As I sat in my back yard chair a few days ago, I started thinking about how fences have impacted our lives. We have a tall privacy fence made of wood and the neighbors have the same kind of fence. We can’t see each other’s yards, but we can see the rooftops. When I was a kid it wasn’t like that.
When I was a kid we lived in military housing most of our lives but even in the civilian houses we went past on the way to school we saw many houses without fences. There were friends we visited, and the kids would go outside and play in the yard while the parents were talking and usually preparing food. I don’t remember fences back then.
I remember when I was a kid we’d play in someone’s back yard, then get tired of their toys and all go to the next kid in our group’s back yard and play with their toys, and move from yard to yard playing with whatever the kids in that house had until we grew bored with them. Or, we’d play a game of hide and seek and the whole immediate neighborhood was fair game, running to find a hiding place in the neighbor’s yard that was good enough to be the last one found but close enough to hear the “Allie, allie, in come free!” if we weren’t found. We could play tag running through five back yards, baseball across property lines; Army, or cowboys and Indians in seven yards, front and back. It was fun, a lot of exercise and made for good neighbors.
When someone’s children acted up, any parents would be allowed to reprimand them, or they’d do the worst thing possible: call our parents and tell them what we did wrong. Heaven forbid that was their choice because we knew that we’d get a spanking then!
We were taught back then that if something doesn’t belong to you that you can’t touch it without the owner’s permission. If you break something, apologize and make it right and to never steal. We were not taught that there is something called “economic inequality” that made it okay for us to steal. That was not something that anyone thought back then.
When I watch the movies and television shows from back then (I am aging myself), I don’t see fences around the back yards. I see fences in the front yards sometimes, white picket fences trimmed with annuals or well-kept shrubs. Sometimes you see a farm show with a fence to keep the dog, chickens, or other farm animals in, but not often did you see a back yard with a fence.
Nowadays you can’t drive through anything but a deed restricted community and see open back yards, and even some deed restricted communities have fences; they’re just controlled by the property owner’s association (Home Owner’s Association, whichever). Those communities may have security gates at the entrances, private security guards roaming around in golf carts or regular vehicles and high prices for their HOA fees to pay for that security.
Fences are almost a must, a necessary accoutrement today because children (and some adults) were never taught the lessons of our childhood:
• If it’s not yours don’t touch it
• Thou shalt not steal
• Ask permission before playing with something
• Don’t trespass if you don’t have permission
Those things are no longer escaping parents’ mouths. Those things are not taught in public schools (or many private schools). Those things are not the acceptable norms of the left. Instead, excuses are made for those who have “less than” the next guy and theft is considered okay by some if the perpetrator has the excuse of _____________ (fill in the blank). It’s an astonishing change in what seems like a very short period.
Those who would break and enter, steal out of your yard after breaking a gate’s lock, or who want to do harm to those inside the house are no longer afraid of society’s norms nor their scorn. They want what they want and it’s by whatever means they deem necessary that will get them that and it’s okay if the excuse is available.
Society has made this possible by making excuses for the perpetrators and by giving parents the “My Child” complex, but only when in righteous indignation against anyone else verbally disciplining their child. What do I mean? When a child does wrong, and a neighbor does verbally discipline that child, the child goes home and whines about it to the parent. The parent will go to extreme efforts to make sure that the neighbor knows that verbally disciplining their kid is not an option and that it means war between the “adults” and it better not happen again or else! Meanwhile, the kid is off doing whatever he/she wants again because the parent doesn’t care what the kid is doing as long as that child is not in their parent’s hair.
Parents will visit their fourteen-year-old child in jail and ask the child why they did that, accepting whatever excuse the child gives (including “I didn’t do it. It wasn’t my fault. It was Jimmy (or Kate, or whoever)!” In the parent’s heart they know their child did it. They tell others up one side and down the next that the child is innocent, they borrow the money from friends and family and bail the kid out and make excuses for their bad behavior to one and all. In front of the judge the parent makes all kinds of promises, attends the four-hour parenting class while the kid does community service and then, since the boxes are checked, go back to kicking the kid outside so that the parent can get back to whatever the parent wants to do: besides parenting!
This is what the fences are for. They’re for the children who were never parented correctly. They’re for the children who were taught that whatever they want to do is okay as long as they have someone else to point to. They’re for the children who were taught that there is no right and no wrong; if it feels good, do it. They’re for the children who, because of the terrible parenting felt unloved and unwanted their whole lives and never learned to find fulfillment in what they can do for themselves, instead of what they can take from others – whether that taking be in government payments or theft and violence.
Fences are a form of self-protection. We protect the things we worked hard to earn the money to purchase. We protect our privacy and hope that those fences will keep out those who want to violate it. We protect our families and hope that fences will help prevent harm to them, whether through a child wandering into the road or through a perpetrator breaking into our homes and doing harm.
Fences are a sign of a failure of parenting and society. Parenting because with good parents, children do not do the things written about here. Society because we have been cowed into accepting the lie that there are those who have less and because of that less they have an excuse to do the things written about here. Instead of standing up to those spreading that lie we have chosen to not fight the lie and allowed it and its results to be woven into the fabric of our beings.
Fences are a sign of the division of society. With good fences we do not speak to our neighbors, thus do not know it. We do not recognize our neighbors thus we do not know who does and does not belong over there. Fences make us not care unless it is catastrophic and then we may offer to help a little. Instead of helping with the car repair if we have that knowledge, or the lawn care if our neighbor breaks a leg, or the cooking if our neighbor is down with the flu but needs to feed the kids, we stay behind our fences and consider that all is well with the world as long as our little fences make us okay. We can see the neighbors’ rooftops, but can we see the neighbor? Only if we are over six feet tall.
Fences make us delusional, isolated, insular, while making us feel safer (and, yes, sometimes they are effective in that). Fences divide us but protect us against certain dangers (unruly animals, etc.) but they also have their drawbacks. Fences allow us to swim in our pools without too many eyeballs on us, but they also prevent us from seeing the man next door having a heart attack in the back yard.
“Good fences make good neighbors”? In today’s world we feel we must have them to “keep the other guy honest” but do they accomplish that, or do they just keep the honest guys honest? Fences have been jumped by those who don’t think the rules apply to them so fences are not always effective.
Fences are kind of like guns. The law abiding don’t need them to stay out or to prevent them from stealing from or hurting their neighbor. As with guns, it’s those to whom the law means nothing that fences may help against. If the fence doesn’t work, the gun will.
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© 2017 Linda McKinney All Rights Reserved
Showing posts with label "Linda McKinney". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "Linda McKinney". Show all posts
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Sunday, September 11, 2016
All Islam is Radical
The terrorists who attack and kill innocent people, who skin people alive, attack innocent people in nightclubs, are not acting out of being a “terrorist”. They are acting out of being Muslim. It’s not an anomaly, an aberration; it’s the religion itself and its teachings that make the actions normal within the religion. Some actions of the people of that faith are considered “unusual” but not terrorism.
For instance, when men in their early twenties marry nine-year-old girls that’s not terrorism, it’s following in the footsteps of Muhammed. Consider, though, that if someone who is not Muslim would do so we call that pedophilia. Pedophilia is terrifying to its victims. When a child is used for the sexual gratification of an adult it is painful, confusing, scary and physically harmful to the child and for the future of that child. It’s not terrorism because it’s not categorized as such. It’s normal for that religion and it’s okay.
When they force their older daughter to marry someone the daughter is not interested in marrying, they are not bad parents, they just want their daughter to be married to this particular person, right? After all, it’s not about love. It’s about obedience. And if the girl decides to not marry the man her parents want her to marry, well, that girl is to be killed in an honor killing. They douse her in gasoline and set her ablaze. That will teach her and others who disobey their parents to be very careful to obey. That’s not radical. Not radical at all. Toasting your daughter to a crackly crisp is normal. Right?
Throwing gay men off the roof of a tall building or skinning him alive is normal, for Islam. They teach that homosexuality is wrong and that it’s punishable by death. So, they kill the man that they disagree with and they congratulate themselves for doing the thing that their religion tells them to do. The problem is that they turn a blind eye to the fact that their own religious adherents practice what they call “bacha bazi”, which is young boys – boys too young to even have facial hair -- for sexual gratification. So if men are having sex with boys (male to male sex), they aren’t practicing homosexuality, they’re practicing “bacha bazi”, according to their own teachings and the way they execute their beliefs. The men in power get to have young men as sex slaves but the average Joe on the street can’t be homosexual or he’ll be bound and thrown off a building. That’s not terrorism. It’s not extreme. It’s normal. It’s Islam.
Let’s not forget female genital mutilation (FGM; which is now being illegally done in America) :
In NYC during prayer time for Muslims, they fill the streets and stop traffic (even ambulances, police and fire) and they do it via actually praying in the streets as well as by parking their vehicles (often taxi cabs because they’re the drivers of) near mosques. They have the right to pray, but they don’t have the right to disrupt the safety and security of the neighborhood they are supposed to be a part of. As a member of the community one should try to ensure that the last thing they do is prevent someone from getting help if needed. When we drive down the road and an emergency vehicle comes up behind us, sirens blaring, lights flashing what do we do? We pull over because it’s the law and it’s the right thing to do to let those emergency personnel get to those needing help as quickly as possible. It’s just the right thing to do and we would want someone to do the same for us if that emergency vehicle were on the way to our house, accident, fire. When Islamists are in the roads and stopping traffic – including for emergency vehicles – that’s not being part of the neighborhood, it’s impeding the neighborhood, controlling it and demanding that the neighborhood accommodate it and give it special treatment. It is not trying to accommodate the neighborhood; it is commanding the neighborhood. It is demanding special treatment, special permissions, special routes for those emergency vehicles and special delays for those needing the help when it takes over the streets. It is not something that Catholics would be allowed to do without getting the right permits and it being a one or two day event, at most. Praying is a normal part of many (if not most) of the world’s daily religious expressions. However, how many religions of the world take over streets and block traffic and demand they be allowed to do so without a permit and don’t move for emergency vehicles? Would Presbyterians be allowed to do so? Is that not radical?
Hijabs are another part of the “normal”, “non-radical” Islamist’s life. Covering a woman head to toe in a drab color (usually black) so that she will be considered “modestly dressed” is only the norm for nuns in convents, and that is a choice for them. The fact that there are mandates in Muslim countries for women to wear hijabs makes it not a choice. It’s something the male dictates and women either adhere to or get beaten or worse if they do not accept, dress in a hijab and obey. That’s not “radicalism”, it’s misogyny; or at the very least, a slave/master relationship. Some Catholic nuns wear habits, but Catholicism does not demand that all females who are past a certain age wear a habit. When slaves were owned in America the master got to beat the slave for disobedience. If Muslim women disobey anything their husband wishes to tell them to do or not do, they can be beaten – it’s commanded in the Koran/Qur’an to do so. Would that be accepted in America if a Christian were doing it? What is not radical about being commanded to beat your wife?
In Islam, rape is blamed on the woman and she can be thrown in prison, or worse, if a woman reports being raped. That’s why the number of rapes reported may be infinitesimally smaller than the actual number. Even if the rape victim is a baby it is the baby that is punished – even by the family itself – instead of the male perpetrator! In prison, a rape victim may even have a child because of the rape and that child is born in prison and the child is incarcerated for as long as the mother remains in prison. The mother and child are punished for the sins of the father while the father goes free and easy. There is no condemnation for rape in Islam because men have the right to choose to rape and they have the right to choose to punish their own victim. If a man does not confess to raping her, or there are not four male eyewitnesses to the rape who will turn the guilty man in, then the perpetrator can turn his own victim in to the authorities and even though she tells them that it was he who raped her, she will still wind up being imprisoned. She has no recourse. He can smirk at her, turn on his heal and walk away from his rape victim as she is incarcerated for however long the judge decides after her rapist has delivered her to authorities. That’s radical.
Divorce for a man in Islam is “I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you.” The man gets all of the property and the children, the woman gets nothing and is sent packing back to her family where her family is allowed to do an honor killing because she has brought shame on the family name (although the divorce may have nothing to do with her actions or words). If she’s not sent back to her family the ex-husband’s family may take her as a slave and do whatever they wish to her, forcing her to work as the cook, maid or whatever they deem needed in the household.
How many women in America would tolerate being restricted from driving a vehicle? In Islam women can be ordered to not drive, even not go out of the house, and if she is caught driving by herself she can be dragged by the car and stoned or worse. Imagine living in a country where you are not allowed to drive wherever you wish to drive, even if it meant driving your child to the hospital. What do you do? How do you get your child to the hospital? How do you get your child anywhere?
How many religions would be the cause of a 9/11 attack, or a bombing of the WTC parking garage, or the Fort Hood massacre (he did yell "Allahu Akbar!"), or the San Bernardino slaughter? On 9/11/2001 there were Muslims dancing in the streets of Muslim countries. Children as well as adult were dancing, drinking, celebrating, shooting bullets into the air because of the attacks on innocent unsuspecting, unprepared people. Children died in the attacks and the Muslim children followed their elders' lead and danced as well, having no compassion for the dead who were younger than they. What other religion teaches that? ISIS is another example of Islam's mainstream beliefs. Beheading Christians, burning people alive, drowning them in a cage, blowing them up, etc., etc., etc. There is no end to their cruel barbarity. Yet, the left/progressives/liberals tell us that we have to accept Islam because it's not radical. I beg to differ. Where do we see Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists doing this? Nowhere. It doesn't happen and if it did it would not be tolerated! But with Islam, it is. It is even excused.
Islam doing all of this is “acceptable” to those who think along the lines of “As long as they don’t bother me-ism”. They are allowed to do whatever they wish, to treat their adherents as they wish, as long as they don’t bother “us”. It’s okay to do whatever they want to their own – FGM to blaming rape on the victim – and we don’t want to make waves or say that Islam is radical in any way, shape, or form.
All of these instances and more are proof that Islam IS a radical organization and that they have broken societal norms for Americans and for most of the rest of the civilized world. Given their history in the overall scheme of things, I believe it is safe to say that Islam as a whole is RADICAL. That’s all there is to it. To have the beliefs Islam has and try to mingle those Islamic beliefs with what America and the rest of the world have been doing is not just a recipe for disaster it’s a guarantee for it! It’s time to admit that Islam is the problem and to perhaps do something that most of the western world would scream against: limiting Islam for the safety of the whole world.
© 2016 Linda McKinney All Rights Reserved
For instance, when men in their early twenties marry nine-year-old girls that’s not terrorism, it’s following in the footsteps of Muhammed. Consider, though, that if someone who is not Muslim would do so we call that pedophilia. Pedophilia is terrifying to its victims. When a child is used for the sexual gratification of an adult it is painful, confusing, scary and physically harmful to the child and for the future of that child. It’s not terrorism because it’s not categorized as such. It’s normal for that religion and it’s okay.
When they force their older daughter to marry someone the daughter is not interested in marrying, they are not bad parents, they just want their daughter to be married to this particular person, right? After all, it’s not about love. It’s about obedience. And if the girl decides to not marry the man her parents want her to marry, well, that girl is to be killed in an honor killing. They douse her in gasoline and set her ablaze. That will teach her and others who disobey their parents to be very careful to obey. That’s not radical. Not radical at all. Toasting your daughter to a crackly crisp is normal. Right?
Throwing gay men off the roof of a tall building or skinning him alive is normal, for Islam. They teach that homosexuality is wrong and that it’s punishable by death. So, they kill the man that they disagree with and they congratulate themselves for doing the thing that their religion tells them to do. The problem is that they turn a blind eye to the fact that their own religious adherents practice what they call “bacha bazi”, which is young boys – boys too young to even have facial hair -- for sexual gratification. So if men are having sex with boys (male to male sex), they aren’t practicing homosexuality, they’re practicing “bacha bazi”, according to their own teachings and the way they execute their beliefs. The men in power get to have young men as sex slaves but the average Joe on the street can’t be homosexual or he’ll be bound and thrown off a building. That’s not terrorism. It’s not extreme. It’s normal. It’s Islam.
Let’s not forget female genital mutilation (FGM; which is now being illegally done in America) :
“[I]nvolves cutting the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. Depending on local customs, it could also include additional modifications ranging from cutting away part of the clitoris to removing the inner and outer vaginal lips before sewing the remaining skin together, leaving a small hole for urination and menstrual blood.”(NOTE: The article claims that it is also done in some Christian sects, but it is generally done under pressure from the majority Muslim community.) If this were done by the Westwood Baptists or Warren Jeff’s cult of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints it would be considered a horrible thing and those practicing and promoting it would probably be arrested. Can you imagine doing this to your daughter? They sew the vaginal opening closed so that sexual intercourse will be as painful as possible and the clitoris being gone or almost gone will prevent any sexual pleasure for the girl. The whole thing is barbaric, but to consider the kind of pain the woman who has undergone this sort of thing – especially after being married off at age nine and raped then (too young to have achieved the age of consent, so it is always rape) with whatever resulting damage from that -- must experience every time she is involved in the “act of love” is inconceivable. The procedure “is carried out in girls aged between birth (7 days) up to pre-adolescence, always before the first menstruation and marriage” although it is sometimes left to later. How radical is it to ensure that every time a married woman has sexual intercourse it is extremely painful instead of pleasurable? There can also be complications during or immediately following the procedure as well as lifelong medical complications, no matter to what degree they harm the woman. These include:
“[I]mmediate health complications include shock, haemorrhage, infections and psychological consequences [11, 12, 13]. The long term health risks consist of chronic pain, infections, cheloids formation, primary infertility, birth complications, danger to the new born and psychological consequences [13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18]. Even FGM/C types I and II, sometimes considered as more innocuous, may involve severe health complications. For example, they have been reported to provoke unequivocal complications like shock, haemorrhage, urogenital complications [12], obstetric complications [18] and sexual dysfunction [15].”That’s not just radical, it’s unimaginable. Yet this is the usual practice of even those who are not considered to be extremists.
In NYC during prayer time for Muslims, they fill the streets and stop traffic (even ambulances, police and fire) and they do it via actually praying in the streets as well as by parking their vehicles (often taxi cabs because they’re the drivers of) near mosques. They have the right to pray, but they don’t have the right to disrupt the safety and security of the neighborhood they are supposed to be a part of. As a member of the community one should try to ensure that the last thing they do is prevent someone from getting help if needed. When we drive down the road and an emergency vehicle comes up behind us, sirens blaring, lights flashing what do we do? We pull over because it’s the law and it’s the right thing to do to let those emergency personnel get to those needing help as quickly as possible. It’s just the right thing to do and we would want someone to do the same for us if that emergency vehicle were on the way to our house, accident, fire. When Islamists are in the roads and stopping traffic – including for emergency vehicles – that’s not being part of the neighborhood, it’s impeding the neighborhood, controlling it and demanding that the neighborhood accommodate it and give it special treatment. It is not trying to accommodate the neighborhood; it is commanding the neighborhood. It is demanding special treatment, special permissions, special routes for those emergency vehicles and special delays for those needing the help when it takes over the streets. It is not something that Catholics would be allowed to do without getting the right permits and it being a one or two day event, at most. Praying is a normal part of many (if not most) of the world’s daily religious expressions. However, how many religions of the world take over streets and block traffic and demand they be allowed to do so without a permit and don’t move for emergency vehicles? Would Presbyterians be allowed to do so? Is that not radical?
Hijabs are another part of the “normal”, “non-radical” Islamist’s life. Covering a woman head to toe in a drab color (usually black) so that she will be considered “modestly dressed” is only the norm for nuns in convents, and that is a choice for them. The fact that there are mandates in Muslim countries for women to wear hijabs makes it not a choice. It’s something the male dictates and women either adhere to or get beaten or worse if they do not accept, dress in a hijab and obey. That’s not “radicalism”, it’s misogyny; or at the very least, a slave/master relationship. Some Catholic nuns wear habits, but Catholicism does not demand that all females who are past a certain age wear a habit. When slaves were owned in America the master got to beat the slave for disobedience. If Muslim women disobey anything their husband wishes to tell them to do or not do, they can be beaten – it’s commanded in the Koran/Qur’an to do so. Would that be accepted in America if a Christian were doing it? What is not radical about being commanded to beat your wife?
In Islam, rape is blamed on the woman and she can be thrown in prison, or worse, if a woman reports being raped. That’s why the number of rapes reported may be infinitesimally smaller than the actual number. Even if the rape victim is a baby it is the baby that is punished – even by the family itself – instead of the male perpetrator! In prison, a rape victim may even have a child because of the rape and that child is born in prison and the child is incarcerated for as long as the mother remains in prison. The mother and child are punished for the sins of the father while the father goes free and easy. There is no condemnation for rape in Islam because men have the right to choose to rape and they have the right to choose to punish their own victim. If a man does not confess to raping her, or there are not four male eyewitnesses to the rape who will turn the guilty man in, then the perpetrator can turn his own victim in to the authorities and even though she tells them that it was he who raped her, she will still wind up being imprisoned. She has no recourse. He can smirk at her, turn on his heal and walk away from his rape victim as she is incarcerated for however long the judge decides after her rapist has delivered her to authorities. That’s radical.
Divorce for a man in Islam is “I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you.” The man gets all of the property and the children, the woman gets nothing and is sent packing back to her family where her family is allowed to do an honor killing because she has brought shame on the family name (although the divorce may have nothing to do with her actions or words). If she’s not sent back to her family the ex-husband’s family may take her as a slave and do whatever they wish to her, forcing her to work as the cook, maid or whatever they deem needed in the household.
How many women in America would tolerate being restricted from driving a vehicle? In Islam women can be ordered to not drive, even not go out of the house, and if she is caught driving by herself she can be dragged by the car and stoned or worse. Imagine living in a country where you are not allowed to drive wherever you wish to drive, even if it meant driving your child to the hospital. What do you do? How do you get your child to the hospital? How do you get your child anywhere?
How many religions would be the cause of a 9/11 attack, or a bombing of the WTC parking garage, or the Fort Hood massacre (he did yell "Allahu Akbar!"), or the San Bernardino slaughter? On 9/11/2001 there were Muslims dancing in the streets of Muslim countries. Children as well as adult were dancing, drinking, celebrating, shooting bullets into the air because of the attacks on innocent unsuspecting, unprepared people. Children died in the attacks and the Muslim children followed their elders' lead and danced as well, having no compassion for the dead who were younger than they. What other religion teaches that? ISIS is another example of Islam's mainstream beliefs. Beheading Christians, burning people alive, drowning them in a cage, blowing them up, etc., etc., etc. There is no end to their cruel barbarity. Yet, the left/progressives/liberals tell us that we have to accept Islam because it's not radical. I beg to differ. Where do we see Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists doing this? Nowhere. It doesn't happen and if it did it would not be tolerated! But with Islam, it is. It is even excused.
Islam doing all of this is “acceptable” to those who think along the lines of “As long as they don’t bother me-ism”. They are allowed to do whatever they wish, to treat their adherents as they wish, as long as they don’t bother “us”. It’s okay to do whatever they want to their own – FGM to blaming rape on the victim – and we don’t want to make waves or say that Islam is radical in any way, shape, or form.
All of these instances and more are proof that Islam IS a radical organization and that they have broken societal norms for Americans and for most of the rest of the civilized world. Given their history in the overall scheme of things, I believe it is safe to say that Islam as a whole is RADICAL. That’s all there is to it. To have the beliefs Islam has and try to mingle those Islamic beliefs with what America and the rest of the world have been doing is not just a recipe for disaster it’s a guarantee for it! It’s time to admit that Islam is the problem and to perhaps do something that most of the western world would scream against: limiting Islam for the safety of the whole world.
© 2016 Linda McKinney All Rights Reserved
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