Blog Stage 4

The Transgender Straw Broke the Camel’s Back: It’s Time to Declare Independence from Public Schools

This…..this is amazing. I have never realized how reading an opposing view could bring me so much joy. I never knew about this website, and my mind had been blown today. I shall now proceed to critique this commentary. Strap in y’all.

Here ye! Here ye!

“You may not have realized it yet, but the Obama administration just destroyed the traditional American public school.”

What an opening statement. I read that line, and then I pictured Obama as like a skinny Godzilla smashing up all the public schools. He DESTROYED our schools. Literally.

Then I think David gets really sad for a minute. (David French, the author of this post) Not sad like tears in his eyes kind of sad, but like when you’re 13 and you're just pissy/sad about everything. And you get really short with people, and act like everything that didn’t go your way is the end of the world.

He says, “That principal you love? He’s not in control of your school. The great school board you just elected? They’re puppets. The teacher your child bonds with? She doesn’t run her own classroom.”

I got sad too, cause then I realized he believed that it wasn’t that way before Obama issued this letter. He really believed that there was control in our public school systems and that the school board made the decisions that they made out of the goodness of their heart, and their love for our teachers. Oh poor David, it’s always been this way sweetums. Yes, always. You’re second grade teacher didn’t love you any more than she loved her recess cigarettes breaks.

His intended audience is clear, people who relate to this - “It’s time to create and sustain excellent, accessible, and fiercely independent alternatives to the government’s schools. If we don’t, we lose.” Religious folks who I guess are not cool with people being transgender??? As for his credibility, it's not like he doesn’t make good points and back them up. BUT they are super prejudice, and he is encouraging his readers to be discriminatory. I pray he doesn’t have children that ever want to question their sexual identity. Don’t worry kiddos, it’ll be okay. Come hang out with me if you get kicked out and need a place to crash where we won’t burn you on a cross or whatever they threaten to do to you if you don’t go to the camp where they beat you into submission. I don’t know how all that works, ANYWAYS…

I obviously don’t agree with the author. I am super excited about all this! And am super supportive of the transgender community, and I praise all efforts to help their be less prejudice and discriminatory acts against them.

Blog Stage 6

This is my comment on my fellow classmates blog, Freedom....

I completely respect and understand your religious beliefs and values. I come from a very religious and conservative family. So I do not have any interest in downplaying what you believe. But since we are not able to incorporate any religion into our national government...that can’t be a useful argument.  Now, it may be a totally valid one in your eyes, and it feels right in your heart. But again, we just can’t use that as a substantial opposing argument. So, my question would be - is there any reason that you have against same sex marriage that is not associated with your religious beliefs? Also you say that you’re not homophobic, and that you wouldn’t want your children to be around “something like that” (I’m assuming you mean gay or lesbian couples?), does this mean you would be afraid of exposing your children to same sex couples? Homophobia is a fear or hatred of homosexuals. I am in no way claiming that you hate homosexuals. BUT, usually when we want to shelter our children from things, it is because it scares us. I wouldn’t use the word homophobic, but prejudice might be close.

The Supreme Court said that the right to marry is fundamental. A fundamental right. This falls under the same list as a the right to freedom of religion…. So you have the freedom to express yourself and practice any religious acts you would like. Just like we all have the right to marry, to liberty, to self determination. We used to deny entire races the right to vote and speak for themselves. When you say that we should not have same-sex marriage be legal in our country, you are saying your values are more important than someone else’s. We cannot deny fundamental rights to ANYONE, even if we disagree to the core.

Blog Stage Eight

In my classmate Myriam Cisse's blog, Government Today, she wrote a commentary on Proposition 1

This is my comment :

I hear you too girl!

I feel bad saying this, but let's not waste our time arguing about the quality or customer service benefits of Uber/Lyft and Taxis. That is so far from what this is about... 

Uber and Lyft are great innovations of technology, we enjoy them, we rely on them, they are providing a crazy awesome amount of jobs. Lots of goodies right? So what are the negatives? They don't have an "official city provided background and fingerprint check"?? Just like Suzannah said, there are folks failing the Uber background check and then our city council is issuing them chauffeurs licenses… super crazy. 

We all know that this is just Taxis vs Rideshare companies. Uber is evil. Taxis are evil. They don’t care about what would be best for us, so just leave the emotions behind. Who is paying whoever more is what this will ALWAYS boil down to. 

My least favorite part about this whole thing - when we were encouraged to vote against this proposition, the main thing was that they aren’t doing these background checks on their drives, they aren’t safe, we can’t let them do this to our city. And this may sound like a really uneducated response to that. But I was always confused - if that’s our main concern… How about this, if you don't feel safe taking an Uber…..maybe….uhh….don’t? 

I now understand it is a lot more complex than that. But my hope is that Uber and lyft will come back soon because I really miss them :( 

Blog Stage Five

Why are the majority of the people in our jails poor? This is a question I felt that I probably knew the answer to, but I when I thought about if someone would have asked me to explain why, I would just blubber out something that I didn’t really believe. Poor people aren’t genetically coded to be “bad”. They aren’t born to be criminals. Are they even criminals? Aren’t we all? I can almost guarantee you that no one I have ever met has NEVER broken ANY law. Hell, I broke the law on my way to school this morning because I was late, and I didn’t see any traffic cops behind me. We all do. So why isn’t everyone in jail evenly spaced out in terms of income?

Our criminal justice system grows every day. And our jails aren’t funded federally..(should they be?) .our local community funds our local jail. And I would say that Austin in general is doing quite alright for ourselves. But wayyyyyy off in all the little towns that this vast state has, those county jails are nothing but a cardboard box.

So many people that are in jail are there for REALLY dumb things. Like a broken tail light, or a suspended license. Once you’re in jail, you have to pay for any drug or lab testing, and then there is the issue of paying bail. Nancy Fishman said something really interesting to me in a NPR interview about our jail systems. She said, “The irony of bail is that its initial purpose was to make it possible for people to get out of jail, right? You couldn't be held in jail without a finding of guilt, or prior to a finding of guilt, without having an opportunity to get out. But the irony is that now bail really functions to hold people in. .... This means that if you have money to pay bail, you can get out no matter how dangerous you are, whereas if you are poor and all you've committed is a traffic violation, which is one of biggest drivers, frankly, of jail admissions in most places, you are going to sit in jail because $500 is a lot of money to you.”

So we are keeping in the poor people who really aren’t harshly damaging our daily lives. But rich people could commit some super dangerous crime and just be like “Here, money money money money….BYE!” Somehow that just doesn’t feel right.

I guess I’m not sure how we can solve this. Should the federal government be more involved with local jails?? Should bail be based on both your crime and your income?? Should everyone just be nice to each other and stop doing mean things?! :(