I was on the road Friday and couldn't post, so I allowed the podcast to count as >1.
My Friday absence, however, is duly noted.
(Posted Monday, October 18, 2010)
Alright. I can't get my act together to put up another blog post. But! That doesn't mean I don't have something important/irrelevant to say. So, heeeere goes another filler. (Just so you know, I've begun and not finished three different blog posts about three different things. I am, officially, a lazy bum.)
Enjoy!
Q: Should America or other powers charge for liberating the oppressed in other countries?
A. No.
The root of "liberation" is "to liberate" - to make free, to unburden. If we begin charging for actions we take when "liberating" another country, then we totally undercut the meaning of what we're actually doing. Not only is the meaning lost, but so is any trust between countries.
Take Germany during World War I. A bunch of pompous megalomaniacs sat around a table and pushed chess-like pieces around on a map, totally and utterly removed from any of the horrendous events on the battlefield. When the Treaty of Versailles and the demand for 132 billion Marks in reparations came down on the Central Powers in 1919, the German economy was destroyed. The exchange rate was 1 Trillion Marks to the dollar. It was cheaper to burn money than buy wood. The people were starving, hurting, and resentful toward the global community. It wasn't their country that had done this to them - it was the Allied Powers. It was the U.S., Britain, France, and (seemingly) the entire rest of the world.
So what happens when a country's population is starving and angry? They begin to believe whatever will get food on the table, and Hitler offered that on a silver platter. He gave people jobs, which gave people money to buy food. Hitler was a savior to them, and they paid him back with evil deeds for their full bellies.
But after World War II, someone learned a lesson from what had happened before. Though it was the advent of the Cold War, the late 40s saw some exemplary negotiating happen between the U.S. and other world powers. They realized it was not the people, who had mostly been unwilling to go to war as they had in World War I, but the government, the institution, acting independent of the populace. When Germany was split up into Capitalist and Communist areas, the U.S. poured money into Allied countries to try and combat similar events to the post-WWI era. And it worked. Democratic Germany (not to mention other countries affected by the change in attitude) still stands today and is one of the U.S. foremost allies - as well as one of the strongest economies in the world.
Iraq is the same way. And honestly, what could they pay us? Their currency value is far less than our own, and it doesn't make sense to go in and rob the treasury when they can't even stand on their own two feet at this point.
Think of places like Darfur, with their own ongoing holocaust. Should we liberate them? Absolutely. Scores of people are dying everyday from the world's inaction and lack of willingness to commit to helping them out of this crisis. But should we really expect them to pay us back? After all the suffering? Money is only money, and the rest of the world runs on more money than they can handle. This is when paying for liberation becomes purely symbolic.
That's what it really comes down to. What can places like Iraq and Darfur really give us? To places like the U.S., Britain, and most of Europe, the money they give us is ink on paper, not gold-backed currency. Asking for payment is not only unnecessary- it's insulting. It is sending a message to the world that our mercy is for sale, and whomever can pay is whom we'll save.
Wherever there is human suffering, there should be a helping hand. Not a bill.
I'm going to be leaving soon for St. Lou-ay to see Wicked (yes, I'm excited). So instead of laboring in what time I left between today and tomorrow morning to put up another heartfelt blog entry, I'll leave you with filler (and maybe a Firestarter) that will have to tide you over until I get back on Friday, if not Saturday. This is another article from Helium. Since the Iowa caucus will happen in the time that I am gone, I thought I would offer up a voting-themed entry.
Anyway, here's wishing you a Happy and Safe New Year! Many blessings upon all of your families. Enjoy!
Q: Is eighteen too young to vote?
A. No.
Eighteen is just old enough to die for God and country without parental consent. I don't understand why they can't vote for the people who would send them off to war for causes not necessarily their own. This isn't something as simple as full driver's licenses and being able to buy cigarettes. This is something much much larger than that, and it cannot be underestimated.
I understand the arguments. Teenagers don't really keep up with politics. That demographic is one of the lowest in the voting ranks. They are not really old enough to take full responsibility for themselves. Those who are going to college haven't had enough education to vote responsibly, and those who aren't going to college haven't had enough real world experience to understand what it means to vote and how it affects them.
Somehow, the millions of adults who don't vote, don't have experience, and don't have an education get whittled down to a bunch of kids who are about to graduate high school. When less than a third (compared to over 95% of France in their last election) of eligible voters are going to the polls, I think it's private interest that would rather see the voting age raised to exclude idealistic 18-year-olds. What else would please old despots and oligarchies more than to cut out new ideas and young minds.
Honestly, this isn't about Republicans and Democrats, Capitalists and Communists. This is about democracy and the rule of the people. It's long been held that 18 is the threshold that young girls and boys walk through to become strong women and men. So what does 18 become without the right to vote? It becomes a somewhat destructive milestone because it means cigarettes, gambling, driving, and military service. Make that age synonymous with responsibility and duty to one's country. Make it worth more than a pack of Marlboro Reds and a trip to the casino.
Coming of age should most certainly mean more than that, and the right to vote is one of the most positive ways to plant the seeds of responsible citizenship into the soil of the mind. Taking that away creates an entire class of disenfranchised youths who have the potential to give so much back to the world. Taking away the right to vote takes too much from those who haven't really had a chance to impact the world yet. If anyone deserves the right to be taken away, it's those who have never voted and are old enough to have done so many times. They've squandered their rights. Give the 18-year-olds a chance to prove that they won't do the same with theirs.
Oh there is so much I want to say here, because many things have come up in recent news that I would like to blog about. Yet time doesn't permit it. My bedtime has past, and I must be at work very early in the morning. However, finals are over (though they may bite me still). You will hear from me very soon.
Here's one of my higher rated articles on Helium. Enjoy.
Q. Should collegiate athletes receive payment for competing in college athletics?
A. No.
The first and foremost reason a person should go to college is for an education. At the college I attend, men and women's university sports take up to six hours of practice per day. This leaves little time for studies and social interaction, but it is something they choose. Why? Because they get a full scholarship.
Yet so many feel that an education isn't enough - that there has to be cash money involved for it all to be worthwhile. Suddenly, expense-free education isn't a payment - it's a perk. This issue goes far beyond the actual athletic side of things. This is about cost-benefit ratio between education and money-efficiency.
In many small towns around the U.S., kids are given an ultimatum: either the child does well in sports, gets a scholarship, and goes on to become something better, or the child can stay in the small town and follow in the footsteps of those before him or her. In cities across American, poor children and their families are given the same option. Sports are important - not just because they provide physical activity and social situations, but because so many view them as a ticket out of an undesirable situation.
Making college synonymous with big money isn't a desirable image. It changes the focus of the university, layers doubt on credibility, and destroys the trust amongst students, administration, and athletes. College shouldn't be a business. Paying students for sports devalues the education process and turns the whole thing into halfway house for those moving between high school and professional sports.
Also, where would the money come from? Tuition fees under "Athletic Salary"? Or from taxes? It doesn't make sense to put athletes on payroll for anything other than - at most - a free ride. Let's not forget why all students are meant to go to college to receive. Sliding greenbacks under the table and a diploma over the top isn't going to improve a collegiate experience, and pretending that it really is that way will only seek to demean those serious students, faculty, and administrators forced to go along.
This is the first (of what will probably be quite a few) of my debate/question responses from Helium (though I will use other "filler" as well - I reserve my rights to do so). These are things I have written in their entirety off the cuff. I joined to improve my rhetoric, and, since they are ranked by other Helium users, I tend to learn a lot about myself. It proves to be rather convenient now, since a) I'm entirely too busy to stop and write a thoughtful entry, b) it's still thoughtful and relevant content, and c) it keeps this from being a dead site. So, without further ado, here's Helium Filler #1.
Q. Are gun control laws compatible with the Constitution's right to bear arms provisions?
A. Yes.
Gun control laws are necessary to keep others safe. Most people assume that gun control laws mean the state will automatically take away all firearms that have any power. Yet this is not the case at all: gun control is meant to make people use common sense and safety.
There is a reason fully automatic weapons have been prohibited around the country and world. There is no reason to hunt with a fully automatic weapon. They are made to be able to kill as many people as possible. For instance, the AK-47s that insurgents around the world use are examples of the kind of weapon these organizations look for - a gun that loads fast and sprays faster. Fully automatic weapons are meant to maximize kills. There is nothing sensible about having such a weapon.
Gun control laws are not out to take away shotguns and rifles. The primary aim of gun control is to take away concealable weaponry. Why do we need pistols under our pillows? If we can get rid of them all handguns, then there ceases to be a threat that such defense will be needed against. Most people will not take a rifle to a robbery or a shotgun to break and enter. Gun control is about minimizing the threat.
Think about a robbery or a gunfight that has happened in the past. What guns were used? More than likely they were handguns. Rifles and shotguns (hunting weapons the last I checked) are too heavy and bulky to be used for such things.
Now that I've made my case for the principle of gun rights, I'll answer the actual question of whether gun control is "compatible" with the Constitution.
The Constitution is about protecting people from each other and often from themselves. This is exactly the reason the second amendment was ever written. See here:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
"A well regulated militia" is a protection organization. We have the National Guard now, who takes this role as guardian of the state. At the time the Constitution was written, a militiaman was also a citizen. It was in this way that the power of the state was in the hands of the people, and the people rose to participate in militias as part of the defense of the state and their right as American citizens.
Yet the militia has been replaced with the National Guard, a military organization. There are still self-proclaimed militias in parts of the country, and if the state proclaims them as "being necessary to the security" of the state, then none of us can deny their right to bear arms - in defense of the state.
It doesn't come so easy for the rest of us. Somewhere along the lines "a well regulated militia" became every man, woman, and child that could afford a gun at Wal-Mart. Flouting the second amendment, and only quoting part of it, has led to a great misunderstanding that each of us is entitled to be a gun-toting American.
So is gun control compatible with the second amendment? Absolutely. I'd go so far as to say that gun control is what the second amendment was originally *meant* for. But is it compatible with how we interpret and understand it today? No, but that's something that can change with more education and less fear-mongering that the government is out to strip you of your rights and leave you defenseless.