When I read or listen to biographies or historical fiction, I often find myself thinking how I am glad I live in this time period and have my current "job." When we listened to a biography about Ernest Shackleton, I found myself amazed at what those explorers were willing to endure. I've been listening to Unbroken while exercising lately, and again I am astounded at what some American prisoners of war were able to endure at the hands of the Japanese. When we enjoy books that take place in the early part of US history, I think I would have been a vegetarian as I can't imagine killing animals, skinning them, plucking off their feathers, etc. Up until the last week or so I have never found myself feeling nostalgic about the past. I've heard other people over the years say something along the line of that life was better back in the 50's or some other time period. It might be because they really liked the music from a previous decade, because they feel the morals in our country have declined since that time, or because they have fond memories from that decade. In my opinion in many ways things were better in the 80's than they are now.
For example in the '80's, three of our recent/current Supreme Court justices were approved by the Senate either unanimously (Scalia) or by a vast majority - 96 votes for Ginsburg and 87 votes for Breyer. That hasn't happened for awhile, and I don't see it happening again anytime in the near future. At that time the media (news on tv/ newspapers) was far less biased. I know that technology has come a LONG way since the '80's, but I'd gladly trade my cell phone for a landline, trade my Echo Dot for a radio/CD player, etc. if other things in our country could go back to how they were 40 years ago. I didn't pick the 50's because that was before the Civil Rights Movement. Yes, there were probably fewer divorces and such in the 50's, but I couldn't pick a time that included so much discrimination based on skin color. I'm probably forgetting something, but I can only think of one area in which there has been an improvement morally in our country over the past 40 years - the rate of abortion has dropped 50% in the US in that time frame. Worldwide there were over 42 million abortions worldwide in 2020 - the leading cause of death. Over 1 million babies have already been aborted in 2021, and it's only January 12. Heartbreaking!
2020 was a year I think very few (if any!) will ever feel nostalgic about. 2021 hasn't exactly gotten off to a good start. I am very concerned about the future of our country for a wide variety of reasons. I try not to mention politics on my blog, but it's been on my mind so much lately. Yesterday, when I woke up I was sick to my stomach over the grief I am feeling regarding the future of our country.
- Our obsession with gender related issues - boys can go in girl's bathrooms and vice versa, there is a push to eliminate words like mother, father, sister, brother, etc. from our vocabulary, and words that have NOTHING to do with gender (such as Amen, which is a Hebrew word that means "so be it" are now being modified because the letters "men" are found in the word). Can you imagine adding "wo" to all the words that contain those three letters?!?! I can't believe this is actually happening.
- The fact that it seems our country is headed toward socialism. Hopefully our country will never resemble what it's currently like in Venezuela, North Korea, China, Cuba, etc. I'm also hoping against hope that spending trillions of dollars left and right doesn't land us in another Great Depression. If the country keeps heading towards socialism, I guess it's possible that some states will try to secede. Hopefully if that happens it won't involve another Civil War.
- The legislators who objected to some of the Electoral College certifications are being accused of "not respecting the rule of law" and are being punished in a variety of ways. In the past 20 years some Democrats had done the same thing regarding three other Presidential elections. This was the first time in 20 years that any Republicans had objected. They should not be punished for their objections just because OTHER people were breaking the law outside the Capitol. They had announced their decision to object long before anyone knew of the lawless actions that would take place that day. Personally, I have no idea if the election was "stolen." Paul is one who is convinced it was, and obviously there are people on the other side who are convinced everything was done completely ethically. In my opinion there was likely some fraud involved, but I have no idea whether it was enough to change the outcome of the election or not. However, the fact that 139 Legislators objected, gives me serious pause. Hopefully there will be a significant investigation so that if any of the concerns are actually valid, they can be addressed before the next election. I have no comprehension as to why any Legislator (regardless of their party) should be punished for objecting to the certification of the Electoral College. It feels like there is a double standard at play.
- Speaking of a double standard, rioting is always wrong in my opinion. Some of the BLM/Antifa protests were peaceful in 2020 and some included murder, arson, destruction of private and public property, etc. Two wrongs never make a right. When those BLM riots took place, people and organizations raised tens of millions of dollars to bail out the violent rioters. The protests were supposedly on behalf of black people, and yet in many cases the arson and violence destroyed the homes and businesses of black people. Murder is wrong whether it's someone protesting against the police or protesting because they believe the election was stolen. I don't think that the consequences should be harsher for one than the other.
- The one that is bothering me the most is the bias of the media. Because the media hasn't liked Trump the past 4+ years, they can say NOTHING good about him. A stranger standing in line to vote in November said to me, "Trump could have discovered the cure for cancer and the media would find a way to be mad at him about that." If Obama had helped negotiate the peace treaties in the Middle East, that would have been ALL over the news. I have a feeling few Americans know about it. Similarly, the scandal involving Obama in 2016 (Russia/Trump) was so, so much worse than Watergate (I'm not intending any sympathy for Nixon - he deserved to be impeached), and I doubt very few Americans know of what happened because the Media has kept it under wraps. In countries like China, the government controls the media. Our government doesn't control the media, but the media is very strongly biased toward the left, and social media has gone so far as to censor conservatives or even block them from using various platforms. Free speech means that some people are going to say things you don't like or agree with. I don't understand what happened to the Parler app?!? It's scary to think what could happen if Big Business, Big Tech, and the Democrats work together to crush dissenters. I'm planning on permanently deactivating my Facebook account. My friend invited me to join MeWe. We're also considering ending our Amazon Prime membership and trying to shop through Amazon as little as possible (probably use Target..com and Walmart.com more). Considering that exactly 50% of the Senators are Republicans, almost 50% of the Representatives are Republicans, and Republicans have full control of the legislative and executive branch in 24 states (compared to 15 states that the Democrats have full control), it's not as if Republicans are some radical, fringe minority group. Not that I think that minority groups should be censored either....
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