Equal Opportunity

The purpose of this particular post is about the ridiculousness that is election season. Dear God, if there is a god (which I believe there is, although my god isn't Roman Catholic), please let this horror end. I am an unabashed liberal. A progressive, some might say. I believe that there is one god, regardless of your faith--you can be Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic or atheist. (Hell, you can even be some freaky ass religion like Mormon or Scientologist. Who am I to judge?) But we all still all have the same god, and he is a god of love.

So nothing pisses me off more than a quote like this, from a "pro-life," "Christian" Republican:
'America, America is just more than a place, though. America is an idea. It's the only country founded on an idea. Our rights come from nature and God, not from government. That's right. That's who we are, that's how we built this country. That's who we are. That's what made us great. That's what made us great. We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.'
I'm sorry, but WTF? How can you live in America and really honestly believe that we all have "equal opportunity?" Seriously, how in the fuck do you believe that?

You believe that because you're from some ridiculous suburb of America, a place where you never have to come in contact with anyone who's "other." You believe that because you live in some effing Disney-fied version of "America" where everyone goes to the freakin Baptist church, where everyone is white, and where church congregations really do look after each other, and therefore, there's no need for social welfare, BECAUSE EVERYONE IS WHITE AND EVERYONE EFFING KNOWS EACH OTHER.

I live in the real world. The world where there are brown people. And black people. And yellow people. And white people. And as a white person, the best news I ever heard in my life is that we are soon to become a minority in the U.S. Because maybe once WE  become the minority, we'll finally get a clue.

It's not all about us.

It astounds me that anyone, in this day and age, could run a campaign and have followers based on something as stupid as "we believe in equal opportunity." OMFG, really? Do you really think that we have "equal opportunity" in this country?  If so, Jesus god.....

We live in a country that most definitely does not provide equal opportunity for everyone, and that's what's wrong with this country. Every other industrialized country in the world (including, gasp, Latin American countries) ensures that its citizens have health care and the opportunity for an education.

Equal fucking opportunity? Seriously? You sir, have obviously never lived in a city of any size. Because when you do, you realize that everyone most definitely does NOT have an equal opportunity. You realize that it's based on the luck of the draw, accompanied by a heaping helping of access. 

My daughter is in an excellent charter school because I got lucky. Not because there was equal opportunity.

And this is what infuriates me most about Republicans. If you're going to be a dick about it and say "I got mine, screw you," than just say it. Don't create this fairy tale where we all have "equal opportunity" and those of us who don't succeed are just lazy, shiftless, etc.

We are one country. We do not excel unless ALL of our citizens excel. We do not prosper unless ALL of our citizens prosper. People in countries that are truly successful realize this. America is too effing concerned with "I got mine, screw you" to ever, it seems, understand this most basic of concepts.

I have friends and family members on Facebook (oh, FB, you are an angel and a devil) whom I constantly have to ignore because of their Republican, conservative crap. I just don't get it. I guess if you live in a small town, where everyone is the same color as you, and there may be a few weird Catholics (but praise Jesus, most people are God-fearing Baptists like you), and there are no gay people (at least not out in the open), or people who practice something other than the Christian faith, then it's very easy to think that "America," as a concept,  is a wonderful thing. Proud to be an American, and all of that. (Did I miss the part where we got to choose what country we were born in?) And you probably have excellent public schools (like the one I went to). And you probably send your kids to that public school while you rail against government and how big it is.

But I live in the real world, where I watch children being left behind every day. Not because they're lazy, not because they don't care, but because their schools suck. Or maybe their parents suck. Or maybe their schools and their parents suck. Maybe the only structure they get in the entire world is from their teachers. Do they have an "equal opportunity?"

That's the bullshit of the Republican party (and don't get me wrong, I most definitely identify as a "lesser or two evils" person than as a Democrat). You don't get to say that we all have equal opportunity. You don't get to run on that shit. Because it's patently false.  I doubt that there's a person in this country who would disagree with you if we all truly had "equal opportunity."

But we don't, and we never will. And that's the truly sad part.