Blog #4: An Immodest Proposal

[Pharmacy, interior, truck day. Me, kneeling on floor putting cosmetics on hooks.  Two young women appear, walk past three uniformed employees, and get to me. One approaches.]

“Um, uh, do you, ah, work here?”

No, I just like wearing shirts that say “get your flu shot!” “Yes m’am, what can I do for you?”

“Um, where are the Dutches?”

In Denmark? “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what that is.  If you tell me what it’s for, I can tell you what isle it’s in.”

“Uh, it’s for like, female cleaning? It’s like a little bottle with a tube that you-“

“OH! Yes, yes, I know what you’re talking about, that’s isle 9.” Good gracious, not only does she not know how to say “douche,” but she was about to tell me how it’s used!

“Uhh, we already looked there, but we didn’t see it.”

[Her friend remains silent the whole time. I think she’s highly embarrassed.]

“Okay, no problem, let me show you.”

[I lead her to the isle labeled “feminine health” in very large lettering.]

“Yeah, um, we looked here-“

“Ah, here we go. [gesturing to the fully stocked shelf of douches] I know things are a little hard to find in here sometimes. Is there anything else you’re looking for?”

“Um, yeah, uh, where are the pregnancy tests?”

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I have discussed with my husband many times the idea that morons not be allowed to reproduce.  “There should be a test for potential parents!” people sometimes say jokingly.  It makes sense really.  It goes along with the survival of the fittest, if you’re too dumb to remove the wrapper from the dishwasher soap packet before putting it in the dishwasher, then perhaps you shouldn’t be trusted with the care and raising of a child.  Even violent  criminals are allowed to have children. That seems more like handing a baby a loaded gun to play with.  So, let’s see. Criminals, mentally inept… I personally think it would be wrong for me to have children myself because of all the hereditary problems I have, such as ADHD, high cholesterol, anxiety/depression, etc.  Perhaps other potential breeders should have the decency to think of the crud they are passing down to their kids before reproducing. Perhaps the government should encourage them with laws … Wait, let’s check the interwebs and see if anyone else has had these amazing ideas yet…

Well, there were the Nazis of course, but I’m not talking about eradicating whole races of people, just preventing imperfect people from littering the planet.

Here we go, a website called “Eugenics Archive.” Apparently Indiana passed the first law allowing mandatory sterilization on the basis of defective genes. The first Supreme Court case in regards to it was the case of Buck v. Bell in 1927. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. supported the cause of mandatory sterilization, and had this to say on the matter: “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

Smart guy! It’s a shame that the defendant, Carrie Bell, was set up to lose and wasn’t actually abnormal. It turns out that many of the 60,000 people who were involuntarily sterilized in the US between then and the mid-1970s were not genetically defective, but were Native Americans and other minorities, orphans, physically disabled, poor, etc. 

Okay, so perhaps my plan isn’t perfect, but it’s better than eating babies, right? …right?

(in case you did not get the reference to “A Modest Proposal” you should know that this is intended as a satire. Or a satire-like rant. And if you did not get that, then you should go think about how humorless you are!)

Works Cited
Lombardo, Paul. "Social Origins of Eugenics." Eugenicsarchive.org. Eugenics Archive. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. <http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay8text.html>.

Works Eluded To:
Swift, Jonathan. A Modest Proposal. New York: Grossman, 1969. Print.

Blog Assignment #3: The Bill of Oh-So-Rights

So, according to the AM GOV textbook I see before me, civil liberties consist of “The personal freedoms of individuals that are protected from government intrusion.” (Losco/Baker, 2011, p.67) Obviously they mean that the freedoms are protected, not the people per say… But wait! Isn’t that what this Bill of Rights thing is all about? The Bill of Rights, being a list of our civil liberties, has some great stuff in it. The right to unabridged freedom of speech, the right not to have soldiers stationed in one’s living room, the right to wear tank tops… what? Ohhhh, BEAR arms, not bare arms, sorry about that.  Anyway, after learning that we have the right to speak freely, we also learn that we are protected from being arrested and sentenced without a trial, from having to testify against ourselves, and we get to have a lawyer if we do go to trial! How very awesome.

We go now to my very favorite civil liberty, number ix. As in nine (9).

“AMENDMENT IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

(Since I didn’t have this memorized, I will cite where I copy/pasted from: www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/billofrights)

Hey, what a concept! The first congress was obligated to create a bill of rights in exchange for the ratification of the constitution by the states. I guess in those days politicians kept their promises, because they and the states approved and ratified ten of the seventeen rights that were written by James Madison.  I picture Madison’s thoughts: “Well, we don’t really need these since the states all have their own bill of rights anyway.  Hmmm, let’s write down all the stuff that the English Crown did to take away OUR rights, and that way at least we can make sure that the American government can never do that… okay, now what… well, since we didn’t really realize that they were rights until they were taken away from us, why don’t we have one that says don’t worry about the future because we’ve got your back and we will never let a government make you feel inhuman again!”

Unfortunately, he was writing to white landowners, but the concept is a good one. We know our rights! They are written into our DNA as Americans! Or something like that. Let’s look at this AM GOV text again… Ah, here’s a poll asking people what their constitutional rights are. The inclusion of a small percentage of people answering that they are assured by the constitution the right to “own pets” and “drive car[s]” proves to me that number nine is the most forward-thinking of the ten amendments in the bill of rights (Losco/Baker, 2011, p.69). Americans aren’t bound by the bill of rights, they are freed by it! After all, like everyone says “It’s a free country!”

Works Cited

Losco, Joseph, and Ralph Baker. "The Constitution and Rights." Am Gov 2011. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2011. 67-69. Print.

Madison, James. "Bill of Rights." Cornell.edu. Cornell University Law School. Web. 08 Mar. 2012. <http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/billofrights>.

Blog #1, Perry: The little Governor who cried coyote

When I moved to the Lone Star State in 2008 I got busy looking for a job. When I got a job I was still busy.  I never really get a chance to watch the local news, and apparently when you register to vote in Texas they don't send you sample ballots and political propaganda like they do in California.  Therefore, when someone said to me one day a couple of years ago, "Hey, you hear Perry shot a coyote while jogging with his dog?"
I said, "Who's Perry?"
Not being up on events in my new state of Texas,  I had no idea that Rick Perry was Governor. I didn't know how long he had been Governor, but I did guess that he'd be Governor for a good long while with a story like that on his side.  Especially when I learned that the gun was a laser-sighted pistol loaded with hollow-point bullets.  My husband ventures that he was probably wearing cowboy boots at the time.  Gotta love Texas!  Rather than be impressed with his firepower, I thought it was ridiculous.  I know coyotes, and though a pack of them might attempt to take down something as big as a calf, a lone coyote wouldn't dare go near a Labrador, much less an adult male human.  It sounded to me that a big boy was out playing with his toy, with a coyote being the unlucky target. What a brave little Governor.
When I heard that Gov. Perry was running for President I was a little embarrassed to think that the rest of the nation was going to think Texas was full of rednecks swaggering around with guns. Until I realized that a lot of the nation already thinks that about Texas. After all, the last Governor of Texas was George W. Bush, the President who had more missteps in his speeches than Gerald Ford had walking down stairs. I like Texas, I like living here, and I think it has just as many but not more idiot rednecks than does California, where I had spent the rest of my life prior to becoming a naturalized Texan.  Based solely on Gov. Perry shooting a coyote in questionable circumstances, I had decided that he was an embarrassment to my adopted state and that he would be a bad president.
Then came the scandal about Gov. Perry's relative owning a ranch that used to have a racial slur written on a rock ... what the heck?  Are you kidding?  How could this in any way effect Gov. Perry's ratings?  Ah, but it did, and soon Gov. Perry dropped out of the race to resume his governmental life. It did make me wonder if I had judged him too soon.  After all, I was reacting to a news story, possibly out of context, just like the silly people who think that if this southern guy has six degrees of separation from a painted-over racial slur on a rock, he must be a racist.
In future, I'm going to try not to be so quick to judge.  I will try to get all the facts and keep an open mind, especially when researching candidates to vote for. After all, we're appointing someone to do a job, not to be our best friend.
I would like to add that George W. Bush was born in Connecticut, while Rick Perry was born in Paint Creek, Texas.