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Archive for November, 2006

I’ve never been one to take risks in any part of my life. Somehow, I’ve always taken the safe road, and unlike the Frost poem, I’m not the better off for having done it. Even small things, I seem unwilling to extend past a limited view of what is safe and comfortable — and now I can’t help but feel that I’m not living up to whatever potential I’m supposed to have. Surrounded by barriers of my own design, it feels like no matter how much is accomplished, how much is gained, how much is experienced, everything is somehow limited, muted, dulled. Barring any transcendence to another form or other transference of consciousness, we all have a limited number of minutes and seconds.

Infinite possibilities collapse every moment to form the existence we live, and every moment we have the ability to shape what we are to become, and in a limited way, affect everything else in the universe. The question of perception in all of this is whether or not everything we’re supposed to be is being lived out by taking the safe, well trodden path, or if we’re cheating ourselves. Is there such a thing as potential, or is it just an idea to help feed the drive to keep away from complacency? Is the way to happiness some form of success, or is that just taking away from the time we have to enjoy ourselves?

Maybe it’s just that some part of me wants to think how I’ll be remembered or thought about when I’m not around to say anything. Maybe everyone thinks that they’re more complex or have more inside, or something that is worth remembering which doesn’t always bubble to the surface. Maybe immortality is having children, maybe your works, maybe nothing.

No answers, only questions … The easiest way to describe it was the glib “half the fun is the journey.” So long and thanks for the existentialism?

President Bush (god, it still sounds so awful to say it) just gave the traditional sixth-year “we lost our majority” speech to the nation, with the addition of the announcement of Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation as Secretary of Defense. Many people will remember Rumsfeld as the jackass who condoned torture (or sought to redefine it), pushed the notion of “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, and sought to push forward ideas like the “PATRIOT Act”. He couldn’t be gone soon enough for me. I wonder if this keeps him away from prosecution for war crimes, unless we’ve somehow outlawed that.

Bush used the phrase “we cannot accept defeat in Iraq.” I think it’s incredibly indicative of his views on reality, and even more insightful on the state of his entire presidency. He said that we couldn’t accept defeat, not that we would not avoid it. Many could argue that the campaign in Iraq has been plagued by corruption and failure, and that by any measure of “success”, the United States wasn’t really achieving it, whatever it is or was.

Hopefully this will force bills which will be difficult to attack to be brought up for either the now traditional presidential signing statement, or more hopefully, a veto. I mean, if a law were to be passed which repealed the reprehensible pieces of things like the “PATRIOT Act” and the “Military Commissions Act of 2006″. Of course, we still could see defense of torturing human beings, spying on American citizens who have done nothing wrong, profiling of muslims, and other things which the often-referenced “founding fathers” would denounce with every last breath.

Not to bring comparisons to another historical character with the same name, but President Bush seems to be making strides towards becoming King Bush. Before this is denounced as paranoid conspiracy-oriented rambling, consider the evidence… When the United States was founded, it was founded mainly due to landowners having issues with a King who seemed removed from reality being able to override rule of legislature, being able to declare military rule at any point, and being able to imprison and/or hurt them in some way without the benefit of a trial by peers. As of now, the President has all of those powers, under the guise of fighting “international terrorism.” When we started invading other countries to push our own domestic agenda, I think we started becoming the “international terrorists.” Our populace has remained terrorized; most people voting for Bush in 2004 cited his handling of “the War on Terror” as their reason for reelecting him to the Presidency (any allegations of impropriety aside). Usually I’m pretty disappointed in things like that ; today, I’ll take the changes we’re getting at face value. I’m just happy that a single party doesn’t have control over all three branches of the United States Government, especially not one with such cavalier disregard for the Constitution.

As someone on slashdot pointed out, not living in the United States doesn’t exempt you from its influence, just in your ability to influence it by your vote. Let’s hope that the United States leadership takes their new positions of responsibility with a bit more seriousness than their previous counterparts had.

I’ve just done the one thing which I feel sets me apart from many more unfortunate people in other countries: voted. I got to go to a polling location and cast my single vote for whomever I feel would be the best person, or at least not the worst person, for the job. I mean, government can strip my rights to a fair trial or any civil rights and declare martial law at will, so I think voting to oust the bastards who passed this kind of constitution-screwing garbage is the least of my rights, no, *responsibilities* as a citizen of this country.

Since everyone else likes to quote the venerable “founding fathers”, I’ll quote Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety“. We’ve obviously given up essential liberties, and perhaps purchased a little temporary safety. Perhaps. (Not for anyone actually getting shot at, but I guess we’ve bought some time for the rest of us couch jockeys.) Do we really deserve the freedoms with which we have been blessed by men with far more foresight than we?

Election day isn’t just a great day because it’s the day when the stupid attack ads and robodialing stops, it’s the day when my point of view becomes a part of the public, and when I have the chance to finally allow my actions to speak louder than my words. I won’t advocate that anyone vote for a particular candidate, but I won’t tell people not to vote or that they can’t vote. Depriving people of their constitutional rights is one of the worst things apart from physical harm which can be afflicted in a working representative democracy.

For crying out loud, get up off your couch or chair, get to the polls. If you don’t make yourself heard, someone else with a louder voice will take that away from you. And if you’re planning on having children, don’t “think of the children” only when some politician scares you enough to believe that voting for them will keep the kiddie-philes away; think of them when you consider the legacy that you will leave them. Our constitution is a living, breathing document, which is effected by every law passed, every judgment made, every breath taken. We need to make sure that what we and our forefathers have had, ever since they immigrated to this country (since we all are immigrants, to one degree or another): liberty. Don’t try to export what we can’t keep for ourselves.