As a child, I learned two lessons about the adult world almost as soon as I was able to tell right from wrong. That the authority granted to adults and supposed authority figures most often is not granted because they are moral or even responsible people and is usually a coincidence arising from their career, rather than given to them through any legitimate means. Second, I learned that most people are not deserving of respect (beyond that due every human) until they prove otherwise. Since I learned those lessons at Catholic school, it took me a while to separate my problem with authority from my perception of all Christians as hypocrites. If you have read some of my other posts on this blog you will notice that I still have that perception of Christians.
Christian hypocrisy is a good transition into discussing the issues surrounding the pregnancy of Sarah Palins unwed teenage daughter. Anti-abortion types will see this as not being hypocritical since Bristol, Palins daughter, will be keeping the child. This is itself a red herring and the hypocrisy I wish to discuss because it ignores the anti-contraception and anti-sexed positions that are associated with an anti-abortion and which Gov. Palin has herself expressed. A friend of mine observed today that you can't treat teen sex like the Easter bunny and decide not to believe in it because it does happen and has profound consequences. Many of those consequences will not be felt by Bristol and her child(eren) because of the financial status of her family. Sadly this is not the case for most unwed teenage mothers. Teen pregnancy is almost a guarantee that the mother and new child will live out their lives in poverty according to the CDC. It is easy to be anti-abortion when you have a safety net. Yet the Bush administration, right wing Christians, and other people with nothing personally at stake continue to push for abstinance only sex education, which has been shown to do nothing to reduce premarital sex or teen pregnancy. At the same time, Jamie Lynn Spears is on a publicity romp, glorifying teen pregnancy. To get back to the accusations of hypocrisy, Sarah Palin has advocated abstinence only sex ed while claiming to be anti-abortion, which is consistent until you notice her unwed teenage daughters pregnancy and have to question Palins parenting.
So while she is telling the rest of the nations women what is right for them she is either not practicing what she preaches or she is ironically suffering the consequences of the polices she supports, but not really suffering from them the same way every one else will. At the same time the Republicans are decrying all the public attention this is getting because its prying into a personal family matter and shouldn't be public, which is hypocritical because of the way in which the very same Republicans dug into the personal sexual lives of the Clintons during the Monica Lewinski scandal.
I applaud Sarah Palin for supporting her daughters choice to become pregnant and to keep her child. (Remember there is always adoption.) I just hope it can be a learning experience for her about the failings of abstinence only sex education even though it will not open her eyes to the deep personal consequences it has for far too many American girls and the resulting social costs to U.S. taxpayers.
There are two issues going before the Supreme Court in the news today. The hearing challenging the Washington D.C. gun ban and a challenge to broadcast indecency regulation by Fox. Both of these cases have to do with the relationship of individual to one's government. And, in both of these cases freedom is being defended by right wing maniacs. The same maniacs who have been decidedly anti-freedom under the Bush administration.
It's difficult to defend freedom of speech when its offensive, and it's difficult to defend the right to have and use a lethal weapon without resorting to a slippery slope argument that evokes an opressive totalatarian 1984 regime.
Many of the Founding Fathers were philosophically libertarian. This philosophy describes the American way the individual relates to one's government. Power is vested in the government by the citizens and the purpose of the government is to preserve the rights of its citizens. This is the only way sovereignty can be legitimate. Under this philosophy, the rights delineated by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not granted by the document but ensured by it. Every human has these rights, it is the purpose of government to ensure the freedom to use these rights.
Freedom can be a scary thing. Its hard to trust strangers not to abuse their freedoms and infringe upon ours, but that is the freedom that each of us gives up to live within civilization. As long as no one infringes on your rights, you do not have the right to be offended.
The national debate over guns is often depicted as having one side that declares, possessing guns is an individual human right, and another side that declares that guns kill people. I do not see these as counterpoints to one another. Saying that a gun kills is like saying water is wet. A gun is a tool for killing and a pistol is a tool for killing other humans. The point is so obvious that it overlooks a fundamental difference in ideology that stems from the Western fear of death. We believe that death is bad and killing is wrong as if they are intrinsic universal truths. In an urban life, separated from the terrifying freedom of nature, and surrounded by a comforting layer of concrete and glass it is easy to believe, "my life does not cause death," but that is not true. It seems to me that this is the same kind of foolishness that leads to veganism. Though, as much as I believe it to be foolish, it is each person's right to choose when it is acceptable to kill. And in a society where our killing is done for us by others, it is difficult to stop. I can only accept that by being alive that my life necessarily causes death, one day I will die, and something will eat my body.
All this wheel of life shit is too philosophical for the debate at hand. The point is that sometimes, killing is necessary. Sometimes it is necessary to kill another human being. For instance, in self defense when that human is trying to rape you, kill you, or severely injure you it is acceptable to use lethal force to protect yourself. Libertarian philosophy supports this conclusion and our laws regulate its effect by apportioning guilt. If you accept these two points, that there are acceptable times to kill and one of those times is to protect your person, the only remaining debate is one of tool choice and the question of banning guns becomes one of reasonable regulation. Should weapon choice be limited, and in what way?
Meaningful hard data is difficult to come by since through studies have been done by either side of the issue and anecdotal evidence can be pointed to by either side. In my recent posts on this blog I have referenced some stories from the past year that tend to support the conclusion that gun regulation either does not work or is counterproductive. One story noted a significant decline in violent crime in Detroit, every year for the last ten years since the passing of Michigan's concealed carry law. In the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech, the killer had been declared to be a danger to himself or others. Existing gun control laws prohibited him from purchasing a gun but he was able to anyhow, either because of bureaucratic bungling by law enforcement or through the negligence of the shop owner. Even more recently a gun toting maniac shot up a convent and was stopped from killing more people by an armed member of the congregation that had the lawful right to carry and had been a police officer.
One last point about the Second Amendment. The founding fathers were radical revolutionaries who had just overthrown their government through a violent war. They knew this was only possible by having armed citizens who could be loosely organized into militia when there was a need for extra military force. As Thomas Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Such an audacious quote brings me to the topic of freedom of speech. You are not really using your freedom of speech unless someone is trying to take it away from you. The gurantee of this freedom exists not to protect mundane and polite speech, but offensive, shocking, profane, and challenging speech. This is why freedom of speech means you do not have the right to be offended.
Speech is impossible to regulate. Profane language is derived from emotion and is meant to convey that emotional content. The power is only marginally in the words but it really stems from the emotional content they are meant to convey and the power we invest in them. You might as well attempt to regulate anger and criminalize rage.
Even if one could make a list of say, seven words, that must never be spoken and if that regulation can actually have an effect on stamping out those words. Other words will be granted offensive power by being filled with the same emotional content and social stigma making the old words meaningless and silly. Language is fluid and meaning changes in relatively quick time even in regular words. "Humbug" used to be a profoundly profane word and is hardly used today.
Further, such regulation is inherently self-defeating. Labeling certain words as taboo only encourages their use for the purpose of shocking others. Thusly, restricting a words use as profane, only enshrines its profanity, and further empowers it to do harm.
I am certain that this was the goal of the performers who used these offensive words and caused Fox to be fined by the FCC. It seems ironic to me that Fox, the network that curtailed political speech and freedom of the press through social pressure and jingoism in the frantic run-up to the Iraq war where the MSM failed its duty to the entire world, is the one who is fighting for a small victory for free speech. Then again, if anyone is going to go to court over profanity, its going to be the network that brought you "Who wants to marry a millionaire?"
Thats right, two walk of shame columns in one weekend! By the decree of the Invisible pink unicorn. Another school board, motivated by the public opinion of ignorant savages, trys to plant the seed of doubt about evolution in the minds of the children they are supposed to be educating. Remember, the people pushing creationism on schools believe they are fighting a war. They may seem like crazy hillbillys to rational people, but they are willing to kill and die to spread their ignorance and hate.
This is more fuel for the argument that K-12 education is really just federally funded babysitting. Coupled with the blind hope that some of the little crotchfruits will be active participants and the society on the whole will reap the benefit of a few productive workers. I really wonder about what effect Ron Paul style, privitized education would have on America. Does anyone else hear Pink Floyd's "The Wall" playing?
The entire old media, not just Fox News, has been dragging what is percieved as the middle further and further to the Right. This is just to reaquaint you with what The Left actually looks like.
You should be compensated for your domestic labors and for your offspring. These activities directly benefit your employer and the state. The substantial benefit derived from these activities amounts to these entities differing costs to you. In a very real sense you are subsidising the operation of your employer and the government with the costs of remaining alive.
When you go grocery shopping, commute to and from work, keep a clean house, and produce offspring you confer a benefit on those entities. This streaches credulity in its current form so allow me to expand on these points. Clearly your employer should not be relieved every day that you made it in alive, they should not be expected to compensate you for the act of sticking your dirty shirts in the washing machine, or even to pay extra for the detergent. Even if I were saying this it would in effect limit your freedom in life as your employer would choose the least expensive mode of satisfying your basic survival needs even to the extent of a return to the company town of the 1920's where every aspect of your life was decided by your employer. As for transportation, if every employer participated in public transportation and allowed employees to buy group rate passes, freedom of choice need not be impinged. Also, if your employer was responsible of every aspect of your cost of living it would severely reduce wages. However, your wage would be an actual reflection of the market value of your labor instead of ransom to subsidise the cost of having employees.
I am making this radical point to emphasize that every employer has a moral duty to pay every employee a living wage. Further, I wish to emphasize that demands for universal health care, and universal post-highschool education are demands of the rational center, not the fringe element of the left. Freedom from fear about housing, food, hygene, health, and education needs are basic conserns of real people in America.
On the government front the profiting off of your living is more incidious. This is exemplified by the state's intrest in promoting marrage. I am not referring to any debate on homosexual marrage. The state actively promotes marrages for the purpose of creating a stable tax base. They do this in part by regulating marrage through licencing, but to a much greater degree in the creation and application of law. Ones marital status is a legal status and can have a substantive effect on the outcome of a court case, specifically because the state wishes to promote marrage as opposed to other consentual sexual relationships between adults. For example, children born out of wedlock are more likely to end up in the care of the state. While this is not going to be the most luxurious accomidation for the child, it can be illustrative about the costs the state is differing to married parents so that they bear the cost of raising a child until the child becomes a taxpayer.
At the very least, the state owes every child health care and education past the high-school level. Both of these things have a higher return on the investment paid into them. The return is a healthy adult with higher earning potential, and thus more taxable wages. This article makes a similar argument.
After hearing all this, would you believe I am a libertarian?
There you have it. This is the left. NPR and PBS and Democrats like John Edwards are the center. The Clintons, Joseph Liberman, the main stream media, and most of the Republicans are the right. The evangaliticals, Fox, the Neocons, and the rest of the Republicans are the far right. I could tell you about the far left but they are really crazy. PETA crazy.
If you parents are having such problems raising your children to be non-violent, or at least not criminal members of society, maybe you should try a different tact. Allowing or asking for the government to regulate what your children are exposed to is not going to ameliorate the very influences that you consider worst for your child. Instead, I would recommend that you talk to your kids and find out what they think about the things that you're trying to keep them from. Instead of categorically banning an activity, as that is not likely to work, talk to your kids and then if they have mistaken notions or are confused about something, you can view it as an opportunity to be a good parent and give your children a bit of truth that the schools won't give them.
In regulating ethics, government policy is a poor panacea for the perceived ills of society. If the government had any say into what you do, then the things that are declared illegal would actually not be committed because of the fear of the results or because of the respect an individual holds for the government. Usually, though, the most important consideration into doing something that is considered illegal, is whether or not you will get caught.
Of course, during an election year, it is easy to grab headlines by attacking a small fraction of society that, because of its very nature, does not have any effective organization to meaningfully resist attempts to oppress them for political points. Gamers are, at turns, obnoxious, profane, and passionate, but they are citizens of the country who are not deserving of this discrimination.
Furthermore, I would go so far as to say that this proposed legislation from Sen. Jon Erpenbach is at best misinformed or misguided. I admit that it would be a good idea to move 17 year criminal offenders as the juveniles that they still are, but I think it is rather dubious that a simple tax on video games is going to raise enough money to cover the proposed expenses. Personally, I see this as a problem of definition. In this case, the definition of what is, exactly, a non violent offense. For instance, how much would the cost go down if, instead of holding children for having a small amount of Marijuana, why not confiscate their pot and take them home to their parents? Instead of having the state teach a lesson, why not let the responsibilities of parenting fall upon the parents?
Besides, this tax is just going to pull money out of the state coffers, as people will just go online, to amazon.com and such, and buy their video games without an extra insipid tax.
