Third Monday Musing

Speaking out

By Ed Rogers

I guess that seeing the world in a totally different light than the talking heads, and most people from my home state, I’m expected to keep quiet. However, I’m tired of hearing the same old crap and saying nothing.
    First, let me say there has never been a case of someone turning gay because two men or two women married. The drumbeat about how it is a sin against God is bullshit and none of us speak for God. God is blamed and used to justify everything a man or a woman hates about their fellow humans. It is past time to stop that.
    Jesus, who fed the multitude, is falsely quoted as saying, “Let those who will not work, not eat.” What asshole would refuse food to a hungry child? Oh, I remember now, it was the Republicans in Congress. The same ones that refused a cost of living increase to the parents of those hungry children.
    Corporations are not people. I repeat this for the one-hundredth time, corporations are not people. There is not a religion in the world that lists a corporation as a member. A person as an owner may have beliefs but the corporation they own may not say we will only hire those with the same belief that we hold so dear. Religion in the workplace or in government never turns out well. Those who clap at the decisions of the Supreme Court believe their religion is the winner, and it matters not to them what rights the workers have lost. The only thing that matters is the heroes of the day, the corporations, who have saved a lot more money that they can now send offshore to banks with no names.
    Now, let me step into the shit up to my neck. Guns! Let me start out by saying, I own guns. I have a .22 pistol I bought when we lived in the country and I needed something to shoot snakes with.
    My business slowed down shortly before I retired and I took on another job, which turned out to be as a security guard. I bought a .357 for that job. Sometime later I decided I wanted a lighter weapon, so I bought a Super .38. I have never carried them outside of work and would feel and look as stupid as any other asshole walking down the street with a gun on my hip. They are now locked up in a safe at my daughter’s house. The NRA keeps hollering about their rights. A person’s rights stop where another person’s rights begin and a mother eating a Big Mac with her children should not have to worry about some crazy with a gun. NRA or not!
    One last thing on the subject of guns: more does not make you safer, it only makes the “gun industry” richer. I hope you don’t believe the NRA makes all their money from dues.

For those who believe in the Bible, but still cry out about the injustice of feeding those from other countries – here are some words you may have forgotten [quotations from English Standard Version]:

Leviticus 19:34: You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Hebrews 13:2: Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

1 Peter 4:9: Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

For everyone else: Be kind to those at the bottom, because, although you’re climbing up now, you may meet them on your way back down – nothing is forever.

Copyright © 2014 by Ed Rogers