Steal This Post

Lots of people took the time to think up five or more good things about themselves. And a bunch of others got their brains working long enough to make a full story fit into six words. Here’s another challenge for you that was inspired by one of Thinking Girl’s posts.

Here’s the steps:
1. Copy the following into a word file.
2. Fill in the blanks and edit as desired or completely re-write (a one page limit is best). A little research on your own area makes it even better.
3. Print
4. Get a few signatures or just sign it yourself.
5. Mail it. No stamps are necessary to the really big guns. Snail mail counts more than e-mail, so the extra walk to the box is worth it.
6. Tag five people (on-line or otherwise).
7. Repeat as necessary.

*****

Address here. Options might include your Mayor, MP, MPP, Prime Minister, other party leaders, Governor, President, what-have-you, and most important, your local newspaper. Even if the issue isn’t part of the addressee’s portfolio, a surge of letters will still have a necessary impact.

Dear / To the Honourable….

In light of the devastating slayings of 26 women in Vancouver, another 20 in Edmonton, and 5 in Ipswich, England, your government must do more to protect women. If one woman is in danger, none of us are safe.

It’s unlikely that legalizing prostitution would be favourable to the voting public at this point in time, but there are several other useful alternatives that will guarantee you laurels from many fronts.

Let’s stop making perpetrators. All the men who commit these types of heinous crimes are found to have been raised in abusive homes. What is necessary as a solid foundation of any society is easy access to help of any kind for all parents of young children. No child should be living in poverty in a country as wealthy as _________. Any parent or child being abused should have easy access to a safe house they can live in for as long as needed. Teens abused need safe places to stay and be nurtured for extended periods.

In _________(city), there is / isn’t a safe house for abused women, but it only holds ______ women and children, and they can only stay ___________before they have to find someplace else to go. The theory is that they need to learn to fend for themselves. The reality is, if they’re there in the first place, they likely don’t have other supports. Imagine having no access to your husband’s bank account, no money of your own, small kids, and the only place available for you to live is run by an abusive tyrant. You’re stuck.

This should not be anybody’s fate in a compassionate country where it could be so easy to solve this problem by placing a priority on funding for safe house space, trained counsellors (emotional, career, and financial), affordable housing, and daycare spaces.

And to stop perpetrators in their tracks, we need stronger legislation around sexual abuse and violence against women, domestic and otherwise. If a rapists gets two years, it sends a message to all men that women and children are not valued by our country’s legal system. Don’t you believe women and children deserve a life free from abuse?

We’ll look forward to hearing your proposal to address this emergency before the next election.

Sincerely,

*****

I’m tagging Thinking Girl, Maia (whose letter would likely kick ass much more than this one), Liberal Debutante (who also has a radio show), Candy, and, Jill of the very large blog. I picked an atypical group to try to spread it out a bit.

My letters are gone. I can only hope for the best now, first, that many people will actually make a small effort to be heard by people who matter, and, second, that democracy actually works a little bit in our societies. I know it's been tried before, but let's have another kick at the cat, shall we?

EDITED TO ADD: And by "steal this post," I mean actually steal it. You can put it on your blog as if you actually wrote the damn thing. I'm not in this for the glory, people!