September 8, 2012 - Truth and Lies

Hope everyone had a wonderful Saturday!  While going through today's Facebook posts, I saw this picture posted by CLear Perspective, but originally from 100% FED Up!  I'm sure most of us have experienced this in our lives.

I was raised just outside of Madison, WI which, lets face it, is a predominately liberal city.  I went to public school, and was subjected to the leftist propaganda that has been prevalent in the public school systems for decades.  I then went on to study Music Education in college, which once again was obviously heavy on the leftist propaganda.  They practically teach education courses about how wonderful the teacher's union is, and how we should all be thankful for it.  I remember one professor even said that in the first few years of teaching you do need to be careful about what you do and say, but once you get tenure, you can do and say whatever you want because it is next to impossible to fire a tenured teacher.  I experienced this myself in middle school.  When I was in seventh grade, a teacher had a breakdown and started screaming at her class, then threw a desk at a student.  Her punishment?  Paid administrative leave for one year.  She was back in the classroom the next year.  Nothing had changed.  It was obvious she had long ago lost any passion for teaching and was just biding time until she could retire.

I'm not saying that all teachers are bad.  There are wonderful educators out there that are passionate about what they do, and would never fathom trying to push their politics onto their students.  My band director was one of these.  It was obvious that he loved what he did and wanted to pass his love of music onto his students.  Politics was never discussed in the band room and he made sure that all band students felt welcomed in the band room at all times.

But, I digress.  Not only was I raised in a liberal community, I was raised in a liberal-leaning household.  My father passed away when I was quite young, and my mother did not remarry until I was an adult, so I was raised by a single mother.  While my mother never spoke directly of politics, she did talk quite a bit about how government should be doing more to help families like ours and how difficult we had it.  She always emphasized that we were Democrats, because only rich people were Republicans, and we were not rich.

It wasn't until I got out of school, away from the influences of my family, and working in the private sector that I really stopped to think about what I believe and which party I actually agree with.  While I had gone to school for education, I did not become a teacher.  I graduated, but due to a very bad student teaching experience that highlighted that tenured teachers can get away with just about anything, I had been really turned off to teaching.  Instead, I knew that I had student loans that I would need to start paying off shortly and that I better find a job.  I found a job with a healthcare company, and have been there for eight years, moving up the ranks during that time.

When Obama was running in 2008, my initial reaction was of course I'm voting for Obama, I'm a Democrat.  Then, I began thinking about that.  I looked into the platforms of both parties, and I made myself look very carefully at what I really thought and what I believed.  I educated myself and I realized that I had bought in to the propaganda that had been spoon-fed to me my entire life.  That ended then.  

While the government does have a place, I do not expect the government to run my life.  I believe in small government.  I am more than capable of running my own life.  Yes, I am paying back student loans, and I will be for the 15 years.  However, I am the one that took out those loans in the first place.  I could of just as easily taken a few more years to finish school and worked full time while going to reduce those loans.  But I didn't, so I am the one that needs to pay back said loans.  I did work part-time jobs while I was in school.  While most of my classmates had parents that paid their rent, and sent them monthly allowances, I was not that lucky, so I needed to work to afford rent and car payments and cell phone bills and anything else I wanted or needed.  I am better for it.

Having to pay for things on my own, made me much fore appreciate of what I have.  For example, my older sister was given a car by our mother when she got her license.  Six months later she was six of it and screaming to get a different one, which she did.  This is a trend in her life.  She always expects things to be given to her just because she wants them.  Our mother paid for her college education, paid for her rent, gave her a monthly allowance, paid for her wedding, then helped her and her husband buy a house.  She was fired/quit from one job when she went to her boss and told him that she no longer wanted to work forty hours a week and was only going to work certain days and hours but she also expected a 10% raise and if she didn't get it she was going to quit.  They told her it wasn't going to happen and she was welcome to leave.  She creamed about that to anyone that would listen for months.  Now, she wants to move to another state.  Instead of dealing with selling her house and her and her husband finding new jobs, she believes that the government should buy her house from her and assist her in finding a job and new house in the area she wants to move to.  

Obviously, we have incredibly different viewpoints.  This really came to a head with the Scott Walker election and recall election here in Wisconsin.  She became very hateful that I refused to have the same political viewpoint as she does.  She would scream at me about the "lies" I was telling...which were actually the truth.  She eventually took to Facebook with threatening comments.  Telling me to burn in hell and to watch my back.  It got to be too much to constantly delete her comments and posts on my wall.  I eventually had to block her.  I tried to talk to her, but all I got was more of the same vitriol and hate.  

I sent her a birthday present this year and surprisingly got a thank you in return.  We've managed to reach a point where we can be around one another.  I have made it very clear to her though that if she chooses to bring up politics, I will defend my position.  We will see what happens when the holidays come around!

It is sad that those on the left are so hateful to those with a differing opinion.  It pits friends and relatives against one another.  Sadly, my sister isn't the only one in the family that hates me because I do not follow the teachings of the demigod Obama.  It is the case with a large number of my family members.  Most I have a quiet truce with others refuse to be in the same room as me.  One told me that as long as I was pro-Scott Walker, I was not a part of her family.

This has made me really look at how I treat those on the left.  The last thing I want is to treat them the way they treat me.  As hard as it may be, we need to be the adults in the conversation and not stoop to their level of hate.  As hard as it may be, we need to treat them the way that we wish they would treat us.  I fully support being passionate about your believes, we just need to do it in a mature way.  

<< Matthew 7 >>New International Version 1984   1“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. 6“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces. 7“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 9“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.13“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. 15“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. 21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ 24“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” 28When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.