Principles and Responsibilities

Every day I make decisions.  Hopefully the way that I live my life on a daily basis clearly reflect the principles that I hold dear to me.  Here are some of the things that make me a unified me: 

1.  Addiction is not freedom.  These four words are from a pamphlet produced by Narcotics Anonymous World Services.  When I was in my active addiction, I was not free.  I could not exercise much responsibility as an adult or as a citizen of my community or the world.
     Recovery is not necessarily freedom either.  I must not allow myself to use my past, present, or future states of being as an excuse to perpetuate a refusal to take on responsibility for myself.  When I do so, I short-change myself.  If I want something different, I have to do something different.  Move a muscle, change a thought.  Those are not empty words.  They are challenges to me to extend myself and to continue growing as a mature, responsible adult.

2.  I am at my core an atheist.  I have an extensive history of membership in a large variety of religious groups.  I have found that I genuinely do not believe in any gods.  I prefer natural explanations to supernatural explanations and to preternatural ones.  I like the patterns that I find in science and nature and maths and music.  And yes, morals certainly can and do exist without the interference or encouragement of any type of deities. 
     I believe that public schools should provide a public secular education including but not limited to the teaching of evolution.  Evolution is the basis of science.  We have fallen behind in sciences and in maths.  It is the job of the student to learn the material that the teacher is presenting.  It is the job of the parents to bring up the child in the religion of their choosing.
     If I was a Christian parent, would I want a teacher to try to convert my kids to Sufi-ism?  If I was a Muslim parent, would I want a teacher to try to convert my kids to Judaism?  If I was a pagan, would I want a teacher to try to convert my kids to the Bahai faith?  Or if I was a Christian parent, would I want a teacher to try to convert my kids to a different Christian sect? 

3.  I support the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, inter-sexed, asexual, queer, and questioning communities.  As a bisexual, my issues are closer to those of trans-folk than to those of mono-sexuals.  I have marched in solidarity with my trans-sisters and brothers in the Gay Pride Marches.  Our communities have a long history of struggles for recognition as people worthy of the same basic human respect that all people are worthy of.  I believe in civil rights for all civils. 

4.  I am against the troubled teen teen trouble industries.  The programs which are included are things like boot camps, wilderness expeditions, residential facilities, and rehabilitation centers which have as their basis the misnomer called "tough love."  These behavioral modification placements, replete with paid educational consultants and transporters a.k.a. paid kidnappers, have known histories of abuse.  Teens and pre-teens are "treated to" face-plant [ground] restraints, food deprivation, sleep deprivation, unsanitary and unsafe living conditions, rape, verbal and physical abuse, isolation, and an occasional suicide or death.  The parents pay huge sums of money to these places.  A few parents and teens write glowing testimonials all over the web.  Recently, survivors have begun to tell their stories.  These stories are not easy to listen to.  The organizations that run the abusive facilities invariably use the excuse that "the clientele we serve are prone to lying and exaggeration."  This is unsatisfactory to say the least.  Our teens are the future.  They will be here running the show after many of us older ones are dead.  If I cannot honor them now, how will they honor the younger people coming up after them?

5.  I am against abuse of any kind toward anyone.  From the brutality that is honesty in the absence of any compassion to the parent who assaults their child of any age, from elder-abuse to the mishandling of disabled people by their professional caregivers, from the cops who beat on a detainee to the actions of a government that imprisons someone without a trial-- it is wrong.  Being "against" abuse is not enough.  I have a responsibility to report the things that I suspect.  I have a responsibility to speak out, protest, blog, make phone calls, write letters.  If I am able to, I have a responsibility to help someone get to safety.  I am against pedophilia and sexual slavery.  

6.  I am an advocate for animal welfare, not animal rights.  I am not a member of P.E.T.A.  The PETA folks are animal rights activists.  I support responsible animal husbandry.  I eat meat.  I wear cotton [but not wool because I find wool to be itchy, and not fur because I don't see any reason why I should spend that kind of money on clothing].  I have animals who live with us.  Those animals get my love and attention.  In return, they have rules that I have trained them to follow.  I commit to my animals for the duration of their natural lives or until disease or infirmity forces me to decide to put them down.  I believe that cows on a farm should be milked.  My grands had a farm.  To allow a cow to go without milking is to cause her pain.  I have frogs.  I only buy captive bred frogs, not captive caught ones.  I do not believe that my frogs or my dog or my cats should have the same "rights" that I do.  If there is a mosquito in my kitchen, I kill it.  
     The animal rights folks believe that an ant and a frog and a dog and a cat and a cow and a cockroach have the same right to be here that we human beings do.  Over at Penns' Cove, the PETA folks came in and began to complain loudly that the wolves there did not have dog houses.  Since dogs are descended from wolves, the wolves [which had several miles of an enclosure which included a few mountains and dens that the wolves had carved from them] ought to have dog houses.  This is what the PETA folks were insisting.  They came on the tours and began talking loudly about how the wolves at Penns' Cove were being mistreated for the lack of dog houses.  The owner had no choice.  He finally had to airlift the dog houses in and dropped them into the wolf enclosure.  The wolves trashed the dog houses and pissed all over them.  This is the kind of thing that happens over and over again when well-meaning people confuse animal rights with animal welfare.
     The animal rights folks are against euthanasia-- even in the cases of long-suffering, painful, terminal illnesses.  And they detest zoos, in spite of the fact that the zoos are often at the forefront of animal conservation efforts.  They do not believe in the use of lab animals even in the interest of saving human lives in respect to medical research.  For those reasons, I am not a supporter of animal rights.

7.  I think marijuana should be legalized.  Adults should be able to use pot at will as long as they do not put me at risk by driving when they are stoned [that is how I got my traumatic brain injury].  Any human being suffering from a disease or condition that the use of marijuana or a derivative can alleviate or ameliorate should have access to it.  It's called compassionate use for a reason.  The drug war is major fail.  So let's quit fighting it people.
     I cannot use safely.  It does not follow that no one should use pot.  If I am allergic to peanuts, do I legislate that peanuts should be banned entirely and that anyone caught eating them should go to prison?  Should possession of a pound of peanuts yield charges that someone is pushing?
     Along with the legalization of marijuana, I believe the morning after pill should be available to any victim of rape.  I think abortion is a tragedy yet I remember the days of back alleys and coat hangers.  I think abortion should be legal.  I think same gender marriage should be legal.  Actually, I think the government should get out of the marriage business altogether.  If a couple, regardless of gender, gets hitched in a place of worship via the use of clergy, that should be considered marriage.  If a couple, regardless of gender, gets hitched by a judge, that should be considered domestic partnership.  No place of worship would be forced to unite a same-gendered couple.  [That's silly].  Whether a couple is formally partnered in a religious or secular ceremony the rights and responsibilities should be the same.

8.  I can no longer call myself a Democrat.  But I am not a Republican or Tea Party Patriot either.  I am non-partisan.  I agree with the left on some things, with the right on others, and with no one on still others.  If the Republican Party hadn't been hijacked by the Christians, I might have been one by now.  I believe in small government and fiscal responsibility.  I think charity should begin at home.  I think the government owes us some type of accountability.  And I am vehemently opposed to censorship and the increasing demands of internet social media for our wallet info.  I know that privacy is not the same thing as security.  I am hoping that cooler heads will prevail, I just don't know when that will happen.  I think we have to become self-sufficient as a nation.  If we develop our own fuels for our own consumption instead of having to depend upon other countries that hate us, I think we would be much better off.  I want the government out of my Internet.  I don't think I should have to give up a cell phone number just to obtain a freebie e-mail account.  I am against internet censorship.  I believe parents should be knowledgeable about what their kids are doing with their computers.  And I would be willing to pay more for stuff that is made and assembled in the United States of America.  I don't believe in giving any of my filthy atheist bucks or filthy atheist tax monies to places that hate and disrespect us for the nation that we are.

9.  I am for civil commitment for all pedophiles, even after they have served out their prison sentences.  Little houses behind the electrified fences of penitentary grounds sounds about right to me.  Kiddie rapists sicken and repulse me.  Period.  Some people cannot be relied upon to function in society in a manner that keeps all of us safe.  Inhumane?  The real shame is that someone can sex up a child and then claim they couldn't help it.  Once you've laid your hands on a child in a sexual manner, you have lost all of your rights to function in a free society as far as I am concerned.

10. I am against amnesty for illegal aliens, period.  Sneaking across our borders is a crime.  My grands came here legally.  They were proud to have the opportunities to work for better lives for themselves and their children.  Fence the borders.  Electrify the fences.  Do whatever you have to do to staunch the flow of coyotes bringing people over here.  If I wanted to migrate to another country, I would have to go through the red tape.  I would have to fill out the paperwork.  I would have to submit it.  I would have to wait for the approval or disapproval.  I would want to take language lessons so I could be fluent in the language of the country that I am moving to.  And I would have to have something to offer the place I am re-locating to.  


What are my responsibilities as an adult who has these principles?

I have a responsibility to speak out against abuse in general of human beings and animals and the ecology.  If I want to speak out in support of a specific case of abuse, I must do my own research first.  I have to ascertain, as far as I possibly can, the veracity of any claims of abuse made by adults on behalf of children in sticky situations.  The kids mostly may not lie about abuse.  But parents with vendetta do.  My mother did.  I know it happens.  If it is abuse of animals or the environment, I must do my own research in order to familiarize myself with the issues.  I must use information presented by all sides, and not just those that I agree with.

I have a responsibility to help the people who want my help and who are asking for it.  And I have a responsibility to not help the people who are functioning competently and do not want my help.  I cannot be all things to all people.  There's a bunch of people around who do not want my help, who are living just fine without my help, and who will continue to live without my help after I am dead.

I have a responsibility to care for the animals that share our home.  We also have a plan for any animals should we predecease them or become too ill to care for them.

I have a responsibility to vote on the issues that concern me, crossing party lines if I must.  I have a responsibility to vote for the people who can lead us.  As a citizen, I have to know what is happening politically around me.  I have to do the research so that way I can form educated opinions, take a stand, and choose my battles.    

radical sapphoq