Anchor Babies (Another Baaaaaaaad Word!)

Personally, and without reservation, I consider this almost (if not more so) worse than the N-Word. And believe me, I HATE the N-Word and have verbally shredded people for using.

This is taking an innocent child's birth and proclaiming it as a ruse or deception for the purpose of gaining citizenship into the USA.

First of all, let's talk about Amendment 14 Section 1 of the US Constitution:

Amendment XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This came into play when former slaves were threatened with deportation, even if they were born in the US and only knew English. The United States was the only country these people had ever known, and the Senate and Congress agreed.

So the new GOP contenders are threatening to overturn Amendment 14  and send "all of them" back to where they came from.

To overturn a Constitutional Amendment, the powers that be need more than just 2/3rds of the Senate, 2/3rds of the Congress. They also need 33 states to ratify their decisions at the state level, because without the cooperation of the states, nothing is going to happen.

But let's get back to the idea of Slavery.

Regardless of the assumption, even after the end of Slavery, Slavery was not at an end.

The US has a history of importing cheap labor and utilizing it to build railroads, and prostitute themselves for the Gold Rush (The Chinese), work in the mills (The Irish), and harvest crops (The Mexicans). (I did try and include all of the horrible things done to the American Indians, but the list was so long that it would require another blog!)

When the Farm Workers formed a union with the aid of Cesar Chavez, a lot of people walked off their jobs and left the crops to rot in the field. So the farmers just drove their trucks across the border and brought more workers into the country. Colorado is well know for "importing" cheap labor to work in the Sugar Beet fields, so it is not just the border States that are guilty of this crime.

Now we are putting pressure on Immigration Services to deport... DEPORT... DEPORT!!!!

And Immigration is doing a bang up job, everyone that holds a Green Card Visa is under investigation for the most minor infraction. One woman was deported because her ex-husband was writing nasty letters to Immigration... for TWELVE YEARS! (Talk about a guy with a grudge!). She went in to renew her Green Card and an hour later was deported.

Another Green Card carrier was stopped for a DUI. Even though he was married to a US citizen with a couple of kids, he was deported.

Immigration is not targeting the undocumented people that are living here. These people are hard to trace, almost invisible. They are targeting people who are here WITH documentation because these are the only people that are paying taxes, working, and visible.

And by the way, for every deportation, the US is paying $1,200 dollars just for the process of getting "these people" out of this country.

Alabama and Georgia passed tough laws against the undocumented in the last five years, causing a mass migration out of the states. The problem with this picture is that The next year, Georgia lost $140 MILLION dollars from crops that rotted in the fields because there was no one there to harvest the produce. Georgia attempted to place prison workers in these jobs, but the work was too grueling, and the attempt failed. in 2012, Alabama lost 40% of their crops to rot.

And while some might say "good riddance".  They might think to themselves that it wasn't like these illegals (another word I don't like) pay taxes. But in fact, they do pay taxes. With the mass exodus from the state, Alabama lost 1.8 MILLION dollars in sales tax annually.

A lot of undocumented people actually do pay taxes with the aid of post office boxes and good accountants. They truly do want to become US citizens and are making every effort to do so legally. They pay these taxes even though they are not receiving any benefits.

In fact, an undocumented person can't file for benefits. Even after they have been naturalized, the benefits won't start until 20 years after the naturalization!

But let's just look at the sales tax numbers: In 2012, undocumented people paid $11.84 BILLION in state and local sales tax

So if we deported all of these people (not including building the wall that Mexico DEFINITELY won't pay for) we would have to pay $480 BILLION and we would lose $11.84 BILLION in state and local sales tax.

But let's focus on those "anchor babies" for just a moment.

Let's say that there is an 11 year old boy who is a born native of the US, and one of his parents get caught by immigration.

He is standing on the curb at school waiting for his father to pick him up and them man never shows up. So the boy walks 15 blocks home and finds his mother frantically packing their things before Immigration shows up.

One would think that the father can appeal to immigration on necessity because he has a naturalized son living at home. But in all reality, he can't. And believe it or not, this happened a few years ago in Colorado, when Immigration raided JB Swift.

Some kids ended up staying with a person who was not their mother because both parents were caught and sent back across the border without warning. Immigration wouldn't back down.

And until that 11 year old boy grows up and turns 21, he can't petition for his parents' residency. AND THEN, it is hit and miss as to whether Immigration will let his parents come back because they were working in the US without documentation or with fraudulent documentation, which is a felony.

If Immigration is going to deport a person with a Green Card because of a DUI, or because of angry letters written by an ex-husband (neither person has been let back into the states) I guarantee that Immigration will deny the petition.

Over the last 250 years, a lot of people have come to the US for sanctuary, for a better life, or just to escape a bad one. I am sure that most people who are US citizens can trace their roots to that first "anchor baby". Except the Native Indians who should probably all slap us around for our arrogance in assuming that WE are the true citizens of the US.

And believe it or not, most people from Mexico can trace their roots to either the original Spanish settlers/evil conquerors or Native Indians, which probably makes them more resident-like than any of the rest of us!

 

The Baaaaaaaaad Word!

 

 

So it's one of those things that infuriates me so much, that I usually don't post about it. I don't blog about it. And I refuse to talk about it.

To some, it is the most sinister of words. To others, it is a right that they will fight for until the death.

It is the issue that created a gap too large between the two major political parties to ever mend.

Yes, let's talk about abortion.

It is an eight letter word that should be listed in the category of "Do Not Discuss At Dinner OR On The Drive Home."

And since the whole point behind my blog is to Offend and Encourage Thought, I thought I would give it the old college try...

In the late 1970s and Early 1980s, abortions were prevalent and peaked as high as 18-19 abortions to 1,000 live births. This number has slowly decreased over the years. And The US is now down around 12-14 abortions to 1,000 live births.

This decrease can be accredited to quite a few things:

The first one is (of course) birth control. While the right to use birth control became more viable in the 1960s (thus the sexual revolution), use of birth control has been strongly discouraged by some religions that consider the sin of using it almost as dastardly as having an abortion.

I have a Catholic friend that believes that every time she ovulates, if she doesn't conceive, she has committed an abortion. That is from one very extreme and slightly disturbed woman.

The second reason that abortions have slowly decreased is education. I am not talking about schools handing out pamphlets, but about one on one chats with parents, school counselors, and teachers.

The third reason is visibility and openness.

I remember my grandmother saying "PG" instead of pregnant. Even if a woman was "PG" one just didn't say the word in public. "PG" meant that the woman had "done it" (even with her husband), and that was all polite society really needed to know.

Now we drop F-Bombs, Vagina Bombs, Penis Bombs, Boob Bombs, and Period Bombs, and no one really seems to notice.

Sex is common knowledge, whether you learn it on the street, or from a book.

The biggest reason is public media, with actors having sex on the screen and a baby arriving six weeks later on the show, news articles creating awareness of STDs and other health matters, and of course the internet, preteen and teens are learning from graphic pictures and detailed descriptions from anything they can get their hands on!

A recent study on teen moms show that the number of teen births has been halved in the last 17 years. The biggest decrease happening when 16 and Pregnant hit the air on MTV. And yes, a study done in January of 2014 shows that teen births went down 5.7%. This can be measured by the tweets, Facebook posts, and cyber searches on birth control escalating right after each of the episode airings.

 I find both parties very moronic about their approach to abortion, if you must know the truth.

The Republicans say that no woman EVER should have an abortion, even if her life is at risk. They don't believe in "killing" babies, but will let the mother die of septicemia if the baby she is carrying is just a corpse slowly rotting her body from the inside out.

They believe in letting 10 year old girls, who were raped by their fathers, go full term and deliver, because these babies need to live. And then there is the ultimate idiot statement of "if a woman is raped, she won't conceive."

Flat out, they don't believe in killing because the Bible tells them so.

Ironically, they do believe in Capital Punishment (on a non-related segue), which promotes my thought: WHAT ARE THEY THINKING!!!???!!!

And of course, the Democrats promote abortion for anything and everything, like bad breakups, rapes, incest, life endangerment, and finances (and every other ridiculous reason there is like a bad full moon).

And yet they don't believe in Capital Punishment because it might kill someone.

Therefore, there is no logic to either parties' stance on this issue. (STOP LISTENING TO POLITICIANS!!!)

Due to edited and poorly scripted videos, Planned Parenthood has become a target.

First, Fetal research has come to a grinding halt because of freakish protestors. So when a woman goes into a Planned Parenthood for that dreaded abortion (and it is always dreaded) she is given an option to donate the fetal tissue to research. If she declines, the fetus is thrown away. If she accepts, it is going to science.

A hair-raising concern about partial birth abortions has come about, and it is very understandable. But the extremists created this situation by digging through the trash receptacles of abortion clinics looking for living fetuses. Yes, both sides of this issue are disgusting.

A study done by the CDC shows that only 3% of the services performed by Planned Parenthood are abortion-related.

In 2009, when I could barely function physically, I went to Planned Parenthood and they correctly diagnosed me with a type of cancer and referred me to a good doctor.

I have several friends that go to Planned Parenthood for breast exams, information on birth control, sex education for their kids, and finally for STD checks. You can add the word "affordable" to every single one of those services offered.

I praise the woman that makes the choice to have a child. My mother did it and got stuck with me. She regularly pointed her finger at me and told me "birth control, or keep my legs shut!" (From previous posts you will know that arguing with my mother is like trying to stand on the tracks and stop a freight train.)

I want kids to know about birth control. I want them to use it when those darn teenage hormones are raging.

Abstinence doesn't work. States like Utah, Arizona, and Texas that promote abstinence are among the states with the highest rates of teen pregnancy. You can't prevent teen hormones from raging anymore than you can stop the ocean tide from rolling in.

Several years ago, when I decided that I was pro-choice, it wasn't because I want abortions to happen.

I don't.

The stories are always sad and get to me every time. Women are damned if they have abortions, and damned if they don't.

They need to put their babies up for adoption, the nay-sayers constantly scream.

But there are 300,000 + children in the system right now, and the number is growing.

They need to accept responsibility for their actions and take care of that baby! The people say.

But these same people want to deny welfare to single mothers, and food stamps that go to feed these children.

I admire their passion, but passion negates logic.

In the early 1960s, a friend of mine was stuck in the middle of a horrific marriage. She was hundreds of miles from home, with no family support. She decided that it was time to leave, but she had no money and was ashamed to ask her family for help.

We will call this person A.

A hitchhiked home.

She was somewhere in Oklahoma when she was picked up by a car with three men in it.

These three men gang-raped her and left her stranded.

Back in the 1960s, women didn't report rape. That is all there is to it. They were vilified for wearing short skirts or going braless. Sometimes they were demeaned just for wearing makeup.

So A finished her trek and got home and didn't tell a soul about the rape... Until she found out she was pregnant.

Her father was a staunch protestant, and probably one of the most devout men I have ever met. She went to him and told him about her pregnancy.

He found a place were she could have an abortion... An illegal abortion.

Years later, A settled down and got married. After four miscarriages, because of the scarring from the abortion, she was finally able to carry a child full term.

The pious are probably sitting there saying: Yes, but this was in the 60s. People know that rape happens and we don't shame the women for being victims.

And yet the names of the victims aren't released for fear that they will be targeted. Patty Hearst contacted Elizabeth Smart and told her not to tell anyone about the rape, that her kidnapper would face enough charges without any mention of the rape.

Women are still not reporting rapes out of shame.

If it's not shameful, then why do women hide from it?

I support the right to chose because of the shame that we will be always forced to carry, from the rape of incest, to the rape of a husband. Women are ashamed and we hide our shame by being nameless and denying the crime.

I support the right to chose because logic dictates that I do, and my heart agrees.

mi•sog•y•nist (məˈsäjənəst)

1. a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women.

 

Several years ago, to supplement my income for college, I worked at a bar that had tables for card games.

Among one of the regulars was an elderly man called Doc Taylor.

Doc Taylor was a man of questionable integrity when it came to women. He liked to cheat. As a doctor he bragged regularly at this club how he had seen half the women in that small town naked.

He liked to keep a journal of all the women that he had scored.

Doc Taylor was married.

He often made suggestive maneuvers to all the barmaids and waitresses, and we all wondered how any woman could ever demean themselves and lower their standards to even go to him as a doctor.

Whenever he "scored", he would come in and brag to all the men about how he had "banged" this woman, and gave her name.

One day, he was standing near me and was griping to the manager about how the men were cheating at gin rummy one day and calling them disgusting individuals.

Being young and tactless, I piped up: "So you don't believe in cheating?"

"I do not!" He proclaimed.

"Not even on your wife?" I asked calmly.

The manager coughed up whatever he was drinking.

Doc Taylor sputtered, "That is a completely different thing!"

"Of course it is," I agreed. "You have sworn an oath of loyalty to your wife. The men who were cheating at cards didn't ever promise you anything in front of God and the Justice of the peace. If you will cheat on the person you love, you will cheat anyone."

He didn't come in a lot after that... Especially when I was working.

How men talk about women (or vise versa) can directly tell you what kind of a person they really are.

At the beginning of the GOP debate, Bret Baier asked a question that got Donald Trump booed by the audience: “Is there anyone onstage — and can I see hands — who is unwilling tonight to pledge your support to the eventual nominee of the Republican Party and pledge to not run an independent campaign against that person?”

Trump raised his hand.

Baier then reminded him that he was standing on the stage of a Republican debate.

Chris Wallace asked him about his four bankruptcies. Trump dodged the question.

But Megyn Kelly asked: “You’ve called women you don’t like fat, pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. You once told a contestant on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees,” she said. “Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?”

All of a sudden, Trump vowed not to be nice to Megyn Kelly anymore. According to his Twitter feed, she had blood running our of every orifice.

Why didn't he go after Wallace and Baier? To me, the questions were much more damaging to his character as a presidential candidate. He had no loyalty to the Republican party, and he was bad with money.

Trump is in his third marriage. He has cheated on all three wives.

Women that he has sworn oaths to under the law, and under God (since he claims to be a Christian) he has cheated.

And now he wants to be elected as president and swear an oath on a Bible between God and Country, that he will uphold the laws and the Constitution of the United States.

But how can he uphold those laws when he hates half the population of the United States?

How can he be trusted to be good to those people of the United States when he can't be trusted to be good to the women in his life?

How can anyone actually trust a man who hates so much that half of the USA is disgusting?

If you want a picture of "disgusting", look at a man who hates, cheats, lies, and denigrates other people for the purpose of making himself look better.

If you want a picture of a misogynist, just Google Donald Trump images.

 

 

Privacy

For the last several employers that have been kind enough to employ me, I was required to sign privacy agreements.

I agreed not to share information that belonged to the company to the public and/or any competitors.

It wasn't a problem for me to sign these agreements. The company owns that information, and I am happy to keep my lips sealed for the benefit of the company, even after a time when I don't work for them anymore.

In exchange, companies are required to keep my personal information safe.

In a day and age where identities are stolen and abused on a daily basis, the thought that a company would freely release my information over the phone, or even in writing, is frightening.

The first start to stealing really great information about a person, is by getting their name and their birthday.

While the social security number always makes life easy for a thief, three previous addresses along with the birthday and the name, gives any hacker an easy start to finding anything that they need to know about you.

Then find three previous jobs where you have worked.

So say that this person has your birthday and your name and a few previous addresses, and he or she casually calls up a former employer, either pretending to be you, or pretending to be a close friend or relative. And after several minutes of chatting, they have more and more information.

And this is the beginning of how you lose your identity to another.

Trust is overrated sometimes. We don't always make the right choices.

Not even in employers...

But sometimes, even the laws of the government can't protect us from the stupidity and wickedness of recent developments in corporations.

The first betrayal I felt against the company I worked for was a broadcast among the employees that we were celebrating my birthday.

To me, this was a breech from the deepest bowls of the company, and it was my information that I placed on my application for employment.

By releasing my information, they invalidated my trust.

The next breach of trust came about with something most employees call "The Walls of Shame." This is where the performance of the employees is put on ready display for all those that care to see it.

So say for instance that I have a friend that owns a business, and a coworker applies for a job with that person.

Said friend comes to me and asks me what I think of my coworker.

Of course I have my own opinions about whether I like that coworker or not, but I also might have something readily available, if I look up, and there is a "Wall of Shame", I can easily report these statistics back to my friend.

Information released.

Confidentiality is breached all because the information was on there for all to see, whether it was on a board or a mass email for all to see.

Companies do this to create a competitive environment, but instead breed a lack of trust from within that makes people want to leave their jobs.

Companies have always encouraged competitive environments: Who can make the most sales? Who can solve the most problems? Who can be the most productive? And so on...

And that's fine. People from the US are probably the most competitive in the world. We always want to be winners.

But times have changed from putting the employee of the month picture up on the wall to putting everyone's stats on the wall and pointing out our flaws.

There is no win to this situation.

This is about corporate greed and running the underdog down.

But in the process of doing this, the corporation is revealing personal information that can put a person at risk from ever leaving, and for personal identity theft.

When social security numbers/cards came out, the government said that these numbers were NOT to be used as a form of identity.

Now, the number is all we are.

When you start your job, you are given a badge with a number that references your social security number in a specific data base.

So let's pull out your employee badge: It either has a magnetic strip with a number encoded on it, or an actual number on the badge. When you scan that badge, it references to an employee data base that tags you as being in the building. This leads to a time clock data base that references your hours worked to your pay. And from there, a short jump, usually to ADP, or some other cloud-based payroll management system.

As the group Anonymous has shown us over and over again, there are plenty of backdoors that lead to all of our information out for display. All it takes is one person, with enough hacking experience, to knock on the right door and steal your identity.

There are also plenty of "credit-check" companies that can let the right person with the right information garner everything they need to change their name to your name, with your ID, and steal your credit.

This is about being a number.

Recently, a friend went online to apply for a job and called me up. They wanted her to input her social security number on the very first page of her application.

I told her not to apply for the job.

Until you get a job, you should NOT give out your social security number. The company has no right to ask for it until they agree that you will be getting regular paychecks from them and they need to have that reference number for tax purpose.

As a society, we need to start protesting our information being thrown out there on a whim by the corporate bureaucratic machine.

We need to become more private, and less trusting.

And in reality, I am not just talking about our numbers.

I don't let people take my picture without my permission.

I think these stupid kids out there, letting their boyfriends/girlfriends snap quick nudies for the fun of it is sheer idiocy.

Letting someone "tag" you on Facebook is the next step to someone cloning you on another profile.

Parents tossing their kids photos and stories online, is a temptation for any pedophile and freak show out there. Especially with the number of kidnappings and stalkings occurring today.

We need to become more private and circumspect, and we need to expect companies and friends to honor that privacy.