#what if parents indoctrinate their kids who turn 18 and still vote like their parents want?
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"Women can't have the same rights as men because they are weak and ruled by their emotions and not as clever-smart as men so they need to be protected."
"Poor people and working class people can't have the same rights as wealthy people because they can't think well and can't make good decisions, so they need decisions made for them (including the you are too poor and nasty to have kids you should be sterilised -decision)."
"Black people, native people, aboriginal people can't think good so much so that they are more like animals anyway, so it is definitely better for them if white people make all the decisions and tell them what to do."
"Homosexual? Transgender? I think you mean mentally ill, because that kind of talk is caused by brain-no-good. You need decisions made about you by people with the good cisgender heterosexual brains."
And of course disabled people of all kinds are literally still to this day constantly being told all of this by all sides. "Youre not able to make decisions because your brain isn't as sophisticated. You need to be protected and therefore don't need the same rights."
.
Some people need help with making decisions and they need support with doing that, not to be denied from ever getting to make decisions.
Some people need to be protected, and one of the most important things they need protecting is their equal rights. Refusing rights is not protection.
“Kids don’t need the same rights as adults, their brains aren’t as sophisticated”
hm. Hm. Gee. Gee bud, it almost seems like you maybe, I don’t know, stumbled into one of the biggest historical justifications for oppression that we know of. I don’t know, that just sounds sort of familiar. Gee.
#the right to vote is onviously really tied to these histories#and i live in finland where the state bends over backwards to make voting as easy and accessible as possible#including for the disabled people and elderly. like people who cant leave their homes can have voting come to them.#so with this backdrop you need to understand that i genuinely think there should be no age limit to voting#voting can be made doable for children. even very small children.#'but what if the parents manipulate the childs vote?' okay and what if the husband manipulates the wifes vote?#what if parents indoctrinate their kids who turn 18 and still vote like their parents want?#like if you have concerns that some peoples political opinions are based on something unacceptable and wrong then...#well sorry thats democracy for ya. it is literally allowed to vote for a candidate based on any stupid fucking reason.#you can vote for a political party based on the fact that you like their logo!#you can pick your candidate on the basis of 'she has a beautiful name'#you can base your vote on a single political ad you see.#all of these things are allowed.#we could literally have a system where each party has a colour they choose to represent them and we let babies vote by choosing a color#loads of adults are already basing their votes on colors so its already a thing
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“I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. If you remember the plot of the Sound of Music, the Von Trapp family escaped over the Alps rather than submit to the Nazis. Kitty wasn’t so lucky. Her family chose to stay in her native Austria. She was 10 years old, but bright and aware. And she was watching. “We elected him by a landslide – 98 percent of the vote,” she recalls. She wasn’t old enough to vote in 1938 – approaching her 11th birthday. But she remembers. “Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.” No so. Hitler is welcomed to Austria “In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25 percent inflation and 25 percent bank loan interest rates. Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs. “My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.’ “We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933.” she recalls. “We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. “Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group – Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone in Germany was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. “Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler. “We were overjoyed,” remembers Kitty, “and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed. “After the election, German officials were appointed, and, like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service. “Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage. “Then we lost religious education for kids “Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school.. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,’ and had physical education. “Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail.” And then things got worse. “The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. “We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had. “My mother was very unhappy,” remembers Kitty. “When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly
any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination. “I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. “Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time, unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. “It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy. “In 1939, the war started, and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and, if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death. “Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men. “Soon after this, the draft was implemented. “It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps,” remembers Kitty. “During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. “They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. “When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. “Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service. “When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. “You could take your children ages four weeks old to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, seven days a week, under the total care of the government. “The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had. “Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna.. “After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. “When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. “If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries. “As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80 percent of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. “All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing. “We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. “Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands. “Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control. “We had consumer protection, too “We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency
specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the livestock, and then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it. “In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. “So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. “I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. “I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. “They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness. “As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia. “Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law-abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily. “No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up. “Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.” “This is my eyewitness account. “It’s true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. “America is truly is the greatest country in the world. “Don’t let freedom slip away. “After America, there is no place to go.” Kitty Werthmann ***Re-read the part where she says “everything was free” - healthcare and so on. Very much worth reading twice.****
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“I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history.
If you remember the plot of the Sound of Music, the Von Trapp family escaped over the Alps rather than submit to the Nazis. Kitty wasn’t so lucky. Her family chose to stay in her native Austria. She was 10 years old, but bright and aware. And she was watching.
“We elected him by a landslide – 98 percent of the vote,” she recalls.
She wasn’t old enough to vote in 1938 – approaching her 11th birthday. But she remembers.
“Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.”
No so.
Hitler is welcomed to Austria
“In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25 percent inflation and 25 percent bank loan interest rates.
Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs.
“My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.’
“We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933.” she recalls. “We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living.
“Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group – Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone in Germany was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back.
“Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.
“We were overjoyed,” remembers Kitty, “and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and
everyone was fed.
“After the election, German officials were appointed, and, like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.
“Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.
“Then we lost religious education for kids
“Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school.. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,’ and had physical education.
“Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail.”
And then things got worse.
“The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free.
“We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.
“My mother was very unhappy,” remembers Kitty. “When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination.
“I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing.
“Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time, unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler.
“It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.
“In 1939, the war started, and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and, if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death.
“Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.
“Soon after this, the draft was implemented.
“It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps,” remembers Kitty. “During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys.
“They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines.
“When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat.
“Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.
“When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers.
“You could take your children ages four weeks old to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, seven days a week, under the total care of the government.
“The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.
“Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna..
“After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything.
“When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full.
“If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.
“As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80 percent of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families.
“All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.
“We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables.
“Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands.
“Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.
“We had consumer protection, too
“We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the livestock, and then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.
“In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated.
“So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work.
“I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van.
“I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months.
“They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.
“As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.
“Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law-abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.
“No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.
“Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.”
“This is my eyewitness account.
“It’s true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.
“America is truly is the greatest country in the world. “Don’t let freedom slip away.
“After America, there is no place to go.”
Kitty Werthmann
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Mom found God and lost a Son via /r/atheism
Submitted August 18, 2017 at 02:43PM by merdepost (Via reddit http://ift.tt/2v82oZ3) Mom found God and lost a Son
Length warning: TL;DR at the end.
This is my first time posting here so please be kind. I was sure that someone here shared in my experience and could give me some words of wisdom.
Backstory: I am currently in my Early 30s. I grew up in the Coastal South of a Catholic father and a Jewish mother, neither practicing so I was never indoctrinated in any particular belief system. My Dad always had the outlook that he paid his dues by going to a Catholic school as a child and really did not care to think about it any more. My mom did not have any religious practices either though she did often talk about "God" it did not seem to be the basis for her actions except in a general moral sense of doing good to others. Not to say that we were ever very close, but I generally could look up to my Mom because she would support my independence and would celebrate my so-called "intellectualism" and supported me going to school and getting an education.
I grew up mostly confused and often appalled at Christian logic in the community when it was used by peers and I regularly questioned authority figures. As a gay man who came out at 13, I also had a strong sense of identity and received consistent personal attacks from people in the community about who I was on the basis of religious "fact". I was really never close with my father. There was some physical and emotional abuse in the household which escalated when I came out as gay. It was always directed at me and although I also had a younger brother (straight) and even though my dad would fight with my mom on occasion, the physical violence was only one sided from him to me (though I will admit that I would use my words like daggers and I tried to use that as a defense mechanism against him, which in retrospect I'm sure just made his aggression worse) I don't think he was so much intolerant of me being gay as upset that he could not control what I did or said and it resorted often to him becoming physically violent. He would however ridicule me for wanting to do things that he considered "masculine" like running track after I came out as gay and he really did not understand or want to understand that me being gay did not mean that I wanted to assume a feminine gender role.
I moved away to college when I was 18. I went to a college in a larger Georgia city close to Atlanta. Did not speak with my parents much but I did keep in touch with my Mom and her parents. After college I moved away from the South completely and have lived in various parts of the US since then but have always told myself that I will never again choose to live in the South. It's too painful for me and Christian ignorance, racism, bigotry, and intolerance is rampant and uncontrolled there. My relationship with my dad was almost non existent at this point, although I genuinely feel that he had changed his mindset by the time I finished college and he expressed his regret to me multiple times about his abuse when we were under the same roof and I do forgive him for it, but it's difficult for me to want to rekindle a relationship with him. My mom on the other hand, since I left for college started getting very much into using facebook, personal fitness, fitspo and fat shaming. She quit a long standing professional job to sell supplements for a pyramid scheme, started cheating on my Dad with multiple partners which ultimately led to them getting divorced.
After the divorce, my dad settled down with a seemingly nice woman who has her own young kids and he has been preoccupied with his new family. Dad does not really seem to be interested in maintaining relationship with my mom or me or my brother. I'm OK with that. Mom, however, is obsessive about everything Dad has been doing since the divorce and has been stalking them, etc. At the request of her gym buddies, she joined a local church and then things started really going down hill....
Fast forward to current day. Mom has moved to Florida and is now a Jew for Jesus Florida-woman Trump supporter, tanning-bed loving fitspo fat-shaming old lady who claims to "hate politics" but voted for Trump and thinks he's "doing OK" but can't seem to pinpoint anything he's done other than "make us safer". Every conversation I have with her turns into a personal attack clouded in fake Christian concern for my well being. She harasses me with texts and insists on phone calls with me which are 10% her asking about what I do with my time and 90% telling me what I should be doing different, because Christ. Attempt at neutral conversation lasts about 10 words. Any time I try to question her logic, if she doesn't know the answer the word "faith" is used. Anything I say to her in protest of her faith-based thinking leaves her in tears accusing me of being cruel and godless. She is deeply offended that when I call into question how her Jewish faith is compatible with her newfound Christian faith because she thinks she can maintain both simultaneously. Say what you will about whether or not they are mostly a distraction from other horrors the current administration is trying to get away with, but lately with so much of the news focused on race/gender/identity politics, she is really worked up about that. She seems to support the alt-right white nationalist movement which is deeply concerning to me as she simultaneously claims to have a Jewish identity. (Her parents, my grandparents are still alive and not immune to this either. They are also, ironically, Trump supporters living in South Florida and have always been racist, intolerant wealthy republicans as long as I have been alive. They really hated Obama being a Black man in particular.)
After a particularly bad recent phone conversation followed by her sending me hateful, racist texts throughout the day afterward (for example BLM and Obama being responsible for the rise of the neo-Nazism), I have decided to block her from my phone. I wrote her a letter explaining my concerns with the choices she has made in the past decade with her life and why I need to back away and if she wants to continue having a relationship with me and she is not willing to reevaluate her faith-based thinking and all of the ills that have come along with it, she can write to me by mail and discuss neutral topics like cats and the weather and nothing more. I told her that if she writes back with appeals to faith, racist attacks or just to make me feel guilty about writing her the letter that needed to be said that I would not respond.
TL;DR. Mom used to be a rational non-religious person. Now she is a racist god-fearing trump supporter who falls back on "faith" any time she finds a topic too difficult to think about or understand, and uses it as ammunition for her arguments to criticize me at every turn. I can't maintain a relationship. How do you guys deal? Am I being too harsh?
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