and Hispanics they are all the same! What was the difference between Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.? Nothing, for most Americans they were and are one and the same.

That is why Americans went for it. That is why our youth enrolled in the Army, proudly thinking they were “protecting and defending” our country. That is why we are not liked around the world… Because we can’t distinguish one country from the other, one group of people from another and we are so ignorant that we think we are better than the rest of the world and that our way of life is better than the rest and therefore, the whole world should be like us and should thank us when we try to change their lives to be more like ours.

Today, those involved and the ones that perpetrated the lies are trying to rewrite history. Today they justify the thousands of Americans and Iraqis that died for nothing, by changing the motive we went into Iraq. They don’t even mention that we went in because the Weapons of Mass Destruction or the “Mushroom Cloud” that Hussein was preparing to use against us, we no longer hear that Hussein was harvesting terrorist from al’Qaeda by training them in Iraq. No, all that has been “magically” erased and now they are "selling" us is that it was a good war because we liberated the people from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. Damn, we are no longer the invaders we are the liberators! Sure!  They know that if they repeat a lie long enough, sooner or later people will believe it.

Let’s not forget and let’s not allow history to be re-written. We invaded a country under false pretenses. We invaded a country either because Bush wanted to complete what his father had started or, most likely, to go after the oil in Iraq. The Administration began to consider pulling out of the country when the world made sure that the oil in Iraq belonged to the Iraqi people, not the “liberators”; in other words we couldn’t touch it so we began to pull out.

That unnecessary war that was planned with lies and fabrications is what took this country from a surplus to a deep deficit. That war that was so well thought of, from beginning to end, wasn’t as well prepared, financially speaking. The financial burden on the people didn’t matter because they thought the war was going to pay for itself with the bounty, that precious black gold; but bad deeds usually never end well and today we find ourselves in the red and those that supported that war, those that advocated for it and fed the frenzy are still governing and those are the ones that keep talking about the deficit, how horrendous it is and blaming the current Administration for all that is happening. Those are the same hypocrites that are sequestering the country and taking it to the path of self-destruction. They are masters of deception and evil, the only good thing they are good at is destruction – they have no idea how to look into the future with hope and determination, or rebuild a better and prosperous nation where everyone thrives, for them only wealth matters.

What would it take for the American people to take all these assholes out of Congress? A miracle I think. Right up to 911 the majority of the American people used their brains, the majority was for a better world and even though there were always differences between political parties, they were never so divisive. Something happened to the psyche of the American people on September 11, the haters became more hateful and were proud to show their hate. It began the era of my way or the highway and the rest of the thinking people found themselves hostages of the unreasonable, prisoners of the haters.

Today we are witnessing the destruction of this country on a daily basis. The people “representing” us in Congress, at the Federal and State levels – are constantly attacking our way of life. They are against women, against the poor, against seniors and basically against the working class, and those haters applauding and cheering these actions are women, poor, seniors and workers blindly supporting these measures against humanity while unknowingly conspiring against themselves – because in their hate they think that those they are punishing are people of another race, Hispanics and blacks, and that these extreme measures will not affect them. They are willing to shoot themselves in the foot if by doing so the bullet would ricochet and hit the source of their hate. We are on a path of destruction and I am afraid the thinking people will not be able to stop it.

The Personification of a Cell

Bill HR 23 is short and by no means difficult to understand. It’s straightforward, and unless you have absolutely no knowledge of basic biology, it leaves no room for doubt as to what it entails.

This bill is extremely dangerous because it makes no mention about any exceptions. For these Representatives, a fertilized egg is far more valuable than the life a woman.

These are the people that claim to be pro-life. They are the same people that are willing to destroy the planet that sustains life for the mighty dollar; they are pro-war, sacrificing thousands of young men and women that gave their lives to satisfy their thirst of power and; these are the same people that are advocating for the tar sand pipeline that will contaminate our water supply and the same people that are in favor of every American to be armed with whatever weapon they choose without any restrictions, they are even against a simple background check. Republicans are against universal healthcare, against any help for the poor and they are even advocating for the privatization of schools, all of which are detrimental for the well being of children.  Don’t be fooled by the pro-life label, they are pro-fetus not pro-life, which is not the same thing.

In their quest to be “holier than thou,” these people are against science and obstruct the possibility for scientists to obtain any federal funding for stem cell research because they are very fearful that scientists might be cloning human beings in the future. However, in a rare display of futuristic vision, these representatives made sure to include in this bill that not even a cloned cell could be destroyed. This ensures that scientists will not be able to produce in a lab or use a human fertilized cell for stem cell research, ever.

This or any other Bill that have been incessantly introduced in Congress, both at the state and federal level, by obsessed Republicans have failed to specify why a cell without a nervous or circulatory system (a zygote), void of a brain or any other of the functions needed to be alive, should legally be considered a human with all the rights of a living, breathing person. They claim it’s the constitutional right of the fertilized cell, even writing this sounds preposterous! As I mentioned in my previous article “Legislative Rape,” nowhere in the Constitution of the United States of America you will find the right to life, the fact that the death sentence is permitted and at times even abused in this country should be proof enough.

The Republicans in Congress – both at the State and Federal level – pushing for “a one-celled human embryo” to become a full person under the law have been extremely careful not to reveal the real reason or as a minimum, the legal basis as to why, constitutionally or scientifically, we should grant a blood clot the status of personhood. The only reason why these obtuse and regressive people want to make a cell into a person is because of their religious views, nothing else; but they cannot say it because that will render their argument unconstitutional and therefore, not valid.

The Republicans succeeded at granting an entity that doesn’t breathe, doesn’t have a heart or heartbeat, a brain, blood, bones, eyes, limbs etc. the status of personhood. That was a first step, now they want to do the same to what’s basically a blood clot.

The Republican Party is persistently working at taking the country back to the dark ages; their symbol shouldn’t be an Elephant – a gentle and intelligent animal, that’s an insult to such lovely creatures. Rather, the symbol of the Republican Party should be a Mammoth, an ancient and extinct creature from the Ice Ages, which is more suitable for the intellectual level of that Party.

Legislative Rape | 90 Degrees to the Left

Legislative Rape | 90 Degrees to the Left

Notice

To all my followers,

I've been encountering many problems with blogspot, which I have not been able to solve because there is no way of contacting them.

If I cannot resolve these issues, I will be ending this blog and since you have been with me since I started, I thought I should let you know that you may follow 90 Degrees to the Left at my other site:  http://90degrees2theleft.com

I'll do everything within my power to continue this one as well, but it doesn't depend on me.

Hope that all of you understand and follow me at the other site as well.

Thank you,

Indy

Legislative Rape

“Legislative findings regarding abortion.—

(1) The Legislature acknowledges that all persons are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that first among these is their right to life.

(2) The Legislature finds that all human life comes from the Creator, has an inherent value that cannot be quantified by man, and begins at conception.

(3) The Legislature finds that the United States Constitution expresses no qualification for, or limitation on, the protection of human life by laws passed by state legislatures which regard human life as the most fundamental gift from God and deserving of paramount importance among all other unalienable rights expressed or implied in the United States Constitution.

(4) The Legislature finds that personal liberty is not a license to kill an innocent human life under any provision of the United States Constitution.

(5) The Legislature finds that once human life begins, there is a compelling state interest in protecting the natural course of its development from that moment through birth. Any act of a person detrimental to an unborn human life, when not necessary in defense of the life of the mother bearing such unborn life, which unnaturally terminates that unborn life, is a deprivation of that unborn child's unalienable right to life.”

The above is part of the text of Bill HB 395 introduced by Florida Representative Van Zant and co-sponsored by Ahern; Baxley; Broxson; Gaetz; Grant; Ingram; La Rosa; Mayfield; Patronis; Perry; Pigman; Raburn; Stone in Florida's State Congress in an effort to ban abortion.

When Van Zant claims that “The Legislature acknowledges that all persons are endowed by their Creator,” he is assuming that every single legislator believes in God, this might or might not be true but since only 14 legislators, including Van Zant, are sponsoring this bill and there are 160 legislators in Florida State Congress we don't really know. He also assumes that all Legislators believe that life begins at conception, and we don’t know that either. On that same sentence, he mentions that life is amongst the first “unalienable rights” but makes no mention whatsoever about the pursue of happiness or liberty. It seems that we don’t have the freedom (liberty) to pursuit happiness if our happiness interferes with the Right Wingers’ point of view.

Van Zant claims that the Constitution of the United States “express no qualification for, or limitation on, the protection of human life by laws passes by state legislature which regard human life as the most fundamental gift from God and deserving of paramount importance among all other unalienable rights expressed or implied in the United States Constitution.” If such statement is true, why do we have the death penalty in the State of Florida and in many other States in the Union? Are we allowed to pick and choose who can die and who can’t? Is that life, if unwanted by society, a gift from "God" that we can get rid of but, if unwanted by the carrier (mother) then is a gift that must be kept? Who anointed these legislators with a direct line to Nature’s God?

There is only one instance where the word “LIFE” is mentioned in the Bill of Rights, and that’s on Amendment V and in the Constitution you will find it on the last paragraph of Article III, Section 3, that’s the one and only instance.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The above text, which is engraved in all of our memories and which moves us because of its conviction, it’s not and it has never been part of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights or any other document other than the Declaration of Independence. I’m really surprised of how many legislators – who think they are so smart as to know exactly when life begins – do not know this and if they do, they are purposely misconstruing the sentence to confuse the ignorant people that cannot differentiate between The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

The Declaration of Independence is a document that was written by the Founding Fathers enumerating the reasons why the colonies were severing their ties with England. The documents that gave the citizens of the new independent nation their unalienable rights were the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Neither one of these documents grants anyone the right to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness; those are rights that we all want to have, but must be obtained by each individual and not provided by the government. In other words, it’s a right that we must earn and fight for. Government must not obstruct, deny, interfere or prohibit a person from obtaining them but it is not up to the government to dictate what life, liberty or happiness means for each and every individual of this or any other country. Government must not impose on each individual their perception of liberty or happiness as each and every person on this planet has a different vision of what this might be. And government should not impose their religious views on the people.

Van Zant persists in claiming that personal liberty is part of the Constitution and decided to add that such personal liberty does not gives anyone license to kill an innocent human life under any provision of the Constitution. He is right, because nowhere in the Constitution are any of these words mentioned, neither is the distinction of “innocent” mentioned in any of the historical documents mentioned above. If such words were part of any of these documents, then the government of the United States and some of the States of this great nation of ours have been ignoring it when they, to this very day, continue to sentence people to death – and we all know that not every human being that has been killed by the States were guilty of any crime… DNA has proven this repeatedly.

Van Zant fails to accept and recognize that there is a separation of Church and State; if he wants to preach… I suggest he does that at his church and leave the rest of us alone.

“The Legislature finds that once human life begins, there is a compelling state interest in protecting the natural course of its development from that moment through birth. Any act of a person detrimental to an unborn human life, when not necessary in defense of the life of the mother bearing such unborn life, which unnaturally terminates that unborn life, is a deprivation of that unborn child's unalienable right to life.”

That sentence is the most truthful sentence throughout the bill. It clearly says and mentions what is sacred for people like Van Zant: The Embryo. It says clearly that their interest is protecting the natural course of “its development from that moment (fertilization/conception) through birth,” the Right Wing stops caring once the fetus is born. Their focus of interest is the fetus while it’s in the womb, because it is that fetus that allows these sexually obsessed men to feel superior by imposing, controlling and subjugating women to their power. It’s legislative rape, the ONLY rape where there will never be a risk of getting pregnant by the rapist, but where a woman gets raped by a mob hiding behind the safety of Congress; a rape perpetrated in the name of god.

Lucky

I often complain about my family, my mother in particular who is an overly possessive and at times – almost every time – too controlling.

Today a friend forwarded me a story about a Cuban-American man and his experience growing up as a gay child in a traditional Cuban family. I felt so sorry for that man, for that child that had to endure such an experience!

I am not gay but I was very lucky in the sense that my mother was and still is not homophobic. She never had a problem with gay men or lesbians being around me; she never thought it was a contagious condition. But as I think about it after reading that story, even my mother and family – that were pretty liberal in that sense – had prejudices and made comments that I can recall whenever they were talking about homosexuals.

For my family homosexuality was not contagious and no one was at risk of becoming gay just because they shared the same space, and that was clear to me because we had a neighbor that her sister was obviously gay and visited her quite often. My best friend’s mother wouldn’t let her play at that house because of this, but my mother never prohibited me to be there not even when the gay sister was present. Whenever my mother referred to her, it was to praise her for being so close and devoted to her sister. Today I wonder if they were sisters or lovers, but that’s a different story.

Thinking back to those days, however, I do remember my mother talking with friends or family about gay people. I do remember my mother proudly saying that “homosexuality didn’t run in our family”, and by that she meant our ancestry. I find this to be hilarious because she only knew her family up to her grandparents, beyond that she had no idea who the rest of the family were because they stayed back in the homeland, but she still felt that we didn’t "carry those genes."

Today, when I think about my family as I was growing up I realize that we were a very small family but besides thinking that homosexuality was a gene that some families carried and others were “lucky” not to have, my family was pretty exceptional in their views and behavior.

I was always the way I am today, but I was a work in progress. My mother never tried to change me. I remember one time when I showed up at home with a homeless woman and her 3 little children. I must have been around 7 or 8, the homeless children were anywhere between 2 and 5. They were dirty, very dirty and you could see their hair hadn’t seen a comb in their lives. They were indigents, their clothes were colorless, their skin was as dirty as their clothes… and I brought them home with me and asked my mother to feed them. My mother was preparing some food that she planned to put in a bag for the poor family but I didn’t let her. I wanted them to enjoy a meal seating at our table, using our china and silverware eating, at least once, like human beings. My mother didn’t say a word and without a bad face or prejudice, at least not while they were present, served them a hot meal while they were seated at our table, using our china and silverware. That gesture is one of the most beloved memories I have of my mother from when I was a child. She didn’t reprimand me, she only told me not to make her use our china again.

I used to write a lot when I was little. Mostly philosophy and the way I thought the world should be. I wrote about the injustices and disparities I noticed around me… some things never change! I am sure she read them when I was in school or sleeping, she didn’t see anything wrong with it until a neighbor told her not to let me continue writing “that stuff” because I was too young and was going to go crazy – she told me this before she took away my notebook and prohibited me from writing again. No matter how much I begged, she didn’t change her mind so from that day forward I did my writing in hiding but it was never the same.

I am glad I read that story my friend sent me… made me realize that I was luckier than most. My family wasn’t sophisticated, pretentious and most weren’t even educated – they had their flaws, as all of us do, but they were more human than most and I do owe them a lot. My grandmother, who studied only up to second grade, taught me to love all creatures, she was an animal lover. My grandfather - a carpenter, an atheist and a socialist - taught me, since I was old enough to speak, that all men are created equal and that not one human being is better than another; that money didn’t make a person but their actions did. My great-uncle, a barber, taught me to love nature. He spent hours describing to me the beauty and the majestic forests and hills of his homeland and my mother allowed me to be myself, even when she couldn’t understand me. I indeed, was a very lucky child.

A Person In the Process of Being

Florida and many other States governed by Republicans, are diligently trying to reverse “Roe vs. Wade” because according to the Religious Right – who are the ones funding their own campaigns – an embryo is a baby. With this in mind, they are systematically submitting bills granting a fetus personhood and this will make it more difficult, not to say impossible, for a woman to get an abortion.

They began by referring to a zygote, embryo or fetus by the incorrect term of “baby” or “child”. By doing this, anyone who is against it will be labeled as a baby-killer. Pro-Choice people have never wanted to “kill babies”, actually many Pro-Choicers will not have an abortion themselves, but they do not want to force on a woman their personal opinion or beliefs thus allowing women to make a decision about having or extending her family, after all it will be her and no one else the person responsible for that child until the ripe age of 18.

There are many reasons why a woman decides to have an abortion – but whatever the reasons might be, a woman has the right to decide to have a family or not. It is not the government’s choice (a government that is constantly trying to place obstacles for a family to survive), it is not up to the legislators, representatives, senators, neighbors or a church. It is a woman’s personal choice, period.

Some governors are suggesting inserting probes into a woman’s vagina to make sure she is not pregnant before undergoing certain procedures, to make sure an abortion is really needed, etc. Amendment IV clearly states this to be against the law. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures…” For me, introducing an object inside a person against his or her will is an unreasonable search and violates the right of the people to be secure in their persons, and therefore breaches the Fifth Amendment.

The Religious Right arguments to overturn Roe vs. Wade are not based on science; they’re solely based on their religious point of view. The Religious Right fails to recognize and accept Amendment I of the Constitution that clearly defines that Government shall not make decisions or impose on We, the People a religious agenda. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” but for them all that means is that no one can tell them their God is not the ultimate God or their religion is not the only path to that God… but of course, the opposite doesn’t apply.

There are bills being submitted in Florida that, at first glance, look reasonable and we tend to agree with it, but we must be very careful and pay attention to the wording. Bill HR 579 called “Offenses Against Unborn Children” introduced by Rep. Larry Ahern might sound great but it is not. Bill HR 759 states:

“Amending s. 775.021, F.S.; providing a rule of construction that a person who engages in conduct that violates any provision of the Florida Criminal Code or of a criminal offense defined by another statute and causes the death of, or bodily injury to, an unborn child commits a separate offense if such an offense is not otherwise specifically provided for; providing for criminal penalties for such an offense;”

This particular bill is changing an already existing Bill that already brought a fetus closer to personhood by calling it a “quick child” but since that wasn’t enough the Floridian Legislature want to get rid of the “quick” and change it to unborn and, if it's unborn then by definition it is not a child but a fetus. If we accept this bill, then we are accepting the term “unborn children” and there is no such thing, according to The American Heritage Medical Dictionary the definition of child is:

Child
n.

1. A person who has not yet reached puberty.
2. A son or daughter; an offspring.
3. A person not of legal age; a minor. 

And these are the medical definitions for an “unborn child”: 

Fetus (L.) the developing young in the uterus, specifically the unborn offspring in the postembryonic period, in humans from nine weeks after fertilization until birth. 

Zygote
n.

1. The cell that is formed by the union of two gametes, especially a fertilized ovum before cleavage.
2. The organism that develops from a zygote. 

Embryo

n. pl. embryos

1. An organism in its early stages of development, especially before it has reached a distinctively recognizable form.
2. An organism at any time before full development, birth, or hatching.
3. The fertilized egg of a vertebrate animal following cleavage.
4. In humans, the prefetal product of conception from implantation through the eighth week of development.

The legal definition of a child, according to Gerald N. Hill and Kathleen T. Hill is: 

Child 
n.

1. a person's natural offspring.
2. a person 14 years and under.  A "child" should be distinguished from a "minor" who is anyone under 18 in almost all states.

We all have said at one time or another some absurdities such as the moon is made of cheese, there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, etc. but just because the populace says it, it doesn’t mean it’s true. We are all guilty of referring to a fetus as a baby when talking to a pregnant woman, it’s natural and at that moment we are not medically or legally consulting the pregnant woman or drafting a legislative bill. But using the incorrect medical and legal term in a bill it’s inexcusable and we should not allow it. The only reason why these Governors and Legislators are using the terms “baby” or “child” when referring to an embryo or a fetus is to impose on others their twisted religious views. It is to grant personhood to a future person… I guess that they do not have eggs and bacon, what they have for breakfast is unborn chickens and bacon!

Republicans and Teabaggers keep shouting that they want a smaller government, but are willing to create a whole department to interfere with a woman’s right to her body and finances. Finances because bringing up a child is not free by any means, it is not free to raise a child, to provide them an education and a secure environment. But the Religious Right couldn’t care less, they keep putting pressure to reduce or close the programs that help women with children survive. They are against Medicaid; they’re against public education, against food stamps and against all “entitlements” designed to help the poor. I’ve said it many times and I’ll repeat it again, the Right loves “children” while there are inside the woman’s uterus but once those “children” pass through the birth canal and take their first breath of air, that’s the exact moment when that child becomes an enemy of the state and a parasite for society who should be punished, restricted and not allowed to have a decent life.

If these extremists get their way, a woman who has a miscarriage will be a suspect of murder. If a woman needs an abortion to save her life, she will have to die because an abortion will mean murder and no doctor would perform the life-saving procedure.

 ________________

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You Say Militia, I Say Guerrilla

Today I read the Constitution and its amendments as I often do. After the massacre at Sandy Elementary School I’ve become more interested in the Second Amendment but it was today, when I read not only the Second Amendment but all of them that I came to realize that the Second Amendment doesn’t seem to be directed at a regular, everyday citizen but at those serving our Nation.

 The Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” But what is a militia? More importantly, what did the Founding Fathers understood a militia should be?

I keep hearing those defending the Second Amendment that a Militia is necessary to fight a tyrannical government; many ‘Teapers’ proudly displayed their weapons and made threats against the established government, particularly since we elected an African-American President. I think I’ve found what the Founding Fathers considered a Militia to be: The Armed Forces or the Reserve. Not regular citizens to fight against our government. That never made any sense to me because the Founding Fathers gave too much thought when they wrote the Constitution and they had to know that there will always be those that disagree with the government; they knew that there will always be radicals that would take to their Arms and try to forcibly overturn a government elected by the majority.

On Article I, Section 2 it reads, “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States…” That means that the President is the Commander in Chief of the Militia, of every State – that rules out the idea that a group of armed people, meeting on the weekends to play war can be considered a Militia. If the group is plotting against and/or training to overthrow the government, they will be considered traitors, not Militants, not a Militia and as traitors they could be prosecuted.

Further down and still in Article I, Section 8 we read: “To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” What caught my eye was the “suppress insurrections” – how can a Militia be allowed to bear Arms to fight a tyrannical government if the same government can call upon them to suppress their own insurrection? An insurrection is nothing more than a rebellion, and a rebellion (fighting against an established government) is what many Americans claim to be their Constitutional right, but it seems to me that's not true.

“To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.” As far as I know, I’ve never heard of Congress providing, arming, governing and training anyone other than soldiers, evidence corroborating that a Militia is what it’s known today as the Armed Forces or the Reserve, not a bunch of armed and untrained civilians shooting cans in the woods.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” is followed, of course, by the Third Amendment that says “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law” – is it coincidence that the Founding Fathers’ inserted that Amendment following the Second Amendment? I think not.

We can debate forever, and we sure have for decades, the meaning of the Second Amendment, but I can’t believe it means for any regular Joe or Jane to be armed as much as they please. I don’t believe that the Second Amendment was meant for regular civilians to be armed to defend the country against an oppressive government, unless it’s a foreign government trying to invade us and then these civilians will be called to serve in the Armed Forces and defend the country. I truly think that the Second Amendment refers to those individuals that have been properly trained, that have served the country honorably or that are on call to serve at a moment’s notice and whose weapons and training are given by Congress, as Article I, Section 2 clearly states. 

The Founding Fathers were highly educated people and knew the Latin meaning of the word Militia. The term "militia" is derived from Latin roots:

      miles /miːles/: soldier 1

     -itia /iːtia/: a state, activity, quality or condition of being 2 3

     militia /mil:iːtia/: Military service

In other words, a Militia is nothing else but the Armed Forces also known as the Military or the Reserve. Those brave men and women serving in the Armed Forces are Militants and they are part of a Militia. Those individuals that dream of one day overthrowing the government and train on weekends dressed in camouflage are not and have never been a Militia, what they truly are is a Guerrilla.

Drive-by Congress!

Petition to Reform Salaries and Responsibilities in Congress

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/petition-reform-salaries-and-responsibilities-congress/Cp4bc02s

That the Citizens of the United States of America call upon the Supreme Court to pass and send for ratification a constitutional amendment to reform the responsibilities and remuneration of members of Congress; and to clarify that:

For every time a Member abstains from voting, their weekly salary shall be withheld and;

For every time a Member holds the economic prosperity of the nation hostage by refusing to cast a vote or filibustering a bill such Member’s monthly salary, benefits and donations should be withheld and deposited into the Social Security fund.

And

Members must work in Congress an equal amount of days as any American worker, that is a minimum of 5 days a week with 20 days vacation as a maximum.

To Sign this Petition, click the picture or here.