Hipocrisy?

The presidential race has heated up lately, with the finishing of the DNC and the flurry of press reports about the republican veep Sarah Palin. This has also brought up a flurry of attacks between the two parties. Accusing each other of things like Biden's comments when he was running for the democratic nominee. All in all, these issues are trivial compared to what the race should be focusing on, the policies.

American politics has divided itself into two major parties, with a few others like green and independents(and oxymoron in itself.) There are the liberals, and there are the conservatives. Now I'd like to discuss some important issues that have becomes the center of this race.

The first will be the all important issue of free healthcare for all the citizens. This issue has befuddled me for awhile. How could the self proclaimed richest country in the world not afford health care for its citizens when places like Canada could. Obama promises to bring this to the citizens. The main critiques of this policy claim where the money will come from for this luxury. Hypocrisy rears its giant head here. It may be safe to say that the most conservatives, not all(stereotyping is bad,) support the war. This great war on terrorism. Oh wait, mission has been accomplished. But wait a second, how come we still have troops in Iraq, people dieing left and right? Oh now we're liberating a nation. Spreading democracy. But I'll dive into this issue of the war another time. What really causes hypocrisy to rear its head is the hundreds of billions(with a b) that has been funneled into the this "liberation." It should be safe to say that this could cover the cost of healthcare, and maybe a couple other things this government is failing to pay for. Maybe the debt we are in could be a little less, let's say.... GIANT.

Conservatives leap and yell when it comes to tax raises. But in the end, what's the point of a government when they can't do anything? Most conservatives tend to have, a deep pocket. And cutting into their income and savings could seem like a perfect reason to be angry. Let's say we don't tax the poor, we can tax the poor people right? Where will we get money to fix bridges so we don't have another accident like recently. How will the government pay for all the things we take for granted.

I may be a little biased, with my liberal ideals, but if you read carefully, everything I said has been backed and reasoned to a point where I find it hard to argue. Feel free to send me your arguments so I can rebuddle, because I believe that although things are sometimes so blatantly right, people tend to always find counter arguments.

~Leonard

Racism

This issue has become more prevelant to me in the past few months. With the possible election of an african american president, a fervor has spawned involving the issue of race. "Is America ready for a black president?" is a central question that can be seen in almost all the media campaigns. When this question is asked, no "racism" is intended by the common definition in today's society. But, very subtly, it is still racist. If we truely want to see racism go away, we must forget the racial separations.

This brings up another topic that many civil rights people and anti-racism movements have fought for, integration. This was a good start, but is also, inherently racist. The fundamentals of integration cause us to think that a certain race has to be integrated into society. The fact of the matter is, to truly get rid of a racism, the fact race exists must be forgotten. This is a far fetched and maybe impossible goal for us as a human race to reach, because it may just be in human nature to judge people for who they are by their appearance.

My generation was raised in methods strewn with sayings like don't judge a book by its cover. It's things like these we must learn to embrace. It may be in the human nature to judge people, but it doesn't mean, like all bad habits, that it can be changed. I believe this is the first step to erasing racism and all the other -isms. It is too late to educate the already educated. Their views and beliefs have been set in stone, usually things they grew up saying or believing. It is too hard to change their views. My ethics teacher at Eaglebrook said, he liked teaching 9th grade ethics, because he believed that this was the point in life when a person starts to form his opinions and views. He said the flaw in college ethics classes is, by then, the student has already chosen his position, and it will be much harder to let them see the light.

What has happened, has happened, and we must move on. Racism has been a dark time in our history, but now we must work to change it. Too quote The Dark Night, the night is always darkest before the dawn. Hopefully we can make this the darkest point. We can educated our children. They will be the sun rising. They will bring light to the next chapted in history. We may take our inherent, unintentionally racist feelings to the grave with us, but we can work hard to engrain the opposite into our children. And, with luck, they will do the same to our children. I believe the only step in fixing this issue is with education. No more protesting for equal rights, no more fighting for new laws. Those issues have been worked the best they can. The only thing we can do now, is educate the next generation, so they will not have to deal with the problem at all.

~Leonard

Quicky

Been a busy couple of days so I haven't had time to posts so i'll do a quick one(really quick one)

Michael Phelps, godlike, 1 hundreth of a second? it's almost impossible to believe.

oh and NBC, wayyyy too many commercials

Torture

Ahh yes, one of the hot topics in today's ethics world. Should torture be legal? Well, let's start with a hypothetical situation. A suspect has been arrested and detained. His captures received a tip or some other form of information that leads them to believe that there is a bomb ready to blow in a highly populated city, let's say, Manhatten. Do we torture him? On the chance that the hurting of this one man could save millions? Is his life equal to all those?

Well that brings us into the great ethical discussion of human life. How do you weigh human life? Personally, I don't think it can be weighed. How do you weigh two people? Is one better than the other? Well they have to be different. But how can you decide how many people are worth one person? This will always be an unanswered question. Is it worth it, although unsure if he actually has the information, to perhaps mentally and physicall scar, or even kill, this person to save the lives of many? The easy answer is to say yes, but is that the most ethical?

How ethical is torture? It may seem very ethical in that situation. All the lives saved. But we know that is an extreme example. Torture has popped up in extremely less dangerous situations, and does that make it less ethical? Can torture be ethical at all? Is the humiliation, pain, and suffering of a person ethical? Personally, I don't stand behind torture. Sure interrogation is alright, but I'm not so sure about these new "enhanced techniques" that seem to be becomming more popular.

That brings us the, oh you guessed it, hot topic of torture, water boarding. Is it torture? Well the definition of torture according to the UN any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.(Wikipedia) That seems like a good base to start our arguments with. Let's see, severe pain or suffering whether physical or mental. Personally the act of drowning, even though fake, is pretty distressing mentally. I've always said to anyone that would listen, if someone doesn't think waterboarding is torture, how about we take them outside for a couple hours with some ceram wrap and a host and see what his position is afterwards. Now I have never been waterboarded, so I can only speculate, but my guess is it's not a very comfortable thing to do.

So is water boarding torture? In my book, anything that's not asking questions is torture. Now is torture ethical? That is a question that may be debated for eons. It seems, that in most cases, people think a certain degree of torture is permittable under certain circumstances. Now if that person could be coerced to reveal information on the bomb in Manhatten, I'd probably be fine with it. But if someone had their toenails ripped out until they revealed the hidden location of their base? I'm not so sure. But wait a second.... Why would be at war anyways? Ahhh but that will be a topic for another post, the great topic of war.

~Leonard

Global Warming

Now i'm almost 100% sure the all you readers will know what this is. The infamous threat to our earth. In the past few years it has created a frenzy of environmentalist movements. One of the most famous, you all must know, is Al Gore, ex vice president and presidential nominee. Now this new hype, coupled with rising fuel costs and other things, has cause a movement toward becoming green. A lot of companies are advertising their "planet saving" methods to show consumers that they are helping to save the earth. Every commercial break you can find talks about renewable energy, getting off oil, etc. The idea of saving our earth has become increasingly popular.

The extremely high oil prices are probably the primary source for this renewable energy movement. The popularity of the Prius and other hybrid cars, and the dropping sales of SUVs and trucks can show this. But is this green "fad" really authentic. Do people really want to save the earth? or do they just want to save a different green. OK, gas prices are high, I buy this car, and I will save money. Oh, and while I'm at it, It'll be better for the environment. Seems like a win win situation. But does that mean people truly care?

When people talk about the environment nowadays, it mainly spans between the two topics forementioned, global warming and the search for renewable energy. Now I do agree that these are important topics, but it seems to have drawn peoples eyes away on things that are more easily fixed and equally important. Now I'm not a scientist, I won't claim to be one, so I can't say anything about global warming. Sure there are signs that point to it happening, there are also signs that point to it being false. The thing is, global warming isn't the only thing that needs attention. Although the backing was weak, some may remember a few years back a bit of a push for deforestation. What happened? I do not know, but now I see nothing about it. The problem is it is still going on. People are still illegalling cutting down trees, destroying habitats, killing endangered species. People are expanding, destroying the wilderness, encroching onto every inch they can.

We had a discussion in my English class 2 years ago while reading the book Into the Wild. It was a good book, I will recommend it to all of you, but that discussion is maybe for another post. The topic of our discussion was, Is there any true wilderness left in this world. We spent about 45 minutes trying to bring up places and discuss whether or not. In the end, we had to stretch things to make it seem so.

Humans have been set back disease and plagues throughout history. But one downfall we seem to have is that we do not realize that our history isn't the only one that matters. Probably the most important one that everyone fails to realize, is the earth's history itself. It has been destroyed slowly by a plague, parasite, however you want to call it. That is us. We have sapped as many resources we can. We continue to expand, destroying things in our path. Now I myself cannot change anything I know that. Neither can you. But i believe the most important and first step that can be taken in solving a problem is education. Sure you can hand condoms to all the people in the world. That doesn't mean they will practice safe sex, or know why it will help them. People must be educated, and this is what I am trying to do. Hopefully you will help pass this message on, and maybe, together, we can all make a different.

~Leonard

Two party system, flawed?

Most people are familiar with our current form of government. The high and mighty democracy, power to the people, the only fair government, etc. But is our current system the best? Democracy's roots can be traced back in history to the Greeks. It is common for people to associate our form of democracy with the Greeks. But is that politically correct?(no pun intended.)

The Greek form of democracy was different, and in my opinion better. We all know, and most affiliate themselves with either of the two parties, Republicans or Democrats. Our form of government can be called a two-party system. Of course, this isn't entirely true with the appearances of the independents and green party, but for the most part it is. Now the Greeks ran a, in my opinion, superior form which one can call a non-partisan democracy. This form of government is very similar, minus the parties.

What is the problem with parties? Well, I don't want to be stereotypical, and I'm not saying this for all citizens of our country, but most people vote for their party in any election. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as, obviously, candidates running in certain parties will share views with most other members of their party. The flaw in this system can be seen in the less educated. People, again not saying all, not stereotyping, sometimes vote only within their party. Neglecting to read their positions on issues, sometimes not knowing issues, just voting because they are a republican and the candidate is republican or vice versa for democrats. Now this is not true in many circumstances. There are, I have talked to many, well informed and well researched voters. But, I have also personally experience many close minded people. A few friends from my school who I like very much, share extremely opposite "political views." I put that in quotes because it's a bit of a stretch to call them that. Now myself, I like the idea of a non-partisan democracy, but I'll get into that later. I would not classify myself as a Democrat, although I tend to have very liberal ideals. I would classify myself as my history teacher puts himself(he refused to vote in the last election because when he registered they wouldn't accept his party) as a Free Thinker. My friend, on the other hand, comes from a very rich, white, conservative family. As you could've guessed, both parents were republicans. Not very active republicans i might add, their main issues, if they had one, were monetary and finacial. Now their son, who is a very likeable person, inherited this conservative stance. Yet all he really knows is that he is republican. When we get into a political "discussion" I ask him about the Iraq war. He responds with, we're fighting terrorism, or destroying weapons of mass destruction. What is terrorism? Who exactly are we fighting? Why is Iraq terrorism? How many weapons of mass destructiong have we found? How many weapons of mass destruction do we have, and what right do we have going into other countries and telling them they can't have them? These questions are always diverted, never answered. His rebuddles almost always involved, you may have guessed it, money. Do you like high taxes? Why would you want to be taxed? My answer, alright we'll cut taxes and let all the roads crumble, not pay the soldiers risking their lives for a retarted war, and not pay our government officials. Those pay cuts will do wonders for the state of our country.

But enough with the ranting on conservatives, that small tangent shows that many people are ill informed. I even elect to not bring up other issues that he may have no idea about and may cause him to be embarressed. Yet whenever I ask him who he would vote for(we are too young to vote) he says the republican candidate. Bush, Bush, McCain, etc. Again I will stress I'm not going to stereotype, but their are many other people in the world like this. How fair is an election when half the people are voting for a candidate because they are in the same party, not because of their stances on important issues.

A non-partisan democracy would remove this. People would not be aloud to be lazy and vote for someone because they are a democrat or republican. There would be candidates, and when it came time to vote, the only way to chose one would be to look at the stances on issues and to chose the one that one feels is the most similar to ones. What really is point of parties? Sure it provides some backing for poorer candidates or help for people wishing to start up in the world of politics, but I believe if someone is truly qualified for being president, they will get it. Their are many people in this world who aren't dumb, and that person is bound to get notice sooner or later, no matter if they are born to a small family in the middle of California who struggles from month to month to pull up enough money to pay bills, or a person born to an estate house in the woods of New England.

-Leonard

P.S.(Don't know what to put after a blog)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-partisan_democracy Down in the disadvantages.

Voters may find voting on a party basis more convenient than learning the platforms of innumerable candidates. It may be easier for voters to simply learn a broad, philosophical agenda (ie: a party platform) towards governance / politics and support candidates who share it. Time and effort may be wasted trying to learn the individual opinions of each separate candidate for each separate office when it would be simpler for them to just identify on a common platform. Critics will argue that during contentious elections parties will de facto emerge on this basis anyway. For example, if a community's most pressing public debate was over whether or not to build a new library, it would be expected that some candidates would support the idea, and others not. Voters may thus make their decisions bases solely on who is willing to identify as being on "their side" of the issue, even for officials whose office is not directly related to the decision, solely on the basis that "they think like me."

The Olympics

Athletic Gathering? or Political tool?

Are the Olympics just a place where athletes can compete against each other for individual and national glory? Or is that national victory projected onto a larger scale. Most slightly-educated people will remember the 1936 Olympics which were held in Germany. It was used by Hitler to extend his Nazi propaganda.

During this years Olympics, the idea of using the Olympics as a political tool can be seen extremely clearly. During the opening ceremony a large portion of the commentary involved describing and explaining the different acts and shows. Many of them involved the artistic director trying to portray China, and this portrayal was showing the good side. A theme that was also emphasized in the ceremony was new beginning. They wanted to tell the world that China wanted a fresh start, a clean slate. They wanted a chance to erase the reputation their country has earned over history and to create a new one.

China is not the only one that is making political statements through these Olympics. Though subtle, we can see president Bush there. He gave interviews expressing that he came here, not only to cheer on the US team, but to discuss and improve relations.

This political tool can also be seen in the barring of president Mugabe from the olympics.

Are the athlete's vies for personal and national glory more than that? Are these victories weapons for nations to use in political war. Albeit the athletes are there to win, are the governments aspirations more than just a piece of shiny metal that can be hung around the neck.

Government involvement is seen all around the Olympics. The most prominent for Americans although unknown to some, is the 1980 Olympic Games. Most people remember these games to be the famed gold medal for US Hockey team as they defeated the soviets. But these games were more than an inspirational David vs Goliath victory. During these games, the infamous Cold War was raging between the Soviets and the US. When the soviets rolled tanks into Afghanistan, the US made threats to boycott the summer Olympics which were being held in Russia. During the winter Olympics, the US victory did more than give them a gold medal. It gave the US another victory in the Cold War.

However subtle it may be, or blatantly obvious, the Olympics have become a tool in which countries can use. Being an athlete myself, we know that the athletes are competing for glory. This does not mean that the government cannot exploit this glory for political leverage. For now, we can hope that battles will stay at the use of weapons like elegance and gracefulness used in synchronized swimming, instead of guns and missiles used in war.