Courage at a Beauty Contest

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The Question and Answer

Miss CA Respond's to controversy

When did it become a bad thing in this country - hell, in this WORLD - to speak your mind and stand up for the beliefs of your heart? When did we decide to go overboard on political correctness to the point of demonizing a 20-something girl for having courage in her convictions? I think we could learn something from this young woman. Even if we don't agree with her, what she did took guts and a level of maturity that it seems the entire country has not reached.

This is sad considering how nearly everyone (myself included) makes fun of beauty pageant contestants for that stereotypical, "world peace" answer. You know you did the same thing! So why now, when a contestant finally breaks out of that little box, do we feel the need to shoot her down at every available opportunity?

Some people would like us to believe that it would have been better for her to 'be a good little girl' and just feed everyone the usual line of BS that political correctness demands. Those people are of course the very same ones that were right next to me in line to take a swing at past beauty pageant contestants for their mind numbingly-stereotypical-shallow-idiotic lines about how "We all just need to get along, with smiles and giggles and sparkly unicorn farts, tee-hee!"

Pardon me, but holding hands and singing around a camp fire is just not my brand of fun, and I am glad that they finally found a contestant that could actually have an opinion and still maintain existence.

So my take on the situation is…

We have been silent for too long. And what has that silence gotten us? This is the fruit of our silence:
We can no longer disagree with political policy because we are called racist.
We can't tell a woman she is beautiful without being called sexist.
And, we can't criticize a certain senator anymore because we are called ageist.
What's the point? Yeah, these are awful things to be called and hard accusations to get rid of, but at this point who cares? I think the silence has gone on long enough. Can you even imagine where it will end up if we continue this ridiculous charade of political correctness? If we can't criticize the socialists, we're going to have a new Holocaust. If we can't criticize the people claiming that (insert any group) people are evil and should be killed, we're going to have a genocide. If we can't criticize the terrorists - people whom we know are just itching to kill us, our country is going to fall under severe attack.
We are so concerned with not offending someone that we put a gag in our own mouths in an effort to not hurt someone's feelings, and in the process, we sacrifice our own hearts and minds on the altar of 'social acceptance.' And it's not just social acceptance, it is the social acceptance of a bold and vocal few who have been using this era of political correctness to their own gain. And forgive me, but I always believed that America was about the desires of the many, not the disciples (and decibels) produced by the few. That isn't freedom, that's just peer pressure. Political Correctness is straight out of the halls of high school, and ought to have been left there. That's how it goes, the loud and proud misguided crowd offers the rest of us the forbidden fruit, and those who succumb to peer pressure take that bite that changes history - and the way things are going, it was one hell of a poisoned apple.

I would like to take this opportunity to offer you some advice: If you are doing things right, then you will piss people off, so use this as your gauge to how effective your argument is. The more furious they get, the more proud of yourself you can be (providing you are using a good argument and can actually back up your claims). If their only response is blind anger then you know they were incapable of responding with logic, and that is a good sign.

I say this not as an expert in arguments, but as a person who has spent much of her life arguing with people, defending one controversial view or another, and intentionally starting flame wars all over the place.

We all have a right to have our own personal opinions. Or do you agree that someone else's rights (or fight for those rights) trump someone else's? The Bill of Rights is not a game of Spades! If you will notice, the girl said that she personally believes marriage is between a man and woman, and good for her. What she didn't say is that gay people are freaks who don't deserve the right to marry. So why is everyone so up in arms as if that is what she said, word for word? What she said was not offensive; it was quite a polite way of expressing an opinion that is shared with much of the country (evidenced by the recent votes).

We are apparently living in a time that is Freedom of Speech-Lite: all the substance of speech with none of that pesky Freedom stuff that everyone is so tired of these days.

So here is this woman who is trying to live her life by her own beliefs and not compromising on them - good for her! We could take a lesson on that, too.
Compromise never gets you the best. It gets you less than the worst.

So what we are left with is this new frontier for Free Speech and Courage: Beauty Pageants.
God help us if we now require beauty queens to make us realize what is wrong with this country.

Letter to the President

In the interest of full disclosure we here at the PMS Project will be posting the letters we have composed and sent to our leaders in Washington. This is one that I wrote a couple of days ago, under the news that Geithner will be asking for the authority to control wages. These days the government is out of control, and that bit of news sent me over the edge and into a rant, this is the result of that exercise.

Dear Mr. President,

Greetings from Alabama! I am a college student; it’s only in the last three years that I have taken a serious interest in what the government does. I have to say the previous administration disappointed me greatly, but Sir, your administration is making my faith in our government seriously waver. In your first 75 days in office you have already transformed the nation into something that will soon be unrecognizable. I find this despicable. I fell in love with this nation in history class when it dawned on me that for all of our faults and bumps in the road we still managed to be the greatest country on earth. I never wanted to live anywhere but here; that is, until now.

I am sure you have heard the phrase, “As easy as stealing candy from a baby.” Your budget, to me, does just this. You are stealing money that hasn’t even been earned yet from future generations while claiming to make life better for them. Your budget would enslave my children and grandchildren to your debt. I firmly believe this kind of budget is unconstitutional --- though your dismissal of our amazing and in some ways miraculous constitution makes me believe you don’t really care about that at all. It is becoming more and more apparent that the only real reason you specialized in constitutional law is so that you would know how to get around it and manipulate it even better. I find this kind of character loathsome in a man of your office.

Furthermore, your penchant for pushing through massive legislation that spends billions upon billions of dollars before anyone has a chance to read the entire bill is unquestionably unconstitutional. Not to mention it is a practice that ensures the public has no idea of what you are trying to do. Sir, this is beyond contemptible. Our elected officials are supposed to represent us, and in effect the citizens are supposed to be the superiors of the government. I realize that you have no real private sector experience and that fact may well contribute to your ignorance of how real business life works, but in the real America if you do something that completely changes a business without the permission of the owner of that business, you get fired and then sued. How can you in good conscience take the faith the voters (misled and foolish as they may be) that voted for you and twist that around in such a way?

I know you have immensely important things to do, what with your constant attacks on the people who question you and your guiding the unwaveringly faithful media in the direction of the fake news. But Sir, I do not see how the bonuses at AIG are at all illegal. If someone could cite the law that is violated, please? The people who were at fault for the problems at AIG are long gone! The people you are demonizing now are the people that were brought in to fix the problems --- they agreed to work for $1.00 a year, WITH the understanding that they would be compensated later on in the form of bonuses. That is not outrageous. What is offensive and highly dishonorable is your continual efforts to find a scapegoat for the things that are your fault and the fault of your cronies in Washington. Sir, it is very easy to look up who wrote the language of the contracts that included the bonuses. It was the people on YOUR staff. I am sorry, Sir, but you are a ridiculous parody of the kind of man that we need as president in these troubled times.

The most encouraging thing that I have seen recently is the breakout of Tea Parties all over the country. There are 4 planned in my great state alone. This helps me to remember that people are wising up, and it helps me to remember that your reign of terror may soon be over. I can not express how happy I am about that fact. I believe that if you had any semblance of honor and integrity you would step down from the post you won with lies and doubletalk.

Sincerely,

Rachel (last name omitted)

How Not To Shut Up

Have you noticed that during the course of this presidential campaign anyone with half of a criticism of Barack Obama or his policies is quickly and efficiently labeled a racist? This is nothing more than an intimidation tactic to get those people to shut up, and a further benefit of this tactic is that your new racist has been completely discredited. Let’s face it, in this politically correct world no one wants to risk being called a racist because it is right up there in the list of hot button words that evoke a strong emotional response. Even if it is unfounded and completely false. So people harbor their questions and go on about their daily lives just hoping someone else will have the courage to step up and ask the potential President of The United States a question. Pointing out that these allegations of racism usually come when someone asks a question that can't or hasn't been answered yet. Do you think that is a coincidence? When people deflect questions in this kind of way and do so repeatedly there is a problem especially when these allegations come against widely respected people. When did it come to this point? Isn’t questioning our leaders our right? And if indeed, like I fear, people can no longer question our leaders what separates our wonderful freedom and Bill of Rights from a fascist dictatorship? If you fail to question your leaders, McCain included, then you have no say in anything they do. The latest and most grotesque evidence came just recently when, Congress and the Senate passed the 700 billion dollar bailout bill, even though an overwhelming majority of the country was (and still is) opposed to it. These people, who have gotten even less accomplished than President Bush, went against their own constituents. Those constituents were not the silent majority either, they stood up against the bailout, they sent mail (sometimes even hate mail), they called their representatives they did everything you are supposed to do to make your opinion known to the politicians in Washington. Apparently the politicians were busy putting on their blinders and stuffing their ears with cotton that week though because, like I said before, we were ignored.

Now my point is this: if you can’t question your leaders without fear of being metaphorically burned at the stake then democracy ceases to exist. You are then putting your future in the hands of one person, their one vote, and their one opinion. And that my friends is NOT America. If you let your fear of being labeled and cast out take over then you have joined the sea of scared silent people who have no right to complain the next time a politician does something you are against. Because just like voting, questioning is your duty. You are responsible for keeping these people in check with your opinions, not the other way around. America was not founded so that we could have the will of the few imposed on us, it was founded so that we the people could follow our own path. So if you like having the ability to decide your own future, make sure you keep it. Don’t sit around and be a party to the death of our freedoms and essentially our country. Personally, the 1st and 2nd Amendments are my two favorites. These two ensure the majority of our rights and those are the two that are in the most jeopardy at the moment, so please don't offer them up without a fight.

Call me a racist if you want. I am here to tell you I will still have opinions, I will still be loud, and I will still be questioning whoever gets elected. I am sure that there are people who criticize Senator Obama on the grounds of racism, but I am not one of them and I hope you aren’t either.

Bottom line: Please don’t shut up!

By Rachel