Ah Shucks, I Guess I Can’t Be A Republican

Today, the GOP decided to require their members to conform to at least eight out of ten of the following ideals otherwise they’ll lose their backing. I decided to see how I stack up against the “ideal Republican”:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill

Yes, I am all smaller government, lower taxes, and less power in the hands of the government. As the old adage goes: “He who governs best, governs least.”

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare

Yes, while it would be great if we could figure out how to make sure to insure everyone, government-run anything tends to just be bloated, inefficient, and a drain on our society. It is the separation of the buyer (i.e. the patient) and the payer (i.e. the insurance company) that has caused health care costs to skyrocket (it’s the same reason my textbooks are so expensive. The professors choose the book, but we students have to pay for it). By eliminating this separation, it will force doctors and hospitals to economically compete, causing prices to go down.

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation

Yes, I believe the free-market is the best way to transition us from oil-based to post-oil-based power. As cheap oil starts to run out, the price of oil goes up and other forms of energy become economically competitive, and will eventually take over. Although, I would like to see a lot more government investment in alternative energy so that it’s ready to take over when oil runs out.

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check

I actually had to look up what this was (even though I’m part of a worker’s union. Go figure), but I’m actually against it. It’s not that I’m against having a secret ballot for forming a union, but I do think that both paths (secret and open ballots) should be available.

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants

Yes, although I would like to see lower barriers for legal immigration.

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges

No, simply because “victory” is pretty much undefined. What is “victory” in Iraq, really? We ousted the Hussein and the Ba’ath Party six years ago. Was that “victory”? If so, what do you call everything since then? And in Afghanistan? Same deal. When you investigate why these people in the Middle East are becoming insurgents, you realize “victory” is impossible. The only options are retreat or stagnation.

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat

Yes, especially Iran. Although invading either is out of the question as it would likely just become another Iraq.

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act

No. Government has no business messing with people’s personal lives. What I don’t understand is why the Republicans, ostensibly the party that wants limited government, would use it to force people to conform to their sense of dignity.

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion

Yes, except for the last part. Again, why do the Republicans want to control people’s behavior in this area*? Then again, maybe the government shouldn’t be funding abortion, but it should still be legal to get in private hospitals and clinics.

10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership

Yes. Again, the government doesn’t have the right to mess with what people can and can’t do with their own property, including guns. Of course, that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t have their guns taken away if they misuse them and shoot people. But that would be similar to tearing up someone’s driver’s license because they were a dangerous driver, something no one argues again.

So, I score a 6.5 out of 10 (counting number 9 as half). Close, but I guess I lose my right-wing funding. Oh wait, I don’t get funding anyway. D’oh! 

*Don’t answer, I do know why, and, honestly, if it could be shown that a fetus is a person, I’d be against abortion too.

The Problem With California

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the state of California is scrambling to fix its budget problems. I live in California, and it’s easy to blame the Governor, or the state legislature for our woes, but really, I think they are simply victims and caught in the middle of what the real cause of our problems is: us.

By which I mean the voters. As an almost too perfect example, I refer you to Proposition 1A, passed last November, a ballot measure that proposed building a high-speed train between Los Angeles and San Francisco, at a cost of nearly $10 billion.

To put it bluntly, we don’t need it. But we passed it and it we now have to borrow $10 billion (because people don’t want their taxes raised) to pay for it. How do I know we don’t need it? Because it isn’t being built already by private industry.

You see, if a high-speed train were really needed, there would be demand for it. If there’s demand for it an investor, or group of investors, will see the opportunity, come in, and fund the project with their own money. That isn’t happening, thus we don’t need it (mostly because of that wonderful new invention call the automobile. And also the airplane).

But the worst part is that they are raising bonds to pay for it, rather than raising taxes. That means the state is going into more debt, and getting further away from a balanced budget. Of course, some might say that the debt will be paid off by passenger fares, but since it’s not needed, who’s going to be riding the train and paying the fare?

To me, it’s like a kid with a credit card thinking “I can buy all this stuff and not pay for it! Hurray!” It’s completely fiscally irresponsible and it’s 100% the people of California’s fault, not the government’s (well, I voted against it because of this, so it’s not my fault). And this is something that can’t be cut from the budget, since it was approved by voters. It would be illegal to remove it. The state of California now must build a high-speed train for $10 billion.

So why is it like this? Why do the people have so much power over the state’s financial affairs? Mostly it has to do with the period when California was first organized into a state, called the Progressive Era. Then, there was widespread distrust of government (much like today) and it was thought that it would be better to put a lot more power into the hands of the people instead of the government. Now, I know too much government power is a bad thing, but too much “people power” can be a very bad thing. Simply because people just don’t have the training and discipline to deal with political and fiscal issues. That’s why we vote people who are trained (ideally) into office. I mean, the voters can amend the state constitution by ballot measure. That’s what Proposition 8 was, which banned same-sex marriage. It is now not just illegal but unconstitutional for any government agency in California to recognize a same-sex marriage.

Perhaps dissolving the state government and drafting a new constitution wouldn’t be such a bad idea. 

Declaration of Independence

Today is the 4th of July when we celebrate the day, 233 years ago, when we declared ourselves an independent nation and no longer under the tyranny of Great Britain.

To formalize this declaration, we drafted the Declaration of Independence which basically stated our justifications for leaving Britain. It’s a rather remarkable document and says a great deal about the philosophy of government. But unfortunately, most people don’t understand what it says. I think mostly because it’s written in 18th century English which uses a lot of obscure words and unusual syntax.

Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to translate the document into modern day English:

When one group of people decides they are going to break away from another group which they have usually been a part of, they better have some pretty good reasons to do so.

It is obvious to us that all people are equal. They are all born with certain rights that cannot be removed, some of which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In order to maintain these rights, we have governments, which derive their power from the people they govern. If a government ever screws up and stops protecting these rights, then the people are justified in replacing that government with a new one that will.

Of course, existing governments shouldn’t be replaced because a small bump in the road. We know that people would rather grin and bear some things than replace everything they know and are used to every time something goes wrong. But when a government has continually abused its power and caused its people to suffer, it is the right and the duty of the people to overturn that government and form a new one that will protect them in the future.

The colonies have been consistently abused as stated above, and so we’ve decided we need to create our own government. The king of Great Britain has repeatedly conspired to establish absolute rule of the states. Now, this is why we say this:

He has refused to pass laws which are needed for the public good.

He has denied local governors the right to pass laws that are immediately important, and when he allows them to pass laws, he delays them for further review, then never gets back to them.

He has refused to pass laws for some groups of people, unless they give up their right to represent themselves in government.

When he calls the legislature into session, the meeting places are always very difficult to get to, making the legislature members fatigued into submission.

He has dissolved legislatures that oppose him when he invades the rights of the people.

He has repeated refused, after dissolving a legislature, to let the people elect a new legislature. This has led to us being at risk from foreign invasion and internal anarchy.

He has made it difficult for us to increase our population by obstructing immigration and naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass laws that would encourage such immigration, and making it more difficult for people to obtain land.

He has refused to establish an adequate justice system.

He has control of judges by threatening their job security and controlling their salaries.

He has hired a number of people to harass others and to reduce their standard of living.

He has kept a military force present, even in peacetime, without consulting our legislatures.

He has made the military above and unaccountable to the laws of the people.

He has subjected us to laws we do not agree with or have acknowledged, and passed by a legislature that is not representative of us.

For forcing us to house troops in our homes.

For protecting his troops by acquitting them of murder in fake trials.

For refusing to let us trade with other countries.

For forcing us to pay taxes without us voting on it.

For sentencing us for crimes without a fair trial.

For transporting people out of the countries to be tried for fake charges.

For establishing an absolute government in Quebec and annexing territory for it, as if to use it as an example for creating an absolute government in the colonies.

For dissolving our laws and charters, and fundamentally altering our forms of government.

For dissolving our legislatures and declaring that they have the power to legislate for us.

He has declared us out of his protection and waged war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is, as we speak, sending a large number of foreign mercenaries to destroy us in ways that are worse than what we’d see in the most barbarous ages, especially not from a king of a civilized nation.

He has drafted our people who are captured overseas to fight again their own country, execute their friends and family, or force them to kill themselves.

He has encouraged insurrections, and has bribed Native American tribes to attack frontier settlers.

We have tried to petition the king for each of these grievances, but in each case he has only continued to dominate and oppress us. He is not fit to be ruler of a free people.

We have also tried to reason with the citizens back in Britain, with which we still have family ties and friendships. We have told them that their legislature is passing laws against us. We have told them why we left and came here. We tried appeal to their sense of justice and fairness, and have tried to argue through that if the oppression continues, we will be cut off. They too have ignored our pleas for justice despite their close relation. We must then view them as enemies, unless there is peace.

Therefore, we the representatives of united states of America, declare that we should be completely free from Britain. We declare that we should have the power to declare war and peace, make alliances, establish commerce, and everything else a sovereign nation has the right to do. For the support of this declaration, we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our honor to each other.

And Iran…Iran So Far Away…

Turning to the other major evil nation on Earth, Iran is actually currently in the middle of what could be termed a revolution. Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you know alarge segment of the population is currently in revolt and protesting against the highly-religious conservative government (conservative in Iranian terms, like using the Koran and Hadiths as absolute law). The people revolting support a more progressively-person, someone who could hopefully help guide Iran out the shadow of Islamic rule and into a fairer, more secular society.

For both the sake of Iran and the world at large, the people revolting need to succeed. It’s unfortunate that they have to resort to violence, but sometimes that’s the only way to free yourself of a tyrannical dictator. Hey, it worked for us, didn’t it?

The reason is because of the fact that the country is completely ruled by a theocracy. And the worst part is that the religion in question is Islam. For me, religions fall on a sliding scale. Some, like Buddhism and Jainism, are near the good end. There are relatively benign and sometimes even beneficial. Jainism, for example, basically commands its followers to never hurt any living thing ever. Christianity is somewhere in the middle, trending towards the good end (now that the Inquisition is over, and Europe is no longer effectively ruled by the Pope). Islam however, is firmly and squarely near the bad end. Islam doesn’t have a problem. Islam is the problem.

I mean, perhaps it’s unfair to completely condemn a religion that is practiced by over a billion people, but when you really look into it, you can see how scary and insane it is. On nearly every page of the Koran, God directs Muslims to make war on unbelievers, to either kill or convert them, and that getting yourself killed in the process is not only unimportant but encouraged. Seriously. Imagine that you seriously believe, with all your heart, that if you go on a rampage and kill as many unbelievers as possible before being taken out yourself, God will put you on the fast-track to heaven. That you will be able to take with you any persons you select to join you (though there is a limit I can’t remember right now). Suddenly, it becomes surprising there aren’t more suicide bombings.

When an entire nation adheres to this ideology…yikes. And combine that with the fact that they are trying to acquire nuclear weapons…oh my. Plus they already have the technical capability hit any other point on the planet with a missile…excuse me while I go change my underwear.

But what does all this have to do with the protests? Everything. If the people protesting are actually successful, then Iran will no longer be (hopefully) absolutely ruled by Sharia Law. Iran will no longer be (hopefully) a threat of nuclear war. And, you know what? This is exactly the path it needs to take. Reforming Iran, and the Middle East in general, can’t be done from outside. It has to be done by its own people, by courageous people standing up and demanding change. If we were to put sanctions on or even invade Iran, all it would do would bolster support for the local government to stop us, and Iran would slide even further back. But if people inside start opposing the government, others who may also have grievances will also stand up, and so on.

Incidentally, the media, particularly the internet, is helping keep this revolt alive. All totalitarian governments need to have control of information to maintain their power. Without that, people learn what’s going on outside their country and how other countries view them. And then, the government loses their power. This is one reason the Soviet Union collapsed, particularly in the Soviet Bloc. People began having things like television, where they could see how screwed up their world really was, and did something about it.

We Have A Great Future Ahead…But Only If We Don’t Blow Each Other Up!

Man, what is up with North Korea these days? It’s like their intentionally trying to provoke us into a nuclear war. In 1953, U.S. signed an armistice with North Korea to end fighting in the Korean War. No official peace treaty was ever signed–meaning the Korean War is technically still going on–but it has prevented hostiles from erupting since. Now, only two weeks ago, North Korea decides to just withdraw from the armistice. They are restarting their nuclear weapons program, designing long-range missiles,  and now I hear they’re just maybe going to launch a missile in the, er, general direction of Hawaii on the 4th.

I mean, just what the hell are they thinking? We were able to topple the industrial and political might of the Soviet Union, do they honestly think they’ll be any real challenge? I mean they have maybe one nuclear weapon. We have like ten thousand. If we really wanted to, we could make a nice little North-Korea-shaped nuclear burn mark on the Earth.

Not that that would be a desirable scenario, but it’s something to keep in mind. I don’t know exactly how this will play out, but the strategy that collapsed the Soviet Union seemed to work and North Korea has essentially the same political ideology.

The country we really need to be worrying about is Iran, but that’s a story for another time.

WWFD

There are many times when I’m bewildered by political affairs. Sometimes when events happen, it’s difficult to know, especially with emotions running wild, just what the correct couse to take is. America has traditionally had a stance of isolationism. That, whatever’s going in Europe is their problem. Whatever’s going on in Asia is their problem. That, above all, it isn’t our problem. Of course, such thinking can appear incredibly cruel and sadistic when dealing with, say, government oppression, genocide, or war.

But, really, what business is it of ours? We may wish for all people to act civilized, for foreign governments to be more respectful of people’s rights, but it is our job to enforce such behavior? One such relatively recent event was, of course, the the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. First, we were led to believe he had weapons of mass destruction, even though he didn’t. We ended up invading his country and overthrew his government. Even though he wasn’t creating WMDs, many people still think that he still needed to be out of power.

I would agree. He was a tyrant. But I don’t think it was our place to go and do it. It’s curious that there’s a philosophy that describes this political and philosophical position. It is called the Prime Directive.

I have learned much from Star Trek. Sure it is a television program (actually five live-aciton programs, one animated program, eleven movies, and countless spin-off novels, comics, video games, etc.), but just because it is doesn’t necessarily make the Prime Directive irrelevant.

I quote Captain Jean-Luc Picard, from episode “Symbiosis”: “The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, and a very correct one. History have proved again and again that whenever mankind interferes in a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably distastrous.” and from “Pen Pals”: “The Prime Directive has many functions, not the least is to protect us. To prevent us from allowing our emotions to overwhelm our judgement.”

I think the United States would do well to understand and assume this philosophy. To ask itself when viewing other countries with other problems:

Bizarre Beliefs

One of the things about being a skeptic and questioning your own beliefs is that it can lead to some pretty strange combinations. This is mainly because individual beliefs are often completely unrelated to one another. I have a sort of “General Rule” that I think most people would agree with: people should be able to do whatever they want, provided they do not harm anyone else while doing it (or, at least, engaging in activities that can easily and relatively likely harm someone else). Or, more formally, people have the fundamental right to choose their own lives, provided they don’t infringe on that same right of others.

For one, as I posted before, I support the total legalization of drugs. If you want to get stoned, shoot up, swallow acid tabs, etc. that’s your decision. It would be wrong of me to impose my choice on you to not do drugs. Whenever you get the government involved, you are doing exactly that: imposing your decisions on other people who may not share your values.

That belief is commonly associated far left side of the political spectrum. But I recently found that, if I am to be true to my beliefs, I must embrace a position which is typically associated with the far right.

I must support the choice of people to bear arms. A gun is completely inert, unless someone is there to operate it. A gun cannot choose to shoot someone of its own free will, because it doesn’t have free will. So, as long as someone is responsible and doesn’t go shooting the place up, they’re not harming anyone, so they must be allowed to own a gun.

I even extended this line of thought to the Assault Weapons Ban. An assault weapon is just a really big gun, and so should similarly protected. I was immediately bewildered at the fact that, logically, i should oppose both laws which ban assault weapons and drugs, even though they seem like complete opposite politically.

In fact, that not only did I support personal choice on both issues, I realized that they were really the same issue! They are two facets of the much broader issue: who gets to own what? And the answer, if it is to be in line with my General Rule above, is that everyone should be allowed to own both, if they so choose.

Well, not everyone. Like, you know, not children. And actually, I think of gun ownership much like driving. If you screw around and deliberately cause accidents and run people down, you should be barred from driving. Similarly, if you mow down a crowd of people with an AK-47, you should have it taken away from you. Perhaps it would be better to consider gun ownership, like driving, a privilege, but one that is by default available to all adults initially.

Strange.

I also designed a little image, because I like designing little images, to highlight my beliefs:

The Mexico Drug War

This week, President Obama was in Mexico City and reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to stopping the transport and sale of illegal drugs in Mexico. He plans to redeploy 500 federal agents and more than $200 million to combat illegal drugs, money and weapons from being transported between Mexico and the United States.

Does anyone else have the impression that this isn’t going to work? It just seems like more of the same to me. For most of the twentieth century there were federal laws against various drugs. There have been federal agents trying to stop their sale and transport this whole time, but you know what? There’s still drugs out there. There is, however, a simple solution that will end the Mexican Drug War permanently:

Legalize drugs.

Yes, you read that right. Now, that plan is probably setting off a fire alarm in your head. You’re probably thinking, “that’s crazy! If you legalize drugs, it’ll just cause the problem to get worse!” But, you see, it really won’t. The reason that there’s so much violence and danger associated with drugs is because they’re illegal.

A good comparison to the current drug war is the period of Prohibition. When alcohol was made illegal in the United States, it didn’t stop people from drinking. It only caused it go underground. Whenever you make a product or service illegal that people still want, you create a black market. In a black market, there’s no enforcement. You can’t file a complaint with the authorities or try to sue if the product you receive is dangerous. The people who supplied alcohol knew this, and would often “cut” alcohol with cheap, legal, but poisonous substitutes, like turpentine. And who were the suppliers during Prohibition? The mob, of course. And with the mob comes turf wars, violence, and just a whole big mess.

This, of course, is exactly what’s going on today with illegal drugs. People still want marijuana, cocaine, herion, etc. (at least, there’s a demand for it), and so people will supply it. People who can take advantage of the fact that it’s illegal and not have to bother with supplying safe(r) products.

After Prohibition, what happened? Did the gang wars and drinking problem get worse? No. It actually got a lot better. Think about it. Today, are there turf wars over alcohol? Are people getting mowed down in the street because of them? Are people dying from having  a single drink? No. It would be ridiculous to think so.

The reason is because, with legalization, comes regulation and taxation. If you legalize drugs, the people making a profit on it won’t be drug barons and street pushers, it would be publicly-traded companies like Anheuser-Busch, Philip-Morris, and so on. We may vilify these companies for producing products that are dangerous, but they’re not selling to kids or murdering people to keep their market share. If we legalized drugs, the cartels will suddenly lose all their power and collapse. Drugs would be sold over the counter, in smoke shops and supermarkets (who check IDs, by the way).

Of course, drugs are still dangerous by themselves. There’s no denying that. But it would be a much better controlled danger, with doses and quality assured.

Success! Well for Steven Colbert Anyway…

Apparently the next International Space Station module is going to be named after Steven Colbert. He won the write-in contest by an enormous margin.

Of course, the final decision is NASA’s, and I highly doubt that they’ll name it after him. But I think they should serious consider it: NASA relies on government funding which is reliant on public opinion. If people don’t want NASA around, they’ll vote people into office which will take away their funding and NASA will disappear. This, to put it mildly, would suck.

Unfortunately NASA as a probably-deserved reputation for being old and stodgy and if they do name it something else, it will probably just fan the flames of anti-NASA sentiment.

Well, however it ends up, it’s still pretty funny, much like Colbert himself.

President B.O.

As of exactly this post’s time (January 20, 2009 12:00 Eastern Time), executive power in this country was peacefully transferred from one individual (and one political party) to another. This, in itself, is a rather remarkable feat. There are too many times in history when bloody civil wars have broken out because a leader has died or left their position without there being a strictly-defined successor. Even in our own country we have had a number of close calls. The Presidential Line of Succession was only established in 1947 and before then there have been periods, following the death or ascension of the Vice President to the Presidency, when there simply was no Vice President, many times lasting for several years. 

But what I really wanted to talk about today was my own following of Barack Obama. I first became aware of him way back in the Year of Your Lord 2003. I happened upon a magazine article (I forget which magazine it was) which stated–without qualification–that Barack Obama would be the first black President of the United States.

To be honest I was dubious. Not because I didn’t think he was qualified, or that because America would never vote for a black President. It was because I actually thought that someone else might beat him to it. After all he was really only a kid (42 years old) serving in his state legislature. He probably had maybe fifteen to twenty years until he might reach the office. Of course, only 5+ years later…

Next, I remember watching the returns for the 2004 election, when suddenly he popped on the screen giving an interview and I thought “hey, there’s that guy I read about”. He seemed to be moving up. Maybe he would really become the first black President.

And now he is. Not that he will have an easy time because of it. There will be many people (myself included) keeping a close eye on him, as we should do of all elected officials. But if his own history is any indication, I don’t think we have much to worry about.