Gun Control Fixes Nothing

I don’t know what the white house was thinking when they spoke of major changes for gun control. It was, at the very least, reckless and irresponsible. How could they not know what was going to happen next? Now our citizens are in a gun craze. Gun stores are sold out and are being told it could be months until they are restocked.

This means that now there are more deadly assault rifles in possession of our citizens than ever before. How could this possibly make anything better? I can’t believe that they are not intelligent enough to keep quiet about this. Now there are people with stockpiles of these guns in their homes.

I am not in anyway saying that the people that have bought these guns are not fit to possess them. It is just the risk that comes with it that worries me. Home invasions have become a normal thing for most troubled communities. Even nicer communities and people in rural areas have these problems. So what happens when a strung out drug addict breaks into a home and finds ten assault rifles? I can tell you exactly what is going to happen. They’re going to take these guns to there drug dealer buddies and now we’ve really got a mess on our hands.

I see an increase in violence because of this. It is hard for a person to unload an arsenal of weapons and ammunition without someone taking notice. This means that more and more people are going to become targets. Then word of mouth comes into play and makes things worse. A rumor starts about an elderly couple having five assault rifles in their basement. The wrong ears hear this and decide to break into the home. Killing the elderly couple only to discover that there aren’t any guns in the home. Another senseless tragedy and I am sure that this is not going to be an isolated incident.

Similar crimes will be popping up at record rates all over the country. How hard is it for people to think before they speak? These are the people that are supposed to be leading our country not harming it. Now instead of someone only wanting to buy one assault rifle, they’re going to buy five assault rifles because who knows how much longer we’ll be able to purchase them.

So what will happen when assault rifles become outlawed? Do we really expect our citizens to just voluntarily turn in the weapons that they spent their hard earn money on. Will we have another witch hunt on our hands? Will law enforcement begin storming the homes of the people that don’t give them up? Have they even thought this theory through? Who wants to break down the door of a residence that you know has assault rifles inside?

Whatever the outcome will be I would like to hope for the best but based on the past it seems very unlikely. Now instead of getting our citizens to rethink ownership of assault rifles by the average citizens, we have sent them into a craze to get them before they’re gone. Once again our government will attempt to enforce our rules through force instead of education.

First it was alcohol, then it was drugs, and soon it seems it will be guns. Although politicians wont admit it. The laws they create do little to regulate what we can and can’t have. During alcohols prohibition people still got drunk. Drugs are still outlawed today but people are still getting high. If guns are banned people will find a way to get them to. Would it not be safer for them to be sold through a business, then for people to be buying and selling them on the street? That will only lead us to one thing, more senseless killing. Once again our leaders will find a way to create more problems and fix nothing. 

Spengler Lures and Kills Firemen

By now I'm sure that most of you have heard about William H. Spengler Jr. and what he did. If you haven't then first and foremost I should probably share his background with you.

In 1980 he was arrested and by 1981 he was convicted of murder. This upstanding citizen beat his 91-year-old grandmother to death with a hammer. What could possess a man to make him do such a thing? In my opinion the only reasonable answer would be pure evil. Now if the crime he committed isn't horrific enough wait until you find out about his punishment.

In 1998 the parole board decided that it would be safe to release Spengler from prison and allow him to return to society. 18 years is a very long time to be incarcerated but is it justice? Is it enough to allow a man that took a life, return to his? His grandmother Rose Spengler will never be able to return to her life so why should her killer be allowed to return to his? If you take a life you should lose yours, plain and simple.

I don't care if he found God and started a church while he was in prison. It is still not enough to allow him back into society. This man is the definition of a cold-blooded killer. He repeatedly beat his own grandmother, a 91-year-old defenseless woman, to death with a hammer. How could we ever believe that it would be safe to let him walk amongst us? It is completely unacceptable. I hope that the members of the parole board that released him feel as guilty and responsible as they should.

14 years after his release he committed another sick act. He started a fire at his home and dialed 911. He stayed and waited for firefighters to come to the scene. Then upon their arrival he shot at the men that were coming to help him. If this isn't premeditated murder, I don't know what is. Two of these firefighters were killed while two others were wounded.

My heart goes out to the families of these men that lost their lives while trying to help others. The very man they came to help is the same man that took their lives. I also feel for Spengler’s family because he also killed his sister who was found in his home after the shooting.

After exchanging gunfire with police he did what every other cowardly man does in these situations. He turned his gun on himself and took his own life. They're man enough to kill innocent people but they aren't man enough to handle the consequences.

Although I know that my words won't make any difference. I still have to share my plea with the media. Please stop talking about these stories. I can't help but feel like this is exactly why people are committing these heinous acts. They have an ever-longing need for attention. It is almost child like; it is the same thing as a child acting out for attention. They feel like even bad attention is better than no attention.

When we flood our headlines with these stories it only adds fuel to the fire. Publishing this mans note that he left behind is exactly what he wanted to happen. This sick and distorted man stated in his note that he wanted to go out doing what he does best, killing people. This is not the mind of a man that is safe enough to be released from prison. This is not the mind of a man that anyone would want living next door or down the street or even in the same state.

Spengler does not deserve our attention. He doesn’t deserve anything from anyone. He is not worthy of our eyes to read about or our ears to hear about. He isn't even worthy of the prison cell that he once called home. The only thing that he deserved was the needle in his arm that he never received. If he had, none of this would have happened.

The Fiscal Cliff

I feel like the fiscal cliff situation isn’t getting as much attention as it should be, at least not from my generation. I’m not saying that no one cares I’m just saying that not enough of us do.  I think that we all still have some form of blind faith in our political leaders; that they’ll take care of what needs to be done. I will be honest I really didn’t know much about the fiscal cliff situation until recently. Now that I see the consequences I feel like I have to say something about it. For those that still don’t know, don’t worry we all will soon enough if an agreement can’t be met.

Paychecks will be smaller for starters. For the wealthy this isn’t much of an issue but for the working class living paycheck to paycheck this could be life changing. Congress has had such a nonchalant attitude about this and it’s sickening. Obviously they have had a long time to get this figured out and here we are with less than a week to go until it’ll be too late.

Why should the politicians care? At the end of the day they’re still making a six-figure income. So why should the rest of us losing money be any of their concern? The law of the land seems to be that if it isn’t your problem then you probably don’t care about it.

I mean just think about all of the other problems going on in our country that nobody cares about, that is, unless it affects them directly. The overall lack of caring in this country is at times beyond belief. Kurt Cobain said it best when he said, “My generations apathy. I’m disgusted with it. I’m disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism and all those other -isms the counterculture has been whining about for years.”

No one is innocent this statement is true for all of us. No one cares about crime until they get robbed. They don’t care about guns until someone they know gets shot and killed. No one cares about drugs until their child becomes an addict.

We will care about the fiscal cliff if an agreement isn’t met. Maybe not all of us but a lot of us, programs helping the poverty stricken have more of an effect on society then you think. That program that’s feeding the poor is keeping someone from breaking into your house so that they can eat. The intervention programs for youth in the inner cities is keeping that kid from joining a gang and either killing another kid or getting himself killed. The housing programs, they're keeping a homeless man from squatting in the vacant house next door.

Everything trickles down just like the rain. It might only hit the top of the glass but eventually it’s going to reach the bottom and touch everything along the way. Life’s not all about you and me. It’s about all of us coming together to make this country great again. It’s about using your voice to make a change.

Today it’s the fiscal cliff but tomorrow or the next day or maybe next week it will be something different. The politicians aren’t going to care until we make them care. Until they realize that we will not continue to be quiet as our lives are downgraded because of their indecision. Not being able to come to an agreement is not an acceptable statement. I don’t want to hear that because if they really were trying then this would have already been dealt with. 

We live in a country that thrives to be the best and yet we, the citizens, continue to settle for less. Have we all forgotten the American dream? Or have we simply given up on it?

Who's To Blame? - The System & Us

It is a scary reality that we live in. If only more people were educated in the truth of the system, the situations that the government has knowingly placed innocent civilians into on a daily basis. With all of the mass shootings that have been going on it seems like most people are trying to decide where to point the finger; from the mall shooting, to the school shooting, and who can forget the massacre at the movie theatre. 

What frustrates me the most is the politicians that claim to be just as confused as the rest of us. So what is the problem? Now obviously I can’t say that these are the reasons but I certainly believe that they are playing a factor.

I remember reading after the most recent school shooting that there has been questions about whether or not the man responsible was mentally ill but to do any them really know how the mentally ill are treated? The only way for a mentally ill person to be hospitalized in an institution is if the person is homicidal or suicidal. Now at first glance you might think that this is reasonable. That this should cover all of the bases but the truth of the matter is that it doesn’t.

Did you know that a person can be hearing voices and still be released from the care of a mental institution? Before you say that I’m crazy, please, do some research because if you do you will see that I’m telling you the truth, they can be not only hearing voices but talking back to these voices. They could be staring in the mirror and talking to themselves or another person that they believe is there but as long as they are not homicidal or suicidal they can and will be released from an institution.

There are people like this walking the streets in cities all over the country. Do you still feel safe?  However the mental health system is not the only system at fault. Lets look at the department of corrections. This is the system that, in theory, is supposed to help criminals change.

When criminals break the rules in prison they are sent to solitary confinement. For weeks or maybe even months, if they continue to get into trouble they could be sentenced to solitary confinement for years. Just imagine spending 12 years in solitary and then one day you are released from prison. How can we expect these people to be capable of dealing with life? After spending 23 hours a day for 12 years in a cell. You’re setting up these people to fail and that is why so many of them are.

 The system is broken and everybody knows it but no one will do anything.  Tragedies happen and instead of us demanding changes we continue our lives without a care until it happens to us.  No one ever cares until they become a victim. These politicians look at these situations and they say, “oh that’s awful” but they don’t care because it’s not their problem. How much longer can we wait? How many more people have to die before we all start to care? If we don’t speak up we will be held down forever.

Melissa Nelson - Fired For Being Too Pretty

To be honest the first time I heard about Melissa Nelson being fired because she was too irresistible I thought that it was a joke or that maybe there was more to the story. I read and read and read and no that was the whole story. I am not writing this as an advocate for women’s rights. I am writing this as an advocate for basic human rights.

I wish I could say that I am shocked but I can’t.  There have been times that people were killed for no reason other than the God that they chose to believe in and that was ok. There once was a time that people were separated because of their skin color and that wasn’t against the law either. So why should I be surprised that it is also legal to be fired because you are too attractive. What’s next, women being fired from bars because they are too unattractive, a man being fired from a gym because he is too overweight, the possibilities are endless. They take away discrimination of race, religion, and skin color. So they replace it with discrimination of physical attributes because as of now apparently that is legal.

Melissa Nelson was not fired because she was caught stealing. She wasn’t fired for forging prescriptions for pain medication. She was fired for being herself. She looked too irresistible in her scrubs. Newsflash, all women look attractive in scrubs. Any man that says he disagrees is lying and it’s probably because of the same reason that got Melissa fired, an angry wife. Attractive women look attractive no matter what they are wearing. So for all of you attractive women going to work in scrubs beware. Today could be your last day.

So can somebody please explain sexual harassment to me? Melissa Nelsons boss told her that if she saw his pants bulging then she would know that her clothing was inappropriate, now maybe I’m wrong but doesn’t that sound like sexual harassment? Doesn’t that sound like something that is supposed to illegal in the workplace?  This man even asked her how often she experiences an orgasm. Now normally wouldn’t the person that made that comment be the one getting fired?

This is sad at the very least. To know that now any man or woman deemed too attractive can be legally fired. Next people will be fired for being too unattractive. Any bosses spouse can say that you had better fire this person because they are too attractive and I am so insecure that I am going to leave you if you don’t. Now please take notice that I have not named any names I am simply throwing out scenarios. However you decide to put the pieces together is on you.  Just think about my next statement. If Melissa Nelson was ugly she would still have her job. The sad thing is that you can’t be mad at me for saying that because it is the truth. It was accepted in the court of law that Melissa Nelson was fired for being too irresistible.

I don’t know what else to say about this. It is wrong in so many ways and it blows my mind that nothing has been done to fix this. No one has stepped up and said that this is not ok. Just think if it was your daughter. If your little girl called you crying and told you that she was fired from her job because she was too pretty. This is America, this is the land of the free, and we’re better than this.

Terror - South of the Border

We are living in a society that thrives on fear. We thrive on what we must do to prevent something terrible happening. We are shown how terrorism is this country’s biggest threat to national security. Yet we allow the drug wars in Mexico to go on without any interference from our military. The Middle East is thousands of miles away. There is an even greater threat just south of the border.

I am no expert and I don’t have all of the statistics. What I do have is common sense. The death toll in this country from drugs on a daily basis easily trumps the number of people killed in our country from terrorism. Every day that we stand by and do nothing about the drug problem in this country we impose our own form of terrorism. It’s not just the low-income neighborhoods that have this drug problem. The drug epidemic is everywhere; no portion of our country is spared.

Drug overdoses occur every day in this country. A user can do the same drugs every day for years and over time will convince themselves that they will be fine. We fail to realize that every day we do survive we are still causing damage to our bodies. There’s no warning when enough is enough. One day you are getting high and before you know it your life is over. I have read that 100 people die from drug overdoses in the United States every day. Now lets look at this in a monthly perspective, that’s 3,000 people every month dying because of drugs. There’s 365 days in a year, so in a yearly perspective we will find that 36,500 people will die from drug overdoses. Now in ten years that number becomes 365,000 people dying and that turns into borderline genocide. This becomes a self-imposed genocide on our country that we continue to turn a blind eye to. I understand our mission in the Middle East but it should not be our only priority. We have an enemy south of our border that for whatever reason doesn’t really seem to matter to anyone.

I have read that in 2005 there were over two million home invasions in the United States. I would be willing to bet that at least 75% of these home invasions were committed by someone that was addicted to drugs. So 1.5 million burglaries by committed by addicts. More lives ruined because of narcotics. Then if we start to look at robbery, kidnapping, and auto theft we will see what drugs are doing to our nation. Not only the people victimized by these crimes are the victims. The people that are committing them are also victims of the drugs that are poisoning their minds. How many inmates grew up in broken homes? Grew up in family’s torn apart because of drug abuse; parents turning to drug trafficking to support their own habits leading to imprisonment and their children going into the system.

If we look at the numbers and we look at the affect on the American people. It almost begins to look like terror. Home grown terrorism that is destroying lives on a daily basis. While acts of foreign terrorism are just as deadly and shouldn’t be ignored, the terror in our own backyards can’t be ignored either. We need to stop calling drugs a problem and start calling them terror because that is exactly what it is. Minds poisoned, family’s ruined, and life’s wasted; by a war south of our border that we continue to do nothing about.

Clearly the Mexican government can’t contain this problem. If they could we wouldn’t have cocaine and heroin flooding our streets. This is not a time to sit back and do nothing. Obviously our faith in their efforts was generous to say the least. We must realize our mistakes and re-evaluate our priorities. Our troops are out of Iraq and according to Obama they shouldn’t be in Afghanistan for much longer. Our efforts must be re-directed to the nation that is destroying ours from the inside out. If we don’t, things will never change and we already know what will continue to happen. There will be no one else to blame, just ourselves.

Help For Syria? – Torn

It seems like every time I read the news there is some horrific story about the civil war in Syria. I cannot imagine waking up every day and having to face a war in my own backyard. For the citizens of Syria this tragedy has sadly become their way of life. My heart goes out to the children that are forced to live with so much suffering. I do not know how a parent goes about explaining this to a child. I am grateful that I don’t have to and I am hopeful that I never will.

Amidst it all there are many people that think that someone should intervene. To either assist the rebels with military supplies or to place troops on the ground. As much as I know that many people may not like what I have to say. I cannot in good conscience continue to be silent.

There are similar situations just like the one in Syria going on all over the world, some far worse. Most of them are occurring in Africa and I cannot recall very many of the American media caring too much about them. While the war in Syria is terrible, there are situations in Africa that are far worse, in these conflicts it is more than just a civil war, it is genocide. Rwanda, Somalia, and you can’t forget Sudan. These are situations where several hundred thousand people have been slaughtered and we have done nothing to stop it. We attempted to help Somalia and I’m sure that we can all remember how long that lasted. 45,000 people have died in Syria and yes it is a terrible thing. However, it fails to even begin to scratch the surface of other ongoing conflicts.

Who are we to say who deserves help and who doesn’t? How do we know that we can trust the rebels anymore than the current regime? If the reports of chemical weapons are true, then there is no reason for us to put our men and women risk. Is it really worth having our men and women become victims of chemical warfare? This is not our fight. We already have enough of our own problems to deal with.

I think back to when Afghanistan was fighting for freedom from Russia. Supposedly the CIA was involved with training their troops and helping them defeat the Russians. Look at where that got us. Does the name Osama Bin Laden ring a bell?

How do we know that the same thing won’t happen in this situation? How do we know that it won’t come back to bite us like it did before? Why do we feel like it is our job to intervene in Syria but not in other situations that are far worse? It is not right for us to pick and choose whom we want to help. It is unfair, to say the very least.  It is wrong for to say that this countries citizens deserves to suffer but another countries citizens don’t. We are all human beings. We all feel the same pain. We all cry the same tears. The value of human life is equal on all parts. If we cannot help our own people we have no right to go to another country and help theirs. 

Athletes, Entertainers, The Two Commas – Do They Really Care?

Whenever an athlete is praised for their success they always want to thank the fans. They want to thank us but do they care enough to help us? They love being in a free country but do they love it enough to help it? The country that is allowing them to play these sports and make millions of dollars doing it. Maybe some of them don’t care. Maybe some of them do but they don’t know how. This is just one suggestion.

From my research I was able to get the salaries of players in the NBA, the NLF, and the MLB. Now I am not saying that this is a hundred percent accurate but I do believe that it is close. I used several different sources thanks to the World Wide Web.

What I was looking for was athletes making more than ten million dollars for the 2012 season. In the NBA I found 61 players, in the NFL there was 35 and in the MLB there was 89, put them all together and that’s 185 athletes. 185 athletes making more than ten million dollars for the 2012 season, that’s $1,850,000,000. Believe it or not some of these players are actually making over twenty million dollars.

When I was a kid I idolized professional athletes but the older I got the more I realized that they’re not the people that I thought they were We live in a world filled with people that only care about themselves. Volunteering three times a year is not giving back to your community, especially when there are cameras following you while your doing it. All that does is show that you are trying to portray yourself as something your not.

If all of these athletes donated $25,000 to food pantries in their communities, that would be a total of $4,625,000 worth of food, just imagine how many families we could feed. Forget about the autographs, forget about the meet and greets. You are blessed to be in this position so why not give back to the people that are making this possible. Without fans there is no revenue. Without revenue you don’t have ten million dollar contracts to play ball. If each family that qualified for help got $200 a month for food for one year. That’s 1,927 families that could be helped.

Lets give back to the people that are scraping all of their money together just so that they can come and watch you play. Just so that they can buy there kid the jersey that they’re dying to have. There are children everywhere idolizing these athletes because of what they do. Lets have these same kids also idolize you because of who you are as a person.

To be fair though this article cannot only be addressed to athletes. There are musicians, actors, producers, businessmen, and a load of others that make just as much money as these athletes if not more. This is about our country coming together for the greater good. If all of these people making millions came together we could change our country for the better. What happened to love your neighbor as yourself? What happened to giving a helping hand? You’re making millions and you can’t give a few thousand to feed the hungry, to build housing for the homeless. To show the people in need that somebody cares. That we aren’t giving up on you, that we’re here for you and we’re prepared to prove it. Words can only do so much. Change can only come from action.

There are many men and women in this country with a two-comma income. I couldn’t find any statistics about 2011 or 2012 but in 2010 there was over three million millionaires living in our nation. So lets do the math so that we can properly paint this portrait. Take the athletes, entertainers, and all of the rest of the 2 comma people and lets see how much good they can do for our country. I can’t help but to think of a quote from a great man that has sadly left the mind of many Americans.  I believe it was John F Kennedy that said, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

If all of these 3 million millionaires donated $10,000 to local food pantries there would be 30 billion dollars worth of food for them; if we keep the same formula from before and give $200 a month for each family in need for an entire year. That’s enough money to feed 12.5 million families. Just think of the impact this would have on our country. More children would be doing better at school because they’re not going there hungry. The crime rate would decrease because more people wouldn’t have to worry about feeding their families. Obviously there will still be people struggling but at least it’s a start. Anything is better than doing nothing.

The government is not off the hook. They’re still very deserving of most of the blame. Every time there’s a natural disaster we are always there to help. It doesn’t matter where it occurs we are there to assist them. We do so much for others that we often forget about helping ourselves. We feed the hungry in other countries before we feed our own citizens in need. Our government tries so hard to be everyone’s big brother that we forget about our sons and daughters at home. I don’t want to sound selfish but at the same time. Our country is in a recession so therefore we have every right to be selfish because we are doing it for the greater good. We are doing it to help our neighbors, our co-workers, and our families. We cannot continue to pretend like we’re ok because we’re not. Every day it seems like we’re slipping further and further away from what is right. We have allowed ourselves to put up blinders so that we don’t have to see the truth behind what is happening all around us.

So to all of the rich and famous that want to thank us for their success, stop thanking and start helping.

Bring Back The Bible

Sometimes I wonder if we will ever see another good day. It seems like no matter how much good happens there will always be enough bad to offset it. The value of the word tragedy has greatly diminished. It’s almost as if tragedy was the new norm. No country is abstinent from killing. There will always be a man shooting, a bomb exploding, and a family being torn apart from senseless violence. I don’t know much about the societies of the other nations in this world but I do know about America. I can’t help but think that the solution to our problem might be much simpler than it seems.

It’s not just about the music we’re listening to. It’s not just about the movies we’re watching and the videogames that we’re playing. It’s the lack of guidance that should be going along with them. It’s the fact that no one is taking the time to explain to our young people that this is not acceptable. That this is just a song it’s not real life. That it’s just a movie and if you try to act out what you’re seeing there will be real consequences that you will have to face. These videogames are nothing more than just games. It is just like kids playing cops and robbers; it’s fake. Kids are growing up in a videogame age where death is diminished by the ability to try again, the ability to restart, the ability to have another life. This may seem miniscule to most adults but to a kid this could absolutely have a long lasting effect on them. The problem is the lack of people taking the time to explain what life is really all about, instead of telling them what to do and how to do it, we need to take the time to really explain why.

Another problem that I see is the lack of religion in the public school system. It definitely needs to find its way back into our classrooms. I understand that not everyone wants this to happen which is why I’m not saying that bible class should be mandatory. All I’m saying is that it should at the very least be available as an elective because despite what some people may think. God is still very much apart of our country and I think that people will be shocked when they see how many kids will choose to learn about the bible.

I strongly believe that the lack of God in our children’s lives has greatly affected their outlook on life. The bible teaches us how to be good citizens. Men and women that study the word of God and follow its teachings will absolutely succeed in life and that’s a fact. Just think about it, it’s common sense. The bible teaches us to respect others. It tells us not to lie and not to steal. It teaches us to be a hard worker and to take pride in our work. Tell me if I’m wrong but I think that I just described the perfect employee. Who wouldn’t want to hire someone that is respectful, doesn’t lie, doesn’t steal, is a hard worker, and takes pride in there work. So you see that the bible carries on from the classroom to the workplace and into all other aspects of life. The word of God seeps into your soul and no matter how far away you might feel from God. At the end of the day His love and His teachings are still in your heart. Even if one day you decide not to believe in it, the morals and values that the bible teaches will never leave you. 

Priorities

I find myself constantly questioning the priorities of our country. Not only of those in power but of we, the citizens. I can’t help but think that they really need a wake up call. The reality that they assume that we, the citizens are living in. Is nothing like the opinions they have developed out of thin air. They claim to care about all of us but still the same trends from years ago are still the same today. The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The things that they think we need couldn’t be any further from the truth.

I understand that our country has fallen on hard times and our government has pulled us out of them before. Yet I still wonder if maybe they completely lost touch. The people struggling on welfare are not getting enough of the true support that they need.

I recently read that the average person on welfare in the state of Ohio will be losing twenty-three dollars a month in food stamps. Now with the budget cuts that some of the other departments are facing this doesn’t seem like too big of a deal, at first. Then I realized that they are still are planning to continue the free cell phone program. So basically what our government is saying is that you will be losing money in your food stamps but we will still continue to give you a free cell phone with free minutes on them. What really gets me is that no one has stepped up and said how wrong this truly is. They would rather give us cell phones then money to feed our families. So what does this say about the citizens that are not speaking up and saying that this is wrong. It is not acceptable to continue to fund a free cell phone program if you are going to cut funding from the programs that are feeding families. Children of all ages will be eating less because of a few people’s selfish desires and the misconstrued belief that they have to have a cell phone.

Am I the only one that sees how wrong this is? Am I the only one that feels like this is unacceptable? How far gone are we? I strongly encourage each and every one of you not to be silent about this. We once lived in a country that was not afraid to speak up. We were not afraid to speak our minds. We were not afraid to demonstrate and protest. When we saw injustice we stood up and we spoke out against it. I cannot accept the fact that times have simply changed. We should be ashamed of the fact that citizens in the Middle East that many do not live with freedom of speech. Are more willing to speak up against the injustices of their governments then we who live in a country with freedom of speech are.

So I urge each and every one of you, don’t hold back, don’t be quiet, and don’t accept less than what we deserve. These are problems that are fixable but if we continue to sweep them under the rug. The changes that need to be made will never happen. If we continue to accept less than we deserve, then we will continue to get less than we deserve. We cannot wait for the next person to do something. We have already waited long enough. Silence will never lead us to change. If the government can’t see their own mistakes then it is up to each and every one of us to make them see it. 

An Untitled Poem

For my first post I decided to pick my favorite poem out of all of the ones I've written. I wrote this during the summer of 2010 and I still haven't come up with a name for it. I hope that you like it.

Time keeps moving on

But I am stuck in place

They say life will get better

Just have a little faith

But I can’t tell who really cares

Are they real or are they fake?

I know when everything falls apart

It can be hard to take

But you must remain steady

Do not let them make you shake

Keep those tears inside your eyes

Don’t let them see you break

The world that we live in is hard

It is not for the weak

Don’t lose hope while you’re locked away

Because one day you will be free

It seems some people are here to learn

But some are here to teach

Don’t get too far ahead of yourself

But don’t be scared to break the leash

They say that happiness isn’t far away

It’s there within my reach

But if it’s really right in front of me

Why can’t it be seen?