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Adventures in Travel and Political Ruminations
Despite the scare in the weather here on Friday (6" or so of snow) I managed to pull off my super secret plan so secret I didn't mention it on LJ. :) Plan: LARP succeeded, and I had a lot of fun playing ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
buzzermccain's game, meeting her Chicago friends, and getting to hang out with her, sapphohestia and to a lesser extent (cause she had to leave) swan_tower. My character basically accomplished her/his goals, too, which made me very happy. The story of this, by the by, was that my mother agreed to buy me a plane ticket to Chicago that I couldn't myself afford as a thank you for my help with my grandfather. I left on Friday night and got back this morning, and everything went of smooth aside from the minor insomnia which combined with other factors to ensure that I only got an hour and a half of sleep last night. :)
This morning on the plane, I finished the best book I've read recently. One of my goals for 2008 has been to read a LOT more than I have in previous years, and I've been more or less succeeding. At my grandfathers, I was selecting books from among those that my mom has sent up there over the years, the last of which I picked up was The Alienist by Caleb Carr. I didn't expect all that much, honestly, but the book was phenomenal (though I wasn't as happy with the ending as I might have wanted to be). It made me feel all my deficiencies as a writer (and, happily, made me want to work hard to over come them rather than give up) in that he accomplished with admirable results something I started to attempt much more lamely in the last project I started - the book is set in 1896 New York, and NYC is definitively a character in the book. It was exhaustively researched and excellently written - so much so that it could have been nonfiction if I didn't know better.
However, that wasn't really the point of writing this. The next book on the queue is Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope. I voted for him, and I'm starting to really like it, so I thought I aughta read it. I'm impressed with it so far, but I decided on the walk home the last leg of my trip that I wanted to think out and elucidate some of my own political views on issues big and small before going and further, because I'm noticing ways in which I agree and don't with him already. So here goes...
It's hard to know where to begin something like this, so I'll just tackle the issue most important to me, and go from there. By the way, I'd love to hear questions or challenges to any of these as well as people are interesting in talking reasonably rather than flinging out disagreements (or agreements!) blindly. Oh, and I've certainly missed stuff - point um out, if you're bothering to read this. ;)
My number one issue is freedom of speech. This isn't that public an issue, and a lot of politicians support censorship quietly without us ever hearing about it, in the form of restricting sales of video games, cursing on television, that sort of thing. I believe in the absolute truth of freedom of speech and its paramount importance to this country. I don't believe that we have to believe or agree with everything we hear, but that doesn't mean that we have the right to say that because we disagree it shouldn't be said, simple as that.
I believe strongly in the importance of personal freedoms in general. I don't believe in legislation that touches our bodies on the social level as long as our behavior harms no one but ourselves. Thus, I'm obviously pro-choice, but I also believe in the legalization of drugs, prostitution, and other such issues, while I'm against smoking in restaurants (to name one example). I suppose this is an odd position for someone who is straightedge - I've never been drunk in my life though I'm known to have a drink once or twice a year, I've never tried a drug of any kind even once including tobacco - but I do think that stigmatizing and criminalizing this behavior has not done any good. It prevents women from getting health care,people from seeking to get clean, not to mention a whole range of social ills. Meanwhile, this also applies to all manner of religions, to gay rights and marriage, and various other areas.
I supported the war in Afghanistan, but not the war in Iraq. I haven't changed my mind, either. I remember on 9/12, I was walking across Binghamton campus when some lady part of a small protest against retribution attempted to convince me that fighting was not the answer. I thought she was nuts, and I stand by that reaction. However, Iraq was unwarranted, and I wish it'd end already.
I see a lot of issues with National Health Care. If it could be done well without costing a bloody, stinking fortune, I'd support it, but I don't think either of those things is all that likely. However, I'd be interested (as someone who doesn't have health insurance!) to see what the possibilities are.
I do not support welfare as it currently exists. Handouts are useless. I do believe in all manner of work force training, job support, and public works employment. I'm rather distressed by social security, but I don't know much about it and don't have the first clue what to do about it.
While I can't say I like that jobs move over sees, I do fear that it is somewhat unavoidable, and that simply saying "that's bad" doesn't solve it - I can't imagine what WOULD solve it.
I believe in opening our borders for the most part and protecting and supporting immigrants. I think it's sad that people are so against this, closing the borders of the "land of opportunity." I know it causes problems, drives down wages, but I feel like strengthening our economy would be a better solution, improving minimum wages, finding other ways of decreasing this competition, rather than turning people away or making it impossible for children to stay.
I am against the death penalty. I think that the prison system is a disaster, and needs reforms beyond my ability to begin to list. I believe in gun control, though I'm torn on it, and I've heard very strong arguments against gun control, arguments that I can't say I disagree with. It makes me sick to my stomach that we violate privacy to the extent of posting sex offenders on Google Maps, and that what this says about our faith in the "Correctional" system is sad commentary indeed.
I believe absolutely in equality of chance, regardless of class, race, gender, religion, the day of the week, or any other reason. I strongly disapprove of affirmative action for a variety of reasons, though, the primary being that I don't approve of selection based on race or gender for any reason. I believe in meritocracy, and that the most capable people should be selected for opportunities. Private scholarships are different - endowing parties can name whatever restrictions they want, that's their right - but that the government does it makes me angry, and I think is unfair to those it benefits by adding to them the permanent stigma of never knowing if they were actually good enough, opening the door to the possibility of everyone who meets them wondering if they are only there because they are a woman, or African American, etc. I think that the solution to this isn't affirmative action, but is instead to work on the underlying social ills that cause it. I believe that if we're going to have a system of giving people leg up, it should be based on socioeconomic factors instead of race or gender - it's a much better measure of who actually needs help.
Global warming sucks. The environment needs to be protected or we're all gonna die. Simple. However, progress is also necessary. Some species will go extinct. There are no absolutes, but we need to find a balance.
I'm terrified of a political machine that tells me that the issues in this election are a list of 17 items, which includes items like "economic stimulus" and "taxes" with the same weight as "stem cell research" and "gay marriage." It terrifies me that things have gotten so skewed that we don't have a sense that these things aren't equivalent. (Oh, and I support stem cell research).
I consider myself an idealist. I also consider myself a cynic. As a kid, I thought politics were fascinating. Among the short list of careers I named as my future as a kid, I aspired to scientist with the lone exception of president. Yet as I've grown up I've grown increasingly jaded and certain that nothing will change. It's been delightful to realize that I'm genuinely interested in this election year and have an actual stake in things. I wonder what will happen?
buzzermccain's game, meeting her Chicago friends, and getting to hang out with her, sapphohestia and to a lesser extent (cause she had to leave) swan_tower. My character basically accomplished her/his goals, too, which made me very happy. The story of this, by the by, was that my mother agreed to buy me a plane ticket to Chicago that I couldn't myself afford as a thank you for my help with my grandfather. I left on Friday night and got back this morning, and everything went of smooth aside from the minor insomnia which combined with other factors to ensure that I only got an hour and a half of sleep last night. :)This morning on the plane, I finished the best book I've read recently. One of my goals for 2008 has been to read a LOT more than I have in previous years, and I've been more or less succeeding. At my grandfathers, I was selecting books from among those that my mom has sent up there over the years, the last of which I picked up was The Alienist by Caleb Carr. I didn't expect all that much, honestly, but the book was phenomenal (though I wasn't as happy with the ending as I might have wanted to be). It made me feel all my deficiencies as a writer (and, happily, made me want to work hard to over come them rather than give up) in that he accomplished with admirable results something I started to attempt much more lamely in the last project I started - the book is set in 1896 New York, and NYC is definitively a character in the book. It was exhaustively researched and excellently written - so much so that it could have been nonfiction if I didn't know better.
However, that wasn't really the point of writing this. The next book on the queue is Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope. I voted for him, and I'm starting to really like it, so I thought I aughta read it. I'm impressed with it so far, but I decided on the walk home the last leg of my trip that I wanted to think out and elucidate some of my own political views on issues big and small before going and further, because I'm noticing ways in which I agree and don't with him already. So here goes...
It's hard to know where to begin something like this, so I'll just tackle the issue most important to me, and go from there. By the way, I'd love to hear questions or challenges to any of these as well as people are interesting in talking reasonably rather than flinging out disagreements (or agreements!) blindly. Oh, and I've certainly missed stuff - point um out, if you're bothering to read this. ;)
My number one issue is freedom of speech. This isn't that public an issue, and a lot of politicians support censorship quietly without us ever hearing about it, in the form of restricting sales of video games, cursing on television, that sort of thing. I believe in the absolute truth of freedom of speech and its paramount importance to this country. I don't believe that we have to believe or agree with everything we hear, but that doesn't mean that we have the right to say that because we disagree it shouldn't be said, simple as that.
I believe strongly in the importance of personal freedoms in general. I don't believe in legislation that touches our bodies on the social level as long as our behavior harms no one but ourselves. Thus, I'm obviously pro-choice, but I also believe in the legalization of drugs, prostitution, and other such issues, while I'm against smoking in restaurants (to name one example). I suppose this is an odd position for someone who is straightedge - I've never been drunk in my life though I'm known to have a drink once or twice a year, I've never tried a drug of any kind even once including tobacco - but I do think that stigmatizing and criminalizing this behavior has not done any good. It prevents women from getting health care,people from seeking to get clean, not to mention a whole range of social ills. Meanwhile, this also applies to all manner of religions, to gay rights and marriage, and various other areas.
I supported the war in Afghanistan, but not the war in Iraq. I haven't changed my mind, either. I remember on 9/12, I was walking across Binghamton campus when some lady part of a small protest against retribution attempted to convince me that fighting was not the answer. I thought she was nuts, and I stand by that reaction. However, Iraq was unwarranted, and I wish it'd end already.
I see a lot of issues with National Health Care. If it could be done well without costing a bloody, stinking fortune, I'd support it, but I don't think either of those things is all that likely. However, I'd be interested (as someone who doesn't have health insurance!) to see what the possibilities are.
I do not support welfare as it currently exists. Handouts are useless. I do believe in all manner of work force training, job support, and public works employment. I'm rather distressed by social security, but I don't know much about it and don't have the first clue what to do about it.
While I can't say I like that jobs move over sees, I do fear that it is somewhat unavoidable, and that simply saying "that's bad" doesn't solve it - I can't imagine what WOULD solve it.
I believe in opening our borders for the most part and protecting and supporting immigrants. I think it's sad that people are so against this, closing the borders of the "land of opportunity." I know it causes problems, drives down wages, but I feel like strengthening our economy would be a better solution, improving minimum wages, finding other ways of decreasing this competition, rather than turning people away or making it impossible for children to stay.
I am against the death penalty. I think that the prison system is a disaster, and needs reforms beyond my ability to begin to list. I believe in gun control, though I'm torn on it, and I've heard very strong arguments against gun control, arguments that I can't say I disagree with. It makes me sick to my stomach that we violate privacy to the extent of posting sex offenders on Google Maps, and that what this says about our faith in the "Correctional" system is sad commentary indeed.
I believe absolutely in equality of chance, regardless of class, race, gender, religion, the day of the week, or any other reason. I strongly disapprove of affirmative action for a variety of reasons, though, the primary being that I don't approve of selection based on race or gender for any reason. I believe in meritocracy, and that the most capable people should be selected for opportunities. Private scholarships are different - endowing parties can name whatever restrictions they want, that's their right - but that the government does it makes me angry, and I think is unfair to those it benefits by adding to them the permanent stigma of never knowing if they were actually good enough, opening the door to the possibility of everyone who meets them wondering if they are only there because they are a woman, or African American, etc. I think that the solution to this isn't affirmative action, but is instead to work on the underlying social ills that cause it. I believe that if we're going to have a system of giving people leg up, it should be based on socioeconomic factors instead of race or gender - it's a much better measure of who actually needs help.
Global warming sucks. The environment needs to be protected or we're all gonna die. Simple. However, progress is also necessary. Some species will go extinct. There are no absolutes, but we need to find a balance.
I'm terrified of a political machine that tells me that the issues in this election are a list of 17 items, which includes items like "economic stimulus" and "taxes" with the same weight as "stem cell research" and "gay marriage." It terrifies me that things have gotten so skewed that we don't have a sense that these things aren't equivalent. (Oh, and I support stem cell research).
I consider myself an idealist. I also consider myself a cynic. As a kid, I thought politics were fascinating. Among the short list of careers I named as my future as a kid, I aspired to scientist with the lone exception of president. Yet as I've grown up I've grown increasingly jaded and certain that nothing will change. It's been delightful to realize that I'm genuinely interested in this election year and have an actual stake in things. I wonder what will happen?
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I'm not much for politics on the grand scale you're talkin about here, but I do know that I'm a selfish scumbag, and thus think about the issues only in terms of how they affect me and those I care about. On that note,
(a) I think if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can prevent another 9/11 from happening, I'll continue paying my share for them. The first one cost our nation the better part of 5% of the nations net GDP, most of which we still haven't gotten back from the looks of the data. Though with the looming threat of a militarizing China and the Russians slowly but surely in control of the world's oil, I would feel more at ease if our military were home for a little while before we go to war with them =\.
(b) National Health Care can't be done without costing a bloody fortune. Medicare and Medicaid already cost a bloody fortune, and they only cover a percentage of the population. The more people talk about it, the more it worries the hell out of me.
(c) Jobs moving overseas are a natural part of economic evolution. It makes me smile to see the effects of what cheap American labor moving to, say China, have done to the economy out there. It went from off the low end of the charts to the 3rd largest by GDP in something like 20 years. Now, in a humourous bit of irony, jobs are leaving China for cheaper places. Think about it. No nation should want unskilled labor, due to both the cheapness of it and the unreliability involved in keeping it in place. You wanna "solve" this? Make everyone smarter, and make these jobs unnecessary.
(c) My bias on welfare obviously makes my talking about it unfair. Let's say I wouldn't be where I am today without them as a child. On that note, saying that affirmative action should be based on socioeconomic factors instead of racial factors is like sayin tomato when I say tomato. In major cities, the minorities are the poor, at least on a generalized basis. Once again, I wouldn't be where I am today without them, so I can't say much about it...
(d) You're pro-choice and against the death penalty? Logical fallacy or not, and nasty religious side-arguments notwithstanding, I consider both of those to be similar. So, thus, I'm for both of them.
(e) Global warming sucks. Kyoto is worse. I have no idea what to say about it.
(f) That political machine you mention is trying to speak representatively for a much larger population. "Taxes" are of tantamount importance to me right now, vastly more than "gay marriage" could ever possibly be =\. Different strokes for different folks babe.
*huggle*
-- Gerardo
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Wee, long, hopefully interesting
You sound like a moderate libertarian, insofar as pigeonholes work. Though I guess "moderate X" for other values of X might work too.
I'm with you on freedom of speech, and the impulse for other freedoms. I'm just as straightedge -- you taught me the term -- and pro- other people messing around. I'm not sure about affirmative action, though. There's enough libertarian in me to get being against anti-discrimination laws -- violate freedom of association -- but when there's a legacy of vicious racism like we have, maybe such laws do good. The US does seem better. Maybe it would have gotten better anyway. It's hard to have firm opinions without controlled experiments, which we don't have.
Yeah, I'm skeptical of gun control too; my impression is that Americans are basically just more violent, as attested by non-gun violence rates. Of course, one could then ask whether that means Americans shouldn't be trusted with guns.
Free trade: I'm sympathetic. OTOH, I recognize that overseas trade is often about not just lower wages, but evading labor and environmental protections, which can come back to bite us personally in pollution, and do you feel comfortable wearing shoes make in factories without enough fire escapes? Non-protectionism combined with tariffs aimed at *not* letting us export pollution and abuses seems ideal to me... though there's also a long correlation between temporary industrial protectionism and development!
Healthcare costing a "bloody stinking fortune": why do you think that it would? The US *already* spends more than anyone else, as a measure of both absolute dollars and %age of GDP, while failing to insure everyone and having lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality. People look at the overheads of Medicare (2%) and private insurers (14% or higher), and the incentives of insurers to deny care, and the costs of doctors having to fight with dozens of insurance companies, and plausibly argue that we'd *save money* with universal healthcare. Not even counting more people being seen in early stages, and that preventive care is cheaper than terminal treatment.
Which reminds me: the US *has* universal health care, in that emergency rooms are mandated to not turn people away. So, we have expensive and ineffective universal health care. The real question is do we try to be more efficient, imitating, ahem, every other developed country in the entire world, who get better outcomes for less money, or do we stop the mandate and let people die in the street?
"handouts are useless": useless for what? They do a great job of not having people starve. And even before welfare reform, I believe it was the case that most welfare recipients were there only temporarily, that it really did function as a safety net. E.g. if you looked at two different times you'd find that 95% of the welfare recipients had turned over, with 5% being long-term recipients, and a lot of those having real mental or physical problems. I don't swear by the precise numbers, but I had heard that the general pattern holds... if there's one able-bodied leech for every ten people genuinely helped, is that welfare "not working"?
I agree on the death penalty. I like the state avoiding irrevocable mistakes, and we know the conviction process is flawed. And with all the appeals, life sentences are cheaper anyway. I don't find this inconsistent with pro-choice; it's not "innocent human life" vs. "guilty human life", but "proto human being" vs. "actual human being who's probably but not necessarily guilty". Among other things. And yeah, prisons... I've thought that by any rational (or at least middle-class) accounting, even a year in prison is a high deterrent, and able to fuck up your life, even without things like prison rape (and why do we joke about that?) 20 years takes you from prime of youth to middle age, and lets you totally miss your children growing up. Anyone not being deterred by stuff like that probably isn't being deterred, period. Of course, isolation/prevention can also be a valid penal system function, not just deterrence; the punishment may not deter others but at least prevents this one from repeating... still, I feel we could be doing a lot better.
holy crap, I hit the character limit.
Re: holy crap, I hit the character limit.
Re: holy crap, I hit the character limit.
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I'm terrified of a political machine that tells me that the issues in this election are a list of 17 items, which includes items like "economic stimulus" and "taxes" with the same weight as "stem cell research" and "gay marriage."
This has bothered me too, particularly since I go along with it. It's one fo those things I've accepted as a flaw in our system (and I can't think of a system that doesn't have flaws). I guess in American-style representative democracy, because there are SO many issues out there, simply drawing attention to "your" issue is the first step in the political process (if the issue isn't already in your face on its own, like the Iraq war). The death penalty and gun control are two issues that I'd like to vote on, but unfortunately, they're not the issues of this election.
Speaking of which, how cool to hear you're anti-death penalty! Rather than just flinging agreement, though, I'll tell you my main reason (though I have many back-up reasons should I need to debate them) for being so: that's that we can't give a life back, so we have no business taking it away. I feel that morally we just don't have the right to impose such a penalty. Perhaps the way I feel about this is similar to the way you feel about censorship.
Which brings me to my next topic! As outspoken as I am, this is one of the beliefs I'm wariest to share because it's SO against the norm, especially of our peer group, but I do think there are legitimate places for limits on free speech. Which is not exactly the same as saying "I'm PRO-CENSORSHIP!" but some would call it that, I'm sure. A big issue here for me is hate speech. I realize that even if we censor hateful words, the hate is still there but even harder to address, so I am not for complete banning of it in all forms (letting the bigots reveal themselves does make some sense to me), but I think that hate speech in person, in a public place, causing a disruption is akin to harassment, a verbal assault, and therefore think it should be illegal. This is a form of censorship, so I guess I can't say I'm 100% in favor of free speech.
In regards to cursing on television or, say, posting explicit material in a public place, I think it's fair to say that's against the rules -- provided that it's in a strictly limited setting. It's similar to public nudity to me, which is an issue of public decency, decided by the majority of society but certainly not supported by all. As long as someone has the right to do what they want in privacy, or even semi-privacy -- say, on pay cable rather than on network TV during prime time -- then I don't feel there's a major problem. So I guess I'm okay with the status quo in that respect.
I'm open to revising this belief if someone points out major logical or moral holes in it.
Limiting expression of political opinion and related ideas IS wrong, DEFINITELY.
I don't approve of selection based on race or gender for any reason. I believe in meritocracy, and that the most capable people should be selected for opportunities....
There's an issue I struggle with. In principle, what you've just said is ideal, but in practice, what about people who have not been afforded the same opportunities in life because of social class? (Which is not the same as race, but blacks are more likely to be poor than whites.) Without some kind of affirmative action, can these people climb out of their social class, when they haven't had the same education the rich kids have had? If a poor kid seems to have worked hard and done the best he could with what's been given to him but has test scores lower than a rich kid, is it unfair to let him into a competitive college over that rich kid?
Of course it's a sticky situation -- I think no matter what you do in this situation, you've got to handle it with care. But then, that can probably be said about most political situations.
And I'll stop there for now, as that's probably enough to think about for one post.
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