An Open Letter to the World (WARNING: Rambling Manifesto Contained Herein)

(This post started one way, and mutated and mutated– it was supposed to be more structured than it ended up, and what it ended up being was essentially a stream-of-consciousness reflection on the state of the world.  As a result, internal consistency may not be entirely ensured– I jump from place to place, and quite frankly, I didn’t get any sleep before I write this.  Take it for what it is, and read it when you have a long amount of time to spend.  About halfway through it, I think I have a bit of a religious experience in there, and that’s why I go on at length about the value of humanity there.  I’ll probably do more like this in the future.)

Dear World,

What can I say?  We’ve got a lot of problems.  Not between you and me, necessarily, but I mean… the World’s problems become my problems because I have to live here.  I don’t feel like blaming anyone for anything.  I don’t think any individual causes any single problem, but I think we all (including myself) at least contribute in some way.

On Obama, 1.25 years later

Well, Obama’s been in office for about a year and a quarter, and in that time, I’ve seen Hope and Change flood down the tube pretty rapidly.  Really, the guy made a lot of campaign promises, and he’s lived up to a lot of them on the aggregate, but only if you take every individual policy separately and break them down– and even then, many of them he’s only technically done.

So, we got our “historic” health-care reform bill.  No single-payer system, no public option, nothing except a mandate to make everyone buy into the same crappy insurance we’ve already got.  And boy is it crappy.  I had better when I was on my father’s military insurance, and the policies there were draconian, to say the least.  Instead, I get to buy into an insurance plan that won’t cover my needs, because almost no policy exists that covers my personal needs.

On Technology and the Advancement of the Human Condition

(This piece is going to be particularly long, because I’m going to cover a variety of subjects in one article to make up for my epic failure of “BLOGSPLOSION”.)

A constantly replicating problem for me during debates I have with people regarding the American political process centers around the notion of rights and what they mean to us.  There are many individuals who ironically refer to themselves as libertarians, who somehow believe that human rights are limited only to those things spelled out in the Constitution of the United States of America.  Besides being blatantly wrong by the very words of the Constitution itself (Amendment IX), it fails to account for the fact that humanity exists beyond the borders of the United States.

On What I Believe

I received an e-mail not too long ago:

” I would like to support your trip…and you…,but I need to know your beliefs. I am neither party either.”

This is my response:

“Put very simply, I believe that we as human beings all deserve the best healthcare we can get, and that if our government can so easily find money for tanks, bombs, bailouts and bridges to nowhere, then it can find the money to ensure that no one in this country dies because they lacked for funds.

On Going to Washington, D.C.

Well, I don’t know how to say this, but something in me just kind of snapped.  I’m sick and tired of feeling helpless, of not being able to get my voice out to the people who can make a difference.  So, I’ve decided to take things directly to Washington.  I’m gathering donations and selling what things I can to get up to D.C. as soon as possible to talk to as many people in congress as possible, and maybe even the President.

On Guns

Recently, a friend of mine seemed to think that I’m some kind of flowery peacenik hippie liberal who hates guns and seemed surprised that I wanted to buy one.  This seems to be a common mistake, I think; there’s a strong correlation between people who favor policies like a robust social safety net, Universal Health Care, rehabilitative corrections and those who favor gun control.  Problem is, it’s not a direct causal link.  My anarchist attitude towards life requires individual self-defense to be a high priority, and as a result, I must say that I’m a hardcore gun nut.

On Abortion (Part 2: Electric Boogaloo)

I re-read the piece I wrote the other day on the abortion issue and how it’s becoming a big thing in the debate over the ‘public option’/'ObamaCare’, and while I was not necessarily disappointed in it, I don’t think I rounded it out properly.  So, instead of making a huge edit and then trying to drag people back to the re-finished and remastered product, I’m just going to add this addendum– there may be more in the future, as this is a complex issue that can’t just be addressed in a single post (no matter how long).

On Abortion

You know, I really didn’t want to have to write this piece.  I really hoped I could just sidestep it and not cover it.  It’s a topic that is covered ad nauseum; it’s a pointless debate to have, to be honest, because it’s so polarizing and so dependent on the initial premises that each individual person accepts that you can’t really reason someone out of it– in order to change their opinion, you have to change some fundamental perceptions.  These are perceptions which aren’t acquired through reasoning processes (on either side), but are themselves a matter of opinion, and you simply cannot reason someone out of something they were not reasoned into.  So, I was just going to avoid it entirely– it wasn’t going to be worth the headache.  Then, yesterday, a friend who I respect greatly made a comment about being opposed to the “Public Option” insurance covering abortions, and then today, this gets dumped on my internet doorstep:  Abortion issue becomes part of health reform debate.

On Health Care Reform

Some people believe that I am an advocate for a universal health care program of a type similar to single-payer or socialized models, but that is not entirely accurate.  My personal ideals (as I laid out earlier today in another post) lead me to look for ways that are much further outside the box.  I don’t see the problem of the uninsured and untreated in the United States to be necessarily just a question of how to get health coverage to those who are not getting it (though this is important, but rather how to make health care practice less “special” and separate from our everyday lives.

On The Importance of Agriculture

The original reason for making a new blog here was inspired in part by a paper I had to write this past May for my Global Studies class.  We were to write on a topic of global importance related to public health.  The first thing that came to my mind was Agriculture, and while my professor agreed that the topic certainly fit the criteria, I don’t think most people would have thought about it, especially those of us who live in the U.S.

It came to mind, though, because it’s been a topic of discussion between me and my mother.  She is an avid consumer of information regarding the Community Sustainable Agriculture movement, and in our talks over these matters, I become more and more aware and interested in questions that surround the food supply, both here and abroad.  In a very real sense, it’s a major frontier for future policy consideration; however, the topic is not as widely discussed as other issues facing the world, though it is no less important.