So I'm Human, After All

OK, so this was a dramatic bust. I managed a whopping TWO (2) consecutive weeks of posting. To give you, gentle reader, the smallest insight into my mentality, understand that after missing the post on week 3, I became discouraged, and was too lazy to continue posting. I told myself that I had already failed at my goal, and so I took a trip to self-fulfillment town.

But enough about that. I won't make any dramatic "I'm Back!" statements, because, for all I know, this will be my last post for another three months. This post will be no celebration, because we celebrate achievement of goals, not stepping towards goals. It is only the last step that really matters, after all, the actual achieving what you set out to do.

But I digress. I am now going to Cheat, with a capitol "C", and do something my friend FUZZY does from time to time. It will make this post both entertaining and succinct, two things I have, thus far, failed to be. Without further ado, I give you:

SCATTER SHOT POST NO. 1 V. 2.0.4354, BETA:

• Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian are some movies that have come out recently. I have seen them all, and, on a scale from 1 to 10, I give them (in no particular order) 6.5, 7, and 9.
• With The Incredible Hulk coming out this summer, and Samuel L's appearance in the conclusion of Iron Man, I am downright giddy at the prospect of an Avengers movie. The comic book nerd inside me squeals with joy at the thought.
• Ant Man might just be pushing it.
• I am not currently at this second a student, for those of you interested. Although everyone knows that I will be an eternal student (unlike some losers.)
• I am, however, currently a successful gas station attendant. I work at a truck stop, so maybe "gas station" is misleading, but all I really do is run a cash register and make coffee. Not the most fulfilling work in the world, but it pays the bills. Well, it doesn't do that, either, but it's my closest approximation of that for the time being.
• I am also looking forward to the next semester. Better apartment, new classes with mostly material I don't already know, and I get to live with Lana again.
• In other news, I am living with dad for the summer. Close to work, and you can't beat the rent, but still. I digress.
• Expect a post in the near future detailing my adventures in the Big City. For now, suffice it to say that I spent a weekend in April in New York City, and I just couldn't get enough of it.
• On a parting note, I am spending most of my free time learning PHP and the MySQL system. And by "most of my free time", I obviously mean that I have become absorbed in Angel, and once I finish season 5, I will actually dedicate a real amount of time to it. If I don't decide to start Lost.

I guess that is all. I hope to post something more thoughtful later this week or next week sometime. Maybe something about the blatant sexism in certain television shows, or about parties' organizational meetings being the center of their own full day of television... I don't know. Probably something about television, and almost definitely not about the Singularity.

Conceived in Liberty

I have spent the better part of the last week wondering what I should write about this week. I have heard and read much that is worth discussing recently, so it is difficult to decide what to write about.

Unfortunately, I had the entire week to dwell on the idea that my second post, more so than the first, would establish the trend for what I would like to become a moderately-read blog. This made it harder to decide what I wanted to talk about, because though I feel a strong pull towards political topics, I have no real desire to make this a strictly political blog.

And then, as I watched an old episode of The West Wing, something occurred to me. This is not unusual in and of itself, as in the past year I've watched every episode of The West Wing at least twice, many three or four times, and a variety of things occur to me all the time. This, as they say, was different.

Martin Sheen was leading a group of recently sworn-in citizens in the Pledge of Allegiance. It is the end of the episode, and so the camera was fading out and panning away, but the audio remained through the entire pledge.

As I listened, I wondered many things. Why should someone bother to publicly pledge allegiance to something? Why a flag, of all thing a scrap of cloth? And the Republic? When someone talks about the Republic, my mind goes instantly to Congress, a body whose history of decision-making has been less than spotless.

But I digress. Allow me, if you will, to tell you what struck me most.

With Liberty and Justice for All.

The phrase stuck with me for a few moments. Justice was not difficult for me; we all want to make sure that Justice is done, and Plato can argue for weeks on what real Justice is. But what do we mean by Liberty, for All?

My first thoughts were along the lines of this: If we want Liberty for All, why do we have gun control laws? Drug control laws? Why do congressmen stand up and pledge Liberty For All, and then instigate debates on who's allowed to get married, and what women and their doctors can do, and how much money someone has to pay another person? Is not all law some violation of Liberty? Are there laws that preserve it?

And then I began to wonder, maybe I don't understand Liberty. Dictionary.com has several definitions of Liberty, three of which I've decided to commandeer for my own purposes:

1. freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.


2. freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.


3. freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.

Right away I notice a common thread among these definitions. Liberty is Freedom. But that is the same simple definition I had used in my own mind before.

The founding fathers obviously had a great deal of appreciation for definitions number 1 and 2. They spent years fighting off an oppresive government, and rightfully praised the concept of a Liberty that frees people from despotic government control. A Liberty that ensures a freedom from a government so greatly disconnected from it's people.

That must have been what they meant when they penned that Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness were unalienable Rights.

My biggest question is about the third definition I have here. Are we, as a people, still concerned with Liberty? Not the kind of Liberty that we worry about Great Britain taking from us, I don't think Gordon Brown has much interest in reclaiming the colonies.

If we are concerned with Liberty, then shouldn't I hear less clamoring to increase restrictions on how people live? If we are not concerned with Liberty any longer, then why do we still pledge to the Republic, one Nation under God, with Liberty and Justice for All?

But then, nobody is perfect. Everyone has what they believe is right, and what they want for their communities and their countries. We all have a desire to pursue what we see as perfection, to make the world a better place. So maybe we pledge the flag, that symbol of the Republic, with the promise that we will take our Nation toward the ideals of Liberty and Justice, for all. And who knows, maybe some day, we'll get there.

Jumping In

I have decided to go ahead and post a second time tonight, partially because my first post didn't really do what I want to do with this blog, but also because I feel like talking. In the future, I'm sure I will practice saving such rants, and posting them at a later time, to keep a steady schedule. I've heard that professionals do this, and it sounds like a good plan.

Today is Tuesday, the 11th day of March, in the year of our Lord, Two Thousand Eight.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are avidly pursuing the Democratic nomination for the upcoming Presidential election, and if you didn't know that, good; I enjoy being a source of information for people.

We arrived at this place, for those of us who remember, after over a year of unprecedented campaigning. No sooner did votes come in in 2006, electing a Democrat Party majority to both the House and the Senate, than droves of people started declaring their candidacy for the Presidency. The reason for this, most pundits say, is because of how dissatisfied the majority of Americans are with the current administration.

Now, 16 months later, We the People can see that the next President of our country, and by association the next scapegoat for all of our problems, will be one of three career politicians. (I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being a career politician, but there are many who distrust Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain because they are politicians, regardless of their actions and beliefs. In a representative Democracy, we cannot ignore these people.)

The Republican nomination has been sealed up by John McCain. 10 weeks ago, this looked like a nearly impossible prospect, with Rudy Giuliani the national favorite, Mitt Romney having the biggest checkbook, Mike Huckabee rousing an evangelical host, and the Ron Paul movement, a phenomenon of Internet grassroots in and of itself. Iowa gave Huckabee a boost, but McCain's strategy did not include as much Iowa campaigning as Romney and Huckabee did. Huckabee's victory in Iowa helped McCain to convince New Hampshire that Romney was not the right person. McCain's victory in New Hampshire provided him all the momentum he needed. By the time Super Tuesday rolled around, Giuliani and Thompson had dropped out. McCain's appeal to moderate Republicans (at least as opposed to Romney or McCain) landed him a tremendous victory, prompting Romney to drop out. A month later, McCain had enough delegates to seal the nomination.

The Democrat race was much of the same, until March 4th. An underdog won Iowa, and the early favorite won New Hampshire. From there, it was a footrace, with John Edwards grabbing delegates sporadically, but nowhere near as effectively. He dropped out before Super Tuesday.

Early February results were split for Sens. Clinton and Obama. The race was on, and the American people watched. For four weeks, the campaigns shifted between
passive aggressive attacks and near-fraternal bonding. As the March 4th Primaries approached, Clinton's campaign seemed to get more desperate, and Obama's seemed less stable. Clinton won Ohio, Obama won Texas, and the whole day was nearly a wash.

And here we are. As I type this, CNN.com is reporting a landslide victory for Obama in Mississippi, which will change virtually nothing. In six weeks, Pennsylvania votes. As a native of Pennsylvania, I am looking forward to seeing the candidates campaign here, but I will not be surprised by the results of our election. Clinton will take a solid victory, and the nomination will remain undecided.

Many say that this conflict is good for the Party, and many say that it will tear the Party apart, or, at the very least, cost us the election in November. Here is the part where you get to hear what I think.

As an American citizen, Senator Clinton has the right to run for President. Nobody has the right to expect her to drop out. Having said that, she is not going to win. Obama is young, charismatic, educated, and not perceived as a life member of the DC Club, and all of these are things that Democrats want in a candidate. The longer she keeps her campaign going, the more damage she does to herself and to the eventual nominee. Even now, I am listening to Chris Matthews tell me how her infamous 3 A.M. advertisement is an inexcusable, racist attack against a bright young politician. I hear that she has practically endorsed McCain, saying that only she and McCain have the experience to be president "on the first day".

As much as I support any American's right to pursue public office, there comes a time when you need to put transparent personal ambition aside and help the country by supporting the candidate who will be the best President.

In The Beginning...

This is the first post of my new blog. I have attempted to blog before, and it has always failed. Today, however, I will start something new, and I will follow through with it. I will endeavor, weekly, to regale any who desire to peruse this blog with my thoughts and ideas about politics, theology, economics, philosophy, and other topics people feel awkward talking about in public places. The challenge, for myself, will be to keep up constant posts. As such, if you, good reader, are digging in an archive of my posts and find discrepancies and lackluster prose among them, please be kind. It is hard enough for me to do anything with consistency, so if I've made it more than 10 weeks, be impressed.