Don’t get me started

I have so much anxiety about current events. And it isn’t an accident. In the words of Albert in “The Dark Knight” (played by my favorite Michael Caine), “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” I’m tired of hearing about policies and decisions being made by old white men. Or old white women for that matter, though there are far less of them making such a fuss.

First, back off my body. Your personal views on abortion and the “right” to get one or birth control in any way (in quotes because I don’t see it as something that should be a right, just something available) do not have to be the same as mine. But that just means when it’s available you don’t have to use it. You don’t have to get an abortion. You don’t have to use birth control. But your choice doesn’t need to affect long standing policies. All legalizing birth control and abortion does is make it safer for women that do want it. It doesn’t matter who they are or why they want one, it’s not your or my business. But they will be safe in getting one. There also won’t be a “mad rush” for abortions like a sale at Kohl’s on Black Friday. And how dare you demonize women who are making one of the hardest choices of their lives, making them seem less moral than your upstanding self who feels the need to throw stones.

Second, separation of any family is traumatic. No matter the age of the members involved. No matter the circumstances on how they were separated. No matter their skin color. If you take a child out of an abusive home, it’s still traumatic even when it’s for the benefit of the child. When you separate a child from their parent to “set a precedent and example” on people trying to come into our country, it’s traumatic. When you separate a parent from their child because the child was born in this country and the parent wasn’t, and now the “illegal” parent is being deported, it’s traumatic. When a child has no concept of when they might see their parents, and they’re surrounded by new people, and are placed in any overcrowded situation, it’s traumatic. Raising a child in our world is hard enough without this added trauma.

Third, you don’t need assault rifles in your personal home arsenal. You just don’t. You might want them, but want is not need. I have gone shooting with friends and family, when my daughters are older I plan to take them too. But I will not put automatic weapons in my house. I will not let my children shoot them either. And while we’re talking about firearms, when did police become the military? Are they actually funded more than the military? I don’t know, I’m asking, but it looks that way to me. Maybe instead of swarming in with riot gear they should just walk up and talk to someone. Maybe instead of coming in “guns blazing” they should set up a barrier and talk to someone across it. Maybe we should remember that assault rifles and riot gear should be left to the military in conflict zones, and work to make our US cities conflict-free zones.

Fourth, can we stop with political polarization please? I identify as a liberal, but I am also a conservative with some of my views. I want families to be important, and I want anyone who wants to marry their legal partner (who’s over 18) able to do so. I want kids adopted by families who want to have children but for whatever reason can’t, or want to bring another child into their family because they have the ability to support them. I want universal healthcare because I’m tired of paying so much for healthcare we might not always need. I don’t like taxes, but when I know what I’m paying for in them I don’t mind them as much. And if I suddenly have to pay more in taxes to pay for healthcare, would it be so bad when I don’t have to pay for healthcare every paycheck?

Which leads me to five. Socialism is not bad. Socialism is not Communism. Socialism is not Fascism. You don’t like Socialism because it’s an “-ism” and not a “-cracy,” but the idea of Democratic Socialism isn’t demonic. It means a redistribution of power, and that is what some are thinking of as bad or demonic. But to me, I think of DS and suddenly there is more money in the government to spend on things like healthcare and education (remember when we gave a damn about our kids and their education?) and less on putting extra in a small minority’s pockets.

I’m tired. I’m tired of feeling my rights threatened, as a woman and a bisexual. I’m tired of defending my own actions in staving of the corona virus in my family because there is not a government wide policy to save Americans. Thank goodness I live in New York where we know what will happen, but our rates haven’t evaporated either. I’m tired of being the laughing stock of the world with a blustering bully of a President who doesn’t take his role seriously.

I’m tired of hearing a debate on climate change, when it’s not a debate and actually a global crisis that has been overshadowed by another global crisis. And when you ask “why do you care about the environment and the Earth? It’s just another fear mongering tactic, remember in the 90s when they thought we were in another Ice Age?” To quote another favorite movie of mine, “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Because I’m one of the idiots who lives here!” My children will also live here! We have nowhere else to live! We don’t have housing underwater, we have not terra-formed another planet. We have to save this one because we literally have no where else to go. So we should stop wrecking our home and ripping the foundation out from underneath our home, and find ways to make it better and use energy better. There are resources under the ground but we’re ripping them out so fast they don’t have a chance to reform. Billions of years of compression ripped out in 100 years. Fires, hurricanes, blizzards, tornadoes. Every year there are more. And every year we watch more and more. And I’m tired of it.

Rebuilding your house is not easy. It’s an understatement to say it’s hard. But when you build it in a way that will make it last you don’t regret the work you put in. You have to take the first step, have to commit to doing it right. Otherwise you’re paying a contractor for a job you’ll just have to worry about next year.

I want to put money in ourselves. I want to put money in our people. I want to see people be decent to each other, and get a chance to think about other people and not just themselves. Stop giving into the negativity. Stop giving into the hate and bullying, it just pulls you down. Instead help me rebuild this house we all live in so we can fill it with healthy, wholesome, loving people. They might not be what you think “wholesome” would be, but maybe if we all just sat down and shut up a minute, we’d see we aren’t that different at all. Maybe we just all need to stop being dicks to each other. And stop trying to make the world that’s literally burning around us “just like us.” We don’t need more of ourselves, we need more friendliness to those who aren’t “like us” because if everyone was just like us we’d be bored.

Don’t be a dick. You can’t lie, I bet you’re tired too.