Light

I feel that I am at a crossroads in my life. As with most things, I view the future with a positive light, but I'm not too sure that that perspective is justified. I don't mean to imply that I don't see that life is worth living or anything, but I intend to lower my expectations slightly. Firstly, with my summers being devoted to important things, I'll have about 6 or so weeks off during the year before I get a full-time and perhaps fewer than that starting out my professional career. Living the 5-day week life has been sustainable for now, but I don't know how long that will last, particularly because of how college life is structured differently than the job-going life.

I don't know why I'm even typing. Nobody will read this and I don't even feel I'm going anywhere. Ok.

Back

So I suppose it is evident by now that this blog has an audience of one, and that is me. Its creation was purposeless and it seems that all I'll use it for now my pointless pansy ramblings to myself sprinkled with the occasional depressed shit, all the while being pretentious as fuck.

Today I changed how I felt about a person. I always thought this person was kind at heart and worthy of my trust, but today I decided otherwise. This person felt like going behind my back and telling stories about how lame I am to people that I live near but haven't met yet, so that knocks out any potential friendships with them based on their biased first impressions of me. It is inevitable that somebody talks down to me behind my back but kindly to me, but I perhaps would be happier with myself if I wasn't aware of it. I mean really, if you're going to talk shit about me to the guy in the dorm right next to me while my door's open, shut his door first. Should you decide to be a bitch, at least be a slightly competent one and hide it from your victim.

Home

After just short of two months away at school, my best friend and I returned home for a weekend. It isn't over yet, but I'm starting to feel uncomfortable. My family loves me and I know that, I have a few good friends still here. Its not that I didn't want to come home, its that today I'm revisiting a past self that I've wanted to disassociate myself from. I felt like sleeping in my own bed last night turned back time two months and I'm still a high school graduate wondering what college life is like. I feel so dynamic and my location feels equally dynamic. I know this sounds pretentious, but it really is what I feel. I know that college life still includes time spent at home, but part of me doesn't want that, probably because I almost feel like my own person now.

Matter Of Belief

I hear the phrase "I don't believe in global warming" from time to time and it has a tendency to grind my gears. Look, I understand how you don't want to be independent of foreign sources of oil and you don't want to tax industries that pump shit into our lungs, but to simply deny that humans have had any effect on our environment is a very naive way to go about opposition to logic. Perhaps it has something to do with the Los Angeles and Mexico City pollution clouds not venturing to Iowa or rising sea levels not affecting our relationship with the ocean a thousand miles away. I suppose they can back up their ignorance, but out of that same ignorance comes their lack of a right to claim knowledge of the status of global ecosystem.

Untitled

So I went to church today for the first time in a very, very long time. Or at least it seemed like a time ago, I think its only been about 4 months, but considering all that's happened in my life recently, that's quite some time. What made it different this time is that I actually went on my own free will. I've been in college 6 weeks without going and nobody was stopping me from sleeping in till noon each Sunday. Except for a few fleeting moments, I've never actually wanted to go to church. I've always just gone so as to minimize guilt, and when I didn't go, I found some way to justify my absence.

It was more or less uneventful with a few nice tidbits sprinkled in. I was thoroughly impressed with the facilities. The place was either new or very well-kept and the parish area had an interesting design that put the altar in the middle of it all instead of at one end. It achieved a bit of a fresh and personal vibe that I dug. The only bad thing was that it was parent's weekend at school so the place was packed and flow in and out of the building was tricky.

The rest of the mass was little more than a series of slight variations on the Catholic mass that I grew up on. A few of the memorized lines were altered in terms of words, though their meanings didn't change. The pastor seemed younger by more than age, which was nice, and it seems the parish was half-student led.

I'd like to believe that it will be significantly different than my Catholic church of past, but I can't be too sure. I don't know what my future holds for this church, but I intend to return next weekend.

Of News

So I've been away at college for 3 weeks now and I'm really surprised about how big of a deal this whole transition isn't. Maybe there's something that's going to hit me soon, but I seem to be missing something. Or perhaps its because my parents gave me plenty of freedom while growing up, especially in my later years as a high schooler. Last year, I'd wake up, get ready and such, go to school, come home, waste time, and repeat. Nothing more really seems to be happening. I've been doing a hell of a lot more work this year than I did last year, but I have access to predominantly the same activities I was interested in before. I can still do anything I want on my computer (except for use bittorrent), I can still go to the gym, and I can still hang out with my friends when I want (well, not the friends I actually want to, but that's aside the point). I suppose it is surreal having an empty wallet and getting by easily, but the school essentially provides what I need and most of the freedom to do what I want.

Oh the flipside, there's nothing to do here, which will probably get old unless I develop a mass time-consuming hobby. Video games come to mind, but I'd really like pass my classes and not be everybody else who failed Physics 221 because of COD4. Chess seems like a suitable pasttime.

Lost

I can't fucking stand this. I've spend the past year of my life developing some of the best friendships I could imagine. Now, they're gone. Sure, I'll see them on break and yes I can talk to them on facebook, but I can't actually hang out with them. I can no longer stay up till 3am talking about nothing. I can't maintain and develop inside jokes and go days without the slightest bit of smalltalk. I can't trust anybody to be the true friends to me that I've had for the past several months. I fucking have no friends and it sucks balls. Yeah, I got people I can talk to, yeah, I got people I can hang out with, yeah, I have fun here and there, but I'll never had what I had but five days ago.

Where do I go from here? When I went into high school, I had no true friends and despite being oblivious to this, I kept going along thinking I had some. I took years to develop true friendships. Fuck, I didn't hang out with anybody until sophomore year. At least in high school, I was forced into social circumstances and I knew what I was doing here and there. I can't tell you how fucking sick I am of telling people my major and where I'm from. Holy shit, will it ever end? I don't want to talk smalltalk for the rest of my life.

How'd I get my good friendships? Well, one of them more or less came from talking about band and school and a girl. Another friend came from being friends with the first, and another friend came from a friend of mine dating her. I'm not in band anymore, so there's one tally erased from the board, though I don't know if that's from the column that records pros or cons. I guess I could talk about my classes, but the only classes I care about are ones that are basically sophomore classes that I shouldn't be in and I feel really arrogant when I let people know where I'm at. It takes no Plato to figure that hanging out with my friends' girlfriends is a bad idea. For that matter, I have so few fucking friends that none of my friends even have significant others.

I have no friends and I don't know how to make them. Fuck, I don't want to make them. I want the ones I had. I'm fucking lost. Somebody help me.

Of Baseball And Steriods

As with sports in general, baseball rarely catches my interest, but I occassionally come by things that I can't not say anything about. This steriod scandal that's been happening for the past decade or so in the sport has almost reached the point of absurdity. I just watched David Ortiz's press conference; rumor had it his name was on a list of people that tested positive for steriods in 2003. Mr. Ortiz talked for a few minutes and denied any allegations that he took drug and then Michael Weiner, MLB Players' Union Chief, talked for longer and ran the media through every hoop possible to try and make the claim that the list meant nothing and that nobody knows anything about who tested what for what. I thought about it for a second and realized what the MLB is, has been, and will try to do. It is obvious that a number of big-name players are in the mud of this scandal. If the MLB did the logical thing by finding out who took the PEDs and punishing them, (I'm assuming they would be off the diamond for quite some time) the league would lose a very substantial portion of its following. Without star players, ticket sales will plummet and ESPN will have to find some other summer sport to fill the months with. I don't claim to know everything about the sport, but I'd be willing to wager that if overall ticket sales fell 10-20%, a few troubled teams and/or stadiums would go under. Instead of letting this happen, the MLB will draw this all out for attention and end up letting the big names off the hook so as to not lose fan support.

Eighteen

I turned 18 today. Not much happened. I woke up at 10, learned a couple riffs, played a couple games of chess, went to the gym, ate, ran, and hung out with a friend. I really wasn't expecting to feel any different, but the little change I expected to happen didn't. Maybe its because I didn't do anything BA and go to a strip club or smoke a pack of cigarettes, but the 18th birthday thing seemed like another faux-momentous moments, like senior year, high school graduation, and a few other things that have brought me slightly closer to adulthood. All of these things seemed like they were just things that were done, things that didn't change much; you just do it and then move on. I'm really hoping college won't be like this, because I'm really looking forward to being less of a pretend person.

Look at me, I'm a Communist!

Quite frankly, I'm a bit ticked off that Obama hasn't begun to address how we are going to pay for our massive bailouts and a mega health care bill, but what's frustrating me more is how people are treating the change in presidential policy.

Obama is not a Socialist. Obama is not a Communist. Obama is not a fascist. Obama is not a Muslim. Obama is not a Socialist.

Socialism is a form of government in which the government, among other things, levees high taxes, spends massive amounts of money, controls the bank, and suppresses individual freedoms. Right now, Obama hasn't done hardly any of this. He isn't taking away anybody's rights. He hasn't changed gun ownership rights, nor changed how the FCC, nor anything else pertaining to individual rights, really. In fact, the only thing he's done in this field is allow states to do their own thing and decide amongst themselves whether or not they want to discriminate against homosexuals. He's not raising taxes on the whole, unless, of course, you've heard that one guy say that he heard about him raising taxes, in which case he's raising taxes a tenfold. We're in a recession and he knows better than to raise taxes. He doesn't own the banks. Congress decided that it would be worth it to bail out some banks (with a huge price tag, woot) but he doesn't control what they do with the bailout cash. I don't think anybody really wants the government to own the banks and most people want to get the government out of the banks as soon as its possible to do so without losing our nation's creditors. And he's calling for substantially increased government funding, but that's precisely what we need in this time. The government creating jobs is what undid Hoover's failures and it will do the same about Bush's. He's going to the left, but he's going to stop before we are a socialist nation.

What's also grinding my gears is how people don't know the difference between Communism and Socialism. Communism essentially has no government, much unlike Socialism. Communism is a form of 'government' in which people put into the pot what they can and take out what they need. It won't work with real humans, but in a perfect world, it would be utopia. Communism didn't ruin nations like China, a failed attempt at Communism that turned out to be fascist dictatorship did. Obama is not a dictator and he never will be, so stop thinking we are going to start a neo-Communist revolution.

An Absurdity

I'm watching Fox News right now, because I have nothing better to do in my life. I checked out Comedy Central and it didn't catch my interest, so I went to the most amusing network on television. They are seriously trying to make the argument that Sarah Palin's resignation will boost our economy. Usually I can see the conservative perspective on things, but for the life of me, I can't see their argument here. We all know that she's going to spend the next two years roaming the country, getting paid obscene amounts of money to make poorly developed speeches to her conservative fans, but she seems to forget that 80% of America can already see through her Rove-with-a-vagina conservative appeal. its also no news that she is going to make a run for the White House, but she and her brainwashed idiots at Fox News seem to be the only ones that haven't got the memo yet. She has no credentials. She has no foreign policy experience. Aside from going to five different schools to get her bachelor's in journalism, her only credentials include failing at being the last breath from a dying McCain campaign and failing her Alaskan citizens (all 686,293 of them) when she decided not to follow through on her promise to serve her four year term as governor. If she manages to brainwash the 60 million votes she'll need to steal it will be the worse mark on our nation's record since Reagan sleeping in meetings, Eisenhower saying that Brown v. Board was a mistake, or Hoover falling asleep at the wheel of a falling economy.

Social Networking Utility?

Facebook has to be one of the most overrated things to come to fame in the past decade. Somehow, newscasters and most adults got the impression that one single website defines our generation, when really, it just damages it. I'd be great if facebook took two years back. Maybe if they stopped changing formats, kicked the ridiculous apps and pointless quizzes, and make it less of a stalkerbook, it would actually be a social networking utility. Its hardly social nowadays. At first, facebook chat seemed like a step forward because it made it so you could have a conversation with somebody without people stalking it and without having to refresh the page constantly. But soon, the appeal wore off when servers became unreliable and people realized it was just a nooby version of AIM and only served a real purpose if you were online all the time. Nobody writes on others' walls anymore and nobody unassociated with stupid groups and events bothers sending messages. There's some merit to the networking aspect of it, I guess. But wouldn't it make more sense to network at work or at meetings than on a site most businessmen avoid?

There are a couple redeeming aspects of it. It sometimes actually helps organize events and provides people with a way to talk to people when they're afraid of talking to an actual person. One of my friends says, "the point of facebook it to talk to people you wouldn't otherwise talk to." I've talked to a dozen or so people on facebook that I wouldn't have spoken to otherwise, but I'd be able to live without those pointless little side conversations. But I'll admit its a good way to keeping in touch with high school friends during college, to whatever extent that's appealing.

I remember about a week after I got my account, when I got used to how things work and such, I thought I was missing something. Its like...what happens now? I'm still wondering. I've wasted so many hours on facebook its not even funny, and I know thousands of other teens have as well. Worth it? Doubt it.

from

from a flame

comes sorrow

the fire that burns a home

comes pain

the fire that burns the skin

comes love

the fire that burns a matrimonial candle

comes peace

the fire that burns a cremation

comes another mind

the fire that burns a joint

No Thanks

Porn has it place in society, though I can't believe its a good one.  People can do it if they want; their decisions, though likely destructive, aren't mine to make.  That doesn't bother me that much.  What does bother me, however, is when it isn't a matter of choice.  Even before midnight, there are Girls Gone Wild ads on Comedy Central.  No thanks.  Do not want.  I don't want my Reno 911 interrupted by reminders of how big the porn industry is.  It is my decision if I want to partake in such activities.  Or at least it should be.  I don't want to see hardly-censored tits when I'm at a stage in my life where I want to make generally good decisions.  Like any guy who has the balls to admit it, I've done that stuff in the past (and regretted it), and for me, that's where I'm hoping it stays.  If I want to change that, it should be my choice, not anybody else's.

Besides, if you want to do that, are 20-second Comedy Central ads really the place to go?

Of Things Lost

High school is no longer mine.  Its not like I'm leaving my home for college; when that happens I'll be welcome back.  I'm leaving high school for good.  No coming back.  No more first days of school, no more cramming for AP tests, no more staying up late for homework I've had dozens of hours to do, no more band concerts in my sweaty oversized tux, no more shitty band camps, no more competitions to see who can take more AP classes than everybody else, no more calculating to see if my GPA is above 4.165 or not, no more Supernova, no more audience-less jazz band competitions, no more thrills marching on the feild at Valley, no more listening to Dub push her students, no more 7 a.m. classes, no more waiting 10 minutes to get from the North lot to my house two kilometers away.  I'll go back, but none of that will ever be mine again.

Not Ready

Its 2 in the morning.  In four hours, I will wake to my final day of high school.  I can't even believe this is happening.  No moment has ever been this bittersweet.  I really don't think I'm ready to do this.  I've been telling myself for the past 14 months that life in Ames is going to be great and I'll do just fine but that was just a shield to hide behind the fact that Kennedy is my home.  I have another home, but Kennedy is really where I'm at.  I can't begin to compare myself to the person I was coming out of Franklin.  So much has happened to me here that I can't imagine life without it.  Even during breaks, it was all about Kennedy.  My life has been focused around band and homework for the past four years.  My friends have been entirely out of Kennedy and overwhelmingly in the band program.  I'm not going to be in the Kennedy band next year.  Am I going to fall off the deep end like I did in my transition four years ago?  I am being forced out of my water.  I can't do this.

Of Summer

Perhaps the fondest memories of my childhood came from summer.  The only obligations back then were ones I looked forward to: baseball practice, golf lessons, and family swim at the pool.  The rest of the time was spent walking outside in bare feet, on dying grass, in front of the TV or behind a plate of fried food.  I walked my dog today with no shoes on and it felt like summer.  By the time I arrived at home, I was sweaty, my feet were dirty, and I just wanted to lay down on my couch.  It was comforting, but at the same time, those days are almost gone.  I'll be waking up early every day to go to work and some days I might be working a night job.  I won't be able to stay up late and sleep in till 2 when I have a legitimate job in a few years, and I doubt my parents will let me not search for a summer job in college.  I hope those lazy days of summer aren't lost.

Post Not

Seeing as this blog is generally an account of things that I think about, I recently felt a need to blog about my prom, which was this past weekend.  I could write a lot about how our decisions now affect our futures, how drastic the divisions between social cliques was, and how some people showed their true colors in light of such a socially significant event, but that's been done before.  However, one thing I learned that I can put words to is that its possible to have an absolutely amazing time without making any potentially harmful decisions, something I hope to never forget.

Of Arguing

I had an awful argument with a friend of mine recently.  What was discusses is irrelevant to this blog, but it and some other events have changed my opinion on arguing.  Its supposed to be two people or groups of people sharing their viewpoints.  Assuming that happens, what really happens?  People rarely change their beliefs and when you pit opposing forces together, all they do is push.  I guess people sometimes change what they think about something, but in my experience, it happens more as group polarization than anything.  The prime example is atheist-christian debates.  I've never even heard of people changing sides.  All that happens is the Christians become more Christian and the atheists more atheistic.  Both sides get more pissed off, stubborn, and any chance of change is thrown out the window.  Those debates usually open with something like "no good society prevents these debates from occurring," but I'm at a loss to find any positive effect of those debates other than people finding what they believe is legitimate justification for their beliefs.  I'm probably neglecting a number of good arguments I have had in the past, but it seems that I always leave an argument worse off than I was when I entered it.

Cycles

For years now, I've been passing through cycles of self-confidence and self-pity.  I reminisce on my past more than I should and I seem to have some distorted perception of my own self that makes md blind to all of my successes and only look back on my failures.  I can tell myself that if I would have done things differently, I would turn out better.  I can point to hundreds of decisions I've made in the past four years that I wish I didn't.  But then again, who can't?  I've done things with my life so far than millions of other people never could, and likewise, millions of other people will always be ahead of me in some game of life.  I figure its about time to accept that I'll always be above the bottom and below the top.

Next Time

Several times today, I've heard or been told to do something different "next time."  Its a decent philosophy to follow for things like free throws and chinese food, but it doesn't really apply to things that matter.  As much as I want one, I won't get a second chance at high school.  I won't be able to change my past, even though I have in my mind exactly everything I would have done differently.  I can't change the words I've said and regretted saying, I can't change the friendships I've messed up, I can't allocate the past seventeen and a half years of my life differently, and I sure can't change the addictive decisions I've made in the past.  Why do they say "next time" when the last has already come?

What changed?

After the first 100 days of his presidency, I'm wondering what all Obama changed.  We're still spending our asses off in Iraq, Bin Laden is still on the loose, he isn't attacking our economic crisis with policies that are vastly different than Bush's, and the Mexican border is still unsafe.

Some states can no longer discriminate against homosexuals.  There's a plus, but that happened at the state level, not the federal level.

And racism still exists.

Our Congress is still broken and our representatives unaware of what matters to people outside of Washington.  Fuck, when are things actually going to change?

A Ride Down Memory Trail

No, I'm not trying to win an award for lame post titles, though I have a feeling I might get nominated for one.

After work today, I went for a bike ride with my brother.  It lasted two hours and we went on a trail and a few roads that I feel I spent half my child.  I switched off with my brother between the only two bike I've been on since I got my training wheels off.  Everything was so small.  The epic trail that took me ages to ride however many years ago took me half an hour to do twice.  The massive downhills that used to exhilarate me now disappoint.  The joy of reaching the top of a hill has been lost.

Spending time with my brother and releasing some endorphins was nice, though.

Forgotten

Last summer our city got rocked by an epic flood.  Right after it, there was the expected "outpouring of service" and "display of the goodness of humanity."  I haven't heard jack about it since.

Something Not

At the beginning of the year in an AP class last year, there was a quiet, reserved kid who kept to himself except when it came to class discussions.  By the end of the year, I was convinced he had low self-esteem and was socially awkward but very bright.

This year, I've seen him hanging out with a lot of druggies and skateboarding in front of the school that he is slowly giving up the opportunity to excel in.  He's not a great skateboarder and he still has the same look in his eyes, but I'm willing to bet he smokes pot now and doesn't do well in school anymore.

I only realized today that I could have been him if I didn't have friends pushing me to make smart decisions last fall.

Crossroads

I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above, have mercy now,
Save poor Bob if you please

Standin' at the crossroads, tried to flag a ride
Whee-hee, I tried to flag a ride
Didn't nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by

Standin' at the crossroads, risin' sun goin' down
Standin' at the crossroads baby, the risin' sun goin' down
I believe to my soul now, po' Bob is sinkin' down

You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
That I got the crossroad blues this mornin',
Lord, baby I'm sinkin' down

I went to the crossroad, mama, I looked east and west
I went to the crossroad, babe, I looked east and west
Lord, I didn't have no sweet woman, ooh well,
Babe, in my distress

I don't think Robert Johnson can help me much here, but I thought of his song when formulating this post.

I'm currently at a real crossorads with my faith. I really don't know which side to choose. I've learned that its entirely possible for somebody to be a terrible person despite a belief in a higher power, and its entirely possible for a honorable person to lack such beliefs.

Reasons I might become a Christian:

• There is extreme social pressure for me to join a community of faith.
• It seems that Christians generally live better lives than non-believers.
• There will always be somebody for me.  Even after I die, even when I sin, even when I do not return the favor, God will love me.

Reasons I might become an Atheist:

• The rift between science and faith is one that cannot be denied.  I'm sorry, but they just don't mix.
• I don't know what the peers of my future will believe.
• I'm really not sure I've decided that there's a single thing that can be better explained through faith than otherwise.  Its very wishy-washy.
• My personal beliefs don't coincide with what I think God wants me to believe.

So for now, I'm a swing voter.

Pride In My State

Last week, in a supreme court decision I was happy to hear of, my state legalized gay marriage.  I think it is discrimination to bar homosexuals from civil marriage.  God seems to have mixed opinions about homosexuals, so I don't know about gay marriages in churches, but certainly, in a court of law, there is no reason to call gay marriage illegal.  Such relationships cannot biologically produce children, but gays are most certainly capable of being good parents, especially when compared to how disappointing some couples' (or single parents') parenting skills are nowadays.  In all honesty, I think its a bit weird for two members of the same gender to marry, but if two souls are in love, the church shouldn't keep them from marrying in a courthouse.

Dear Conservatives,

Two of the platforms of the RNC include being against abortion and in support of the death penalty.  Doesn't that seem contradictory to you?  If "respect for life" is one of the pillars of conservatism, shouldn't you respect all life?  One of my favorite pieces of pro-life propaganda references how murderers of pregnant women are only charged with taking one life, as if the law doesn't believe a fetus is a human.  I haven't read up on this, but I'm willing to bet a limb or two that killing somebody on death row is still some form of murder.

So you'll fight so vehemently against the government for allowing women to take the lives of the unborn but you're totally cool with the government taking lives of the living?

What do they say at criminals' funerals?

Do they say "he was a good man, and he didn't mean to do what he did" because you can't speak poorly of a dead person?  Do they just ignore the wrongs of their lives?  Do they downplays their sins?  Do they ever say that they are terrible people, or just people that did terrible things?

Do they have funerals?

Dear Liberals,

I'm very proud of those left of me for fighting for basic human rights, like a court decision a few months ago that made it more difficult for war criminals to be held in prison without charges being brought against them, gay rights, and minority rights.  It really is honorable and gives me a moderate faith in the goodness of humanity as a whole.  What I really can't get my head around is that you'll fight for the all these human rights but you'll still let the unborn die.  Isn't that a violation of human rights to some degree?

Maybe I'm missing something. 

Are You Serious?

There are many things that disturb me about humanity. Among them are people that society generally shuns, such as child molesters, hunters of endangered animals, and mass murderers. There are others that scare me more, because they are so disgusting yet society accepts them as leaders and oracles. I’m talking about the wealth of douchenozzles on Fox News.

No, I’m not a Republican, so you can call me a liberal radical all you and your sorry ass want, but take a step back and look at what your media is doing. MSNBC is liberal and they know it. They are fair to Republicans and moderates, however. CNN is probably the fairest of the major cable news networks; they take a legitimately journalistic approach to the news, something that has been missing for years. But you guys take conservatism to such a level that sometimes I literally laugh out loud.

How can you call yourself a news network when you only tell the stories and the sides of stories that please your ears? How can you, Sean Hannity, say that you want Obama to succeed when you interview the comedic failure of a political commentator, Rush Limbaugh, who openly declares that he doesn’t want Obama to succeed, and agree with him? How can you dedicate a segment of your show to mocking “liberal scare tactics” when in fact every other point you make is dedicated to making Americans scared of those who don’t agree with every single ignorantly conservative policy you promote? And, my good friend Bill O’Reilly, do you really think it is a good idea to invite John McCain onto your “program” and attack him for attempting to break down the “white Christian male power structure” of America? Do you guys make those decisions with clear conscious or are you trusting Christians to subscribe to every part of the conservative agenda because you think that everybody who isn’t pro-life supports baby-killing?

What Drives Your Political Views?

I've thought about it long and hard, used my personal experience, and tried to observe others' behaviors, and I've come to the conclusion that the two most important factors in somebody choosing their political color are faith and family.

I personally adopted my parents' political views, of the Democratic Party. I have few friends that disagree with the politics that their parents raised them on. What I find most interesting are my friends with parents of conflicting political views. A friend of mine has a conservative mother and a liberal father. She has adopted a mix of the two views, liberal on economic policies but pro-life.

I have other friends that are Republican solely because of the teachings of their church, or more specifically, because they see being pro-choice as against God's will and baby-killing. A friend of mine who is very strongly religious is also very conservative in terms of politics.

Does this mean that God is pro-life, against gay marriage, but also believes in a small government? Not quite. Does this mean that gays have to believe in strong government? No. Well, it shouldn't, but in reality, that's how it works. I've come to believe that both sides of the economic debate are virtually equal in their merit. Economics is based off of tradeoffs and when both sides are equally right and wrong, you have to find something other than economics to form your own views, unless you want to draw your beliefs out of a hat. People turn to how they were raised or their faith to decide which side of the aisle to stand on. Its a shame that people don't have the balls to be pro-life and in support of reasonable government control or Atheist but in support of a minimal government. George Washington warned us of the demons that are political parties, and here were are, in the modern day, with millions of people voting for an array of beliefs based upon a few - or just one, as is often the case with strong pro-lifers.

We live in a society in which people will happily vote for representatives that only agree with one belief of theirs. God help us all.

Of Obamarama

I, like the rest of the country, watched Obama's ascent to the presidency and was impressed by the intensity of his following, both in excitement and numbers. It was amazing to see the massive crowds that poured out to watch his DNC acceptance speech, his Nov. 4 speech, and his inauguration. His public speaking skills are superb and the magnitude of his following is astonishing. Millions of people fleeing to see Obama, thousands upon thousands brought to tears. Millions and millions of campaign donations and tons of Obama fanboys/girls, of which I was one.

But where has all this energy gone? This "dawn of a new era" feeling that I felt on Jan 20 seemed to last until about midnight. What all will his millions of supporters do? The only role of the citizen in government is to elect representatives, and that's been done. Will crowds of people fix the economy? Will rallies help us find Bin Laden? Will the excitement and energy that got a black man with a name like Barack Hussein Obama elected do anything for our country before he runs for re-election? I haven't seen it happen yet and I fear it never will.

I (think I probably) Believe In God

Yeah, there ya go. I'm not an atheist, and I'm not sure I ever was. Atheism seems asburd. I'm not a really strong Christian and I doubt I ever will be. I don't attend church regularly, but I go to a religion class. Its just really easy to not go to church when Sunday is the only day of the week I can sleep in. I figure believing would be the first step to this whole Christianity thing.

My beliefs, mainly political, scientific, ethical, and moral, clash with the teaching of Christianity in general. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out.

I haven't changed my lifestyle to the Christian one that my friends tell me about. I don't think about God and Jesus regularly. I don't make decisions based off of what Jesus might do. I believe and do things that the God I believe in wouldn't approve of.

Its still in the back of my head that religion might be a hoax to instill morality and ethics into society and purpose and role models in individual's lives, but I don't really think that kind of a hoax would be a bad one.