Been a while

Took a break from posting as I needed to recenter. It's been a hot minute thanks to life and generally having my shelf finally shatter from all the falsity being piled on it. I walked away from the church the day I was told it was better to be homeless than to move in with my fiance and his mother.

That was the day I decided fuck this, I'm living my life. But that's not good for the church. It's very very bad as any member who leaves is not only cash lost, but someone who has insider info that can make the church look bad.

So now they are stalking me.... Lovely.

The Lunacy of Religion These Days

Thre greatest act of terrorism based on religion had to be the Crusades. For 400 years or more, the Catholic chruch sanctioned the systematic slaughter and terrorizing of the Muslims in Jerusalem for the sake of "protecting" the "holy land". 400 years of war over a strip of land and an ideal against a group that was meerly living in the space that another group from thousands of miles away thought belonged to them for some reason.

In modern society, I think Fundamental Christians are the largest terrorist group, they may not be a collective, but the groups generally have the same ideals and misconstrued notions of this country. There is a collective ideal to turn the nation into this religious ideal that each group thinks the nation was founded upon which is factually untrue. The US was founded by Deists, not Chrsitains. There is a HUGE fundamental difference between the two, one follows a regious ideal and the other follows a personal spiritual path. An example of this kind of terrorism would be the Quiverfull movement which avidly rails against higher education, schooling for girls, any use of family planning, or women's rights in anyway while avowing to be the best way to god and vowing that science is out to destroy the world. 

Another example would the FLDS groups which seek to destory the country from the inside out by having as many children as possible and "milk" the system of welfare. This is a group that believes that marriage to many women, even against their will is the only way to heaven and that they must have as many children as possible. Children don't go to school and women aren't allowed many rights if any.

West Bourogh Baptist is also a group one can call a terrorist group given their systematic attacks on LGBTQ and soldier's funerals as well as many famous people such as Vince Gill and Foo Fighters for the sake of scaring people into the arms of "god".

For all these groups, religion is the soul of why they do what they do and why they torture the minds of those around them with their false and horrible ideals.

http://www.history.com/topics/crusades

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/fundamentalist-church-jesus-christ-latter-day-saints

http://gawker.com/quiverfull-of-shit-a-guide-to-the-duggars-scary-brand-1706557073

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/westboro-baptist-church

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/westboro-baptist-church

Beating a Dead Horse: The War on Drugs

The war on drugs has always been a hot button issue in the United States. The problem is, one cannot fight a war on inanimate objects. One can only fight a war on people. The war on drugs isn't about drugs, it's a war on the addicts rather than the real issue, the manufactures and the dealers. William F. Buckley wrote a paper declaring the war on drugs dead, this paper will discuss his logic and options that might be viable if the war on drugs is indeed dead.

            In the 1970s, President Nixon declared a war on drugs. This wasn't a violent war in the traditional sense of the word, but a criminal war. He made federal drug control agencies larger and have more power in order to squash the rising drug using population (drugpolicy.org, 2015).  A year later, the very commission Nixon put in place recommended weed was made legal for personal use (drugpolicy.org, 2015). Nixon of course ignored this recommendation and chose to push forward banning all of what is now considered illegal drugs (drugpolicy.org, 2015). The view on personal use weed went back and forth like a pendulum until the 1980s (drugpolicy.org, 2015). By the 1980s and 1990s incarceration for drug charges went from 50,000 to over 400 thousand by 1997 (drugpolicy.org, 2015). This number is the equivalent of a small city’s worth of people serving time for some kind of nonviolent drug charge ranging from possession for personal use to manufacturing of the drugs themselves.

            William F. Buckley wrote a paper in the 1990 declaring the war on drugs dead. This author whole-heartedly agrees with him. Per Buckley’s paper, the US has wasted over 100 billion dollars a year in tax payer money to punish those who have the mental illness that is addiction and those who seek to use that illness against them.  Buckley cites money as a reason to legalize drugs, that if the state were to control the drugs and charge for them, it would put the US into the black as opposed to wasting so much money (Buckley). Buckley goes on further to talk about how crime rates have gone up over 400 percent since the grand war on drugs has started. The article further speaks of legalizing the sale of drugs, which this author disagrees with, citing that the country could make far more money that what it costs to prosecute and lock up those who are caught with only enough drugs to get themselves high (Buckley).

            Instead of keeping the possession of personal use levels illegal, the US should take a page from other first world countries and legalize possession for personal use amounts legal and instead offer options to treat the addiction which is the root of the problem. This would of course require other safety nets to be in place for those fresh from recovery. They would need jobs, housing, food, medical care, and of course steady mental and social support. Those who receive this support would be expected to pay the government back by participating in drug prevention programs and by paying their share of taxes based upon their tax brackets. The Portugal made possession of personal amounts of drugs legal in 2001 and instead started to treat the root of the problem, the addiction itself (Kain, 2011). For such a small country that equated roughly 100 thousand people nationwide (Kain, 2011). If the US were to do that same thing and get the same results that would mean an estimated 200 thousand people would become clean and sober over the course of ten years.

            The US has been fighting a losing war since 1971 thanks to the knee jerk reaction of the political sphere to people experimenting with drugs of various types. This has cost taxpayers more than t it would to treat the problem as a mental illness instead of a criminal one. While drug manufactures, distributors, and sellers should still face the fullest extent of the law, it does no one anyone good, but those who own for profit prisons, to keep those who are addicted to drugs going through the revolving door that is the current penal system. We should instead legalize possession of personal use amounts and offer to treat each person for their addiction and offer to help them get back onto their feet so that they might become productive members of society and pay back into the very system that helped to save their lives.

References

A Brief History of the Drug War. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://www.drugpolicy.org/new-solutions-drug-policy/brief-history-drug-war

Buckley, W. (n.d.). The War on Drugs is Lost. Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://web.archive.org/web/20121116132827id_/http://old.nationalreview.com/12feb96/drug.html

Kain, E. (2011, July 5). Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal. Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/

GRR!!!!

I do see a problem with special interest groups. The ones that I see to be a problem are mostly those who seek the shove religion down the throats of the American populous under the guise of freedom and tax concerns. An example of this would be the ruling for Hobby Lobby. To me, it wasn't about the company having a religious view point, or In-n-Out Burgers would have been in the law suit as well given they are owned by deeply religious people as well.

This can cause a problem because it begins to blur the line that is suppose to be finite between church and state. There seems to be this belief that the US was founded on Christian ideals when it wasn't and that is expressly stated that church and state shall be separate. Once special interest groups are made, they can reek havoc on rulings and the political field for years to come. Hobby Lobby's suit caused part of the ACA to be rewritten so that even if employers won't pay for there is an insurance that will and employers can't stop employees from using it.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/10/white-house-birth-control_n_7771004.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/what-the-hobby-lobby-ruling-means-for-america.html?_r=0
http://www.streetlaw.org/en/landmark/cases/roe_v_wade
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12334123945835207673&q=Roe+v.+Wade,+410+U.S.+113+(1973&hl=en&as_sdt=2006&as_vis=1

This won the internet for the day!

http://www.upworthy.com/she-grew-up-mormon-and-carried-a-big-secret-for-most-of-her-life?c=ufb1

Feminist views, Sodom and Gomorrah

http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/2014/05/claiming-our-heroines-the-untold-story-of-lots-wife/


http://rationalfaiths.com/old-testament-prohibit-homosexuality/

Yet another reason people need to stop using the bible to bash LGBT

maybe-ill-meet-a-girl

My newest beef with any form of modern Christianity

This is my newest beef with America's modern Christianity. The "Christian" Right's lunacy no longer has any bounds. After reading each of these articles, I have been pushed further away from organized religion of any kind.

Responsibility falls disproportionately to women, who are taught to protect their “purity” and to never “tempt” their brothers in Christ to “stumble” with immodest behavior. “The lack of men’s responsibility or culpability for their own actions and the acceptance of male ‘urges’ as irresistible forces of nature is the understructure of Christian modesty movements and their secular counterpart. ~ Taken from one of the articles.

Putting all responsibility on women over sexual assault has rapidly become a tenant of modern christianity. Placing the blame on women causes men to think they are free to do what ever they choose. Women are not lesser then men, they not not born just to be mothers and be the subservient "helpmeet" of their husbands. Women are not suppose to let their husbands have sex whenever they desire, nor are they suppose to continuously be pregnant. Women are not broodmares put on this earth for the enjoyment of men.

Women are humans, they have rights, thoughts, desires, and dreams. If a man thinks like this, he needs to be removed from the gene pool, period.

Every Mormon needs to read this.

http://rationalfaiths.com/combatting-cultural-lies-ambitious-lds-women/

Depressed

It's hard to see others succeed when you work so hard and see such little result for all the effort. I sit and watch those around me do very well and yet my life seems to sit stagnant and without change. I have struggled for so long in life and fought tooth and nail for all I have and yet all around me I see people who work half as hard and they get all they want in life and then some.

People constantly say life isn't fair, but how is it that hard work and effort can be so over looked while, bare minimum gets rewarded with grander and praise?

I have asked this of myself many times when I see those around me being rewarded greatly for little to no work and simply out of sympathy.

I have even attempted to count my blessings so to speak and it always makes me feel worse then when it all began.

Counting ones blessings only works if one has great blessings to count. Oh sure, there are the standard ones, living, breathing, having a home and a car. But those blessings are squashed when the person counting realizes that they only have a home to live in because someone is willing to rent a room to them and that the car they are supposedly blessed to have constantly needs work or has a leak that has to be watched. Life isn't worth living if one always has to solve problem after problem and wonder constantly when the rug is going to pulled out from under them.

Being told to count ones blessings by someone who has blessings in life they didn't have to work for is a slap in the face. It's like rubbing salt into a wound that can never ever close.


The LDS church is always out to convert the poor but appears to do very little to really lift the poor up. Having people who have money constantly remind others that they need to look and act a certain way to fit in doesn't help solve the problem. If a church is going to convert the poor and then expect them to magically be able to dress and act like them without help, then they are in the wrong business.

Growing up poor in the church, especially in ones teens is a cruel thing. You see the teens around you in nice clothes, aways able to have the nice things, parents buying them cars, parents getting them jobs and letting them live with them through college rent free. This creates a selfish culture that doesn't help the poorer members want to stay. When a poor child grows up watching the "better" children get all the things that they want with very little nay-say, it creates a feeling of being something "less" and that feeling gets further reenforced when the "Better" children grow and get everything for free as well.

Being a poor young adult in the church isn't any better. It's a stark reminder of how "less" a poor convert is when the "better" born in members talk about how cool it is they get to live at home while going to college and always talking about trips while the "Lesser" poor member has to work through college and pay all their own bills and constantly get left out because of such duties. The "better" members have connected parents who can get them the good jobs easily and this leaves the "lesser" poor members to flounder and be excluded.

When you grow up like this photo above, always wondering if you have enough to cover everything necessary while struggling so hard for the basics to live, it hurts to have to see the photos below week after week after week. 

The church does nothing to help the least of it's members with out requiring something in exchange, even if it interferes with their current job. The church doesn't actually help the member in need to find a better job through networking, they just set up a standard job hunting website like everyone else.

Anger...

I think I'm beginning to feel a certain amount of hatred for my own congregation... It's hard to explain but given the ward/branch I belong in has taken all the words I have said about my ex-roommates and decided that my words aren't worth any looking into and haven't bothered to even try to see if what I had to say about them and their life style is true or not. No, they just take what that "group" has to say at face value and ignore the one person who has said something that no longer lives with them. I think seeing them at church and knowing the church is still supporting them despite the fact they are outright using the church for support of the economic means and not bothering to show up unless there is free food involved and them not suffering any repercussions has put a seed of anger and hatred in my heart. I may need to step back and walk away for a bit to let things cool down in my heart and mind. I may even walk away from a couple of things I am involved in as well within the church so that I may not have much contact with them either....