Thoughts on Adam and Eve...

Dear Reader,

This my first non-reading related entry. I want to comment on something I said yesterday "Apparently, this knowledge is the reason that women were subjugated to men in this earlier time. It was Eve's idea after all and Adam just went along with it (which I think makes him kind of dumb). That's like when I was a kid. If my brother did something he wasn't supposed to do, I couldn't get out of being in trouble if I went along with it because he was doing it too. That wouldn't fly at my house."

On Eve, I realize that it's not fair to blame and subjugate an entire gender because of one person's action. But how often do the actions of one or a few people cause rules to be changed in ways that harm an entire populace. As I student, when other children in my class acted up and we were punished as a group, I still needed to endure the punishment.

As someone who employs personal care assistants (PCA), I regret the fact that my employees can now no longer go to pick up their checks at my fiscal intermediary's office when I'm away. This used to be allowed, but a few assistants (other people's and, sadly, one of my own who quickly became my ex employee)took advantage of the situation by doing untoward things such as committing fraud by signing their employer's name on falsified time sheets. As a result, no PCA is able to pick up their checks anymore. They must now barrow their employer's mailbox key (if this is allowed), wait for them to return from from traveling, or (my preference) get direct deposit. Most PCA's clearly did not engage in this wrong-headed behavior, yet they still suffered for it.

On Adam, through out history people have always gotten caught up in doing things because other people did them or endorsed it. From getting tattoos, to driving drunk to engaging in wars. Every child who wants to do something his or her parents don't like knows better than to say "I want to x because y is doing it." Their parent will say "if y jumped off a bridge would you do it,too?"

As an American activist, I'm horrified by the number of massacres, crimes, wars, and other generally poor decisions that result because people don't stand up against things we know in and of ourselves to be wrong. We don't vote the way we feel because we don't want to annoy friends who don't share our principals, we don't do certain activism because it would upset our families/friends/colleagues.

Some times this ideology gets way out of hand. Take the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. I'm sure that many soldiers knew what was occurring was wrong, but felt they had no power to stop it.

Moreover, consider the Matthew Shepard murder I feel Matthew would still be alive had Russell Henderson, who I believe to be the less capable in murder, let Aaron McKinney drop him off at home, locked his door, and run to the phone to call 911 so they could go get Matthew off that fence. He might be disabled, but he'd be alive.

Think of it, how many of as have done things that we later realize are ill advised if not patently idiotic? How many of us didn't realize the true ramifications of our actions? I know I can't be the only person have followed a friend/loved one down a bad path, but not realized exactly how bad or exactly how many people would be harmed until way too late. I think the same thing happened to Adam, and as a result to the rest of humanity. In truth, I don't think he or Eve really thought about they were doing or its ramifications.