Friday, December 19, 2008

Give Civil Unions ALL THE SAME RIGHTS as Marriage

It's almost 2009--and it's just plain wrong that all men (and women) still aren't created equal.

I support gay marriage and gay rights and I don't understand how so many people can vote to take rights away from other people. Or how a simple majority can remove those rights. What's next--blonds can't marry brunettes?

If your religious beliefs tell you that gays shouldn't get married--then don't get married if you are gay. But don't oppress other people. That's NOT what Jesus would do.

But let's stop fighting over semantics and get to the heart of the matter--restoring basic civil rights to at least 10% of Americans!

I HAVE A SIMPLE SOLUTION: GIVE CIVIL UNIONS ALL THE SAME RIGHTS AS MARRIAGE.

Let's stop fighting over the word "marriage." Not separate, just EQUAL.

In fact, the government shouldn't be in the marriage business at all. Anybody joined in union in a courthouse, straight or gay, gets a civil union. Anyone joined in union in a church is "married." Same thing, different names.

That's just the first step. But it can be done quickly and with less backlash from the unenlightened.

The next step is to make sure everybody can also get married--but in the mean time, the point is to ensure that everybody has the same RIGHTS, if not the same words.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Country First... California's Secession

I know Palin is long, at least for a while, but I'm still fuming over the fact that she and her "Country First!" campaign were such utter hypocrisy. Until Palin was tapped, she was a secessionist who wanted Alaska to break off from the Country she was now supposedly putting first.

Why was this not an issue? Can you really be expected to put Country First, when just weeks previous you'd put country last, and were part of a group of outright haters of America?

I don't hate America--I love it. I was taught to love it, and there's much to love.

But I can love America and still hate the way it's been run for eight years, and still, at times, think the best plan for California would be to secede. I mean, it was good enough for the Republican running-mate, why can't it be good enough for our Republican Governator?

I think about this scenario when I'm angry about the way the country is being run--into the ground.

And the latest bonehead move is by Southern Senators who have blocked any loans to struggling US automakers--at least the automakers who aren't in their states!

How dare these soon-to-be-out-on-their-asses asshole Senators use their last few minutes in power to try to break the unions? Who are they to tell union workers that they need to make less money--at a time when it's not the unions who are at fault, it's management--and it's senators themselves for not following Europe's lead in terms of energy efficiency for cars.

So, while they still clung to power, these senators, mostly from the south, have screwed Detroit--and the rest of the country--including themselves.

The senators who kept the auto loans from happening just happen to be the senators of states where there are auto factories from foreign companies with non-union jobs: VW, Mercedes, Hyundai and Toyota.

These senators through it was within their power to insist that United Auto workers would agree to work for non-union wages, as if this had all been their fault. Let's not talk about the $700 billion given to money men who perpetrated fraudulent if not criminal financial schemes--they're OK, throw money at them.

Meanwhile, these senators are too stupid to realize that their auto workers would suffer, too. Because if GM or Chrysler goes bankrupt, all the major auto suppliers will be hit hard, if not into bankruptcy themselves, and since all major automakers use basically the same suppliers for dashboards, seats, airbags, brakes, even transmissions, all those German and Japanese automakers wouldn't be able to get parts to build cars!

What's more, the North's answer to the Southern union breaking should have been, "Sure, we'll work for non-union wages like your foreign automakers, just as soon as you give us nationalized health care, like the foreign auto companies give employees in their native countries so we don't have to spend a huge chunk of the cost of our cars and health care for current and retired workers."

Assholes. I'm sick of the politics of backwater states taking priority over truly national matters, and their spiteful little political moves that will even hurt themselves but they're too dumb to realize it.

So I'm once again back to wanting California to secede from the Union. We pay more federal taxes and get less back from the feds, while we're subsidizing the south. And to what end?

California doesn't need the rest of the USA. We're the 7th largest economy on the planet. We build computers and cars and planes and all things internet. We even produce more food than any other US state. So we'd have lots of exports to the US of A, even more than Canada!

Of course, Oregon and Washington should also secede and join California, because it would make sense to have the whole coast.

Of course, now that we will soon have a REAL president again, rather than a brain-dead puppet of fascist corporations, the US is going to need California to help rebuild and get through this depression. So we'd better stick around for a while, at least until the next fascist Republican president.

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