The Economy: Where Do We Go Now?

The experts may claim that the economy is improving, but I’m not buying it.

The suburb I live in was always considered a decent place to live. Although I’ve always hated my town based of its overwhelming abundance of trains and auto parts stores, most people who live here are happy with it and my friends from the city describe it as being “cute”. But now, it seems that every time I drive around in my area, I see yet another foreclosed house that had been occupied just a few days earlier. Similarly, a more-affluent suburb I often shop in is now littered with vacant storefronts, even though just two years ago, that town’s shopping district was thriving.



When I was in high school, we all whined about the bad economy based on high gas prices and low interest rates, but back then, everyone I knew was surviving just fine. Now, I know of businesses that have shut down rather than continuing to pay the rising cost of renting space. With the increased cost of living expenses, most middle-class citizens are now agonizing over how they’ll ever come up with enough to cover their next mortgage payment or the upcoming round of property taxes. Everyone I know who is looking for a job isn’t finding one. And some of the most hard-working people I know are facing foreclosure.



So between the lack of jobs, the inflated cost of everything, the government’s increases in taxes, and the fact that banks are becoming less and less reliable, where are we supposed to go? It’s not about whether or not people can afford a vacation anymore. The middle class is shriveling as a growing percentage of the population has nowhere to live, no work to be found, and no money for food. Does the government really think that rather than creating jobs or lowering taxes, the solution to our economic problems is for everyone to just die?



At one time the economy was the consumer’s friend. Back in the 1990’s, if you had enough money to put a little away in the bank, you were rewarded with a reasonable amount of money in interest. Longer ago than that, back in the 1950’s, shoppers were given S&H stamps every time they went to the grocery store, which they could later use in order to receive free household items. Perhaps you could argue that expensive restaurants and specialty stores do the same thing now by giving regular customers free birthday dinners and buy-10-get-one-free punch-cards. But when the economy’s bad, the first things people give up are those expensive services, whereas grocery shopping is a necessity for everyone.



Maybe the experts think the reason why consumers can’t be given a break now is because the economy is bad. But doesn’t it instead seem that the economy is bad now because no one is given a break?

Are Sororities and Fraternities Killing Diversity?

The college I go to prides itself on being diverse. Nearly every class manages to discuss issues like racism at some point or another. When you open up a brochure about the college, you see dozens of images of happy students, half of whom belong to a racial minority group, even though in reality, for every 20 students at the college, there appear to be only about 3 who aren’t white. This hypocrisy is an issue pretty much everyone is aware of, but there are other ways in which the school isn’t diverse that most people seem blind to. And if you know anything at all about me, you know I like to point out what other people tend to neglect.

Now I’m not exactly trying to bash the school. They give out a lot of scholarships, it‘s a nice looking campus, and I wasn‘t able to find any other college that offered a degree in the major I wanted, so I wouldn‘t say I‘m not happy with the school in general. And in terms of diversity, they have handled some things extremely well, like when the gay pride flag on campus was vandalized, the college put up signs informing students that the college welcomes everyone and doesn’t approve of homophobic attitudes.

The thing is, when I think of diversity, I usually think of it applying to all people based on all aspects of their identity, including nationality, sex, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability or lack thereof, and class. Yet at the college I go to, the whole issue of class seems to be completely forgotten about. Perhaps it’s because the college is located in a fairly wealthy area, but don’t they realize that not everyone who goes there lives within a three mile radius?

This semester I’ve actually taken a class on diversity in the workplace, and in the class, subjects like sexism, ageism, disability, sexual orientation, and religion were each talked about for approximately an hour and a half while the whole other half of the semester was dedicated to racism. The class discussed pretty much every imaginable type of racism except racism against Native Americans, because apparently they think that isn’t an issue in the United States. Yet neither the teacher nor the textbook even attempted to address discrimination on the basis of class.

It seems the college has no idea that there are people of various income levels attending their classes. After all, everywhere you go on campus, you see signs of the sororities and fraternities, and while I don’t know much about the fraternities, I do know that students who aren’t rolling in dough could never afford to be in a sorority. From what I hear, it costs hundreds of dollars to join a sorority, and the girls I know who belong to one say that if they miss a sorority event, they have to pay $50 or even $100, even if the reason they missed the event was because they had to attend class. Additionally, those of us who spend a great deal of time doing work outside of school would never possibly have the time to go to all of these events, so the sororities seem to favour those who not only live on campus but also do not need jobs in order to afford their classes.

So ironically, in this age when Greece’s economy has failed, the people here who take part in “The Greek Life” end up making the rest of us look like we come from the ghettos in comparison, and colleges that hope to eliminate discrimination don’t even recognize that they’re supporting a kind of discrimination that affects a large majority of the student body.

The Many Levels of Hypocrisy Around the Pope Scandal

I’m sure by now we’re all familiar with the current controversy involving Pope Benedict XVI. It was recently revealed through newly-found letters that back in the 1980s, at a time when Pope Benedict XVI was only a Cardinal, he failed to act on pleas to defrock a priest in California who had already been charged with multiple counts of child molestation. Years later, the same priest was charged with many more counts of child molestation, was imprisoned, and admitted to molesting “tons” of children. Now, the future of Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican are in jeopardy.

Although I believe pedophilia and homosexuality should never be compared and are two completely separate things, I feel like it’s crucial to point out Pope Benedict’s stand against homosexuality. From the beginning of his reign as Pope, Pope Benedict XVI has done everything in his power to prevent homosexuals from entering the seminary and to prevent gay couples from being recognized legally. Yet Pope Benedict continuously put off defrocking a priest who had sexually molested many children. In other words, Pope Benedict XVI condemns consensual relationships between two adults of the same sex but appears to defend adults who force children to have sexual relationships with them.

Now, atheist campaigners are threatening to arrest Pope Benedict XVI when he visits Britain later this year, believing that the Pope will not be able to claim diplomatic immunity from arrest since the Vatican isn’t recognized as a country by the United Nations. From what I’ve heard, certain Catholics think this is ridiculous and believe it is wrong to arrest the Pope as if he were any common person. Not being a Catholic myself, I’ve never really understood the general concept of having a Pope. It is to my knowledge that all Christians, including Catholics, believe in one god and feel it is wrong to worship false idols. Yet the importance many Catholics put on the Pope’s views and opinions, and on visiting the Vatican seems to indicate that Catholics view the Pope as being worthy of being worshipped. And to me, it seems that the Pope more closely resembles an elected official than a god. However, regardless of anyone’s religious beliefs, shouldn’t everyone be able to see that forcing a child into being sexually active is immoral? And if the Pope couldn’t recognize the immorality in such a situation, then why do people feel he is superior to everyone else and shouldn’t be criminalized for his defense of the priest?

In hearing about this situation, what comes to my mind is that since this priest had already been charged for child molestation back at the time that Pope Benedict XVI wouldn’t defrock him, why wasn’t he automatically forced to leave the Catholic Church? It’s as if the Catholic Diocese completely disregards federal legislation and believes that a convicted criminal may still be worthy of holding a position as a priest. Additionally, in many of these cases of child molestation by various Catholic clergy, the Catholic Diocese investigates the issue and then later decides whether or not to alert authorities of the situation. If the Catholic Church really believed that all of its clergy were innocent and that there was nothing to hide, then it would be logical that the Diocese would allow the authorities to investigate the situation first.

Wanna Cut Down on Waste? Stop Advertising.

There are several things that frustrate me about the waste disposal crisis and how it is contributing to environmental problems. For example, it’s beyond me why Styrofoam still exists when there are other plastics that can more easily be recycled, and I try to avoid buying new electronics as much as possible because nothing’s made to last these days and I know whatever I buy will end up in a landfill a few years from now. But what’s started to annoy me more than anything else lately is how much paper is wasted on unnecessary advertisements.

I guess this bothers me so much partly because of the fact that I’m pretty much blind to advertising. I’ve never been persuaded by newspaper ads to buy anything, and when I’m watching T.V., the second the commercials come on, I zone out and start daydreaming or brainstorming some new project I have in mind. Yet I can understand that newspapers, magazines, T.V. networks, and radio stations all rely on advertisements for funding. What I can’t sympathize with at all are the millions of paper advertisements that I find in my mailbox all by themselves.

Every week, I end up getting 3 different issues of the “Local Values” newspaper, which is a chunk of newsprint the size of an edition of Pioneer Press, filled with countless multi-page advertisements for sales at Jewel, Dominicks, Menard’s, Meijer, Hobo, Aldi, etc. I’d hardly call them “Local Values”, considering the nearest Meijer is at least an hour’s drive from my house. Additionally, at least once a week, I end up finding envelopes full of coupons for roto-rooters, weight loss clinics, and podiatrists, none of which anyone in my house have EVER used. And every couple of weeks, K-Mart and Target send out huge newsprint advertisements independent of any mass-advertising publication.

Maybe some people get a big thrill out of finding out where all the sales are ahead of time, but for the rest of us, why the hell are trees being cut down in order to produce all of this? When I find these things in the mail, I send them directly to the recycling bin without even looking at them, so clearly they aren’t manipulating me into buying things and boosting the economy. And what about people who don’t even bother to recycle them? Lots of people throw crap they don’t want into the nearest wastebasket without giving it a second thought, and other people are unsure of how to go about recycling paper and instead only recycle bottles and cans.

While I have no doubt that various businesses will continue to send out millions of advertisements per week, I think there should be some way of fighting this. Many of us who receive junk emails will see a message at the bottom of the page that says “Click here to unsubscribe”, even though email messages are very easy to dispose of and have no effects on the environmental problems the world faces. So why can’t we unsubscribe to paper junk mail as well? People often complain about spam, although it takes up no physical space and requires no use of natural resources, yet nobody seems to see the problem with paper advertisements.

The Consequences of Perfectionism

A year or two ago while on my way to a friend’s house, I passed by a church that had a sign outside of it reading “Be happy with what you have, but never with what you are.” While the person who posted this phrase may have meant for it to speak out to reckless drivers and drug dealers, when I saw it, I couldn’t help but think of the fact that the church was located just down the road from a gay bar. Yet regardless of whom this message was intended to reach, the general idea of it seemed to be that everyone should be content with their situation, no matter how bleak it may be, yet they should constantly criticize themselves, even if they are decent, successful people.

The idea that everyone should strive for perfection even though no one will ever reach it is everywhere. Parents who don’t take out the time to help their kids with their homework often still expect their children to get straight As. The media dictates to young women that in order to be beautiful, they have to have the perfect face and perfect body even though no one can really control the shape of their nose or the size of their breasts. And people who hope to succeed in art, writing, or music are often told that they have to work extra hard if they ever hope to catch up to others who were born talented in those areas. Maybe some people think that these pressures will challenge people to work harder, but instead, they only seems to lead to nervous breakdowns, cosmetic surgery, and hopelessness.

The concept of unachievable perfection can easily destroy people’s happiness in everyday life. For example, if someone takes on a hobby like painting or woodworking but is too obsessed with the idea that everything they make has to turn out exactly the way they hoped it would, this can be frustrating and take any enjoyment or relaxation out of their hobby. Additionally, when people have such high expectations of themselves, they often start to expect every situation to go the way they want it to as well. This kind of frame of mind can make all kinds of life situations (deaths, illness, break ups, losing a job, etc.) harder than they have to be.

While I still don’t know for sure what that church was trying to promote by leaving that message up on the sign, what I do know is that if psychologists wonder why depression, low self-esteem, and suicide are so abundant in our society, they have no farther to look than all the various people, places, and things that claim that no one, no matter how perfect they may be, should be happy being who they are.

Why Modern Technology Makes the Recession an Even Bigger Nightmare

I’m sure that we can all think back and remember a time when most upper-middle class Americans owned a cell phone, an iPod or CD player, a camera, a radio, a camcorder, a computer with Internet access, and either a GPS system for their car or else a wide variety of maps. Yet now, everyone can make calls, listen to music, take pictures, listen to Internet radio stations, shoot video, surf the web, check email, and find out where they’re going all from their iPhone. As more and more people buy iPhones, fewer and fewer people continue to buy devices that accomplish only one or two of the tasks the iPhone is capable of, such as cell phones and camcorders. Consequently, with fewer people buying the in-demand electronics of the past, fewer workers are needed to manufacture and sell these items. If this weren’t bad enough, these days, nobody needs to go to the bookstore to buy travel guides, Shakespeare plays, or books for birdwatchers, because there are apps for all of that, and as a greater number of people begin to use iTunes, a greater number of CD stores begin to go out of business.

It’s not just the iPhone that’s putting the little guy out of work either though. For example, I’m ancient enough to remember a time when there wasn’t such a thing as the self-check-out line at the grocery store. Back then, supermarkets had to hire more people as cashiers and baggers. A while before that, when ATMs didn’t exist, more positions as bank tellers were available. Similarly, at one time, everyone driving on Illinois toll roads had to stop at toll booths that employed several people at a time. Now, drivers in Illinois need an I-PASS because toll booths and their employees are a thing of the past.

The Internet has also made many occupations nearly obsolete. Independent and small chain bookstores have become scarce as most people purchase books online through Barnes & Noble or Amazon. This decreases the number of positions available for those who wish to be a cashier or manager of a small bookstore. Online banking takes jobs away from tellers, online newspapers result in fewer people subscribing to paper newspapers, and nobody buys recipe books anymore with all the free recipes available online.

While the abundance of services that modern technology provides may save consumers time and money, it takes a toll on those looking for work, especially in an age when many factories have moved to other countries and many people who had a steady income years ago have now been laid off.

Assumptions People Make About Homeschooling

Last week, I noticed articles both online and in Time Magazine about a German family that moved to the United States in order to continue to homeschool their children. Apparently in Germany, homeschooling is illegal to such an extent that parents who try to do homeschooling can lose custody of their children, and this particular family repeatedly got in trouble with the law because of their decision to homeschool. They moved to the United States because here, homeschooling is legal nationwide. In some states, homeschoolers have to take standardized tests or alert the government of the fact that they are homeschooling, while in others, like Illinois, there are no laws at all regarding how home education must be conducted.

Having been homeschooled from grade 3 on through high school, there isn’t much about home education that I don’t know. But after having read the articles about this German family, I decided to try to find out just what exactly it is that people have against homeschooling. What I found pretty much amounted to nothing but a lot of false assumptions.

Most of the articles I found about homeschooling (with the exception of those written by actual homeschoolers) stressed that children who are homeschooled are “unsocialized“, which is a common misperception started by traditionally-schooled individuals who apparently don’t realize that “unsocialized” isn’t even a real word. Many people with little knowledge on the subject of homeschooling assume that homeschooled kids never get out and are locked up by themselves all the time when in reality, most homeschoolers belong to multiple homeschooling social groups, are involved in several extra-curricular activities, and even take classes at community colleges once they reach high school age. When I was in junior high and homeschooled, I went to parties with friends, played soccer with the neighbourhood kids, and spent afternoons instant messaging my friends online just like anyone else. Hell, by the time I reached high school, I was spending so much time hanging out with my friends and going to classes that I was hardly ever at home. Now, I make lots of “normal” people feel really naïve when they say to me “oh you poor thing, you missed the prom” and I tell them about how I did in fact go to a homeschooler’s prom as well as many other dances.

A lot of other websites about homeschooling state that most home educators do homeschooling because of their conservative religious beliefs. This is pretty hilarious to me, considering I’ve known a couple hundred homeschoolers and can count on one hand the number of them who chose to do homeschooling for religious purposes. A majority of the homeschoolers I’ve known are liberals, some of whom are also atheists, vegetarians, environmentalists, feminists, pagans, radical artists, or individuals who are non-conformists in some other way. Most of them homeschool because they aren’t happy with the public school system while others homeschool because their children have learning disabilities, severe allergies, or are advanced for their age and would be disadvantaged if placed in a grade according to their age. In other words, public schools believe in conformity, whereas homeschoolers believe everyone should be allowed to be unique and pursue their own goals.

Possibly the most ridiculous piece of information I found on the subject of homeschooling was on Wikipedia’s page about homeschooling, which stated that people are opposed to homeschooling because of the potential for unmonitored child abuse. It appears that one woman took her children out of school and was later charged with murdering them. Of course to say that this is a reason to be opposed to homeschooling is about as logical as saying that because one man from California robbed a bank, all men from California are likely to be bank robbers. I’ve known homeschooling families who have experienced all kinds of problems, from severe illness to financial difficulties to divorce, yet generally, I’ve found that homeschooling parents do homeschooling because they are concerned about the well-being of their children. To assume that homeschooling and child abuse are related only proves that the person making that assumption is very uneducated when it comes to the subject of home education.

What Girls do for Guys

People constantly talk about the negative affects the media has on young women with its unrealistic expectations about how women should look, dress, and act. People also often rant about how, in Junior High and High School, girls who are quiet and nerdy feel like they need to change and conform to the ways of the preppy cheerleaders in order to fit in. But what disgusts me is how so many girls, at the end of high school or in college, once they have already established their own personality and appearance, will suddenly undergo a complete identity transplant just in order to attract guys.

I’m not saying this is something all girls go through (I sure as hell haven’t), but I’m sure we’ve all witnessed it at some point or another. Some girls who got straight A’s through high school suddenly start devoting less time to their studies in college because they’ve bought into the shallow stereotypes that hot guys go for dumb girls. Or a girl who was always an athletic tomboy gives up all her old interests and starts wearing miniskirts and heavy makeup because that’s what her boyfriend likes. I had a friend in high school who constantly talked about how much promiscuity disgusted her, yet a few months before she turned eighteen, she woke up one morning and decided to start talking about sex constantly because she wasn’t getting guys to date her any other way. Most recently, I found out a girl I know who had always been very religious and open about the fact that she wanted to save herself for marriage is now hanging out with a guy who has a very perverse reputation, and it looks like they might be dating.

Now I’m far from being the most conservative gal around. I have nothing against girls dressing flashy or wearing makeup in order to look attractive. Likewise, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a girl telling dirty jokes with her friends or laughing at inappropriate things that other people say. I know I’ve done all of those things myself at one point or another. But when women compromise their own opinions, values, interests, and general self-identity, whether it be to appease the media, their friends, or someone they’d like to date, I think it’s both sad and disturbing. You should be who you want to be rather than trying to transform yourself into what another person wants. And if that person you’re hoping to attract doesn’t want you the way you already are, then that person isn’t worth having in your life.

Why Do We Keep Giving These People Attention?

Friday morning, at about 10 o’clock, the world came to a screeching halt. Every major television station interrupted scheduled programming for a “Breaking News Report”. When it happened, my first guesses were that there had been some new development in the story of the early morning shooting that had occurred at Northern Illinois University, or maybe another Al Qaeda operative had been discovered. But instead, the big emergency turned out to be Tiger Woods giving his apologies for sleeping around while married.

What bothers me about this sort of thing is that by interrupting the regular programming on multiple channels in order to let Tiger Woods give his speech, the television networks were basically just giving attention to someone who clearly doesn’t deserve it. Normally, press conferences that are shown live on T.V. are given by political leaders and executives of major corporations that employ millions of people. These things are shown on T.V. as they occur because they affect a large percentage of the population. Granted, Tiger Woods’ sex life seems to affect a large percentage of the population as well, considering how many mistresses he had, but you get my point here.

Tiger Woods isn’t the only one lately who’s been getting attention he doesn’t deserve. Rahm Emanuel managed to get himself a lot of extra publicity by being unprofessional and irresponsible when he referred to Democratic lawmakers as being “******* retarded”. And Sarah Palin, who all but demanded that Barack Obama fire Rahm Emanuel for having made this comment, also received additional publicity. While I think it’s best that voters know exactly how immature Rahm Emanuel is, I also think that a big part of the reason why Sarah Palin brought this issue to the attention of the public is because it made her look better than most of her other publicity stunts have, which could make people more likely to vote for her if she decides to run for President in the future.

Additionally, when John Mayer made comments that were not only racist but also condescendingly sexual about how he wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with a Black woman, he was clearly just trying to get attention from the media. If the media had really thought that his comments were inappropriate, then his comments never should have been publicized. All that happened was that John Mayer got exactly what he wanted: attention. Of course this story quickly became old news, but it seems like now, there’s a constant discussion about whether or not it is racist to say that you would only date people of certain ethnicities. I don’t know about anybody else, but I’ve been told many times by White people that their “type” is people with blond hair and blue eyes, and I’ve never thought of it as being racist. Whether we realize it or not, by discussing issues related to the comments celebrities make in order to receive more publicity than they already get, we’re only encouraging them to continue to behave irresponsibly.

Things That Make Me Feel Old...

I wasn’t around back in the early 1960’s, yet looking back, I have to say that even during my lifetime, society has come a long way when it comes to accepting people of different ethnic backgrounds.

I grew up in a mostly White and Hispanic neighbourhood, and it sort of shocks me now to think of the way things were when I was in first grade. The school I went to for Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade had only about two Black students attending it, and although I often talked to both of those kids, a lot of the other White students didn’t. In fact, I even remember a few White kids saying some really condescending things to me about the fact that I was friends with the Black students.

Additionally, the White kids I went to school with weren’t much more accepting of the Hispanic students than they were of the African-American students. Again, I felt like I talked to the Hispanic kids more than my White friends did. And although the cafeteria wasn’t necessarily supposed to be segregated, there were always two tables at which first grade White students sat, two tables at which second grade White students sat, and a table in-between where the Hispanic kids of both grades sat. I remember one time when I decided to sit with the Hispanic students for lunch, and afterward, one of my White friends kept acting like there was something wrong with me.

The fact that seven-year-old children had such prejudiced attitudes toward certain groups only about fourteen years ago obviously means that their parents had racist values that the kids were picking up at home. I remember one especially prejudiced first grader refused to colour a page of a colouring book that showed people wearing sombreros and when I asked her why, she said it was because that page of the book was “for Spanish kids only”. I just can’t understand why the hell anyone would have, at any point in history, had conversations about their hateful beliefs about people of other ethnicities in front of their first grade child. Actually, what probably perplexes me the most about these memories now is that I can’t even tell whether these things occurred because this was back before we had a Black President, or whether I just happened to live in an unusually closed-minded neighbourhood.

Feral Cat Colony, or Kitty Singles Bar?

It’s hard to believe that the elderly “cat lady” could ever possibly be considered a trendy stereotype, yet these days, keeping a “controlled feral cat colony” is becoming more and more popular.

When I was thirteen years old, I found a mother cat and six kittens in my backyard and decided to spend a few hours a day feeding and socializing them. Two months later, I’d gotten all seven cats placed in homes and I moved on with my life. Meanwhile, my grandmother was also feeding stray cats outside her house, although she had no intention of taming them or finding homes for them. While my method was successful and rewarding for everyone involved, my grandmother’s colony of cats continued to grow for years without a single happy ending. Now, I’m seeing that there are individuals and even entire organizations that are devoting their time to encouraging people to care for feral cat colonies similar to the one my grandmother acquired.

The idea behind these feral cat colonies is that if you find a cat on your property, catch it in a humane trap, have it spayed or neutered and vaccinated, and then feed it for the rest of its life in your backyard, it won’t reproduce. But what happens when an unneutered male cat and an unspayed female both hear about the free food being dished out at your place at the same time? Whenever you feed animals on your property, you’re going to be continuously attracting more animals. My grandmother’s feral cat colony also included an opossum. Even when you attempt to have all the cats on your property spayed, feeding cats outside your home can at times be equated to pimping the cats out to each other. You might see it as a controlled population that isn’t likely to grow, but the cats might see it as a great place to both get a meal and meet someone to spend the night with.

Another myth advocates for feral cat colonies may want you to believe is that when you feed feral cats, they won’t be likely to hunt songbirds. But if it were true that a well-fed cat will never kill a bird, PetsMart wouldn’t carry feather toys. For cats, catching birds is like a hobby. Who knows, maybe when a new female feline enters a colony, all the males compete for her attention by bragging about all the cardinals they’ve taken down over the last week.

People who encourage others to care for feral cat colonies also claim that well-fed cats never leave the place in which they are fed, which means colonies reduce the number of cats that are killed by cars. However, in my experience, cats are smart. They know a schedule when they see one, and if you feed them at a certain time each day, they’ll know that time of the day is the only time that they need to be on your property. The cats in my grandmother’s colony came and went all the time, and many times, one would disappear and never return or would be found dead after being hit by a car or attacked by another animal.

While the intentions behind the controlled feral cat colony idea are good, the results often aren’t. What people often don’t realize is that in the best of situations, a well cared-for cat can live as long as twenty years. So what happens when the teenager who thinks it would be fun to take care of a bunch of cats goes away for college? When my grandmother entered a nursing home and later died, she left behind a total of twenty-three cats (some inside and some outside of her house) that my family became responsible for.

It’s likely that there is no way of completely solving the feral cat problem. However, rather than attempting to control as many cats as possible, finding homes for just a few can make an even more positive difference.

Why Not Just Stop Letting Straight People Be Open About Their Sexuality in the Military?

While liberals and conservatives continuously battle it out over whether or not the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy should be repealed, I keep thinking there’s a simple solution to this problem that would bring about equality for all without any of the possible negative outcomes of eliminating the existing policy. Why don’t we just say that nobody, regardless of their sexual orientation, should be allowed to talk about their sexuality in the military? After all, people don’t enlist in order to form relationships, brag about their sex lives, or tell stories about their wife and kids back home.

In my mind, the worst thing about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is that it makes life in the military harder for homosexuals than for heterosexuals. Gay individuals in the military are surrounded by people talking about their personal lives when they aren’t allowed to do the same, and the fact that they avoid such topics makes it obvious to others that they’re gay. This wouldn’t be an issue if straight people in the military weren’t talking about their relationships.

One of the problems with getting rid of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is the fact that if homosexuals are allowed to be open in the military, homophobic conservatives may start enlisting in much smaller numbers. Some think it’s ridiculous for Republicans to say this could lead to a draft, but whenever fewer people are enlisting, a draft could be reinstated. Furthermore, today, a draft would possibly include women and homosexuals, two groups that are more than likely to be sexually harassed and abused in the military. This shows that doing away with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” could ultimately prove to have a negative effect on the gay community as a whole.

Some might think my proposed solution to the problem is a bit harsh and that it goes against the freedom of speech to say no one can talk about their sexuality in the military. However, people in the military already don’t receive all the freedoms other Americans have. Honestly, if some heterosexual corporal were to complain about how he can’t talk about his girlfriend while serving his country, I’d say he should stop whining and grow a pair. The military is supposed to be tough.