Who doesn't love a good pie? Personally, I love all pies with fruit and pumpkin, and a good pecan pie as well. Most people think there are a finite number of slices of the pie to go around. More people want pie, the smaller your slice of it.
The thing with pie, is that like in life, there really is enough for everyone. Your slice may not be as big as you want, and maybe you get cherry instead of apple, but you will get your pie. I have found professionally, and being a political bystander, that people freak out that there will not be enough slices of the pie for everyone to survive. Here's the secret, the more people contributing ingredients to the pie, and the more pie that is available to everyone.
As a lawyer, I see attorney's gatekeeping work or information thinking that they need to protect their market share. As people get older, we need more younger folks to replace them. But to do so, we need to share the knowledge and the pie. Have you experienced the phenomena of "No one helped me, so I won't make easy for you". Such a thoughtful and mature mantra, really. (insert sarcasm).
If you choose to watch the news these days, it is all about restricting this, banning that, cutting funding to key social welfare programs, eliminating student loan debt. Everyone has an opinion of pretty much everything these days. I'm for and against different things as well. But, if we contributed to the "ingredients" in the pie of society, ensuring food security, providing safe schools for education, promoting healthcare and taking advantage to what science given us - preventative healthcare measures, vaccines, affordable medicine for diabetes, etc; the amount of pie produced is exponentially larger than before. Also, it would most likely cost less by lifting generations out of poverty, so they can support themselves and their families. Keeping people down, because "I didn't have help" is complete bullsh!t. It's about hate and intruding on people's personal lives and decisions.
I recently watched the movie "Lincoln". The movie focused on the passage of the 13th amendment. I was fascinated watching the machinations of the House of Representatives and the Cabinet, as well as the truce talks with the Confederacy. One, Congress actually showed up to listen to speeches. Two, there is debate - not always civil, but something missing in our society today. These days, we talk at each other for sound bites. It is not a discussion.
The Congressmen who were against the 13th Amendment were horrified that black men would be eventually given the right to vote, to be franchised. Now, let's forget for a second that we were still treating women like second class citizens in general, but the debate was real. They were afraid of black men getting the same rights as them. In the end, the idea that all men should be free of slavery and indentured servitude won out. This was back in 1865, and our country struggled for the next century and still continues to grapple with the idea that we are all equal. By treating people with respect, they will rise up to be contributing part of society, reducing the burden poverty on generations.
While I could write a book on how hate is the biggest motivator in our country that has caused violence, poverty, dividing of our country in many ways - the haves and have nots, the ones who support others or are isolationists. Look at the political climate today. It is all about the fear, the fear that illegal immigrants will take too many resources, they will cause violence, they will take people's jobs. But let's look at who does the jobs that most Americans do not want to do, agricultural jobs, for example. Immigrants support this country's agricultural industry with cheap labor. It is right, it is just, I don't know. I know that if we have more people contributing to our society, have them pay taxes, get work visas to do the jobs that so many Americans do not want to do. Treating them like trash is inhumane, and only adds to the problems of this country. I think we need a humane and realistic immigration system implemented in this country. The lack of judges and infrastructure, coupled with almost no avenues to stay here and work, leave the system in overwhelming chaos.
The hypocrisy of the leaders in our country is deafening. Remember when people wanted less government interference in their lives? Well, someone missed the memo because it seems like this is not the main goal of a large swath of our elected leaders. Why? Why would you care who I married? Why would you care if I made a lifesaving healthcare decision with my doctor? Oh, I get it, its because so many Americans feel we need to be treated like children and obey all of their rules. We do not need disciplinarians, we need politicians who realize that they do not know everything and should act to make American's lives better not more dangerous.
Years ago I was at a party, and the couple I was speaking with told me that abortion should be banned since people use it for birth control. When I told them I had to have a D&C for a missed miscarriage, they said, oh that's fine. We know you and it was important for you to have it. So, since they approved because they "knew" me, it was ok for me to get lifesaving care. It is absolutely no one else's business what healthcare treatments someone receives. The reasoning behind it, how many they have had, it does not matter at all. We do not need to be policing people's private lives. It if does not affect you, why would you care what someone else does? You belief or support of gay marriage is completely irrelevant. If you do not like it, don't marry someone of the same sex. Super easy.
We do not need to keep others down in order to succeed. I am in no way a socialist. I worked for years at a stock exchange and believe in a free economy and capitalism. But standing on someone's neck in order to succeed is not success. By supporting people from pregnancy and birth, through childhood and education, you are helping raise the success of the country because we can now make more pies and there is more than enough for everyone.
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