5.27.2003
Alaskan politics is always an interesting thing... It is small enough and personal enough that you can have an audience directly with the governor if you have something worthwhile and intelligent to say, but there is a lot of national attention, so by proxy, you have a national audience as well.
I have done some reading about the Patriot Act, and while I think that Federal agencies such as the INS (is it still called that? did that get changed under TSA?) so that they can actually do something, I think that the Patriot Act goes too far. It is like McCarthyism. Terrorists are the new Commies. Gray is the new Black.
The one thing I was thinking about lately was how contradictory all political things are. They do indeed make strange bedfellows, ideologically, if not physically. Take two hotly contested topics - Gun control and Abortion. Pro abortion people say that the government has no right to invade their privacy and forbid them from terminating a life if it is convenient for them. Ok, fine. Gun rights people say the same thing about their guns. "Fear the government that fears your gun". But they are generally on opposite sides of the fence. So pick your poision... do you want to have a larger, stronger government? It can ban guns, but will also control abortion (it can intervene above the personal level and make you do or not do something you disagree with). Conversely, you can have your gun, but that freedom also allows people to have abortions.
It is funny in a sick way. Everybody wants the right to kill others at a moments notice, and to do it with impunity. Indeed, we all are at each others throats.
It is sad that we don't live in a world that abortions were legal but simply never happened (like even once) and that we could have our guns, but nobody would be capping anyone else with their .40 (like even once).
The issue really comes down to a very Alaskan way of thinking. "I want the government to build a road to my house, but no farther, and I want everyone else to pay for it." "Why should people who live in another part of the world control what I do in my backyard?" and so forth. It is the simultaneous convolution of selfishness and independence.
I have done some reading about the Patriot Act, and while I think that Federal agencies such as the INS (is it still called that? did that get changed under TSA?) so that they can actually do something, I think that the Patriot Act goes too far. It is like McCarthyism. Terrorists are the new Commies. Gray is the new Black.
The one thing I was thinking about lately was how contradictory all political things are. They do indeed make strange bedfellows, ideologically, if not physically. Take two hotly contested topics - Gun control and Abortion. Pro abortion people say that the government has no right to invade their privacy and forbid them from terminating a life if it is convenient for them. Ok, fine. Gun rights people say the same thing about their guns. "Fear the government that fears your gun". But they are generally on opposite sides of the fence. So pick your poision... do you want to have a larger, stronger government? It can ban guns, but will also control abortion (it can intervene above the personal level and make you do or not do something you disagree with). Conversely, you can have your gun, but that freedom also allows people to have abortions.
It is funny in a sick way. Everybody wants the right to kill others at a moments notice, and to do it with impunity. Indeed, we all are at each others throats.
It is sad that we don't live in a world that abortions were legal but simply never happened (like even once) and that we could have our guns, but nobody would be capping anyone else with their .40 (like even once).
The issue really comes down to a very Alaskan way of thinking. "I want the government to build a road to my house, but no farther, and I want everyone else to pay for it." "Why should people who live in another part of the world control what I do in my backyard?" and so forth. It is the simultaneous convolution of selfishness and independence.
< 10:32 >< /j >
