That assertion is rolling in privilege. Specifically, the privilege of not having a health condition for which doctors advise a special, non-vegan diet.

Let’s get one thing clear: the debate about whether or not some vegan diet somewhere would work for people with insulin-resistance, Crohn’s disease or failing kidneys or a medical requirement for more protein than the typical human needs is not the issue. In fact, let’s just take it as a given that there is a vegan diet for everyone, somewhere. But at this point, it’s a matter of fact that a functioning vegan diet for some of these conditions remains unknown. Vegans complain online of being told by doctors they have a condition that requires them to eat red meat or eggs or whatever. Some of this may be ignorance or prejudice on the part of the doctors.

That’s not the issue. The issue is: people are being told by their doctors they have conditions which require a low-carb diet, or require more protein than most people, or that keep their systems from digesting half the foods available on a vegan diet. For a vegan to say “humans only eat meat for pleasure or tradition” is absurd, insulting and privileged. And untrue. People often eat meat and animal by-products because they are being advised by the experts in healthcare that they must.

Take me, for example. I ‘ve never liked beef. I’d rather never eat it. But I get anemic. I take iron pills every day and eat quite a lot of veggies and dark leafy greens per week. And when the anemia happens, I take extra iron pills and eat even more greens. No help. I have on multiple occasions systematically tried every food but beef known to help with anemia, to no avail. I’ve tried herbs. I’ve tried everything anyone at health care stores can think of. Nothing but beef gets me going again. I languish in fatigue until I break down and eat beef I don’t like or enjoy. Then I’m fine.

That’s a really mild example. There are people with immediately life-threatening problems who are being advised by well-informed doctors that they need to eat animal by-products or meat, at least for a certain period during their illness. When a vegan says no one eats meat except for pleasure/tradition – read “selfish purposes” – they are callously erasing that person and his concerns. How does that fit in with the vegan philosophy – deleting people who don’t fit your scenario?

There are people halting the progress of their diabetes by eating a non-vegan diet. Could there possibly be a vegan diet that would do them even more good? Sure, anything’s possible. But like I said, go subject yourself to medical experiments. How does advising others to be the vegan movement’s guinea pigs fit in with the vegan philosophy?

Additionally, there’s something very classist about asserting that everyone could just go vegan right now if only they’d stop making excuses. The US is full of people who don’t know how to eat properly by any standard. We don’t teach nutrition in schools anymore, and many parents just don’t have a clue. Fortunately, a vegan diet doesn’t have to be expensive, so it may be possible for them to eat vegan for the same or less money. But what about families where all the adults work very long hours just to make ends meet, and no one has time to do food prep and cooking? The answer I usually hear is: “They just need to buy a slow cooker and there are tons of vegan recipes that’ll be quick and easy to fix that way.” Yeah? Because everyone has an extra $24 or whatever it costs to buy a slow cooker? Check your privilege – not everyone does.

Saying the only reason people don’t go vegan is they don’t want to erases a lot of people who have legitimate reasons to believe they can’t.

No related posts.

They did. Americans were hurt to learn their country – even their culture – had lost so much credibility with Europe. We discussed the reasons, and found the difference in perception boiled down to Americans not seeing quite as many “lies” from the Bush administration as the Europeans saw, and dismissing European concerns as baseless.

That was just one forum. It wasn’t a forum about politics, which is why I’m not linking to it. It was just friends united to enjoy a fandom talking about something else and getting their feelings bruised and trying to understand. It went fairly well.

But I’ve been thinking lately about the depths of American hypocrisy, and two examples from the past couple of decades really stand out:

• We said we hated Iraq and Hussein, we sure did, and yet we just spent 10 years driving gas guzzlers and buying his oil. Even more ironic: the people trying to spend less on gas (whether to be green or just frugal) were more likely to be liberals than conservatives, and it was the conservatives who wanted to “kick Iraq’s ass” so badly. Doesn’t really mesh with making them loads and loads of money.
• We hate Communism and want to kick its ass and have been working on that for decades, but we have absolutely no problem with the fact that almost everything you can buy in the US is made in China.

Maybe it’s not that we’re hypocrites; maybe we’re just so uneducated we can’t think stuff like this through. I personally do have a problem with bolstering China’s economy – not because of their governmental philosophies, but because of stuff they actually do, like treating workers badly and drowning baby girls because they aren’t worth much. I’d like to hit them where it hurts – the pocketbook – but the anti-Communist hell-raisers of the U.S. haven’t provided me that option. They’re too busy wanting to buy stuff cheap at Wal-Mart and not tell the all-hallowed Big Business what to do. Likewise, I wouldn’t have a problem with not bolstering Hussein’s regime (it’s just I’m aware of the fact we installed him), so I work at keeping my gas consumption low. But the anti-Iraq ass-kickers just spend another $80 or whatever it costs to fill up their giant SUVs.

It’s not that American culture is full of contradictions. It’s that a lot of Americans, all by themselves, are so self-contradictory in their actions it’s impossible to take them seriously. Except, they’re really well-armed. Yeah, I can see why Europe was scared.

No related posts.

What seems to set apart those at the very top of competitive pursuits from others of roughly equal ability is the degree to which, beginning early in life, they can pursue an arduous practice routine for years and years. And that doggedness depends on emotional traits — enthusiasm and persistence in the face of setbacks — above all else.

This forces me to doubt Goleman’s emotional intelligence. In fact, this is exactly the sort of Unexamined Privilege Episode that always leads me to doubt experts can deliver advice that applies to the planet I live on.

Music is a remarkably expensive talent. Not only are instruments costly (unless you’re a singer), but so are the lessons. And if you’re a child musical prodigy growing up far from a major urban center, you’re extremely unlikely to have access to music teachers of the caliber you need to become Julliard material — at any price. You can have it in you to practice 10 hours a day and bounce back from every rejection with renewed determination, but doing it all with that air violin and that music book for first graders you found at the library isn’t going to cut it.

What always sets everybody apart from everybody else is primarily opportunity. It’s true that the optimism, determination and mental resilience associated with a high emotional IQ help you discern unapparent opportunities someone else in your situation might have missed. But nobody gets every opportunity in their lifetime; a high emotional IQ doesn’t magically cause expensive musical instruments and a great teacher to fall into your lap at the right price. When equal opportunities exist for two people, then and only then can you logically infer that the more successful one is the more able one.

Does Goldman think rural poor children are never musical prodigies? Or does he think there are government satellites watching over us all to make sure talented kids from the wrong side of the tracks get the opportunities they need? Or maybe he just thinks poor people are all so unrefined that their kids could only be talented at sports.

Goleman’s unexamined privilege serves as a fine example of why so many people assume those at the top got there through sheer ability and persistence, and those below them simply didn’t try hard enough. By ignoring the cost factors, they enable themselves to maintain the comfortable belief that every playing field is perfectly level.

Note that I’m not even arguing we need to level the playing field. I’d be very happy if, for a first step, we would just acknowledge as a society that it’s not level, and ability, talent, and persistence aren’t always automatically rewarded proportionately.

Related posts:

1. How you see life depends on how much money you’re seeing it with

But there are two enormous problems with this bill. First, it should’ve been funded by tax dollars, not compulsory consumption of a private service. Second, as far as I can tell, it does nothing to treat the fundamental reason why so many Americans couldn’t get the health care they needed: inflated health care costs.

I said it a while ago, and I’m saying it again: passing a law that forces everyone to buy insurance is universal health care in exactly the same way that passing a law forcing homeless people to buy houses is a solution to the homeless problem. Services should be funded by tax dollars, no matter how politicians worry that will affect their political futures.

Fans of the bill keep handwaving this compulsory purchasing point when I bring it up – “Eh, I’m not sure we have all the details yet” or “Eh, they’ll hand out subsidies” or “Eh, it’s just Republican propaganda.” Or they bring up compulsory car insurance as a counterargument. Well, you can opt out of driving to avoid car insurance, and still get around on public transportation or a bicycle. Driving, after all, is an earned privilege rather than a right. This health insurance deal, on the other hand, you can only opt out of by dying or becoming a citizen of another country. A little bit different, yes?

As to the details, it’s true we don’t have them all yet. But the lawsuits filed against the bill clearly indicate it’s going to force at least some people who don’t want insurance or don’t feel they can afford it to buy insurance anyway.

As to the argument that somehow the government will make insurance affordable to everyone: whenever the government determines who “can’t afford” something it requires, it has always historically chosen some ridiculously low income level  that leaves out a ton of people who are not choosing between insurance or NFL season tickets – they’re choosing between insurance and living in an area where their kids can go to school unarmed. Still, let’s imagine hell freezes over and the government actually picks a sliding scale or something sensible that really does enable everyone to afford coverage. Affordability stops being an issue, but we still have a problem.

What about people who use alternative medicine only? Their treatment and medications or supplements will continue to be 100% uncovered, so they’ll be paying for all their stuff (which ain’t cheap) plus insurance premiums. How is that fair to them? Shouldn’t they be excluded from having to pay? Or maybe there should be some very cheap option for catastrophic hospitalization for them, in case they would consider “traditional” medicine in that situation. (I can never wrap my head around calling up-to-5,000 year old medicine “alternative”, like it’s a college indie single that came out last week, and 100-year-old allopathy “traditional.”)

What about people who have found cheaper, innovative alternatives to insurance, like discount programs or a co-op someone tried to explain to me earlier today where, if I’m following, a group of families fund a sort of collective savings account to help everyone have money on hand when they need it for medical bills? Not only will these folks be forced to give up their brilliant alternatives to ridiculously expensive health care insurance, but the people providing the brilliant alternatives will likely go out of business. Well, I guess that’s what you get for trying to compete with companies the US government tends to bail out when they screw themselves into the ground. You should’ve known it wasn’t really a free market, silly.

And what about people who are in great health and feel their financial picture is better served by putting some money into savings every month for future medical services rather than paying a monthly premium for services they might never need (and carry auto insurance that would cover them in case of an accident)? Are we, the United States of America, seriously telling people, “You mustn’t make thoughtful, intelligent choices with your finances.” Tax these people, and they won’t be happy. But making them change their whole financial approach is just not fair.

I also don’t know of anything in the bill to prevent premiums from going up and up and up, and in fact, everything to encourage continued medical cost increases. That makes this bill, despite its good points, a band-aid solution since skyrocketing medical costs are the reason so many people can’t get good health care. The bill takes away some co-pays and forces insurance companies to treat people they were denying before. Can’t you just see the letter you’ll be getting in a couple of years? “Dear [Insurance Company] Participant: since the government took away some of our money and stuff’s so expensive, we must raise your family’s monthly premium to $2,034. We’re sure you understand, and in any rate it’s not like you can just stop buying insurance, is it? Ha ha, ‘kaythanxbye.” The government’s handing them an unending stream of captive buyers – that’s a price-fixing racket waiting to happen.

What we need, in my opinion, is socialized insurance funded with taxes, free to citizens, with private insurance still an option for those who want it. That would keep private insurance’s fees low and give everyone access to at least some kind of medical care. But we also need to lower the costs of practicing medicine and making drugs. Instead of looking into reducing malpractice suits, for example, we should look into reducing malpractice. Or, you know, what if we replaced punitive damages with equally big government fines that go straight into the coffers of a true universal health care system? I don’t have the expertise to say these suggestions would work, but the point is, there are a lot of potential solutions. Some of them have got to work. To quote “The Simpsons,” right now it’s like “We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas.”

Maybe the lawsuits against this bill will get all the right people excluded from having to pay in. But the bill still won’t do anything to stop medical costs from rising. I’m concerned we’re going to be right back where we started a couple of decades into this plan.

Related posts:

1. Universal health care does not mean forcing Americans to buy insurance
2. Privilege even in veganism
3. Understanding the Treasury’s Bail out plan

This prompted me to do a lot of reading and research online. There are a number of worthwhile opinions on both sides of the fence – for example, if you ask a group of women whether the term “bitch” (as a slur against a woman) should be eliminated, you might get the following answers:

• Yes, completely. You’re comparing a woman to a dog!
• No, it should just be applied equally to men.
• No, when someone calls me a bitch, I thank them, thus turning the phrase into a compliment and ruining it for them.
• It should be eliminated in some contexts, but not others.

All of these are sound opinions. I’m sure I could have found some visually impaired people who didn’t mind me using “blind” as a metaphor for ignorance. But you know why that wasn’t the point? It took me months to get this. One day, I was thinking about which terms were permissible to describe people who don’t bother using their brains when they should, and I discovered to my shock there isn’t one. “Stupid” describes someone who lacks cognitive capacity. There’s no shame in that. I want a term that shames someone who has cognitive capacity but refuses to think out of laziness and irresponsibility. The problem is not simply that “retard” or “idiot” are ugly because they refer to actual neruological conditions and “stupid” also technically refers to someone who lacks some cognitive ability; it’s that English doesn’t even bother having a word for people who can’t be bothered to apply their cognitive ability.

Question: what does that tell you about English? Answer: that we, as a culture, think the best way to insult someone who deserves an insult is to equate them with a person who has a condition and does not deserve insult. That’s pretty sick.

“Blind” is the same raw deal. No matter what anyone thinks of it, it’s using a condition that does not deserve insult as a way of insulting people who don’t have that condition.

It took me a long time to come up with an equal or better name that had a nice ring, but I finally did. Here it is.

Related posts:

1. Ableist language in the name of this site?

First, the cultural. Most of the search results lead to other people asking my question. The responses they get range from “You’d be much better off just getting therapy” (yes, because clearly all adult abused kids are well-to-do and can afford the extensive therapy required to get over the abuse) to “now you sit right down, you ungrateful shit, and list all the GOOD things your parent did for you, since obviously, having donated part of your zygote, this person loved you and you are an asshole” to things like this trip to the little shop of horrors, in which someone asks Yahoo: “Can i sue my parents because they hit me?”

Consider first what you did to contribute to the situation.

There is never a reason to strike another person, but, you could have very well pushed them to their limit.

Underlying all of this is the myth that every child who complains of having experienced poor parenting is obviously a spoiled shit who in fact had everything too easy and isn’t grateful for the massive self-sacrifices her zygote donor obviously made. Also underlying it is the assumption that such a suit would be revenge rather than justice. To which the abuse survivors explain that, no, they want to see the parent held accountable in some fashion. Publicly.

Another reason I can think of for suing would be to send a message to other abusive parents: you might get away with this while I’m under your control, but after that? Oh, yes, there could indeed be consequences.

The doublethink required here is extraordinary. I mean, you just know these people answering these question are all the same people who read about horrid abuse cases in the paper and think “hanging’s not good enough for those parents.” But when someone puts a face on it, when someone says “I was abused”, they go into denial. Why? Why do they automatically, unthinkingly assume the parent is the one being wronged?

It’s a bit like assuming every alleged rape is really just a case of some vicious bitch lying. Why not? We’re big on victim blaming.

Then I found some forum posters who claimed that in most states, you have until the age of 20 or 21 to sue an abusive parent. As far as I can tell, that’s generally true in the case of physical, non-sexual abuse, so if you were beaten as a child, you have until you’re a junior in college or your third year working at Burger King to hire that pricey attorney! Otherwise, the US is A-OK with what happened to you. Interestingly, sexual abuse often has a much longer statute – in some states, it’s up to the lifetime of the victim. Apparently emotionally abused kids can just go fuck themselves, since it’s very hard to document emotional abuse the way you can document wounds a doctor has seen. I realize there are other issues, like the problem of evidence, but for the law to blatantly suggest that sexual abuse is somehow worse than physical and emotional abuse is sending a very wrong message: all abuse is equally wrong in a moral sense.

Eventually, I found this forum, in which yet another person was asking the same question, but the respondents appear to be fellow abuse survivors. The questioner is 23 and can’t really function in life – agoraphobic (from the sound of it), unable to hold down a job, etc. All of this could easily be attributed to the abuse the person describes enduring. Here is my favorite response:

I have been doing a lot of research on the same topic for the past few day’s it seems to me that it is quite feasible although I would speculate that a lot of lawyers would not want to dirty their hands with such a case, there are as the other person who commented said; who see the sanctity of family as untouchable. As the threes of us, along with many others know; there is no sanctity in abuse.

Here, in a nutshell, is America’s concept of family values: we need babies, because babies become consumers who buy crap. We mustn’t allow anything to discourage people from making babies. It doesn’t matter if the babies are born addicted to something and grow up in a slum with no education, or they’re born to wealth and made to pay for it with sexual favors from an early age. It’s all good, because as long as they are eating and wearing clothes, businesses can make money off of these kids. That’s what America values.

And heaven forbid anyone check in with the adult children of the people making and supporting these laws.

Related posts:

1. Non-survivor privilege and silence
2. College has become a barrier for smart poor kids
3. Abuse cycles – from macrocosm to microcosm

Maybe I can make this clearer with an example. Let’s say you grow up in a socioeconomic class that didn’t enjoy the financial security the middle class has. You want to move into the middle class not because you hate the folks from your own class, but because you want and feel you deserve financial security. You eventually get a good job – the kind your parents never had a chance to get – and you’re working amongst middle class folks. Now, they had their parents pay for college and maybe their first home down-payment, so they’re still ahead of you financially as you struggle to pay your college loans alongside the rent, transportation and the “right” clothes for your job. But you’re getting there.

Except, you have to listen to your new-found middle class co-workers talk about poor people and how poor people defeat themselves and there’s nothing anyone can do to help them. Or, less offensively but still boiling down to the same ideas, they say anyone can get rich in this country, and if they don’t, it’s because they’re not trying hard at all. And you find yourself thinking of people you know or knew. People who worked two low-paying jobs because they were damned lucky to be employed at all in their economically devastated region. People whose college plans got cut short by a sick parent needing constant nursing the family could hardly afford to outsource. People who never wasted their money on anything, who lived frugally not because it was “green” but because it was survival. People who fought hard and burned with passion to set up their kids for a slightly less dismal financial experience. People who maybe endured harassment at work and kept their mouths shut for fear of losing a job they couldn’t replace. People who had no one to take them in if they got laid off or moved somewhere else in hopes of finding a job. And you think: applying the stereotype of laziness to these people just flat out contradicts your sense of reality.

But if you say it, your middle class buddies will either reject it flat out, or say you’re too sensitive. They weren’t talking about you, after all. You’re exceptional. Which is to say, you obviously did something brilliant that never occurred to all the people you grew up amongst for three generations.

Except, no. You simply seized an opportunity it took your family multiple generations to build. If the opportunity had gotten built in time for your parent’s generation, they would’ve done the same. If it hadn’t gotten built until you had kids of your own, they would’ve been the ones to Make It. You know you’re not exceptional, at least not in the way they mean it. You know you are simply the product of a whole lot of people working much harder than the middle class could probably endure, just to get one of you out of Going Nowheresville and into something like a nice life.

Only it’s not so nice, if you have to put up with this.

It’s not just a socioeconomic issue, either. Women who lose a lot of weight often find themselves borged into a Skinny Bitchez Club where they get to hear about the lazy disgustingness of fat women. And with race, it needn’t even be a mobility issue: a person of color can be born into a middle or upper class and find herself having to listen to all sorts of stereotypes about people of her color or ethnicity. She shouldn’t take it personally: she’s an exception.

If you’ve had a similar experience, did you ever find a balance? I’m still searching for it.

When you talk in generalizations about a group I have belonged to, you are talking about people I love and know, some of whom I know to be the antithesis of what you say they are – and in some cases, know to be much higher quality creatures than you. Don’t think you can tell me I’m an exception, and that makes it okay. I didn’t reject and abandon the group of people from which I came; I didn’t join your group in order to think poorly of them. I joined your group to get away from your oppression, not become a part of it.

Related posts:

1. Greed and the end of the middle class
2. How you see life depends on how much money you’re seeing it with
3. Privilege means never having to explain why it doesn’t work for Others

Three years ago, I started this site. I’d heard “blinded by privilege” in a few places, and came up with the phrase “blind privilege”. It was available as a domain, so I bought it and started blogging.

Three years ago, I wasn’t very aware of able-bodied privilege, particularly in terms of specifics like ableist language. I mean, I was aware that being able-bodied gave me privileges, but I needed a lot of education on the ways in which society and individuals fail disabled people. I still need a lot of education on it, but I’ve gotten quite a bit since I bought this domain from people like Anna and Tekanji. My education on ableist language began one day when Tekanji objected to one of our posts referring to something stupid as “lame.”

I was content to take her word on it and stop using the term that way, but I also wanted to understand precisely WHY it was ableist, because the more I understand these things, the more likely I am to be able to figure out for myself when there’s something wrong with a term that’s new to me. There’s a great thread at Cerise about all this. Sometimes it’s something buried in the word’s history that gives it ugly baggage, and you couldn’t be expected to know it until you come across that history. Sometimes it’s a context you’re not aware of. Whatever the case, it’s privilege that isolates me from these words and the hurt they can cause, and the least I can do is find other terms.

And, on a side note, it’s true that some of these words are debatable, just like gendered slurs. For example, “bitch.” Does calling a man a “bitch” help neutralize the term’s slurring effect on women? What about proudly calling yourself a bitch because you are assertive and don’t take shit? I think there are valid arguments on both sides in some cases, but at least when you’re blogging for the world at large, get a thesaurus and avoid the problematic words. That’s my take. It takes work, and it’s not easy, but it really is the least privilege people can do.

Here’s what this is all leading to. A week or two ago, I was following links about the Feministing ableist language issue when suddenly it hit me: was “blind privilege” a gross example of ableist language? I decided I needed to research this, then got sick. Then Meg asked that very question just as I was getting well, which was a little uncanny. I did the research, and found the answer was yes, according to this blogger. When I chose this domain name, I was thinking of selective “blindness,” of not “seeing” a thing when it doesn’t convenience you to be aware of it. I didn’t realize there was anything problematic about describing that in terms of “seeing” or “not seeing” privilege. But RMJ is right. So is Chally.

I made a mistake. I didn’t mean to. I had no ugly intentions. But still, my privilege kept me from recognizing that a phrase I’d seen around the internet was problematic. Now I know.

My question to you is: what should I do about it? Changing the name of the blog is easy, and I welcome your suggestions for a new name. Changing the domain name is a good bit more difficult, but it can be done, more or less. Or would leaving the domain name the same but changing the blog name, and prominently linking a page that explains how it all happened be illuminating? Is there another solution I haven’t considered?

Related posts:

1. On changing the name to What Privilege

I said in an earlier post I was going to write someday about how poverty leads to abuse within families. Now I’ve refined that idea: I think abuse cycles can start with large scale civil oppression and filter down to individuals in families taking out their frustration on whomever they have at their mercy. To use an example that’s been around forever: someone decides they want some cheap labor. Depending on the mores of the day, they may force some people into slavery or simply manipulate the conditions facing a group defined by location, race, gender, etc. so that those people are desperate for wages of any sort. Now whoever wanted the cheap labor has what they wanted, and the people who are doing the labor are depressed, angry and/or traumatized. And “management” clamps down hard on any attempt at solidarity or community among these people, or seeds the would-be community with issues of distrust that keep everyone divided and therefore conquered.

For a while, maybe some of the laborers have some optimism. But God never helps. Society never helps. Even those who come in blazing with heroics turn out to be all about the glory and not much for the human beings who have more to contribute than cheap labor, or who just want to be able to determine their own fate through their own endeavors. The frustration, anger and depression grows into a deep cynicism – trust no one. There is no hope.

Eventually, in one generation or another, some of the laborers decide to take out their frustration on whomever they can. Usually, it’s men harming their families. Sometimes it’s people engaging in criminal activities. Some just internalize it all – not hurting anyone, perhaps, but not setting a great example for the kids, either. Some drink themselves to death. What else can they do? They’ve been shown over and over that no matter what they do, they are going to get up again the next day and help build that pyramid or plant that cotton or go down into that deadly mine. They could cure cancer, score off the charts on school tests, write a symphony – nobody cares. God doesn’t care. Society doesn’t care. Even the hero types really don’t care.

I think it’s much easier for a group to get together and abuse another group than it is for one person to abuse another. Groupthink makes individual responsibility fuzzy. It’s that sense of individual plausible deniability that enables people to call for burning someone at the stake or hanging them from a tree. A lynching mob could conceivably be comprised of no individuals capable of doing such a thing on their own. But get them together, and it’s mob psychology. And what you’ve done as part of a mob may not seem so unthinkable to go home and do to someone there.

Another way that large scale social oppression could filter down to familial abuse cycles is via emotional abuse. Women, legally and practically restrained from taking care of themselves for centuries, got very good at manipulation on the whole. We had to; how else could we survive? We didn’t have brute strength over many men. We didn’t have a political voice. Hell, we weren’t even classified as people. Of course we learned manipulation. Girls are still taught to hint instead of coming right out and saying what they want, which is pure manipulation. Don’t take this as support for the stereotype that all women are manipulators – most of us aren’t, and many men are manipulative as hell. I’m just saying it’s a survival skill, and if you deprive a group of the right to ply any other survival skill, what do you think they’re going to do?

A frustrated or desperate woman who’s good at manipulating might well decide to subtly control everyone around her – and she might succeed for the most part. Men have been trained not to expect to need their brains when dealing with wives, and children lack the life experience to protect themselves from headgames that jerk them all over the place. Emotional abuse can replicate itself or lead to physical abuse – both of which are equally wrong and potentially lethal (emotional abuse can lead victims to suicide).

Why do most people caught in an abuse cycle (social or familial) not pass it on? I don’t know, but I think the root problem is insecurity – real fear of survival. Some personality types may be inherently better at optimism and self-confidence than others. It takes a lot of confidence to blame the person or group who deserves the blame, because you can’t touch them. If they so much as see it in your eyes that you blame them, who knows what they’ll do to you. And so you turn those feelings elsewhere – on yourself or on those around you.

I’m always revising my ideas – this is just what’s making sense to me now.

Related posts:

1. Future topics
2. If you look Mexican, you’re probably uninsured

All the universal health care plans being yapped about at length by various committees within Congress (I could’ve sworn the Constitution outlined a clear procedure for proposing a bill and then voting on it that did not involve marathon committee circle jerks wherein participants vote amongst themselves and then whine to the press about the results) rely on forcing young, healthy Americans to buy health insurance to fund coverage for older and less healthy Americans.

Dude, if it was that easy, we could fix all our national problems overnight. I mean, c’mon. Next up: U.S. solves homelessness by passing a law that forces American renters to buy homes so we can afford to subsidize rent on apartments for homeless people. See? Problem solved! Because obviously no renter is renting because they can’t afford a home, or because they don’t think owning a home is the right choice in their situation. They’re just being assholes, so we’ve got a fine for that now. And if they can’t pay the mortgage at some point, no problem! They’ll become homeless, and we’ll stick them into subsidized apartments which may or may not be in the school districts they wanted their kids to be in, may or may not be within three hours of where they work, which may or may not be safe and up to standards, it all depends if the housing inspectors are on the take or not.

Yeah, problem solved.

Like homelessness, health care in the U.S. is a complex problem. You’ve got tons of jobs that don’t come with insurance and/or don’t pay well enough for someone to purchase his or her own. You’ve got the huge and ridiculous cost of insurance premiums. You’ve got the rising cost of health care in general. You’ve got the enormous unemployment that comes around every 10 years or so, whenever the big boys’ latest get rich scheme collapses and we end up paying for it. And that’s not even touching issues I’m not really qualified to talk about, like where substance addiction fits into all of this – what gets covered, for whom, and so on. If you don’t come up with something that addresses or eliminates all these issues, it’s a workaround, not a solution.

I do not love taxes, but at least I expect them as a normal function of government, and if you’re going to fund something on a national level, it should be funded through taxes. I really really have a problem with the government telling me I must do business with a private company or else get a huge fine or move to another country. Next thing you know, they’ll be offering me “protection” so long as I just throw all my business to [insert company here].

Related posts:

1. Compulsory health insurance and no end to inflated medical costs
2. Greed and the end of the middle class
3. If you look Mexican, you’re probably uninsured