Okay,
while writing this I've realized that I go off topic A LOT, and end up
making new points in entirely different directions than the original flow of conversation. The reason for this is usually because the topic touches on another related topic I want to discuss, but sometimes it's to justify the preceding statement. Other times it's to explain what I mean. Probably the least common but yet still allowed reason it will happen is for comedic relief.
In the following, however, I'll try to keep the last one to the
minimum, it's confusing enough as it is, plus my writing has a tendency
to the humorous regardless.
So,
I'll be highlighting the following text so that you as the reader can
follow along easier, though if you pay attention to the parentheses
you'll notice they do keep the ideas intact and neatly separated. Going
back to the idea you were reading before however, especially with the
new information, can be tricky when there's just so much writing. So I'm
going to try some highlighting techniques to help your eye absorb all
the information that's here. I'm only doing this because after reading
over it, I got a little lost before finding my way, and I wanted to
reduce the turbulence. You'll find a key above.
Also, there is no "tab"bing in online writing, the tab button moves your "focus" (for lack of a better word) to another thing-a-mabobby (be it a new text field, a check box, etc.) instead of adding the five spaces
in front of a paragraph. I feel this is distracting-not having those
spaces I mean-especially when you've got related topics that need to be
separated by a paragraph for length reasons, because when you separate
the blocks of text there's still no indentation to let you know you've
started a new paragraph. So I'm bringing the tab back, five spaces
inserted manually at a time. Anyway, here's my essay. Enjoy.
One
of the things that I miss about college, and honestly something I
probably didn't take enough advantage of while I was there, is the
opportunity to have face-to-face conversation about important topics
with intelligent minds being schooled in their respective fields.
Everyone's got an opinion, this much is true, but I've often stated (often to negative replies) that unless your opinion is educated,
it is invalid. And ignorance isn't such an awful thing, but if you're
going to believe strongly in something and have conversations regarding a
topic, you ought research a bit before expecting to be able to support
your side and/or change minds. Intelligent conversation can be two
sided, in fact, most philosophical debates are multi-sided (have more than two sides).
Of
course, with philosophical debate, the point of offering two equally
compelling sides is to allow a student to experience both sides of an
argument, keeping the mind open to either as the "correct" mode of
thought. While this is great practice if you're simply going back and
forth on what eventually boils down to matters of opinion about abstract
concepts, when you get down to what we make laws of, the need for a
clear winner as to how people should think of things becomes greater. In
these cases, the best solutions are often compromises, though with as
firmly divided as our country is, we may be soon learning that while compromise is a great way to build roads and bridges (literally;
this is a great reason why the federal aspect of our nation's
government was of great importance in specific periods of growth [The
accommodation of travel across such a great span of land would've gone a
lot slower if the plotting, designing, and constructing of the bridges
and roads that make up our interstate system would've been left up to
individual countries to decide], but with division rising in our
nation it has become apparent that state issues are keeping this
nation--and the world when you really get down to it--from moving
forward on what I feel are the truly important issues), it doesn't seem to keep them kept up very well (this
is more figurative; the point here is that our nation is nearly divided
in half, and the original reason this nation was founded was religious
freedom, and we split from England because of taxation without
representation. Basically, the foundation of this country was built upon
many noble ideas, but mainly the idea that people will pay to live in a
country they believe in, as long as their ideals are represented), and it is rare that a compromise garners enough support from both sides to render itself a viable long-term solution.
Basically, taxes are taken whether you believe in them or not; they're necessary to keep the hospitals open. However, if you don't want your local hospital to have an abortion clinic, and your feelings are in the popular majority, you have a valid claim at taxation without representation (which is discussed in our constitution, and I'll just quote here: "This fundamental law of our republic is secured by several clauses of
the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 7, Paragraph 1 provides that
"All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of
Representatives." As Congress was originally designed, the Senate
represented the various state legislatures, and the House of
Representatives represented the people of the United States.132 Thus,
this provision guarantees that it will always be the representatives of
the people, rather than the representatives of state government, whose
consent must precede the imposition of any federal tax." ) if you are
being taxed federally for a national healthcare system that pays for
your local hospital, and mandates that abortions be legal there. If it
were left up to the locals, perhaps instead of abortions the community
might decide to "donate" all the unwanted babies that people have a way
of coming up with to science, furthering research in stem cells, birth
defects, and whatever else could be learned from what is now generally
blended and discarded. It's a stretch, but again, the point is that if
you don't believe in abortions, you should not be federally required to
pay for them.
This
country may have been founded on the basis of "religious" freedom, but
using that as an excuse these days almost seems looked down upon. So
let's change the word from religious to philosophical (because in all honesty religions are generally just philosophies, or ways of life, tethered to a/multiple deity/ies) or even simpler, personal, because
that conveys the gravity of the notion without offending the
non-religious. I'll use my previous example, you may be an atheist, but
the idea of putting fetuses to use in scientific research may sound
better to you than just tossing them out. This is just a matter of
common sense; regardless of whether or not you believe it's a life, you
can't deny the benefits of studying a fetus over discarding it. So, hey,
SURPRISE! An atheist and a Christian could actually come to a compromise on this matter. This
is, in my opinion, an example of what could potentially be a perfect
compromise. On the side of it's a life, you have the fetus at least
being put to good use, one could even compare its life to a soldier
storming the beach at Normandy: though individually the lives may have
seemed to have been wasted, as a whole their sacrifice achieved a
greater purpose. On the side of get rid of what we don't want, [according
to the most recent statistics, twelve percent of abortions involved
serious risk to the mother's health, and one, ONE, percent involved rape
survivors. Which means a whopping eighty-seven percent of abortions are
performed for one of the following reasons, which I'm just quoting
directly from the source: "3/4 say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or other
responsibilities; about 3/4 say they cannot afford a child; and 1/2 say
they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their
husband or partner (AGI)."],
you have the ability to still get rid of what you don't want, but guess
what? You have to carry it to term! Why? Because those are simply the
consequences of unprotected sexual activity. Get a condom, get on birth
control, (cause not
having sex is pretty much out right? Amazingly, the only ninety-nine
point nine nine nine repeating percent effective method of birth control
(I don't say one hundred because, well, Mary. Jesus? It failed once.),
chastity, seems to be the most ridiculous notion these days. By the way,
if we were living by standards in a different time, you could've been
killed for this sort of thing, or at the very least seriously publicly
shamed) or be prepared to deal with the consequences of your actions for nine months as a reminder to the importance of safe sex. And
be glad pregnancy is a sexually transmitted disease that ends after
nine months. Herpes is for life, bro. Hell, you could even throw in a five hundred dollar a month stipend for your first mistake, to balance
out the sacrifice being made on the mother's part, and a five hundred
dollar a month taxation the second time to make sure you learn your
lesson the first time. Of course with no abortions, you then don't
represent the side of rape victims and those the baby could kill, which I
might add would have to be determined with a fair amount of gravity.
Simply enough, special clauses would be added to accommodate the
minority. That's how laws should work: Clear general rule for the
general public, with exceptions provided as necessary. Obviously a
Utopian society would be ruled without exceptions, because Utopian law
would reflect Utopian society: perfection, but Utopia probably won't be subject to much rape either.
So
where does that leave us with regards to deciding what should be law in
our country? Well a better question, one that has an answer in my
opinion, is: is the importance of a strong federal government in our
country becoming overshadowed by the importance of state-wide issues? I
would say it is. As it stands, our country is ruled by a mixture of democratic and republican ideals in a (barely) compromising
system of bi-partisan leadership wherein two major parties attempt to
represent what they believe to be two sides of a coin, and we all
pretend (well, some of us may actually have been duped into believing) that the flipping match we pretend to control (again,
some people believe their vote matters on a national level; it doesn't.
Vote local if you want to see change. The electoral college [the "educated minds" of our nation, if you will] elects the president, not the general population. If you don't believe me, ask Al Gore) is a suitable (and [HAHA!] accurate) way
to represent over three hundred million people. Of course, when we
pledge allegiance to the flag, we pledge allegiance to the REPUBLIC for
which it stands. (So
what's the difference between a "republic" and a "democracy"? Well, I
found some definitions I couldn't reword better, so here they are: In a Democracy, the sovereignty is in the whole body of the free
citizens. The sovereignty is not divided to smaller units such as
individual citizens. To solve a problem, only the whole body politic is
authorized to act. Also, being citizens, individuals have duties and
obligations to the government. The government's only obligations to the
citizens are those legislatively pre-defined for it by the whole body
politic. In a Republic, the sovereignty resides in the people themselves, whether
one or many. In a Republic, one may act on his own or through his
representatives as he chooses to solve a problem. Further, the people
have no obligation to the government; instead, the government being
hired by the people, is obliged to its owner, the people. The
United States is a mixture of the two systems of
government [Republican under Common Law, and democratic under statutory
law]. The People enjoy their "God-given" "natural" rights in the
Republic, and the Citizens enjoy government granted privileges
(also known as "civil rights") in the democracy.)
But we have strayed far from a republic, though with the evolution of different "human rights" (those rights that we, as a populace, feel that every human being deserves regardless of citizenship [though
often times the humans involved in our human rights movements were
already citizens, they simply wanted to be treated as equals amongst
their white/male/straight peers]; the ones we consider "inalienable") movements over time we have somewhat gotten back on course. And now we find ourselves as a democratic nation divided almost perfectly in half.
The worst part is that this population divide was mainly caused, and is
propagated to this day, by issues that should be, have been, and will
be decided at the state-level (marijuana laws, "gay rights," abortion laws, gun laws, etc.) before being made into federal law. But
therein lies an important question. If these issues can be solved on a
state-to-state basis, why involve the federal government at all?
Or
better yet, what positive role could a federal government possibly play
if when it comes time to lay down federal law it leaves half of its
population unrepresented? This is how it all ties back into taxation
without representation. In my opinion, we've reached a point in history
where people are forward thinking enough to realize that sometimes it's in everyone's best interest if certain parties are simply separated, and allowed to exist equally, working together towards a common goal. (Granted,
the US didn't have such a great time trying that concept out during the
Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, but we have evolved significantly
since then and we also would be working off the basis that we are
already equals, not like the group we're trying to accommodate is in
some way inferior.) After all, in 2009, Texas was ranked as the WORLD'S fourteenth largest economy, in 2012 California ranked number nine globally. If you simply let them live as they want, with no federal involvement in personal life decisions, I believe you'd find the people of each of those states would band together, and if anyone wanted to leave for religious/philosophical/personal reasons, the opportunity at an equal existence more religiously/philosophically/personally suited to you would be a short drive down the interstate.
So
why separate people into states based on matters of
religious/philosophical/personal ideals? So that they can exist happily
in their state, follow their own laws based off their own ideals (or at least a closer representation of their ideals based off a much smaller voting population), and leave other people in other places to live by their ideals (you know, like how the countries of our world treat each other now. But, better?).
With everyone feeling represented and content with their government,
quality of life would simply improve, not to mention you could be truly
proud of where you lived. Also, with everyone not so concerned about
what to smoke while holding hands with who after whatever medical
procedure (or after shooting whatever animal is legal game in your state/ the intruder who tried to kill your family),
we could focus more on what I feel are more important global issues: exploring,
understanding, and evolving to the space we all have to live in (this notion varies in complexity from the simple notion of ending world hunger [yes,
it's simple. We have enough farmland in the United States alone to feed
the world. So the deserts of Africa aren't working out as far as
keeping people healthy and fed? And we haven't brought them over
here/built modern societies there because...? Oh, right. Cost.
Nevermind. I forget that there are more important things in this world
than the lives of others. Like dollars.], and developing
self-sustaining environments on land, and advancing modern medicine; to
the more complex exploration of the yet unknown depths of our oceans,
and studying the characteristics of the creatures that survive there; to
the even more complex and largely theoretical concepts of "outer space"
travel and the possibility of true immortality [strip away the effects of gravity, add perfectly contained and conditioned environments [necessary for any extend attempt at "outer space travel"] and the potential improvements in medicine and it begins to seem less crazy of a concept]), otherwise known as building bridges and roads. (did you catch the reference there? To the importance of federal government in a country's expansion? I'm comparing the interstates to spaceships here, people. Does anyone even read this shit?)
Alas,
I fear nothing will change as it should because the change necessary is
radical and would cost a few people too much money. (Also,
it's not like having a bunch of different countries has really
furthered our adventures in space, unless of course you count the
excitement surrounding the Cold War era space race that led to the lunar landing/best hoax of all time [which even if it wasn't possible then, we've got shit on Mars so...] . Plus, with the
weaponization of every new energy source we encounter, we humans are
just as likely to blow ourselves up before we ever make it off this
rock.) That, added to the fact that people STILL haven't figured out that we're all from the same planet,
and that we should be working together to go forward, rather than
against each other in order to control each other, makes for a
stagnating Earth, populated by a bunch of angry little bipeds and the
creatures subject to their will.
So
while on the one hand I truly believe in smaller government for most of
today's issues, I also believe that a global government must be
established for the issues of the future. But that'll probably only happen when we get invaded, or whenever shit gets real again (think meteor, or ice age, or zombies?), and by that time it may be too late. Therefor,
focusing on the present, we as a people need to wake up and realize the
role our government plays in our lives, and start working towards a
more perfect world. Utopia may currently be a distant notion, but go
back two hundred years and try to explain the difference between LCD
televisions and LED televisions. Yea. The future is incredibly now.
