While in the car with my dad yesterday he started talking about something he'd read online, about personal freedoms where Mississippi was ranked the lowest. "Do you know of any freedoms or rights that we no longer have, but did?" I just shook my head no, because I didn't feel like getting into an argument with him, though I had a pretty good idea what this all might mean. The only thing I could find online pertaining to this, so I'm not exactly sure what he was looking at, was the Cato Institute Freedom in Fifty States workup in which Mississippi ranks at #40. Though it's not exactly what I was thinking of when it was mentioned yesterday and it says we've had a +5 growth since 2014, some things about it are what I thought.
Mainly, that it's not so much freedoms that have been taken away from us, but that Mississippi is still denying it's people things, which is also correct. One of my first thoughts was female health and medical coverage, but that's not really mentioned unless you could count "strictly regulates insurance rates" into that mix. Mississippi is not one for personal freedom in the sexual or reproductive category. It never was and still is not. A woman can not tend to her own personal health needs without religion and restrictions getting thrown into the mix. Overall, the state does not understand women's health, as most men (and women) will spout nonsensical things about women's bodies that are not true. You've heard some of it before from the people spouting misinformation on rape, pregnancy, and any other way a woman's body works. Things like "she wouldn't get pregnant from rape, if she didn't want it." and "if she didn't she'd miscarry". and "miscarriages aren't real, so the woman had an abortion; she should be locked up". They also, generally, only believe in abstinence. They do not believe in controlling births, because that's your job. Stay virginal until marriage and then always make babies. They don't believe it's right to not ever make babies, so they can not wrap their heads around contraceptives lowering teen pregnancy rates or abortion rates. None of this has been taken away from women in Mississippi. Perhaps there were more Planned Parenthoods in slightly earlier decades, where now there is only one, and perhaps a woman here has a slightly freer chance at their own personal healthy, but that was marginal at best. The people in office, and the people voting for them are all "good Christians" and therefor believe all sorts of cockamamy things. Women in Mississippi today are pretty much in the same boat as women in Mississippi before The Civil War. Any gains in this area, when they happened, were slight at best. Once Mississippi could, it stripped that gain back even further than its starting point. Medical coverage is another area. I'm not really up on medical coverage pertaining to all of the states over the last fifty years or so, so I don't really know how things were similar or different. However, I do know since the ACA (Affordable Care Act) or "ObamaCare" as people want to call it. My whole life I heard people bitching about health insurance in this state and not being able to afford this or that doctor visit or medical procedure. By 2000 we'd heard about the Rural Health Clinics, which are dental, health, women's health, and a pharmacy for people of low income. We started going. My mother went to the women's health building for a mammogram and the lady told her it was free now because of ObamaCare and isn't that wonderful?! My mother didn't want Obama to win, and always talked badly about him. Not racistly bad, just not calling him Mr. President or President Obama, instead calling him "BamaDama" and just not liking him; rolling her eyes and scoffing, never watching State of the Union addresses during his terms, etc. A thing she and my dad can not abide in people who now disrespect our current President by calling him "DumpTruck" or whatever and never affording him the proper titles of Mr. President or President Trump. It's the pot calling the kettle black, but they have conveniently forgotten they died this with Obama. So, my mom was not happy that a procedure would be absolutely free because of a President that she did not like. I told her she was being a child. "You like that the procedure is free, so why bitch? That's middle school behavior, mom." However, things are different because she's over a certain age, and Mississippi likes the aged, and therefor she has Medicare (or is it Medicaid? I don't know, one of those - the more normal one). Mississippi is big into Social Security and one of those M one's for old people only. They put you through hoops if you aren't old. To them, anyone not old, who is poor, is simply lazy and to their mind it predominantly means "brown people". Which, we have lots of different people of colour in this state, but it seems the state only recognizes African and Latin Americans as the "brown people" to worry about; and they're all lazy and needing help, so the state says no. Which, whether or not I fell into that category, it's still ridiculous. Stories of dark people with iPhones and food stamps, and some weird bitterness stemming from the white people that say it. I don't know if people on food stamps have iPhones, but if they do I'm not going to judge them. For one, I have no job, can't support myself, fall into the category of "help" and yet I have an iPhone. It's an iPhone 4. The Sister had a good paying job and bought both of us mobiles through AT&T in the early teens. She since doesn't have that job, so after the contracts were up, we simply don't have phones. If we're near wi-fi or at home, we have mini computer/calculator/camera's, so in the world of society our iPhones are worthless pieces of junk because they don't do apps because they're so old and have no phone service. Nobody's judging me for not having a job and yet whipping out my iPhone to take photos with. It's a double standard. You don't know how anyone got their iPhones, and really it's none of your business. And you shouldn't be bitter and jealous over someone that needs food stamps (or more correctly and EBT card, because there is not that fake looking money that were once called food stamps anymore). Back to the point about health insurance. Our state declined to expand Medicaid (or is it Medicare?, probably the first one), to stick it to all of those lazy "brown" people (rolls eyes), but in doing so, they also hurt white people, but they are ignorant as to who constitutes as needing help or even seeing that perhaps one person in the entire state who receives help is abusing the system (and more than likely it's a white person). No one is abusing the system like they think they are. So, I, along with countless other people of various colours of backgrounds, are not eligiable to have health care in this state. Was this a freedom that was taken away from us? No, because at least 80% of those people wouldn't have had insurance prior to the ACA. It's just my state continuing to be jerks. Other things that I thought might be on the list and are were recreational drugs; alcohol and marijuana. They did recently vote in CBD oil being legal, which surprised me, regardless that their reasoning was children with cancer (because usually the conservative powers that be in this state don't care about kids), but everything else? Not a chance. They even recently shot down a bill to legalize hemp farming. Beer is OK, which seems weird because most of the conservatives in power and the people that voted for them are Southern Baptists and drinking is seen as sinful. But somehow beer is sinful and yet OK? But large swathes of the state are dry, where alcohol (other than beer) is greatly restricted. You can sell beer on a Sunday, but never alcohol. You can not sale or (have in your home) alcohol in a dry county. You can purchase beer at the grocery store, but not alcohol. And wine and other alcohol are forbidden from entering into the state via the mail, or you personally transporting it over the state line. Marijuana is a "terrible gateway" drug (rolls eyes) and bills to get it legalized are always shot down. You'll go to jail for having it on your person. No three strikes, no ounce-age. It is "the devil" and it is highly illegal to have it or use it. The only one dad could think of, something that was taken away, was smoking in public places. This is on the list, but it states that "Tobacco Freedom is above average, as smoking bans leave plenty of exceptions, and cigarette taxes are not too high." But I have to disagree with that. I'm a smoker and I'm OK with them banning smoking inside buildings, however some restrictions don't really work in the south. I'll give you an example. It's fucking hot here most of the year and no one wants to be outside in it. The only people you would see out were smokers, since they couldn't smoke inside. When it's cold here, it's hardly ever that cold, yet the same thing applies as most people will keep indoors, except the smokers. So, the local Starbucks banned smoking outside. I can understand right next to the main entrance, but not really the back side. However, they did, and mainly because local people who don't smoke complained they couldn't use the outside areas. But do you know what? Those outside areas are ghost towns, because the smokers will buy their coffee and leave (or else are visiting another place) and the non smokers are shoved inside complaining that the weather is too gross to be outside. That is my problem with the outdoor smoking ban. Like I said, I get right in front of entrance doors. But no one is using the outside spaces here except two weeks a year, and to complain and fight for the outside spaces that you think you want, but don't really want, and then don't use and the smokers aren't allowed to use them is just wasteful and wrong. Now as for the exceptions, I don't know of any logical exceptions. I hear tell that people aren't allowed to smoke in their own cars, houses or yards; whether that is true of other places I don't know for certain. If it is, that seems completely illogical to me. There is no where, public, in this town, where you are allowed to smoke; inside or out. You could be a football field length away from any person and they'll march over and tell you to stop smoking near them. As far as the taxes go, I'm sure they are correct in so far as all the states go, because taxes in Mississippi are lower than average. However, for what people make here and what things are set at, the taxes on cigarettes is exceedingly high, even higher than that of alcohol. There are even groups, in this state, whose sole purpose it is to get the taxes for tobacco set higher and higher (and they are successful) just to force people to stop smoking. They're not raising the taxes on alcohol at all, and no one's sole mission here is to force people to stop drinking. This really is the only point where something is being taken away, by force, from people in this state, as everything else is staying the same. They do mention the LGBT community, by discussing same-sex marriage only. However, it's broader than this. Yes, being LGBT or getting married are not now illegal, but discrimination is legal everywhere in the state (except for a few cities who stated they were against discrimination). However, here's the kicker. Discrimination is a huge part of why the LGBT community really have no freedoms here. It is legal for them to adopt, have same sex relations, get married, or change their sex on their birth certificate. But it's up to the people in charge whether or not they allow that to happen. Just take marriage first. There are still places in the state where they'll deny you, fuck what the Supreme Court says, and their within their rights to deny you, because discrimination. The police and officials of that town are in agreement with the clerk and too bad for you. They can't legally arrest you, but who's to say they wouldn't? That's a lot of red tape to get through before you'd be free. Or changing your sex on your birth certificate. You need a certified court order and a medical statement. There's also a fee, but no one's going to say no to that if everything else is green lighted. Yet, you might be hard pressed for the other two requirements, namely the certified court order. You might as well fly to Jupiter and have your birth certificate changed there. Not to mention that is within a business owner or property renters rights to fire or evict you if you are LGBT. There are places that won't do this, but the governments won't bat an eyelash if they do. You're allowed to be jobless and homeless just because of your sexual orientation. Doesn't seem very free to me. Or all this religious freedom BS. The state of Mississippi says you are within your rights to deny service to someone who is LGBT simply because you, the shop owner, don't like it. There are businesses, just like those very few cities, who said discrimination won't be tolerated and will do business with the LGBT community. But, if you're a business who doesn't want to, that's OK, because the government of this state said it's OK. And discrimination has a darker side. That of murder. It happens. It has happened. Yes, here in Mississippi, though you'll be hard-pressed to find more than one or two incidents in an online search. I don't know if it's much better than living in secrecy, legally being jailed for having relations with the same sex, or being forced into terrible conversion therapy, or being castrated. Things are probably slightly better for the LGBT community, but they're still nowhere near great. No freedoms have been taken from them, but Mississippi is still trying to live like it's the 1950s and trying to force everyone into that mold. Mississippians can have unpasturized, raw milk though, so that's a win in freedoms right? Not that it would've taken much of a shove to get Mississippi to vote on this. Oh and we can carry weapons now, woo-big friggin woo. Doesn't make for a good ending scene to me. Most of the state hating everyone except fellow white Christians and besides always being allowed to drink beer, they can now carry guns. Oh yeah, real freedoms I'm telling you! So no, dad. Nothing's really been denied to Mississippians what hasn't been denied to them for at least a hundred years, except tobacco seems a bit illogical and that's been stripped away pretty quickly by force. Other than that, it's pretty much still the world you knew as a kid in the 1950s, or else Mississippi will die trying to keep it that way. Some good things have happened though, much needed change, though not by Mississippi's doing. Things like the supreme court saying it's unconstitutional to tell a woman what she can and can not do with her body, the supreme court saying it's unconstitutional to discriminate based on sex or race, the supreme court saying it's unconstitutional to deny consenting adults of different races to be together or to marry, and the supreme court saying it's unconstitutional to deny consenting adults of the same sex to be together or to marry. It doesn't mean that there isn't discrimination or hate crimes related to race here, but they are absolutely illegal so that's good, that they are illegal. But people do illegal things all the time, so that's not good. It doesn't mean that just because it is legal to discriminate against someone of the LGBT community that someone will do that and cost them their job, their home, their life, or decide not to do business with them, but because it's legal, you'll be hard pressed for a case against the perpetrator and that's sad.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
Categories |