Letters from an inadequate mom.

When my first child was born, my husband and I decided to give our kids everything I never had growing up.  That is not to say that I necessarily had an unhappy childhood, in fact, I can't remember needing anything that my mom and step dad did not provide.  In fact, during my childhood, I was too busy playing with / tormenting my sisters and friends to realize that my parents struggled to put food on the table, a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs without a dollar from my biological dad.   Yet even though I never felt deprived as a child, when I became a parent, I somehow felt guilt about not giving my children all of the things that their peers were getting.

When my children were little, I spent a lot of time stressing out about whether or not they were being raised with the same experiences as most of their peers.  My husband and I sacrificed to give them designer clothes, vacations, big Christmases.  When they were little, it was great.  But as they started to get older, we started seeing a disturbing trend:  entitlement and discontentment.  They didn't have to work long hours to pay for the rental car, hotel, excursions or souvenirs (they didn't even pack their own bag most of the time), so if something wasn't perfectly to their liking, they would whine about it.  While they were happy on Christmas morning with the expensive gifts that they had received, by the next year, when the latest toy or game was old technology, they no longer appreciated it.  They probably couldn't tell you what they received for Christmas two years ago.  What knocked me back to my senses was the realization that I no longer enjoyed my children's company.  Rather I was irritated with not being able to enjoy the vacation that I provided because I was treated like a tour guide (one that was woefully inadequate and would not be tipped).

It was then that I realized that my parents, even though they would have probably given us the world if they had had the financial resources, gave us a far greater gift by not taking us to Disney World or giving us a million presents on Christmas morning.  They gave us the gift of gratitude and a work ethic.  It is my fondest hope that by pulling back and not giving my children the things that they want, even though I can afford to do so, that I will give them a much more precious gift:  appreciation. 

What Happened to the USA?

I have been a lifelong conservative.  I can't remember an election that I did not vote straight Republican.  From the time that I voted in my first election, however, it felt more and more as if I was holding my nose and voting for the least smelly pile of crap.  Often times, the candidate would openly support something that flew directly in the face of the conservatism that this candidate loudly proclaimed that they believed.  Of course they only proclaimed to believe conservative values because they also believed that the vast majority of their constituents were too lazy to look at their record and instead would take them at their word.  For the most part, they were right, but then a small minority appeared.

During the Republican Primaries, I supported the candidates that I believed best represented conservatism.  Truly, I really only had a few people that I absolutely could not get behind:  Bush, Kasich, and Trump.  There were other candidates who, for whatever reason, I felt weren't ideal candidates but I felt that they were good men who would stand up for conservative values.  Two candidates in particular, I was really excited about:  Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.  Both men had conservative scorecard ratings above 90%.  Both were articulate and explained conservatism in a way that I genuinely believed could win over the socialistic message of Sanders and Clinton's campaigns.

In my opinion, it was Kasich that ultimately ruined the opportunity to pit the message of conservatism against the message of socialism.  Instead, 40% of the GOP was able to push the nomination of a man who had no proven record of conservatism (in fact, his public statements often showed the opposite), who was bombastic, who utilized his position to hurt other people whether that meant shorting people who contracted work for him or "grabbing [women who weren't his wife] by the pussy".  In essence, the election was about whether America was so tired of the crap slung at us for the last 8 years that we would elect a braying jackass over Hillary Clinton.  The answer, unfortunately was yes. 

I was heartbroken and angry.  Really?  Trump's biggest accomplishment over the last 8 years had been deciding if Omarosa or Brett Michaels was qualified to be an imaginary CEO!  His behavior thus far in the political arena was off-putting to say the least. 

Initially, it was Trump's boorish behavior and my disgust over Trump and his supporters smearing Cruz, a man who had a 97% score on the conservative scorecard, as "lying Ted" and their attacks on Cruz's wife, children and father, that led me to look at the "Never Trump" hashtag.  I tried out the #NeverTrump tag on my Twitter account.  It was then that the crazies started coming out of the woodwork.  I was put in groups by his supporters with ominous and hateful sounding names.  I was told, "When Trump is elected, he and his followers will make NeverTrump idiots (like me) pay."  Racist epithets were thrown at me.  It was assumed that I was homosexual, fat, ugly, liberal...the list goes on and on.  With every personal attack and threat, I became more and more convinced that NeverTrump was a good idea because it meant that no matter what, nobody could say that I was in league with these people.  I comforted myself with the thought that these psychos were the fringe.  Once he got the nomination, I felt like the vast majority were making a Faustian Bargain in the hope that they would get something rather than lose everything with the election of Hillary Clinton.  I was soon relieved of that notion.

As more and more mainstream Republican voices (Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingraham, etc.) got on the Trump train, I started seeing the darker picture.  It was a picture that, until now, I felt only existed in the mind of the craziest, moonbat liberal.  People who called into those shows made statements like, "If (insert name of politician here) didn't get in line and support Trump, they were going to be out of a job in the upcoming election!"  The hosts, rather than encouraging their listeners to take a look at (aforementioned politician)'s record and judging whether they had a record of voting for conservative values, instead either said nothing or encouraged and agreed with the caller.  My local conservative radio talk show hosts actually threatened the politicians themselves with recall votes and lost elections if they did not get in line with Trump and whatever he said that day.  Reince Preibus, head of the GOP, threatened those conservative members of his party that if they did not come out and support Donald Trump that the GOP would make sure that they had no GOP support for their coming races and stated outright that the GOP would not support them if they wanted to run for President again.  This last move was directed especially at Ted Cruz who had to decide between losing his job and giving up his political aspirations, or publicly endorsing a man who ridiculed the appearance of his wife and kids, and slandered the name of his father.  When he chose the latter, people who I had considered decent people of solid character crowed and celebrated it as if it would have somehow been a victory to lose one of the very few legitimate conservative voices in Congress.  Seriously, out of the 435 members of Congress, 18 have voted for conservative principles 90% or more of the time and these people who claimed to be conservative were celebrating that number dropping to 17.  It was then that I realized that the frenzied zealots weren't just the fringe supporters but aspects of the crazy fringe had infiltrated and infected the mainstream.  The ramifications of this are indeed horrible.

At this point, I don't really know what to do.  I am a person without a party.  I believe in the principles of smaller government, fiscal conservatism, and constitutional rights.  However, I no longer feel connected to the party that I once supported wholeheartedly.  While I wouldn't say that I am afraid of any individual or group, I am sickened by the knowledge that my country and my countrymen are afflicted by a sort of collective madness in which they will simply support anyone if the letter behind their name is an R or a D rather than finding out if this person truly believes any of the same things that they claim to value.    I wonder, what happened to the USA?

The redefinition of "love"

Thousands of years ago, the Apostle Paul defined love in a letter to a church in Corinth.  On my wedding day, my husband and I used his words to reaffirm to the congregation and to one another what love meant to us:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant, or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  - 1 Corinthians 13:4 - 7

 Love was an action.  Not a feeling.  But that was thousands of years ago.

In the last 100 years or so, we have seen the word "love" drastically transformed from an action and a practice to a feeling.  Fewer than half of couples stay together and most of those couples have had other partners beside their spouse that, at the time, they would have said they were "in love" with.  While I count myself as one of the people that believes in traditional marriage in the eyes of God, as being between one man and one woman, it would be ridiculous to say that heterosexual couples have not been making a mockery of marriage for thousands of years.  While I won't go into my own individual sins here, I will say that I am an adulteress under Christ's definition, and so are you if you're being honest with yourself:

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."  - Matthew 5: 27 - 28

Because I am a Christian, all I can do is confess and try to do better.   What grieves me is not that the traditional definition of marriage has changed, we lost that battle many years ago.  What grieves me is that the traditional definition of love has changed.

Today's definition of "love" is nothing like the Biblical definition of love.  Love is not patient or kind.  Where formerly it didn't boast or wasn't arrogant or rude, today's definition of "love" grabs itself a hashtag on Twitter and screams, "IN YOUR FACE" to anyone who holds an opposing view.  The definition of "love" in today's society is fungible because it is whatever you want it to be and if it isn't, then you make it whatever you want it to be.  If other people don't like it, then just accuse them of "hate" and "bigotry", because today's definition of "love" demands that you fall in line, or else.  Hate still supposedly means the opposite of love, which probably means that hate now stands for what love stood for at the time that Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians.  Whether "love" rejoices with the truth or with wrongdoing is certainly up for debate because "truth" and "wrongdoing", like "love" in today's society, is up for debate.  If you end up falling out of "love" with your selected partner, not to worry, for a little money you can each go your separate ways.  After all, today's "love" doesn't bear all things, hope all things, believe all things and it sure as hell doesn't endure all things.  In short, today's societal definition of love means nothing more than that you get to bump uglies with whomever you happen to be most attracted to at the time and everyone else better shut the hell up about it or face your wrath.

Truly what makes me sad about all of this is that the odds of my children finding a spouse that loves them in the same way that the Apostle Paul defined love to the Corinthians is about the same as their odds of getting struck by lightning.  The odds of my grandchildren finding that in their marriage is fast approaching the odds of them winning the lottery after they were struck by lightning during a shark attack.

 Or does it?

The God of your imagination

It's kind of my favorite thing to hear people say, "My God would never hate something or someone,  he/she stands for (insert heretical, anti-Biblical statement here)."  I like to imagine what their God looks like.  I wonder what his/her commandments are and what authority he/she has.  I wonder if there are moral absolutes with their God.  Is killing still wrong?  What about adultery?  If so, why?  Is he related to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?  Are the Bible, Torah, and Koran morally equivalent books?  What about Hinduism or Jainism?

Most of the time, people who start a sentence that way identify the God of their imagination with the God of the Bible.  When confronted with the unfortunate truth that the Bible paints a very different picture of God than the one that they imagine in their mind, they usually say something like, "That book is 2000 years old and doesn't apply to modern society.  That's not who my God is."

The fact of the matter is, I don't like all of the things in the Bible.  A lot of the Bible offends the part of me that was raised to believe in girl power, and live and let live.  Sometimes I think that God was too lenient on horrible people, other times I think He was excessively harsh on people who did exactly what I would do if I was in the same situation.  Whether I like it or not, the Bible says what it says.  It makes me uncomfortable sometimes but if God just says everything that I believe, then God turns into nothing more than a figment of my imagination.

The good news is that the God of the Bible is a God of forgiveness to those who are humble enough to repent.

Being angry.

Over the past couple of months, I have thought about getting off Facebook. Not because of there is too much drama or because it is a digital succubus (both statements are undeniably true) but because the "news" stories that I see from the news outlets I follow, as well as the stories shared by my "friends". Unfortunately for me, I know that disconnecting isn't the answer. I probably would be less angry, but burying one's head in the sand is hardly a good defense mechanism. Creating a post about the things that piss me off may not be the most productive thing that I could do, but it's a start. So, in the spirit of "you gotta start somewhere" here (in no particular order) are the things that pissed me off today.

1.  Cop shoots dog - The dash cam accompanying this story clearly shows a couple of non-aggressive dogs approaching a cop in a friendly manner. The cop kicks at the dog before pulling out his service revolver and shooting the dog. This seems like a pretty cut and dry case of animal cruelty and this cop should be treated like anyone else who hurts an animal because he/she is an ass. I have plenty of respect for law enforcement who put their lives on the line to protect and serve their communities. The fact that the majority of police officers are men and women who put their lives on the line is all the more reason not to tolerate this steaming pile of crap that tarnishes the reputation of officers everywhere. 
2. Petty being petty - Richard Petty rightly points out that the reason that anyone knows the name Danica Patrick is because she's an attractive female. If you read the comments, you either want to laugh or cry. There is outrage, outrage I tell you, over the fact that Richard would dare say such a thing.  Nevermind that there are scores of other young men who have better records than Danica who we don't know.  That's because even though they're better than Danica, they're still losers.  If men and women had truly equal societal status (as people on the left and the right would have you believe) than saying that someone sucks as a race car driver when that person sucks as a race car driver is not newsworthy or controversial.  He isn't being petty, he's being honest.  The only reason that anyone is outraged is because she's a girl and that's patronizing.  That is what should elicit outrage.
3. On that same track why does Michael Sam being gay earn him the Sports Illustrated cover?  I'm not a college sports fan, so admittedly, I didn't know a whole lot about him.  My husband however, is an avid college sports fan.  He informs me that Sam was one of the best players in the SEC.  What pisses me off about the media circus surrounding this kid's announcement is that he isn't getting recognized for his athletic ability, he's on the cover of SI for the way he has sex.  If you get an NFL contract for any reason other than your athletic prowess, you don't have equal stature to your peers.  When you decide to laud or demonize someone based on their differences you are making them an object instead of a person, for better or worse.  Frankly that's my issue with "protected class" status in general whether it be for gender, sexuality, or race is that you end up being defined by your "protected class" status rather than your ability.  Martina Navratilova is famous because she was a bad ass on the tennis court.  Ellen Degeneres is famous because she's funny.  Their sexuality doesn't define them, their talent does.  Unfortunately, because SI has decided to make this kid their cover based, not on his talent, but because he is openly gay, they have torpedoed his opportunity to be known for his playing ability.  Way to go, dicks.  If this is your strategy for the future, you should know, there's already an Out magazine. 
4. Teens Using Vapor Pens to Secretly Smoke Pot - This one actually made me laugh.  I remember kids making bongs out of cored out apples, wood shop projects, or really anything that they could find.  They didn't get caught because they were carrying around a cored out apple.  They got caught because the apple in question smelled like pot.  If you put pot in a vapor pen, you're not sneaking anything.  The smoke that you blow out will smell like weed.  If you do that in school in front of a teacher, the school should ban you for life.  There should be a picture of you with a line through it on the front door.  You're too stupid to do anything with the information that is available to you.  They're teachers, not Jesus.
5. Guys looking for a Valentine's Day gift?  Get her an abortion.  Let's be honest guys, you've wanted to tell her that, even though you love it that she offers herself up to you for free when you aren't playing video games, hanging with your guy friends, or trying to hook up with girls that you're really interested in, if she comes up pregnant, you would literally rather kill someone than have to see the ghost-of-booty-calls-past ever again much less surrender part of your paycheck to her ass.  Talk about empowering women.  That must really build one's self respect to find out that you were fun, but you're not the one.  Desecrating your body because you didn't respect yourself enough to not be yoked to some idiot frat boy for the rest of your life by buying and using a condom is a real confidence builder.  Well done.
6. Last (but just because I need to go to bed) but not least is John Boehner and his band of complicit convicts raising the debt ceiling.  If anyone in Boehner's state considers voting him back in because he is "the lesser of two evils", I hope your car breaks down every election day and you get a horrible orange sunburn every time you get more than a millisecond's worth of exposure to the sun.  I'm already in a pissy mood because, after being promised that my taxes would not go up "one dime" (nevermind the fact that food, gas, energy, clothing, and basically everything else has gone through the roof), the Government has decided that the one of the children that is a) under the age of 18, and b) relies on my income for food, shelter, and medicine cannot be claimed as a dependent on my taxes forcing me to therefore pay taxes that I did not owe before that jug-eared ass clown became POTUS.  The fact that there are millions more like me out there that are surrendering their income to the Federal Government.  To have these jackasses raise the debt ceiling without any fear of retribution just rubs salt in the would.  Where are the hot tar, feather, and splintery rail salesmen when you need them.

It's been a while since I wrote last. I've been doing things. I ran a marathon, went back to school and graduated Summa Cum Laude. I was hoping that it would help me move forward in this abysmal economy but lo it was not to be. In reality, I got tired of the political fight. It's frustrating for a logical, thinking person to try to reason with someone who bases their entire political system of beliefs on how they feel. It isn't that I checked out, it's that I got tired of trying to rationalize with irrational people. I think that there are a lot of people out there like me. You may not have seen as many Tea Party rallies as you did in 2008 and 2009 (which may be because there were a lot of people who wanted to co-opt the movement for their own purposes which turned a lot of people off). However, that doesn't mean that the people who had been awakened to the alarming government overreaches just went to sleep again. When the President of Chick-fil-A's First Amendment rights were under attack, these people came out in droves to support him. The Romney campaign receives money all the time from people who are not Romney fans per se, but that realize that the damage done by the Democratic party both in the United States and around the world will be just a prologue if that jug-eared buffoon gets in again. I hear what the polls are saying and sometimes, I start to worry that the fix is in but then I remind myself that there are about 15-20% of people that are in the U.S. that are neither die hard Republicans or die hard Democrats. As a Libertarian, I fall into that category. My husband is far more center than I am and would be what I consider a true independent. If the choice is for a fiscally conservative Democrat against a big government Republican, the Democrat will get our vote every time (though I would be more conflicted about it than my husband). We are the people for whom the die-hards have to endure billions of dollars worth of ad campaigns during their favorite shows. For every die hard Ron Paul supporter that will choose to stay home rather than vote for Romney or Obama, there are people like me and my husband who will vote for Romney and seek to make changes to our government on a local and statewide level so that someone like Ron Paul can get in next time. We have the power to change our system from the ground up, but we can't do that by watching ABC, NBC, or CBS. Instead, we have to tune into our local news, read the notices about council meetings, town hall events, upcoming bills in the State legislature, and calling in when something pisses us off. I still believe that the majority of people find the OWS crowd, tenured academic schmucks running our Universities, and far-left liberals who want to regulate our behaviors from cradle to the grave anathema to their values and vision of what America is supposed to be. If only 1/2 of us get out and vote in November, this country may just have a chance at survival.

Democrats - Enslaving African Americans for over 200 years!

Recently Sheila Jackson Lee once again tried to characterize the Republicans as racist for opposing raising the debt limit ceiling. She urged Americans to "Read between the lines,"..."What is different about this president that should put him in a position that he should not recieve the same kind of respectful treatment of when it is necessary to raise the debt limit in order to pay our bills, something required by both statute and the 14th Amendment." "I hope someone will say that what it appears to be is not in fact accurate,"..."But historically, it seems to be nothing more." As with most things that come out of this blithering idiot's mouth, this is historically inaccurate or perhaps she doesn't remember the crap the Democratic party pulled regarding the debt ceiling in 1984.

It isn't about the facts though. It's about the race card. The Democrats have to play the race card because if they fail to do so, the truth may come out that the Democratic party has a long history of enslaving and subjugating African-Americans for political benefit as the despicable Ms. Jackson-Lee and other members of the Democratic establishment continue to do to this day. Don't believe me? Let's take a look at where the Democrats have decided to stand on race relations in the past:

13th Amendment -Abolishing slavery (but not giving blacks equality) - The Republican Party (which was formed for the purpose of abolishing the abomination of slavery) voted 100% to pass it. 77% of Democrats opposed this measure.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was passed over the veto of Democrat President Andrew Jackson because the majority in House and Senate was REPUBLICAN!

14th Amendment - Yep the Republicans struck again for the equality of all people regardless of skin color.

Even the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had higher support from Republicans than Democrats. Albert Gore, father of the former VP and current environmental fear-monger, voted against it as did Robert "KKK" Byrd, and J. William Fulbright (who I assume was so close to President Bill Clinton because of his kindred spirit to Al Gore's daddy).

The Democratic Party even ran a segregationist for president in 1972, George McGovern. The Democrats racial history is abysmal. The only way that they can possibly avoid facing the facts about their history is to use the slight of hand known as the race card. The charge is so reprehensible that those who are unable due to a lack of intelligence or unwilling because it requires effort and challenges the worldview they have adhered to for 40 years repeat the lie that Republicans are racist over and over again. In the meantime, when a Democrat actually does something racist (such as the white thug who beat up Ken Gladney as he spewed racial epithets) there is a cognitive dissonance throughout the Democratic party.

All facts point to this: The Democrat's use of the race card is not about race. The Democrats have never held the best interest of the African American community. It is a way to shut down debate...a shell game if you will. If you are not an indentured servant today, thank a Republican, if you are a slave to the Government because you receive public assistance, thank a Democrat.