The Premier's contribution to the Say Your Piece W/O!Jul 31 '04 (Updated Dec 08 '05) Write an essay on this topic.
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Spongebob_man1 has created a very interesting write-off allowing us to air our opinions on hotbed issues - all in one place. To see how to join his w/o, go here. Thanks for the questions and I will attempt to be brief, because many of these questions are essays in and of themselves. 1) Do you believe in science's evolution theory or the Bible's creation theory? Seeing as how both are theories, both require a leap of faith and neither side has the ability of passing judgment on the other for "believing" in something. In my view they are extremes and the truth must be somewhere in the middle. This question asks much more than it appears to on the surface. I do have an overpowering belief in an all-powerful Force behind the entire universe - whether it is even conscious or not and if it is, does It interfere in human affairs is up to everyone's religion. I believe that life itself is something special, unique, and powerful and not a random convergence of events. Why? If you look at the universe, it is always easier to destroy than it is to create. The universe naturally and continually flows from a state of order into entropy, or disorder. Life, however, flows contrary to this. Life itself runs against the very nature of the universe by striving for order. This to me makes life extraordinary and exceptional. It is when living things are deprived of their life that they join the overall flow towards entropy. But usually the death of something living usually provides life to something else - life goes to life, even in its ending it still supports other life that strives for order. If all life truly did evolve from simpler forms of life, then where and how did the FIRST life form develop? Evolution by definition is a change, not a creation, but how can you change from something simpler to something more advanced if there is no starting point? Evolution does not explain how life came to be, only that it changes. Does that mean that life has always existed on an infinitesimally descending classification of what constitutes as life? Or did something happen, a spark, which ignited it? There must have been something that intervened in the natural entropy of the universe in order for life - something complicated, something striving for order, to arise out of disorder. So if you think about it, the two ideologies might not be in opposition of each other in the first place but rather both dependent upon the other! 2) If you believe in the Bible's creation theory do you disbelieve science in other areas such as medical research, geology, astronomy, physics, biochemistry, etc? I don't think this pertains to me, but these are all ways in which we try to measure, record, and/or otherwise attempt to decipher the design of the universe. 3) Why do you think "we are here?" (Why do humans exist?) Humans exist to voice their opinions over everything... hehe. I think life exists to promote more life. The forces of life are in constant battle and opposition with the forces of entropy. I apologize for the cheesiness of that line, but it sums it up well I think. The universe basically wants you dead because it is easier. But we as living things push against that tide. 4) Can we ever truly be happy by grasping for material things (cars, houses, CDs, movies, clothes, etc.) or should we be more concerned about affecting/improving others' lives? Absolutely not. As living things we can only attain the highest level of happiness by promoting and improving life for and with others. 5) Do you think ADD/ADHD are more a product of environment or genetics? Why do you think ADD/ADHD has become so prevalent in the last 20 or so years? My knowledge of ADD/ADHD could probably fill a sentence, so I am not qualified to write about this with any length. All I can give is a generic answer, and that is that people tend to find more things when they are looking for them and when there are more people joining in the hunt. 6) Are you a Democrat or Republican or something else? Why do you subscribe to that ideology? This very question upholds one of the biggest problems in our otherwise fantastic democratic rebublic - the two party system. I am tired of the words Democrat and Republican because both parties attempt to appease as much of the center first, because that's where most people are (either our of ignorance, fear, and/or indecision). And if the parties manage to convince as many people on their respective fringe to vote for them, so much the better. Although I am a registered Democrat, I find myself loathing and detesting my party more and more because I find myself among its minority. The two parties don't have ideologies; only extremely loose generalizations, more so for the Dems, I think. Firstly, it does not feel proper or good that the only unifying factor among today's Democrats is seething, writhing, blinding rage and hatred against George W. Bush. I write this with the luxury of having just come off the end of the Democratic Convention, where I saw a desperate, un-united party promote their candidate, named Anybody Butbush. Does it matter what the candidates name is? Not according to the polls of the Democrats months ago. When asked whom they were going to vote for, they did not name a specific person, they said Anybody Butbush. Well here he is, ladies and gentlemen, taking the stage is Anybody Butbush and we are all supposed to blindly follow him because he is Anybody Butbush and because of the two party system, he's the best we can come up with. He's the best we can come up with??? You will excuse my total lack of enthusiasm with our nominee. Not one of my liberal friends has come to me with excitement about the prospect of Anybody Butbush being president because of what this candidate is for or what he can do or will do, but only on the merits of who he is not. Attention please, will the real John Kerry fans please stand up? Secondly, I feel that the Clintons and their cohorts are the true puppet masters behind the Democratic Party and that thought alone sends uneasy shivers down my spine, seeing as how they turn to ruin everything they touch. I feel sorry for the sacrificial lambs on the spit, err, uhm, on the "nomination ticket" this year. The Dems are really just holding out until 2008 when they can put Hillary Clinton or another well known name on the ticket. Thirdly, as I have aged (I say that tongue-I-cheek, I'm only 23!) my interpretation of the universe has skewed conservative instead of liberal. And unfortunately, we are in the minority of the Democratic Party. Deepest Darkest Confession: I hope the Democratic Party looses this election in order to force a badly needed reform in the party. I hope this happens so that they learn once and for all that people vote on issues, not on emotion and that a candidate needs substance, we need meat on our plates. It is not enough to say what went wrong, it is not enough to complain - a candidate must provide viable alternatives and solutions to whatever he or she is campaigning against. Problem with Republicans: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Ever since the Republicans took control of the Senate and the White House, spending has increased, the size of government has increased, and health care has become even more socialized - are they sure they're Republicans? Can we at least TRY conservatism??? Why vote for Dems if the Republicans we have now are doing the Dems' work? 7) George Bush or John Kerry for President? Why? I cannot and will not in good conscience subscribe to the underlying mainstream Democratic Party mantra that I have to vote for John Kerry just to get Bush out. It is a reflection of the hideousness of the two-party system and it is why nothing ever changes. That is why I'm voting for Nader (provided he gets on the ticket). Feel free to throw eggs and stones at me, but I thought voting was speaking your voice, not a popularity contest. I don't vote for the person who I think is going to win, I vote to speak my voice, and this time, I'm going to sing off-key in this chorus called the two-party system. By voting for a third party, I register my utter contempt and disgust at the status quo and I do it by actively working and participating with our nations political system at the same time! The system allows change if we just work it in!!! And even if it was a popularity contest, John Kerry would hardly be my choice. 8) How do you feel about Ralph Nader getting most of his support from long time Republicans in the form of campaign contributions and signatures to get Nader on the ballot this fall? I have no idea how prevalent this is, but I think it reflects poorly on the character of the Republican endorsers. 9) Has toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein really made us safer? Or has it infuriated more Muslim fundamentalists and made us a bigger target? What a wonderful drug induced high the 90's were. Americans were completely blind at anything outside of each other. We are not any safer or more in danger than before, we are just conscious of it now. WE ALWAYS WERE in danger, that's the price you pay for being top dog in the world. Iraq is just a disaster and as with all disasters in the world, I blame them on the British. Iraq as a nation was a nation whose borders and citizens were forced upon that area by the pen of outside powers. Iraq was fated for trouble from its inception. Hussein will take his place on the ash-heap of history as one of its greatest tyrants. The unrest that we're seeing now in Iraq is not so much a drastic change from what Iraq was like under Saddam, it's just that Saddam spent 99% of his time in power trying to keep his thumb over the disorder that now we're trying to contain - and even the evil Saddam was only marginally successful in actually controlling his borders. Now we have to fix problems that have been raging since the turn of the 20th century. As for Muslim Fundamentalists, there are other "fundamentalists" out there, Christian, Jewish, etc, whatever, who aren't nearly as violent. "Muslim fundamentalists" might well be called "Orthodox" if they were in other religions. The term "Extremists" is what you're looking for. The violent ones. The ones that corrupt the very religion they preach. They've been furious at Western Christendom since their religion was founded. There was a point in time when it seemed that Europe would fall to the Muslim invaders. And then there's the whole Crusades thing, which they are upset about too. Heck, there are people in the Middle East who still recount the story of Alexander the Great with both fearful wonder and hatred. The Greeks, the Romans, British, French, Israelis, Russians, and now Americans - we're just the newcomers in a long hit-list of targets for Muslim Extremists. They willingly, voluntarily and readily make it their end all mission in life to kill themselves, repeat kill themselves, as in depriving themselves of their own lives in a desperate attempt to try to injure us. This happened on September 11, 2001 and on several occasions before. It happens weekly in Israel. I ASK YOU HOW MUCH MORE INFURIATED CAN A PERSON GET THEN BY COMMITTING SUICIDE TO HARM US??? It's not like one can commit suicide twice and hurt us even more. The Extremists have declared jihad (read: WAR) on us, they view us as vermin and pestilence, they want our extermination, not our understanding, not our compassion, not our apologies, not our simple vacating of the premises. They want the world to revert to the Middle Ages, a time when the Muslim world was the most powerful, not us, by destroying freedom, governments of/by/for the people, personal liberty, personal choice, and by setting up as many Taliban-style institutions and regimes in as many places as possible. These things are not in question, they are facts. But people seem to react to these facts in polar opposite ways. 10) Was the Abu Ghraib torture scandal a big deal to you? Well it definitely left a stain on things - all things. I wonder how many "prison scandals" we would find if we were to probe into other previous wars. We would be afraid to admit it, but such are the ways of war. It ain't pretty. Civilians are seeing things that for thousands of years only soldiers ever experienced because of the advances in technology that have changed the nature of warfare and information reporting. It's terrible that it happened, but I'm not sure who derived more pleasure from the torture - the military soldiers doing it or the Dems who paraded the images with restrained jubilation as ammunition for their hated Bush. 11) Why has Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind and financier of 9/11, been virtually ignored since the Iraq Invasion began? The media is in the business of telling stories. Facts are for scientists and philosophers. The fact that we haven't captured him is a fact. That's a pretty boring story day in and day out and it doesn't sell newspapers or make people watch 24-hour news channels (poison that they are). What also hasn't made (American) news? On May 1, 2004, 75 million Eastern Europeans who suffered brutally under Soviet Communism, having their very free will denied existence, joined the European Union, a (generally) wonderful democratic and free market society that will allow these people continued access to all of the wonders of the free market system and the personal liberties and freedoms that we have and to have these things protected. But where was the American media then? Did it revel and celebrate this triumph of freedom over tyranny? NO! I'll tell you where it was, it was focused on that darned F-word, Fallujah because it was the better "story" when this was the better fact. You couldn't escape that F word the entire first week of May. Too frequently all you here is poison in the media - it is a small wonder most of us get on with our lives the way we do if this was ALL we were made to hear. 12) Do you think America should support and/or participate in a possible invasion/attack against Iran? As an American, whose founding fathers launched a war of ideology that a people should be free to govern as they choose to, the notion of invading other nations to change their government, even having the noblest of intentions of teaching them the merits of a democratic republic - this idea should run anathema to every American for it contradicts our very genesis as a people. BUT, the kicker is determining if a people of a nation really ARE or HAVE BEEN free to choose their government. Unlike Iraq, there is a widespread urge for genuine political reform in Iran by people trying to work within its system. If there were anything that we, as free citizens, can do to educate Iran the merits of our form of government short of invasion, attack, or ridiculous sanctions, then we have a responsibility to help them become free. But to IMPOSE our government, even if it is superior, is inherently wrong. I understand that freedom cannot be imposed, but given, but that is not the general perception. More contact, more communication, just more honest old-fashioned trade and an exchange of ideas and goods, is what Iran needs to bring it into the modern world. The last thing we should do is to help isolate it - that's what the Extremists want! American music, clothing, and food did just as much to bring down Soviet Communism - by winning the hearts and minds of Russians - as our nuclear arsenal did. 13) Have you seen or plan on seeing Fahrenheit 9/11? If you've seen it what did you think about it? For personal reasons, I just don't like Michael Moore and don't wish any of my money to become his. I think he is unappealing as someone I'd like to watch on the big screen and his methods are sometimes crude and rude, most notably his Oscars debacle. I don't care if he is right or wrong, that was not the venue for it, he's just ill mannered. And anyone claiming he's brave or courageous or something, I remind you it is neither brave nor courageous to speak against a government in a nation that provides for free speech of said government. So chill out, I'm against his manners, not the first amendment. 14) Do you think we, as a nation, are more united or more divided since 9/11? Oh we're just as divided as ever. September 11 was just a little vacation from the root cause of our division, and that is the 2000 election. The root cause for everything the Dems have done is their pent up rage at this election. I sometimes wonder how the nation would be doing if Bush had won even a slightly more decisive election that wasn't dragged into the muck for months afterwards. The Dems would like to have you just forget Septermber 11 and go back to that warm, happy, fuzzy feeling of the 90's. There are Dems saying they are willing to do whatever it takes, actual words from their mouths, just to get Bush out of office. Doesn't that scare anyone else? How can someone just throw ration and reason out the window? I'm not going to make a deal with the Devil just get rid of Bush. He's not worth my soul. The Dems need to pick their battles more carefully. 15) The Terminator is Governor of California, Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State under President Clinton, and other foreign born American citizens have contributed to this country. Should foreign-born American citizens be allowed to run for President? I think when it comes to a title like "Head of State", the leader of that nation should be a natural born citizen who has grown up fully integrated into said culture of that nation. Being a natural born citizen prevents a lot of the chances for a conflict of interest. I do not deny that foreign-born American citizens (like my own father) can and do contribute greatly to this America, the line must be drawn at head of state. 16) Do you trust the electronic voting machines that will be used in some states this election? Good grief no. One little push of a button or mouse click and bye-bye votes. Lets not even discuss the whole hacker issue - 12-year-old kids can hack into the world's most important databases. I'm certainly not going to put our elections into trivial jeopardy because the current voting machines are so old. Have we even considered reworking what we have and making ballots easier to use so that voting is not like taking an IQ test? 17) Does the United Nations fill a relevant or necessary role in today's world? As of late, the only role the United Nations plays is to continually chip away at the power of the most powerful nation in the world, the United States, and her ability to make decisions on her own. The sore losers of the world are ganging up against the alpha dog. The UN simply has too many failures in recent history for me to view it as an effective body and might I add, usually lacks the ability to back up what it wants accomplished. - Two genocides under its watch (Rwanda and Sudan. Three if you count Milosivic (sp?)) - A thirty-year stalemate on the divided island of Cyprus and a failed final effort to resolve the issue this year. - The failure of the UN to stand up to Saddam Hussein and enforce its own resolutions. Lets face it, the United States was integral in the UN's creation, integral in its current operation, and constitutes its largest military contributions - the UN would not exist without us and like a spoiled teenager who just graduated college but has no job, the UN has come home again to drain and bleed us to death. Unless the UN can get its act together and be more ACTIVE in its executions of plans, I will continue to view it as an aging dinosaur. The UN can condemn things and issue statements all it wants but unless it does something about it, nothing will change. 18) Why are you Pro-Choice or Pro-Life? I'm a guy. I'm a gay guy at that. I consider myself pretty fortunate I will never be in this situation. But I do have strong feelings about it. In my core, the only time abortion can be ok is to prevent harm a pregnancy might have to the mother. Otherwise I cannot even rationalize it. Every fiber of my being, every molecule in my body shudders at the prospect of depriving one human being of life before that human being can even defend itself. I was out with an acquaintance once, getting coffee or something. He runs into a slightly unfamiliar acquaintance of his own who recognizes him. She was wearing a T-shirt that said "I had an abortion". I nearly choked on my drink. And the young girl, who couldn't have been more than 18 was most vocal and graphic about the subject, how she slept around, got accidentally "knocked up" because she "doesn't like how condoms feel", and then decided to get rid of the baby. I went to the restroom to compose myself. I cannot understand how heterosexuals can willy-nilly discard human life like that. How even the two worst heterosexuals, the last two people that should even raise children, can have as many children as they want, yet I, as a gay man, cannot have any of my own children born out of a genuine love for my partner. How can you just throw away life like that when there are others who are deprived and starved for children to love? How can people be so irresponsible? I seriously cried that night thinking about it. Taken another way. My position on abortion is technically uber-liberal. I am standing up for an under-represented minority (the unborn) that has little or no rights. Isn't that what liberals do?? 19) Why do you support or condemn the death penalty? I think the "death penalty" is overused for crimes of passion like murder. No matter how long you pre-meditate the murder of an individual, it is still a crime of passion. The so-called "death penalty" is a euphemism for vengeance when it comes to murder. I do support capital punishment for the removal of human beings who simply pose to great a threat to other human beings just by being alive. You know, people like those that fly planes into skyscrapers and such, killing thousands at a time. Maybe treason on a large enough scale could qualify for capital punishment. Some unspeakable crimes like serial/child rape could also grounds for capital punishment. Yes, I understand arguments that they are mental conditions or that they can't help themselves. But that doesn't diminish their threat to society if they can't be rehabilitated. What are we supposed to do in the mean time while we're waiting for a miracle cure? Do we let the predators prey on us? You can't rehabilitate a cancer tumor, but a cancer tumor's nature is to kill you. You don't try to live with the tumor; you take a scalpel and cut it out if you want to live. The probability and likelihood that these predators could strike again is sometimes just too much to risk. Liberal whine: But how can you be for the death penalty and against abortion? Answer: Because capital punishment punishes the guilty while abortion punishes the innocent. 20) Any final thoughts or feelings? I'm tired. That was more emotionally draining than I wanted it to be. That was an excellent w/o. You can see who else participated and join the w/o by clicking here. The Premier Epinions - August 2004  |
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