silverwolfcc (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silverwolfcc) wrote2004-03-02 06:58 pm
silverwolfcc) wrote2004-03-02 06:58 pm
Act 2: Politics continued (see entry before)
I'm back!
So yeah I'm getting a tension headache. Turns out as invincible as I feel with my headphones on, I'm not. And the more yelling that goes on behind me (I'm sort of in a corner at my computer) the more stressed out I feel. Also, my parents are each reading my book (and correcting it) and as such that makes me incredibly nervous -- especially when my Dad starts criticizing me. *sigh* But more on the headaches later. I want to do that last and continue my politics thing.
Now that I've finished with why I'm anti-Bush, let's go into why I'm not really a full Democrat. For instance, I was for the war in Iraq. (And the protests against it really pissed me off too. For one thing, NO one protested when Saddam Hussein gassed 250,000 Shiite Muslims in his OWN country, and for another about the same time as the war begin, no one protested when a town was completely wiped off the face of the map in Africa.) I don't think we should have gone into Iraq under the pretense of looking for weapons of mass destruction (another thing on that for people who use that as another Bush-bashing excuse, if Saddam did NOT have the weapons, why did he purposely make it look like he did???) but instead to try Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity and as a supporter of terrorism. However, doing so would have led to much world chaos as there are many other dictators throughout the world (and in the U.N.) who should be pulled in for the same reasons.
I'm also not a complete socialist because while I do believe in healthcare for the poor, I do not believe in making all healthcare government provided -- if only because I understand the complications involved with this. And another thing that makes me non-Democratic is abortions. I'm very much against abortions for moral reasons.
Which reminds me -- time to define moral politics vs. social/economic politics. In general I think the purpose of the government should be to protect/help its citizens socially. For instance, creating laws to protect people from theives, bandits, murderers, rapists etc. Also creating regulations for things like rules on the road, protecting workers' rights (minimum wage, maximum work hours before over-time etc), creating institutions like firemen, schools/education, police departments, sewage treatment, water, food and energy resources (such as filtering water and regulating poisons in foods) and regulations on things like drugs, pollutants from factories, and the setting aside of land and things for museums and national parks. In short, a government's job is to make it's citizens lives better. It is for this reason that I so much approve of Seperation of Church and State. The minute you throw in moral considerations to Politics, things get complicated.... to say the least.
Something I've learned in the past few years of life, you cannot make everyone else conform to your sense of morals. And the only time I believe you should try your hardest to do anyways is when lives are at stake. Such as in the case with Iraq or WW2 or abortions. In the case of abortions, I believe that the fetus deserves as much as rights as any other child or living being and thus aborting it is murder (I also believe that if the pregnant woman doesn't want to raise her child she should give it up for adoption in which case aborting it would also affect the lives of the parents who would like to adopt, however it would not permanently damage said parents's lives, so they don't quite count.) So for instance, I'm still against abortions because I feel that by aborting a child you are killing it and thus I feel that abortions should be illegal. But while I'm morally against divorces, except in the case of abuse and battery, I don't think they should be made illegal. It would be expecting everyone else to conform to my standards when they clearly don't see anything wrong with it. And while divorces do negatively affect the children of those parents, it isn't something that can't be gotten over.
I'd like to take a side-note here and say that it's no wonder my sister has weight problems. She got me a bowl of ice cream that was so huge... I've eaten half of it and the ice cream is now all smoothed out over the bottom of the bowl and not only does it completely cover the good-sized tupperware bowl, but fills it halfway to the top, despite being all the way around. This is more ice cream than I would normally eat in the first place -- and this is what is left over from what I already ate. *shocked and slightly scared expression.*
So that brings me to Gay Marriages. More and more recently I've been deciding that I'm Catholic, and while I still haven't gotten confirmed (I refused to get confirmed into Catholicism until I'd worked out every detail of my religious and moral beliefs and there were/are still a few I'm working on) I'm leaning more and more toward that direction every day. As far as I can tell (and it's been difficult to find any real, clear answers) the Catholic Church is against Gay Marriages for moral reasons, amongst them the belief that this will further decay the moral fabric of society and degrade the true meaning of marriage. For instance, the Pope conjectured that with the creation of the Birth Control Pill, abortions would also one day be legalized, so the fear among many Catholics is that by allowing Gay Marriages, the next step will be polygamous marriages.
As for me, I don't know what to think. I want to side with what's right, but what is right in this case? Is this another divorce-like instance where you just have to accept that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily agree with you? Or should gay marriages really be banned? By banning gay marriages are you being discriminatory? Or by allowing gay marriages are you just furthering the breakdown of decrepit morals this society already has?
For some people, in fact EVERYONE else I know, these are easy questions and they all have their own opinions on it. Leanne, Stephen, Greg M, Erin, David, my parents... But for me, these are not so easy to answer. From a legal and social standpoint I support gay marriages in that they should have the same legal rights as any heterosexually married couple. But from a moral standpoint I cannot see eye to eye with the idea that gay couples can be married in the same way as heterosexual couples. To me, marriage is a holy sacrament and should be treated thus. But if I've accepted that I cannot even morally illegalize divorces, can I morally agree to banning gay marriages? Since this whole controversy began I've been tossed about in a storm of morals and beliefs. I want to side with my church but I also don't want to be too judgemental or discriminatory. For a long time (and I still am) I was a proponent of Civil Unions. It gives couples all the legal rights under the law and any social or economic benefits of a marriage but it is not considered the same thing as a marriage. Unfortunately neither side is happy with this compromise. Conservativs argue that it is not enough to distinguise the two and liberals argue that it creates two classes of people, homosexuals and heterosexuals.
And to be honest, it also makes me wonder if I would have been one of those people who would have tried to compromise slavery back in the day? I'd like to think I wouldn't, that I'd be firmly against slavery because I know it's wrong, but have I been taught for such a long time that it's wrong and that's why I think this way? In the case of gay marriages, I've been taught to the extreme both ways that acceptance and liberty is the way to be as much as that sex outside of marriage and gay sex is wrong. Allow me to clarify a little on the last part, not that homosexuals are bad people, just that it goes against the order of life (and morality) to participate in homosexual activities. Just as it's immoral to get a divorce, but that doesn't mean divorced people are bad.
That's a common thing in Catholicism that people don't get. Certain things are considered immoral, quite a few of them actually, but that doesn't mean that anyone who does them is going to hell because of it, or that they're a bad person. What it means is that it's bad and a sin, but according to Catholicism you can always be forgiven -- even after death. The only unforgivable sin is blasphemy which I think means denying God. Not denying that he exists, but knowing that he exists, that he's good, loving, and forgiving and still choosing to go to Hell. Who would do such a thing given the opportunity? God only knows. And that's why Catholics aren't supposed to believe that people are going to hell as they/we have no idea what happens after that person dies. For more on this whole hell/afterlife thing go read the Great Divorce. Another awesome book by C.S. Lewis and while not Catholic, still true to Catholic values.
I've decided I wish I lived in the world of Zorro. Not only do I want a guy just like Zorro but I like the idea of always knowing what's right and wrong. There my Catholic morals would fit perfectly and while others might have problems due to lawful evil characters (haha I know, D&D alignment terms, I use them all the time, get used to it; it's how I think of people. To me, Zorro is a ranger -- I love rangers. I've got the heart and soul of a ranger and I wish I could be one.) because I'm neutral good, I would be able to fight against them and not feel bad about it. And more than that, I wouldn't have to kill them either. I could be like Zorro's double and it'd all be perfect.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before but my greatest wish ever is to be in a world like that. Where I could be perfectly me and always know what's right and wrong. I love fantasy for that reason. And if I had a mirror of Erised it would show me in a fantasy world, as a ranger, fighting monsters and evil and defending innocents. And that is why I write and want to direct movies (all of the fantasy genre of course.)
Mmmmm reminds of Zorro's creed (which I'm stealing to be my own by the way):
My sword is a flame
To right every wrong
So heed well my name
Zorro
Sorry I just had to add that in there. I LOVE that saying. I want a Zorro. I'd also like to get the full Disney series on tape or dvd (I hate my siblings. They killed tape 6 and taped over 13 and 14) Silly Disney. They seriously need to market the Zorro series. You'd be surprised what a huge "underground" fan club he has -- not as big as Inuyasha, but up there (and with much older fans, not so much the pre-teens who oggle over Inuyasha and Sesshemorou.)
Another thing I just have to share before moving on to the last part of my entry (the migraines thing) is a song from the Nightmare Before Christmas, written and sung by Danny Elfman (I'm a big fan of his stuff in dark comedies.)
There are few who deny that at what I do I am the best
For my talents are renowned far and wide
When it comes to surprises in the moonlit night,
I excel without ever even trying
With the slightest little effort of my ghost-like charms
I have seen grown men give out a shreik
With a wave of my hand and well place moan
I have swept the very bravest off their feet
Yet year after year it's the same routine
And I grow so weary of the sound of screams
And I, Jack, the Pumpkin King
Have grown so tired of the same old thing
Oh somewhere deep inside of these bones
An emptiness began to grow
There's something out there, far from my home
A longing that I've never known
I'm the master of fright, and a demon of light
And I'll scare you right out your pants
To a guy in Kentucky, I'm Mr. Unlucky
And I'm known throughout England and France
And since I am dead I can take off my head
To recite Shakespearian quotations
No animal nor man can scream like I can
With the fury of my recitations
But who here would ever understand
That the Pumpkin King with his skeleton grin
Would tire of his crown, if they only understood
He'd give it all up if he only could
Oh there's an empty place in my bones
That calls up forth something unknown
The fame and praise come year after year
Does nothing for these empty tears...
I LOVE that song. Good stuff, Danny Elfman. Let me tell you.
Anyways I've decided to change my mind about talking about migraines, the different types and charts etc. I was planning on doing it last night when my migraine was so bad that I couldn't think about much else but I've changed my mind, I'll save it for another time. So until then, adios
So yeah I'm getting a tension headache. Turns out as invincible as I feel with my headphones on, I'm not. And the more yelling that goes on behind me (I'm sort of in a corner at my computer) the more stressed out I feel. Also, my parents are each reading my book (and correcting it) and as such that makes me incredibly nervous -- especially when my Dad starts criticizing me. *sigh* But more on the headaches later. I want to do that last and continue my politics thing.
Now that I've finished with why I'm anti-Bush, let's go into why I'm not really a full Democrat. For instance, I was for the war in Iraq. (And the protests against it really pissed me off too. For one thing, NO one protested when Saddam Hussein gassed 250,000 Shiite Muslims in his OWN country, and for another about the same time as the war begin, no one protested when a town was completely wiped off the face of the map in Africa.) I don't think we should have gone into Iraq under the pretense of looking for weapons of mass destruction (another thing on that for people who use that as another Bush-bashing excuse, if Saddam did NOT have the weapons, why did he purposely make it look like he did???) but instead to try Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity and as a supporter of terrorism. However, doing so would have led to much world chaos as there are many other dictators throughout the world (and in the U.N.) who should be pulled in for the same reasons.
I'm also not a complete socialist because while I do believe in healthcare for the poor, I do not believe in making all healthcare government provided -- if only because I understand the complications involved with this. And another thing that makes me non-Democratic is abortions. I'm very much against abortions for moral reasons.
Which reminds me -- time to define moral politics vs. social/economic politics. In general I think the purpose of the government should be to protect/help its citizens socially. For instance, creating laws to protect people from theives, bandits, murderers, rapists etc. Also creating regulations for things like rules on the road, protecting workers' rights (minimum wage, maximum work hours before over-time etc), creating institutions like firemen, schools/education, police departments, sewage treatment, water, food and energy resources (such as filtering water and regulating poisons in foods) and regulations on things like drugs, pollutants from factories, and the setting aside of land and things for museums and national parks. In short, a government's job is to make it's citizens lives better. It is for this reason that I so much approve of Seperation of Church and State. The minute you throw in moral considerations to Politics, things get complicated.... to say the least.
Something I've learned in the past few years of life, you cannot make everyone else conform to your sense of morals. And the only time I believe you should try your hardest to do anyways is when lives are at stake. Such as in the case with Iraq or WW2 or abortions. In the case of abortions, I believe that the fetus deserves as much as rights as any other child or living being and thus aborting it is murder (I also believe that if the pregnant woman doesn't want to raise her child she should give it up for adoption in which case aborting it would also affect the lives of the parents who would like to adopt, however it would not permanently damage said parents's lives, so they don't quite count.) So for instance, I'm still against abortions because I feel that by aborting a child you are killing it and thus I feel that abortions should be illegal. But while I'm morally against divorces, except in the case of abuse and battery, I don't think they should be made illegal. It would be expecting everyone else to conform to my standards when they clearly don't see anything wrong with it. And while divorces do negatively affect the children of those parents, it isn't something that can't be gotten over.
I'd like to take a side-note here and say that it's no wonder my sister has weight problems. She got me a bowl of ice cream that was so huge... I've eaten half of it and the ice cream is now all smoothed out over the bottom of the bowl and not only does it completely cover the good-sized tupperware bowl, but fills it halfway to the top, despite being all the way around. This is more ice cream than I would normally eat in the first place -- and this is what is left over from what I already ate. *shocked and slightly scared expression.*
So that brings me to Gay Marriages. More and more recently I've been deciding that I'm Catholic, and while I still haven't gotten confirmed (I refused to get confirmed into Catholicism until I'd worked out every detail of my religious and moral beliefs and there were/are still a few I'm working on) I'm leaning more and more toward that direction every day. As far as I can tell (and it's been difficult to find any real, clear answers) the Catholic Church is against Gay Marriages for moral reasons, amongst them the belief that this will further decay the moral fabric of society and degrade the true meaning of marriage. For instance, the Pope conjectured that with the creation of the Birth Control Pill, abortions would also one day be legalized, so the fear among many Catholics is that by allowing Gay Marriages, the next step will be polygamous marriages.
As for me, I don't know what to think. I want to side with what's right, but what is right in this case? Is this another divorce-like instance where you just have to accept that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily agree with you? Or should gay marriages really be banned? By banning gay marriages are you being discriminatory? Or by allowing gay marriages are you just furthering the breakdown of decrepit morals this society already has?
For some people, in fact EVERYONE else I know, these are easy questions and they all have their own opinions on it. Leanne, Stephen, Greg M, Erin, David, my parents... But for me, these are not so easy to answer. From a legal and social standpoint I support gay marriages in that they should have the same legal rights as any heterosexually married couple. But from a moral standpoint I cannot see eye to eye with the idea that gay couples can be married in the same way as heterosexual couples. To me, marriage is a holy sacrament and should be treated thus. But if I've accepted that I cannot even morally illegalize divorces, can I morally agree to banning gay marriages? Since this whole controversy began I've been tossed about in a storm of morals and beliefs. I want to side with my church but I also don't want to be too judgemental or discriminatory. For a long time (and I still am) I was a proponent of Civil Unions. It gives couples all the legal rights under the law and any social or economic benefits of a marriage but it is not considered the same thing as a marriage. Unfortunately neither side is happy with this compromise. Conservativs argue that it is not enough to distinguise the two and liberals argue that it creates two classes of people, homosexuals and heterosexuals.
And to be honest, it also makes me wonder if I would have been one of those people who would have tried to compromise slavery back in the day? I'd like to think I wouldn't, that I'd be firmly against slavery because I know it's wrong, but have I been taught for such a long time that it's wrong and that's why I think this way? In the case of gay marriages, I've been taught to the extreme both ways that acceptance and liberty is the way to be as much as that sex outside of marriage and gay sex is wrong. Allow me to clarify a little on the last part, not that homosexuals are bad people, just that it goes against the order of life (and morality) to participate in homosexual activities. Just as it's immoral to get a divorce, but that doesn't mean divorced people are bad.
That's a common thing in Catholicism that people don't get. Certain things are considered immoral, quite a few of them actually, but that doesn't mean that anyone who does them is going to hell because of it, or that they're a bad person. What it means is that it's bad and a sin, but according to Catholicism you can always be forgiven -- even after death. The only unforgivable sin is blasphemy which I think means denying God. Not denying that he exists, but knowing that he exists, that he's good, loving, and forgiving and still choosing to go to Hell. Who would do such a thing given the opportunity? God only knows. And that's why Catholics aren't supposed to believe that people are going to hell as they/we have no idea what happens after that person dies. For more on this whole hell/afterlife thing go read the Great Divorce. Another awesome book by C.S. Lewis and while not Catholic, still true to Catholic values.
I've decided I wish I lived in the world of Zorro. Not only do I want a guy just like Zorro but I like the idea of always knowing what's right and wrong. There my Catholic morals would fit perfectly and while others might have problems due to lawful evil characters (haha I know, D&D alignment terms, I use them all the time, get used to it; it's how I think of people. To me, Zorro is a ranger -- I love rangers. I've got the heart and soul of a ranger and I wish I could be one.) because I'm neutral good, I would be able to fight against them and not feel bad about it. And more than that, I wouldn't have to kill them either. I could be like Zorro's double and it'd all be perfect.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before but my greatest wish ever is to be in a world like that. Where I could be perfectly me and always know what's right and wrong. I love fantasy for that reason. And if I had a mirror of Erised it would show me in a fantasy world, as a ranger, fighting monsters and evil and defending innocents. And that is why I write and want to direct movies (all of the fantasy genre of course.)
Mmmmm reminds of Zorro's creed (which I'm stealing to be my own by the way):
My sword is a flame
To right every wrong
So heed well my name
Zorro
Sorry I just had to add that in there. I LOVE that saying. I want a Zorro. I'd also like to get the full Disney series on tape or dvd (I hate my siblings. They killed tape 6 and taped over 13 and 14) Silly Disney. They seriously need to market the Zorro series. You'd be surprised what a huge "underground" fan club he has -- not as big as Inuyasha, but up there (and with much older fans, not so much the pre-teens who oggle over Inuyasha and Sesshemorou.)
Another thing I just have to share before moving on to the last part of my entry (the migraines thing) is a song from the Nightmare Before Christmas, written and sung by Danny Elfman (I'm a big fan of his stuff in dark comedies.)
There are few who deny that at what I do I am the best
For my talents are renowned far and wide
When it comes to surprises in the moonlit night,
I excel without ever even trying
With the slightest little effort of my ghost-like charms
I have seen grown men give out a shreik
With a wave of my hand and well place moan
I have swept the very bravest off their feet
Yet year after year it's the same routine
And I grow so weary of the sound of screams
And I, Jack, the Pumpkin King
Have grown so tired of the same old thing
Oh somewhere deep inside of these bones
An emptiness began to grow
There's something out there, far from my home
A longing that I've never known
I'm the master of fright, and a demon of light
And I'll scare you right out your pants
To a guy in Kentucky, I'm Mr. Unlucky
And I'm known throughout England and France
And since I am dead I can take off my head
To recite Shakespearian quotations
No animal nor man can scream like I can
With the fury of my recitations
But who here would ever understand
That the Pumpkin King with his skeleton grin
Would tire of his crown, if they only understood
He'd give it all up if he only could
Oh there's an empty place in my bones
That calls up forth something unknown
The fame and praise come year after year
Does nothing for these empty tears...
I LOVE that song. Good stuff, Danny Elfman. Let me tell you.
Anyways I've decided to change my mind about talking about migraines, the different types and charts etc. I was planning on doing it last night when my migraine was so bad that I couldn't think about much else but I've changed my mind, I'll save it for another time. So until then, adios