What The Hell YouTube? Part 2

She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by the Sink

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-fray/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288.html

What The Hell YouTube?

What we really should be doing in prisons

What we really should be doing in prisons


I've posted it before but we really need to close for profit prisons and make them real rehabilitation centers. Teach criminals practical skills instead of letting private corps make money off of modern slavery.

Economic Abuse

This was my exhusband when we were married. I was constantly told I was selfish for spending funds on things such as my life saving medications and femenine essentials. He kept such a tight leash on the money that when we split, I had exactly 32 bucks in my checking account. Come to find out, he was blowing money on the stock market off credit cards while I was sleeping and using MY paychecks to pay them off in secret out of our joint checking account that I had no access to.

This came about because our temple marriage prep class actually ENCOURAGED the men to take control of ALL household funds and dole out money to the wives to pay the bills and get the household things. It TOLD the husbands to handle all the funds and not "worry" the wives with the troubles of dealing with the banks as it could be too stressful for us while working towards having children.

I have a vice grip on my money now and refuse to allow my fiance access, he has his account, I have mine and never shall the two meet. We each take a few bills and pay them ourselves while telling the other when we need help to make a payment or to get something. Generally, if one doesn't have the money, the other does.


economic abuse

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/

Marriage Rights: Voting For the Obvious

Marriage Rights: Voting For the Obvious

            Just this year, SCOTUS has had many a case brought before it that can be deemed controversial. Gay Marriage Rights was finally ruled upon in a case called Obergefell v. Hodges. This was tied to five other cases of similar style calling for the Court to decide if homosexuals had the right to marry in the eyes of the law. The Court ruled that marriage is a right for all consenting adults be they homosexual or heterosexual (576 U.S. ___). This has caused a backlash all over the country from people who think that such actions are illegal and in their opinions against "God's Laws".

            Obergefell v. Hodges was years in the making, it started with DeBoer v Snyder (576 U.S. ___). This was a Michigan case that was filled in  2012 due to the couple being black balled from sharing parenthood of their son because they weren't in a legally recognized marriage (772 F.3d 388). Deboer's case was focused on the state's adoption laws but was refocused towards the marriage law as that was the true thing holding the couple back (772 F.3d 388).  This worked and the couple went on to sue the state claiming that anti-gay marriage laws were against the United States Constitution(772 F.3d 388). This snow balled into 5 cases making the equivalent of a class action law suit against the Fed under the claim that anti gay marriage laws violated people's rights under the Constitution. Obergefell came a year after in 2013 when one half of a gay marriage died and the other half requested that he be placed on the death certificate as his husband and surviving spouse (576 U.S. ___).

            The five cases were combined under the title Obergefell v. Hodges (576 U.S. ___). The claim was that the laws in each state violated the claimants 14th Amendment rights to Due Process and Equal Protection (576 U.S. ___). The court agreed with the petitioners and ruled that the Fed and states must recognize and issue same sex marriage licenses or violate the inherent spirit of the 14th Amendment. SCOTUS has a heavy burden each year while they are in session to analyze each case presented carefully and weigh the cost of agreeing with the petitioner or tossing the case out for precedent (576 U.S. ___).

            Over the past couple of years cases have been brought before the Supreme Court that have systematically destroyed all legal argument for denying two consenting adults under the spirit and heart of the United States Constitution. Obergefell and the various petitioners have been given the same rights as those in heterosexual relationships (576 U.S. ___). The Constitution cannot be taken literally or else laws on marriage wouldn't be allowed in the first place as the lack of writing upon them would create a void in the government. The Constitution has to be taken in the spirit it was written instead.

            The 14th Amendment states: " Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." (Cornell University Law School). The spirit of the law in this passage is how cases such as "Brown v. Board of Education" those cases were looked at not in the letter of the 14th Amendment, but in the spirit of the Amendment it guarantees each child, regardless of ethnicity or gender, an education that is the same as everyone else. There is no logical reason that marriage rights shouldn't fall under the same thought process as education. Before this case was put before the Supreme Court, the law couldn't legally tell two heterosexual adults they couldn't get married because of the color of their skin, that was ruled unconstitutional years before, gender is no different. In this case I agree with the majority that to deny homosexual couples the same right that their heterosexual counter parts enjoy each day is turning our back on the keystone of social order that marriage is in our country. I also agree with the majority that the idea of same sex marriage harming the marriages of straight couples is ridiculous and that no lasting harm can happen to any current or future heterosexual marriage by allowing same sex couples to marry (576 U.S. ___).

            Marriage is a fundamental right promised in the Constitution by its promise of the right to freedom and happiness for every person in this nation. By denying gay couples because of a small group's ideal of moral propriety is to thumb our noses at the spirit that was engrained into the very parchment our founding fathers wrote it on. By denying a portion of our nation the same rights that a majority of the nation gets is turning our backs on the basis of our society that all men are equal.

Resources

Cornell University Law School. (n.d.). 14th Amendment. Retrieved September 19, 2015, from https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv

DeBoer v. Snyder, 772 F.3d 388 (6th Cir. 2014)

Obergefell v. Hodges 576 U.S. ___ (2015)