ClydeStyle

Tag: freedom

  • Our mass shootings are home grown

    Every time there is a mass shooting eventual the conversation turns to something being done about mental health. But nobody is really talking about making meaningful mental health legislation no more than a person who hits themselves in the head and says, “I could have had a V8?” — they didn’t mean that either!

    You see, America has always needed to take mental health serious. The founding father weren’t smart enough to consider the effects life would have on people through just living it. Our country was birthed after the Revolutionary War. Before the flag could get used to flying in the sky, it was layer more across caskets. We tried to morn but the puritanical concepts we labored under would encourage you to be strong as defined by keeping a “stiff upper lip!” No time for weeping, crying was a sign of weakness and to carry on with grief beyond the funeral did not fit the societal norm.

    As a result we kept things to ourselves and turned our anger inward. This caused a great silent depression in the US. Our solution: Medication! We tried to take pills for everything. Fast forward to today and we now have an extremely angry, entitled, spoiled, immature nation who uses privileges so prideful that will can kill without remorse. And the killers aren’t old people, retired vets, abused middle aged folks — it’s kids! They haven’t even been here long enough to be so angry — yet they are.

    Our society creates these characters. I know I always thought that America was invincible because we spend much money on defense to protect the outside of us. We never invest on the inside so that’s where our cancer grows.

    Our country will never starve itself to death. Nor be wiped out by a disease. We won’t lack water or any other resource — we will just neglect ourselves to death. America is the largest ocean, but it’s citizenship lives in aquariums.

  • Let’s make freedom for all … for once

    This Independence Day I thought we could quickly discuss one of the longest living forms of abuse — corporal punishment! Whenever this subject comes up some one quickly says, “Well, I was spanked when I was growing up and I turned out fine.” So the premise is that spankings did no damage to the receiver back in the day so it’s fine for today. Or it means that because of spankings we now have many fine citizens who had loving parents that carried out their Christian duty of “not sparing the rod as to not spoil the child.”

    Many believe that the bible teaches the benefits of spanking kids. Does it? More on that in a moment. The earliest I could research the use of corporal punishment came around 1800 B.C. during Babylonian captivity. The Babylons utilized the death penalty for violation of 25 particular laws.

    Of course we know that this was a learned behavior from England that followed immigrants here during revolutionary times. Slaves were beaten for violating the slave code. This became the dominant understanding and use of corporal punishment. It was used in schools and homes throughout America.

    According to a study conducted by the Harvard School of Education, spanking is not an effective way to discipline a child whether be it at home or at school. The worse part of spankings physically and mentally was when it was done to embarrass, out of anger, out of frustration or to intimate a child. Were you spanked for any of these reasons?

    Further, the bible does not teach us to abuse our children by spanking them. Proverbs 13:24 has been taken completely out of context and interpreted by western standards. The rod in the text is equal to the rod of a shepherd who would use it to teach and guide the sheep with it, not ever to be used as a weapon. This is why Psalms 23 says, “thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

    In addition, for me knowing that spankings were associated with slavery was enough for me not to introduce it to my children. Moreover, I was definitely more important for my kids to love me than fear me. I could come up with far more practical means of consistently convening my point to me children without subjecting them to a violent attack from the one who is responsible for protecting the home.

    So, it’s Independence Day and we are celebrating freedom. Let’s give our kids the freedom to be loved, guided and encouraged instead of adding violence to our dysfunction and giving them a license to carry this barbaric behavior to our future generations.

  • Voting is a right, right?

    It’s November again and that means that in most parts of the country we will be setting our clocks back participating in Benjamin Franklin’s daylight savings regimen. It also means for this year that we will be exercising our American to vote for whatever candidate we choose.

    There’s much interest in getting people out to vote and there’s a lot on social networking sites like Facebook encouraging people to vote. I was asked recently why I am voting. The intent of the question was for me to say something like my ancestors fought for the right for me to vote and many of African heritage died so that myself and other minorities may have the right to vote. So basically I should, and every minority should take pride because “they” are letting us vote.

    I keep going back to the original question. What happen in the distant past does not motivate me to vote. What has happened in just the last decade keeps coming to mind for me along with the age old question of will my vote matter. For me, every time I go to the polls I think of why Al Gore didn’t continue to fight for his presidency. I keep thinking that with a race that close, he owed it to those who voted for him – the majority of the country – to challenge those results. He started, and then he just stopped. It’s as if he saw a butterfly flying outside his window and got interested in the environment and global warming.

    Then I think of the Bush vs. Kerry election and how there were people in poorer districts that were robbed of an opportunity to vote. I also think of the punch card controversy (carried over from the previous election) and who could forget the recounts in Ohio.

    If this were not enough, I think of how we taught Iraq how to vote – complete with teaching them about political parties and our brand of politics.

    I even question why we still have an electoral college. I often wonder if our elections are fixed or if it was just created to look like a complicated “rubrics cube” and President Barack Obama found the right algorithm to solve it.

    Maybe I’m thinking too much, but the last decade you’ll notice – if you have been paying attention – that our country is headed down a slippery slope. We have massive debt, a divided government, we have totally disrespected the power and position of the President and we’ve given every interest group the right to openly challenge authority, fight the powers that be and openly practice deception all in the name of democracy.

    I fear that America is too dumb to handle its problems. Too many people don’t have a clue to what’s really happening and the media has not done anything to help. People are voting for a candidate based on everything but the candidates true ability to serve in the office they are running for. Am I the only one frightened by this?

    I feel like our country is being hi-jacked by a bunch of irresponsible kids who claim to like tea. You know the ones who have made bad decisions and as a result were home living in mom and dad’s basement. Well now those same kids want to select positions in Congress.

    Although there are many reasons to vote, the glaring reason for me these days is habit.