But please, do continue to tell me that I'm "whining"
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I feel like giving the bow that Katniss Everdeen gave after trying to show herself and her top skill to the judges in the very first "Hunger Games" movie. You know that scene well. It was when she shot the arrow right at the apple in the boar's mouth, sending it to the wall right behind it, startling the judges.
She then looks at them an lowers her chest, arms spread wide, and then she says, "thank you for your consideration."
After that she turns around and leaves.
She was noticed for sure, and the judges definitely didn't forget her.
Well, let me give you a reason not to forget me, Mr. President and your administration.
Let me give you my reasons for not supporting you, and let me give those supporting you a reason to listen. I don't view what I'm doing as "whining," which is what a lot of your followers seem to think liberals at this time are doing.
I am standing out against you because I am furious.
Why, you may ask?
Well, I have an abundance of answers to that "why" for you.
Maybe it's because I'm a fighter, although my small, just shy of 5 feet and slender stature definitely wouldn't give it away.
I have studied martial arts.
My feet and my fists are my weapons of choice, right next to my pen, paper and camera, but we'll get to those in a few.
I have been kicking and punching for more than half of my life. I feel that there is no better stress relief than kicky a nice, heavy, hard bad until my feet bleed. They're the things no can can make me check at the door or leave at home. Those who know me well, know you might be in for it if I get messed with, and of course it's in the name of self-defense.
Maybe it's because I feel exhausted and, in fact, dead when my views are passed of as a childish, young person's rebellious phase.
Maybe it's because I'm sick of people telling me that it's only because I'm just a feisty, liberal-minded journalist who doesn't know her place between the public, the government and the law.
This is where that pen, paper and camera come in. They're the tools in the toolbox or the artillery we use in our search for the truth. That, for the first time in quite a while, is being questioned. So let me set the record straight right now. "Alternative facts," as our President and his administration are calling them, are false facts. Another word for those are lies.
The last time journalists came under such fire was in 1895 when journalists were being called out for "yellow journalism," or sensational journalism.
For some reason Trump's administration thinks that they can just spout out whatever they want and call it the "truth" because they're the ones who said it. It's been something new every day.
That, by the way, doesn't surprise me.
In the "alternative facts" era that we appear to have been thrust into this past week, journalists have almost been criminalized by the now seven-day-old administration.
But that doesn't bother me quite as much as having to listen to people telling, no, yelling at me to "just accept him." To "just admit that he is the president and follow him."
It's going to take a lot for me to follow this man anywhere. It's going to take even more for me to support him.
And not only because he threatens to trample on my rights as a woman, although that is part of it.
Look at what he did as one of his first executive actions was a statement on abortion. He, in my opinion, has no right to even be making that decision. He signed the statement surrounded by men.
For one, there is no reason on earth why men are still making decisions for women. Two, why do we still make abortion a political thing when we always reference religion in with it. I thought the greatest thing about the U.S. was that separation of church and state.
But more than that, I am a survivor. My life has been shaped and formed by the ugly monster called cancer that I have been able to keep away for 12 years. I have survived the treatments that have ailed my body.
I have seen and heard it all.
I, like just about 20 million Americans, are fearful of losing their healthcare. And all that our new President could say about it was he was "going to try to keep" some popular elements of the Affordable Care Act "if possible."
Now, there are many, many choice words that I probably shouldn't say or even type on here, but trust me, I think them and run through them in my head every single time it comes up. And it comes up a lot. I'm a journalist.
If, in fact, Trump and his team of buffoons decide to repeal the ACA without an actual plan, of which I believe they have none, I will be bumped off of my parent's health insurance plan and forced to try to plead the case that my brain tumor was not a "preexisting condition," something that I have been told is what they will consider it as every single time.
So, i don't particularly agree when people say Trump is the greatest thing to happen to this country. Sorry, I just don't see or even comprehend how someone who wants to take the rights away from so many people.
And if his team does decide to continue deciding on what women should and shouldn't be doing with their time and their bodies, well then I'm sorry but we've taken a complete step backward.
His rhetoric is not health for any of us. It isn't even healthy for me to watch comedians make fun of him anymore. Every time I see something that includes his name with an action verb, I want to throw my computer/phone at a wall. Some of the things he has brought up, which journalists will report, because, well it's their job, are insane.
Yes, he hasn't acted in any way how other presidents would, but please, think about that. It's fine that he has brought his own flavor and views to the campaign and it's fine that he "speaks his mind," but when he starts doing things that we should truly be worried about, that is a problem.
Banning immigrants from Muslim nations to prevent terrorists from entering the U.S. is just playing into ISIS's game. I don't know if he hasn't noticed, but all of the attacks on the U.S. have happened with people who have been in the country for a very, very long time. They are Christian in some cases, they have been a part of our military in others, and some are American-born citizens. If someone could please explain his logic in this, I would love to know. PLEASE!
We've gotten here as a nation. That means together whether we will admit it our not. So now, what are we going to do about it. Liberals and conservatives need to start finding common ground, and part of that is listening to the other side without attacking and without arguing.
Until that happens, the hateful posts on social media will continue, marches for one side or another will continue and consistently be criticized or praised. But I can still say I know people who voted for Trump and hated some of his rhetoric. I would encourage all of those people to stand with liberals on those things. It doesn't make you a traitor and it won't change every view you have, but it would make a bridge between the two.
The notion that we should just sit back and let him be president is absolute bull sh*t (excuse my language but I think I must say what I feel). it goes against what our country was founded upon. If we are unhappy with what the government is doing, we have the right, and in some cases the obligation, to say so or to act against it.
In my book right now, Trump doesn't have to build a wall, he just has keep signing executive orders and turning to his Twitter account to push people away. People will not want to come or even stay if he continues to act in the ways he is.
If you continue to tell liberals and those who are marching against Trump and his policies that they are whining and should just let things be, it will continue to happen. That's it. Right now we are trying to break down a barrier that has been built between parties, which people on both sides will be brave enough to climb to the other?