You didn't build that

My husband drives truck for a small family-owned, very successful company. They built that company from the ground up. And those trucks are driven on government-built roads and highways. Roads and highways plowed all winter by government employees, keeping the very successful trucking company from being a seasonal business. The trucks themselves are built to government standards. It's a comfort to me, as a driver's wife, that Peterbilt can't just find some cheaper yet more brittle metal to make truck axles out of.

I have a friend whose husband owned a business which did not succeed. They filed bankruptcy (thank you government bankruptcy laws) and got those debts wiped off. They are now purchasing a new home with a no money down VA mortgage.

My children will, god willing, become huge self-made successes in whichever fields they choose. My 14 year old has already surpassed my knowledge of math and science and is taking, her freshman year, sophomore classes. Thank you government-funded, government-mandated, government-standard-meeting public schools.  When she goes to college, she will undoubtedly go with government-backed student loans and grants. And don't even get me started on state universities!

If your business relies on roads, or on deliveries from trucks that drive on roads, if you ever needed and received a government-backed small business loan, if your business resides in a building built to safety standards, if you're grateful that the products you buy are subject to laws regulating how they are made, what can be used in them, and truth in manufacturing laws, you don't build it.  Not all buy yourself, not without opportunities and help from the government. America is a wonderful place that affords many opportunities, and it's ridiculous to base an entire political party's campaign platform on the idea that anyone who says so is insulting you.

To-may-to, to-mah-to

I saw this online and my first thought was "Wow, republicans are gonna be mad at this," because to me, it's such a classic democrat kind of statement.  But then I realized that my republican friends probably see it the other way around.  To them, entitlement and believing that the world owes you something is classic democrat, whereas to me, believing that you owe the world something and that you should contribute something to society is classic democrat.  I'm interested to know how others see it. Is it an article taking aim at lazy people who expect welfare to take care of them, or one taking aim at selfish people who don't want to pay into programs to help society?

Xnax vs pot, the grudge match

I have some hippie friends.  I don't know, maybe hippy's the wrong word.  I have some patchoulli granola friends.  Some of them smoke pot, some don't, and one in particular who does smoke pot isn't hippy or granola at all and is in fact a total yuppy.  I, however, am anti-marijuana.  I don't like it, don't want to do it, don't want to be around people while they do it, don't want to smell it, and sure as Hell don't want it around my kids.  And I take Xanax almost daily, for the same reason most people smoke pot.*
It has been pointed out to me, that some people view this as a hypocrisy.  I've had the word "pharmaceutical" spit at me with a hatred I'd never really heard before.  As in, "Oh, so you'd rather take Xanax than smoke pot. Pot is natural and Xanax is a pharmaceutical, yet you trust it more."   Yep.  Arsenic is natural, too, and I don't want that either.   But for what it's worth, I do happen to trust medications that have been subjected to rigorous testing and double blind peer reviewed studies more than some potted plant from Joe Bob's double wide.  And I really trust that if I'm pulled over and the cops find a pill bottle with my name on it in my purse that it will adversely affect my family and me far less than if they found a baggie of dope.  And of course, I can swallow a pill while holding my son without him getting any sort of intoxication from it, Xanax is much less harsh on my lungs, and it won't cost me a job should I be spot-tested.  But also, I know a lot of people who live their lives like characters from Dazed And Confused, and they don't act that way from Xanax.  They have no motivation, no ambition, and are perfectly happy to just sit on the couch playing video games and eating Fritos all day.  These are people in their 30s and 40s, people with jobs and families, just floating through life contributing nothing and getting high.  Not that I'm the most productive member of society, and not that Xanax doesn't have its fair share of addicts, but I've known more potheads than I have Xanax addicts so I'll take my chances with my legally prescribed pharmaceutical.  And before anyone tries to tell me that marijuana isn't addictive, I'm going to step up and say that I think it is.  I think it's like cigarettes in that for a long time people insisted they weren't addictive either, and like alcohol in that some folks, the majority of folks, can indulge recreationally and be fine but some just get hooked and need it every day to get by.  Yes I think pot is addictive, and yes I think it's worse than Xanax, and yes I can consider myself to be a far-left liberal and still be anti-pot.  I'm anti-ketchup too, and it doesn't affect my politics.  I just don't try to legislate around my own personal preferences.



*I'm not counting cancer patients or AIDS patients or whatever, just people who get high to relax or unwind when they're wound too tightly.

I just can't keep track anymore!

I try to be a good liberal.  I care about the environment, and human rights, and the little people.  I don't use slurs, I'm politically correct (although I refuse to give the janitor an honorary degree in engineering just because he likes the title "maintenance engineer" better than "janitor"), and I really do want to do my part and help throw my weight behind worthy causes.  But there are so many of them! I get it, I get it; Walmart is evil.  And then so is Amazon for the same reason; they both kill small businesses for sport.  And Target gives large chunks of its profits to horribly anti-gay political campaigns.  And I'm not supposed to drink Coors because they used to fire people for being gay.  And farm fish are bad for fishermen and the fishermen business, and corporate farms are bad for animals and independent farmers, and ADM pushed high fructose corn syrup on us all so we should boycott them, but they make the corn meal for the dog food so what do I feed my dog?  I could pick the exponentially more expensive meat-based food but I think the meat in that is from corporate farms and even if it's not, is it grass fed or corn fed because apparently grass is better for cows (although have you seen a grass-fed cow? They're scrawny!) and if it is corn-fed is it corn from ADM?
And I'm sorry if I shop at Walmart, but they've screwed the economy to the point where frankly, I can only afford to shop at Walmart.  Or at least, "living within my means", which I try to do, means a far different thing if I never shop at Walmart. Especially since Target isn't an option.  At least I can keep buying my horrible diabetes-inducing dog food at Farm & Fleet, right?

Women's Health Centers Rarely Offer Neurology Services. Because We Don't Have Brains.

I am not my uterus.  Even were I to lose my uterus (where did I put that damn thing again?) I would still be me, and I would still be a woman.  It is for this reason that I detest Planned Parenthood budget cuts being referred to as "an attack on women's health."  An attack on birth control, abortion, and pap smears, yes. And all of those do affect women's health. But they are not the entirety of women's health and the implication that women's health as a whole would be jeopardized if Planned Parenthood disappeared bothers me.  Would more women die of heart disease? Stroke? Colon cancer?  Probably not.
Women are intricate pieces of biology, not just walking uteruses, no matter what politicians, or tampon commercials, would have you believe.

Waaaaaaay to the left

I'm a liberal. But I'm not sitting around wondering what people can do for me. Shocking, I know. I believe in suing bad doctors for lots of money to give them a reason to not be bad doctors, not for torte reform. I'm for letting gay people get married, cuz it's none of my business and doesn't affect my life if they do. And I'm for helping people when they need help cuz what kind of country just lets people die around it and then shrugs and says "Not my problem."?

But I am not socialist. And part of that is scientific. I think that the US is a grand experiment in democracy, and you cannot change an experiment halfway through. You let it succeed or fail on its own, and if capitalism and democracy fail, then so be it. But, I also believe we can have an EPA and a DOT without becoming socialists. Especially when the hospital charges me ten dollars for a Vicodin because uninsured parents bring their kids to the ER with lung infections a regular pediatrician could have cured, if not for the $45 office visit charge. So I am a liberal, and I really wish people would stop trying to convince me not to be. In rather unpolite terms, I think non-liberals tend to be selfish fucks.

Respond in comments. Prove me wrong. I will admit it if you do.

Duggars. Funny, funny, Duggars

Is anyone surprised that these people:

a) have 19 kids,

b) vote Republican,

c) identify as Christian, and

d) "train" their kids in how to use guns?

Salvia

Salvia is safe. Or at least, studies have shown that it is. And no studies have shown that it isn't. At it apparently makes people feel just fabulous. It made it a little easier, for a while, for Miley Cyrus to be Miley Cyrus, and that's gotta just suck without drugs. So why are states rushing to ban it? I'll tell you why, because people want life to suck. The puritans who run this country don't want people to feel giggly and high, even if it's a harmless high. They ban everything just for causing euphoric feelings. You can get aspirin-codeine pills otc in Canada, but not here. You can get pot in the Netherlands. You can't even buy a Sudafed without ID here because some kid mixed it with transmission fluid to get high. I'm not pro-pot, or pro-transmission fluid or anything, but sometimes we need to escape. If that's a beer, or an ambien-induced conversation with my fish tank (not all that bright, but it just goes on and on and never shuts up), then it's not the government's business. And if smoking mint's cousin is safe and happiness-bringing, then it's probably the least offensive of anything Miley Cyrus has done on video, or is likely to do on video anytime soon.