Knock Knock? Who's There? Artemis

Artemis who?  Artemis who challenges neighbors to determine who is "truly disabled" in Portland, Oregon.

Apparently this Artemis creature is distributing flyers in Portland neighborhoods that name disabled voters who live in the area, so that their neighbors can take a hard look at them and determine who is 'truly' disabled and worthy of receiving disability benefits. I gotta tell you, this is even more extreme than the usual ideas that float around on the Internet.

Here's the flyer, with the names removed, courtesy of the Portland Office of Equity and Human Rights (OEHR):

Artemis, twin sister of Apollo, was a huntress, protector of animals, and a protector of children, but maybe not so nice to their moms.

Being a goddess of contradictions, she was the protectress of women in labor, but it was said that the arrows of Artemis brought them sudden death while giving birth. As was her brother, Apollo, Artemis was a divinity of healing, but also brought and spread diseases such as leprosy, rabies and even gout.

Wow -- there's a contradiction for you.  The present-day Artemis wants you to be able to hunt down and identify disabled benefit suckers, but her namesake kills moms in childbirth, which would seemingly leave babies on the public teat, as it were.  Although, to her credit, she was an eternal virgin, so I guess she wasn't out there popping out kids and collecting benefits herself, right? 

There's more. From the same article as above:

Artemis was very possessive. She would show her wrath on anyone who disobeyed her wishes...Artemis with her twin brother, Apollo, put to death the children of Niobe. The reason being that Niobe, a mere mortal, had boasted to Leto, the mother of the divine twins, that she had bore more children, which must make her superior to Leto. Apollo being outraged at such an insult on his mother, informed Artemis. The twin gods hunted them down and shot them with their bows and arrows; Apollo killed the male children and Artemis the girls.

I'm guessing in this case, Portland's Artemis is very possessive of her hard-earned income (and that of course assumes that it's earned, not some other kind) and, according to the flyer, is willing to "stand in the way" of those who would destroy our democracy - which as we all know is the democracy of the perfectly-abled and them alone, right?

It's not perfectly clear whether Artemis will knock arrow and go hunting in the neighborhoods a la the mythological Artemis, but one can only assume there's at least some level of ground-standing (grand-standing?) going on here.

I have to wonder: Artemis, do you take advantage of any public benefits?  I don't mean welfare or SNAP or Medicaid or anything like that -- Goddess forbid! -- but things like any property or income tax breaks that, while legal, are ways for our modern huntress to save at the expense of others.

Donate to charity and take a tax deduction? Own a house and take a mortgage interest deduction? Get any other benefits that are built into our federal, state and local tax codes? Maybe you've been in Portland for a while, and voted in favor of the property tax limitations back in the 1990's and now you're taking advantage of those?

If yes, Artemis my dear, you're just as bad as those you're branding with a giant 'D'.

Sure, we all know there's disability fraud. Just like we all know there's income tax fraud and every other kind of tax fraud and scads of ways to try and dodge codified obligations.  All of which should be investigated and identified and appropriate actions taken. But to suggest that everyone who's on disability needs to be examined by a neighborhood of their peers so that their disability can be discerned, well, how will you do that?

• Knock on their doors and time how long it takes them to answer?
• Steal their medical records and see what ails them, what kind of doctors they see?
• Follow them around and see if they use handicapped parking spots?
• Challenge them to a stag hunt?

Further, I suggest that if you vote (and one can only assume that as an upstanding resident of the City of Roses you are a registered and regular voter), you too are 'voting yourself money' every time you make a choice. Or is there a special way Goddesses can identify and vote only for candidates who express no opinion on fiscal issues such as taxes and spending? Candidates who, if elected, will refuse to vote on anything that comes before them that might in anyway have an impact on how your money is spent?

The bottom line is, every time we vote, we're "voting ourselves money" - either we're willing to continue spending what we spend today on our various governmental jurisdictions and programs and vote for people who promise to hold the line; we're willing to increase that spending, and so vote for people who are in favor of collecting and/or spending more money;  or we want to decrease our burden and so vote for people who promise to reduce taxes, spending, or both. 

Oh -- one more thing -- once you finish off identifying the truly 'disabled', do you then move on to the 'truly' unemployed, the 'truly' hungry, the 'truly' homeless, the 'truly' legal immigrants, the 'truly' everything else, until you're left with no one else to 'truly' identify? I wonder if then you will have 'truly' lived up to the slogan Keep Portland Weird, (albeit in a completely wrong way).

Here's another quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin, my dear Goddess Artemis and others who drink from the same chalice:

We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.