A Fabulous Mess

I’m not an overly religious person, but one of my favorite verses from the Bible says something like “Whatever you do unto the least of my brothers, you do unto me”. I try to live my life and treat everyone the same, and I find the only people I judge harshly are those that don’t try to live their lives this way. Or that think they live their lives this way and whose actions don’t really comply.

I bring this up because of a Facebook status comment fight that occured on my Facebook on election day, and the ensuing emails that took place between my friends and I as I had my opinions supported and torn apart.

I’m going to get into my whole why I love Obama stuff, and I’m going to try to do it without slamming the Republican right if I can. But no promises.

First of all, let’s stick with the Bible for a moment. Personally, I don’t feel one should ever go to the Bible to prove one’s bigotry or why someone is wrong about the way they live their life, and I find this to be especially true about things like homosexuality. The Bible was used by Christians back in the day to support slavery, and that wasn’t right then just as it isn’t right now. Also, for me, the underlying theme of everything that Jesus stood for is acceptance. And I try very hard to do that.

I am a little shocked by some of the people who I consider close friends’ reactions to the Obama victory. Specifially, the people who are saying things like they are going to be losing their hard earned money to support people who choose to sit on their ass and not work. While I get that people abuse welfare and all that, I know people who are saying things like this who have abused it. Who somehow felt entitled to a few months off and did nothing before looking for a job. But there are also 500 people who just got laid off from UPMC in this city alone, not to mention all the other people who are losing their jobs, who need money and who need help. I’d rather all those people get the help they need and let a few people abuse the system than have everyone be screwed. Everyone’s all caught up on the idea that their taxes are going to go up, but I wonder how many people went to that website that was advertised that computed your numbers and showed you how much in taxes you’d be paying under each candidates tax plan? I did. McCain’s plan took more. But no one really looks into these things, people jump on the bandwagon and believe all this hype.

Some people seem shocked that I am pro-choice and for stem cell research since I work where I do, but I find that most times, these are the people that say “I don’t know how you do that, isn’t it sad?” or “I could never do that”. The people who are share my beliefs often have a different reaction when I tell them where I work, I often get commended and told that I’m doing a good thing, and I never feel as if I have to defend it as I often do when questioned by more conservative people. I feel like a lot of people have blinders on, that they see their small neighborhoods and churches where everyone looks like them and makes about the same amount of money as they do, everyone’s straight, married, with 2.5 kids and it’s assumed that the world is and should be that way, when the truth is it isn’t. There’s sad, disgusting things that happen in this world. I saw 5 little kids die last week. One because he was beaten so badly that his brain herniated and there were bite marks the size of silver dollars all over his body. That’s what happens in the world. Not all people are good, and someone has to take care of the people that are hurt by other people’s failures. Someone needs to help the kids whose parents don’t care enough to buy them food, the single mother whose husband or baby’s dad just up an left, the family who lost their house and maxed out their health insurance because their kid is sick in the hospital. Most people have this misconception that the kids I see are normal, healthly looking children who maybe have a tube here and a surgical incision there, and that’s just not the case. Some of them are incompatible with life, they’re in pain, they’re suffering, and they have been that way since the were a 2 month old fetus. They don’t look like the toddler running around at the park or the newborn baby on TV. Or the quarterback or the high school football team. Some of them can’t walk, can’t talk, can’t move, can’t breath, swallow, or pee on their own. It’s not what everyone thinks it is, and death is not always the worst, scariest, or most painful option at times. People shouldn’t be against the idea of death, it’s often the end of a lot of pain and suffering and if you truly believe in a higher power, then you know that after life comes a much greater reward. I like to think the heaven these kids get to go to is one where they can finally drink a milkshake, swing on a swing, and giggle uncontrollably.

Sometimes I think, what would happen if that were me? True, I can control a certain amount of that since I have a good job and a good education, but what if I didn’t? What if I got pregnant and it wasn’t planned and the guy left me? I couldn’t work 48 hours a week if I had a baby. I’d lose everything. What if that baby was sick? Really sick? I would need help, and I want it to be there for the people who really do need it.

I don’t think that when Obama said we need to “spread the wealth” he was talking about taking money from the middle class and giving it to the poor. I think he was talking about taking it from the rich and giving it to the middle class and the poor and, honestly, I don’t see anything wrong with that. If everyone donated to churches and communities and did good things for the less fortunate of their own free will, we wouldn’t need someone to go in an actually make tax laws to see that it happened. But greed breeds greed and the more you have, the more you think you need. And I’m sorry, I don’t care how much money you make for your rich boss by cooking the books, finding loop holes, and winning the right lawsuits, high paid CEOs and the like should not make as much money as they do just because they’re good at making money when there’s people who do go to work jobs every day where they’re doing things to make the world a better place. Teachers, nurses, firemen, policemen, ministers… these people should be getting paid enough to live comfortably before the rest get paid enough to own 4 or 5 houses.

I don’t think I achieved my goal in this post as I’m preoccupied with something else at the moment, but I do want to say this… If you don’t think this was the right man for the job, if you’re doubting him because of his age or experience or race or whatever… give it a chance. We just had to live with 8 years of the man you supported and now we lost half our retirements savings, houses, and possibly family in a war that never should have happened. Let us try to fix the mess. And if you think he’s going to fail, at least wait until he proves it to you. Your man failed our country as a whole and will go down in history as the worst president we’ve ever had with the lowest approval rating. Our guy won by 10 million or something popular votes. And you have to think somewhere that there’s a reason for that.

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