The Transgender Bathroom Debate

I’ve been mulling over this new transgender bathroom law. I’m not a bigot nor am I afraid of the LGBT community. I’m an advocate of gay-marriage believing all people should be treated fairly and equally. I just don’t think permitting anyone in any bathroom, locker room or shower, regardless of the sex they were born, benefits our children.

My fear is a pedophile or some other type of unsavory person will use this law to try to hurt the most vulnerable in our society. The predators won’t even have to work or try (they don’t even have to disguise themselves) to commit a crime.  For example, a man with a bad plan on his mind can walk into a restroom, locker room or shower and there is no one to stop him—he will have every right to be there—and he could hurt someone.

I do realize our transgender population is less than one percent and we have an obligation to protect and help the minority. But what of the bad situations that could arise, not at the hands of the transgender community, but from the bad seeds in our society?

Again, it is not my fear that a transgender is going to commit a crime. I truly don’t have a problem sharing a bathroom with them. I have probably been in a restroom at one time or another with someone LGBT. And that’s fine.

But is it really a myth that a sexual predator will take advantage of this new law? I would say right now, we don’t know for sure.

What is your opinion on this?

Patriotism is Alive! Hoo-Rah!

While perusing the blogosphere I came across a comment that read, “The truly sad thing is there are two reasons kids join the military: The first and likely most prominent is to escape poverty and horrendous living conditions at home, second, to satisfy some misguided sense of duty/patriotism that's handed down from one generation to the next.” Now, I haven’t been one to write a blog post about another blogger’s comment, but today I’m compelled to make an exception. Please keep in mind that it does NOT matter WHO wrote this comment so I will NOT divulge that information and I will NOT permit anyone who is familiar with it to inflict any negative or inflammatory rhetoric against this person in my comment section. I’m steadfast in our right to speak freely and believe we can all disagree with dignity, thus, I wholeheartedly, but politely have to disagree with these statements and I’ll tell you why.

As many of you know MY oldest son joined the Army last July, consequently he took the oath to protect and defend OUR Constitution. During this last year, it also being his senior year of high school, he performed “drills” once a month. He graduated from high school, with honors, on June 10th and as of this writing is sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting for a bus to take him to Fort Benning, Georgia where he will undergo 15 weeks of Basic Combat and Advanced Individual training. Needless to say, I’m a bit emotional and that comment struck a chord with me.

My son did NOT join the Army to escape poverty and horrendous living conditions at home. There is nothing that could be further from the truth, but I don’t have to defend my parenting or my finances to anyone, because my husband and I did a damn good job (not that we were perfect) raising him. That was our JOB! We made it our MISSION! (There are way too many parents today who do NOT do that, to the demise of their children and it breaks my heart.) I also know a lot of other young men, NOT in my family, who have joined the military, and their reasons weren’t to escape poverty or horrendous living conditions at home, either, so this blanket statement, in my opinion, was made out of ignorance.

As far as my son joining the Army to satisfy some misguided sense of duty/patriotism that was handed down from one generation to the next. While I have never hidden the fact that I have military members in my family tree and possess VERY patriotic emotions toward my country, I do NOT believe that is in any way misguided. I also logically know that my son is NOT misguided. I brought him into the world, loved, nurtured, guided and helped him evolve into the courageous, respectful, proud young man that he IS today. He knows his heart, his mind and his dreams and he is a warrior. Like his Uncle Tim, the cop who wants to get the bad guys to keep people safe, my son wants to defend OUR country to keep US safe! THAT is NOT misguided.

There are way too many people in our country who have no sense of right or wrong let alone a sense of patriotism. They get up every morning, put on whatever article of clothing they want, drive the car they want, go to the job they want and do what they want to entertain themselves (okay, within the confines of the laws and their pocketbooks!), but they don’t give one thought to the men and women who have died to give them those freedoms. Who’s misguided?

Have we been in wars that were senseless? Yes. But that’s not our soldiers’ fault. That’s the fault of the brain trusts on Capitol Hill. Our military does, without question, what it’s told to do. The misguided ones are those sitting behind desks playing games with the blood and lives of our soldiers.

MY son is a brave young man who is willing to lay HIS life on the line so that we can sit behind the safety of our computer screens and type what we want, when we want. He’s not misguided…he’s insightful for knowing that his path is dedicating his life to serving our country and anyone who knows himself THAT well is not misguided and I’m a VERY PROUD MOM!

**Crossposted @ Rational Nation USA**

Happy Independence Day!

In a letter to his wife, Abigail, John Adams wrote that Independence Day “ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.”

It is my sincere wish that my fellow bloggers have a happy and safe Independence Day. I hope it is filled with family and friends, fun and happiness. But most importantly, I hope we all remember those who sacrificed and died so that we can enjoy all that we possess, especially our most revered commodity…our Freedom.

Health Care Freedom and Choice

The furor now is Health Care Reform, Universal Health Care, and National Health Care; but what they ALL add up to is Government Run Health Care. Which, to put it mildly, SCARES ME TO DEATH, so I won’t need health care; because I’ll be ashes blowing in the wind since I want to be cremated when I die.

Why am I so terrified of Government Health Care? Well, let’s see, our government currently runs Medicare, Medicaid, our postal service, the IRS, the DMV’s, and the unemployment centers.

Let’s take a quick look at Medicare and Medicaid. First and foremost, they are almost bankrupt. The money that those of us have paid into the system for years and years will probably be long gone before we even get to retirement age. Why? Because the trusty government has dipped into the coffers for other things and all the corruption. The government has mismanaged the Medi-funds in numerous ways, but Americans are supposed to believe that government run health care, paid for with American tax dollars, is going to be managed properly and that the millions of dollars in corruption is just miraculously going to disappear. Or maybe we’ll just hire a few Health Care Czars to guard the funds! How about Medicare and Medicaid patients? Who do they currently go to when they are mishandled by the government system? NO ONE, that’s who. They are at the mercy of the government. Yep, that’s right. The government runs and controls the Medi-system and all those patients are FORCED to follow the government rules and regulations whether they like them or not and whether they are fair or not. Same goes for the IRS.

American’s most beloved entity is the Internal Revenue Service. They are so fair and all. You get a notice in the mail that says you owe, better pay up or go to jail. You are GUILTY until YOU prove your innocence. You have NO ONE to turn to. The government is the ONLY and FINAL entity in this transaction. Americans FEAR the IRS. The IRS can turn a person bankrupt with the stroke of a pen and there isn’t anything he/she can do about it. This government run system shows no sympathy, empathy or remorse. It takes your money all year long, makes numerous errors, but yet, somehow it’s YOUR job to prove THEIR error! Yet, we’re supposed to believe that another government agency is going flow more efficiently. Yeah, right.

Our postal departments, all over the country, are run by our wonderful government, too. We just experienced another postage stamp increase. Every time the post office needs more money there’s a postage increase. I realize 2 cents isn’t a king’s ransom; however, it’s NOT my fault or yours that the postal workers get every holiday off, 5 weeks paid vacation, sick days, personal days, pensions AND a yearly salary of at least $45K per year. I mean come on, does it take that much SKILL to work at the post office? Am I to trust that once the government gets its hands on my tax dollars for health care it won’t raise my taxes every six months because it needs more money? The the post office raises its postage rates every time it needs money and there is NO difference between the post office and government health care-they will BOTH be run by the GOVERNMENT.


I probably shouldn’t even get started on the Department of Motor Vehicles. Now these departments are Clusters Flusters no matter what state you’re in. Just about everyone has a driver’s license and has stood in line longer than necessary while watching government workers sit around doing nothing. Almost every home has at least one vehicle, some have two or three; but it can take up to 6 weeks for these departments to get a registration mailed out and there are times when they just plain lose the application. Yep, they will cash the check and lose the paperwork. Once that happens, it’s up to YOU to get duplicate paperwork so you can get your title and registration. Having been in the automotive industry for 25 years, I dealt with the DMV on a daily basis. One representative pulls the check off the paperwork and then sends that paperwork to another representative. If the paperwork gets lost, oh well, the check was cashed. Do we want this type of attitude with something as valuable as our HEALTH? Don’t tell me it’ll change, because it won’t. The government will hire people to handle health claims just like they hire people to complete applications at the DMV and the unemployment office or to plug in your income tax return. They hire people to fill positions. As long as they have bodies, the government is happy. It has nothing to do with competence. Just look at Congress.

The unemployment office is my all-time favorite! They KNOW they have YOU right where they want you. YOU need them, they do NOT need you. That attitude is reflective by the way they treat you on the telephone. I had to call the unemployment office. I was talked down to, yelled at and hung up on. I had to call back and was on hold for 30 minutes. These workers know that they aren’t going anywhere. They will NEVER lose their jobs. I spoke with one gentleman at the unemployment office about the woman that treated me poorly and he told me that there were numerous complaints on her but nothing has ever been done to her. Yet, I’m supposed to think government run health care, with government employees, is going to be better? If I have a question or a problem why would I think I’ll get quality service? I won’t, because I’ll be calling the government about their employees who are union employees and we all know they’re NEVER fired.

With government health care there will be no opposition. With no competition there is no incentive to make it more efficient or more innovative. Remember the days when we were forced to go with a utility company? Now we have choices. Look at all the cell phone companies. They are competing for our business. They go out of their way to get new customers which drives the prices DOWN. They even give free months service. If you call and complain they will wipe the charges for the month clean, because they don’t want you to be displeased and leave for one of the other 2 dozen companies out there. If we have only ONE government program, who will we turn to if we are dissatisfied? NO ONE. WE WILL BE STUCK!

Having choices has always driven the cost of goods and services DOWN while driving the quality of those commodities UP. With only one place or point of sale they will have the conglomerate, the monopoly. A person or entity who has the monopoly can DICTATE how something is performed, the price, the quality, anything and everything. Is that what we want? Are we so desperate they we will settle for the devil? And that’s what we’re getting if we allow the government to handle our health care...Satan. That may sound harsh, but it’s the truth.

As Americans we are about truth. We are also about Freedom and Choice. It’s our RIGHT to have both FREEDOM and CHOICE, and with government run anything we have neither.