We are only a few days away from barbarism at any time. Take away our thin veneer of civilization by cutting off power and the technological basis of every aspect of our very complexly orchestrated lives and the result is far too often something like we saw after Katrina. But for some, there is no need to wait for natural disaster. They want to create the same scenario through malice or ignorance, and often a blending of the two.
Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by evil men for daring to want to go to school. They want to make sure their perversion in interpretation of their Holy Book regains and retains the power of male violence over women. It disgusts me.
Radicals exist in Christianity just as they do in other religions. Our country does not want to talk about this. “Close your eyes brothers and sisters for verily I say unto you, if you do not believe exactly as I do, I will despise you, mock you, attempt to take over governments founded by wise men to preserve freedom and equality for all, so that I can impose my purportedly moral values on you. ” This is what I hear when listen to “conservative Christians” spout their evil misinterpretations of the teachings of a radical Rabi who lived ever so long ago.
I see white men, for the most part, with barely disguised racist and misogynist motives, telling me that their religious views on life should be law. Religious law is also called Sharia Law in parts of the world. All Fundamentalist Christians, Jews, and Muslims believe the Old Testament Books, no matter what they are called are the literal word of God. Just because white American men are attempting to repeal the slow but steady strides we have taken toward a just society based on equality in the past few decades does mean that this is anything different from a Taliban-like assault on the very basis of American way of life.
These disgusting parodies of educated states men and women should just as well spit on the U.S.Constitution as carry out the abrogation of the core of our country’s founding documents written by men who understood that a country must hold personal freedom of thought and action by its citizens as necessary to forming, furthering, and maintaining the values and ideals of democracy.
My religious beliefs tell me that war is wrong. I pay my taxes. My country goes to war again and again and has our youth kill for questionable reasons. I do not have to go to war, personally, but I have to pay the taxes that support it. This is no less difficult for me to do than it is for a person who truly believes that a fertilized egg is a human being to pay taxes to support abortion. Except that no tax monies go to pay for abortion. Tax monies do go to support the killing of humans who are deemed enemies or collateral damage near targets in nebulous, ill-defined wars on indefinable enemies. No person, ever, will agree with all actions that can be allowed under legal and political decisions made by our governing bodies. But as citizens we respect those laws.
The problem these days is that uneducated bigots and misogynist malcontents are allowed to govern. These idiots want to rule not govern. It is time to sharpen our wits, use our power at the ballot box, and if necessary take more strident steps against those who would destroy our still young nation in order to impose their belief systems upon us.
These people may call themselves Christians, but their Christianity has no resemblance to anything I know as Christian. And these evil men, and they are men for the most part, who actively usurp democratic process, truly are evil if they do not respect my religious beliefs. I do not have to define or defend my religious beliefs under the Constitution because there is to be no State Religion. My ancestor, William Palmer, arrived in the New World in 1630 to escape The Church of England. I dearly hope that I do not have to leave the U.S. to escape the Church of NeoCon and the Corporations that it favors that are akin to the Corporations that were favored by the King of England.
Malala was shot in the head by the Taliban. We have 800,000 children under the age of 18 who go missing every year in the U.S. Do we try to find them? Protect them? I think we are just as barbaric as any other people or place on Earth.
If you have not already voted, please inform yourself about a few basics. We have averted another Depression. The economy is slowly getting better. Those who argue for a small government that does not interfere with personal freedoms yet want that small government to control personal medical decisions made by women and force them to obey religiously defined doctrine to which they do not subscribe, are nothing but the Neo Con Christian equivalent of the Taliban. I want nothing to do with Christianity if what these people practice is Christianity. It has no similarity to the loving teachings that I came to know, accept, and practice as best I could as a young person. I do not have to have a name for it, do not want to share any name that those people use, because what I believe is just love and it resides in the human heart.
I will vote for freedom for my body, freedom for my mind, and freedom for my heart and soul. I will not vote for any person who supports a group that says that women must obey laws that favor rapists, that supports the continued expansion of the human population while the world is in the middle of an extinction event, and fails to use reason and logic as a guide for our actions. I will vote for using the knowledge for which Malala fought to have the right to learn.
Debbi
Well said. Why is this not an op-ed in the New York Times?
Nancy
Thank you Debbi. I have given up on sending in Op-Eds. I am too extreme, apparently, though I was raised with mainstream Democratic and mainstream Protestant beliefs.
Colyn Martin
Well done and absolutely brilliant. Thank you!
Nancy
Thank you for reading and commenting Colyn. It gives me the courage to write more.
Haralee
You gave me a fresh perspective on this tragedy.
Nancy
I am so glad that I could help expand understanding or perspective for you. I try to provide info and viewpoints that are not like millions of others. Thank you.