Wax Political

This is it. This is the last post where I put off writing about the rest of the southern trip. Trust me, it will get done. But I decided, as much for myself as for anyone else, in this post I am going to expressly state my stance on many political issues. I'm going to show everyone whos curious where I stand on the hot topics that plauge our society today. And its going to be eye opening and perhaps a little bit frightening.

Gay Marriage-

I am not against gay marriage, but I am not so empassioned with it that I would take to the streets to protest for it. I guess I just don't care either way, but as I have some friends who are gay I suppose it would be nice if they could be made more happy by marriage, if thats what they are looking for. To be frank, I don't think I have anything against the gay in gay marriage, but rather the marriage. The whole idea seems sort of proposterous to me, but then again maybe I just havent met the right girl, haha. Anyway, do what makes you happy, and who am I to deny anyone that basic right? I'm not going to tell people how to live their lives. And for anyone who might say that marriage is some sort of sacred and heavenly thing, not to be lowered by the hands of homosexuals, I'd ask them to look at the divorce rate and spousal abuse rate (Not as much in the North, but if you do your research the statistics are utterly terrifying) and try to tell me that marriage is some silky white unstained construct. It isin't, it has not been, and it will never be. So, to sumerise, Gay Marriage= Fine by me.

War in Iraq- I never support senseless war. The question is, is this a senseless war, or a war with reason? Let me showcase the difference between the two. WWII was a war with reason, a somewhat noble struggle against facism and genocide. Thats something I support, although there are defiently aspects to WWII that bother me. More on that another time, maybe. Vietnam was a senseless war, for the most part. We were playing at something we had no buissness playing at, and stayed there because we were afraid to leave and look bad. Thousands of men lost their lives for really no reason, economic, political or military. The only people making money off of 'Nam were the weapon manufactorers in the good ol' USA. So this is a war I do not support, and find terribly foolish.

I think the war in Iraq leans more toward vietnam then WWII, although it is not exactly either. For example, there is some nobility in taking control of Iraq, in that we were able to stop a genocide and bring some resemblance of peace to the toherwise persecuted minoritys in the nation. Thats good. We toppled an evil dictator and established a more stable government. However, we are there to make a profit as well. Oil is a key reason as to why we stay in Iraq. We can't leave, because without our support everything would fall apart back into fueding war lords and stuff. The very lives we sought to protect would turn on each other and leave the most ancient of nations in nothing but ruins. But heres the thing...

Should America be charged with maintaining peace in the world, as the worlds most powerful nation? Why is this our responsability, and if it is, why are we ignoring many areas of the world? Its all political. If we are staying in Iraq to keep its innocents safe, why arnt we in darfur? why arnt we in Chechnia? Why arnt we in Rwanda? There are a lot of places, with a lot less oil, where we are a lot less present then Iraq. So really, its not Americas job to police the world, just to look out for its interests. If we were suddenly to find a boom of oil in ohio, a literal sea of black gold, I somehow think Iraq would be vacated a lot faster then is estimated these days.

So, overall, I am morally opposed to the idea of the war as it stands today, althugh I understand the need for people to be there. The economic incentive bothers me, but I dont think pulling out right now would be a good thing.

So War in Iraq= bad war that we should get out of, but can't currently.

Next topic: Illegal Immigration

The historian in me would like to note that this entire nation was founded on Illegal immigration, what with taking the indians land, pushing the Indians west, forcing the Indians onto the worst land in America, keeping the Indians impoverished, ect. But, for the sake of this blog post, ill keep my focus to Mexican immigration.

Mexican immigation is, for the most part, not a terrible terrible thing. Its ot a good thing, either though. This is one of those topics that is really ripe with positives and negatives, and im going to try to spell them out for you. The positives of illegal immigration is a lot of work gets done that Americans generally don't want to do. There are a lot of manual labor jobs that dont really appeal to Americans, even American laborers. The Mexican workers get these jobs done for us, and bring their money back to Mexico, usually, to help abutt the intense poverty there.

The negatives, the more I think about it, outweigh the positives, though. For example, at the msot basic level, what they are doing is ILLEGAL. While I am a person with an extreamly skeptical view on the law, you cant really aruge that they are not citizens and do not deserve the rights of citizens. And when Mexican workers reproduce across international lines, it leads to more poveryy and crippled academics in America. These children, who are americans by birth, are placed in a position where it is much harder for them to succeed. Their parents are laborers, they usually dont have a mastery of English...one thing leads to another, and this causes a rise in crime amoung mexican-american born youths in America...

I don't know what the solution to this problem is, but I know it is a problem. Maybe a seasonal Mexican worktroop could be established, where during times of labor they can come to America as forign workers and do the jobs, and get the pay, that they were accustomed to. Then they could return to Mexico and help negate the poverty that is so vicious there. If they want to relocate to America permanently, they should have to go through the same nationalistic process of all other immigrants.

So, overall, Illegal immigration is bad, and should be fixed!

On to more fun stuff!

Religion in Schools!

No place for it. I have never been a religious person, but I see no reaso to keep religion in schools. To what purpose does prayer in schools serve? Does it help to stabalize minds or something? I realize that America is supposedly a nation founded on Chrisitan beliefs (Again, I could contest this until the cows came home) but it is no longer that way. Perhaps the fact that I live in Liberal Massachusetts has soemthing to do wth it,b ut the chruch just is not a dominating institute around here. The south, yeah, I suppose it is. However, America does not need to push its ideology and traditonalistic faith onto other people who dont want it. Thats what church is for, not schools. Schools are a place of learning, not of forced consent. So, in my opinion, there is no place for religion in school, unless in a religiously orientated school or perhaps in a class based on religion.

Next....

time!

I think thats enough politics for one entry. I have other beliefs, but I'll keep them to myself for now. Maybe next time, though.