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Do We Really Want Change? Part 3 of This Election Series

Do we want to truly make America great again? This is a valid question that we need to really ask ourselves this election season. This upcoming election has a lot of serious implications. There are going to be a few Supreme Court seats up likely during the term of the next president, including the currently vacant one that will not get filled before the election because politicians only seem to care about screwing the other side over, ignoring the fact that potentially nothing in the Supreme Court will be decided because there is a tie right now. We could likely elect a criminal or a toddler businessman, both prospects that should bother the American people but surprisingly doesn’t. Too bad there isn’t any other option. Or is there?

If we learned anything during the primaries, we learned that there is a political revolution that is going on. People obviously don’t want the same old, which is why Trump is going to end up the Republican nominee and Bernie nearly beat Hillary if not for the DNC being not very subtle about giving her the election. But in actuality, you are getting the same old with these two options. The political revolution ended and people are now giving up their dignity and America by voting along with their party. But what people seem to forget is that you have options. And if you truly wanted a political revolution, you would fight for it.

There are 3rd party candidates. I know, you are saying but a vote for <insert 3rd.party candidate of choice here> is a vote for Trump/Hillary (depending on which party you talk to). Sure, that’s true. That is until America regrows the balls that were responsible for dumping tea out and started the American Revolution. We have a chance now to join together and stand up for ourselves against these typical politicians. We have a chance to vote with our conscience and not back who we think is going to be the winner or a woman because we want to make history or because we registered as Republican/Democrat and that’s who we have to vote for. If enough people stand up and say “enough”, then we can finally have the change that we have been promised. But only we can be the change.

If you are going in and voting with one party because that’s what you always do, you are part of the problem. If you are voting solely based on gender or race, you are part of the problem. If you are voting for anything other than your conscience, you are the problem. I vote for people who I can stand behind. I voted for Scott Brown twice. I voted for Obama. I voted for Charlie Baker and Deval Patrick. I voted for a Republican mayor and a Democrat representative. I vote based on who I think is a better choice and one that I can say I believed in when I voted for them. I don’t care about the letter next to a person’s name; I care about their platform and what I think they can offer us. I cannot vote Hillary. I cannot go with Trump. However as a woman, people fought hard for my right to vote and while it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of the electoral college, I still have to vote otherwise it seems a slap in the face to history. But, if enough people rebel and stand behind a 3rd party candidate, we will finally get the change that our country needs to get on the right foot again. That will be what makes America truly great again.

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The Best Way to Make Matters Worse

Today was supposed to be the final part of my election series. That was until I woke up to the awful news of what happened in Dallas. It’s senseless. It’s all senseless. Why does this always happen? How did we as a civilized culture get to a point where we solve violence with even more disgusting violence? At what point did ideals give people the right to get violent with another and we were supposed to just accept it?

Well, I don’t accept it. I don’t accept that it’s okay to use excessive force. I don’t accept that in order to fight excessive force you have to answer with more excessive force. I don’t have an issue with the ideals behind the Black Lives movement. There is something wrong in our society that clearly needs to be fixed. However, the problem with ideals are the simple fact that humans are the one that hold them. If this shooting proves anything it’s that people manage to screw up even the most innocent of ideals.

What happened to following such inspiring and influential leaders as Martin Luther King, Jr. or Gandhi? These were men that changed not just their own movements but the world around them. These were pacifists that believed that violence never solved a thing. They made real changes in the world through eloquent articulation, not through guns or violence. They fought for their causes in a dignified manner. And there is nothing dignified about this type of behavior at all.

Peaceful protests that clearly aim to address a problem is more effective than ones that turn riotous. That is a simple fact. Think of all of the peaceful protests that we remember today. King’s Selma March is iconic. You will never remember the violent protest  in Baltimore and even this turn of events will likely be forgotten soon. These were bad times. The violence at these events turned them from people fighting a cause to no better than the reason that this group was formed to begin with.

There is a foot patrolman in my neighborhood that you can see playing soccer with the kids in the low-income apartments next to my house, playing with kids of all races. What if this kind man was shot just because he was in uniform? There is another one who will go over to everyone he sees and waves or stops to talk with anyone that wants him to. Why should he die because of some corrupt cop? What makes you any better going after innocent men in blue just because of a prejudice that you may have against them? Does that really make you any better than the cop that shot a kid just because he was born with a certain skin color?

This was not peaceful. This was retaliation. This is what happens when people escalate a cause and make people forget what the actual cause is. No innocent person should die, period. It doesn’t matter what profession you are, your race, your religion. No innocent person should die. No one wins when that happens except for the bad guys. And I am really tired of the bad guys always winning.

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Is Hillary a Criminal? Part 2 of This Election Cycle

We do want to see change. We do want to make history. We want to show that we are a progressive and awesome country.  We are America, after all. But is Hillary Clinton really our answer? Is she the knight in ugly pantsuit that is going to save the day? If you listen to some, she is the second coming of Christ. If you listen to others, she is a criminal. You also get the media coverage of just how awful her stylist is, which is something that shows how truly un-progressive and sexist some of our media actually is. Hit her on whether she is a criminal or a liar and not because that one blue outfit made her look like the Cookie Monster. This is politics, not an episode of “What Not to Wear”. /end rant.

Now, back to the original topic. Do I think that Hillary Clinton is a criminal? Without a doubt in my mind. While Trump may be a man of little morals or ethics, that is not unlike any other politician out there. However morally bankrupt he is, he is not a criminal. Hillary Clinton is. I’m not some dumb Republican zombie that is blind and only listens to Fox News, though I do admit a fondness for Shep Smith. I’m a logical person that sees facts. If you look at those, you clearly know that she did something illegal. And you clearly know that she is going to get away with it.

Why is she going to get away with it? Is it because she has the Clinton name and people love a dynasty? No. It’s because the Democratic party is so desperate to be the first party to seat a female president to solidify them as the equal rights and progressive party that they are willing to sweep this very big issue under the Oval Office’s carpet. They already proved a willingness to rig the election to put her on the ticket over a more qualified old white man, why wouldn’t they just smear the Republican party for making a mountain over emails?

What’s scary is that their willingness to talk away the severity of this issue means that it will happen again. Only next time, she could be president with a much higher level of security when she does. And then she could be very easily hacked, and all of our most delicate state secrets will be released. This is a big issue and the fact that so many people are so blinded by party loyalty or the prospect of the first female president that they are ignoring what all of this actually means. I say this as a person who voted for President Obama in the last election.

Is she really the best we can do? If you wanted to put a female up there, is that really the best we have to offer? I can’t do it. I cannot bring myself to vote for her because it’s wrong. It’s wrong to willingly vote for a criminal and that pains me because there is the implications of having a prospective 3 seats coming up in the next few years and I don’t want to see a reversal of legalizing gay marriage. I don’t want to see a reversal of Roe Vs. Wade. And most importantly, I want to see the transgender community get the equality they deserve and I worry that won’t happen with a Republican in office. I worry this progress all goes away, and that makes me sad. Because I cannot vote for Hillary. I just can’t do it. She is just as likely to be swayed with money as Trump is. She is just as malleable when it comes to her ideas. But she did something very wrong, and she needs to be held accountable for this. Even if the FBI releases some sham of a statement on how not knowing you did something wrong is a viable defense. Keep that in mind next time you do something illegal and see how far that gets you without the backing of some very important people.

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Trump: Addressing His Controversies and Misconceptions

After a long absence due to being busy with freelance work, I have finally had time to come back to my true love of writing what I want to say. What better topic to jump into than this controversial candidate. This is a part of a 3 part post about the upcoming election. So let’s dive right in on this topic.

Do I think Donald Trump is a Racist? No, I really don’t. I think he’s a shrewd businessman that is smart and knows his audience. While I also don’t believe that the Republican party is on a whole is racist, it would be foolish to ignore that there are a shocking amount of xenophobic and racist followers of this party. Those are the ones he is pandering to with his statements. In fact, his entire platform is a pandering to the Republican constituents, which should make you wary of this choice. You may think you are going to get a guy who is going to get rid of all of the Muslim and Mexican population in America, but you will be sorely disappointed in what you actually get.

The only real true part of Donald Trump that you are going to get is the one you see throwing tantrums and hurling insults on social media. You are going to get the Trump that uses his soap box as a platform to humiliate anyone who dares to disagree with him. You are going to get the guy that is really smart about this topic, so very very smart that he has all of the answers without actually answering anything but you will be very very happy with what you get. He promises that you will be very very impressed.

What you will get is a liberal in disguise. After all of his years donating to Democratic candidates, you can’t suddenly put another label on yourself and honestly think people aren’t going to question it. You are going to get a smart business man that has had his own very public controversies and failures in business that shows maybe he isn’t as awesome as he leads us to believe. You are going to get a guy that is probably not going to do a single thing that he promised, which is actually par for the course for any politician really.

I can’t do it. I cannot stand by a candidate that makes a tweet that would make a selfie obsessed and immature or angsty teenager seem like a rational human being. I can’t vote for a guy who might tweet out “I hope the view up my butt is nice, Putin” or “That Angela Merkel is one very ugly broad”. I take him as seriously as I take my pouty teenager when he gets whiny about doing the dishes. Most importantly, I cannot stand behind a candidate who doesn’t really seem to have any platform, wavering in the direction of the polls. I can’t do it. That is my slogan for this year’s election.

If you think I’m for Hillary then, you’d be wrong. Come back Wednesday to see.

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How My Son Got Into Preschool: The Interesting Journey through Early Intervention to Preschool

This is a continuation of sorts to my previous post, to which I will summarize for those who didn’t catch it. I was anxiously awaiting the decision of my son’s fate being able to continue services through our local preschool’s special needs program. My son started into this journey because he barely spoke one or two words by the time he turned 1. After nearly a year of Early Intervention services, he has come so far though he is still much behind other kids his age or even a bit younger. I see kids younger than him that have an easier time expressing themselves and communicating, and I feel guilty that I have somehow failed my toddler. It isn’t true though; I didn’t fail him. He only missed 3  weekly sessions between both specialists in the past year, due to illness. I sat by diligently observing the sessions to see how I could help him, and listened to every piece of advice I was given to help. At age 3, he would be able to receive these services no longer and our only hope to continue these types of services was through the local preschool.

The meeting went pretty much as I had predicted, which I will get into. The evaluators were the school psychologist and the speech pathologist. The psychologist started speaking quite frankly to us. “I witnessed some worrisome behaviors”. “He has incredible attention and focus issues and is really unable to sit still for any amount of time”. “He is quite brilliant”. I was all over the place with what was going to happen. Not that I didn’t understand what she was saying; I understood everything she was saying. But it was all mixed signals. I felt I knew where this was going though. The speech pathologist also remarked how intelligent he was, but noted that she did not feel he had a speech delay. (This point was argued by my son’s actual speech pathologist, stating that not giving him specialize services could be detrimental to his progress, as she feels he may be diagnosed with apraxia, which can’t be diagnosed until 3.)When that happened, my heart dropped. This experience could have been good for him. It could have helped him.

Finally, after the evaluators stopped talking, the head of the special needs program spoke and mentioned it was decision time. She informed us that she had a checklist she needed to go through to see if he qualified. She asked the speech pathologist if there was a speech delay, she said “no, not significant enough”. I remembered thinking it was easy for her to say after only spending 20 minutes with him. The special needs lead said “cognition and social delay”. The psychologist said “absolutely yes, to a point of hindering his speech and possibly his future education”. After a the rest of the list was “no”, I had started to give up hope that this was going to happen. The lead circled another item or two on the list, and looked up saying “your son qualifies for services, so we’re going to draw up the IEP”. The moral of this story? As I had predicted, he would not get in on his speech. Also as I predicted, he got in based on his overly energetic, mischievous, curious and often troublemaker behaviors. (It was later joked by my husband that they took so much pity on me for having to spend so much time alone with him that they figured they would give me a break.) Their reasoning? He would learn structure and be able to learn how to control his often wild inhibitions and channel that energy into focusing on his learning, which they feel would help him be significantly more intelligent than he already is. If they can get him to settle down, focus, and start paying attention, it will improve his speech, and earn them a medal in my book if they can accomplish that enormous feat.

They started to write his IEP. “He is not to be left unsupervised at all; he will escape and do what he wants”. Fact: they are right. “May need breaks from the classroom to release some of his overabundance of energy”. Also fact, though it’s been my experience that he has a never-ending flow of energy. My kid will be the one having his hand held in the line because he won’t walk in it, and my mother and speech pathologist have correctly identified that it is better this way as he would probably lead a group of rogue toddlers away from the group and go to the playground by themselves. I will not complain. All that matters to me is that he got into preschool, with a guaranteed and free slot through the special needs program. He will get a positive start in his education that I would never have been able to afford. The speech pathologist said that they will quickly learn my son’s difficulties with speech and change his IEP to include services. There is no negative here. The system worked, and I couldn’t be happier.

 

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Failing Our Children

As a parent, you’re supposed to love your children. Loving them isn’t special or noteworthy; it’s human. Not loving your child just makes you something else. Loving your child does not make you a good parent; all that other stuff does. The times that you really want to sleep but stay awake with your vomiting toddler and comforting them. The times when you think you’re dying of a cold but take as much medicine as you need to suck it up because your children don’t take a time out just because you need to. Parenting is really about every fight that you do to better your child’s life in even the slightest way. Those fights and struggles are what makes a good parent.

From the moment my youngest was born, I knew I was going to have to fight harder than ever. From the beginning, he had issues that we knew that would require some amount of strength, though thankfully nothing too serious. We knew he had a minor birth defect that would need repair. We visited the specialist every few months until his surgery and spent the longest day of our lives waiting to bring him home. We had hoped that we could just be after that.

As far as his motor skills were concerned, he was always advanced and impressed his doctors. From the beginning, it was clear that he was his own person and to hell with everyone else. It wasn’t until his first birthday that I had any concerns about him, aside from having surgery at 9 months old. The minute you find out your child has any sort of developmental delay, you wonder what you could have done to prevent it. You try everything in your power to fix it, because as a parent, you want to fix everything to help your child. We tried everything: we read more, we got programs for tablets and computers, I started to go about my day as if I were a sports announcing describing even the most mundane activity aloud to help him. Six months later, nothing had worked and we left the doctor’s office deflated. She referred us to Early Intervention. Soon after, we did the evaluations and we started with a developmental specialist. Nothing. He learned how to sign, which was great to at least help us communicate a little. After a few months, she decided to add-on a speech pathologist to his developmental team. After a few weeks, there seemed to be limited improvement. We had a neuropsych evaluation to see if he was autistic, nothing. Finally, he started picking up language little by little and I firmly believe that these interventions are the difference.

We did all our “homework”. I sit through 2 sessions a week, watching on as they help my son. At age 3, he will age out of this program that has helped him so immensely. The specialists agree he’s not where he needs to be, but at 3, there is nothing more they can do for us. So we started the steps to get into the “transitioning” program. This helps EI (Early Intervention) kids move into preschool to continue services. They will get an IEP, and get free preschool. This would be huge for George, as there is a fear from everyone that he could regress without continued services. Our Early Intervention team has no say in what happens now. We did the evaluations at the school, we did the meetings, and the day has come for their decision. Getting into this school system’s particular program is notoriously difficult, and everyone has been very upfront about that. All I can do is hope.

This leads to a bigger issue with the education system that I had written about in my last Education class in college. It was a class about special needs. Our final paper was about teaching special needs, and we had to pick a topic from a list of papers. I was the last one to get the list, and I had discovered that there was one particular group that no one was doing a paper on: the gifted and talented kids. This group of children are especially ignored, because people think that they are smart so they don’t need help. Realistically, these children need an IEP just as much as any other kid with special needs. Since they don’t, they are often set up for failure. That is the fault of our schools, not truly “leaving no child behind”. My son, who is too young to be labeled as such, as shown skills and thought processes far beyond his age and his specialists note that. I fear that this will hurt his chances of getting the help he needs. I fear that him not getting in this program will set him up for failure in the future. My biggest fear, is that he will regress back to what his language was before he received help, and he will be disregarded when he starts school because they don’t realize his true potential because of a lack of speech.

I will go into this meeting with my head high, and fight as  much as I can. I’m tired though. I’m tired of fighting. But he needs this, and I need to fight for him because I know no one else will. That is what makes a good parent: the fight.

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Transitions

I have contemplated whether I wanted to weigh in on this big topic of Caitlyn Jenner and her big reveal. After much thought, I decided that I wanted to share my potentially controversial thoughts on this topic. Before you are quick to hate me based on this introduction, I suggest a careful reading of my actual thoughts.

I truly applaud her for taking this journey. Struggling with such an unimaginable feeling of not feeling like yourself in your own skin is bad enough;  doing it in front of the whole world for this judgment is 1000x worse. People are blaming him for being part of a trend that is ruining America, helping break down the moral fiber of a great country and being a part of some fallacy set to further an agenda. Obviously a person is born as they were intended by God, and God makes no mistakes… right?

The true ruin of the moral fiber of America is this spread of hate and nonacceptance of people for who they truly are. Beliefs are no excuse for hate. The KKK is a group that believed they were being great Christians and promoting how white people are superior and everyone else should be enslaved or killed. Does that make them not hateful people because they use religion as a defense for their ignorance? People are born gay, not turned that way because they saw a gay couple kiss and somehow caught a disease that makes them gay and needs to be cured of it. Sometimes God does make mistakes, and modern science can help fix them, like putting people in the wrong body that doesn’t match who they are. People should do whatever it takes in order to feel better about themselves. A transgendered person transitioning into the person they feel the need to be should be encouraged to do what they feel they need to. Who are we to judge? Their decisions do not affect my life, why should it affect yours?

My problem isn’t in what she did. I think it requires a great amount of bravery to come forward, especially in the hateful world we are unfortunately living in. My issue is in the how. Everyone knew what was going on, yet she chose to sell it to the highest bidder. She discussed about how she wasn’t going to publicly identify as a woman yet in said interview. Great, she should move at her own pace. Except a couple months later, she then sells her new look and big reveal to the highest bidder. Do I have a problem with someone doing something publicly flaunting this? No. Anything to raise awareness for such an important topic is a positive. Should she be laughing to the bank, adding to her millions for it? That I take issue with. If you are going to thrust yourself out there and make yourself the face of a cause, you should step up and be more than just a glorified spokesperson and do something to help the cause.

I would have less of an issue if that money, even part of it was put into or started a fund to help the transgendered youth that are disowned and tossed out on the streets because they aren’t as fortunate to have a loving and supportive family by giving them a safe place to live. If the money was used for a fund for people who can’t afford to have such a life altering ability to transition, to have the luxury to do so. Instead, it was used to make a rich person richer.

If one of my sons felt they wanted to wear nail polish or a “girlie” outfit to school, would I consider it? Why not? If it’s just a phase, then what’s the harm. If it’s more than that and it’s truly who they are, then they’ll know that I love and support them no matter what. Because I choose to teach my children acceptance and love and not hate.

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Choices

Adulthood is as awful as it can be amazing. You are able to own a home, raise children/dogs/whatever animal you choose, and you can eat ice cream for any and all meals that you may want without your mother informing you that you will get the biggest belly ache of you life. Yes, you will likely get a giant belly ache, and probably a sugar induced headache from consuming that much Hood chocolate chip deliciousness, but dammit I’m an adult and I want to. I choose it. I choose that deliciousness over my maple and brown sugar oatmeal.

Okay, maybe I did have Special K Honey n’ Oats instead of a delicious bowl of ice cream. Why, after all that ranting about “me being an adult, Imma do what I want”, did I eat a bowl of healthy cereal for breakfast? Because the important thing about being an adult is making choices, the right choices. As much as I want to eat ice cream all day long, it isn’t reasonable, healthy and it’s expensive. (Aforementioned ice cream comes at $5 a half-gallon when not on sale. You do the math.) Additionally, what would that show my kids? That they can eat ice cream all day long because mommy does it, and then I raise statistics rather than children, considering how terrible the stats for obese children in our country. It’s bad enough both boys and my lab have all picked up my nail biting habit. Choices.

As children, you make dumb choices all the time. If you’re lucky, those dumb choices will provide consequences to make you less dumb as you’re older. What happens when you grow up without any consequences to your dumb choices? You continue to make them because why not? Then, likely you look at other people who make great life choices and think “why can’t I have that?” The answer? Because YOU made a choice, and you need to either make a different choice or stop complaining about how awful things are. Because you can make choices because you are an adult.

My husband made choices to work his butt off to provide for his family. As a result, he’s a 29-year-old man and father of 2, who owns a home and can make sure that everyone is taken care of. We made a choice that our children were better off in my care than daycare, especially considering the obscene cost of daycare, so now I’m at home raising children and tending to the house. I could choose to sit around and play video games or watch television/movies all day, and every now and again I do make that choice. Instead, I’m trying to follow my dreams as a writer, and make some extra money doing so. Because I want to contribute to my household and because I want to show my children that following your dreams is important, as is being a contributing member of society.

Next time you look at something in your life that you don’t like, remember that you have a choice to change it. You can choose to go back school if you don’t like your job. You can choose to move out of your neighborhood if it’s really that bad. You can go to school if you can’t find a job, or find training and job centers to help you find something you like or may even love, or just something to help you get by. If you don’t make choices to change things, how can you possibly expect things to change? Our parents can’t help us all the time; they’ve done their job and they hope they have raised us self-sufficient enough to be responsible and functioning adults. Our parents can’t wave a magical wand to fix our choices like they could when we were kids because we’re adults in a sink or swim world. You’re the only one who can make your choices. You’re the only one who can change those choices. And if you’re not willing to, why should anyone else?

You’re going to stumble in adulthood. Some months you will worry about how a bill will get paid, or how much is on your credit cards. You will have to make tough decisions, like “is this neighborhood safe for my family?” or are the “schools good enough?” and be willing to make changes if necessary. You may not have anything in your savings account, or have to live off ramen a month straight. But life is hard and it’s sometimes painful to experience, but you can choose how you deal with it. You can make the choice to sit there and take it, or you can make the choice to change it. Choices.

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I Have No Thigh Gap, and I’m Okay

I keep seeing this talk about thigh gaps. I looked down, and I saw nothing but curvy thighs, and then I shrugged it off and had some pizza. I gained a few pounds on account of new medication, and now sit on the scale around 130lbs, up about 10lbs from before I was switched to this medicine. Still, 130lbs around my 5’3″ frame is actually still within the healthy range. Plus, I consider that an incredible feat considering I popped out 2 children and have a seemingly unbeatable pooch, as well as weighing around just over 200lbs when I was pregnant with my most recent bundle of joy.

Still, I see people talk about their gap like it’s a bragging right over people without one. As if they are part of an exclusive club that makes them better than me. News flash: it doesn’t. Would I rather a thigh gap or the ability to enjoy that bowl of ice cream that I want, or that heavily greasy and cheesy pepperoni pizza that makes me drool just thinking about it? I choose to enjoy my greasy and sugary indulgence, and I am quite okay with my choice. As long as I work out daily, as I do, and keep my weight at a reasonable and achievable but healthy goal, I don’t care that I have wide hips and thicker thighs. Because I’ve had them my entire life. I can thank genetics for them, and I refuse to stress out about something that I may not be able to change. Because I like me. And my husband doesn’t complain, and quite frankly that’s the only opinion that moderately matters to me.

So you can enjoy your thigh gap, because the trend will die out, and you will realize that you were just genetically blessed or you missed out on enjoying simple things in life. I will wear my big thighs, my 2 baby pooch, and my stretch marks with pride, because I’m 31 years old and I left high school long ago. Not that I cared too much what people thought of me then, either. Until my doctor, who I pay to make sure that I stay healthy, tells me to fix something, I’m going to keep doing what I do. I’m going to make sure that I’m healthy, because that’s what matters. Not how I look. Not anything but staying long enough to raise my family and be there for their kids, and if I’m lucky, their kids’ kids.

Next time someone tries to shame you for what you eat or how you look, remember that. Your parents were right when they told you that people who pick on you for things like that is really  just over-compensating for some deficiency in their life. Don’t compare yourself to supermodels or celebrities: they have personal trainers and nannies and personal chefs/dietitians to keep them looking that good. You’re setting yourself up for failure, that will eventually lead you to give up on meeting whatever fitness goals you may have. My goal? I just want to get back down to where I was before the medicine. Which is still a healthy and achievable weight, just one that I feel more comfortable with. No man wants a stick figure.

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We Need Choices!

We are fortunate enough to live in a place where we have choices. We can wear what we want. We have the choice to work our dream jobs. We can eat whatever we want. We have the right to choose in America, which is also a curse because half the time we aren’t even really given options to actually make choices when it comes to the important things in life.

The problem is simple: we live in a democratic nation, which gives us the power to elect the people who govern over us. Well, at least some make shift form of democracy that attempts to give us piece of mind that our vote matters. But what real choices are we given? Although we live in a place where we can choose our governing body, we are really in a two-party system, which really does not give us any actual options. This gives us sheep (the politicians, if you will), and we have to choose which herder (democrat or republican) leads them. These sheep just follow their herder blindly, uncaring what it means for the big picture.

We are in the beginning of the fight for the 2016 fight for president. I say fight, rather than election, because the process seems more vicious than civil. There is rarely a factual ad that discusses actual political ideals, but there are plenty of ads where we watch someone kicking an old person in a wheelchair off a cliff to give an attempt at wit. We don’t know what it means, but we were either outraged that a poor old person was kicked off a cliff, or amused because we thought it was satire that was meant to be laughed at, not poignant.

With the people now throwing their hats in the race, I feel annoyed at my choices. I actually almost feel betrayed by my choices. I don’t like the idea of Hillary becoming president, but at this point in time I feel the Republican Party is just handing her the election. The choices on the republican side are: someone who read a children’s book to block a bill and no one takes seriously, a doctor who’s only claim to fame is berating Obamacare while 2 ft. from the president and being launched in the spotlight for it and is now an expert on politics as according to Fox News, and Rand Paul, which I feel does not need an explanation. We need real choices guys, this is almost becoming more comical than it should be.

This is becoming more of a case of why we should eliminate a 2 party system. Hell, we should just eliminate a party system period because you are just inviting those who don’t care enough to research the candidates a reason to just blindly vote for the letter next to their name, rather than voting for an ideal that you can stand behind.