The Truth About Prairie Justice

When we watch television shows like ‘Andy Griffith’ and ‘Little House on the Prairie’ as being representive of Aunt Bee and apple pie it is easy to romanticize the simple life of rural America. After watching injustices like the O.J. Simpson trial then we start hearing people yell bring back “prairie justice”.

It is difficult for people east of the Mississippi to understand that much of the land west of the Missouri was still government owned 100 years ago, give or take 10 years. Putting that time into the perspective of one man’s lifetime of 90 years, we can better understand what prairie justice really was and why much of the rural areas of America are still very protectionary against “outsiders”.

Cities and States were running ill-contents,ner’ do wells,gamblers and theives out of their boundaries into the rural areas of America. Land was being offered free to any man, woman, and child for the taking as long as they would take the 320 acre piece of land and build a house and make improvements on the land. Immigrants from England,Germany, Ireland,Scotland,Chezslavakia and the Dutch were still making up the backbone of the heartland and west of our Nation. The only law was prairie justice or better known as the vigilante.

In order to improve the land it often required neighbor helping neighbor pulling up acreas of rock, trees, and planting deserts to seed and building either houses of sod or logs, depending on the availabilty of trees. They had to join together to fight off starvation,hardships of disease and weather. It was not unusual to have winter storms so bad that they had to make tunnels to get to the barns to feed the stock.

As the pioneers advanced west and moved the American Indian off their lands the government was moving them to reservations. It was often done under-handedly and always at the lost of freedom to the American Indian. As a result pioneers drew together to combat Indian raids as some tribes held off for the last vintage of hope.

So then what was ‘prairie justice or the vigilante? They were anyone that could hold a gun and knew how to shoot. They could be highway robber, horse thief, and neighbor all rolled up in the same package. They were ex-soldiers,thieves and pioneers. They were the law of the land and sometimes it was just better that a man keep his mouth shut and his secrets to himself than it was to make waves.

It was not unusual many times that they would shoot first and ask questions next. One could see a man’s house burnt out and have it blamed on an Indian raid when in truth it very well may be the man increasing his holdings of land at the expense of running another man off his homestead in order to take over his holding. I have heard it said,”no large landholding west of the Mississippi was ever gained honestly.” Although the majority of all the pioneers were hard working immigrants just trying to make a future for themselves and their families through back breaking work, there were the criminals from the cities and more developed states, amongst them.

The vigilante was all they had to hold off land jumpers, horse thieves and hiway men that would rob a lone traveler or a stage coach of people. Since there was no other law to protect or govern them they had to take the bad with the good and shut up about the bad or find themselves hanging from a tree or floating down a river.

The early pioneers or in most cases, todays locals’ “grand daddies” had to learn to size up the value of a man in a hurry. A man’s word had to mean his life was collateral for the value. Neighbor did not squeal on neighbor and they formed a bond of secrecy to protect as the rural areas became more established and sheriff’s and possee and law started moving in to establish the law of the land and to establish the beginning of the increase of the government protection against the lawless.

When one takes the history into perspective then it becomes more readilly understandable why so many of our small rural towns are still holding duty bound to the ideas of grand daddy and why if it was o.k. for grand daddy and o.k. for daddy then it is o.k. for me and if you don’t like it then pack your bags and get out is still holding as general thought in much of rural America.

The cowboys and Indian wars are long gone and past, the theives for the most part have been ran off but the bond that joined the honest in secrecy against the dishonest and ‘outsider’, three short generations ago is still well and healthy. Call it protectionism or call it paranoia it will sustain, them against us.

To many of the people that have lived there, change is stupid, insane, and ridiculous. An outsider is often branded by the same negatives, especially if their presence in their towns is to make the necessary changes so that they can remain viable as a community, villiage, or town. It only complicates their lives,in the thinking of many, and they hold a strong resentment towards the person or family that they cannot control. In some cases there is a genuine fear of their own power being weakened once they chase the “outsider” back from where they came.

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Moving To A Rural AREA?–Beware Of The Pitfalls

Tired of the rush rush rush and the traffic and want to get out of the rat race? So you decided to move to the country looking for a slower lifestyle? Think the schools would be better because of the smaller classroom size? Be aware of the fact that women very seldom will stay before you get too financially invested. It might be better to rent first.

There is an inner sanctum in rural America that an outsider will never be allowed to enter. Even when you have been there for 25 years and saved their butts you will still be rejected by the “powers that be” on some level. If they need to make a change and realize that if they do not they will no longer be a community it is almost always an outsider that will be needed to help with the change. Obviously, the same people that created the mistakes can not now be called on to fix them since they never would have happened if they knew what they were doing wrong in the first place.

So momentarilly, they will relinguish some control in the effort to save their towns or villiages. Their lifestyle has been ordained by the generations before them so it is the duty (note I said duty) to live according to the dictates that have become acceptable dress, thinking, and behavior according to those that have been born there or married someone that was born there generations ago and then fell in line with their thinking.

Anyone that has a different style of dress amongst the women, especially, that has a different style of politics and usually that is anyone that is democrat or liberal and not Republican, and anyone that thinks the Churches should be playing a different role than they are playing will almost always be cast out or branded as they brand their cattle. Do yourself a favor, and leave the Churches alone, as their Grand Daddies or they have paid to see them built and have been contributing for generations and therefore in thier minds, they own the churches. I repeat say nothing, do nothing, but leave their Churches in their guidance and direction.

Once they find out that you are not easilly controlled by their suggestions then you become stupid, an alcoholic or odd in their efforts to control. The word spreads quickly as to who thinks “such and such” and the next thing you know you are held in the same lack of esteem or like I prefer to say “branded” for the duration of your stay.

Their way of thinking is a simple way of thinking so the great majority of us, “outsiders” tend to just smile and move on knowing their system is so uncomplicated that we got it the first time someone decided to sit down and have a conversation with us. It is not too unlike a lifestyle that most of us lived in highschool with the different cliques or not too unlike “the Stepford Wives.” Their favorite though is to brand a person as being eccentric, crazy, or suffering from depression and certainly,”Not like us” once they find that this is someone that they will not be able to control into their style of dressing, politics and pattern of thinking. For them to have to accept another way of thinking would only make them have to question their own sanity as well as basis for their thought.

The later one is definitely a compliment because it usually means that you have moved into the area with a few ideas that might actually make the community more progressive or generous in their thinking. I guarantee you though, it will not feel like a compliment when they say. “You do not think like us”. It is as though you have just dropped down from Mars, in the tone that they use. Whatever, you do, if you plan on staying awhile, do not lose sight of that which makes you different and build on it. I have found that a life outside of the community of both travel and antiquing has gone a long way towards making me stay in the area where my husband enjoys. He also has been fortunate, as I have been, to have both a boss and friends that we both admire and respect in the area.

The people that would question, “outsiders” never actually come right out and say anything that is spoken directly to your face. If you or your husband are in the professional level, who by necessity of the job, will be directly affecting the populace, you will especially be put under the microscope. For instance, if you or your husband or both are Doctors and the community is unhappy with the current Doctor or do not have one.

If the local man that grew up there, got the bank in trouble and you are moving in to fix the problem and run the largest bank in town, If you will be running the local utilities in town or taking over the local hospital, the new Super-in-tendant of their schools, or the Chief of Police. Any job that requires changes from what they have become comfortable with even though that comfortable level is part of the reason the past Dr., lawyer, super-in-tendant, hospital director, banker, District manager has failed.

More time than not men do make the adjustment to rural areas because men are able to combine their interests of fishing, hunting, sports in general, hang out in the local bars, run for offices that none of them want. Women are not so well received. More time than not, they are seen as a threat, a competition if you will.

Usually when “outsiders” first move to town there will be a welcoming committee that will show up and welcome them and then there will be a course on who they like and do not like and the history, what I refer to as the branding, that took place 20 years ago and then they get onto hair dos and finger nails. Almost always short, permanent, and dyed with polished and practical nails. God Bless you if it is your husband that cooks and not you or you and your husband have ,any reversal of the genders from the traditional. I sincerely mean that, “God Bless You!”

Just a sample of what I mean: a neighbor was very interested in animal rescue so she called me in hopes I too would develope an interest in the same. I went along with rescuing cats that actually already had a home until I decided to get out of climbing over dead wood. The problem is these animals were not actually homeless. Had they have been it would have been an admirable past time but the thing of it was it was her interests while I had interests that layed in dealing with the problems that needed attention within the school system. Had she been able to divert me from politics to saving cats and dogs then she would simply fade back and she would have altered the direction that I had taken.

They know if they tell us to stay out of their politics they run the risk of offending us and lose the purpose of having accepted us in the position of cleaning up the mess, so the ever so subtle approaches are sometimes used.This is just an example as to how people in small towns think that they can snooker outsiders that move in to save their communities from dieing off.

I’ll just stay with this person as it gets humorous before she finally figures out that I am not prone to playing games or bending to her will. One day she comes over with a stack of magazine catalogs and announces that such and such down the street wants her to help her find a dress for a wedding or something. She casually leaves behind a catalog that has the styles that she thinks I should wear; another time when I gained weight due to a change in medical treatment she who has never worn a larger size than a three shows up and tells me that she needs to lose weight and would I want to join weight watchers with her? Then once she got me there she would quit of course. Another time she suggested that she and I start a 4 play bridge group each week.

I knew she would play once and then I would be on my own to put 3 people together at my house each week but it was a good way for me to get acquainted so I did not care if she thought she had won on the manipulation. It would be these ladies that would defend me later when I decided to paint my home a different color from what the previous home owners had painted it, read a good book, and turn down all offers that I had no interests in.

In some areas people are worse than others. Depending usually on how exposed they are to other ways of thinking, how diverse they are in population, and how isolated they are from large cities or how industrial as versus agricultural they are. There are by necessities differences that do exist in rural areas. The same people that strike us as being so friendly when we first show up, can become very spiteful, once their curiosity for why we came is sated. Other times one in the group can remain our long time confidant but one thing for sure, whatever small town you move to, it will be a group that meets you.

Why you ask? They need to compare notes as to what you might have meant or said when you said such and such. Realy, really, really scope it out before you do make the final decision, as I have seen so many women move in hopeful and leave disheartened because they were left challenged on what a difference they could have made. If you can’t stand small,nasty, petty, judgements being made against you or someone else for that matter, or are easilly intimidated, simply because you tried to help, then please do not make the move.

Imagine office politics, hospital rumor vine and family pettiness all thrown together 24/7 and you have a good ideal what you may be looking at in some of the small towns of America. If you are making the move and expect to work in a job of the professional level.in the rural community, that you were not born in nor were your Momma or your Daddy born there, be warned.

Good luck on whatever decision you make as sometimes the experience alone is worth the risk. I do not ever believe that I will ever again be intimidated by even the best of them:)I have also discovered that I can live anywhere and find both joy and peace as it is not where we live that matters so much, in a Democracy, as it is who we live with. Starting first and foremost, with ourselves.

Who knows, I may even be able to find joy in the hell that some would suggest, I am headed for, if I do not quit standing up for those that would be denied a voice, as the “Good Old Boys” maneuver to quiet or deny constitutional rights to those that are entitled to receive them. Make it count folks!

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All Men, Women And Children

At the start of the 1960’s and preceding years children born with Downs Syndrome or mental retardation were often times placed into State ran infirmaries, orphanages or mental hospitals. Also children with any physical limitations or vision and hearing loss, were encouraged by Doctors to be given up to the State. Doctors would simply meet with the parents, sometimes with the parents never having seen their babies and tell them that keeping the child would prove to be too burdensome on them and the parents would sign the papers and the children would become wards of the State.

It was also common practice, that if children were both physically or mentally challenged, for the State to neuter them so that they were unable to bear children. I personally knew a woman, in the 1970’s, who was raised by her parents but married and was able to hold down manual labor jobs as well as to help her husband out on the ranch, who had been given a hysterectomy, as a child, because she was considered slow, but was never told that she had been made infertile.

She would announce every couple of years that she was pregnant and one year she even showed up with a bottle of the prescription vitamins that are given pregnant women. The community knew that she had had surgery as her sister told someone, that told someone, that told someone, and so on and so forth, but no one had ever told this woman that the surgery had been done.

For years parents met with Doctors behind the closed doors to discuss abortion with parents long before it became law in 1969 with Roe vs. Wade. If you read my previous blog then you know and understand the conditions that may require an abortion in both children and young adults that if any of us, with even an ounce of love would be torn, to have to decide. For centuries there have been compassionate Doctors that have made the necessary procedures, sometimes without even the parents knowledge, but most of the times as a general consent between parents and Doctors and in other times when it concerned young adults then patient and Doctor.

To outlaw legallity of abortion at this point in time in history would definitely directly effect the people that are already dealing with pre-existing diseases much harder than it would those that use abortion as birth control. One thing about civilization advancing is that it can never go back. What appears to be common sense practice in one generation reaches the point of being appalling behavior in another. There is no way that the majority of parents today would consider giving up their handi-capped children sight unseen much less having them automatically neutered.

Now that children actually have laws that protect them against parents behaving in such matter those same laws can actually be used against them to deny them the care they sometimes should get. We have come a ways in Society towards making laws that protect both our children and women but we still have so far to go.

For instance I have seen 3 year olds waiting with their mediators for a parent to pick them up and the way that the adult is checking her watch, it becomes obvious, that the parent is once more going to be a no-show. Just this last Friday when my husband and I stopped at a filling station to get gas, as we were on our way to see our grandchildren, I was touched by another little child reaching out to me, a stranger, to find love. Like so many children that get used as pawns between warring parents, it was obvious that she even knew the parent was not coming.

Instead of putting up signs such as:”It’s not a choice…It’s a baby so that we can work towards inspiring guilt on anyone that may have had to make that difficult decision due to say cancer,(see previous blog)or to inflame the anger in the religious nuts, then maybe we should be seeing signs that say, “Make child abuse and child neglect more that a misdemeanor. We have so far to go yet towards protecting these throw-a-way children in Society that no one seems to notice or care that the parents are behaving worse than two- year olds in their battle with each other.

It’s a disgrace that, we as a great Nation, have spent years over debating when life begins and have totally ignored what is going on in our own backyards and neighborhoods. Men get three years for killing a child and are out on probation after 6 weeks and no one notices that. As soon as a woman or child have laws passed to protect them then someone is always trying to remove the law that does protect, making it difficult to strengthen or introduce more important laws that would make it impossible for selfish sparring persons to make their children feel no better than yesterday’s doll that they use to love.

We have so far to go towards protecting the living amongst us and no one seems to want to deal with that as they would rather be involved in the games of politics and turning a buck with the lies that offer opportunity towards gaining power. Unfortunately women’s and children’s needs do not make money, it usually costs, and where is the power in that, when it comes to the arrogant that could help make a difference? Alive, breathing, talking, speaking children especially need our help, folks. Children have been screaming for generations and no one has heard as they are too concern about when the male sperm reaches the egg or God breathes life into a soul.

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I’m Dead Set Against Abortion–But I Am Pro-Choice

I believe I speak for millions of pro-choice people when I say the above. If you are confused as to how I can be both then consider this scenario:

Parents, not I, have a 16 year old daughter who becomes pregnant and has one of these disorders: pneumonia, severe asthma, cancer, Chrone’s disease, Rhuemetoid arthritis, Osteo-arthritis of the spine,diabetis,Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Scelrosis, mentally challenged, severe phycosis.etc., just to name a few of the possibilities. Teenagers or young adults can be prone to almost all of the same illnesses that effect all ages of people.

None of this is about rape by a Serial Killer and somehow survive or are they pregnant by incest, they got pregnant because they thought they were in love. However, because of their pre-existing disease, if they refuse any treatment for the illness it will mean certain death or permanent crippling, to them. If they are treated, they will live to a ripe old age in many cases, but it will require the risk of abortion. If no treatment is given, because they are pregnant, then both they and the fetus more than likely will die or become paralyzed during child birth. Are any of us, so cruel that we are going to deny this 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 year old girl and these parents the right to insist on abortion so that their daughter can be treated?

Now lets talk about rape and incest, do any of us have a right to insist that this victim or their parents are not going to be raped again if they are put through the pain and agony of child birth? Haven’t they already been through enough? What may be wrong for me may not be wrong for someone else. None of us, not me, nor you, nor your priest, nor your ministers have a right regardless of the circumstances, to make this very difficult decision for any other human being, ever. Our role and their role is to forgive, not to judge, period!

I do not doubt that they’re women and girls that use abortion for birth control or do not want to look bad in a bikini. Just because they abuse the intent and purpose of abortion does that mean then no one woman or girl should ever be entitled to discuss abortion in the privacy of her Doctor’s office and reach the conclusion that it may be the only decision they can make?

My faith and belief for the problems that other people face tells me that as Roe vs. Wade stands it is the only conscionable choice that any of us should keep into law unless there is another more workable solution with both sides bending. Right now I don’t see that happening. The other problem being that regardless of the law there are always people that figure out how to break it. Put it together with children that are used as pawns in divorce cases, are abused and killed, born to drug addicted parents and then ask ourselves, “Are we so arrogant or so self-righteous, in our view, that we or anyone else that have never experienced these heart breaks that do exist, or walked in these shoes have a right to tell them they are wrong?”

Isn’t it no different than saying because Doctors are found guilty of milking medicare of fraudalent charges then we better stop Medi-care? How about out-lawing Social Security entirely because someone is using fraudalent names for 80 people and these people do not even exist but they are cashing all 80 checks? Cars kill when smashed in accidents or out of control gas pedals–lets outlaw them? Planes kill when they fall from the sky so get them out of the sky? People kill each other with guns so lets do away with all guns? People that drink and drive kill so lets outlaw alchohol? Some husbands batter and kill so should we put away all husbands for life? What about boyfriends or men that kill children through abuse? What about doing away with government sanctioned killings on death row?

For those who advocate pro-life and only stop at abortion then I can only say; You are hypocrits. Just as pro-choice has little to nothing to do with abortion neither does pro-life have much to do with cherishing all life. If it did people who advocate pro-life would not treat others in the manner that they do. Threre would be no bigots. Pro-life is simply interference with a woman’s right to make decisions that have been granted her by God when He gave us all free will and with the Constitution that grants us all equal rights and was granted to all women,minorities and genders through The Equal Rights Amendment.

Pro choice is about giving women control over their own health issues,decisions,family planning, if they decide to get an education,decide to become mothers or remain single, become homemakers or have a career. In short the respect that they are owed. If women pay for the insurance premiums or it is provided for by their employers they are entitled to the same healthcare as all men, who also pay into the insurance program through either earned benefits or through payments made.

Why is it more important to act on stopping women from making their own God given right to decide what they must decide for the sake of their own emotional and physical well being, as well as their non-viable fetus, than it is to stop mankind from killing healthy human beings with the capacity towards living many more years? What responsibility do men have for depositing the sperm? What should we force them into? Would castration be appropiate? Is this, in truth, more about the “Good Old Boys” losing control over their women again? We fought this war already in the 1950’s and 60’s. It’s time to move ahead with Equality for All, just as our Founding Fathers intended. If we refuse to then we are guilty of destroying Democracy for all.

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The Joy of Today!

No I am not just talking about it being Friday. I’m talking about the opportunity that we all have of taking control of our lives. People that are locked into a life where everyone has a little piece of them, by their choice, to the point there is nothing left over for themselves, should understand what I am talking about.

Almost all of us do admire you your kindness for wanting to help and being involved. None of us have a right to ask you to do what we should do. The unfortunate truth is that for the time it lasts and then 15 minutes later is approximately all the memory that many of us will ever have as to what you have done for all of us. I can appreciate that for some of us it is more difficult to say “No” than it is to just go ahead and do it. I also understand the thinking,”If I do not do it, then no one else will do it.” Are you aware of the fact that many people,as a rule, need to justify why you are doing it instead of them?

Have you heard all the excuses from the insecure or mean-spirited about “How I would have done it as well but…..?” Are you aware of the fact that people will expect you to now continue to do it all? They have excuses like, “she doesn’t do anything but sit on her butt and gossip with the women, anyway”,”she hasn’t worked a day in her life”,”Have you seen how hard that guy’s wife works, if my old lady worked like that I would have free time to help too,” “She/he is such a turkey that I don’t even have to ask her/him to help she/he will just drop everything and offer help.” “Such and such are really smart or sharp no one is going to take advantage of her/him.”

Anyway I think you understand what I am saying, I know while I did it, like you, I knew the negative conversation as well. What they didn’t know is that I also knew, was that I chose to do what I could for each and everyone of them while I still had the health to do so. Love is giving until it hurts does not always mean it comes from the wallet. In my case it literaly did hurt as by the time I was done and finished with it all, I was not already using a cane but I was also using a wheelchair.

I digress, this is not about me, this is about you. Now if you already know all this and are choosing to do it anyway because like myself, you feel committed to give back for all you have received, to compensate for your sins, or you just enjoy helping others then God Bless you! I can assure He will if you receive His Blessings in the same light that you offer your time and “sweat”. Well as much as anyone can that is. I would not be living such a terrific life of peace and joy now, I reason, had I not have given then. I’m convinced, “We shall reap what we sow.”

At the risk of sounding cynical, there is always the possibilty that a couple of them, that took or felt they were entitled may possibly remember when we die. If we do not outlive them, they may show up at our funerals, remember what we did for them, and acknowledge it to our loved ones. At that point though, we are all dead so it becomes more of a way for them to clear their own conscience but hey we know that isn’t the reason we gave anyway. Our loved ones will be comforted from hearing it and we will have been at peace “on earth as we are in heaven”.

On the other hand if you are one of these people that do not know how to get out of it and are only doing it for your image, then today is the day for you to start saying “No” gradually as there is a very good chance that you are neglecting your family in an effort to build your own image. If you think I am talking about you, then remember that all this time you are putting into building your image or business is time that no one else will ever remember but your kids will never forget.

Have a day filled with Joy everyone! I am bound to, as we will be seeing our sweet, cute over the top, loveable grandchildren! There is no reason if today isn’t working for you then yesterday’s memory can’t help out. However, if you wish the freedom of Democracy and all the rights that still go with it,to control your day, do it your way! (once you get past the job requirements of the day, of course)

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Family–You’ve Got To Love Them–I Guess!

There are family members in all of our lives that any of us can readily agree, I think, that without them we would be lost. This is about the other ones that have done very little to nothing in their life time to compliment our lives or to endear themselves to us.

Like the grandmother that claims the father or mother will not let her see her grandchildren: Never mind she makes her daughter or daughter-in-law lives a hell on earth, the lack of respect shown to them, in her eyes, never has anything to do with the fact that she can not see her grandchildren. In todays society, young adult children are allowed to call the shots in their own lives,as a rule, as to whom they wish to see or not see. It is no longer like it was in our day and age where children were shown no respect at all, and were to be seen and not heard.

So doesn’t it follow, that if all the chilcren have seen of ,dear grandma, is that she plays games or tricks or out and out insults their dad or mom any chance she gets, then isn’t there a pretty good chance that both highschool or college age or young adults,period, are not going to want to have a thing to do with dear old grandma? Did it ever occur to anyone that even when the parents encourage them to see grandma the children are going to refuse it because no child on earth should ever have to see their parents, who have always been honorable,shamed, and they know that.

What about the father or mother that never pay child support: When these children are growing up and going without because one of their parents refuse to take their own responsibility, to pay child support? Doesn’t it stand to reason that maybe the children do not want to see dear old mom or dad that have either only paid because the courts forced them to or have not paid at all? The ex-spouse raising these children is these childrens’ heroes and they see them making the sacrifices that the other spouse refuses to make. This is just another case that the responsible ex-spouse doesn’t have to say anything as young adults are smart enough to know the difference. One special weekend of spoiling your children does not make up for all that you missed.

What about the family members in your lives, regardless of their relationship to you, that call only to argue, because they need a favor, to brag about themselves, that when you do try to talk to them they don’t shut up long enough so that you can talk, when they do shut up they call you, stupid, nuts or a liar or accuse you of ulterior motives, how about the family member that denies you the right to feel as you do? Whose Blessings are you waiting for, haven’t you put up with enough! The Dear Lord does not ask us to suffer the behavior of mean spirited angy people.

If this is typical behavior rather than something that just happened once, then I can see no reason at all that it is necessary to feel obligated to any of them other than what Mom or churches brain washes you into believing. As a matter of fact anyone treated this way should run rather than walk from the relationships. Why? People that behave in that manner are disturbed. God wants His children to be happy as much as you/we need to be happy. It is clear to me that these families are preventing your happiness because they are miserable themselves.

We human beings, that ask nothing of anyone else other than the pleasure of their company,do have a right to have and show a different attitude than the family member that is constantly in need of a favor, a hand out, unable to disagree from their own vision because they allow their own ability to be manipulated by others, they do not share our point of view on right or wrong, but do share your lack of respect, for us. If we have both invested the time and effort and faced the demons in our lives that no longer make it possible for anyone to control us, then congratulate us for our own efforts and maturity! No one human no longer has a right to tell us how we should feel. We have proven ourselves to ourselves as well as to our Lord. Isn’t that wonderful!

How many times have I heard, “she treats us all that way.” That is fine with me if you have so little self respect that you then turn around and by your action show her that she is entitled to victimize you, again and again. All I ask is that you don’t give me hell because I have done more than enough for this same person and now want my self-respect back. I’m entitled to do just that.

If you yourself have been either so victimized or else have victimized others to the point that you no longer have any sensitivity or feelings towards your own victimization, I truly feel for you. I would never be so cruel to you or anyone to feel that you deserved it any more than I will ever feel or think that any child of God deserves to be victimized. Myself, included. We are all entitled to our feelings, and the blessings of life is that we eventually, at some point or time in our lives, are granted the right to set down and deal with those long buried feelings.

If anyone thinks that they can just put the true memories or feelings in the back of their minds and they will not surface later, in the way they then treat others, they are only lieing to themselves. Unfortunately it is always the family member that they love the most that suffers the most, as a rule. That is what is wrong with denial,folks! Not only are people in denial mean as hell because they need to protect the lie. The person that they hurt and lie to the most, when they decide to grasp ahold of denial is themselves!

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Life—Ain’t It Fun!

I write this based on my own estimation of what I have both studied as well as experienced and then what common sense tells me.

As babies we are all born selfish as we need to be selfish in order to survive. If we did not cry when we were hungry, uncomfortable, sick or needed a diaper change none of us would survive. It is the job of our parents then as we grow to instill in us thoughtfulness for others by making certain that we know that others in the family also have needs that need to be met by them and that a day in our lives isn’t all about us.

Parents create a monster in society if they give a child everything they want because they either cannot say “no” to a whining child or develope the thinking that it is easier to give them what they want than to discipline them. They’re also those parents that do not want to take the creative nature from their children my punishing them. It is not unusual to unlease a total narcissistic adult onto society by never telling a child no. Just as parents that beat the will out of a child, neglects their needs or teaches them wrong over right by their own poor behavior can very often unlease a damaged personality disorder or a sociopath child/adult onto society. Both of these mental disorders are known to exist in people who will spend time in the prison system of our country. On the other hand these type personalities also co-exist out side of prisons and many times in our own families.

No one knows why children raised in the same home and in the same manner can grow up with one being a serial killer and the other being a functional member of society. Genectics may and often do play a part in the make-up of many mental disorders, but one thing that both physcologists and psychiatrists agree on is that many times they do not agree with each other in the care of a patient or it’s diagnosis much less to how much of an effect nurture vs. genectics play in the role of mental illness.

To gift a child for having done well or to make their birthdays or Christmas special is not going to spoil a child. However raising them to believe that they can have anything that they desire without earning it or taking responsibility for their own actions and behavior certainly will destroy their future. That type of parenting, may just make them grow up to be lazy but it also may release a complete and total narcissist that has no feelings what-so-ever for anyone but themselves. These type personalities many times are both mean and manipulative children and adults and contribute to what the churches profess to being possessed by satan.

To not discipline or to just rarely discipline can be as much abuse as it is to beat a child. I personally found that the reward and punishment system worked well in our home in that we punished poor behavior according to the degree of that behavior. Lieing and stealing recieved the worse of punishment with a couple swats on the fanny when they were smaller, doing various degree of manual labor jobs as they got older, with taking away the car; where as not taking responsibilty for grades or chores led to loss of priviledges.

Good behavior I tried, but I’m sure wasn’t always aware of it, to recognize and to let accrue. I certainly did not reward every good thing that they did like sharing and helping and being thoughtful each time but it was acknowledged, when I saw it. It was in my estimation as important to reward good behavior as it is to punish poor behavior. When they were younger it usualy was my taking them to a motel twice a year with a pool and then going skating, to a movie etc. Just spending an entire weekend with them doing what they wanted to do.

When they got older and could drive, twice a year, then I reserved the motel and gave them cash and my card (for car emergency only) to spend a weekend with their girl friends. Both ministers and shrinks will tell us that children should not be rewarded or bribed for doing well or getting good grades as that should be expected of them. However, have you seen the poor statistics on how well of a job ministers and shrinks do raising their own children? It’s not good.

My greatest failure as a parent was that I was a screamer and I acknowledge I was wicked about getting a point across. Never at anytime would I allow or tolerate name calling of any type in the home with either the children or myself. Now my husband, that may have had a few slip ups. Rest assured as long as we are parents we all are going to make mistakes. The important thing to remember is that when your children get older if you fail to think that you made mistakes, your children will correct that in no time flat. Unless you did not allow self expression in your home and if that is the case then get out a pad and pen and put that at the top of list of, “mistakes I made while parenting.”

The most important thing of parenting is to make your word good. Think before you speak and then once you set down the punishment or promise the reward then make certain that you follow through 100% on it unless someone is running a 104 degree temp or a family member dies. It is important that before you set the punishment that you do not make it unreasonably strict or slight so it is very very very important that thought preceeds punishment.

If we have been parented according to the best skills our parents had, it is then our role as adults to sit our own goals on the kind or type of life that we want for ourselves. Adult children need to make those decisions in their lives starting at the age of 18 and not at the age of 30. We as adults do not only need to plan what kind of career choice that we want but what kind of a person we want to become to others. I know being able to look myself in the mirror and thinking, “Job well done.” has always been at the top of my list. It took me 60 years to learn how to reward myself as well as I rewarded others but I’m doing a find job of it now. It was also much later in my life that I could even tell people that felt entitled to both my time and money, “No.” I personally do not believe that a person that truly wakes up grateful for each new day or appreciative of all the blessings in their life, as I do, are capable of harboring hate or any negative emotion, for that matter.

If you are still struggling in life to the point that you are overwhelmed with both career and parenting, then my advise to you is to never lose sight of the long term objective. Not only do we all ,for the most part want to send children we are proud of out to society we also want to know we did the best we could. I’m speaking of normal, well balanced people feeling in that way of course. I will always believe that what good we send out we will get back in way of reward. Bad can work the same way or sometimes wait until judgement day.

Punishment is something that life itself usually brings with it every so often if not day by day. We can face it head on and learn from it by accepting our responsibility in it, while keeping reality as well as priorities on a level playing field and find joy in the success of our winning day by day. (the old making lemonade from lemons scenario)Or the other option is: we can look for and find comfort in sympathy/ pity, alcohol, drugs and denial while blaming everyone and everything else in life for our own failures. Thank God that most of us do look for and find joy in life and living, knowing that, “life is what we make it” or “just an attitude.” If we want to see the worse we will and if we want to see the best we will.

In saying that we need to look for the best does not mean that we will ever feel good about loved ones that were killed or died, or hang a picture of someone that both emotionally or physically abused us on the wall. It simply means that we learn to accept the tragedies in our lives and then move ahead for our own sake as well as those that truly love and need us.

A for instance of that is sometimes if the best that we can say about a person or period of our lives where we were mistreated, is that their bad behavior taught us to be stronger then that is accepting the best that we have to offer and making peace with it. I can put a picture of my mother up when she was not abusing me, for instance but not bare to see the picture of the sadness of the little childrens’ eyes, myself included, while that period of my life was active. I remember clearly the fear and pain of abuse.

It is, in my opinion, very thoughtless and manipulative of people in denial to be upset with me when I kindly ask them not to send such pictures. Just because they choose to romanticize their childhood and deny the negatvie of it, does not mean that I will ever lose touch of the reality of it. Most of us, with time, will forgive but I’m not sure that it is even wise to forget. Otherwise, my emotions are as theirs and that is that I am grateful that she gave me life and will always love her for doing so.

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My Thoughts–Part ll

Today I will just write about a hodge-podge of things. I will begin with the most important of thoughts on my mind today and that is that our dog is back to full and complete recovery! If you have followed my blogs then you know that he suffered a breakdown when we left home for two weeks. He is 14 so it wasn’t for sure that he was too old to make a complete recovery. We are delighted to say the least! It’s always hard to have to put down a good and faithful pet friend so we feel very Blessed that he is back to being his old perky happy self and that he can get enough control back so we get some sleep again. A few more years “Old Friend!”

I have had it heard that if government, churches, corporations, and companies just got rid of lawyers then we could all go back to the hand shake and a person’s word over contracts and society would be a better place again. If you read my last blog then you know that in our society it is the people’s law that has always been one step ahead on compassion for the less powerful amongst us. History shows that the voice of the people makes the law that keeps and kept us honest and civilized long before either the bureaucrats of government or the churches and certainly corporations recognized the failures of mankind. As a population grows it brings with it more problems. If all of mankind had compassion then we would not need government or laws but mankind is not pre-disposed towards morality in the same families much less in the same generations.

The generation before mine has been labled the greatest generation but it certainly doesn’t mean that all of the members of the generation were great. It was a generation that both encouraged as well as condoned prejudices,bigotry,segregation,as well as spousal and child abuse because it was the man’s role to control both, or at least was blind to the fact that it existed. Terminology like discrimination against minorities or women, or sexual harassment was yet decades away much less considered against the law. It was also the first generation that made making contracts over a handshake necessary.

Scientists for years have been stumped by why in one family alone, raised by the same two parents with presumely the same rules why one will pay their bills while the other one takes no moral responsibility towards them; Why one will go to jail while another will be a fine and upstanding citizen; Why one will feel an obligation to give back to society while another will take or at very least do nothing unless they get paid for it,,,,etc.,etc.. I certainly have no answer for it.

I just hope that if I do nothing else that my blogs help us understand the need to look more inward towards seeing ourselves as much of the probelm as we are the solution. Depending totally on government, religion, and family to take care of our own short comings is as much a part of what is wrong as anything else. I know the democrats would like to believe it is all the republicans while the republicans belive it is the democrats but didn’t we sit back and let it happen as well? Not to mention believed 8 years of lies and voted them in.

I do believe that the hope for us as a society does come from each and everyone of us taking responsibility for what is the right thing to do, meeting our own responsibility and to keeping our own counsil with much less thought on why the Joneses are doing or not doing something unless it is a family in need, that could use our help up.

And finally today, I wonder why the maytag washer and dryer and the sears refrigerator that we bought in 1972 still runs and works great yet but by 1980 the appliances became ready for the dump in 10 years or less. It doesn’t make sense that appliances should become less dependable rather than more dependable unless they are deliberately designed that way. Also I wonder why when the patent was bought out by a tire company years ago to build tires that would last the lifetime of our automobiles, why we are yet to see the tires?

I guess it takes acknowledging that a fast one is being pulled, getting involved ourselves instead of waiting for the next guy to do it, and then contacting government. Unless we are tired of government in our lives. In that case then, I guess, instead of bitching about government we need to be getting citizens organized and signing petitions to make corporations more honest. But Lordy. Lordy, Lordy where would we start when it comes to both offering compassion and stopping greed? I guess I’ll have to rest a spell on that!

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Life Should Not Be a Vendetta

I will be the first to admit that they’re plenty of ills in Society. Unfortunately the truth is that it has always been that way and always will be. One side of the block doesn’t know what the other side of the block, in a neighborhood, is doing most of the time. People will then tend to guess or judge without either fact or knowledge. Many times, they put their own emotions into play to judge or speculate what the next person must be thinking, feeling or doing and sadly, their speculation as well as their ill-gotten perceptions becomes the truth. If the person that is guessing at the truth is capable of hate then so must total strangers also be, in a manufactured speculation of projecting their own will or thought onto others. Corporations and politicians amongst many have learned to simply hire a group to lie for them, in much the same way. Lawyers generations back, learned to deny, deny, deny when it comes to truth, will gain them more victories than truth will.

One small example of that, but it certainly isn’t the only one guilty of doing so, recently it was reported that the second largest agricultural company in America has an organization or group of approximately 40, organized to tell people that there is no scientific proof that our planet is in trouble ecologically because it works best for their wallets to deny that their feed yards or industry are emitting poison into our ground water or that they are emitting gaseous toxins into the air that we breathe. To have to change over all their plants to meet the green house standards would cost far more than to just hire a company that provides the organizations that claim the scientific studies are all lies. If people hear them spread lies often enough they will believe the lies before they believe the truth.

There is no way that we can legislate the truth into our Democracy as we cannot legislate the truth into our own homes. Even in dysfunctional families that have fantasized childhood into something it never was, in an effort to block the pain of abuse or to block the reality of the life they created, members will believe the fantasy over the truth. I might add, nothing is more manipulative or mean spirited either than the person that will project their fantasy onto another member of the family that has kept reality intact and rejects their exaggerated fantasy as the truth. The facts are the truth never changes, no matter how we remember it, no matter how many times they tell us, “you aren’t the holder of the truth.” Truth never changes. It is what it is.

They will and often do form a personal vendetta against the person that remembers the truth as they lived it and refuse to pay respect to the abuser, that often times is being protected by the fantasies or lies. The family member telling the lies or the fantasy that keeps the abuser on a pedestal is often times more desperate to maintain the history of the lie or fantasy to the point they sound more believable, because they are buying gifts in the family to obligate them or putting hours into the effort. The person that accepts the truth for what it is, many times does not bother to argue the truth, as it simply is not worth it.

Most have an immaturity or a strong need to believe that at one time in life that theirs’ was perfect. It is really sad, the number of adults that did not find joy in the life that they created for themselves and now must add value to a life that only partially happened if it happened at all. As we age our memories fail us and that is typically the time the lies are at their most powerful.

By the time we add government, churches, dysfuntional families, corporations, media, and the lies that are paid for, it becomes next to impossible to determine who is telling the truth and who has some kind of vendetta that needs to be settled. In many cases the issue or the argument often times gets lost as the person that knows truth and reality from fiction and lies is not going to hang around to convince someone whose only goal it is to sell the lie, that they need to hang around.

Any of us that live to adulthood will ultimately be found out in the next generations future when the paperwork made on each and everyone of our lives as individuals as well as the Corporation, Churches, Governments, and Politicians surfaces. Anyone doing geneology or goes after the the paperwork in the courthouses or medical records that are made public are many times surprised. The stories they were told in their childhood about the perfectly happy sucessful people, that were raised to Sainthood, often times were people that did not pay their fiscal responsibilies, lied under oath, or were just simply thieves and manipulators.

Everyone will ultimately learn just how high of a price they paid for accepting or believing the lies as well as for telling them. Yesterday’s lies often times are very difficult, if not impossible, to live up to and only add to today’s stresses when families make the comparisons. There never was a, “Leave It To Beaver” or a “Father Knows Best” or a “Donna Reed Show” type of family. That type of family has only existed in history in the minds of the television writers that wrote them or in the minds of the delusional.

It was common for children and sometimes wives to truly be beaten to death. Doctors refused to believe it even when they saw it time and time again. It was a license to use the bible to project cruelty and meaness no differently than the bible is being used against gays today. It all had to do with “not spoiling the child by sparing the rod.” To deny that there are hate crimes being performed on the gay population with the support of the bible thumpers, is to deny truth. The sad thing are the people today that believe,that it was o.k. to beat children to either total submission or death,not to mention, until the welts showed or the blood ran because there were no abuse laws then. They are so much in denial that not only do they condone it they accept it as having been a normal right of passage because the laws were absent.

In reality, no one possessing a healthy mind, can imagine picking up a stick, whip or limb and beating a child until they bleed without knowing that the truth was or is that the person capable of doing so had to possess a nature that was/is capable of being both cruel and deliberatly evil. That a natural parent’s love or kindness has to be made a law before there is any wrong in the beatings is and always have been a human tragedy.

It was not until a case in Minnesota in 1972, went before a judge that child abuse was even against the law or recognized as existing much less a crime. Doctors knew parents were mistreating their children and children dieing of mysterious deaths but they still refused to believe that a parent, much less a mother, could kill her own child. It took a case, where a mother adopted out her little boy, and the adopted mother so totally abused the little boy that he died, before child abuse was acknowledged as a crime.

Even then the case would never have been looked into when the 5 year old boy died if the birth mother had not made a trip to visit him. She went back to see her little boy, I believe when he would have been 12, and only found his grave. She would not stop until the adopted mother was prosecuted and child abuse became a crime. Mankind has always had to govern itself rather than to wait for the churches or government to catch up to just common decency.

Education and enlightenment that leads to awareness do not weaken us as a society it simply makes us less easy to control and brain wash. Prejudence,hate, and misuse of common decency can only breed in ignorance or a total void of empathy. Where once we were weak we are now strong thanks to the truth that will not be denied.

The real point, then that I am making is that truth will never be denied, spoiled, trampled on or made to be subjected to the fantasies and lies being told. It may not be found out today or tomorrow but it will be found out.

It took the Catholic Church 3 decades to acknowledge the pedophiles. All men that sit in the oval office speak about history clearing them if they are judged harshly today. History gets rewritten sometimes a 100 years later or often times the next day, because no one is powerful enough to hide or destroy truth.

With technology being what it is today there may be more lies added to a file but often there is also more truth exposed so there will always be a judgement day with a file that is much larger on each and everyone of us, than we can imagine. We may be surprised someday to find the file on Uncle Joe here on earth but it will never compare to the size of the file in our next life when the Dear Lord makes the judgement call on the truth.

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Getting Involved Does Not Mean Judgement

I’ve pointed out the short comings in my blogs about the Churches and mankind in general. Sometimes in an effort to prevent abuse, hate crimes, and abortion ,both Churches and mankind in general can actually send off the worse of the fanatics that live in a delusional angry world. People that are operating in denial or dealing with loss of emotional or mental strengths can take the preaching of the Churches against both abortions and gays and use it to justify the hate crimes that lead to the loss of life. I’m sure most Churches,are aware of this, they certainly have been in the past.

To simply reach out and offer forgiveness to the individual in their aftercare programs strikes me as being very hypocritical when taking the responsibility for causing the action against the victims appear to be missing in the first place. Women, not their neighbors or their Churches must make the decision of abortion with their Doctors. That was decided with Roe Vs. Wade and accepted by the majority. That is what Democracy is all about. The majority view is held! To suggests that they are not victims when clinics blow up, or holier-than-thou, arrogant people outside, pray, is ludicrous. I feel a better approach would be simply to offer a program, acknowledge that it exists, and then after the Churches ask for forgiveness, that they offer counseling on an individual basis.

It would go a lot further towards calling off the fanatics that kill. At some point the Churches need to take responsibility against the silence that we now hear, that starts the hate crimes in the first place. Why are they not putting pressure on their own congregations as to the depth of the harm that these groups do and recognizing that they themselves are, instead, starting new groups of hate?

It’s when Churches start preaching the hell and damnation, planting of the crosses in the pastures, to excite negative emotions, and praying outside of the abortion clinics, that they run the risks, of the hate groups amongst us, leading to more hardship in Society. These along with the many highway signs that the Churches promote are deliberately setting up negative emotions in a society, that quickly have no answers, towards how to treat these out of control fanatics or terrorist groups.

It is the fanatical believers in Religions that are responsible for the terrorists in the Middle East, that we now are proving are unmanageble and out of control. Many of those terrorist groups, based on hate, started out in as a small of a group of 20 or less, as well.

The Churches that teach their congregations that it is their duty to be activists or quoting the bible on Sunday against gays, pressuring govenment officials to vote and pass laws against gay rights and refusing healthcare because they might be providing it to a gay couples, clearly cannot deny that they promote hate crimes if anyone looks at it rationally.

I have spoken a great deal about neighbor helping neighbor and that it is a role of all of us as individuals. Sometimes it means recognizing that bantered women, abused children, and pedophile uncles do live in our neighborhoods and reporting them to the proper authorities. To do so is not interferring as it is sparing families a great deal of pain. Getting together and talking or gossiping about it amongst friends or neighbors is simply condoning it.

In the meantime recognize that if these women and children, for the most part, do gain their freedom, that they have been rendered helpless, and can use our help. It is the families without employment as well as the vulnerable ones amongst us that are living that need a warm hug, a dinner invitation, or a radom act of kindness done by us that we need to think about, without the judgement. In simple offer the help when no harm is being done, and leave the judgement at home.

To me there appears to be, a greater interest in people to offer constructive criticism to someone on how they should look or dress, or weigh as well as to maintain the thinking that a person needs to think like we do; even when some one else’s different way of thinking hurts no one else, but if we listened, We might actually learn something; also so many are so interested in passing on the dirt that they do know will bring harm as well as hurt feelings to someone else! I don’t get it myself, What is the joy in finding fault,calling names, starting arguments over making it a priority to spread kindness and joy in a Christian World?

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