The Cynical Girl: The Election Has Consequences |  |
| Posted: 17 Oct 2012 03:45 AM PDT Lots of people say that a US Presidential election has no real impact on the economy. That may be true… …but I have been thinking about how that isn’t true in my personal life. Jobs I work for many reasons — personal satisfaction, joy, camaraderie — but I also work for access to health insurance in case anything happens to my husband. And if I’m being honest, the employer mandate kills my entrepreneurial spirit. I would love to be a full-time writer. I was thinking more and more about this after Obamacare was ruled constitutional; however, I am holding off on making any decisions about my career as a writer until after the election. And don’t tell me that Romney will open up private healthcare over state lines. When I lived in Chicago, we traveled over state lines to Indiana to buy our fireworks. That business is sketchy. The Environment A couple of years ago, I was involved in a grassroots initiative to stop the expansion of a quarry. The company wanted to roll into town and rezone existing land from residential to industrial and expand their production facility. We specifically bought our home in Raleigh because it’s next to one of the only state parks in an urban environment in America. We have no airplane noise. We have foxes and deer in our yard. The expansion of the local quarry would have polluted the park and encroached upon wildlife. Instead of getting mad, I got active. I joined a local group and we used social media and mobilized. And the company backed down. The case was cited as one of the only examples of a local community group standing up and winning against a global corporation on an issue like this. Ever. With the continued escalation of fracking — and with Romney retroactively retiring and thinking that corporations are people — I wonder if the quarry company, or another version of a global corporation that puts profit before regular people, will come back to my neighborhood with new confidence. My Gays I know people who are in the closet and ashamed of being gay. In 2012. It’s heartbreaking and I can’t even write about it. It’s not fair to “out” people on a blog. I’ll tell you this much: my life would be 89% better if we didn’t continue to bully gay people into silence. Shaming gay people based on religion has a real and negative impact on my life. One of the presidential candidates wants to roll back the progress we’ve made for LGBT citizens. I can’t see how this helps anyone. My Uterus For the past 12 months, I have experienced awful menstrual cycles. I get my period every 20-23 days and it’s not fun. I went to see a doctor and she recommended two solutions: the pill or IUD. Now listen, I am 37 and my husband is 49. Nobody is having a baby. So the issue is this: a monthly pill is less invasive than an IUD but it can be expensive if Romney tells my insurance company that they no longer have to cover contraception. And an IUD is also expensive but there are only two times when I have to pay: when I have it inserted and when it is removed. So that’s good. But here’s another issue — some religious zealots who support Romney/Ryan consider the IUD an ‘abortion device’ and want it outlawed. So I basically need to make a decision about my uterus right now just in case Romney wins. And that’s not a joke. * Barack Obama was right: elections do have consequences. I’m a 37 year-old female blogger. I can think of four ways in which the election directly impact my life. I bet the election will directly impact yours.  |
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