Dystopian Fact

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So I try not to get political. I have a relatively complicated relationship with politics. I grew up hella republican in a small Georgia town. My dad is a hunter, America is great, god and country...you get the idea. As I got a little older some of that stuck. Not really the god thing so much. A love of my country for sure, a distrust of big government definitely. While I roll fairly conservative from a spending standpoint, I'm VERY liberal when it comes to social issues. Love who you love, be well, and be educated. If I had to have a philosophy that would be it, well maybe that and be nice.

Though the early to mid 2000's I usually voted Republican. They had hard stances on things I cared about. Neither party was willing to offer gay marriage or I might have trotted over to voting Dem a little earlier. When Obama became president I was terrified of what a trillion dollar national deficit would look like and I worried that start the decline of my country was coming fast. Obama was a better president than I expected, but I still had strong residual personal feelings over the market collapse and how that impacted my life and felt Romney was a better candidate while personally disagreeing with his social stances. Neither was a perfect alignment with my ideals and in some cases on opposite sides of my belief system.

When the ticket became Trump Clinton...something inside me broke. Hard. I've always wanted to vote for a woman president. Laugh me to the ends of the earth but we run so much behind the scenes that I really looked forward to seeing what we would do with the world watching. But I really really really do not like that woman. I could not vote for her. I was a young impressionable woman during the Clinton presidency and what I learned from that fiasco is that you really aren't safe as a woman. Hilary Clinton helped vilify in the public, what we would now call a sexual assault survivor. The power deferential between the man holding the highest office in the world and a young co-ed is insurmountable. Even as a consenting adult, how she was used in the media is criminal in my opinion. I also believed Trump was legitimately bat-shit crazy, reprehensible, and a threat to our nation. For me, it starkly noted why a two party system is detrimental to our nation. When your choice is Bolsheviks or Nazis and you are neither what do you do? After months of research, multiple visits to Isidewith and consistent results, I voted Libertarian, Johnson Weld ticket. I went to bed bitter that the first woman president was going to be someone I despised but at least had the political chops to run this country well even if it was against my moral code. If you made it this far, you know I woke up to a very different world than I expected. Trump was our president and my country wasn't the place I thought it was. My consolation in this fact is that my county and state both went to the Democratic party so at least my one vote didn't screw us all over. I've not made the mistake since. Trump denies all that I hold dear. Research, facts, respect, bodily autonomy, he's mocked the military, he's mocked women, and yet people I love treat him like a messiah. The mental gymnastics I hear people go through to justify his behavior is mind numbing and exhausting. He is selling our country to the highest bidders, or in some cases lowest bidder. He is taking AWAY jobs from hard working Americans. He is stripping our resources and mocking our rights. I had to make calls today to protect 504 rights for Native II and the Department of Education because almost everyone I'm related to cares more about which body parts people want than about the very complicated children that I love more than life itself.

I'm going to say it really really loud so their is no mystery unfriend me if you want, disown me here are things I believe and will not compromise.

1. I support the LGBTQIA+ community. They are humans. Period.

2. I am agnostic. I do not want church in my government or my schools. If I wanted it I'd send my kid to a religious school. I tolerate the religion I and my children are exposed to through our love and respect of family but that's where it ends. Tolerance no more no less.

3. I am pro-choice. Do I want a woman to have an abortion, hell no. Do I respect the fact that for reasons none of my damn business that sometimes a woman needs or wants to make that decision, yep and she'll not face an bit of judgement from me for it. If you are not pro-choice you are anti-choice, not pro life. I'm pro life, I want all the babies and all the joy but that isn't what having a child is for everyone.

4. Government employees, even ones who think and feel different from me are hard working people who do their jobs to pay bills but also because they usually believe in what they are doing. I don't love my government telling me what to do or what not to do, I expect them to protect my right to live my life, but f you for calling them lazy. Trust me, they don't get paid enough for this shit.

5. I support my military, they protect your rights even when you hate them. They're doing the job their commander in chief gave them. I don't always agree with that job but I respect the men and women who believe in their country and cause.

6. People are not illegal. Actions are. I care more that a convicted felon is running my country than I do a guy who crossed the boarder and is busting his ass in a kitchen to make a better life. I would prefer that individual go about immigration the legal way but that would require politicians to... I don't know, maybe reform immigration.

7. Don't threaten to take away offices that protect my children's right to public education and helps fund services with disabilities. Period.

Vet your news, research everything, question all. I care about health and education, we haven't done right by either of those things in our country. I am a patriot, not a nationalist. I believe in making it better for future generations, everyone, every system should strive for improvement, for better, for greater. At Trump's inauguration 6 trillion dollars was represented on the dais. I don't begrudge them that, I do begrudge what they are trying to take aways from people with so much less than them. I'm so so tired and I'm tired of sitting down and shutting up when so many are are risk of being held down and suffocated when it isn't necessary.