A Political Question, Or Not

Gay rights and gay marriage is a hot button issue, mostly because it deals with one of the fundamentals of religious belief, marriage. An example of a recent controversy is the bill signed by the Washington governor which guarantees gays equals rights in everything but marriage. A petition was then created against the bill. The petition did not change anything, but sparked a whole new controversy, when the names of the signers were demanded to be released. (I will talk more about this specific point next week in a post about the freedom of speech).
I do not believe that homosexuals or any other sexual divergent should not have the same rights as all other Americans. Whatever they are doing is not anyone's concern including the government. This is fundamentally not a political issue because it does not affect the entire populace. Also, if we start limiting the rights of one group, then that opens the door to start limiting the rights of any other group not in favor. If we do not guarantee the same rights to homosexuals and others now, future generations may look back at us the same way that we look back on the 60's and before.

To Punish, or not to Punish

I was watching the news tonight and I saw a story about a highschooler that has been suspended for having a weapon on school property. Now this sounds reasonably until you hear the background. The kid is an Eagle scout who, when he was 13, saved his cousin's life. The weapon in question was a 2-inch knife locked-up in his car. It was part of an outdoor's survival kit that he kept in his trunk. Now, I agree that we need to be tough on anyone bringing weapons to school, but this is ridiculous. The knife was obviously unaccesable to the student during school, it was below the legal definition of a weapon, and it was part of a survival kit, something that should be encouraged, not discouraged. I also like something that the kid said. He pointed out that if you are using this definition of a weapon, then the baseball team should not have bats. As he said, whether something is a weapn is definded by the intention. Not all gun owners are serial killers. The larger point here, is that we need to better define what should be considered a weapon for school purposes. Obviously, a gun or a large knife should be considered weapon, for other things we must take into account accessibility and probable intention before we go about ruining kids lives.

Divided We Stand

It seems like nowandays that Republicans and Democrats are always fighting. If the Republicans support something the Democrats are against it, and vice versa. There seem to be very few issues that they actually agree on. The focus has been lost on making America a better place and has shifted to getting their own political agendas.
Our founding fathers created our two party system so as to facilitate discussion and debate of the issues. The problem is that instead the opposite is happening. It has become more about the argument then the actual issue behind it. I am not advocating a one party system, that is even worse. We just need our politicians to try to solve problems together instead of voting along party lines.

Big Brother is Watching You

I was reading my local newspaper this morning, and I discovered something disturbing. It is

currently illegal in my home state for the government to put cameras on the

highways, but it looks like that could be about to change. A neighboring state has DEA

cameras in locations on its highways that take pictures of the front and back license plate

of passing cars. These are supposed to be used to help stop drug trafficking and to locate

stolen and wanted vehicles. Now, this sounds perfectly legitimate at face value, but you have

to consider that this would give the government ability to basically track the movements

of people. Some people may contest that the information will not be used in anyway but to stop

criminal activity. There are 2 issues with that though. First, rights to privacy can be a slippery

slope. If you let one thing get by then soon it will be another thing and another and so on. I

don't mean to sound like and alarmist or a conspiracy theorist, but we must be careful about

the powers that we give our governments. If we don't, then George Orwell's 1984 will become

a reality. Second, law enforcement has a surprisingly bad record of deciding what should be

considered acceptable as far as who to watch out for. There have been cases of police putting

anti-war protesters and such on watch lists. Even undercover investigations and police could

be considered threats to our privacy. Now, I am not saying that police and law enforcement

personal are bad, it is just that we need to draw the line and clearly state what law enforcement

can and cannot do in order to carry out investigations and uphold the rule of law, lest we become

like Nazi Germany or countless other examples. Sometimes you have to wonder whether Orwell

was paranoid, or psychic.