You There! Stay RIGHT Where You Are!

In my young life as one who pays a bit of attention to my country's political situation (pretty much the last couple of years of Bush Part II up until now) I have come to realize that so far, it seems as if Ron Paul, a Republican (eh, sort of) Congressman in Texas, is the most Constitutional politician out there. His nickname is "Dr. No" because 1.) he's a physician and 2.) he won't vote for legislation unless he feels it's Constitutional (appropriately this leads to very few "yes" votes from him). You can look up all the other fun facts about him on numerous sites so I won't go and add to the noise. I just want to bring up the fact that so far he seems to be the one politician who is actually looking out for what the Founding Fathers wanted for this country (and I stress "so far" quite a bit seeing as how he, just like any other creep, could have 72 Namibians in the basement of his house, being forced at gunpoint to conduct a large-scale orgy).

Now with that said, I would just like to say that Ron Paul is the last person I ever want to be president of this country. No, I'm serious. Ok, ok. Maybe "last" is too strong of a word because I would prefer him over Kim Kardashian or Carrot Top, but I do mean that I really do not want to see Ron Paul as president anytime soon.

I've already discussed how limited the president's powers are in the actual Constitution so instead of me rehashing that here, just read An Arm and a Leg for My Right to Complain. So if the president's powers are so limited, who does have the power? Well if we are going use that pesky Constitution once again then it appears Congress has most of the power. (Check out the length of Article I compared with Article II.) The Founding Fathers realized that in order to have a legitimate, stable government while also giving the people the power to not be abused by that government, the people need to have a direct impact on the people who serve in the government. What better way than to give them (the people) the power to vote in each member. In other words if we don't agree with the policies of Congressman X, we don't vote for him/her next time around.

Of course the problem here lies in the fact that all too often, an unworthy person is voted in. He/she tends to not screw things up too much and so people vote him/her back in based on the fact that they recognize the name. I understand because in my posting I'm All Out of Eyeballs! I detailed how difficult and time consuming keeping up with the issues is, and therefore we often have to take short cuts out of necessity. It's a tough cycle and I don't have an answer for it.

I would though recommend to anyone who is casting a vote to pay more attention to who you are voting into Congress. I know the coverage of the presidential election is portrayed as game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, while the votes for the House and Senate are treated like those adorable, little pee-wee hockey kids that come out during intermission, but that is just the tradition of over-emphasizing the importance of the president that has been going on for...well...probably our country's existence. "Hey, that country's got a king. We need one too!" "Why, we do have one. It's called the president."

So that is why I don't want Ron Paul, the politician who I so far have the most respect for, to become president. He is perfectly suited for Congress. Granted if he ran against someone else who I felt would use the power of the presidency to do large-scale damage to the country overall (some recent presidents come to mind) I would no doubt vote for him, but I am hoping that situation won't present itself. For now, I am just hoping that he will continue to use his intelligence where it is most desperately needed: Congress.

Hey, Uncle Sam! Get Out of Our Bedroom!

Several years ago, I happened to witness a debate between two people very close to me on the prickly issue of gay marriage. The usual lines of dialogue were exchanged and naturally, as time passed, the conversation became increasingly emotional. Eventually the, for lack of a better monicker, "anti gay marriage" person brought up the issue regarding the definition of marriage. This was many years ago and because I did not write down this person's exact words, I apologize for the inexactitude (good word, eh?) of the following, but I believe it went something like, "The definition of marriage is a union between a man and a woman. In order to legally accept gay marriage we have to change that very definition."

Although I have now heard different variations of this idea since then, at that time it was new to me. I had no strong, personal preference one way or the other with the issue, but I admit that I was impressed with the practicality of this person's argument. I wondered how the "pro gay marriage" person would respond to this and to no surprise he/she had no response. Still though, despite my being impressed with that argument, I felt something was a little off. I thought to myself, "I'm not hugely for or against this so why do I feel there's an unanswered question?" Years later it hit me and wouldn't you know it, good ol' Uncle Sam was at the bottom of it once again.

Now before I go on to explain my answer to this question, I would like to expound my idea of homosexuality in general. The two main anti-homosexuality statements (at least the ones I hear most often) are 1.) homosexuality is a disease (sometimes "mental disorder" is used too) and 2.) homosexuality is a sin. Let me briefly tackle those two statements.

1.) My brother had cancer all through high school. My wife's grandmother had Parkinson's disease. Heck, I have something called Osgood-Schlatters disease (of course this is just a mild inflammation of the lower knee that pretty much goes away during adulthood). Does anyone have a problem with those people getting married despite the fact they all have diseases?

2.) I am a very serious Christian. I read the Bible every day that I can and I study up on famous Christian writers (my favorite currently being C.S. Lewis) to further develop my own faith. With all that said, I have a hard time finding this crazed "God hates queers" attitude in the Bible. Sure in Leviticus 18:22 it says, "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable." However, this is a rule from God directly given to the Hebrews wandering the desert. Leviticus is more of a historical document of these rules than a doctrine that Christians today are supposed to follow (I don't hear many Christians yelling at me when I eat lobster or catfish). Now Paul disses homosexuals a couple of times in Romans 1:27 and 1 Corinthians 1:9-10, but once again he is speaking to specific groups of people who were engaging in a multitude of "sinful" activities and he only mentions homosexuality twice (in passing) while other sins, such as idolatry, infidelity, etc., are mentioned in almost every epistle. It seems as if homosexuality wasn't quite as high on Paul's list as it is on the list of some of today's Christians.

Sorry for the lengthy diversion, but I feel it's important you know that I am Christian and I also don't hate homosexuals. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, my unanswered question of why I still felt unfulfilled even after hearing a good, logical argument for no gay marriage.

The answer of course is another question and that is...why does the government care about marriage anyway? I'm a heterosexual male who married a heterosexual female and for the life of me I can't figure out why the government wants to be involved in my marriage in any way. Nothing against Nancy Pelosi or John McCain, but I don't want either of them anywhere near my bedroom. "But the government would like to promote family values by making it easier for those who wish to start a family to go ahead and start one." I grew up in a great family and so I'm all for family values, but I don't think it's the government's job to "promote" this idea. And even if the government is true to its word, wouldn't a happy homosexual couple raising two adopted children promote family values just as well?

This seems to be a pattern in my life, but it looks like once again I have to say to the government, "Leave it alone." Going back to the Christian perspective, I feel that marriage is a union of two people under the eyes and graces of the God I worship. Marriage should be an issue decided in the churches and not in Congress. If a church would like to recognize a union between two women or two men as being holy and in the spirit of God, then by all means have the ceremony, invite all the friends, and go for it! Honestly, I didn't get married so the state would recognize my union and give me a tax break (hmm, could that be a reason a couple of those hetero marriages fail?). I got married because my family, my friends, and most importantly my God all recognized my wife as the one person that I was willing to attach my life to in order to form a bond that nothing in life could ever break.

So you know what? When push comes to shove, I guess it turns out that I am against gay marriage after all! Of course, I'm apparently anti heterosexual marriage too.

I'm All Out of Eyeballs!

That's right. You read that title correctly. God gave me two and apparently I need a few more.

I was recently reading a posting by Michael Shermer, Founding Publisher of Skeptic Magazine, on his blog (here is the exact post) and something jumped out at me. Read the following paragraph:

"Several of you said that I am a victim of one of my own central tenets of baloney detection: the confirmation bias, where we look for and find confirmatory evidence for what we already believe and ignore the disconfirmatory evidence. Yes, I will admit, I do this. Everyone does, and we must guard against it, especially when it comes to religion, politics, and economics. To combat this problem, I read the conservative Wall Street Journal and the liberal Los Angeles Times. I listen to such conservative talk radio hosts as Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Praeger as well as the very liberal Bill Maher. I have read Karl Marx’s books as deeply and carefully as I have read Adam Smith’s books. I have read a host of books from liberal and conservative and libertarian authors on the current economic meltdown."

Ok, the confirmation bias thing I can buy easily. I do it. You do it. It's pretty much unavoidable. However, what struck me was the second part where he talks about following as many angles of the political spectrum as possible. In today's society, with the internet and 49 different news channels on TV and 35 different news radio stations, we have a staggering amount of information that each and every one of us has at our fingertips. Now this isn't news by any means, but when I actually think about it in terms of finding the appropriate, accurate information I need in which to base logical conclusions from, my brain begins to spin so rapidly that I fear it will suddenly become a helicopter and propel itself upward, violently bursting through the top of my skull. There's too much information!

So here's where my eyeballs come in. We all know there are two sides to the old "political spectrum" and we all pretty much fall somewhere in between. I always have one eye on the right and one eye on the left. Ok. I'm good there. Where I'm not good is keeping an eye on the left, the right, the up, the down, and the diagonal all at the same time (oh, and don't forget there are many degrees of diagonal!). That's at least five eyes right there! For instance, here's a little hypothetical situation that accurately represents my aforementioned "brain to helicopter" problem:

I have a friend who watches the Daily Show and he says there was a Democratic politician who told Jon Stewart that the Republicans were rallying against a bill that gives money to widows of soldiers who were killed in action. Hmm. That's not good. Money should definitely go their way. I look up the bill online and indeed, there it is. It's called the Give More Money to Widows of Soldiers KIA Bill. Wow! What's wrong with these Republicans?! So I ask my conservative friend who points me to a Wall Street Journal article detailing how the Democrats have snuck in a little portion that allows for puppies and kittens to be systematically slaughtered on the tax payers' dollar. Whoa! No wonder the Republicans are rallying against that one! But wait, I then manage to catch a CNN clip that tells how these particular puppies and kittens outlined in the bill have some disease that forces them to eat the limbs off of any baby human under the age of 2. Ok...and now we're back to square one. But wait once again. I then happen to be listening to Glenn Beck's radio program and he says that these disease-ridden animals actually came from experiments (government-funded experiments) backed by the Democrats and opposed by the Republicans. Hmm, I need to look this one up myself. Ok, so now I find a New York Times article showing how these experiments were indeed inspired by ideas from two leading Democratic senators, but were actually backed by both sides of the aisle.

And once again, the brain helicopter begins.

I really do think that the amount of information we have at our fingertips is a good thing overall. It does help us make better-informed decisions on pretty much every aspect of life (how many of you haven't, at some point, Googled a restaurant before shelling out $30?). I feel my opinions are strengthened by my ability to research the data using a multitude of sources. However, we have officially gotten to the point where it is utterly impossible to cover every angle. I constantly hear people from both sides of the spectrum telling me I need to be "more informed" if I don't agree with them. So does that make the person on the other side who just showed me information that contradicted yours "better informed" than you? Maybe it just means his (or her) information is simply from a different source and therefore has a different angle. Does the information from both of your sources combine in any way that might seem helpful? Who knows. All I know is that I only have so much time to be reading articles, watching news shows, listening to the radio, and all the while trying to live my own life (you know, the part where I work, clean dishes, spend time with my wife and friends, etc.). So I guess I have come to grips with the fact that there will always be someone "better informed" than myself. Now if you don't mind, I have to go fetch my brain on the other side of the room.

An Arm and a Leg for My Right to Complain

One thing that's great about this country is the fact that we have a strong military, constantly on guard to protect me and my fellow citizens. The other thing that's great is how I don't have to be a part of that military. I am weak. I frighten easily at loud noises. I am horrible at thinking on my feet in stressful situations. Trust me, Amercia, you don't want me defending your freedom.

Now there are a whole lot of people who are much better equipped, both physically and mentally, to handle the pressures of conflict/combat. Those people are willing to give their lives to protect our country and I would like to think that pretty much all of us are grateful for what they have done, what they are doing, and what they will continue to do. The majority of us would probably agree that anyone who decides to step in front of bullets and rockets and grenades in the hopes of preserving the freedom of wimps like us deserves pretty much anything we can give them. Unfortunately, there's a problem...

I was listening to the radio not all that long ago and I heard an interesting interview with a former senator. Unfortunately I didn't catch the senator's name nor did I catch what program I was listening to (my wilting groceries in the back seat of the car were a more pressing issue at the time). However, I did catch a snippet of their conversation involving how budgetary issues are taken care of in the senate.

This former senator was talking about how each item addressed in budgetary meetings amounts to little more than a number. This makes sense considering the vast amount of complicated items the government would have to deal with on a daily basis. They look at each number and see which ones they could reduce or just all out cut in order to better balance the overall budget. Now this all sounded so "par for the course," and therefore boring, that I was just about to flip to another station when all of the sudden the former senator said something that struck a chord in me. He said, "For instance, we all saw this outrageously large number next to something about benefits for certain people and we all immediately knew that one had to be trimmed. Of course only a few of us realized that those 'certain people' were veterans of the first Gulf War." I'm no crazed, gun-toting, war-is-the-answer lunatic, but even I knew something was wrong there.

Sorry to bring up that pesky document again, but when you read our country's Constitution, one thing seems to come up over and over again: our government's main job is the defense of our country. As a matter of fact, if you read Article II (mostly Section 2-4, considering Section 1 is all about how to conduct an election of a president), the President's powers pretty much boil down to the fact that he's in charge of the military. Commander in Chief anyone? And heck, if you read the Federalist Papers, a whole slew of letters penned by such founding fathers as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, the main argument for instituting a centralized government was to more efficiently protect the rights and land of all Americans.

So with all of that said, my question is this: how on earth are benefits/healthcare for these people even considered when cutting a budget? These people who have lived for 2+ years in a desert, not knowing when the next unseen mine was going to leave him limbless for life, or these people who stepped on the shores of Normandy only to see dozens of fellow soldiers around them immediately chewed up by bullets, or these people who simply had to wait for years and years, never going to battle, but being constantly plagued by the fact that they could go at any second now. Shouldn't these people be at the top of the pecking order as far as money is concerned? I mean I'm sure there are plenty of important budgetary items that need to be debated carefully, but I really don't think the healthcare of those who were shot at trying to defend my right to blog about all the negative things in this country is one that needs to be discussed. As one who entrusts my money to the government, I would hope they leave that "number" alone.

Separate Who From What?

Attending public schools from the late 80s to the late 90s, I sort of feel that my generation was on the cusp of the "religious-related paranoia" that seems to have swept over government funded organizations. Sometime between 1st and 12th grade, I remember a certain amount of hoopla about about 3 things: 1) getting rid of such phrases as "merry Christmas" and replacing them with the far less incendiary "happy holidays," 2) about making sure to have a conspicuously placed menorah around such "holiday" seasons, 3) omitting the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. Now as a child, I of course barely understood what any of this meant because 1) if a Jewish kid said "happy Hanukkah!" to me, I would have been genuinely pleased with the fact that someone just gave me good wishes in the spirit of his/her religion, which I can only imagine means a whole lot to them, 2) there were a total of like three Jewish kids per year so to have a menorah towering over other Christmas decorations just seemed a little silly (even to those three Jewish kids), 3) kids have a hard time understanding exactly what a Pledge of Allegiance actually means so one line thrown in there isn't really going to make my atheist friend jump out of his shoes (honestly, we were too busy wrapping our heads around the word "indivisible").

So now that we have the history of my involvement in the Separation of Church and State debate, we can move on to today. Yes, we've all heard the stories about getting rid of the Ten Commandments in tax-dollar funded places and of course the people who sue to get Christmas trees removed from schools as well. I sort of feel those are the "fringe" cases and therefore I won't directly go after them. I however would like to look more into where the debate came from in the first place.

We all hear this phrase "Separation of Church and State" over and over again and I feel like the majority of fellow countrymen think that this phrase has its roots in our Constitution. Well...that's only kind of true. The only real mention of anything related to this phrase is of course the First Amendment where it says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Now if you're saying to yourself, "Wow, that seems like a significant jump from that to getting rid of the Ten Commandments in a court house," then you're starting to see things from my point of view. But hey, let's go a little further because there is actually another step leading us to where we are today.

In 1802 Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to a committee representing the Danbury Baptists in the state of Connecticut. This letter contains a quotation from that aforementioned First Amendment and follows it with the following (Jefferson's words), "thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." So Jefferson said it! Aha! Well, let's look a little deeper at who Jefferson was writing to and about what. The Danbury Baptists were a religious organization that was scared of the lack of protection of the religious liberty in their state. They were a religious minority, fearful that the religious majority might eventually establish an official state religion. In other words, Jefferson was actually defending their right to worship and not taking anything away from anybody (well, except for the people who possibly wanted to establish a state religion).

I guess my place in this whole debate is that of "leave it alone!" Ok, if a public school in the Bible Belt (why do we always pick on them?) decides to suspend a child for repeatedly wearing his kippah, then we can talk because that is the specific prohibiting of religious freedom as stated in the Constitution. However, taking away certain religious devices or items (even from public venues) is not what the Constitution is referring to at all. I would even go as far as saying that a public school teacher is allowed to pray to whatever god he/she believes in as long as he/she does not forcibly lead a class in such prayer. Well, I guess if a teacher decides to break out in private prayer during the middle of class then that the teacher should be fired, but not for any religious-related reason. He/she should be fired for not teaching while "on the clock."

So I guess to sum it all up, I will make a statement that I feel is a more modern variation on what the Constitution has to say about religion: I like that I can go to church on Sundays. I also like that I don't have to.

Welcome to the Middle Ground

A little while ago, I had a conversation with a good friend of mine who's a public school teacher. We were debating the merits of the whole "bailout philosophy" at the end of Bush's presidency and at the beginning of Obama's (my friend being for, I being against) and I just could not figure out why he disagreed with me so wholeheartedly. I finally decided to whip out the big guns and I brought up how the Constitution was originally drafted to protect the citizens from their government by greatly limiting its power and what Bush, Obama, and Congress were trying to pass seemed to greatly INCREASE the government's power. Bam! I win! Come back from that one!

Well...to my surprise...he did. He said the one thing that I was not ready for. The one thing that I could not argue against. The one thing that, I have to admit, was 100% true. He said, "Oh well the government obviously stopped paying attention to the Constitution a long time ago." Ouch. He's right. I lose.

Now I'm not a complete "defeatist" when it comes to matters of the government because although I feel the power of the government has grown to proportions that would cause our founding fathers to, for lack of a better word, vomit, I still feel the Constitution is alive and well and as long as the citizens are still talking about it, it's got power. I do however feel that the political climate in this country has changed for the worse. I'm not going to say when I think it started, which presidents were the worst, or who to vote for in upcoming elections. I will say though that we now seem to have a two-party system of which neither party seems to represent the voice of the majority (heck, even our first president wasn't exactly a fan of political parties). I am a law-abiding citizen who isn't exactly an expert on political history which is precisely why I decided to start writing down a few things that come to mind. Please enjoy. Please debate. And above all, please give me some sources when you agree with or refute my points because I do appreciate those.