Emma Gil de Montes

Why Respect Should Be Earned and Not Just Given

Now I know what many of you are thinking- what a disrespectful child. How dare I not give respect to others? What kind of monster am I? Calm down Karen, I’m getting there. My vision is not a world where everyone treats each other like garbage- that’s not what I want. I believe everyone deserves basic respect. You acknowledge their personhood and respect the fact that they have the right to their own opinions. Basically, treat others like humans and not pieces of shit you think you’re better than. (That’s messed up.)

Let’s look at the definition of respect:

“Due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others.”
Lexico.com

This type of respect recognizes that people might have different opinions, traditions, etc. than we do. It goes ‘okay you have different traditions and views than me but that’s cool’ versus ‘okay you have different traditions and views than me so you’re wrong’. My perspective on this issue is that we must remind ourselves that everyone is different and is entitled to their own beliefs. However, if their beliefs are harmful to others, it is our duty to speak up against them (while still respecting their ability to believe them).

What many people assume is respect comes from the phrase ‘respect your elders’. I can almost hear the ringing of my family’s voices reminding me to respect my older relatives. My cousins, only a few years older than me, also demanded this respect. If we are already giving a basic level of respect to everyone, what ‘special’ type of respect are we meant to give them? And what makes them deserving of this respect? Their age? The notion is ridiculous that we are required to respect them based on the fact that they’re older than us! Parents telling you to respect your elders always felt like an order. I was being told to cater to them. I had to listen to their stories even if they were sexist or rude, treating them with a certain level of respect (or any really) that I myself was not receiving. I personally believe that if someone refuses to show you respect, and possibly disrespects you, you are not forced to show them anything more than basic human decency. Respect them as a human but not a person.

You can’t expect someone to respect you for just existing. However, some people don’t see something as respect unless you are viewing them as an authority figure. Kottke.org actually came out with an important quote:

“Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority” and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person””
Jason Kottke

It’s a power trip to many, they only feel respected when they feel they have authority over you. This is shown a lot of the times when people treat their servers badly. Have you ever been out to a restaurant and your date/family member decides to yell at the wait staff for being ‘too slow’ or ‘bringing bad food on purpose’? It’s a literal nightmare. Sometimes I want to scream, haven’t you seen how packed the restaurant is? They’re overbooked and I can only see one cook! People talk down to these people and feel justified in doing so because they feel the power trip that comes from the waitstaff being at their beck and call. This feeling is something they equate with respect. If you are not submissive to them, you don’t respect them. This is an incredibly dangerous thought.

I truly believe that basic respect must always be given but anything more must be earned. If you want my respect, you must give it to me in an equal amount.

Homosexuality is Not a Sin

As this month is pride month, I thought I’d put out a related post. So like a dummy I decided to cover Christianity’s views on gay people. Because that’s not controversial at all. But seriously guys, it was a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake. I subjected myself to hours of looking through super Christian anti-gay rhetoric. And then I had to read every bible verse people considered went against homosexuality. And then I went over the Greek translations. By the end of my ‘research’ I wanted to jump out of a window. It was absolutely draining, but I came up with good evidence. So here it is guys my post on why the bible doesn’t shit on homosexuality.

First off, I think we all know that people like to use bible verses as proof of homosexuality is a sin. While I think the bible is silly, many people see it as truth. So where did this truth come from? Currently, the bibles we have today have been translated many times over. The Old Testament was originally in Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek [1]. Now any translation can be shitty, as word for word translations tend to make no sense (see the NASB) and others conform more loosely but ultimately lose the nuances of the original text. So basically translations suck whichever way you do them. Now for people who look at your bible written and english and think ‘this is exactly what God meant’, I’m sorry to break it to you, but it’s not. Not only has it lost many of the nuances, some of the words have been changed to fit the writer’s agendas. -le gasp- Yeah, big statement. However, there is serious speculation as to whether the new translations are correct. Truthfully, whether you look at the English Standard Version (ESV), King James Version (KJV), or other modern translation, you will always find it ‘male’.

A much better sentiment than anti-homosexuality.

There was an article put out by Ed Oxford, a researcher, where he used a team of translators to analyze non-English versions of the text [2]. In analyzing one of his German bibles from the 1800s, they found that that verse (above) roughly translates to “Man shall not lie with young boys as he does with a woman, for it is an abomination.” There are other instances where the translation changes the meaning of the verse: Leviticus 20:13 and most notably 1 Corinthians. Leviticus 20:13 also uses the translation ‘young boy’ instead of man. And 1 Corinthians? Oh boy this shit is wild. As Greek was the original text, they wanted to see how the Greek word arsenokoitai was translated. The text uses the word knabenschander. Knaben is boy, schander is molester. So, according to this translation, 1 Corinthians 6:9, it is not referring to homosexuals but rather boy molesters. It is also used in 1 Timothy 1:10. So instead of saying that homosexuals are among the lawless, it means boy molesters (pedophiles) belong to that group. Now that we know what the original translations are, we are faced with a question. How did the scriptures get so twisted? Anti-gay propaganda. No, seriously. The term homosexuality wasn’t added into the bible until the 1952 when the RSV version was published[3]. German translations didn’t change until the revision in 1983 which was funded by Biblica, an American company [4]. With all this new information, you might start thinking that it was people who started the anti-gay rhetoric and not God. Which is true because God’s not a dick.

There are other verses used to defend this hate of homosexuality. One story that almost always comes up is the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah. I personally read it multiple times but never found where it explicitly stated their sins were homosexuality. It never even truly hinted at it. Sodom and Gomorrah were introduced in Genesis 18:20 when God tells Abraham that their sins were great and he needed to see for himself if what he heard was true. Nowhere in this are the sins described so at this point we just know the people are ‘wicked’. Now the story gets interesting in the next verse. So two angels are chilling in Abraham’s nephew’s house. Lot, the nephew, is called out by a crowd of seemingly all the men in the town. They asked to see his visitors and when he refused tried to break into the house. The angels took Lot back into the house and blinded everyone who stood on the other side as punishment. Then God destroys the cities. That’s basically a summary of what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. Now why do people use this story to denounce homosexuality? Well there is one line that many critics use to ‘prove’ homosexuality is a sin: “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them” (Genesis 19:5). Many people interpret this as ‘carnal desire’ and declare that homosexuality is why the towns were destroyed. I mean that line is worded kind of weird, but that’s a stretch.

Sodom and Gomorrah are referenced again in Jude. They are said to have engaged in ‘sexual immorality’ and pursued ‘unnatural desire.’ And people look at these phrases and go ‘yes this must mean gay sex!’ but it’s not always true. Sexual immorality is anything not conforming to God’s laws of sexuality (which I have yet to see) and includes things like sex outside of marriage and anything not for making babies[5]. By this logic, unmarried people having sex using condoms is hella immoral. So maybe it’s talking about that? And unnatural desire or unnatural lust depending on what version you’re reading, refers to non-reproductive sex[6]. So handjobs, blowjobs, anal sex, using condoms and other birth control and a shit ton of other stuff is ‘unnatural’. Bestiality and other kinky stuff too. I’d personally add having sex with underage people, forcing yourself onto someone, and nonconsensual somnophilia but that’s just my picks. So out of literally all these things, what are they referring to? Sodom and Gomorrah could have been doing anything, yet people are like ‘nah they gay’. Other mentions of the two cities are scattered and either comment on how they got destroyed or threaten with a ‘you’re gonna wish you were those cities’. So in conclusion, this story could refer to homosexuality, but it could also refer to bestiality, old people doing it (non-reproductive), and masturbating. So yeah. Not a clear case for homosexuality.

There was a sort of retelling of the story in Judges 19 that was more ‘clear cut’: The man, Lot 2.0., says to “Violate [his daughter and concubine] and do with them what seems good to you, but against this man do not do this outrageous thing.” (Judges 19:24) Personally I think this is pretty telling. That man is an asshole. But seriously though, this is obviously a Sodom and Gomorrah knock off. Except this time they made it so the ‘gay’ was more apparent. Like, ‘hey angry mob violate the women in my house but not these godly dudes’. Although this was from the New Testament, and made to replace the old version of the story, I’d still give this one little credence. They rewrote this story just to say ‘these men would rape dudes’.It’s kinda dumb. Also, people use a few quotes from 1 Kings, but they all refer to male prostitutes. It’s possible they might be gay but I think they’re more angry with the prostitute part. Also the people in question were worshipping ‘false idols’ so that probably pissed them off too. Romans 1 also comments on homosexuality and is actually more explicit. God was pissed that they had been worshipping ‘false gods’ and basically said screw them. He left them and suddenly “their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another”(Romans 1:26-27). So people without God are gay? Like them having ‘unnatural’ gay sex isn’t like a terrible thing. I mean he also filled them with negative emotions and evil intentions but I think that was mostly for worshipping animal creatures instead of him.

So in my honest opinion, there isn’t a real verse in the bible that says homosexuality is evil and everyone should die. I mean there might be, but I haven’t seen one. So if the bible, something Christians and Catholics praise as the word of God doesn’t implicitly state that gay people are evil, why do people still think this? If no one is above God, why are you putting words in his mouth? If God created us in His own image, why would he make gay people if they were so evil? And if God loves all of his creations, why would he condemn gay people to hell just for who they love? A person once said that gay Christian was an oxymoron, that the two couldn’t actually coexist. Which is bullshit. If homosexuality is a sin (it’s not) and gay people are sinners (they’re not) then they could still be Christian. Divorce is a sin. Lying is sin. Cheating is sin. Yet you still see liars, cheaters, and divorcees being Christians. And Christianity is all about redemption. So get your head out of your ass and realize that literally everyone is a sinner* and welcomed into Christianity.

*I’m not saying homosexuality is a sin. Like that’s antithetical to my whole post.

*I chose the ESV bible as it exhibited ‘formal equivalence’ (good translation) and was easy to read.

[1] bibleodyssey.org

[2]forgeonline.org

[3]um-insight.net

[4] biblestudytools.com

[5]christianity.com

[6]criminal-law.freeadvice.com (crime against nature equates unnatural lust/desire)

Healthcare Is A Human Right

Healthcare has been such a controversial issue when it really shouldn’t be. I’ve seen people debating the necessity of it, some even saying that it’s not a big issue. Truthfully, I think anyone who says that healthcare is a commodity doesn’t understand what healthcare truly is.

One of the main people I’m having trouble understanding is Ben Shapiro. He wrote an article entitled, “Health Care Is a Commodity, Not a Right”. It seemed to focus more on the economic aspect of healthcare rather than the human aspect. He talks on and on about how ‘strict’ government regulation would cause less Americans to become doctors which would in turn cause temporary shortages. This would lead to people not getting what they need and the whole system would fail. This picture he’s creating, it’s based on the premise that people will choose not to become doctors because healthcare will be over-regulated. Now, I may stupid and naive, but I didn’t know that doctors got into the profession to become rich. That their sole drive was to be free to practice and make lots of money. Silly me, I thought they became doctors to help people. But if this is how they think, maybe they shouldn’t be doctors. Many fields are regulated: oil, petroleum, fishing, and they are doing just fine. But according to Shapiro, that’s not the point. We need to focus on the money! Not the morality of things!

In fact, his article was a response to a tweet he sent out in response to Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders was commenting on the fact that people can go to the doctor and get a diagnosis but can’t afford the treatment. Shapiro then equated healthcare to buying furniture. This is where an uproar was caused. How dare he compare furniture to medical care? But as he said, comparing the value of the two would be idiotic. He was merely stating how “rights that derive from individual need inevitably violate individual autonomy”. In other words, since healthcare caters to each person’s individual needs, why should a healthy person have to pay for a sick person’s healthcare?

This type of thinking is exactly why most people oppose the Affordable Care Act. Premiums skyrocketed because there weren’t enough healthy young people to subsidize the sicker people. Many young folks decided against signing up and paid a fine to opt out. And in a lot of ways it makes sense. If you’re a healthy young person, why should you have to pay ‘expensive’ healthcare just to help other people? This way of thinking leads to sick uninsured people. Let me explain, if young people chose to opt-out they’d be uninsured. If they happened to develop an illness or even cancer, they might not be able to get coverage. Without the Affordable Care Act, insurers will be able to reject people with pre-existing conditions or charge you more than the average person.

A lot of democrats have their own ideas for healthcare, and very few republicans, but one of the biggest advocates for healthcare is Bernie Sanders. His main selling point is his Medicare-for-all approach.

“We say to the private health insurance companies: whether you like it or not, the United States will join every other major country on earth and guarantee healthcare to all people as a right. All Americans are entitled to go to the doctor when they’re sick and not go bankrupt after staying in the hospital.”
-Bernie Sanders

Health Care for All

This pretty much sums up my opinions on healthcare. Because, for me, healthcare is a necessity. In the summer before my junior year of high school I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I had previously been diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder and was later diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder. That’s a lot for a 15-year-old to handle. I was put on various medications and before you scream that they’re placebos, stop. Taking medication is the only thing that kept me sane. As the disorder was becoming more apparent and my hormones were failing to regulate, I was a mess. I had to reduce my classes, dropout of my sports, and lost all my friends. Now by all of them, I mean all of them. My mood was so unstable that I was hard to deal with. I had to give up on the dreams I had and was forced to move on. It took about two years for my doctors to find the right medications. Now I am able to go back to college. I can converse with others, hold stable relationships, and even start to drive. Medication saved my life.

Now if I didn’t have adequate healthcare, I would probably be dead. If my moods had never regulated, if I hadn’t gotten the therapy I needed, I’d be dead. Having good healthcare was a necessity. And now I am worrying about what I’m going to do when I turn 26. And lots of people tell me not to worry about that, I still have five years, but I can’t. I’ll need employer-based and a good one at that. I’m still in college and I don’t know when I’ll graduate. I have to be realistic in my timelines, I can’t rush through courses or even have a ‘normal’ workload. And on top of graduating I have to find a well-paying job with good coverage. And for those of you going, ‘why don’t you just get a minimum wage job?’. Well, I could, but the insurance would not cover even a fraction of what I need. Just one of my five prescriptions costs $1,564 a year. The max of a McDonald’s healthcare worker’s insurance is around $2,000. So, not only would my insurance not cover all of my medications, but I wouldn’t be able to attend therapy or even a general practitioner.

My parents have agreed to pay private insurance for me while I work on getting a job. I am extremely lucky to have that option. Many people don’t. You see them rationing insulin, getting turned away from emergency rooms, even forgoing the doctor completely. Healthcare isn’t something we can do without. In fact, Article 25 of the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states :

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Even the UN says that healthcare is a human right. That having adequate food, housing, and medical care is a human right. Seeing people try to deny us that right is ridiculous.

This is My First Blog Post And I’m Sorry If It Sucks

“I don’t use my voice, then they will fill the void.”
— Alexandria Occasio-Cortez

This is the first post, obviously. I promise it won’t always be this boring. I’m thinking of adding random graphics to spice things up like sexy pictures of Kit Harrington. on my new blog.

But seriously though, I will start posting political stuff soon.Please bear with me while I learn how to use this site. Also, please subscribe below to get notified when I (actually) post new updates.

This Is Me

This is my first post, and will most likely be incredibly stupid. You have been warned.

Some of you may ask why are you doing this to yourself? Can’t you just write a diary or something? To answer your questions here is why am I making a blog:

Because I enjoy complaining. I do it quite a lot. I complain about soggy waffles, too-tight skinny jeans, and stupid politicians.
Because yelling at the TV isn’t good enough anymore. Being upset with how things are going isn’t enough. I’m tired of not being heard. I’m tired of feeling powerless. I’m tired of not having a say in things.
Because I don’t have what it takes to be a politician. No one would look at me and say, ‘hey wouldn’t she make a great congresswoman?” Um, no I would not make a good anything. And without a title I’m a just a small girl from East LA. But I have a voice and not using it would be shameful.

I honestly thing blogging might be my true calling. I can write my feelings out and have random people read it. Sounds terrifying, right? Well now that most of you are worrying for my mental state due to my masochistic impulses let’s get on with it. I know some of you are

I honestly thing blogging might be my true calling. I can write my deepest darkest feelings out and have random people read it. Sounds terrifying, right? Well now that most of you are worrying for my mental state due to my masochistic impulses let’s get on with it. I know some of you are still curious about the details to this thing here is some extra information:

I’m not really a private person. Whether I like it or not, most people know my business or assume they do (not all people, but a lot of them). I have nothing to lose by making this blog so why not?
I’ll be covering most issues ranging from women’s rights to immigration. Random issues, big issues, hard issues, I’ll try to cover them all. I’ll be doing research on each topic and will be sure to leave links to any of the resources I use.
I hope to engage young people and try to get them invested in politics. Because if the younger generations don’t step up and demand to be heard, the people representing us can get away with not listening.
All in all, I understand that the likelihood of someone finding my blog and actually reading it is extremely small. And the small amount of people that do find it might hate it.

Also, as a warning, I am a democrat. A very liberal democrat. The things I see as common sense, others might see as scandalous or wrong. I will not apologize for my views. As long as I remain respectful of others, I see no problem in stating them. I think it would be enlightening for someone with different beliefs to read this blog, but if not, you can leave. I understand that it’s difficult sometimes to try and see things from other’s perspective. When things don’t fit in your carefully crafted beliefs it can be scary. If you don’t like the things I write, don’t read them. But please, whatever you do, don’t leave negative comments and attack me or others. That will get you blocked.

Because WordPress told me to… #zerotohero #politicsmatter #news